The Art of Lent

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio
My favorite work of his, then it's St. Paul's conversion, The Fortune Teller and Narcissus

I'll admit it: Holy Week is not one of my favorite weeks on the calendar.
Had they asked me about the dates on the calendar, I'd rather spread out Easter into a week instead of having it on just a Sunday. But then again, it's not always about having fun or celebrating happiness.

So while us Catholics go into an ideally reflective and sober next three days, I'm leaving off the blogging and will have to return on Easter. This isn't really my biggest sacrifice for the Lenten season and if you ask me what it is I'll never tell. I've never been a fan of people who ask and tell you at the same time what it is their giving up for lent, just because I find it a case of bad taste and a little unnecessary (cause I believe only God ought to know what it is you're giving up and why you're doing so). So my short hiatus from blogging is not part of my sacrifice, but a paying of respect for this traditional and very important commemoration of God's entire saving story.

We're rarely talking about religion here on Salt and for some readers, it may look disconnected from the entire model-y, personal diary kind of blogging, but I've always been a "fairly devout" Catholic and Holy Week is part of that (not to mention that this week only comes once in a year, so it's no big trouble for me). But since this is my blog, this special Holy Week post needs to be somewhat right up our alley= meaning art-related, beautiful and definitely important. I present to you the amazing, dramatic and very fitting paintings of Caravaggio.

The Denial of St. Peter

Ecce Homo 

Christ at the Column

The Crowning with Thorns 

The Entombment

The Incredulity of St. Thomas

Again, I'm not asking you to try and be a hardcore Catholic (cause I'm not one as well and just because I don't do that) or to do stuff these next few days, but I believe there's nothing wrong with being a little more hopeful in the religion, you know? Pretty devastating things have been going on and one of the best lessons I've learned from the faith since my consciousness is that, through both  best and worst times, having hope and faith in God's "awesomeness"---put more casually, never fails you. I could definitely attest to that and that's what this post is for.

Have a blessed next three days (and forever) my friends. Keep praying.

I shall see you all soon, hopefully bearing great news.

- Gerard

The Great War

Jesus in Brazil, falling on 2012 (still one of the most breath-stopping scenes from the movie)

For Western Literature we were assigned to read short parts taken from Chuck Palahniuk's famous Fight Club. And as a supplement, the movie came along with the assignment. I enjoyed the movie and it did teach me how men of our times think. One of the most notable things I remember from the movie was Brad Pitt's take on our generation and how the people before us have gone through great measures of suffering like the World Wars and Depressions and all that while we, are sitting in the middle:

"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war...our Great Depression is our lives..."

This could be true...But then there's Iraq, Poverty, Terrorism and all other things we're fighting for and against. Maybe it's cause I've been pretty free lately which grants me all this time to watch prophecies of the end of the world and of course, there's 2012 which was shown last night on HBO, which makes me think that probably our generation's "Great War" just might be the Greatest War ever waged on Earth...The end of the world. Imagine that. After 2012 I checked out what people have been saying about this supposed end. And if you're like me, who gives just about everything the benefit of the doubt, it will scare you out of your bones to see what the present sees is in store for us in the very near future. By 2013 the internet would probably dead thanks to all these beliefs of scary solar storms that would rob us from our huge dependency on technology. By 2014, some economists are seeing great troubles that are waiting for the United States of America concerning governance and economics. 2012, they say, will be the end of times. It's part of a certain cycle the Earth goes through...Maybe the sun will release it's hot whip-like flares unto the planets closest to it, maybe the Earth's crust will shake and dislocate and relocate what we know now as our geography, maybe this whole issue on the weather will grow worse as the coming months pass, maybe Noah's Ark ought to be constructed again for a possible flood that will flood all other floods ever experienced. All of these are backed by science, they believe, and it seems like there will be people who could survive these. Now, I forget where I got these theories but I'm sure it's on Google. Type away the years and you'll see these results.

Point is, maybe this is finally it, the Great War our generation's been unconsciously waiting for. Sure we're the spoiled, have-it-everything-in-a-click generation. I mean, look at me, when the internet's running slow, even when it's just 3 minutes of loading, I get awfully cranky (that's really a bad, bad, bad trait). We're the pampered kids who have it easy because our troubled parents and grandparents had gone through the crap and they want us free from it. Well at least, that's what they say in books, movies and all those brilliant things you think about when you're high on caffeine in the middle of the night. Imagine that, the easy kids facing the end of the world...And maybe all of this is true. And I ask myself, being the Catholic that I am, maybe every generation has to face what God has prepared for them. Maybe this whole end of times/world we oh-so love talking about and making movies out of just might be our generation's coming war. Wouldn't it be nice to be all warm and hopeful that the entire planet would unite for the fight against the end? Well it is nice. Especially when you believe in the fact that you wouldn't be faced with the prospect of things if you aren't built to face it. No matter what others think of us, I believe it's possible that even when we have it easy, we're built like diamonds inside ready to face whatever great war it is we're destined to face...Yes, even the end of the world.

It's nearing Christmas and nearing 2011 and I am actually scared and excited to see what happens of us in 2012. I wish I was Nostradamus or that suddenly the Holy Spirit comes down to me to tell me to do so and so to prevent the end of the world, or at least save ourselves from the wrath of it, but I'm incredibly normal. I know deep down that all of this hype is just like the hype of the entire Y2K. Even in the days of my grandmother, they believed the world was to end. Besides, every generation always fantasizes that it'd be theirs that would come face to face with those gigantic tsunamis and those huge earthquakes just because every generation wants to believe that the end is humanly conquerable. We're quaking in metaphorical boots for sure, because we damn know that nobody really knows when the end will come. We're quaking in our boots cause we know that we want to be brave enough to actually face it, like all those other end of days characters have. We die or we get pass through it, it does seem like the world will be facing great things up ahead. Be it for the better or the worse, one thing's for sure, this generation's great war is no different from the ones the others have battled with. It's always all about courage and surviving the worst life has to face you with...

Well, I hope I'll be brave enough to face whatever it is the future has in store for me...Like that philosophy grade I'm still waiting for, or that decision between staying here or leaving for good...Somewhere in those selfish apprehensions I have, I believe is constantly the "bigger picture", that famous one that always takes all of us away from our tiny worlds to look at the world and what the forces that be has in store for it...I am afraid, but I won't let it consume me.

Besides, after watching Meet Jo Black and crying (hahaha...I know) to the last beautiful scenes of the movie (and all you could hear is "What a Wonderful World") I always tell myself that despite all this crap, the world is still one hell of a beautiful place.

Here's to our generation's great war...

P.S. I'll probably go easy on the end of the world documentaries and movies...It's almost school soon and I don't want to keep talking about 2012 on quizzes and homeworks. hahaha

-Gerard

On the end

Imagine: The Statue of Liberty buried in snow, or crushed by a meteor

Why do they always target New York City in apocalyptic movies anyway?

I busied myself this afternoon with History channel.

And since it's nearing 2012 (they say even that date's been debunked) our love affair with the end has taken on a more logical turn.

You've got scientists leafing through the bible, conspiracy theorists, professors, writers, even ordinary people speculating about the end of the world and it seems like everyone's partial to playing God.

I myself have a love affair with the end. It interests me so much that I really sit through all those documentaries. The Nostradamus Effect has got to be my favorite. It gives you practically a lecture on everything related to prophecies of the end and this afternoon, they checked out The Book of Revelations.

It scared me out of my own skin and after today, I'd never look at business men the same way again. It's a joke. They (meaning producers of shows like these) have these stereotypes of the said Anti-Christ and the False Prophet looking like head honchos of multi-billion dollar companies and it's funny. I guess they think that these two symbolic figures would show up wearing suits and silk ties and ruling over the world right before the "scary" Jesus comes out to save us. The book of Revelations also told of a different kind of Christ (the scary kind) that would, supposedly descend from the heavens on a white horse, his eyes red like flames, his robe drenched in blood and a sword coming out of his mouth. Not the Jesus I want to see saving us in the end. This was the Jesus who would save the good from the bad. On Earth too would be the final showdown of good and evil, where the Anti-Christ would come face-to-face with Jesus himself. You could just imagine the army of God all shiny and strong and I swear, it looks like a painting that may be existing or not.

There were also all these natural calamities that would bring us to the climax of the end, like scary earthquakes, monstrous rains, a volcano eruption (look up Yellowsone Caldera) so devastating, it'll rob us off sunlight and wrap our skies in heavy ashes and would cause a said major climate change.Wherever we are, these signs would affect everybody and the documentary mentioned that by the climax of these terminal events, more than half of the world's population would've been wiped out to even witness the last battle set somewhere in the middle East. These are all speculations and theories of people who have studied these prophecies, trying to piece together a logical possibility or picture of what the end would look like.

It is scary. Scary enough that you'd probably never want to sleep again cause you're heavy on paranoia, ESPECIALLY when you watch the news and check out what's happening to our world. Imagine, all of the world and everything we know gone in a slow, painful series of events that would lead to the end. No more Paris, no more statue of Liberty, no more beautiful Philippine Islands, no more Russia, no more Brazil, Africa. No more everything. And if we've been good enough, we are to find salvation.

Everytime I watch shows like this or listen to stories of the end, I could not help but wonder, why would God put an end to all this when he created it so beautifully? And in the first place, why create something only to put it to ruins... They say it's all about love. And how all good things come to an end. These kinds of questions sort of takes you out of yourself and inside a world where there are billions and billions more of questioning souls, just like you, who suddenly have lost interest in themselves and are faced with the "bigger picture". But isn't it sad to think that we always put the world to an end in such horrifying ways? I know the bible says it and other prophecies too, but I want to believe that we're stronger than this. That the human soul is far more beautiful than anything ever created and that maybe, if we look at the world, life and the times differently, the end will be different, hopefully, not ever come.

When you do check out the news and watch the end of days on TV, you couldn't avoid but feel so helpless and pathetic and angry. But that's basically why we're such amazing beings, because we always are free to rise from it all and see the best in things. I know the world will end, I just don't know when. And since I couldn't do anything about that, the best I could do is marvel and contemplate on the beauty of the world...there are so many things, that I realize, I take for granted or make fun of that are deserving of contemplation. I'd also love more, even when it's impossible to love in certain circumstances. Besides, isn't that the end-all be-all of life? Or better yet, try and be someone meaningful, not only to myself but to others, that would help change this world into something better, something worth saving instead of ending.

Right?

So help us God.

-Gerard

The Touch

by Michelangelo

"How can we live in Harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God" ----St. Thomas Aquinas

The Only Thing That Works

The man who always saves

Now that it's (the Quirino Grandstand Hostage) all over I---along with others---- have proven, a billionth time that prayer is the only thing that actually works.

Thank you God.

.Gerard