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Sunday, April 04, 2004
Obenieta: Palabras, que horror!
By Myke U. Obenieta
Sun.star essay
If not cross-eyed incongruity, call it ingenuity that the emblem of crucifixion is now accepted as an object of profit and fashion. Flaunt your piety, wear penitence like you were a politician leading a procession. So goes the gospel according to those selling and buying jewel-studded necklaces and earrings inspired from Christianity’s symbol of suffering and salvation.
Will the time ever come, God forbid, that commercials would hype a phial of holy water as mouthwash?
The aftertaste of ash, how it lingers long after our tongues burn with confessions of contrition and a resolve for renewal. Who says we can’t French-kiss the Pharisees?
Easier said than done, a Christ-centered way of life. That might explain why the saintly would rather speak in tongues or opt for the silence of statues than talk.
Spit, many would spout it this time when the distance between enlightenment and entertainment are bridged with the bravado of Lent.
Considering the hell-bent craving by candidates in the May elections to have the cake of this Christian holiday and eat it, too, don’t be surprised if they’d pull no stops and take the high road of their campaign into their own reenactment of the Calvary walk.
You bet, not only will they talk and flagellate the skeptical listeners with the triteness of their tongues; their teeth will also chew the seven deadly sins into slush by bludgeoning us with their versions of “Siete Palabras.”
Against their opponents throwing mud at their integrity--no matter if this trait takes a leap of faith for us to believe--they’d likely echo each other: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
In the face of the voter who goes to the polls with the rope-round-the-neck-against-hope poise of tractable cows, their pitch will rise: “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
Because they think their candidacy is not a matter of self-interest but of filial devotion to the motherland, they will beat their breasts and mutter: “Woman, behold your son; son, behold your mother.”
Because the cup of some candidates is brimming with self-righteousness, they will drink to the idea that politics has made an orphan of public service, nodding that reform is also their cup of tea even as they sniffle for sympathy: “Father, father, why have you forsaken me?”
Because their hunger for power has deepened our cynicism and dried up our reservoir of trust, they will cry a river and blow their noses: “I thirst.”
Because they know the stuff of our collective dreams--peace, prosperity, then works!--they will whip the air as though they had wands and wish: “It is finished.”
And because they’d have us believe they stand for our patrimony as a nation, they will offer themselves like an oblation while winding up their speech with their hands lifted: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Let there be lightning, then.
(April 4, 2004 issue)
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