<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">Lego. Let it go.</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">I come to the end of
my visits to the families of my eldest daughters, the first, lives in the
outskirt of Chicago, and the second, in Concord by the East Bay Area of San
Francisco. I have four grandsons (two
from each family) and Liam in Chicago at 4 is neurologically challenged. He has difficulty with time, doing things
immediately in the “now” and impatient to wait out the long-term, has a
contrarian bent, and tends to show repetitive behavior. The last category classifies him under ASD, the
Autism Spectrum Disorder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Liam’s older brother
Sullivan who is 6 is a wonder in speech and comprehension, way ahead of his age
group and grade level (he enters first grade this semester at third grade
reading level). He is also a Lego
builder. The MacDonald’s allure may work
a while but there is no way he can be distracted from a visit to any local Lego
world familiar or known to him. He
cruises the Internet for their locations.
Happily, the public library of Palatine, Illinois where he lives has a
Lego world in its children’s section.
His parents also remind him to tidy the plastic bits and pieces he
inadvertently leaves behind on their living room floor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Sullivan has the
“World of Lego movie 2014”, the first in a series of three, the second for
release in 2017, and the third, in 2020.
Lego Group, the Denmark Company that manufactures the construction toys
holds the flagship product, Lego (from the Danish </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;vertical-align:baseline">phrase <i>leg
godt</i>, which means "play well")</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline">, of colorful interlocking plastic bricks as gears, minifigures, etc. The movie relates the world of an ordinary
worker who falls into the center abyss of his universe and chosen to play “special”
one who wears the “piece de resistance” (a rehash of the old messianic role).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Fast forward, the
movie’s theme: creativity and innovation, does not come from just following the
instruction manual like many Lego players do, nor is the permanence of the <i>krazy glue </i>an option. Lego is about construction and deconstruction,
like life itself, where beauty and passion is found in the process more than in
the product. A glued product, good for
show casing, is dead rather than alive. “We
are not in the business of making a living,” my father used to say. “We are in the business of living a life.” I added, the finitude of the same is shrouded
with the awe of mystery!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Liam had a DVD of the
new cartoon movie “Frozen”. I did not
get to see it while in Chicago but my two grandsons in the Bay Area of San
Francisco, Dillon at 8 and Sean at 6, had a copy that they could not wait for
me to watch. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Frozen</i><span style="vertical-align: baseline"> is about two sisters, orphaned princesses of a king and a queen who
die in an accident. The eldest sister has
powers to freeze anything but she almost kills her sister at play. The parents decide to keep her skill a
secret, fearful that their subjects would find out about it, so they separate
the sisters from playing together again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">When the eldest come
of age to assume the kingdom’s throne vacated by their parents, she has to wear
gloves so as not to reveal her powers.
Fast forward to the end of the story over the numerous subplots. Life is not about hiding secrets to maintain
a façade; it is about living the real, the authentic, and the true. The elder sister finally decides to let go of
her fears and build herself an ice castle up in the mountain. She also had to unfreeze her lowland kingdom
from the icy cold she unleashes earlier.
The movie at the end burst into a song about “letting go,” a practical
enough advice to everyone who allows fear to dictate the cadence of their lives
rather than just be the authentic but wondrously compassionate and powerful
selves they already are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The tradition that
influenced my upbringing, particularly the European meta-brain of my schooling,
conditioned me to think that the way to save someone is to liberate one from
the grip of something imaginary and unreal, usually a dragon, an imaginary
animal. In the Levant, the mirage is a
constant illusion, an internally experienced object attractive and enticing but
not real. In the old Persia, they
decided that reality consisted of two real opposing forces – the good and the
bad - constantly battling for dominion to extend their influence. A group of nomads in the Levant decided that
reality is one, the only reality, a message now echoed from muezzins on the
minaret of many a mosque five times a day.
The might and power of the real to Isaiah even uses earthly sovereigns
to discipline its people, the chosen ones, to make clear in their social life,
the truth of that reality, lest they forgot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Some forgot and a
barefoot carpenter from Nazareth not only reminded them of this chosenness, but
also showed everyone that the chosenness is a personal choice, with one’s name
indelibly marked and stamped on the messianic role to set other folks free,
even unto death. The power and might was
for the taking of anyone willing to take on the role, later self-consciously
known as the <i>ekklesia </i>(the household
of the real), to be innovative, creative and free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Lego. </span><i>Leg godt</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;vertical-align:baseline">. </span><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> Let it go.
Let the authentic practice of living ring true in life.</span></div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><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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