SOMETIME within this week, the local weather bureau will record what will be the highest temperature reading for Cebu of the whole summer.
The trend, based on the weather bureau's records, is that the hottest day of the year usually falls within this particular week.
Their actual readout will be given as part of the weather segment in most if not all news programs on AM radio and television. It will also appear as a boxed blurb on the lower corner of this paper's page 2 the following day.
It will not matter though. Many don't listen to weather reports on the radio nowadays unless it has something to do with storms, inter-tropical convergence zones and nudist beaches.
And although people do stick around for the weather reports on television news programs, it's either because of the weather girl's stunning good looks and shapely curves or the cute and cuddly animals being featured as a sidebar of sorts.
Newspapers had cause in all but eliminating the weather segment (save a boxed blurb containing a very short text spiced up by an informative graphic) until a major weather event comes along.
Moreover, I don't think people will be standing by their radio and television sets or staring at newspapers this week. Many will be frolicking in beach or mountain resorts trying to cool themselves down. I hope to be among them.
Equally as many, though, will be those who will choose to be at their respective local churches and parishes to take part in the various religious activities held in accordance with their respective beliefs. It is, after all, Holy Week.
A few weeks ago, while enjoying a cup of coffee with another journalist at this shop near the Palace of Justice, an old friend walked in. We went to the same church, Bradford, while growing up.
He left our old congregation and joined another, Evangelical, I think, and is a pastor now. I, on the other hand, had simply left. I occasionally come, the better term is probably return, to church for prayer or thanksgiving. I am definitely not a good churchgoer. I hope I'm doing a better at being a simple Christian.
He was at the coffee shop to meet with the members of a Bible sharing group he had organized but had arrived early. Good manners dictated that I asked him to sit with us, which I did and to which he acceded.
Talk swiftly covered religion and, when my journalist friend revealed that he was a Baptist, the subject of ecumenism -- an interfaith movement held up by commonalities within different faiths -- came up.
I was honestly surprised when the pastor admitted to not being supportive of the movement. Faith, he said, ought to be based on how God reveals himself through The Book. It should not, he added be the subject of compromise between other beliefs.
I had forgotten about the encounter. I remember it only today as I reflect on the week ahead. It occurred to me that this was why my relationship with churches in general, not with God though, is strained.
Any institutionalized religion that presumes to know what God thinks bothers me. I will respect other people's beliefs -- be it in Ja or Zoroaster -- but I will not be told that things must be done their way.
I agree with those who think that having presumably celibate men put out the dos and don'ts of sex is downright silly and to have them dictate the country's population policy is simply criminal.
And I will abhor and continue to abhor any and all religion that teaches people to look at differences and alienate the different, rather than to seek commonalities in the belief that we are all one, for they sow not the seeds of peace and they do not bring the grace of God.
(first saw print in Sun.Star Cebu, 04/02/07)
 | liwas na's holy week, bai. |
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And although people do stick around for the weather reports on television news programs, it's either because of the weather girl's stunning good looks and shapely curves or the cute and cuddly animals being featured as a sidebar of sorts. 