Raising the Bar

Good Friday or Easter Sunday? It would feel like one or the other for the 5,903 bar candidates later, once the list of passers is released.

Since I now work for the Supreme Court, I have the honor and the privilege of returning the favor of checking the names of my friends from the list. Kind souls did it for me 10 years ago. I did not have the courage to go to the SC until I knew for sure that my name was on the list. So somebody else had to check the list for me.

I have friends from the office, Lingkod, my alma mater U.P., and the school where I teach, Lyceum of the Philippines University College of Law, who took the bar examinations last September 2009. I am excited for them. I think I will cry if some of them do not make it.

My own bar saga is in this blog here, here, here, and here.

I lift my hands and pray for those who are waiting. I know the feeling. God bless.

For the Good Girls (and Boys) Out There

I recently came across a few book titles that had bothered me. One was entitled "Why Men Marry Bitches." Another one was "Good Girls Finish Last."

If the titles reflected the books' contents, then something inside me begged to disagree with the respective authors.

This topic would require a longer discussion on what I meant by "good girls", including whether I believed they were always the opposite of "bitches" (pardon the language), and why I was bothered enough and could not disagree more with the implications of the world's logic as summarized in said books and similar publications.

As a person who had tried to do the right thing all my life yet still failed miserably after having to confront my own palpable weakness (read: sinfulness), I wanted to prove the opposite - that "good girls" in effect actually finished "first". The problem was that it seemed, based on the world's standards, that here on earth, the good girls always turned out to be the losers.

Then yesterday, I came across this word from the Lord: "But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:19b)

I heaved a sigh of relief. I was reminded of my conversation with a good friend a few months back, when I brought up this matter with her. She said that I should write a book entitled "Good Girls Finish in God's Time."

Ah, but I do no the time yet. I also need to research on and compile stories of real-life "good girls" (to be defined in full in the yet-to-be-written-book) who saw the fruits of their labors, and experienced how it was to choose God's way and to emerge victorious. These were concepts that were drilled in us in Lingkod, but my friend and I agreed that they had to be re-stated in more practical terms so that the doubt would be resolved in favor of obedience to God's will, over the pull of competing desires and wants.

For God's ways are not my ways. I know that. But do I always believe that? Have I actually experienced it? Am I willing to put my full faith in Him, despite my apparent successive failures and massive losses in the eyes of the world (and sometimes my own)?

The answer is not always yes. The book, once written, could be a powerful reminder of what it means to belong to God and to entrust my life to Him.

For I have not always been good.