Grace By the Day

I woke up the other morning and turned on the TV. Joel Osteen, the famous preacher, was on TV, doing his thing, preaching to the masses. Now, I honestly can't stand Joel Osteen, but he said something that honestly helped me on a personal level. It's something I hope everyone out there can look into an adopt into their own lives.

Like I said, I can't really stand Joel Osteen. I don't read his books. I don't watch his programs. He seems like a nice guy, for sure. But he's got this super-smiley, super clean cut demeanor that I can't really identify with. However, when I turned the TV on, it was like he was speaking right to me. In the program, he talks about Grace. In the plainest of terms, Grace is a divine gift from God that offers salvation. Unlike the concept of Karma, in which your behavior defines how you will be treated, the concept of Grace is that you don't need to do anything to earn it. It is a gift freely given by God. No matter what happens, Grace saves you. Grace can help you get through the day. It can help you overcome obstacles in your life.

What Joel Osteen pointed out is that Grace starts new again everyday. God doesn't give you Grace to hold you over for two weeks, 2 years, or 2 decades. Rather, God gives you a new daily dose of Grace each and every single day, and only for that day. Why? Because God isn't asking you to live for tomorrow. He's asking you to live for today. For me, this has become a very powerful idea as of late. The one thing all of us in this world share is that we have problems. All of us. Everyone on this planet is going through things they wish they didn't need to go through. That's just the way it is. Many times, these problems seem so enormous that we aren't sure how to endure it for so long. However, God isn't asking us to endure it for long. He's just asking us to endure it for today. As a result, He gives us the Grace needed to get through that day.

We all go through personal wars in our lives. However, as it is in any war, the war is won not all at once, but one battle at a time. Each day is a battle, and it's important to fight the war one day (or one battle) at a time. Grace is like ammunition in such a battle, and it is renewed every day. It will give you just the amount of firepower you need for that day, and that day alone.

When I wake up in the morning, I know that I will be able to live properly for that day, because I am taking it one day at a time. Each new day is a clean slate...and I realize that I don't need to worry about the next week or next month. All I know is that I need to live for today, and for today alone, and I will live it to the best of my ability.

The Colonial Mentality: Ignorance VS Apathy

Recently, one of my students mentioned to me during one of our sessions that he saw one of my video blogs on my YouTube channel entitled "What is The Colonial Mentality?", which has been one of my most popular videos to date. He raised a very good question regarding the importance of cultural awareness and the colonial mentality. It was a question that I never considered addressing until it was brought to my attention, and I hope to address it now.

In my video blog "What is the Colonial Mentality", I discuss the nature of the colonial mentality, specifically as it regards Filipinos. In summary, the Colonial Mentality refers to the mindset of a race of people that reflects it's colonized past, particularly as it regards how the race of people perceive the value of their indigenous culture, or lack thereof. For the most part, Filipinos have been raised to perceive their native culture as inferior to that of other cultures. In the video, I give several examples of this, particularly as it regards Filipino-American youth and their general ignorance of their culture. My student saw this and asked me, "If one doesn't know their culture, is that necessarily a bad thing? Does it make a person less of a human being for not knowing their culture?" Just as a sidenote, this particular student was NOT Filipino. He is, as far as I understand, a man born of Irish descent.

His question certainly caught my attention. Historically speaking, the Filipinos were taught by the Spanish that our indigenous culture wasn't as good as their Western culture. The Spanish went to great lengths to not only get Filipinos to have disdain for their roots, but also, they went out of their way to make sure future generations wouldn't remember the past by burning our temples and our manuscripts. To this day, there are few solid written Filipino historical records from the past. In addition, our ancestors were so busy fighting wars and fighting for freedom that for the most part, there was little time to write down the details of their day for future generations to learn from. They were simply trying to survive, not document history. As a result, most Filipinos today have retained not only a disdain for what is indigenously theirs, but also a general ignorance of the past due to the lack of information available to them.

I feel it is safe to say that in general, ignorance of one's culture isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most Filipinos who are ignorant of their culture don't choose to be. They simply didn't have a choice. Many people may just be unaware of their culture, and that isn't necessarily their fault. Perhaps their parents negelected to teach them about their roots. Perhaps the individual was raised in an environment where they were not only an ethnic minority, but where they may have been the only members of their ethnicity within that town or city. Ignorance of one's roots, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, when that ignorance mutates into apathy, that is where I feel the problem lies.

Apathy, in my opinion, is more dangerous than ignorance, and unfortunately, most apathy regarding our Filipino heritage stems from general ignorance of the value and beauty of our Filipino culture and history. Most Filipino-American youth who do not care to learn about their roots simply feel apathetic because they don't know enough about it or it's relevance. Unlike ignorance, apathy is, in and of itself, a decision...a decision to not give a damn. Once that occurs, it becomes nearly impossible for the individual to want to know anything about their culture or explore anything within themselves culturally. I personally believe one's culture truly is a mirror which reflects one's personal identity. If one chooses to not look into that mirror, then they may be limiting their ability to learn more about themselves as human beings. Our cultures do not necessarily define who we are as people, but they can impact our belief systems as well as our behavior in many ways. In light of this, I feel that it's important for us to go past our comfort zone and learn who we are on a cultural level, for it may lead us to better understanding of who we are.

There is a saying that goes: "The opposite of love is not hate. Rather, it is indifference." Apathy is the opposite of love...in this case, the love of ones culture. When we choose to ignore our culture, we choose to learn less about our roots...which leads to us learning less about ourselves. If you choose to not learn more about yourself, it becomes harder to understand others. Personally, I feel that my knowledge of my culture empowers me. It gives me a better insight into who I am and as a result, I have a better grasp of what I stand for.

How to Keep the Fire Burning

Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in outdoor activities, one of them being firemaking. In recent years, I've learned many different ways to start and maintain a fire outdoors. Recently, I've discovered how building a fire truly applies to who we are and how we about different aspects of our lives.

About a year ago, I went to a camp for Atienza Kali known as Camp 505. One of the activities was building a fire in unideal conditions. While the drill taught me how to persevere and overcome the odds, it also showed me the power firemaking can have in all aspects of one's life.

In my experience, to build a fire, you need a few things. You'll need a firestarter, which is something that can create a spark or flame (matches, lighters, flint and magnesium, etc). However, this is not enough. You need more than just that. You will need tinder, which is material you need to catch flame and keep it going. Tinder could be anything that can catch fire or maintain a flame such as dry branches, cotton, leaves, etc. You need to make sure that you use this tinder to create the base of the fire, which is the platform in which you are building your fire on. Without this base, the fire will die out. Once your base is solid, you will need to constantly feed the flame with good tinder and good materials. The moment you stop feeding the flame with the right materials, the quicker the fire dies out.

As simple as this process seems, people who build fires realize how difficult it is to keep a fire going. I've seen many people try to build a fire by just depending on the firestarter. They have a lighter or match and think just because they can get a spark or light a flame, then the fire will take care of itself. What they soon realize is that without the proper base of tinder and good materials, the fire quickly dies. I have seen people who have both the firestarter AND the right tinder, which in theory, should be enough to keep a fire going. However, they light a piece of tinder and make it catch fire, and try desperately to keep feeding tinder to the lit piece of tinder to keep it going. However, this doesn't work well, either, as they are frantically trying to feed the fire over and over as it dies.

The most important thing to building a fire is to have the right BASE. If you have a solid base of the right materials, then the spark can ignite a flame, and that flame can keep going. The more you feed the base with the right material, the fire continues to grow and grow. Eventually, you have a fire that only needs to be maintained every few minutes as opposed to every second.

In the various parts of our lives, we need a solid base to keep the fire going in whatever we do.

In our relationships, you need a solid base to keep that relationship going. That base needs to consist of solid beliefs, experiences, and events that you and the other person (significant other, friend, relative, etc.) have built the foundation of the relationship on. It's easy to start a "spark" or "flame" in any relationship. That spark or flame can be physical attraction or emotional attraction. It's easy to even feed that flame to some degree with different emotions. But without a base, the fire in the relationship quickly dies. A base in any relationship is built with time, patience, and work, and this serves as the foundation of any strong relationship. With a good solid base of experiences shared between you and the other person, the flame can continue to flourish because your belief in the relationship is built upon on the experiences you and the other person have shared together. In times of struggle, you can call upon that base of experiences to reinforce your belief in that relationship.

In our professional lives, you need a solid base to keep your hunger to improve and suceed. It's not enough to just go through the motions and hope to succeed. If you want to improve yourself financially, then you need to improve yourself mentally and spiritually. You need to feed the base of your desire with the right materials: a good support system, a strong sense of will, and the right resources.

It always amazes me how something as primitive as building a fire can really help you see things in life in a different light.

The Clark Kent Syndrome

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. When I try to recall my earliest memories as a child, the one thing that comes to mind is an iconic character virtually everyone on the planet recognizes: Superman. Everyone knows about Superman, it seems. However, few people ever really look at Clark Kent, Superman's human identity. As of late, I've been looking away from Superman and more into the symbolic representation of Clark Kent. Personally, I think all of us are a "Clark Kent" in some way or another, and the more I think about it, there is a lot to be gleaned from that.


Currently, I am not exactly the biggest Superman fan. However, as a child, I was obsessed with him. The first Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve (who in my opinion, was a true hero in every sense of the word) was like a pacifier for me as a toddler, according to my parents. They used to have a copy of it on VHS and Betamax (yes, Betamax...for all you kids too young to remember that, ask your parents) and had to take the movie pretty much anywhere we went on vacation. It was one of the only things that would stop me from crying as a baby. When I was in high school, the TV show "Smallville" premiered and for good period of time it got me interested in my childhood superhero all over again. Watching Kristin Kreuk on a weekly basis, the girl who played Lana Lang, was an added bonus, of course.


While every movie, comic, and graphic novel has mentioned Clark Kent, there have been few mediums that focus solely on his nature. Everyone knows about Superman, and everyone knows about Superman's powers. Flight. Super strength. Invulnerability. Heat vision. Freezing breath. Super speed. Super senses. The guy's powers are practically infinite, and it seems that every few years, different powers and abilities are bestowed upon him. But, no one seems to really look at Clark Kent. Clark Kent is a normal guy from the midwest. Clark Kent tries to vie for Lois Lane's attention, but, she is infatuated with his alter ego, Superman. As a young man, he possesses great skills and abilities but isn't quite sure how to use them yet. He goes through life relatively unnoticed by others outside of his immediate circle, but he knows he's supposed to do something great with his life.

I think that while we can all agree that we can't identify with the abilities of Superman, we can definitely identify with the nature of Clark Kent. In fact, all of us are a Clark Kent in some way. We are human. Many go through this life doing their best to make the most of it. Most of us work for a living. Sometimes, it seems we go unnoticed by those around us. But I feel that somewhere inside of our souls is a "Superman" just waiting to be revealed. For many, this Superman is dormant. Many refuse to believe they could even possess a Superman within them, much less reveal him to the world. Others believe that they aren't good enough to have a Superman residing inside their hearts. But, there are some out there who believe that they do have a Superman within them. They believe they can change the world. They believe they can be instruments of hope for others.

In my own life, there are people who need me to be Superman. They need me to be strong, invulnerable, and able to do great and amazing things. But a handful of people, the ones I hold closest to me, need me to be Clark Kent. For the most part, I try to be the Superman in my life...pushing really hard trying to make everything right while trying to save situations and people around me, that I forget that I am only human. Despite my skills, passion, and abilities, I need to remember that you can't save everyone right away. People may want to save themselves every once in a while. This is how they are able to grow as individuals, and they need that space to flourish and learn. However, when they feel that they need me, I will be there to help them. After all, Superman doesn't show up unless people ask for his help or really need his help.

Right now, I need to know the right time and right place to be Superman for those in my life. I can't be Superman all the time, and I can't be Clark Kent all the time. I need to figure out the right time and place for both. I realize that now.