Yesterday, it was aired that summer would officially start and there would be no need to be bothered by monsoons and tropical depressions.
I didn’t care to bring a raincoat although the sky was grey and foreboding rain. It was time to let the weather bureau redeem itself from wrong forecasts, I supposed.
Then at 4PM, it rained for 15 mins. Stopped. Then poured again. If not for the piece of wood a guard lent me, I would have been soaked.
Today at noon ’til past 1PM, it rained again!
I hate waking up not because of an alarm clock but by a loud voice of someone who keeps telling the same story over and over like a broken record. She is just two doors away and I can hear her recounting about the day she met her chat mate. As the next door right after mine slams, I know she has come close to my door where she is not wanted. My God! It is the same story that contaminated my last dream. I hear her mobile is ringing. She picks up excusing herself and guess what? She is repeating the same story to the caller. Well, I might as well have brunch. She has put the phone down now.
“Where are we?” she asks as I gobble up my food. I can hardly hear the soft voices of others. Just hers.
She never tires telling her chatroom experience to people. She is very inconsiderate. I work graveyard Saturday evenings and I always am awakened by her awful voice on a Sunday.
“I was told that a Japanese couple complained about my being a noise,” she tells them of the spa she and her chat mate have gone to.
Well, I am not surprised.
It is time to go back to sleep. Sunday is when I try, if I can, to compensate for the sleep that I don’t get enough for the rest of the week.
Time flies fast.
Evening is here and here I am, awakened again by the same f… voice. WTF!
I am about to finish brushing my teeth; she is at that patio narrating the same experience to the landlady who prods her to.
It is time to sleep again. I have to wake up 2AM tomorrow.
The story she’s saying is not a happy one. So like yesterday and today’s, tomorrow will be another story of her online chats and eyeballs in her quest for a Man.
It was on my first attendance as a new parishoner when the cura pounded on the pulpit for someone more conservative than he. He said he was criticized by an informant for his rewording of the directive of offering peace to one’s fellowmen during a mass as a “kiss of Christ.” His intention was misunderstood to be malicious. With a violent voice, he condemned his unknown detractor, “I am not afraid of anymore complaints as I already talked to someone of authority in church.”
The next homily was not remarkable but the response of another churchgoer was.
“Buang ning pari-a!” [Translation: Crazy pr....!]
The next Sunday came and I found myself trying to pass through a gate to get in. The warden was old and slow in his movement as he tried to unlock it. Suddenly, I was pushed hard by someone who could not wait to get it. It came from heavy, rough and cruel hands. I did look back though there was no need for I already heard the voice of the owner of those hands. It was the cura. For me who eats, moves and walks fast, he seemed surprisingly impatient for a man who was to lead a community–patrons who went to this unattractive structure that was just recently declared as a pilgrim center.
It was not the abominable structure I supposed that led to the declaration, rather it was the miraculous BVM statue that continued to draw local pilgrims from across the islands. Here lay a statue surrounded by crooks who peddled.
“The guard will get you if you bring in white candles. It should be these maroon candles with a logo that I sell.”
While I paid for a set of maroon candles, the vendor took my white candles with her which I had bought from another vendor. I got in to area where the statue was kept; different colors of melting lighted candles were scattered in disarray. In between, was a huge pool of the melted wax. I was never cheated like this at other religious centers. This was not an isolated experience. I experienced another kind from these vendors stationed outside the same church.
Another Sunday came and I was glad to arrive early. The celebrant was a benevolent priest. An interpreter for the deaf stood by his side, making hand signs to deliver his homily. I was attending the regular schedule where hearing disabilities were mainstreamed. The singing went great.
I arrived 9:30 am the next Sunday, the cura was singing his own version of an operatic concierto of the liturgy. He sounded like a homosexual. It seemed to have dragged the length of the mass. I was glad to have missed the homily.
I was early again the next Sunday, the choir was coming from the sharp angelic voices of young students in school uniform conducted by their Music or Religion teacher I supposed. It was an inspiring mass to be in.
The next week came and I was at a church in another location. The homily from a priest that had a special relationship with God to the concluding rites went fine. I was thanking God for choosing the concelebrant who delivered his homily to be his servant.
This Sunday, the gospel was about two brothers invited to the vineyard. One said he would go but did not while the other said, he would go but did. The cura talked of the choir singing and the coming feast and Saint Lorenzo. It was irrelevant to the gospel of Matthew Chapter 21 at hand. He did not prepare.
I walked out of the church.
I resolved either coming early the next time to listen to another celebrant’s homily or to go to another church from the same the denomination where the mass is meaningful.
What am I doing?
