Trusting God does not, except in illusory religion, mean that it will ensure that none of the things you are afraid of will ever happen to you. On the contrary, it means that whatever you feel is quite likely to happen, but that with God’s help it will in the end turn out to be nothing to be afraid of.
– Jonathan Aitken
If, on some Friday afternoon, you feel the inexplicable urge to back up all your laptop files (including your precious email data), you would do well to heed that still small voice. Because soon after, say the following Tuesday, you could be walking back to your office from a meeting, with laptop, power cord, and assorted paper in your hands. And, who knows, you just might trip. (That little hump near your door isn’t as harmless as it looks, you know.)
In slow-mo you see your laptop escape your hands, succumb to gravity, and hit the floor. Your mind switches to denial mode and tells you this isn’t happening, you’re just dreaming. But the loud thud–no, BANG!–is more than enough to jolt you (and everyone within earshot) out of any dream or denial. You seriously think a cardiac arrest is not far behind.
Next day, you’re back working on your laptop, as though nothing tragic happened the day before. Until you notice the new paper weight on your desk, which looks uncannily like a hard disk. Then you remember yesterday’s painful credit card swipe at the repair shop. But you don’t forget to be thankful that your laptop, the trusty keeper of your productivity and sanity, does not have amnesia and is recovering quite splendidly from its accident and subsequent transplant surgery.
Now you’re considering belief in premonition.
I was on a commuter bus today, on my way home from meeting my sister at the newly-opened NAIA Terminal 3. Somewhere in Cubao three men wearing MMDA uniforms got on the bus. One of them took the empty seat right in front of me, while the rest walked farther down the aisle to the back of the bus.
This should be interesting, I told myself as I clicked pause on my iPod.
The bus conductor approached to collect fare, but the officer in front of me did not reach for his wallet or dig into his pocket; he simply moved his black jacket to reveal more clearly the MMDA patch on his blue uniform. The conductor was unfazed by the insignia, and then he started ranting and pointing to the sign near the dashboard: “Badge Not Honored.”
The blue-clad public servants, presumably embarrassed, decided to alight at the next stop light, to the music of the passengers’ clucking tongues. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Commuting in Manila is never dull.
