100

 

Having made it to a year of writing 100 articles in my ATABAY blog, I thought of surfing the internet to figure something out of the number 100.

Well, this may catch your eye due to the pandemic. Did you know that a sneeze expulses air and secretions as forceful as a volcano spewing out lava at 100 miles per hour? A good reminder to always wear a face mask in public.

I’m a senior and fond of watching sprint races in track and field competitions. In 1983, Carl Lewis was the first person to run below 10 seconds in the 100-m dash at low altitude in 9.97 seconds. He was 22 years old.

Did you know that, in 1969, another Lewis (named Larry) ran the 100-yard dash in 17.8 seconds?  What’s so special about it? He set a new world record for runners in the 100-years-or-older class. He was 101 years old.

By the way, the current world record is 9.58 seconds set by Jamaica’s Usain Bolt in 2009.

Did you know that as you focus on each word in this sentence, your eyes swing back and forth 100 times a second?

Now that I‘ve drawn your attention (hopefully), let me go on.

Eight articles ago, an FB fellow MSUan, Roy, took me by surprise with his early bird going-a-century-mark congratulation. Turning the spotlight on this ATABAY’s 100th article, I thought a refresher of how my ATABAY got off the ground would be an apt theme for this piece. Interestingly, taking off last August 21, 2021, my ATABAY’s launching date coinciding with Ninoy Aquino Day in commemoration of his assassination was purely coincidental.

Rolling out the maiden comment, an ex-NSC fellow employee, Ed, posted: “God be praised for guiding in your new career Bro. Raymond!” I've felt those were the kind of uplifting words I need in my writing journey.

The following personalized endorsement by my daughter, Jan Kristy, has given me a shot in the arm in pursuing my life’s twilight “last hurrah”:

“My dad finally pursued his passion to be a writer. I am truly honest that I am not a book person but when my dad started to share a piece of his writing on our family group page, I can’t stop reading because it is too inspiring and the content is full of enthusiasm as well. My family encouraged him to write more pieces and finally created his blog for him to share with others.”

Below is my natal ATABAY blog article I am reposting as a refresher to regular readers and an icebreaker to those who run into my blog for the first time.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME

“That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

To write or not to write, that’s the question I’d been dealing with after I got off from over two decades of blood, sweat, and tears in the corporate world. It’s not as existential a question as Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” since I love writing. But, where would I write? The answer: my blog – I am launching today.

Two days ago, brooding over a banner for my blog, I narrowed my short-list to two names. The first name -- I Write, Therefore I Think (smacks of Descarte’s “I think, therefore I am”) -- will give a clue to a reader that what he or she is going to read is a result of a complex process of Thinking. Just as M. Scott Peck, the author of The Road Less Traveled spelled out that “thinking is difficult …complex… laborious… painstaking process,” so too Donald M. Murray in his book Write to Learn, amplified that “writing is the most disciplined form of thinking.”

The second name -- Spiritual Eyeglasses -- will give a reader, at a glance, an inkling of what he or she is going to read: an article with a tint of spirituality. Surely, secular readers will pose a big challenge for me in creating a “catchy” lead sentence or paragraph for each article, to “catch” their attention, provoke them to read more, and hopefully, inspire them to read the whole article ultimately.

Wavering in choosing between the two names, all of a sudden, I recalled an editorial I had written many years ago in a maiden issue of an old little magazine I have kept in my file. This editorial is serendipitous, being a Sunday, today.

             Knock! Knock! Knock!

             Rubbing my eyes, I got off the bed and looked at the clock. It’s 4:45 in the morning. When I opened the door, I found my five-year-old boy standing still and soaked wet. I put him in fresh pajamas and laid him down to sleep.

             I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t shake off Art’s idea about a proposed novel name that would unfurl the banner of our new magazine.

“How about Bidlisiw [Beam]?” Lilius suggested on one occasion.

“I saw a magazine with that name,” Lee mentioned, and added, “Why not Dan-ag [Glimmer]?”

             In a moment, I was thinking about its hyphen as a potential problem.

             I looked at the clock again. It’s 5:00 a.m. sharp. I opened my Cebuano Bible and was lead the way to Juan 4:6 and read:

“Atua didto ang atabay ni Jacob, ug milingkod si Jesus tapad sa atabay sanglit gikapoy man siya sa panaw. Hapit na kadto maudto.”

(Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.)

             Praise the Lord! That’s it! ATABAY! That’s the name! The Jacob’s well. In this well, Jesus said to a Samaritan woman:

“Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up in eternal life.”

             ATABAY. What an inspired name! What a beautiful promise! I phoned Art that morning and told him about my inspired reading. We collected our thoughts on the word ATABAY and pondered on its meaning.

             To rural folks, ATABAY nourishes life. It’s a spot where we come together to draw water for our daily needs. To some, ATABAY refreshes hopes. It’s a refuge, where a mother whispers a prayer or two for the next meal of her seven children; or where a small child throws a mickey-mouse coin in the well and wishes for a new toy. To others, ATABAY measures love. It overflows when we love and serve the Lord. Otherwise, it will run dry.

[My editorial concluded with a promise that ATABAY would quench the spiritual thirst of anyone who reads the magazine. It was its first and last issue; that’s another story.]

After reading the editorial, I uttered the same exclamation: Praise the Lord! That’s it -- ATABAY -- that’s my blog’s name. The suffix ATBP (and many more) I added to the name to mean that, now and then, before I write, I will take off my “spiritual eyeglasses” to see things from a secular point of view.

I look forward to charm, not a “fast reader” who can’t put down a good book, but a “slow reader,” who after reading a line, or a paragraph, or a page, puts down a great book and reflect.

I’m not naïve. In this day and age of hi-tech social media crazes like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, what does an old-fashioned writer, like me, have to compete for viewer/reader attention? The answer is embedded in the lyrics of a Bee Gees’ song:

“It’s only words and words are all I have to take your heart away.”

Dear Reader, I promise you, like my above editorial, my words in my ATABAY blog will nourish your soul, refresh your hopes, and overflow you with love.

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Thank you for reading, and thus taking part in marking this one-year-old ATABAY blog’s 100^th article.

Head still photo courtesy of Romario Roges of pexelsdotcom