“Ring of Fire”

TOTAL STOP—The streets today Sunday will have lesser people as everyone is staying indoors to watch Pacman’s May 3 historic duel with Mayweather. Lesser crimes and lesser accidents. And yes, less traffic!

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RING OF FIRE—It looks like the so-called “RING OF FIRE” is now active and acting up with the on-going upheaval of Mother Nature in Nepal with an earthquake and Chile, with a volcanic eruption. If you look at the global map, an arching swathe of land by the sea which includes the Philippines is called “ring of fire” because these countries sit on top of the earth’s core that convulses from time to time. So let’s expect and prepare ourselves for some ground turbulence at any given time. Nature at its natural way.

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GOLD—There’s an upside to calamity-prone areas in the Ring of Fire. Due to periodic upheavals from the bowels of the earth and the movements of tectonic plates in the earth’s crust, precious metals like gold, silver, etc. are produced and pushed up near the surface of the earth. That’s the reason why our lands are spewing precious minerals formed and aged over millions of years of extreme pressure and friction of the shifting earth’s plates. God indeed has a way of compensating and balancing these phenomena in His Divine plan of things.

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MORE UNEMPLOYED—With the onset of summer and the closing of classes, more young new graduates are joining the growing ranks of the unemployed. The frantic search for jobs is on! Availability of jobs is the most accurate measure of the economic health of the country. This we still have to see for ourselves.

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PRIESTS—I listened to the guest homily of a priest during last Sunday’s mass in Manila on TV whose parish church is in faraway Busuanga Island at the tip of Palawan, facing and near Malaysia. He talked from the heart of how priests do not only pray for others. He stressed that we the faithful must also pray more FOR them, the priests and the religious. Unknown to many, while our priests appear happy and gay, they face more challenges and trials than what we ordinary parishioners have to deal with.

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RISKING LIVES—I was moved by this priest’s story as he related how he had to travel by boat to his parish. His chronic problem: he does not know how to swim. One day, one priest offered to donate to him a life vest just in case the boat capsizes so his life can be saved. When he was asked whether that life vest could help him survive, his answer was:

“That life vest cannot save me.” The friend was surprised and asked why. The priest merely said: “Because I will give it to someone else who cannot also swim.” Amen.