For His steadfast love endures forever

Driving milestones

Driving at 110 km/hr, I opened my window shades to the intermittent whoosh of vehicles of early morning risers speeding by: my people. Sun was just rising as I passed by Tupi-Polomolok border. Fresh, crisp, hopeful air circulated in the car. Tim Keller's preaching played in the background—The Sermon on the Mount. From my view, I could see Mount Matutum. In less than an hour I was in General Santos City. My record time. An empty parking lot greeted me—an early Sunday reward. My patient said, "I feel better just seeing you." I said, "No, it is I who feel better seeing you getting better." I drive back home, in time for the Sunday worship service. To a person beginning driving in the real world, every distance traveled is an occasion for thanksgiving. 

Even in driving, I am a morning person. 

(Photo of Marbel-Gensan Highway taken last year, not today, because I was preoccupied. And I did not drive the vehicle shown.)

Bedtime reading

 John Updike's The Bulgarian Poetess:

He spoke to her very clearly, across the fruit, fearful of abusing and breaking the fragile bridge of her English. "You are a poetess. When I was young, I also wrote poems."

She was silent so long he thought she would never answer; but then she smiled and pronounced, "You are not old now."

On Vinta Dugong Bughaw

At 3:30 am

Morning cleaning.

Night driving in Marbel

I grappled in the dark, until I found the light switch, hidden to the left of the steering wheel. To my right, Hannah, Sean's girlfriend, my designated teacher; Sean and Alyza, a second cousin, were in the backseat--all spectators and participants on my first experience of Driving at Night. Car stereo played my Spotify playlist, a collection of Christian hymns (Getty, Sovereign Grace, but not Hillsong), Broadway musicals, and some pop songs I could tolerate. I drove, steadily, slowly, making sense of tail lights, signal lights, fog lights, hidden canals by the narrow roads, breaks in cement, dim motorycles that seeped through little spaces between lanes and vehicles. As we edged out of the city center, the highway became progressively darker, the lamp post getting farther in between. I turned to my right, circled the Regional Office Complex, and drove back home. Nanay asked Sean how my driving was. "Puwede na. Hindi na kita mahuy-an (Not bad; we won't be embarrassed)," he said, the highest compliment.