Rewind

Dan for Now
I purposely dropped by our local bookstore 5 days ago to get my nephew something on his 5th birthday. His gift--a book- is all I'd get, or so I thought. I ended up buying 2 more books for my own consumption, 1 is all about babies and the other one is a best seller (as the cover claimed) by Dan Brown.
Come to think of it, I would have thought twice of buying a nice pair of jeans or shoes or a cute blouse, but with the books- I didn't even bat an eyelash when I paid a considerable price for those 2 books ( Hon, don't get mad if I got carried away with the budget..hehe). Because books are my weakness. And I haven't had a new book for ages now.
I was done reading the two books in barely 2 days and this is a feat considering a very tight sked at home with my son, Matt...The 1st night I slept until the wee hours in the morning just to get the chapters going. The Da Vinci Code. And the Da Vinci Code left me wondering. (Not with my faith though.)
I felt disturbed with some details described in the book. Stirred may be an understatement and shaken, an overstatement- I really couldn't tell exactly as I cannot measure the extent to which I'm stirred or shaken. But to say the least, it has activated a button that made me think. The windmills in my mind is working overtime to get in terms with the bits and pieces of information. For one, I admired the author for coming up with such an interesting topic to write about. And I'm even amazed at the ingenuity of bringing in history in most conversations (in the book). All throughout, I felt like reading a novel but with details coming from my history book. For a moment there, I wished Dan would come up with novel-like textbooks. I'm sure every history student -even teachers- would appreciate it. It would really be interesting to take note of the retention of learning from students. It would have been a lot of fun reading my geography book in high school if written the Da-Vinci-Code way.
For me, it is surprisingly feminist in views especially since it is written by a male scribe. I wouldn't like to emphasize on the details because the book has said a lot and I would like to leave it at that. Although it's clearly biased, it has inspired me - I wouldn't like to use the word empowered for now. Because the role of a woman- especially to the conservative Filipinos- has been secondary to the man, being appreciated for just being a woman - of being a mother, wife, daughter, sister or girlfriend-- is refreshing and oh so, flattering. Other sensitive issues about religion, history, feminism, arts-- to name a few-- are presented. But I wouldn't comment on these things because somethings are not conclusive. (But you may read the book and we'll see).
But this I wanted to say with regards to the issue of Jesus' divinity : It made me think of the many possibilities in our lives, in our history. It raised plenty of what-ifs , which I have no answer for now (or maybe not ever). But faith -for me-includes the conviction of the existence even of the unseen. And with or without the answers, I only have the conviction deep within: that no matter what, I believe there's someone greater than all of us; someone who designed how our body works, how the planets rotate, how the plants, animals and human co-exist on Earth, etc. Most importantly, I believe there's someone who directs the play called LIFE.