Mix-Mix

I grew up Catholic. I remember my grandmother and aunt taking us to church on Sunday mornings, between the early hours of 7-8 AM!

The primary reason I didn’t whine too much was that pretty often, after mass meant going out to eat. In the most popular eatery in town, Luvis.

We would often have “Halo-Halo.” It’s made from shredded ice with evaporated milk and sugar usually topped with flan (custard) or ice cream… and then under all these are a variety of ingredients — sweetened beans/yams, banana, mango, sticky rice, sago bubbles — whatever floats that restaurant’s boat.

You take a long spoon and start mixing the ingredients together until you get a pretty integrated bite of ice, milk and sugar plus everything. Halo-halo aka mix-mix. Yep, you gotta mix it before you eat it.

This icy sweet concoction was heaven, especially in the summer months, which is pretty much half of the year where I’m from.

Sometimes we also have Pansit Cabagan. A noodle dish and the famous specialty of my small town. It’s saucy. Topped with crispy pork belly, vegetables, quail eggs, etc.

So I dream about the food while I listen to Father’s homily.

My grandmother liked to sit in the front row where we kids have to behave extra hard and pretend extra hard to not look bored. The early masses were often held in our local dialect, Ibanag.

You see, as far as I’m concerned, Ibanag is made for conversation. I use it to talk to family and friends, all casual-like. I don’t even know how to spell half of the words I say. Then suddenly I go to Church and I hear these rather strange, incredibly formal words I have never heard before.

I guess words always felt kinda mystical to me. So while crossing my fingers for that yummy after-mass food, I would focus really hard on the language of the mass. As an anchor. As my own personal puzzle.

Until now, my favorite mass sentence is:

“Yaffu, awang tu kapangak tu metadday nikaw. Ngem ta pakiging lamang ay morru nga ngana.”

Okay, I have no idea if I’m spelling these words correctly.

(Translation: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. But only say the word and I shall be healed.)

I think it’s my favorite simply because it took me a long, long time to understand exactly what was being said. Probably at least half of my elementary years. It became my personal game. Every mass I’ll figure out a little bit more. And then one day, I was able to put everything together! Viola! Eureka!

Up to this day, I find myself just randomly reciting those words. I like to think that it’s my subconscious reminding me of the beauty of personal discovery. The way words mean a little bit more (or a lot more) when it’s you that put the pieces together.

When I moved to the US, known to most of us in the Philippines as a “liberated” country, I was surprised to realize I was surrounded by church-goers.

A Lebanese friend of mine at UNH often invited me to go with her to a Catholic mass near where we lived, at 6 AM every morning! She was hard-core and I went with her flow. So together with my Vietnamese roommate, we would try to join her whenever we woke up early enough to walk the 5 minutes to church.

When she moved back to Lebanon, my other roommate from Nigeria asked me to go to her church. It wasn’t Catholic. It’s called Non-Denominational which is Protestant,
modern and young.

It was my first time going to a mass that sounded like an R & B and Pop concert with a priest (they call Pastor) who had skinny jeans on. His wife and kids sat on the front row looking like they came out of a magazine cover.

This was very strange to someone like me who grew up in a very structured 45 min to 1-hour event. This “new” mass was almost 2 hours with people clapping and dancing and singing and shaking my hand and hugging me happily.

I remember telling my Mom about it and she was so afraid that I had joined a cult. This was kind of funny because someone I met from the “new church” – upon learning I grew up Catholic — said, “Thank God you found us. Now you’re saved. Officially Christian.”

Repelled and attracted, I kept going. Why? Because I was learning. So much. Suddenly, a door opened. Suddenly, everything I knew wasn’t everything.

After church, we would go out to a Chinese buffet or have a nice big heavy Sunday lunch at home — always finding time to eat together.

So I learned. I joined classes and masses and events, whenever and wherever. And I joined lunches and dinners and snack-eatings right after.

Some call this religious, some call it spiritual, some call it crazy, some call it an awakening.

It might be all of it. Looking back now, I simply call it learning. A discovery – my own.

At some point, I stopped going to the new church or the old church. Except for days when it just hits me (rarely) or when a family or friend might be around.

At some point, I found Rumi — a Sufi poet (Sufism is a mystical body of Islam). I bought the Torah. Visited temples and mosques and other religious structures. I studied Buddha. Found out there is a Bahai faith. Learned about Mooji. Yoga. Pilates. Nothingness. Astrology. Numerology. Dualism. Non-dualism. Hinduism. Taoism. Quantum Physics. Science. The religion/non-religion of natives and ancient tribes. Ideas of oneness. Psychedelics. Meditation. Mindfulness. Vipassana. The breath. Etc, etc.

In no particular order. I dabbled. I dived.

Well, okay. I guess you can call me a seeker. If you read my book, it might have started from that early morning walk. Or maybe before that.

I shrug because I don’t really know.

I came from the Christian tradition, which is considered Abrahamic (together with Judaism & Islam) — it’s also widely categorized as Western. And then there’s the Eastern side — Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism. And then there are the ancient traditions — pagan, animism, folk religions — still very much here but rarely recognized.

The more I traveled the more I found how people, all over the world, mostly my age, hated religion. I get it. Completely. These were some of the most meaningful and deep conversations I’ve had on my trips — which are often littered with small talk because people do just come and go.

As for me… it’s weird. I joined a 10-day Vipassana silent retreat last year and somehow it changed some of my thought process. In the last few months, I feel like I’ve made some peace with religions and traditions.

I finally understood, not fully, but enough to say, “Ah, okay….” Why a religious tradition or just any tradition is important and why it might be incredibly necessary to some.

In most of these religions/traditions, you are doomed to eternal damnation if you are not part of it.

And just typing that makes me smile, a little. How many times will I go to heaven and hell, knowing I’ve dipped or taken the plunge a little bit here and there at some point?

Am I saved a little or damned a lot?

There’s a Judy Blume book called, “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret.”

Unlike Margaret, I think I take for granted that this “God” is there. My internal conversation is that he/she/it exists. Like life.

And so when I am mindful enough, while I’m learning, while I’m discovering… I don’t really ask if this “God” exists.

I flip the conversation back to that second recorded question in Genesis — when God was looking for Adam & Eve after they ate the forbidden apple in the garden.

“Where are you?”

I try to say it back. “Okay. I’m here. Where are you? Where are you now?”

And the craziest, scariest, damnedest thing is, wherever and whenever I am… I think… I very, very often get the answer:

“I am right here.”