“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” - Psalms 51:17
IT IS not only the soul that needs to be tamed; but also cattle, the horse, and the flow of the river.
It only comes to this conclusion - to become useful, the “it” has to be broken.
If you have seen the carabao and the horse in their wildness, you can appreciate their power and potential. But unless they are domesticated you cannot know their intimate power and the usefulness of draft animals that our farmers have known as their masters.
The same power resides in nature like that of our flowing rivers. Unless these are tamed into a dam, farmers and engineers cannot maximize their potentials for irrigation, power, and for fisheries.
The followers of this column may have noticed how this writer indulges in spiritual matters and concerns on occasions. The silent thought behind the column’s running title, “Mountain Light,” may have something to do with it. The second reason is that after reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, for the sake of having read it, I seem to like much of what is there.
And, I am also using the Bible as some kind of a manual to keep and hold the broken pieces of my life, to have substance and meaning yet – rather than allow the pieces to scatter in the wind like dust.
The Bible must be read like any other book to be understood. But the truth is that it is unlike any other book. On authorship alone, all who put it into print down the centuries deny any claim to its inspired verses. These are God-breathed.
Bible scholars, arguing from the testimonies of the scriptures themselves invariably reveal how the Bible can enlighten us through God’s inspiration. As discerned from the Bible itself, the word scripture denotes a collection of sacred books in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible given by inspiration.
Now I am not a scholar, neither am I inspired of God, to speak on his behalf, the Bible, or for any religious persuasion. What I just said is that the Bible should be read by anybody like any other book that challenges the intellect and the heart.
Men are born with their fists clenched, defiant, and unbroken. They all die broken in many ways with their hands open, in a gesture of prayer or surrender. That observation should make us wonder why.
To pray, surrender and worship God in this life that is why. That should be done earlier and through the living of a life not on its last hour, if we must know God more and allow him to tame us for his use and purposes to bless others and the earth.
For me, nothing could be worse than the fun of my wildness turning into a nightmare that has since turned into a tamed monster in my mind and consciousness all these years.
I think he started taming me when I was nine years old, waking up to the fullness of a promising life. I was athletic and academically was consistently the best in class, until I lost it all in one day in an accident that almost took my life away in the river.
Somehow, I kept this scariest part of my life hidden from my parents and the doctors who examined me throughout the years about the pain I suffer in both of my damaged ears. I was jumped on while swimming in a river basin by somebody from high up on the rock. The force of the jump pushed me deep into the basin, perforated my eardrums, and had me unconscious. I would have drowned but somehow the flow of the water took me out to the banks of the river with blood oozing from my nose.
The accident affected my performance in school because, throughout the years that followed, I suffered ear infection. I hated school and there was not a day that I fought with somebody who taunted and bullied me in those days. On several occasions, I packed my lunch, books, and other school stuff, left home early and headed straight to the mountains, the fields, and creeks, not to the school. When it was my parents or siblings that I fought with, I head straight to the rice fields after classes. A search party usually found me sleeping in any of the huts there.
I know how poorly I was prepared mentally and physically to tackle higher intellectual work. I regret not being able to prepare for Harvard. I spent a year on a farm in the forest instead to heal a wounded spirit before I returned and struggled to finish college. The problem has also defined my lifestyle in later years, contributing to how I abused tobacco and alcohol.
Today, I struggle with problems affecting my nerves and internal organs on account of my diabetes. It is like enduring an endless toothache. I struggle with grammar, science, mathematics, and statistics.
But really, do not bother because this is between God and me. I am fine. What I want you to know and see are the many people who are suffering worse afflictions compared to my current sufferings.
Perhaps, I was not destined to have a Ph.D., it is too late for that for me. Would he want me to go through the tribulations of this age to document and write about his second coming? Why not? Perhaps the reason I am so marginalized thus far is because he has chosen me to confound the wise and shame the strong (excuse the pun). I am trying to comfort myself perhaps to give comfort to others.
More than a century gone, and in spite of me, I am still untamed for any good use and purpose to God and man.