I got preachy on Friday! Those interested, I made it a daily this week. If curious, log on to www.saipantribune.com, and go to the Opinion page, starting with Monday for Cinco de Mayo. APM The title is not amisprint to denote your ATM, the automatic teller machine that gets theadditional mullah when one scrapes the wallet’s bottom at the bar ‘cause theprice for the lady’s drink is a bit hefty. And you want to down some more brew in disgust for letting the ladyleave with the guy with the necktie! The APM in our titleis the atmospheric particle matter that is in the air naturally but has come toour medical profession’s attention because of the PM10-2.5 sized APMs threaten ourmetabolic functioning. Specifically, APMsget into the bloodstream and lodge to block small arterial and veiny passages,or deliver toxic chemicals. This comes to mind dailyhere in Dong Bei as I look up the skies that is seldom color blue. Gray as the color of my true loves hair iscute in songs but the particle matters in the atmosphere measures perenniallyat the alarming level above the tolerable line leaving the sky alwaysgray. Now, we do not mind this in thesix months of cold weather because it just comes with the territory but onspring and summer days, I expect to get a break. No such luck. Makes me nostalgicover the taken-for-granted-ness of the blue skies in the CNMI as APMs fromexposed dry soil and vehicular carbon monoxide exhausts get blown off to theocean quickly, rendering the view of the horizon, like the vaunted blue flashat sunset from Oleai bar, a venerable Marianas treat. I remember looking outmy window at the Riviera Hotel by NMC at As Terlaje on my first month as anisland resident and was surprised to see a plot of tobacco grown on the slopestowards lake Susupe. That was probablyfrom an Ilocano Pinoy growing his dubla supply. That’s the rolled tobacco leaf that mypaternal grandma in Ilocandia made for herself. She lived to be 95, hardly a poster girl for the Surgeon General’s warningin cigarette packs but then, her tobacco was grown naturally without much ofthe chemicals that pesticides and insecticides used with the new Virginiatobacco then grown to feed the Marlboro man manufacturers in Manila’s environs. I am not pushing fortobacco here. I cold turkey’d in ’84 andlapses since had been sporadic though perhaps, not minimal in its effect. My genetics both in my maternal and paternalsides are good for 95 years. I am onlygoing for 86, both as an estimate of the state of my health, as well as acovenantal choice with Reality. Either way,more or less of the 86, it shall be c’estla vie for j’aime la vie! Some among myacquaintances shudder at the thought that I might be teasing fate anddestiny. Non, mon ami. The choice isactually deeply rooted in my faith, derived from the witness of those whopatterned their existence in the trials and trails of one Jesus of Nazareth whospilled his guts after he marched into Jerusalem. In my appropriation of the tradition, he wasa god-killer. (Are you waiting for a messiahto get you out of your predicament? Gotgood news for you. No one iscoming. Pick up your life and live.) We substituted his image into the idolatrythat surrenders one’s existence to the external machinations of others, sometimesnamed Pastors and Priests in places! Iknow. I was in their number. Since I am anevangelist of the good news I know to the core of my being, here it is. Jesus was a Jew, deeply honoring of theLevant’s YHWH, the mysterious affirmation of just the way life is! No magic here; nor does it require anyhocus-pocus from some ecclesiastical structure that claims proprietaryknowledge of profound secrets. “You wantto know how to really live before the supreme reality,” he said in my hearing, “lookno further. I am it! Reality and I are one.” Then he took the33-years of his existence (broken and spilled-out, like those of the MH370 andMV Sewol passengers, the tornado-flood victims of the US South, streetparliamentarian Thais, Ukrainians, Syrians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Brazilians; meand you), and expended it to the hilt, all of it. In so doing, I make his example “good news”till the end of time. But it is not eternityor absolute certainty that is my business. It is my one moment in time, all 86-years of it, that is the subject ofmy expenditure. Sure, we need to beaware of the APM in our surroundings, as well as the chemical inputs we putinto our systems, but the ultimate question remains, “how will you live the oneexistence that you have?” I follow the answerechoed out of Galilee’s shores. Now, there are manywho know and live by the same story without genuflecting to the icon dubbedJesus. That is fine. In the 21st century, those who attend their Mass and Worship Services, but livetheir lives on the tags of appointed secret keepers of the way life is, aredriving the nail deeper on the outstretched arm of that carpenter in Golgothawhose life is the real messiah, the living Christ! Yes, APMs do threatenthe health of our breath, but it is the health of our soul that is atstake. May you decide to live the onemoment of life that is yours, however you’ve drawn the parameters of its covenant. To paraphrase Nike, Just BE You! Thus, spake theex-Reverend! j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031@aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!