Back to Basics

A few days back, my rector reminded me that the secretarial section's computer fonts have to be updated.

Let me explain. Normally an OS (Operating Systems like Windows, Linux) uses the fonts native to a specific country... like there's Japanese windows, Thai windows, Spanish windows, Arabic windows... but there's no Khmer (Cambodian) windows yet; and oh yes also the Philippines have not yet developed Bintana as of this writing.

Problem here now is I'll have to put the new unicode version of the Khmer fonts (which I do not have) to windows (OS) thereby changing the old Khmer fonts used for many years.
I had a hard time looking for free Khmer unicode fonts over the net after hours of seemingly-endless googling of so many technical sites. But just when I was about to give up, I thought: "Hey, the Catholic Cambodian Church's website has been using unicode for some time now." So I quickly surfed there and lo and behold, at its bottom is a link to the "how to's" pages of Unicode Khmer fonts installation.

Although the experience might sound technical, the moral lesson for me here is simple: The river always flows into the sea. Sometimes the solution to the most complicated problem could be found in its "Source". Does that not sound familiar to You?

In the film "Samsara" a Buddhist monk found a question carved on a slab of stone: "How do you prevent a drop of water from drying?" After so many twists and turns of the two hour movie in search of the answer, the monk found it carved at the back of the same stone: "Throw the drop of water to the ocean."

from Cinema Paradiso

Last June on the feast of the Sacred Heart, I kind of adapted Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso in one of my homilies. Here Alfredo tells Toto a story:

"Once...a king gave a feast for the loveliest princesses in the realm. Now, a soldier who was standing guard saw the king's daughter go by. She was the most beautiful of all and he fell instantly in love.But what is a simple soldier next to the daughter of a king? At last he succeeded in meeting her, and he told her he could no longer live without her. The princess was so taken by the depth of his feeling that she said to the soldier, "If you can wait for 100 days and 100 nights under my balcony, at the end of it I shall be yours." With that the soldier went and waited one day... two days... then ten... then twenty. Each evening the princess looked out, and he never moved! In rain, in wind, in snow, he was always there! Birds shat on his head, bees stung him- but he didn't budge. At the end of ninety nights he had become all dry, all white. Tears streamed from his eyes. He couldn't hold them back. He didn't even have the strength to sleep. And all that time, the princess watched him. At long last, it was the 99th night... and the soldier stood up, took his chair and left."

So why did the soldier leave? I personally think it's because the princess will marry (will love) him because he fulfilled the condition. In short, it was a conditional love. Perhaps when the soldier was asked why he left, he must have answered: "If I accept the offer of the princess, I know that she would love me because of the condition. Instead, by leaving I choose to love her unconditionally."

Ah, such is unconditional love... isn't this the same kind of love You have for me as expressed in Your Most Sacred Heart?

"Death where is thy sting?"

About year ago, I was invited to attend my MTh graduation in South Africa. I missed that chance because I had to present my paper here at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. A month ago I heard that my friend, Fr. Oscar Zamora, died of heart failure at the novitiate house IN South Africa.
Oscar was the one who fetched me from the airport when I first arrived here...
Strange but I was assigned in Tondo when he had left the place. I went to PNG after he left it also. He invited me to Cambodia but left soon after he got me in. So where is he telling me to go to next?

Thinking of death always gives me the chills. I always get bogged down whenever I start to think of my own. All the things I believe in come to be questioned. Is there really this or that? And what happens next? Will it be painful? How long does it take to make that crossing? Where to... next? This kinds of paralyzes me.
Of course, whether I like it or not: Death is inevitable.
But then I still have that choice. Will I just wait for it sitting down, or will I just let it try to catch up with me?

Believing there's life after it certainly gives purpose to living life here.

Wishing on the same star

I heard a song at MTV today by a Japanese songster - Namie Amuro. I didn't understand the Japanese lyrics except for the English three liner in the refrain which made me reflect:
"Wishing on the same star.
Looking at the same moon.
Talking of the same dream."

Be it strategic planning, or logical framework construction or pastoral plan formulation...
it all boils down to... having the same VISION towards that same GOAL.
We've been having a lot of meetings lately and a lot of squabbles in the process about projects and technicalities...
yet after all we Salesians have the same MISSION and it will never change... our same star, same moon and same dream, i.e. to be the bearer of God's love for the young.