THE FIVE SENSES DAY

@ 6:10 am


I'm never gonna dance again
guilty feet have got no rhythm
though it's easy to pretend
I know you're not a fool

Should've known better than to cheat a friend
and waste the chance that I've been given
so I'm never gonna dance again
the way I danced with you

Time can never mend
the careless whispers of...

EARS: Urggg!!! It's so early! The music is so disturbing! Hmp! That ringing tone!

EYES: I'm so sleepy still.

MOUTH: (Yawn)

After 10 minutes...

SKIN: Oh my! It's freaking cold!

After 30 minutes

NOSE: I smell something great!

MOUTH: I love the taste of this sweet and creamy coffee!

After 5 minutes

EYES: Our master is dressing himself now. He is wearing printed green and brown polo shirt, brown casual leather shoes, jeans with green and brown hanky and checkered brown and green boxers.

SKIN: I can feel his...... I mean, the cotton polo shirt he is wearing.

NOSE: I can smell a nice fragrance!

MOUTH: Where is he going? It's too early in the morning. Not to mention that he was always late at work. But he don't have work on Sundays!

EARS: Let's see later

After 20 minutes

EYES: We are sitting here in not so crowded place but a lot of seats. Wait, I have to read the reflection. I want to share with you. Here it goes:

One of the beautiful memories I have before I started going to school is crossing the river in our town. From our farm my father and I had to go home to the town usually late in the afternoon. We had to walk more than two miles. When we reached the river, we would cross it and sometimes I would compete with my father to reach the other bank first. During the rainy season, the river swells up and overflows, but we had to cross it. And my father would carry me on his shoulder. As long as I held the hands of my father I felt safe. Sometimes he would stagger when the current pushed him but quickly would regain his balance. The water was up his shoulders and would tickle my body with its splashes. Yet, I was not afraid because my father was holding me more tightly than I was holding his hands. I was not afraid of the flooded river. But now, hearing of what had happened last year, in Iloilo, and how my hometown Janiuay, got flooded, fears shivered down my spine. My mind raced back half a century ago when my father carried me on his shoulder while crossing that river which claimed more than 25 lives last year in the worst flood that ever hit my beloved hometown.

Typhoons, floods, monsoons, and tornadoes are natural calamities beyond our control. When they unleash their fury we are left halpless. Then we pray to God that we survive and pray for others to pass the trials. Yes, in moment like these, we remember the One "who created everything that is good."

And we experience God. When we are in moments of great joy and elation, it is easy to express" "Wow, God is with me!" But when we are in moments of sorrow, loneliness, fear, and anxiety, we blurt" "Woe is me!" But the Gospel today tell us that even in the lowest moment of our life God is present although he seems to be asleep.

There are times when the best answer to a problem is to keep silent. It is in still ness that we can listen very well.

A good father is a listening one. He does not only listen by his ears but by his heart. And he can hear what is not even said by his children. We love a father who can be calm in the midst of troubles his family is going through. Indeed, a father is like a shepherd to whom the flock if his family is entrusted. He would not allow one child to perish. Indeed, when a child finds something of God in his father it is likely that he finds a father in God. And when a child feels that his father also loves his mother, a child wil growing loving others. She or he will cross the rivers and the sea of difficulties of life with more courage and serenity.

Everyone of us has his or her own voyage to make. We all have to cross the sea of life and hope to see great things and events beyond. This may mean moving from fear to courage, from resentment to forgiveness of oneself and others, from self-centeredness to selflessness, from what St Paul says, "from old things to new thing." Some could not cross but stay in the middle of the sea of life, wallowing in self pity, anger, and egoism. They make their life darker so feel more fears. They just want to remain where they are, indifferent and critical. But the calming of the squall by Jesus assures us that fear that erodes faith has no place in our life, that all these negatives can be transformed into positives, and into moments of love. Jesus is with us. We have to go on sailing with great confidence in the midst of overwhelming adverse events or circumstances of our life. They are all means to grow and to glow in our Christian living.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

-by FR. JOE S. ARIPIO, SSP