The next big wave

There is no conceit greater than when we project the pettier aspects of our nature onto the image of those we profess to worship. I don’t know who (or what) your deity is, but I’m betting your belief has something to do with trusting that He/She/It is nothing like you: human, with all the finities that that entails. That’s why we label terrorists Islamic religious extremists who blow themselves up. What do they really know of Allah’s will, right?

This much I can say: at least they are willing to do their share. Christians, on the other hand, only look forward to be spared. The one aspect about salvation that the Franciscan nuns drummed into me is that I can not earn it by just being good. “Only through Christ can you enter heaven!” boomed Sister Helen. Perhaps that’s why she never bothered to be nice. God forbid she should have been born in less enlightened times.

There it is: God forbid. Lord have mercy. Mama Mary pray for us. Doom is in our future, divine intervention our only hope for deliverance. And we bother with elections! Maybe we should just tie political aspirants to steel pylons during a lightning storm and see who gets spared — I’m confident Miriam Santiago would be warm to the idea, and only because she thinks herself 100% righteous (if she gets zapped first, she’ll be deluded enough to take that as God working His mysterious ways).

But what am I going on about? As I write, it is a nice day out. Perfect, you could say, given we have had nothing but shitty weather since Halloween. Instead, all I hear people talking about is the impending catastrophe that will decimate our little coastal enclave. Forget about that trip to the beach, said cataclysm being touted as a tsunami, prophesied to strike tomorrow, Friday the 13th (dramatically enough), but why chance it now? Forget, too, about contacting the PHIVOLCS — their machines have yet to detect any significant underwater seismic activity between Bohol and our island that could plausibly precipitate a massive wall of water coming our way.

Ridiculous, right? “Who in his proper mind buys this nonsense?” I ask Eva’s cousin Jelyn, who keeps an ear to the local AM station. From what she tells me, I gather this is some sort of divine retribution. “For what?” I demand to know. “Drugs? Sleaze? Corrupt politicians? Cheesy soap opera remakes? Then why isn’t Manila under the waves already?”

Yes, I happen to think this is funny — funnier still if it weren’t so damned pathetic. See, the altar at the local cathedral underwent a renovation a few months back. Now some people are up in arms over the fact that the old image of the patroness, Our Lady of Assumption, has been concealed by a wall of curtains, effectively replaced by another statue (still of the Blessed Virgin, of course, but that’s beside the point, they insist). Why change what didn’t need fixing? And what’s with the gaudy drapery?

A tempest in a teapot, you could say. Ah, I imagine the BVM saying. These people, so perturbed on my graven behalf when too many women in the real world endure abuse and disrespect everyday. Must they think me so petty?

Spiteful, too. She is reportedly so incensed by the incident as to visit upon us on the morrow a deluge of Old Testament proportions — or at least just below where her statue stands on a hill overlooking our doomed city. It’s all very specific, apparently communicated to someone via a dream. Then the story got picked up on social media and that was all the fuel it needed. “What do we do?” asks our panicked help. “I hear people are fleeing to the mountains!”

“O ye of little faith,” I say to her. “Only through Jesus can thou be saved. In the meantime, get thee up to the fourth floor.”