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<font color="black" size="2" face="arial"><b style="font-size: small;">Epiphany a day for fruitcakes</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">"We three kings of
Orient are" is a familiar line this day, the first day of Epiphany in the
liturgical calendar. It is the discovery
of an intrusion from outside symbolized by the Magi's visit of the infant Jesus,
in Matthew's story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The monk Thomas Merton
expressed his feeling of epiphany when he wrote: </span><span style="font-family: ">"It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human
race … like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. I
have the immense joy of being man (sic), a member of a race in which God
Himself became incarnate…. [We] are all walking around shining like the
sun" in his <i>Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The celebration of Christmastide marks an ending of a
Jesus-turned-Superstar's birthday party and a beginning of a life journey, now
festively exploding in the gastronomic display of crab cakes at the onset of
the carnival in New Orleans, to the great fruitcake toss in Colorado when
royals, jesters, and fools thrust cake projectiles the farthest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Today is a fruitcake celebration in an awakening to the fact that we
engage in the universal practice of deception, revealed in our shared
pleasure/disdain of Snowden's exposure of the NSA's massive eavesdropping on
our private affairs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Intelligence gatherers are wont to say: if you haven't got anything to
hide, you haven't got anything to be afraid of.
The truth, of course, is that everyone has something to hide, or, at
least, something we would prefer not to look directly at, if at all!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Let me start where I am, in China, a land of indirection by design, and
avoidance in practice. As a first
activity in my class, I ask students to fill up a profile form. This invites students to start thinking about
themselves, a subject they do not need to read a book about, but is the subject
of their oral English discourse. Keeping
"face" <i>(mianzi) </i>where good appearance is bestowed and
maintained at all cost and by all means is universally observed. To encourage
students to speak about real things rather than fiction, "Face<i> </i>stays
outside the door" is my class admonition.
Giving up <i>mianzi </i>is like pulling teeth but it is one of the
lessons students learn by the end of the semester.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">But we are ahead of our story.
After a student writes name, date and place of birth in the form, it
asks what their parents do, then ventures into what they like, think, and do;
also, what they plan to be in the future.
Invariably, a student is brave enough to say: "This information is
secret." Personal accounts in China
are private, with mist in haze rather than clarity applied in pompous talk
laced with metaphors and abstractions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Movie director Zhang Yimou made a point by indirection in his movie <i>Hero
</i>with Jet Li, an assassin tasked to eliminate the Qin Emperor only to
realize that the Huangdi was capable of uniting the Warring States. The assassin gave up his mission. Hero in the
movie title refers to the unpopular emperor rather than the well-liked
assassin. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Hero </span></i><span style="font-family:">came out after
Mao died and some officials suggested that, perhaps, it was time to pull the
helmsman down from his pedestal. Yimou's
response, though metaphorically delivered, was clear: say what you will about
the Chairman but he united China. The
same point was officially made, though in low tones, during Mao's 120th birth
anniversary this Dec. 26.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Now, what has this got to do with Snowden, the NSA, and the wiretaps on
our phones?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The reason we do not wish to be "found out" is that we are
all guilty of deception. We do not like
who we really are! Cosmetics recommend
makeovers so we won't look the way we naturally do. Advertising convinces us that we are not
whole unless we purchase a good or a commodity.
If we don't, we are made to feel less, so we work harder, leaving us
anxious and tired most of the time.
Then, we buy imitation brands on the cheap, and wear them knowing that
we are unable to pay for the real thing.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Many foreign workers in Saipan go home to pretend who they are
not! That's not a critique. It is an acknowledgement that we all play the
game of pretend! I wore a pair of
loafers in Honolulu once and my sister was impressed that I could afford a pair
of CD shoes. It was not, however, a
Christian Dior but a Chrisdien Deny, with the word <i>monsieur </i>under the
label. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Society follows escape mechanisms so that we do not face the truth that
"life is never the way we want it."
The real point of liturgical confession is to acknowledge that we really
do not wish to live the life we have.
Original sin sees the truth of nakedness as shameful, it would rather
dress it up or deny it. In our evolution
to be human, we have discovered a highly tuned ability to deceive, and to stay
that way with ease and comfort.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">"Fruitcake" is a pejorative term we use of the unpredictably
wild and wooly way beyond extremes. I do
not condone nor justify NSA's snooping, but I understand why we react
vehemently over the violation of our privacy.
I am glad there are fruitcakes that mirror the truth! Snowden is a fruitcake. May there be more like him, today and
evermore!</span><span style="font-family:"></span></div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both">Jaime Vergara<br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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