A View From The Back Row

I was asked to submit my Message To Graduates for the Colegio San Agustin yearbook (2004). Below is a copy. Please tell me what you think of it. Dear Graduates, Happy Graduation Day, Batchmates! Four years ago, we started our stay in this Colegio together. Today, we graduate together. You shall then... Sign in to see full entry.

This chick was "born" with a twisted beak. We don't know how it happened. Perhaps the mother smoked too much or drank too much. It is clear however that its genetic makeup has been so distorted that its beak came out twisted. In a brood of ten, how can this chick survive? Enter, Mariel, our little... Sign in to see full entry.

Maud Newton is a writer for MaisonNeuve and has written an article entitled "A Blogger on Blogging." This is the way she introduces it: This past May, the New York Times ran a piece about obsessive bloggers: “For Some, the Blogging Never Stops.” It kicked off with the story of a man on a romantic... Sign in to see full entry.

"The family that prays together, stays together." The words are that of Fr. Patrick Peyton, a holy priest who used to visit the Philippines and promote the devotion to the holy rosary among families. I heard those words when I was still a child of three or four. That was the time when TV programming... Sign in to see full entry.

"Take Heed" by Morris West is this well-known author's contribution to "The Seven Deadly Sins." The title is taken from Luke 12:15-16 "Take heed of all covetousness... and He told them a parable." The parable is taken from a community of religious and explores how covetousness destroys, the one who... Sign in to see full entry.

Once in a while my posts receive comments that are worth responding to in a separate blog. I recently posted an article called "Why Did God Create Hell" and sunfever posted a discussion. Below is his discussion; I have interspersed my replies to it. the problem is... that there is a contextual... Sign in to see full entry.

"A Time for Tea" is Rachel Billington's short story on Gluttony. Harold Gibbon is a married man who gets into a romantic affair with Collete, the twenty-seven year-old secretary. The affair blossoms in a swanky tea room, amid cakes, pastries, tea and dancing. Every Friday they met at Palm Court, and... Sign in to see full entry.

"Pride Before A Fall" is a short story written by Andrew Greeley for the short story collection "The Seven Deadly Sins ( ISBN 971-32-0013-6)." The story is about how Mrs. April Mae Cronin O'Malley brought about the loss of influence of a mean and haughty parish priest over a Catholic parish and its... Sign in to see full entry.

Mang Tino's greatest enslavement is the bottle. He admits to it. But he doesn't want to be freed from it. "Let me see you stop smoking first," he'd tell me. So that was it. But for all his drunkenness, Mang Tino is fun to be with. A great conversationalist, he always keeps a fresh repertoire of... Sign in to see full entry.

"Why is it that I feel more at home with my friends than with my family?" a teenager asked me once. Fortunately, I had read a few pages of the book of life ahead of her. "Your family are the friends you are born into; you have to grow in them," I said. "On the other hand, your friends are the family... Sign in to see full entry.