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A salutation for Jose Rizal

'Whoever does not sometimes give full consent, and a joyous consent, to the dreadfulness of life, can never possess the utterable richness and power of existence'.

                                                                  

                                                          Rainer Maria Rilke

As if Rainer Maria Rilke and John Keats 

were alive in these challenging times of economic 

gloom, spinning their web of negative capability.  

Holding us in a protective balm against the sentimental 

manufactured culture and our greed for consumerism 

in a throw-away nonsense society. 

These are the days when we must face the 'waking 

dream' and wake to the world of human frailty 

and stop hiding behind the hem of Christianity.  

I am not out to offend or blaspheme anyone 

because I know we all need spirituality and a god-

like existence. Let's fill the cathedrals with music, art and poetry.

Christianity was a great cloak against evil in 

the Middle Ages, but there is something flawed 

about worshipping a man in a dress floating 

around in mobile when there are people 

struggling to get the mobility of a wheelchair 

and access to get them to the street corner.  

Let's bail out Christianity and save it anymore 

sex scandals or holy war embarrassments, going 

against the grain of society, we can't have 

the spirituality of today clashes with the 

spirituality of humanity tomorrow.  

I apologize if anyone is offended by these comments 

but as Tom Waits said in the song 'Get Down of the Cross', 

we need the wood to build an infrastructure that creates 

a path of access that helps people who were not building 

them and us judgmental society in a dog-eat-dog 

world.

'It is a flaw in happiness, to see beyond our bourn-it forces us in 

summer skies to mourn, it spoils the singing of the

nightingale'.

                                         John Keats

In 2005, I had a stroke that almost killed me; I spent 

a year in hospital on my back waiting for someone's 

help after my exhausting days in rehab therapy. I met 

a very caring girl on the Internet, after months of Yahooing 

by computer, I decided to go to the Philippines and meet her.

 After speaking to my son, I decided to find a little happiness 

after that rough year of waking from a stroke/coma on the brink 

of death, good food, and the warmth of a good, caring woman 

was just the ticket I needed.

Playing the journey back and forth in my head, arranging 

my friend to take me to the airport and my girl to pick me

up on the other side, I went for it. I lived with my girl, and her 

family and embraced their Philippine lifestyle so

different from ours.

I never felt a difference in language 

or skin tone. After a time, I thought they were family. I loved their 

caring attitude and even embraced their Christian way.

Every day, I had a massage and walked between two bamboo 

poles on the balcony.  

 I loved their caring attitude so much that I decided to 

stay and get married. They took me to Fort Santiago, where 

Jose Rizal was imprisoned and shot by firing squad and also to 

traditional cabins by the seaside and under a trained therapist's

care, I was buried waist-deep in therapeutical sands.

After those days of near-death experience, it felt like I was in 

heaven, I took potions and herbal remedies, I swam in natural 

springs thinking one day I would walk, I even tried to embrace 

their Christian ways, any light at the end of any tunnel was 

a good light.  

One day, we went to a beautiful cathedral; on the way in, I 

noticed it was decorated with colourful stations of the cross and 

biblical scenes, I saw every statue was covered by glass cages

like a gaming machine, and you had to put money in to light a 

candle that dropped like a jackpot.

I couldn't help but think that the church had some sort of monopoly 

on suffering, and we were paying for the right to grieve. The mass 

began, and I sat there beside my future wife. And I asked what was

happening; the massive doors were closed, and the poor people and 

beggars were locked outside; shouldn't it be the other

way around, I thought. 

Shouldn't all the well-dressed people be out and the poor people in.

I began to feel that hypocrisy rises in me, that the church had got 

it all back to front. Wasn't the church formed to help needy people, 

I felt violated and exploited. I wanted to go up in my wheelchair and

tear the robes from the upper-class priest and throw the challis

out the door, but I sat through the charade.  

The doors were opened again after communion; I asked the girl 

and all her family for their change, thinking I would put on 

the collection, but I asked to leave and was pushed out among 

the beggars and thieves, homeless and limbless people.  

Created by their corruption and hypocrisy, took all the money 

I had notes and all and threw it into the air and went home

disgusted never again to set foot in these hypocritical temples.

I Told my girl I would never be part of organized religions back to 

frontness. 

JOSE RIZAL died for this hypocrisy, and the beautiful poor

people of this beautiful land were raped and plundered. I decided

to leave this corrupt state; I couldn't live in this corruption.

My marriage has now been annulled because British immigration 

said she couldn't come here to look after me because I am disabled 

and can't work to support the manageress of a company.

British law states you can't use a D.L.A. living allowance to get some-

one into the country with more hypocrisy. Ireland is a church, but

no one tells me what to do. So much for Jose Rizal being a hero 

of the people. He lived and died by firing squad, and the church 

and state gripped the people.

All my life, I have had to live under this christ-hypocrisy that has raped

and pillaged this land, I have since been told that I'll never walk or 

talk properly, and the paralyzed side of my body has got no better.

 I might only have one hand, but I've got my poems and essays 

and paintings of spiritual energy, and I feel alive, do you? 

Now I know what Jose Rizal died for; I salute you. Let's stop this

 hypocrisy before it stops us. I miss the wonderful, caring people.