A PSN Lenten retreat, Part 3

THE OTHER DAY, a student somewhere in the Philippines asked me about my literary corpus for her schoolwork.

But the online interviewer also wanted to know a little more about me.

I was asked to describe myself in three words.

I replied in this order: smart, compassionate, spiritual.

And yet, at any other time, I think the real order for me is the reverse: spiritual, compassionate, smart.

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I’m really a deeply spiritual person.

And truly compassionate.

But people do not very easily see that.

The first thing that people recognize is my intelligence.

My smarts.

My vast knowledge of things.

Although people only focus on the worldly things that I know.

Never on the philosophical and metaphysical.

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But you see, as a spiritually gifted individual, I have true knowledge, scientia.

Knowledge of God.

Knowledge that allows me to see, as humanly possible, how God sees things.

So I can act with compassion and complete volition.

So I act with justice and confidence.

I act as if I am God.

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I am a free thinker.

I mean, in the sense that I do not stick to dogmas of certain religions.

And I have studied several religions!

I consider myself as a Catholic.

But I fancy myself as a smarter-than-most Catholic.

For example, I do not fast to make myself holy.

I fast so I can give my food to the needy.

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I do not believe in meatless Fridays.

Especially when fish is more expensive than chicken or pork.

Here’s what I know:

God does not want me to deny myself to please God.

Especially if denying myself feels like a punishment.

In truth, God wants me to deny myself pleasure only if the cost of my pleasure is given to the most needy of God’s people.

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The only reason to fast during Lent is so that you can help alleviate the poverty and hunger of your needy neighbors!

Otherwise, there is no merit in your vain fasting.

Or fasting in order to lose weight.

Or selfish fasting to get into that alpha mental state.

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So, yeah! I fast.

Everyday.

I’m the kind of person who will give away my last morsel of food if a child, an elderly, a widow, or a cute young man’s life depended on it.

It’s compassionate.

It’s spiritual.

And it’s knowledge-based faith.

Because being a freethinker does not mean that I do not believe.

Only that I do not believe in senseless dogma and teachings.

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Being a real freethinker means, to me, having the ability to think bigger, wider, higher than most.

And that means, true knowledge, genuine scientia.

Thinking like God.

And acting on such thoughts like God.

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I do not forgive people because I believe that I will also be forgiven if I do.

Hello?

What are my sins that need forgiveness?

I forgive people because carrying the hurts they cause is punishment.

I think that’s also why God forgives us all the time.

For whatever sins we have committed.

Because it is a punishment to carry the hurts caused by ignorant people.

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God is so pretty because God travels lightly.

God walks in beauty.

God does not go around carrying grudges for our sins.

God does not go around nursing God’s wounded ego.

And so I know.

And so I try to act like God.

And so I become like God.

And so I walk in beauty.

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I have a great relationship with God because I know God from my smarts.

But it is not of my own making that I got so smart.

It’s more like a gift.

I know that I’m spiritually gifted.

I also know that I am so particularly gifted so that I could be a light to the world.

But I am not the Messiah.

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Or, maybe I am.

But only a Messiah for those who are also a little smart to begin with.

Some people need the “supposed” humility of Jesus.

I do not have that.

Sorry.

But I also don’t want to be a Jesus copycat.

If you want to imagine me as the Messiah, think of me as the Messiah of the modern millennia.

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But seriously, I don’t need another title.

I am happy to be “the” Peter Solis Nery.

My only wish is that people would also recognize my deep spirituality.

My genuine compassion.

And my great knowledge, my true scientia, that is most Godlike.

I mean, as Godlike as humanly possible.

*

Because I come not to confuse, but to shed light.

Not to be a candle in the dark.

But to be an electric light bulb.

A halogen lamp.

A floodlight for the new millennium. (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)