Riddle of the Sphinx: Where Does Modern Life Lead Us?

 Riddle of the Sphinx: 

Where Does Modern Life Lead Us?

Dr Abe V Rotor

A sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, the haunches of a lion, and the wings of a bird. Wikipedia

                                                      The Riddle of the Sphinx

What is it that walks on four in the morning, two at noon,
and three in the afternoon? If your answer is correct, then
you can safely pass. If not, the Sphinx will not let you.

In Mary Shelly’s celebrated fiction novel, Frankenstein - wasn’t the monster Dr. Frankenstein created, a product of modern science of the time? It is not different today. Wittingly, or otherwise, we are creating a modern Frankenstein monster in our quest for power and wealth - a monster which first appears as an obliging genie, but at the end refuses to go back into the bottle.

Let us look into the monster modern man has created.

1. By splitting the atom man has unleashed the most explosive force the world has ever known. This tremendous power can plunge the world into Armageddon. Today’s nuclear stockpile threatens the globe with obliteration of humankind three times over. This means a thermo nuclear war can instantly kill a population of 30 billion people, notwithstanding the gross destruction of other organisms, and obliteration of the environment as we know it.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons – atomic, hydrogen and cobalt bombs - reached its peak during the Cold War. With the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, in 1987, the accountability of nuclear stockpiles became a big question among its former satellites on both sides. It is not impossible to smuggle a nuclear warhead which is only about the size of an attaché case, or produce radioactive material for making a nuclear bomb in the guise of nuclear power generation. We know that nuclear weapons technology is no longer the monopoly of the West and highly industrialized countries. The latest additions to the list of countries capable of making nuclear weapons are reportedly North Korea and Iraq.

2. Unrestricted massive expansion of frontiers of production and settlements has resulted in loss of natural habitats, in fact, whole ecosystems as evidenced by the death of rivers, lakes and coral reefs, and destruction of forests and wildlife. It is a fact that if man can tame the earth, so can he destroy it.
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The demise of a single species can produce a cascade of extinctions and threaten an entire ecosystem.
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3. Growing affluence continues to accelerate man’s conquest of nature through industrialization. Practically every country in the world is on a race towards industrialization in order to meet capitalistic parameters for economic growth and development. But Gross National Product (GNP) merely sums up a country’s output. Very little focus is given to Human Development Index (HDI), the guarantee of equitable distribution of benefits that elevates quality of life in a country. In certain societies such us ours, socio-economic inequity can be aptly summarized as having 10 percent of the population controlling 90 percent of the nation’s resources, and that 50 to 60 percent of the population are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Industrialization has widened the division between the affluent and the poor, stunting migration patterns that have caused massive urban growth, while siphoning off the resources of the countryside. This, in turn, has created a world order dominated by multinational companies and self-proclaimed global leaders now questioned by the free world, and challenged by civil initiatives and terrorism.

4. The recent scientific breakthrough, the breaking of the code of heredity - DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid), the Rosetta Stone of genetics, has opened up an entirely new concept of the origin and development of life - genetic engineering.

But more amazing and frightening is the new power of man to tinker with life itself – playing God’s role in the creation of new life forms, extending human life to nearly twice its present longevity, and in eliminating diseases even before their symptoms are manifested. Cloning suddenly became a fearful word as applied to humans, following the success with “Dolly, the sheep”. Even this early we are warned of food products manufactured from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), dubbed as Frankenfood.

One by one, countries are coming out against crops with engineered genes – and there may be more to the skepticism over GM crops. Genetic modification can be a strategy to bring agriculture under the dominance of foreign corporations. An the grassroots level farmers doubt if GM crops can be grown side-by-side with non-GMO plants and not being affected negatively since open pollination knows no boundaries.

Dolly was a female Finn-Dorset sheep and the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a cell taken from a mammary gland. On 14 February 2003, Dolly was euthanized because she had a progressive lung disease and severe arthritis. A Finn Dorset such as Dolly has a life expectancy of around 11 to 12 years, but Dolly lived 6.5 years.

The biggest scare that can be spawned by genetic engineering is Genetically Modified Man (GMM) - a being different from the original man described in Genesis, who is God-fearing, loving, sociable, intelligent, and with a sense of values.

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A transformation of our technology and values could make it possible to build a society that will stand the test of time.

Time, A Culture of Permanence

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5. It was unprecedented that the world has traveled far and wide on two feet – communications and transportation – with the West discovering the East, and subsequently resulting in intermarriages of the races, in trade and commerce, education and culture, politics and government, religion and philosophy. With the advances of science and technology the world has shrunk further into the size of a village now wired with fiber optics. But such union cannot be merely characterized as gross merging of characteristics. Here the rule of compatibility may bring diverging directional paths, especially when we force the union of dynamic processes, such as the liberalism of the West and traditionalism of the East. Through time and with continuing “intermarriage”, perhaps a global society will form and accelerate towards homogeneity. We rejoice in meeting friends from across the globe, at getting international news live, and in finding commonalities of interests, and in being part of a genetic pool.

Remember the universal soldier? The Renaissance man? But this new kind of man - will he be superior over say, man in the times of the Greeks and Romans? 

Apocalypse's scenario

This superman may yet represent the fittest of the survivors in accordance with the standard of Charles Darwin; or the righteousness of the Human Being in the pursuit of the precepts of the church. Is this true?~

Reference: Living with Nature in Our Times, UST-AVR

A Shade of Noah’s Flood.

A Reminder of the havoc a flood may bring. 

A Shade of Noah’s Flood.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Flash flood as I recalled it in this painting, acrylic in 2009 and again 

in late July of 2023. Down the slopes of the Cordillera mountain, flood

water cascades through the Banaoang Pass, and dovetails over the 

plains which included our town of San Vicente, near Vigan.  

The water kept on rising and Dad made another notch on the post of our stair.

It is the season of siyamsiyam we call in Ilocano nepnep, the phenomenal – or is it proverbial? – “nine-plus-nine days of continuous rainfall” which occurs usually in August, the rainiest month in the country and peak of the monsoon in the Asian region. But it had been raining much longer than that, and dad said it would last for forty days, citing the story in the bible about Noah’s Flood.

I was in the elementary but I was then strong enough to wade and retrieve our empty basi jars or burnay being swept away by the flood. Since there was no dry ground left I pulled the jars from the rushing current. It was not easy to restrain a jar partly filled with water so that you have to empty it as much as you can before you could pull it to safety. Dad and I barely understood each other at the top of our voices in the downpour and rumbling flood, but I knew he was telling me to let the jars go because of the extreme danger, pointing at the main current just across the house.

But I simply ignored him not realizing the danger until he pulled me, letting off the jars to roll with the current sometimes banging at one another. We never gave up though with whatever we could under the extreme situation. My brother Eugene was even more daring, overtaking the jars before they were swept to the street. Manang Veny kept a watchful eye on the jars in the cellar and under the sagumbi (kichen-granary).

When we were nearly exhausted Dad examined the water level he marked earlier. It was down two marks which meant the water was receding. Only then did we realize we had been working in danger, cold and hungry, for the whole morning. In the afternoon the jars came to a halt in the muddy sediment. The flood was over. I thought I saw a white dove flying above.

Where did the floodwater come from? Towards the east is the edge of the Cordillera range running parallel with the coast of South China Sea. Dad used to tell me that when he was like me then, it was verdant green, bluish in the morning mist and before dusk.

I realized how different it was on that day the floodwater came down. It is worse today. When the day is clear you can see the scars of erosion in roan and orange and ochre, breaking the monotony and giving it a somewhat romantic touch. But these are not good signs. In fact they are signs of destruction of the forest cover, the watershed of the narrow strip of flat land spreading out northward and spilling westward to the South China Sea. Along it is a chain of villages around towns wedged by the mountain and the sea. One can imagine the movement of water when it rains, and how ground water is trapped and stored to irrigate tobacco, vegetables and other summer crops.

But without trees, runoff water simply rushes down into flood, scouring on its way riverbanks, farms and houses. There is not enough time and foothold for rain to seep into the ground and feed the spring and aquifers. And there is not enough ground water to be drawn out from wells. Because water is scarce and too deep trees succumb in summer and brushfire often sweeps and consumes the dying vegetation.

Many years has passed since the Noah’s Flood of my childhood. I trained my tired aging eyes over the Cordillera of my childhood. It too, is now old, tired and worn.~

Lesson of former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday (www.pbs.gov.ph)

"Walk. You’ll better see and talk about the countryside, and to God."

"Walk. You’ll better see and talk about the countryside, and to God." - avr 

(Touch the Clouds - A Retreat Message)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Cirrus clouds unveil Mount Saint Paul, Benguet

When one goes to the mountain there is that definite feeling that he is closer to God. With the summit at his feet he touches the clouds. The clouds open and he hopes to find the gate of Heaven. There is no gate there.

Read this message when you have settled down at the retreat house on Mount Saint Paul (Benguet).

There on this solemn piece of Eden, you will be surrounded by towering pine trees and honored by bouquets of flowers bathed with morning sun and studded with trains of dewdrops, that heighten the ambiance of adoration. You will be enveloped by serenity and peace. Listen well to the words of your retreat master. Listen to your heart. Find Peace of Mind.

While the outside world grinds cruel and chaotic. It is the world you left behind for the time being. By being detached you may find a better vantage point to see the difference of perfection and imperfection. No one will ever reach perfection though. But it is the very intention and act of reaching for it that is most important.

I got a copy of a critical version of Matthew 25. It may lack the conventions of a critic, but it is something worthy to think about. To wit.

"I was hungry, and you formed a human rights club to discuss the politics of my hunger, thank you;

I was imprisoned, and you crept off quietly to your chapel in the cellar, and prayed for my release;

I was naked, and in your mind you debated the morality of my nakedness;

I was homeless, and you preached to me about my home in heaven;

I was lonely, and you left me alone to attend to your Sunday obligations;

You seem so holy, so close to God, but I am still very hungry, lonely and homeless."

Perhaps you should look at the version on the point of view of the faithful. Our faith is as strong as how we profess it. We cannot be passive and subservient to a point of indifference and surrender.
Now, ponder on these verses:

1. Come, come to me in silence or in song,
that I may hear you better among the throng.

2. Fewer are the grains in number
when the tillers fall in slumber.

3. The weak makes up for its frailty
in number and simplicity.

4. Cream on top, whatever is inside,
makes way for the hero and his bride.

5. Sinner or saint, saint or sinner;
never, never a cycle ever;
no matter what and where,
that the past is redeemed - or never.

6. If there is a fourth King
other that the first three;
make me a fifth being
that I'll suffer for three.

7. God is everywhere yet discreet
in many ways beyond our pain,
in our sleep or with busy feet
in far away places on the plain.

8. Truthfulness without kindness
Makes a cold, cruel steel;
Kindness without truthfulness,
Like a boat without keel.

9. Rich in the pocket, least in his heart
his life did make, is a vulture's art.

10. Walk.
Running is sometimes bad;
You’ll better see and talk
About the countryside,
And to God. ~

 "The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters. Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life."  - Steve Jobs

Good luck. May God's blessings bring out the best in you as Christian and Filipino.

(To my students, St. Paul University QC 2001); critical version of Matthew 25 by Bob Rowland

Can you hear the Earth breathing? A Theological-Ecological Perspective on Creation

              Can you can hear the Earth breathing?

A Reaction to "St. Paul and the Groaning of Creation" - A Theological-Ecological Perspective 

 By Abercio V. Rotor, Ph.D.

      

 Saul falls on Damascus Road, mural (8ft x 8ft) by the author, former St Paul 

University Museum QC  1994

You can hear the earth breathe, old folks used to tell us kids. 

We believed them.  

It was part of our belief and culture on the farm. On some unspoiled landscape. On a patch of Eden, in romantic parlance. Being keen and observant about nature’s ways is as natural as being a farmhand, taking the carabao to the pasture – and back after school before sunset.

Or flying kites at harvest time.  

We would stay late after the Angelus keeping company  with the harvesters building haystacks (mandala) or gleaning some panicles strewn on the field. Then we would go home keeping our cadence with the breathing earth.  A skink dashes here, the bamboo grove creaks in the slightest breeze, a gecko lizard makes a sonorous call.    The crickets are happiest in summer.  The fowls roost on their favorite tree, synchronized by the drooping of Acacia leaves.  

Soon fireflies become visible. They light our path inside our pocket.  It is picturesque of the Gleaners of Millet, or Wheatfield of Van Gogh.  The rustic painting of rural life by our national artist, Fernando Amorsolo, Harvest Time .

When we were kids the “sound of creation” was a beautiful one.  It was a sound of sigh, of relief, of contentment. It goes with kind words, meekness, and joy. Sometimes it breaks into laughter and peals of thunder. 

 
Wheatfield by Vincent Van Gogh 

After harvest the earth takes a break. The bounty we get becomes “Santa Gracia” of the family. Like the body, the field takes a rest we call fallowing. Energy is recharged at the end of a cycle in order to prepare for the next one.

Harvest Time by Fernando Amorsolo 

Summer wears off easily. The rain comes. And we kids would run into the rain, sans fear, sans anything.  It was pure joy. Soon the earth is green once more.  And this is the way our world goes round and around, ad infinitum.  

You can hear the earth under your feet. But it’s a different sound now. It is groaning. It is the sound of pain, of distress, of agony. It is a different scenario.  It’s the opposite.

This is the scenario presented in Sister Bernardita Dianzon’s paper and pictured in the CBCP’s report. It would be painful for one who had lived with the art of Amorsolo or the naturalism of Darwin to see eroded mountains, bald hills, silted waterways, and dried up river beds.  And to live with polluted air, accumulating doses of pesticide, mutated pathogens, genetically engineering food we call Frankenfood. To live in the confines of a world of computers. And rigid institutions.  Yet lose our sense of permanence.  Where is home?  What is the essence of who we are and why we are here?.

Who are we? The paper asks. Where is the humane in human, the kindness  in humankind?   Being in human being? Humanus in Humanity? 

This is the groaning of  creation, a sound that disturbs our sleep. That calls, Don’t go gentle into that good night. Which takes us to the letter of Paul which in part says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.” (Rom 8:22)

Paul was the best authority in his time to raise such issue, having traveled far and wide on three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa – practically the whole world then. He must have traced some routes of Alexander the Great in his conquest from Macedonia to India and back 500 years earlier.  He knew well the Persian Empire – the biggest empire the world had seen, bigger than the Roman Empire in the height of its power.  He must have known the uniqueness of different cultures – including the barbaric tribes - the Vikings, Ostrogoths Visigoth, the Saxons, Angles, and even the dominance of the Khans of China and Mongolia. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of leaders like Xerxes, Darius, Hannibal. 

And the declining power of Rome then.  It was when the northern provinces including England were ceding from the centralized authority –All roads lead to Rome.  Rome had grown too big, the Dinosaur Syndrome was creeping in.  Paul knew when to strike with “a book and a sword.”  The message is clear and firm:  To spread Christianity and defend it.  He was a general, and a general again in the name of Christianity.

Creation to Paul is a holistic one – the biological and physical world, the forest and valley, the rivers and the seas, the land on which humanity was born and being nurtured.  The society man built and continues to build.  The culture that shares his society.  The commonalities and differences of people - their achievements, goals and aspirations.

Paul was a realist, with  supreme military background. Thus he was also a strategist, fearless, adventurous.      

Yet the inner man – the Little Prince in him, to recall Saint-Exupery’s famous novel of the same title – is a gentle kind, hopeful and patient. Which makes him an paragon  of change -  persuasive, sincere, and selfless.

I can imagine Paul’s concept and description of  creation.  First he referred to “a creation  associated with labor pain.” The giving forth of new life. The birth of a baby.  The germination of a seed.  The metamorphosis of a butterfly. The rise of a new island. The formation of a valley. The growth of a mountain.  Of a new river or a delta.

 

The sun is born everyday.  Buds are born in spring.  The desert suddenly blooms after an occasional rain. The fields ripen in summer. Even a volcano erupts and enriches the soil in its surroundings.  And there are creatures born with some difficulty.  But it is a groan of joy.  It is a groan of self fulfillment and victory.  It is a groan of happiness which at the end is shared by many.   

Paul and the burning of Rome mural by the author, former St Paul Museum QC  

But why did Paul express frustration on the same subject of creation?  

Paul expressed frustration as a result of man’s disobedience.  “Cursed in the ground because of you.” He said and pointed at man with a warning of Armageddon, “ … you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

But Paul also saw renewal in man’s sinful ways.  He too, was once sinful. But on one dark night on the road to Damascus he changed, a 360-degree turn. His enemies became not only his friends – he became their protector.  And helped preserve and nurture their new faith, increased their numbers even through extreme danger and sacrifice. He was leading them to a new Paradise. The Paradise of Salvation.

We have to understand that, on the viewpoint of both faith and history.  The “loss of Paradise” comes in three phases in the short history of humankind.  The first was when man left the confines of a lush greenery described as a rainforest where he had practically everything for his biological needs and comfort, but it was the dawning of his intellect. Scientists and historians compare  the Africa before and the Africa of today – the shifting of that great forest cover to a grassland where game animals roamed, and finally becoming into a  dry land  – the great Sahara desert – shaping man as Homo sapiens and hunter-gatherer, a life  he followed through many generations, and until now for some cultures.  Until the second loss of that Paradise came once more.  

Again the groaning of creation.

As man formed societies, so with different cultures shaped by each.  Cultures united and cultures clashed because of the conflict of interests, of trade and commerce, of thoughts and ideas. Leading to deeper conflict, this time in politics and religion.  This is the scenario in which Paul founded his mission. The renewal of a paradise of unity and harmony by embracing a common faith – Christianity.  It is Paradise Regained later epitomized by John Milton - the same author of Paradise Lost which he wrote before he lost his eyesight.

Religious wars fallowed after Paul had done his mission.  More people were killed in those religious wars between Christians and non-Christian than all the other wars of history combined. For more than 1000 years the world remained in a state of torpor.  The Dark Ages or Middle Ages was a long period of constant fighting, the Roman Empire fell and dissolved into fiefs and small kingdoms fantasized in love stories, fairy tales and children’s books.

Again the groaning of creation.

Paul must have dreamt of the Renaissance though distant it would happen.  And it did in the 15^th century.  The Renaissance was the crowing glory of the church. The Renaissance is the story of the Church.  It was Paradise Regained Part 2. West met East, but it was not on mutual terms.  Europe invaded and conquered the East, the Orient.  A new era was born – colonization. The ideology of conquest and colonization is clearly biased on the part of the invader and master.  The conquered were made to appear as barbarians and were doomed unless they submit to a foreign master and a foreign god.  Rizal’s books clearly pictured the lives of Filipinos under Spain.  Hawaii, a novel by James Micheners projects a worse scenario. The colonizers were self anointed masters of the world and of god.   

For us in the Philippines as in most colonized countries, we remained subjects of Spain for almost 400 years.  India was colonized by England; Indonesia by the Dutch; Indo-China by the French, and so on down the line.  Practically all countries in Africa and South America. Asia and the Pacific became colonies and the natives were “living in hell,” as some historians recall, the slavery of mostly Negroes in the US, notwithstanding.  It was Paradise Lost to these countries ruled by the so-called “civilized” masters.

Again the groaning of creation.

Colonialism ended towards the end of the 19^th century and in the early part of the 20^th century.  A new Paradise was born once again – the Age of Nationalism. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – the trilogy of the French Revolution became the universal cry for Democracy now led by the United States of America.  

Liberty leads the People by Eugene Delacroix

Peace was short-lived.  Two world wars shook mankind in disbelief.  And when the last major conflict ended a new order came out – the Cold War, the polarization of the whole world into two warring camps –  democracy and socialism. If there is a Dark Age here is a Cold War.  Though the latter lasted for 50 years, in both cases, the quality of life was drawn down to a level whereby we ask ourselves, What is rationality?

Again the groaning of Creation. 

If rationality – the power of reason to know what is good and bad, and even know the best and the worst of situations – is the singular gift of God to man, and to no other else among the millions of living organisms on earth, how come man destroys what he builds? Destroys that very thing he calls beautiful?  Destroys other living things, their habitats and the environment itself that he shares with? 

Why should man wreck his only spaceship, the Planet Earth?  And finally, why should man destroy himself, his race, his entire species? It is a shame to our Creator that we, humans are the only species that is destroying its own kind.

What is this rationality that scholars talk about?  What is the meaning of faith? Prayer? Research?  Teaching?  Progress? Values? How can this thing rationality make us true  guardians of God’s creation?

Creation groans.  It  protests.  This time against man.  Man is the enemy of the earth.

I presume that this is the “restlessness” of creation the paper discussed, and it could be that restlessness Paul described as the sin-story of Genesis 3. It is restlessness in man in seeking more and more of what he wishes to have – his want over his need.  

      Utopia Harmony, Robert Owen

The quest for the highest building, the fastest car, the state-of- the art of entertainment, pleasure and comfort.  

  

Quest for a Utopia built from the wealth of the earth. And the restlessness to have more of these even at the expense of others.  And at the expense of Mother Earth.   

All in the name of civilization.

“The ultimate test of any civilization

                                 Is not in its inventions and deeds;

   But the endurance of Mother Nature

           In keeping up with man’s endless needs.”

                            AVR, Light in the Woods.

But what is civilization?  Can’t civilization hear and heed the groaning of creation?

• It is civilization that wiped out the American Indian from the Great Plains.  
• It is civilization that plundered the Aztecs and Mayas Empires.  
• It is civilization that brought the Spanish Armada’s to its final defeat.  
• It is civilization that killed 6 million Jews during the Second World War.  
• It is civilization that built the atomic bomb – and dropped it in two cities to defeat an already defeated enemy.  
• It is civilization that made a clone animal, Dolly the Sheep. 
• It is civilization that threatens the whale and the Philippine Eagle into extinction.  
• It is civilization that is causing global warming and the many consequences destroying lives and properties.  
• It is civilization that is causing today’s fuel crisis and food shortage. Drastic inflation and loss of currency value, the recession of America and consequently the world, ad infinitum.

All these constitute the groaning of creation. Creation gone wild and free. Creation without boundary.  Creation on a global scale.

Man needs a model.  Man needs conversion.

Paul is an embodiment of great men. We find in him the influence of Aristotle, the naturalist-philosopher-teacher, one of the greatest teachers of the world – the teacher of Alexander the Great;   Plato of  his concept of  a Utopian Republic, the asceticism of Stephen the first Christian saint he witnessed while being stoned to death. 

A touch of Paul is in Gandhi (photo right) philosophy of attaining peace through non-violence, in Saint Mother Teresa’s passion to help the poorest among the poor, 

in Lincoln’s heroic struggle in abolishing slavery, in Maximillian Kolbe’s sacrifice by exchanging place with a doomed fellow prisoner, a father of young children, in a Nazi concentration camp.

Paul must have inspired Nobel Prize Awardee Wangari of Kenya (photo) in planting 40 million trees to reforest denuded and eroded watershed, and the advocacy of Fr. Nery Satur who was killed while protecting the forests of Bukidnon.

There is Paul in the online lessons in ecology, Paul in the syllabus in Philosophy of Man, in the books and manual about caring the sick. Other than the pages of the bible, more than a half of which he wrote or caused to be written, Paul is among the most read saints of the church of all times, indeed truly a doctor and a general of the faith.  Paul is in the temples of worship, Christian or non-Christian. Paul is in every Paulinian sister or teacher and student.  

Paul set a new horizon of sainthood, he an apostle – in fact, the greatest of them all, yet he was not one of the original apostles – because he never saw Christ, never walked with Him, never talked to Him – in person. Yet Christ was his way, his constant companion.  Christ was always in his heart and mind and spirit – and in fact, he gave himself and his life to Him.  

Which challenges the church and us today.  Around 10,000 saints - 30,000 to 50,000 including the lesser saints and the blessed ones - are venerated as soldiers of Christ and keepers of the faith.  The concept of sainthood took a new turn with the case of Kolbe (photos above) -   that of sainthood for charity. 

Along this line is the recent canonization of Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Kolkota.

But we have yet to have a saint for Nature the expression of God on earth, the environment.  Indeed there are heroes for Mother Earth featured by Time and cited by governments, private organizations and civil society. Among them, Rachel Carson (photo),  Jane Goodall, EC Schumacher, including present leaders like Al Gore and Michael Gorbachev (photo below) among many others.  

But looking back to Paul, the investiture for sainthood is only by Heaven and it is for the glory of God.  If that glory is the preservation of His creation, the protection of His face on earth, if that glory means relief from groaning arising from pain, loneliness, hunger, sickness, thirst, imprisonment, then that person who, like Paul, deserves the honor. He could be the first saint for the cause of the environment.

The earth actual breathes, the old folks used to tell us kids.  I still believe it does. 

Acknowledgement: Internet images

Men and women who rose to fame in spite of their handicaps

  Men and women who rose to fame in spite of their handicaps 

Around us - in our family, among friends, in our community - there are illustrious examples of this rare breed.  We may be among them.  Let's carry on!  

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Apolinario Mabini, Filipino hero, was an invalid. He was a revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and statesman who served the Revolutionary Government, and the First Philippine Republic.

Handicaps build strength and purpose – and achievement.

1. Edgar Allan Poe was a psychoneurotic; Vincent van Gogh, founder of Expressionism suffered mental illness.

2. Robert Louis Stevenson and John Keats had tuberculosis.

3. Charles Darwin was an invalid in later life. PHOTO

4. Admiral Nelson had only one eye he sustained in a fierce naval battle.

5. Thomas Edison and Ludwig Beethoven were deaf.

6. So with Robert Schumann who suffered mental disorder that first manifested as a severe melancholic depressive episode.

7. Charles Steinmetz (German-born American mathematician who fostered the development of alternating current) and Alexander Pope (English poet) were hunchbacks.

8. Julius Caesar was an epileptic. Julius Caesar

9. Lord Byron had a club foot.

10. Peter Stuyvesant last Dutch colonial governor who tried to resist the English seizure of New York wore a wooden leg.

11. Pop star Selena Gomez was diagnosed with lupus.

12. Hollywood actor Tom Hanks his diabetic.

13. TV and film star Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease when he was 30 years old.

14. Stevie Wonder, singer and songwriter, is blind; so with singer-lawyer Andrea Bocelli.

15.  was diagnosed with a slow-progressing form of motor disease that gradually paralyzed him over the decades until his death in 2018, aged 76. Stephen Hawking 

Hawking's contribution to our understanding: the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, black holes and the theory of relativity earlier proposed by Einstein.

16. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to earn a college degree. She published 12 books, and campaigned for women’s rights and labor rights her entire life. Helen Keller 

17. Franklin Roosevelt one of the greatest American presidents ever, had polio and was paralyzed from the waist down. FDR can take partial credit for both ending the Great Depression and defeating Nazi Germany. 

18. John Nash Jr., an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential equations suffered of Schizophrenia.

19. Christy Brown (PHOTO), an Irish writer and painter had cerebral palsy and was able to write or type only with the toes of one foot. His autobiography My Left Foot was made into a Academy Award winning movie.

Cerebral Palsy.

20. Demosthenes, a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens was able to overcome stammering through great determination and practice. He is regarded as the father of the art of oration.

     

We don’t have to go far to illustrate this mysterious law of compensation.

1. Pres Manuel L. Quezon had tuberculosis.

2. Apolinario Mabini was an invalid. 

3. Senator Herrera is a polio victim, so with the late columnist Art Borjal.

4. Grace Padaca (PHOTO)
Politician and Broadcaster

5, Fernando Kabigting - Painter After a stroke paralyzed his right hand and blinded his left eye in 1999, Fernando had to learn how to paint with his left hand. His works are exhibited here and abroad.

6. Raymond Martin - Paralympic Athlete, born with Freeman Sheldon Syndrome,

7, Michael Barredo - Businessman, Radio Personality, and Former Philippine Sports Commissioner, a passionate advocate for people who are blind, recipient Paralympic Award,

8. Roselle Ambubuyog - Mathematician, scholar and Motivational Speaker lost her sight as a child.

9. Arnold Balais - Paralympic, Power Lifter, Swimmer, and Mountain Climber won multiple gold medals over the course of his career.

10. Romalito “Rome” Mallari - Actor deaf, nominated Best New Actor Golden Screen Award, and well-received at the Cannes Film Festival. PHOTO

11. Jovy Sasutona - Painter lost the use of his hands, spent decades using his mouth and feet to paint vibrant Filipino life.

12.Jomar Maalam Swimmer first amputee athlete

13, Raymond Martin Athlete 2012 Paralympics,

14. Michael Barredo Business Owner, Radio Personality, and Former Philippine Sports Commissioner. a passionate advocate for people who are blind..

15. Fatima Soriano (PHOTO) is a blind Philippine singer, motivational and spiritual speaker,

This is just a short list of many people who rose to fame in spite of their disabilities and other circumstances in their lives that would defeat an ordinary person. They represent the triumph of the human spirit that keeps humanity alive and determined.  They serve as shining stars in the dark hours.  They are soldiers on the front line of a battle that tests courage, goal and meaning of life. 

Around us - in our family, among friends, in our community - there are illustrious examples of this rare breed.  Most likely you are one of them.  Carry on!  

Acknowledgement: Internet reference

Students Visit an Old Man in his Green House

Students Visit an Old Man in his Green House

“No one should be alone in his old age..."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

In appreciation to my student-guests and their advisers from UNP, with special mention to Cristina Agustin, John Carlo Quibilan and Carl Gian Jimenez, who made beautiful illustrations of my humble home and myself. 

                                                                                 

I am an old man now, way past 80, retired from government service and the academe, 

a "balikbayan" in my hometown and birthplace, and a "Prodigal Son" who found later in life that tradition and values, together with knowledge and wisdom, are vital elements to attain unity and peace, compassion and love; that age can defy to a certain extent "time and space" and connect a senior citizen like me with the younger generations, share with them beautiful experiences in life, rekindle idealism, and keep the torch of hope burning in helping make our world a better place to live in.

What lesson can I impart to them as students of a prestigious university, if not something complementary, experiential and in situ, that is, where the action is, lesson that is not only contemporary but obligingly urgent and vital, such as expanding the realm of fine arts into humanities giving emphasis to its Latin word humanus - which is  to bring into awareness and integrate the humane factor of knowledge into all aspects of life and living, with the concept of brotherhood, and in the universal sense, humanity. 

They would come by group or team to my ancestral residence, and would find me attending to my art which I would gladly explain, and sometimes demonstrate, like painting a canvas or a wall with a mural, then show them my works influenced by the evolving schools of art, some "experimental" notwithstanding;  citing our own Luna and Amorsolo of the "old school", Monet and Cezanne of impressionism, Van Gogh, and later Picasso et al, who opened the floodgate of abstract art, ultimately paving radically to photography and computer art -  if ever we recognize these as bona fide fine art, yet these tools are vital in integrating art as a whole, and in weaving a fine tapestry for our postmodern world.  

I would walk with them under the trees many of them considered "heritage" having spanned three generations or more, and explain that a garden is a living gene bank, and in particular indigenous species we call "native," like native santol, tamarind, mango and the like - these being rare to find today  There is a plant nursery where seedlings of fruit trees and palms like betel nut and anahaw are grown to support tree planting projects of local schools and the community.  The garden itself is a park - natural park of sort, with little modification if at all, of nature's own design. Not so many young people have seen a narra tree, bitaog or palomaria, neem, molave.  It is an orientation of agriculture and forestry linked with ecology and, on the other side, humanities or integrated arts.    

Students in fine art at the University of Northern Philippines visit 

the author's family art gallery, museum and reading center.

 

 

Representative works of the author showing conventional and modern art.

 

Homage to an 18th century icon at the author's residence  

Lighter moments at the Art Gallery and Botanical Garden (arboretum and fishpond)

           

                                                                         

The Green House 

(Side Gate and Street Corner Views}

“It's a fort of green trees around,

that buffer against noise and wind,

filter dusts and glare of the sun,

residence for austere living” - avr

 

Integrated Children's Workshop at the San Vicente Botanical Garden , San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.

On-the-Spot Workshop at the Botanical Garden and Arboretum 

"Take time out from TV, computer, malling;

life's so dull, busy yet empty;

The left brain's overworked, the right idle,

growing up is a sad story." - avr

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. Never confuse movement with action. The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice." - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

A visit to an 18th century Basi wine cellar 

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur 

 

Original basi wine cellar and jars (burnay) date back to the

 18th century across six generations of continuous operation, 

interrupted only by the Second World War for five years. 

 

The cellar attracts researchers, students and tourists for its historical 

significance with the Spanish Galleon Trade, and technology of 

the old folks in making basi and its related products, principally 

vinegar (sukang Iloko).  

By now this jar of basi is 13 years old.  Unless opened, it remains longer 

in aging. The general rule is, the longer wine is aged, the more mellow it 

becomes.  It's not really so.  There are other factors to consider like 

damaged clay cap and leaching.  And there's the basic rule that "only 

good wine mellows with age" (So with man, they add.) 

Crystalline golden color and pleasant wine aroma meet the happy

connoisseur after the desired aging period is reached (at least two 

years in the case of Rotor Basi). Fresh and direct from the jar, the 

harvest is bottled, sealed and labelled (as shown below), according

 to customers' specifications intended for an occasion like

 wedding, Christmas, exhibit, and the like. 

House guest picks a fruit wine of his choice,  Fruit wine making 

follows the basic fermentation-aging process in basi making.

There are 20 kinds of fruit wine developed in this cellar from different 

fruits growing locally like macopa, aratiles, duhat and guyabano. 

Stamp commemorating the Galleon Trade. 

Scene of a Galleon trading post in Ciudad de Vigan in Spanish time. 

"The Manila-Acapulco galleon trade* in the 18th century was undertaken by Vigan Chinese mestizo traders who exported local products such as basi, tobacco and abel to Europe and other parts of Asia..." Pia Roces Morato, Thorns and Roses

                                      * Manila-Acapulco galleon trade 1565–1815

                                

Basi jar lying on the sea floor where a galleon ship was wrecked. 

Basi sparked one of the major revolts against Spanish rule by the natives when wine monopoly was declared by the government. This meant virtually taking the industry from the hands of the natives. The short-lived uprising took place in Ilocos, with the final battle fought on both sides of the Bantaoay River which runs through the towns of San Vicente up to San Ildefonso, which are today the major suppliers of Basi principally to tourists in Vigan, UNESCO's world heritage city, and one of the cultural wonders of the world.

                                 Basi Revolt of 1807, one of 14 big paintings by Esteban Villanueva