There are only three dishes that my mom has mastered in her 60 years, and one of them is her own version of pork and beans.
I say this now, not with disappointment. Prior to an early retirement prompted by her dimming vision, my mom had been a schoolteacher and spent eight hours teaching grade school and tutored Chinese scions after work, so she rarely had time to cook. Lucky for her, she had a patient husband who didn’t mind doing the cooking.
Because a meal cooked by my mom was a rare treat, we always looked forward to the special occasions when she would whip up her special dishes: chopsuey, which she perfected during our years in Baguio City; and pork and beans and mongo, two one-pot meals she prepared with the patience of Job, as they required all-morning cooking over charcoal.
Sundays were Mom’s turn in the kitchen. I remember her getting up at 6 a.m., and my dad would drive her to the nearest market to get fresh produce and meat for a special Sunday lunch.
Mom’s secret ingredient in her pork and beans was pata or pork leg. I would wake up salivating to the aroma of pork leg simmering over charcoal. Mom wasn’t one to rush her specialty, which made it all the more delicious.
We’d leave for church and come home hurriedly, looking forward to Sunday’s piece de resistance: a pot of cooked pork and beans, waiting to be seasoned with salt and tomato sauce. The meat–simmering over charcoal for four hours–was soft, cooked just right, its fiber flaking off, its fatty part chewy. If that wasn’t heaven on earth, I don’t know what is.
House guests who have been treated to Mom’s pork and beans leave with a lot more respect for this one-pot wonder, their prior acquaintance of which was limited to the canned Hunt’s kind. (Even today, you can never make me eat a can of pork and beans, having grown up with my mom’s homecooked version.)
One American missionary we invited over for dinner once said my mom’s pork and beans tasted the same way his grandmother’s version did. He had been away from home for quite too long and was missing his favorite Western-style pork and beans.
In college, when I lived away from home for the first time, it was Mom’s pork and beans that I missed the most. During the rare times that I came home, wherever my nomadic family happened to be, Mom never failed to prepare her pork and beans. I’ve tasted my maternal aunt’s version of the pork and beans, but always, what remains my biggest favorite is my mom’s, maybe because hers is cooked with a lot of love and patience for a child who, though grown up, will forever be her baby at heart.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Nikki Alfar: Writing with Courage
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| Photo credit: Dean Alfar |
“It took a long while before I got enough confidence to admit that I’m not Butch Dalisay, but that’s okay.”
For someone who once did not have enough courage to write, fictionist Nikki Go Alfar has certainly covered considerable mileage, judging from the awards she’s received.
In 2001, the comic book Isaw Atbp, which she edited, earned a National Book Award. Her short story for children, “Menggay’s Magical Chicken,” won third prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2005. A one-act play, “Life After Beth,” also won last year.
Nikki was named among the “13 emerging women writers” by the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings, which cited her work as editor of Mango Jam, a girl power comic series.
At six, Nikki already knew that she was going to be a writer. “I started writing Nancy Drew-type stories, then I moved on to the Sweet Dreams type. I used to get in trouble a lot in school because my notebooks were full of stories but had no notes,” she relates.
“Pretty much from the start, I was really into this whole speculative fiction bent. One of the first novels I read was Stephen King’s Cujo and later The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien,” Nikki remembers.
Her parents were not as encouraging, however. “My mom brainwashed me, ‘If you’re going to be a writer, you will be poor!’ and I didn’t want to be poor. I’m kikay [stylish], so I can’t be poor!” she laughs.
Enrolling at UP Diliman’s creative writing program didn’t provide much encouragement either.
“You know how it is,” she explains, “in grade school and high school, you think you’re very brilliant—and then you get to college and you realize: hey, there are other more brilliant people and you’re just okay!”
While she put her writing ambitions aside, Nikki continued to participate in a writers’ group, where she would meet playwright Dean Alfar, who would later become her husband.
“After college, I did a lot of other things—I was a flight attendant at Air Philippines and later a bank manager—because I wasn’t brave. You see, when you start in writing, it’s not a lot of money, and of course, since I had just come out of college, I wanted money!”
(Her husband Dean, who had won three Palancas before they got married, also went on a writing hiatus for the same reason: “When I got married, I decided that I should prioritize my real life [because] there’s a certain sense of duty, of obligation. You have two mouths to feed, and honestly, writing doesn’t pay the bills,” he said in a previous Innerview with PinoyCentric.)
Getting the groove back
It was in Hong Kong, where the Alfar couple lived briefly, that Nikki slowly eased her way back into writing, first for magazines and later for comics catering to an adult audience (“I wrote porn!” she exclaims, “but somewhere in the course of the last couple of years, I seem to have lost the ability”).
Sometime after moving back to Manila, where Nikki gave birth to their daughter Sage, now five, the couple started writing fiction again.
Nikki reflects: “The first year that I joined, we both lost, and I felt, oh my God, I’m not just not good, I’m bad luck!”
It was her second entry to Palanca—“Menggay’s Magical Chicken”—that got Nikki her first award in 2005.
“By that time, I had been married to Dean for many years, and he’d been winning a lot, and I was used to going to the award ceremony and receiving things for him, so when I got an envelope, I assumed it was for Dean. I opened his, and said, Yay, he won!” (This was for Salamanca, which won the grand prize for novel that year.)
The other envelope was for Nikki. “I honestly thought when I was reading it, siguro naman they’re not gonna write to tell me I suck, di ba? ‘Dear Nikki, you suck, don’t join again.’”
Discipline
Because of her speculative fiction leanings, Nikki’s stories are mostly a blend of the modern and folklore or mythology. In the short story “Heritage,” for example, the protagonist makes a life-changing decision with some guidance from Lola Basyang.
“I have been told that I tend to be funny, although I don’t try to be so. I guess my sarcasm and cynicism come out in my writing, as well as my mad obsession with folklore,” she assesses.
“I wouldn’t say it’s unique because my idols—Gilda Cordero-Fernando and Jing Hidalgo—have delved into that. Maybe mine is a freakier version!”
These days, Nikki works mainly from home, which gives her more time with Sage and also allows her privileges that a corporate setup does not offer—cigarettes, for example.
“I can’t think without my nicotine! If I don’t smoke, I write two or three sentences and then nothing,” she says. Years back when she was doing full-time copywriting work, she’d go out of the building and, after two puffs, would run back to the office and write.
There also has to be absolute silence. “I have to not have people talking when I’m writing. I can’t even listen to music with words. It has to be instrumental or else I’ll follow the words.”
Sometimes when she’s stuck in a story that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, she shifts gears. “I usually move on to a different story, or I play an online game until I can get back to what I’m writing. My husband has a theory that there’s no such thing as a writer’s block: All it takes is discipline.”
Nikki is certainly braver now than she was years ago. “It took a long while before I got enough confidence to admit that I’m not Butch Dalisay, but that’s okay.”
To talent and courage, add discipline, Nikki says. “Having studied creative writing in college, I believe one cannot teach a person how to write, but you can teach someone how not to write. The only way to write is to read and write.”
Monday, December 13, 2010
Taste of Home in Hong Kong
I asked a Hong Kong-based colleague to recommend a Filipino restaurant in the city, and she gave me instructions on how to get to Mang Ambo’s Filipino Restaurant on Jaffe Road. It’s hard not to miss this hole-in-the-wall. If you’re coming from the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre (or the Wanchai pier), the canteen is to your right.
The legendary Mang Ambo was not there, although I caught a glimpse of his photo from a newspaper clipping posted by the cashier. This turo-turo attracts Pinoys from all walks: from the domestic helpers to the musicians; the occasional Pinoys on business trips to the fashionable Zara-wearing bureau editors.
Having come from cocktails, I was full, but I decided, what’s wrong with a stick of pork barbecue? But the cashier offered, “Mas mahal po, ma’am, pag isang ulam lang.” I had no choice but to get their set meal, composed of a cup of rice and two viand choices. Tonight, there was kare-kare, dinuguan, mechado, bistek, and pork barbecue, among others. I decided on bistek and pork barbecue. Plus a can of Coke, the evening’s damages amounted to HK$31, or about PhP180+.
While Mang Ambo’s would certainly not merit high marks in terms of ambience, I’m certain they’ll earn brownie points for offering a taste of home away from home.
Mang Ambo’s Filipino Restaurant
120 Jaffe Road
Wanchai, Hong Kong
+852 2143 6877No Tags
The legendary Mang Ambo was not there, although I caught a glimpse of his photo from a newspaper clipping posted by the cashier. This turo-turo attracts Pinoys from all walks: from the domestic helpers to the musicians; the occasional Pinoys on business trips to the fashionable Zara-wearing bureau editors.
Having come from cocktails, I was full, but I decided, what’s wrong with a stick of pork barbecue? But the cashier offered, “Mas mahal po, ma’am, pag isang ulam lang.” I had no choice but to get their set meal, composed of a cup of rice and two viand choices. Tonight, there was kare-kare, dinuguan, mechado, bistek, and pork barbecue, among others. I decided on bistek and pork barbecue. Plus a can of Coke, the evening’s damages amounted to HK$31, or about PhP180+.
While Mang Ambo’s would certainly not merit high marks in terms of ambience, I’m certain they’ll earn brownie points for offering a taste of home away from home.
Mang Ambo’s Filipino Restaurant
120 Jaffe Road
Wanchai, Hong Kong
+852 2143 6877No Tags
Your Friendly Pinoy Grocer in Hong Kong
If you’re a Pinoy living in Wanchai on Hong Kong island, you probably buy phone credits for your Philippine SIM at Tindahan ni Mang Ambo (or “Mang Ambo’s Store”) on Lockhart Road. In fact, we bet you probably get your stash of instant pancit canton, Ligo sardines, balut and itlog na pula (salted egg), Rexona, Maxi-Peel, and RDL at the same grocery.
I passed by Tindahan tonight on my way back to the hotel from work, after having a quick dinner at Mang Ambo’s Filipino Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall that serves authentic Pinoy food. Both establishments are owned by the elusive Mang Ambo (who was not present at his carinderia the night we dropped by).
The woman tending the place, Marissa, who has been living in Hong Kong for eight years, says the grocery has suppliers who bring in Pinoy food and personal care items regularly. And that’s not all! Would you believe the shop actually has two Internet-enabled computers, equipped with webcam? Marissa says a half-hour of Internet use costs HK$15, or PhP90. There are even DVDs of Pinoy movies!
Tindahan ni Mang Ambo
147 Lockhart Road
Wanchai, Hong Kong
I passed by Tindahan tonight on my way back to the hotel from work, after having a quick dinner at Mang Ambo’s Filipino Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall that serves authentic Pinoy food. Both establishments are owned by the elusive Mang Ambo (who was not present at his carinderia the night we dropped by).
The woman tending the place, Marissa, who has been living in Hong Kong for eight years, says the grocery has suppliers who bring in Pinoy food and personal care items regularly. And that’s not all! Would you believe the shop actually has two Internet-enabled computers, equipped with webcam? Marissa says a half-hour of Internet use costs HK$15, or PhP90. There are even DVDs of Pinoy movies!
Tindahan ni Mang Ambo
147 Lockhart Road
Wanchai, Hong Kong
Monday, December 6, 2010
Pinoy Expat: Blogging the Gospel
Originally published in Pinoycentric on June 13, 2008
Almost everyone and his pet has a blog these days. Teachers blog, and so do celebrities like artist Jim Paredes and his daughter Ala. Even international star Lea Salonga has one. So who’s to say this Pinoy monk can’t too?
Cenobite monk Dom Lawrence has been blogging for four years now from the confines of an abbey in the desert of New Mexico, and he finds it a very influential vehicle, not to mention it’s free.
“It has helped me a lot in doing my part in bringing the Word of the Lord to His faithful without having to actually leave the portals of my monastery. By blogging, I am able to send a clear message of the Gospel to God’s people and give them a chance to meditate and reflect on it on their own time and convenience,” says this Benedictine monk who hails from Naga City.
A teacher for 20 years at the San Beda College Grade School, Dom Lawrence joined the religious community Monastery of Christ in the Desert in 2002. When he got to New Mexico, he had romantic notions of “flowing habits, candlelit cloisters, awesome plainchants of an ancient Gregorian music echoing among dimly lit Gothic arches in the cloister corridors inside a monastery.”
The reality was a world away: At the monastery, aside from the eight-times-a-day community prayers, his days were spent doing laundry for community brothers, and washing dishes, scrubbing floors and toilets.
And then he discovered blogging in 2003. “I had been keeping a daily journal of my thoughts, aspirations, and reflections on the kind of life I live inside the monastery, and I thought, why not publish them online? My family and friends in the Philippines will surely love to read and follow it on the Net.”
Discipline, structure in monastic life
In his blog, Tales from the Cenobite, Dom Lawrence shares with an international audience stories about life inside the monastery. Here, everything is done in schedule, he says. “If a monk doesn’t show up for prayers or work, someone will fetch him from his room, and it will be embarrassing.”
Lunch or the main meal of the day is done in silence, Dom Lawrence reports. There is a monk who sits by the pulpit and reads Bible passages or book excerpts about the lives of saints. Prayers are chanted before and after meals.
Lunch consists of fish, chicken, or turkey, with fresh or cooked vegetables, with lima beans and vegetable salad. No beef or pork is served. “When the cook is Vietnamese, we have stir-fried vegetables. Kung ako ang cook, gisado din,” he says. The monks usually have cheese and whole-wheat bread, which they bake themselves, or whatever is left over from the midday meal.
Watching television is discouraged, so the once-a-month DVD marathon (occurring every first Thursday at 7:10 p.m.) is something monks look forward to.
“We’re allowed to watch any movie as long as it’s not violent. No torrid kissing scenes and sexual scenes. No nude scenes or breast exposure. Even shots of men and women in underwear and swimming trunks are not allowed. That’s how conservative our community is,” says Dom Lawrence.
Despite living separate lives from the rest of the world, the monks stay updated on current events with free online subscriptions to leading US newspapers.
“Importante ang Internet connection sa buong cloister,” says this monk. “The whole community panics when there’s no Internet!” Almost every monk has a laptop. Dom Lawrence usually checks his e-mails any time between 7 a.m. and 7:10 p.m. every day, when the connection is available.
There’s a firewall that filters all inappropriate and malicious Websites, but Dom Lawrence gets to update his Friendster, Myspace, and Youtube accounts.
Keeping in touch
Away from the Philippines, Dom Lawrence follows local events through Websites of major TV stations and newspapers. “Updated ako sa lahat ng kaganapan, mula sa national news down to the provincial news, pati na rin sa celebrity news,” he says.
Like most Pinoys in the world’s “texting” capital, this monk also has a mobile phone, but he uses it only on errands like shopping for the community, bringing a brother to the doctor or the airport, or buying supplies for the monastery’s gift shop, which he runs.
Despite the rigidity of monastic life, it’s exciting, he says, because people in the outside world find it unusual.
In this Q&A with former Pinoycentric intern Marge Gonzales, this monk reveals more about his Internet activities (they do Friendster too!), his devotion not just to his mission but to his blog (and how time management helps a lot), and that a monk is human, after all.
Pinoycentric: When did you start blogging?
Dom Lawrence: I started bloggingin the early part of 2003 in Livejournal.com and later shifted to Blogger.com
You mentioned that you have a very tight schedule. How do you manage to blog?
I’ve given up some of my free private moments so I can update my blog regularly. Our daily prayers have 10- to 15-minute intervals, so instead of going to the kitchen, I go up to my room and blog. It’s really time management. When my posts are rather lengthy, I make the draft during the evening after compline [last prayers for the day] just before I sleep at 9 p.m. I save it in Word and the next day, shortly after the 7:10 a.m. Mass, I go online and simply copy and paste the draft I wrote the previous night.
Being a cloistered monk, you’re isolated from people outside the abbey. Doesn’t the Internet goes against the idea of isolation?
I still am cloistered and physically isolated from people because although they read my blog, they do not get to see me in person or hear my voice, hence the idea of being cloistered is still intact.
How does it feel when people read your site, leave comments, or even become your online friends?
It makes me feel connected with them in spirit, and in the end, I am able to make myself instrumental in their edification without having to show myself in person to them, or their hearing my voice, or talking to them face to face.
Are you allowed to chat or maintain social networking profiles (Multiply, Friendster, etc.)?
Not chatting, but Friendster is allowed, although I haven’t updated my Myspace or Youtube for almost half a year. My time is spent mostly on blogging.
Do you have any blogging limitations as a monk?
Actually noong bagu-bago pa lang ako nagba-blog ay pinagbawalan ako ng superior ko dahil siguro naisip niyang baka kung anu-ano na lang ang ipaglalalagay ko sa blog ko, compromising the community or putting it in a bad light. Pero nung nakita nilang puro reflections at homilies ang nilalagay ko ay okay na rin sa kanila.
Siyempre, hindi ko naman pwedeng i-blog ang away-away dito. Just like any other normal community of people of different thinking, lalo na sa community ko na iba-iba ang nationality, expected na talagang magkakaroon ng conflicts every now and then.
Minsan nga nag-blog ako ng isang post about something–nagalit ako–but I had to sanitize it and put the rest of the story in my other blog at ni-link ko na lang ito at Tinagalog ko talaga para hindi mabasa ng mga Amerikanong nagbabasa ng blog ko, lalo na ang mga kaparian, mga madre, at ibang monghe sa ibang congregations and monasteries.
Minsan makulit din ang utak ko eh. Pag may mga hinaing ako na gustung-gusto kong i-release ay talagang sinusulat ko pa rin at ipinapadaan ko na lang through a reflection or meditation at tinutugma ko ito sa readings of the day para hindi lalabas na nagra-rant ako. Pero hindi ko pwedeng i-pinpoint ang isang erring brother or bitchy monk or whatnot sa blog ko.
Do you think this new medium helps your mission?
Blogging helps me reach out to total strangers. In my site, for instance, one can find religious meditations and reflections as well as spiritual insights that inspire people and give meaning to their day-to-day encounter.
Alternative sources of spiritual inspiration linked to my blog by bloggers of different religious orders and congregations may give them interest too. If you take a closer look at their blogs, you’ll be surprised at how their blogs generate so much traffic every day.
Do you encourage other monks, priests, or nuns to blog?
Yes, if their tight schedules will allow them to do it.
What does the Catholic Church have to say about religious people who blog?
The Catholic Church has been so liberal about the religious who blog and has been very supportive of it. Even superiors of religious orders (monasteries) and congregations, both men and women, have their own blogs.
When do you get to come home to the Philippines?
We are allowed to go home every two years. Since I went home last year [2007], my next home visit will be in 2009. Monks are allowed to go home for anything urgent, such as a death in the family member or the serious illness of parents, so I was able to come home again in August 2007, when a family member passed away.
Does a monk have crushes too?
Siyempre, oo naman. Tao pa rin naman ako kahit consecrated na ang aking katawang lupa at kaluluwa at buong pagkatao para sa Diyos. Kaya nga ang tanging panlaban ko na lang pag umaatake ang ganyang klaseng passion sa isip at puso ko ay ang magdasal, magrosaryo ng nakadipa sa loob ng room ko, at ang maligo ng maligo umaga at hapon.
Sa monastic life ang kalaban ng isang monghe ay hindi ang kapaligiran niya kundi ang sarili niyang passions–passion for anger, passion for love, passion for sex, and passion for self- gratification. These are all stumbling blocks to a smooth and pious way of life for a monk. Kapag hindi malampasan at mapaglabanan ng isang monk ito ay asahan mong after some time ay tiyak na hindi siya makakatiis at lalabas siya to go back to the world where these passions that he cannot control can be freely achieved.
Kaya nga meron kaming stages of monastic formation sa mga bagong pasok. In order to attune them finally for only one passion–passion for God and nothing else–the process of monastic formation starts from postulancy of six months. One becomes a novitiate for a year, then three years in simple vows. If the monk, after these years of monastic formation and training, has proven himself to be worthy of becoming a permanent monk, then the community votes for him to be able to receive the final consecration of perpetual vows.
Do you have any message for your Filipino readers?
I am very delighted that among the different races who blog, the Filipinos all over the world have the most beautiful and interesting blogs (content wise), and have the most unique and distinct layout. I am very proud of Filipino bloggers. Keep blogging your thoughts, your aspirations, and your lives as they give inspiration to our own countrymen and to the whole world. Mabuhay tayong mga blagistang Pilipino!
To the Filipinos in general: Life is not that difficult if you will take the lead in accepting the challenges of life and making a name for yourselves in any venture you may have Mabuhay tayong mga Pilipino!
Almost everyone and his pet has a blog these days. Teachers blog, and so do celebrities like artist Jim Paredes and his daughter Ala. Even international star Lea Salonga has one. So who’s to say this Pinoy monk can’t too?
Cenobite monk Dom Lawrence has been blogging for four years now from the confines of an abbey in the desert of New Mexico, and he finds it a very influential vehicle, not to mention it’s free.
“It has helped me a lot in doing my part in bringing the Word of the Lord to His faithful without having to actually leave the portals of my monastery. By blogging, I am able to send a clear message of the Gospel to God’s people and give them a chance to meditate and reflect on it on their own time and convenience,” says this Benedictine monk who hails from Naga City.
A teacher for 20 years at the San Beda College Grade School, Dom Lawrence joined the religious community Monastery of Christ in the Desert in 2002. When he got to New Mexico, he had romantic notions of “flowing habits, candlelit cloisters, awesome plainchants of an ancient Gregorian music echoing among dimly lit Gothic arches in the cloister corridors inside a monastery.”
The reality was a world away: At the monastery, aside from the eight-times-a-day community prayers, his days were spent doing laundry for community brothers, and washing dishes, scrubbing floors and toilets.
And then he discovered blogging in 2003. “I had been keeping a daily journal of my thoughts, aspirations, and reflections on the kind of life I live inside the monastery, and I thought, why not publish them online? My family and friends in the Philippines will surely love to read and follow it on the Net.”
Discipline, structure in monastic life
In his blog, Tales from the Cenobite, Dom Lawrence shares with an international audience stories about life inside the monastery. Here, everything is done in schedule, he says. “If a monk doesn’t show up for prayers or work, someone will fetch him from his room, and it will be embarrassing.”
Lunch or the main meal of the day is done in silence, Dom Lawrence reports. There is a monk who sits by the pulpit and reads Bible passages or book excerpts about the lives of saints. Prayers are chanted before and after meals.
Lunch consists of fish, chicken, or turkey, with fresh or cooked vegetables, with lima beans and vegetable salad. No beef or pork is served. “When the cook is Vietnamese, we have stir-fried vegetables. Kung ako ang cook, gisado din,” he says. The monks usually have cheese and whole-wheat bread, which they bake themselves, or whatever is left over from the midday meal.
Watching television is discouraged, so the once-a-month DVD marathon (occurring every first Thursday at 7:10 p.m.) is something monks look forward to.
“We’re allowed to watch any movie as long as it’s not violent. No torrid kissing scenes and sexual scenes. No nude scenes or breast exposure. Even shots of men and women in underwear and swimming trunks are not allowed. That’s how conservative our community is,” says Dom Lawrence.
Despite living separate lives from the rest of the world, the monks stay updated on current events with free online subscriptions to leading US newspapers.
“Importante ang Internet connection sa buong cloister,” says this monk. “The whole community panics when there’s no Internet!” Almost every monk has a laptop. Dom Lawrence usually checks his e-mails any time between 7 a.m. and 7:10 p.m. every day, when the connection is available.
There’s a firewall that filters all inappropriate and malicious Websites, but Dom Lawrence gets to update his Friendster, Myspace, and Youtube accounts.
Keeping in touch
Away from the Philippines, Dom Lawrence follows local events through Websites of major TV stations and newspapers. “Updated ako sa lahat ng kaganapan, mula sa national news down to the provincial news, pati na rin sa celebrity news,” he says.
Like most Pinoys in the world’s “texting” capital, this monk also has a mobile phone, but he uses it only on errands like shopping for the community, bringing a brother to the doctor or the airport, or buying supplies for the monastery’s gift shop, which he runs.
Despite the rigidity of monastic life, it’s exciting, he says, because people in the outside world find it unusual.
In this Q&A with former Pinoycentric intern Marge Gonzales, this monk reveals more about his Internet activities (they do Friendster too!), his devotion not just to his mission but to his blog (and how time management helps a lot), and that a monk is human, after all.
Pinoycentric: When did you start blogging?
Dom Lawrence: I started bloggingin the early part of 2003 in Livejournal.com and later shifted to Blogger.com
You mentioned that you have a very tight schedule. How do you manage to blog?
I’ve given up some of my free private moments so I can update my blog regularly. Our daily prayers have 10- to 15-minute intervals, so instead of going to the kitchen, I go up to my room and blog. It’s really time management. When my posts are rather lengthy, I make the draft during the evening after compline [last prayers for the day] just before I sleep at 9 p.m. I save it in Word and the next day, shortly after the 7:10 a.m. Mass, I go online and simply copy and paste the draft I wrote the previous night.
Being a cloistered monk, you’re isolated from people outside the abbey. Doesn’t the Internet goes against the idea of isolation?
I still am cloistered and physically isolated from people because although they read my blog, they do not get to see me in person or hear my voice, hence the idea of being cloistered is still intact.
How does it feel when people read your site, leave comments, or even become your online friends?
It makes me feel connected with them in spirit, and in the end, I am able to make myself instrumental in their edification without having to show myself in person to them, or their hearing my voice, or talking to them face to face.
Are you allowed to chat or maintain social networking profiles (Multiply, Friendster, etc.)?
Not chatting, but Friendster is allowed, although I haven’t updated my Myspace or Youtube for almost half a year. My time is spent mostly on blogging.
Do you have any blogging limitations as a monk?
Actually noong bagu-bago pa lang ako nagba-blog ay pinagbawalan ako ng superior ko dahil siguro naisip niyang baka kung anu-ano na lang ang ipaglalalagay ko sa blog ko, compromising the community or putting it in a bad light. Pero nung nakita nilang puro reflections at homilies ang nilalagay ko ay okay na rin sa kanila.
Siyempre, hindi ko naman pwedeng i-blog ang away-away dito. Just like any other normal community of people of different thinking, lalo na sa community ko na iba-iba ang nationality, expected na talagang magkakaroon ng conflicts every now and then.
Minsan nga nag-blog ako ng isang post about something–nagalit ako–but I had to sanitize it and put the rest of the story in my other blog at ni-link ko na lang ito at Tinagalog ko talaga para hindi mabasa ng mga Amerikanong nagbabasa ng blog ko, lalo na ang mga kaparian, mga madre, at ibang monghe sa ibang congregations and monasteries.
Minsan makulit din ang utak ko eh. Pag may mga hinaing ako na gustung-gusto kong i-release ay talagang sinusulat ko pa rin at ipinapadaan ko na lang through a reflection or meditation at tinutugma ko ito sa readings of the day para hindi lalabas na nagra-rant ako. Pero hindi ko pwedeng i-pinpoint ang isang erring brother or bitchy monk or whatnot sa blog ko.
Do you think this new medium helps your mission?
Blogging helps me reach out to total strangers. In my site, for instance, one can find religious meditations and reflections as well as spiritual insights that inspire people and give meaning to their day-to-day encounter.
Alternative sources of spiritual inspiration linked to my blog by bloggers of different religious orders and congregations may give them interest too. If you take a closer look at their blogs, you’ll be surprised at how their blogs generate so much traffic every day.
Do you encourage other monks, priests, or nuns to blog?
Yes, if their tight schedules will allow them to do it.
What does the Catholic Church have to say about religious people who blog?
The Catholic Church has been so liberal about the religious who blog and has been very supportive of it. Even superiors of religious orders (monasteries) and congregations, both men and women, have their own blogs.
When do you get to come home to the Philippines?
We are allowed to go home every two years. Since I went home last year [2007], my next home visit will be in 2009. Monks are allowed to go home for anything urgent, such as a death in the family member or the serious illness of parents, so I was able to come home again in August 2007, when a family member passed away.
Does a monk have crushes too?
Siyempre, oo naman. Tao pa rin naman ako kahit consecrated na ang aking katawang lupa at kaluluwa at buong pagkatao para sa Diyos. Kaya nga ang tanging panlaban ko na lang pag umaatake ang ganyang klaseng passion sa isip at puso ko ay ang magdasal, magrosaryo ng nakadipa sa loob ng room ko, at ang maligo ng maligo umaga at hapon.
Sa monastic life ang kalaban ng isang monghe ay hindi ang kapaligiran niya kundi ang sarili niyang passions–passion for anger, passion for love, passion for sex, and passion for self- gratification. These are all stumbling blocks to a smooth and pious way of life for a monk. Kapag hindi malampasan at mapaglabanan ng isang monk ito ay asahan mong after some time ay tiyak na hindi siya makakatiis at lalabas siya to go back to the world where these passions that he cannot control can be freely achieved.
Kaya nga meron kaming stages of monastic formation sa mga bagong pasok. In order to attune them finally for only one passion–passion for God and nothing else–the process of monastic formation starts from postulancy of six months. One becomes a novitiate for a year, then three years in simple vows. If the monk, after these years of monastic formation and training, has proven himself to be worthy of becoming a permanent monk, then the community votes for him to be able to receive the final consecration of perpetual vows.
Do you have any message for your Filipino readers?
I am very delighted that among the different races who blog, the Filipinos all over the world have the most beautiful and interesting blogs (content wise), and have the most unique and distinct layout. I am very proud of Filipino bloggers. Keep blogging your thoughts, your aspirations, and your lives as they give inspiration to our own countrymen and to the whole world. Mabuhay tayong mga blagistang Pilipino!
To the Filipinos in general: Life is not that difficult if you will take the lead in accepting the challenges of life and making a name for yourselves in any venture you may have Mabuhay tayong mga Pilipino!
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