Chronicles of Charyl

  What does it take to start a wildfire?   Just one tiny spark, says my Wikipedia research.   If I may just quote it exactly, “Usually forest fires are started by lightening striking barks of a trees or tree, OR bits of rubbish on the ground, like glass, catches the sun’s light and makes a spark , and the trees in the forest fuel the fire”, ( http://wiki.answers.com/ , emphasis mine).   Well, I admit this may not be an intensive research, but I’m sure you get the point, even as that familiar hymn hums along, “it only takes a spark to get a fire burning….” This image played in my mind again and again as I heard ate Rachel Grace Jentapa mentioned “burning passion” as one of her prayer concerns for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) in Central and Eastern Visayas Regional Unit (CEVRU) as the new Regional Director (RD) for this schoolyear.   Along with some other IV grads in Cebu, we officially welcomed her to the region on that solemn evening of Jul...

May kalipay pag-alagad kang Hesus Diha Kaniya dunay kasadya Pagsalig Kaniya ma-uy himaya Kaniya dunay kalipay KORO: Sa pag-alagad Niya way pagbasul Sa tanang lakang sa dalan Bisan kun ang dalan usahay magdag-um Sa dalan ikaw paglipayun Usahay magpa-ibabaw ang landung Ug ang kagul-anan maga-abut Apan ang manluluwas magabayad Kaniya dunay kalipay (KORO) Bisan unsay dangatan may kalipay Uban ang pagkamaminatud-un Sa pagpabilin Niya may kalu-uy Kaniya dunay kalipay (KORO)

Mark 12: 41-44, The Message I think of the “poor widow”’s offering, two measly cents, on the offering box in the synagogue, during the time of Jesus.  The Master commended her.  NO, He acknowledged her.  And her offering was greater “than all the others put together” - simply because she gave her all.  What does the two cents mean for her?  How much was its equivalent during the time of Jesus and to the present time?  Does it even have something to do with the economic value of the offering, in the first place?  It doesn’t seem to sound so based on Jesus’ words, she gave her all .  The two cents meant everything to her – her meal for that day, medication for an illness (for sure, growing old and poor must pose this kind of physical danger), repairs for her home (or maybe it’s rental instead?), school fees for the children, addition for her wardrobe, or makeup perhaps?  Of course, the latter items in this enumeration are my exaggera...

I just read in SunStar headline story about a new-born baby boy dumped in a garbage bin somewhere in Cebu City .   His puny state was flashed on the first page as he laid closed eyes on a hospital bed.   I believe that it’s the motherly instinct of being a woman that drew my compassion for him.   What did he do to deserve such a rejection even before he made his first cry? Reading his story made me imagine of his mom.  What type of woman is she?  What could have caused her to throw him away?  Or, was she even the one who did this in the first place?  More thoughts about the mom battled inside my head, but I chose not to point my finger at her.  I still believe that she has a story yet to tell, though uncertainty is certain as to whether she would have this chance. I also thought of the boy.  What a survivor!  At such a fresh state, he was able to stand the filth, violence and rejection of a garbage drum.  I can’t help bu...

I just watched this devotional video of Laura Story, one of the gifted and anointed Christian songwriters I know.  If the name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps her moving song “Blessings” would. At a moment in my life when my heart is aching for a loss, many times I’ve opened the cupboards of my heart and asked where I have gone wrong.  I saw the guilt of my own sin.  That guilt piled up on the fear and lack of courage to exercise faith on what should have been a beautiful thing.  I turned against myself and implemented my own punishment, that never again will I taste such beauty of love, because I will never deserve it. Then Laura Story shared about that blind man from birth, whom the disciples asked Jesus about: Who sinned which resulted to the man’s blindness, himself or his parents?  The sad part is that the disciples’ question is the humanity’s questions, that in every tragic event, someone should be held responsible.  But Jesus turned their qu...

I had been to Narnia, a place where beasts talk, trees dance, and fantasies are realities.  I had been to a place where what I hope to exist exists, and where I know my heart began to wake. But isn’t Narnia only for dreamers, for people who want to escape reality and settle for the intangible instead?  What is about reality that’s scary so that people would choose to dwell in Narnia instead?  Is Narnia for cowards who fight fiercely but only against the wind?  Or is it for hopefuls who continue to strain their necks for the first ray of hope in the darkness? I had been to Narnia, where angels and frogs mingle with each other as if longtime friends and lovers.  There were wars fought in the ancient Narnia, and they were battles that had always been won.  But Narnia is only a parallel world, a place where, once smashed by the searing heat of reality, evaporates like a mist.  Narnia, like any fantasy, ends.  And I go back to my own planet, ...