MattAndJojang's Blog

Matt’s Mom

Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

~ Anonymous

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Photo : Jeff Turner / Flickr

George Prochnik would like the world to put a sock in it. He makes his case in a new book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise (Doubleday, $26). Here he explains himself (using his indoor voice):

Jackhammers. Leaf blowers. Car alarms. The aggravating, tinny sound coming out of iPod earphones. We’ve become so accustomed to noise, there’s almost an ingrained prejudice against the idea that silence might be beneficial. If you tell someone to be quiet, you sound like an old man. But it’s never been more essential to find sustainable quiet. Silence focuses us, brings us closer to the people around us, improves our health, and is a key to lasting peace and contentment.

We need to excite people about the sounds you start to hear if you merely quiet things down a little. During a Japanese tea ceremony, the smallest sounds become a kind of artistry — the clacking spoons on a bowl, the edges of a kimono brushing against the floor. In ancient times, even those who entered a Zen garden without being in a silent frame of mind — samurai warriors, even — were seduced into silence.

We have different samurai today: televisions blaring at high volume, restaurants assaulting our ears with deafening music. It’s okay to socialize with friends in a way that doesn’t revolve around noise. At work and at home, we need to find places that are escapes from the world of sound. That’s not as difficult as you might think. It may involve good earplugs (I favor blue Hearos from the Xtreme Protection Series), though you want it to be more encompassing. Find a fountain or a place where water flows. Falling water not only masks noise; it has acoustic properties that are psychologically beneficial.

In deaf communities, attentiveness is heightened in almost every aspect of life. If two deaf people are walking together, using sign language, they constantly watch out for each other and protect each other by holding the other in their gaze. They are connected yet also keenly aware of their surroundings. Even deaf teenagers! We in the hearing world can learn from them. If we remove the overwhelming blasts of noise, we become aware of an extraordinarily rich world around us — of little rustling sounds and the patter of footsteps, of bird songs and ice cracking. It’s astonishing how beautiful things sound when you can really listen.

~ Interview by David Hochman, Reader’s Digest May 2010 edition

Paul Aguas, Matt's Dad, bowing before Mother Teresa of Calcutta while she holds his hands.

“… but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had.”  ~ Luke 21:4

Paul Aguas was a man who loved God.

When he was young, he was a man of the world. He married young and had a family. He earned his first million at the age of 23. He was successful in his endeavors and enjoyed life to the hilt.

In 1972, he was invited to attend a prayer meeting. Along with his family, the Lord touched them and changed their life forever. Since then, Paul Aguas and his family, chose to live an austere life similar to that of  St. Francis of Assisi. He gave up his material wealth, and spent the rest of his life preaching and teaching the Word of God.

Last 1993, Paul Aguas passed away.

But unto this day, the lives he has changed, the  lives he has enriched, the people he has touched continue to tell us that he was a man who gave up everything for the sake of the Kingdom of God. He lived a life well lived.

Just like the widow in the gospel… who gave everything she had as an offering to God.

~ Jojang

Note: Paul Aguas is Matt’s Dad. Already a successful businessman in his early 20s, he found that being successful and having all the material things wasn’t enough to make him happy. In his early 30s, he had a conversion experience while attending a prayer meeting. He then decided to give up his material wealth and live a simple life. He spent his life as a lay missionary sharing the Good News not only in our country but also in other countries up to his untimely death, at the age of 53, last December 1993. Today is his birthday. 

Photo: Susan Kulungian/Flickr

“Home is where the heart is.” ~Pliny the Elder

Dear Mama,

My heart has found its home in you.

You’ve made me very happy,

And I don’t want to be in any place

Except with you.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love,

Papa

Matt And Jojang

Dear Family and Friends,

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow…”

~ Melody Beattie

The cool breeze and the slight smell of pine brushes through my face as I contemplate with gratitude the year that is soon to end and welcome with open arms the new year that is to come.

To begin with, this is the first time in nine years – since we got married – that Matthew was never rushed nor brought to the hospital. Sure, there were times when we almost did, but because he has already gotten stronger, we weathered the storm.

The past months, God is providing for us through a project in Baguio that I am currently involved in. It is also the first time in nine years that I regularly report for work in an office.

Matthew has always been tech-y. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg communicating with relatives and friends through Facebook has made the world smaller for us. So don’t be surprised if you will notice that he has just posted a comment at your status and/or “like” it

This year end review will not be complete without mentioning this blog. We never expected it to have 100,000+ hits and 20 regular followers who have subscribed. It is a source of joy for us to know that we are reaching out to so many people.

All in all, I guess I can say it has been a halcyon year of sorts for Matthew and I. We can only thank God for making it so.

We look forward to the year ahead knowing that God is with us every step of the way.

May the good Lord bless you, our readers. May He make His face shine upon you and give you peace.

~Jojang

Photo: invalid-subject/Fickr

I dedicate this poem to my wife, Jojang. Today we  are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary. Thank you, Irene, for sharing this beautiful poem…

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

~ e e cummings

Today, June 14, 2011 is Matthew’s birthday… and this is a surprise post for him!

Photo: Daylily18/Flickr

Change. Had more than your share?  Wishing you could freeze-frame the video of your world?  Would it help to stand in Saint Peter’s Square and tell the fellow on the balcony, “Stop! No more change!”?

Save your breath. He can’t help. If you’re looking for a place with no change, try a soda machine. With life comes change.

With change comes fear, insecurity, sorrow, stress. So what do you do? Hibernate? Take no risks for fear of failing? Give no love for fear of losing? Some opt to. They hold back.

A better idea is to look up. Set your bearings on the one and only North Star in the universe – God.  For though life changes, he never does.

~ Max Lucado from the book It’s Not About Me

Photo: Bodie Bailey/Flickr

Tyler Kellogg calls himself a chronic do-gooder, and what he did last summer is proof. After scraping together $2,000 and retrofitting his car with a sleeping space, the 21-year old college student hit the road. His goal: to bestow random acts of kindness on 100 strangers.

He drove 1,600 miles, from his parents’ house in Adams Center, New York, to the Florida Keys, then back again.

“The first person I helped was a guy installing a boat lift on a lake in Oneida, New York,” Kellogg recalls.

“I was shaking when I asked if he needed a hand.”

What if he thought Kellogg was crazy?

“When he said, ‘Can you help me get this lift into the water?’ I knew everything was going to be fine.”

He helped a cop fix a downed barricade in Washington, D.C., and spread countless cubic yards of mulch in Maryland and North Carolina. And somewhere outside Atlanta, he met a man who was crying because his wife had recently died and he had no one to talk to.

“For three hours we sat on his porch,” Kellogg says.

“When I left, he said, ‘Thank you. I realize now that my life will go on.’”

In 55 days, Kellogg assisted 115 strangers and made an exhilarating realization:

“You don’t have to be a billionaire to be a philanthropist,” he says.

“You just have to ask people, ‘How can I help?’”

~ from the Reader’s Digest June/July 2010 issue

“For which of these are you trying to stone me?”

~ John 10: 3

Do you ever feel like you have to live with other people’s expectations? I do and it can really be stressful.  I remember after coming from mass the woman beside me whispered to me,

“You know these people are wrong (pointing to those praying in the Blessed Sacrament) I saw some of them. They don’t know how to make the sign of the cross…” and then she gives me this whole lecture as to how it should be done with matching actions.  I kept quiet the whole time she was talking. Just nodding my head, to be polite. But in my mind, I felt that she was wrong, and not those people she was referring to. Why judge? God sees the heart…

Jesus experienced the same judgmental attitude. He was performing good works – healing the sick, casting out demons, teaching people to forgive, etc. But people were not grateful for what He did. Instead, they stoned Him for these good deeds. Because they said, he was making himself God, and yet He was just man.

It’s easy to see the mistakes of others. But how hard to see that we are human enough to commit mistakes as well.

When we are not ruled by our expectations of others, we become more accepting of other’s weaknesses. And perhaps, life will be better because we live our lives out of the box.

~ Jojang