HOMEWORK: Personal Reflection of an Unknown Citizen

HOMEWORK: Personal Reflection of an Unknown Citizen
Dr Abe V Rotor
Former professor, University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle University-D, St Paul University-QC 

"Little do we know of the unknown great man,

the Unknown Soldier -

unknown doctor, unknown teacher

farmer, worker, entrepreneur,

old man, father, housewife, child." avr

Assignment in Humanities and Communication Arts,  Make your own personal reflection handwritten on a regular bond paper of 500 words more or less. Reflection brings out the inner person in you, like the inner eye of Heller Keller, The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupery', idealism of Longfellow's A Psalm of Life  and Alexander Pope, meditation in Michalangelo's Pieta, the mysticism of Venus de Milo, enigma of wildlife in Rousseau's painting, inner ear of Beethoven, waning light in Claude Monet's Waterlily, nature-man treatise in Thoreau's Walden Pond. 

Jose Rizal

I invite our viewers to this exercise. You may find this useful in retreats and seminars, specially in leadership, and in the fields of theology,  philosophy, and humanities.

One man fought a nation, and save a nation, abhorring violence.
His greatest weapon: peaceful protest and civil disobedience
in asceticism that swept the land;
people revering him as father and almost god.
His name is Gandhi. (photo, left)


His likes are the greatest specimens of mankind; they too, changed
the world forever, making it a better place to live in.
His name is Mao Tse Tung.
His name is Ho Chi Minh.
His name is Jose Rizal.
His name is Ramon Magsaysay
Her name is Princess Diana.
His name is Jose Burgos.
He is Maximilian Kolby

Nelson Mandela 

She is Mother Teresa.
He is Nelson Mandela
He is Pope John Paul II, et al

They are people for all seasons, for all ages, for all waves of change.

But little do we know of the unknown great man,
The Unknown Soldier -
unknown doctor, unknown teacher
farmer, worker, entrepreneur,
old man, father, housewife, child;
The Unknowns in other fields of life, regardless.

They are whose deeds are also those of great men and women we revere today.
They are us – each one of us
in our own little way to make the world go round and around –
or make it slower, that we may taste better the true Good Life,
the sweet waters of the Pierian Spring, the cool breeze on the hill.

All of us - we have the capacity to be great.
Bringing up our children to become good citizens,
being Samaritan on a lonely road,
embracing a returning Prodigal Son, 
plugging a hole in the dike like the boy who saved Holland from the sea,
or living life the best way we can that makes other lives better.

These and countless deeds make us great,
and if in this or that little way we may fall short of it,
then each and everyone of us putting each small deed together,
makes the greatest deed ever,
for the greatest thing humans can do is collective goodness –
the key to true unity and harmony,
and peace on earth. ~

Lost on the Desert

Dr Abe V Rotor 
 
 He has been there for some time now filling up a well he made in the sand with water from the sea.

“What are you doing?” I asked nonchalantly, knowing what a silly thing he was doing. I acted like a teacher with the critical nature of one showing up.

“You know, you can’t really fill your well, or empty the sea either.” I said with an aura of authority.

He looked up at me and beamed a smile in the sun. He was not just pouring water into his well; he was decorating it with seashells, seaweeds, corals and plants growing nearby. He was making a landscape.

Fish were not biting that morning so I folded up my fishing rod and passed by the boy's well again.

Why it was an oasis model he made! Complete with a sandcastle, a pathway, a retaining wall and waterhole. The boy was no longer there.

That was a long time ago when I had the luxury of spending a whole day or two fishing, when weekend is time of leisure and unwinding from pressure of work.

Who cares about one boy out of millions of boys building oases and sandcastles. What is the boy’s name? Oh, the only thing that lingers in my head under graying hair is his lovely innocent face and charming smile.

Years later, in my last year in government service I was sent to Israel to attend a Food and Agriculture Organization sponsored conference. What a luck! A pilgrimage to the Holy Land!

Tourists in general, love to take side trips, and I am no exemption. After touring Israel “tracing the footsteps of Christ,” I decided to continue on to Egypt where the Holy Family, according to the bible visited. So I joined a tour from Tel-Aviv to Cairo via the Sinai Peninsula, crossing the Suez Canal.

In the middle of the desert, we the passengers were told to register somewhere at the border of Israel and Egypt, before reaching the Gaza Strip. We left our bus and proceeded to an isolated police headquarters. The inspector looked at my passport and started questioning me in Arabic. I didn’t understand a word. He presented me to the officer-in-charge who spoke a little English. He said they are on a lookout for terrorists who attacked a tourist bus. After examining my papers which included those about the conference I had just attended, he sort of apologized and let me go.

Outside I met a blinding sandstorm. I lost my way to my bus. When I saw it, it was already far and moving way. I ran after it shouting until I was exhausted. Was it a mirage?

When the sandstorm subsided I found myself alone. “Where is the station, the road?” I was talking to myself, feeling abandoned.

In the desert the reference for direction is the sun, and at night the moon and stars. I remember the pilot lost in the desert in The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. And Coleridge’s Water, Water Everywhere about a mariner lost at sea.

The sun was now going down. I reckoned, “If you go west, you will reach the Mediterranean.” So I walked toward the sun. Sand trapped in my shoes made my feet sore. “Surely there are buses, cars and people around,” I said, always keeping an eye on the horizon.

But there was none. I remembered what the tourist guide said, “Vehicles travel on the Sinai in convoy. You can’t travel alone on the long stretch of sand.” What if my bus was in the last convoy for that day?

I had never felt so hungry and thirsty in my life, and now fear was creeping in. I was empty handed; I left everything in the bus. “Now where is my hand-carry bag? My medicine? My camera? I had left them, too. Why did my bus leave without me? They should have made a roll call, at least a headcount.” I was in soliloquy. I was like the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea talking to himself in the middle of the sea. “But he had a boat. I have none.”

I used to tell tall stories, “You know, I was assigned in very dangerous places,” referring to Cordilleras and Samar island, bailiwick of bandits and rebels. But here the enemy is different - it is emptiness. And I would continue, “You know, I was twice taken hostage by dissidents and never gave in to their demands.” What if they tagged me an Arab terrorist! Here courage just turn into bravado, a kind of bahala na stance. I began to despair.

Sitting on top of a dune I imagined Alexander the Great searching for the Oracle at the Oasis of Siwa near Cairo. According to history he got lost, but how can a man destined to conquer the world get lost? That’s legend, and legends are for great people. And here I'm but a lost soul.

Oasis! That’s a bright idea. I could almost hear the melody of the song, The Desert is Hiding a Well. Yes, if I find date palms and olive trees, there must be an oasis nearby.” And perhaps people living there, and travelers passing by.

Climbing on to the crest of a taller dune reminded me of Golgotha. "I would rather die on top of sand dune than be buried under it." So I stayed there straining my sight to where an oasis might lie. Again I remembered the Little Prince, not the story but what he symbolized – inner vision, unending hope. I needed any kind of encouragement now. I was desperate.

Suddenly, something reflected at the foot of a crescent dune, hidden by another. Water?

Eureka! Eureka!

And down the dune I ran, sliding and tumbling, and in a record time reached a greenery of date palms and olives, a waterfall pouring into a small lake, its water shimmering with the rays of sunset. I cupped the precious liquid with my hands and immediately quenched my thirst. And slept.

I saw a boy repeatedly filling up a well he made in the sand with water from the sea.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t succeed filling your well, or emptying the sea either.” He looked at me, his face beamed in the sun, and continued with his craft.

When I returned I found a beautiful landscape - an oasis!

When I woke up I was in a clinic, in the same headquarters I was earlier interrogated. A search team found me unconscious of dehydration and delirious with high fever.

“What is the name of that beautiful oasis?” I asked. The attendants just looked at each other. One of them wearing a stethoscope said, “You need more rest. Tomorrow we will take you to Cairo”

Today, I care about that boy, and millions of boys making oases and sandcastles.

What is the boy’s name? It does not matter. For the best thing that lingers in my head under graying hair is his lovely innocent face and charming smile, and a lovely masterpiece he made. ~

Acknowledgement: Internet photos

Goodbye, Fire in the Fire Tree, Goodbye

Dr Abe V Rotor

The fire in the fire tree is being doused by the entry of the monsoon. This is a reprint from an older post in response to popular requests.

Fire trees (Delonix regia) in full bloom. UP Diliman QC

Rage with fire, burn the sky, bleed the heart,

Fire the kiss of life, fire the kiss of death; 

And when your petals fall, so with your seed - 

Fire the kiss of death, fire the kiss of life; 

And beauty the brief passing of time and grief. ~ 

An Arch of Trees

Painting and Poem by Dr Abe V Rotor

                       An Arch of Trees in acrylic AVR 2011

I passed under the Arc de Triomphe,

     victory of the French Revolution;

I passed under the Arch of Constantine,

   of the emperor’s coronation;

I passed under the Triumphal Arch of Tyre

     Lebanon’s necropolis bastion;

I passed under the Tijuana border Arch,

     marker of Mexican- American union;

I passed under natural rock arches

    that have survived time and erosion.

I passed under the Arch of the Centuries,

     UST’s 400-year celebration;

I pass under the arches of the rainforest,

      seat of biodiversity and evolution.

 I passed under an arch of trees at home,

     sweet nature and human union.~

Twin Forests: Models in Studying Forest Evolution

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Here are two paintings I started and finished together is a given time frame: a scenario of millions of years ago, while the other is a scenario of a fast vanishing ecosystem. They depict two stages of forest evolution, between them is a great divide of time and space. The primeval model is a rock face overgrown by bryophytes - mosses, liverworts and hornworts, while the other model (lower photo) depicts an undisturbed forest, remnant of the virgin tropical rainforest. These paintings grace the residence of the artist-author where workshops for children on Nature are conducted every summer. ~

Bantaoay Children’s Integrated Art Workshop

Bantaoay Children’s Integrated Art Workshop
San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, May 16 to 18, 2018

(Selected Works)
Dr Abe V Rotor
Workshop Instructor

 Ashley Dianne Rios, 10

Birds flying low over the field and tall grass
meet the morning sun, but never in a rush.

Neil, 8
Flying kite is a wholesome pastime for kids,

away from computers, loafing and misdeeds.

Shaun Michael R Remular, 11

Fluffy clouds hang free above the trees,

while the wind blows gentle Into breeze.

Migi, 7

A hut among the trees, my home,

I shall never want and feel alone.

Jamiela Marie Almachar, 8

A world of a kind: three trees, three birds, three kids,

from the bigger world, peace and freedom never at siege.  

Jedd, 11

Fantasy land, romanticism its uniqueness;

somewhere carved out of our loneliness.

Tristan, 11

Blue pond, reflection of a clear sky and peace around,

                  wonder where these three passersby are bound.                                                       

                                                               William Kelly, 8

Field scorched in hot dry summer,

takes a break with the first shower.

Jeod, 11

Rebirth comes in many ways, yet all the same;

life coming back is our Creator’s lovely game.

Vitrish Anne Arguelles, 6

Like a  jIgsaw puzzle, the cracks of the soil mend with rain,

save the wastelands, often cursed, yet life’s last domain. 

Sandra Valencia, 10

Life peeping through, shy and afraid;

says the sun, “Get up and be brave.”

Christian Delle Garcia, 12

After the first rain in May,

creep the lowly algae;

living things soon aplenty

arrive here and stay. ~

Jedd, 11
Ahoy, there! Keep off the rocky shore!

Join the race in the deep blue azure.
 

Jamie Althen Florendo, 12

Dark clouds at sunset tell of a coming storm.

Hurry up for home before high waves form.

Frea Billedo, 12

The sun is biggest on the western horizon,

smallest on the east just when it is born.

Jamiela Marie Almachar, 6

Savage fangs spare no one at sea,

even the bold ones crying for plea.

Tristan, 11

Join the regatta and vie for the trophy;

romantic, but the danger is another story.

Shaun Michael Remular

Sea gypsies for want of land to settle down,

travel on boats to nowhere they are bound.

Denise Kaye R Ancheta

Wind blowing hard like giant arms at sea,

warns of misery and death without mercy.

Christian Delle Garcia, 13

If all fruits were yellow, orange, and red,

I would pick the green for ripening;

If all fruits come in the summer season

I would sorely miss those in spring.

Franceska Billedo, 10

Coy and shy fuits may appear to some one,

wait until they are ripened by the sun.
  

Frea Billedo, 12

A basket full of fruits and flowers,

the best the fairest maid showers.

Jamie Althea Florendo, 12

Fruits are full of energy,

stored by the sun and Thee.

Jamiela Marie Almachar, 8

All fruits a work of the bee,

if we review our ecology.

Wacky B, 10

Move over fancy culinary;

give way to Ceres’ bounty.

Lance Adam, 5

Where goddess Ceres descends,

Epicurus joins the feast,

and man contends -

else the banquet be missed. ~