[Oe List ...] Fwd: Nov. 7 from Jaime

[wangzhimu2031 at aol.com]

An autobiographicalfaith-journey
 
The romantic in us inclines to picture Federico Agnir, a pastorand educator, stage artist and cancer survivor, sharpening his quill as he penshis bio epic.  Though we do not hesitateto line him up with Lolo Pepe pouring out his poetic mind on his Mi Ultima Adios, suspicion nags us that hiswriting environment was a bit less confining and more mundane.   Still, we image him as solemnly reaching forhis trusted old Mont Blanc, or his wife's Cloisonné pen on the dresser, as he burieshis head under a Florida study lamp.
 
Our imagination often gets ahead of us, and in this case,after finding out that Ed mastered the keyboard of the Underwood at an earlyage in his narrative, we settled down to the picture of a hacker on a desktop orlaptop recalling his memoirs as he fingers the keys.  So we leaned back to let his story unravel ratherthan impose our imaginings ahead of his chronicle.
 
Winston Churchill once commented that all of history isautobiographical, and he had a point.  Conceptualanalysis after wading through statistical probabilities is still dependent onwhether readers find accounts to be genuine. Authenticity of factoids precedes the efficacy of image.  Artifice gets on the way of clarity.
 
Ed Agnir's account of his life is nothing but a bundle ofrecognizable reality to this reader.   Wecoasted leisurely down memory lane.
 
We waded through an easy read across geographical territoryfamiliar to us, of political and cultural empathies we shared, and on intellectualterrain peopled by personages who sat at one time or another in our respective meditativecouncils.
 
Our common geography are places in Northern LuzonPhilippines through Laoag and its provincial High School, to the nation'scapital Manila/QC and UP, to Silliman University by the sea in Dumaguete, aProtestant institution that academically compares with the rigors of RC Jesuittraining, to the UP university chapel in Diliman, and to the wild frontiers ofDavao City in Mindanao of the 60s.
 
I recognized from the Ines-Agnir household's drive forexcellence, a post-WWII Filipino value that saw a way out of feudal elitism ineducation, to a venue of meritorious achievement.  As a fellow political activist, we too werenot happy with the direction taken by one named Ferdinand Marcos.  
 
Ed's recognition of premonitions and intuitive knowledge,e.g., the fate of his Uncle, the death of his father, a shaking drawer with aletter needing to be sent, are right down the alley of acceptable culturalmetaphors of our generation and those who preceded us.
 
Both Ed and I are ordained clerics, he of the Congregationalbranch of the United Church of Christ, and I in the Protestant branch of theUnited Methodist Church.  We both had onefoot in our respective religious communities, and the other, on the secularworld we inhabited; he as a consummate learner-educator-artist in thePhilippines and the United States, and I as a geographically delimited communitydevelopment worker among the marginalized. We conversed with the likes of the volatile Voltaire, the irreverentBrit Bertrand Russell, and the process thinker Alfred North Whitehead.
 
As students dabbling in the arcane study of theology, wekept company with the demythologizing program of Rudolf Bultmann that promoteda non-idolatrous relationship with sacred writ (a widespread disease), theacceptance as grace of the transcendent-immanent Ground of Being as sine qua non to existence in PaulTillich, of transparent but contextual responsibility in obedience and freedomin martyred Dietrich Bonheoffer, and the ethical realism of the Niebuhrbrothers.  
 
Ed practiced pastoral counseling, exercising the patientdiscipline and art of reconciliation. Though differing in methodologies, we both shifted paradigms in ourrespective audiences.  His sensitivity sans moralism is revealed in his treatmentof a botched exposure to same sex expression of affection, his handling of abully, and the divisive GLBT crowd needing to be mainstreamed in his religious congregationin the US northeast.
 
Ed wrote his witness not as a treatise to the wonder andmajesty of his God, or the sanctity of his calling; rather, he relates ajourney simply taken replete in precious texture and human quality, and fun inthe telling.  The faith in a calling thatbegan as a maternal vow during a difficult birth delivery actively became theauthors very own.  His message to me is simple: life as it is given is trustworthy,unconditionally.  Live it.  Transformation occurs even at the personallevel.  Be the change you can be.  Freedom is a birthright; it is yours.  Exercise it to the hilt.  Church-ing is joining others to demonstratewith one's life the truth of the message.
 
The tone at the end of the narrative is invitatory, an altarcall after an impassioned sermon on a warm summer vesper service.  It is as if he is saying, "this is mystory, what's yours? So I've told you, now, go do likewise!"
 
I enjoin readers to read the book.  I hope those who read it respond by writingtheir own as well.  The book is titled When God Calls, a Faith-JourneyAutobiography, by Rev. Dr. Federico I. Agnir. It is available from Amazon.com, or directly, email Ed at agnir at juno.comfor details on how to get a copy.


Jaime Vergara
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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