The change in culture has been as equally rough for her as it has been fascinating . Living in the United States is very different from living in the Philippines. Family and friends are over 8000 miles away and the closest substitute I can give her is the Filipino Channel Network. The food is strangely foreign to her and that is only offset with a constant influx of rice from the local Tom Thumb store. Sometimes the onslaught of English gets to her (after a year of Ilonggo I can empathize). Adding to the differences, a bit of isolation fever sets in from time to time when things become overwhelming to her senses.

For all of the change she has faced, I likewise face some newness. A closet full of female clothing, a now cramped bathroom, and the ever present reminder that I must head straight home after work are all things I haven’t experienced in a long time. These are by no means bad things but change is change [insert 'Who moved my cheese?' quote]. Despite all the upsets, I can easily state that all the change is worth it.

Her simplicity and lack of experience on all things American has given me a renewed vigor for life. It is somewhat impossible for me to explain being a part of her first-time experiences: first time eating grapes, first time watching a 3-D movie, and first-time experiencing fall weather (just to name a very few first-times). It reminds me of that memorable line from the ‘City of Angels’:

Maggie: Well, it tastes like a pear. You don’t know what a pear tastes like?
Seth: I don’t know what a pear tastes like to you.

I know that the culture shock will one day go away. She will no more be surprised from me having her “taste” the Ora-jel or sending her outside [48 degrees F. & sub-zero to a Filipino] to check the weather. The gas station car-wash will never be as awesome as that first time and I imagine on that day, King Kong will no longer be a scary movie to her. All of the good, the bad and the ugly of this country will phase into a shade of gray that roughly means things have become a bit more normal in lieu of her island upbringing and that the disparity of American/Filipino culture has softened. Fortunately for me, that day is not today.

The story of Christ and his love is like no other. It has all the elements that make any love story catch our attention: Passion, commitment, treachery, betrayal, war, forgiveness and more. It is the greatest love story ever known because it is more than just a story, it’s a fact. Sadly I find that most people fail to grasp the scope and span of the bible saga. Their entire understanding of the bible as a love story is limited to John 3:16 and cursory overviews of Solomon’s Song. In some ways this is understandable as much of what happened ‘in the beginning’ is shrouded in small portions of Scripture scattered throughout the testaments. None the less, those pieces are very important to the puzzle and it is a story that is well worth piecing together.

Somewhere in the early eons of time, the Godhead reigned over the hosts of heaven. The planet we know as earth was inhabited by God’s creation and Lucifer, full of wisdom and beauty, reigned in the land (Ez 28:12-14). Men upon the earth were less like men and more like dogs: limited in intelligence and lacking the depths of creativity that we posses; men created in the shape of man but not in the image of God; vessels more for display than use (2 Cor 4:7, 2 Tim 2:20). Archeologists still find their remnants and jump to foolish conclusions of evolution.

The the story continues to be ambiguous but there is scriptural reason to speculate the following events. God, at some point, decided upon a gift for his Son. I imagine there was conversation with Lucifer that mirrored the conversation of Haman with king Ahasuerus:

And the king’s servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and brought him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.
Est 6:5-11

Unlike the story of Haman though, the honor of God the King towards his son Jesus included an even more special gift. That gift was a bride. While those particulars may lack solid clarity, we can rightly infer that the topic of the bride was a catalyst for Lucifer’s fall. Lucifer, having corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness became envious (Pr 27:4) and moved to murder. Scripture makes it plain that Lucifer was a ‘murderer from the beginning’ (Jh 8:44). It should thus become crystal clear why our introduction to the sacred starts with that unforgettable phrase of time, “In the beginning”. Only fairy-tales start with ‘once upon a time’ but I digress.

Lucifer’s attempt to claim the Judgment Seat and the Bride from Christ failed and, in the aftermath, the earth had been destroyed. What once stood as the glory of God was now without form and void (Jer 4:23-26). Darkness was upon the face of the deep.

Despite the attempted coup, The Son would still be honored and by the power of his own hand at that. In the beginning, Jesus Christ created the heavens and the earth (Col 1:16). Everything on the earth was perfect and Eden was the center of that perfection.

It is difficult to presume why Lucifer is still in the picture at this point in history. Perhaps God himself contemplated a lesser punishment of banishment and abasement among the chosen but then, after the incursion with Eve, his fate became more permanently sealed (cf. Est 7:7-8, Lev 20:10).

Prior to the fall, the existence of man & woman was unquestionably in preparation for the wedding that was to come. This is easily inferred from the lifespan of those after the fall. Methuselah lived 969 years, almost a full millennium. What we now understand as the Feast of the Bridegroom (or the Millennial Reign) is the reclamation of that 1000 years except this time around, Satan is bound (Rev 20:2) and the participants are those who have vowed their love.

Without the Tree of Life and without sin, Adam & Eve were still mortal in the Garden. Immortality was to be had only with the Tree of Life. Sin sealed their fate and prevented the acquisition of that eternal life (cf. Gen 3:22). On the surface, Lucifer had scored a victory. He had halted the wedding by turning the bride into a whore.

The love story only grows stronger at this junction. Christ could have easily passed on his bride to be, but instead he chose to reveal his love & his glory by means of redemption. To better understand that redemption, the Law was given as her schoolmaster. Most Christians understand the remainder of the story from there.

Summing up the Bible story is not an easy task but that’s it in a nutshell: A king, a kingdom, an evil servant, a prince, a wedding, a war, and a betrayal followed by forgiveness! Each piece of that story is more than worthy of a few books. Volumes can be and have been written about every aspect (some worth more than others). It is the reason men love action movies where the guy gets the girl and the reason why women are ingrained to love stories that embody an undying romance. It’s not just a saga that defines history, it’s a saga that defines who we are.

I won’t go into the gory details of SOPA here. Suffice it to say that it’s so bad a news analyst from EWeek magazine was quoted as saying, “The language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes that this bill could effectively kill e-commerce or even normal Internet use.” If you want to, you can read the full SOPA proposal here at GovTrak.

As a rule of thumb, I don’t engage in Politics (and I have no intentions of breaking that rule). I merely want point out to those who believe in technology as the savior of mankind that knowledge as a tool is still very much subject to the passions and the pride of those who hold it. Greed, lust & power are not, and never will, evolve themselves away. The internet has made us more informed but it hasn’t made us any better. SOPA is a perfect example of that.

Of all the weeds I have sown
Facing life with a fist
It was me that fateful day
Greeting Jesus with a kiss

I see the hammer
I feel the nails
I feel justified
but you hold the scales
Take up my cross
Lose my filth & pride
Is this what it means
To be crucified…

I have sown seeds in corruption
The workings of the flesh
Felt my knees bending like trees
When God put me to the test

I’ve been broken by spiritual storms
Tossed by this worlds cruel wind
But by his blood I endured the flood
And came fighting back again

I see the hammer
I feel the nails
I feel justified
But you hold the scales
Take up my cross
Lose my filth & pride
Is this what it means
To be crucified…

If you haven’t done so, you might want to read the article (linked above) so you can understand my criticisms. Normally I would just navigate away from such fodder and move on with life but knowing the socioeconomic decline that has taken place in the past few decades, I have to respond. Simply put, it’s crappy perspectives like his that make the country worse by presenting a false view.

My first read of the article left me rather confused as I couldn’t fully determine if Rob Asghar is just ignorantly optimistic about the state of the Union or if he just needed to soul vomit some piece of fluff in order to satisfy the requirements of his editors. Either way the article is bad. It’s horribly bad.

Asghar espouses the unprecedented slant that our condition as a nation is ok because we possess a greater socioeconomic integration than other nations (such as China & India). It’s a position he first founds by accusing naysayers of having a “panicked perspective”. When the ship is sinking, I think panic is a perfectly natural perspective. And let’s have no doubt about it, America bears much resemblance to historical Rome.

Such resemblances escape Asghar’s article though. He does however do quite well at elaborating on the poor conditions in India due to that “Ghandi spirit” before he goes on to say:

Meanwhile, America is the best at being America, because America is the closest thing to a society that unambivalently enjoys being American.

Seriously Rob (can I call you Rob?), did you run that sentence past your 6th grade teacher? How it got past your editor is beyond me. I know the adage: when you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. Maybe there’s a few writing forums you can look to on the internet? Such Zen should be banned from journalistic op-eds. Shame on you CNN.

It gets much worse though. Asghar must have found himself in a fantasy land when he said:

American culture is peculiarly tilted toward valuing disruptive new ideas and welcoming the immigrant who brings such ideas into its society.

Seriously? I had to read that paragraph twice. I was born in this country and I am all too aware of America’s treatment of immigrants. It’s shameful. Volumes have been written about this country’s abuse of immigrants. Saying this country embraces immigrants who bring disruptive new ideas is a blatant historical falsehood. Asghar should just take it a step further and talk about how we valued (and continue to value) the native American Indians.

If there was any glimmer of hope in the article, it was found in the statement:

Americans may block their own path and sabotage their own cultural tilt toward innovative growth if political dysfunction continues.

Unfortunately there is no expounding upon the statement and one is left to guess what “dysfunction” actually means in the context of his writing. If he means anything like bailing out corrupt banks with tax payer money and insider trading by congress then I think he could have used a stronger word. The verbal weakness with which he speaks of American circumstance could have been summed up just by saying, “Ehhh….. other nations are worse”.

America’s socioeconomic problems should not be washed under the rug of ignorance by a comparison to developing countries. We should judge ourselves using honor and integrity (politically & culturally) as the appropriate metrics. On that basis alone, our nation is in decline. Writing Op-eds with a positive outlook won’t make it any better and writing op-eds that are factually incorrect will certainly make it worse. The Myth of America’s decline is no myth and it’ll take better arguments to convince me otherwise.

In the stack of visa papers for Jennifer’s departure, there was a small print form highlighting a very important requirement that was rather under-emphasized. Or should I say it was never emphasized? Better yet, it was never mentioned. The Commission on Filipinos Overseas, or CFO , requires all Filipinos immigrating overseas for work or residency to complete a counseling seminar. The seminar completion is marked by an additive in your passport that is duly noted upon your check-in. Lacking the passport stamp & papers Jennifer needed, we were going nowhere (at least not where we wanted to go anyway).

Jennifer felt horrible for overlooking the paper and I felt cheated by the (what I consider to be worthless) Philippine government obstruction that was preventing me from returning to the States with my wife. Adding to the stress, I was supposed to be back at work following my flight. Never, until that moment, had I ever missed a plane, train, boat, bus or other scheduled form of transportation and the break in my OCD scheduling habits caused me to smoke two cigarettes while I swallowed down the realization that it would be another 2 days before we could even begin working on the problem since Oct 31st & Nov 1st are holidays in the Philippines!

We are blessed to have In-laws in Manila so arranging a place to stay was a simple phone call. Granted, it was a pre-6am phone call but barring what felt like an emotional intrusion, knowing we had a place to stay was one less worry. We could have managed a hotel but doling out another $300 in expenses did NOT give me a warm fuzzy in the pocket-book area of my jeans. Besides, the in-laws are good company and they were perfect immigration trauma counselors.

When the Philippine holidays passed, we headed to the St. Mary Euphrasia Foundation – Center for Overseas Workers (yes, it’s a mouthful to say, aptly called SMEF-COW) and Jennifer took the next available morning seminar. I waited outside with a very frustrated Frenchman who, just like us, experienced the same problem on the same day with his wife. Any paperwork inadequacies that I felt were quickly removed upon meeting the Frenchman, knowing I wasn’t the only one gave great credibility to the fact that the process is very screwed up. While Frenchy and I chatted, we both concluded that it was just another way for the Phil government to make money: ph250 for the seminar and then ph400 for the passport additive!

After the seminar, we headed to the main Delta office in Makati to rebook our flights. Since our original flight was delayed by eight hours (D.E.L.T.A – doesn’t ever leave the airport), we were told there would be no re-booking fee. Frankly speaking, I do not put much faith in customer support claims and I had a lot of tension heading into the business district as I prepared myself to argue vehemently with the poor soul who was required by duty to put up with me. I know how people will say things just to get you out of the line so they can move on to the next angry customer and this fact had me conjuring up a great deal of word exchanges in my head.

To say that I was greatly overjoyed by the fact that Delta honored their word is an understatement. I was elated. I was ecstatic. I was a $325 re-booking fee richer! This truth seemed to make it somewhat acceptable that the flight was delayed by 8 hours (and yes, I’m willfully forgetting the fact that we couldn’t board it anyway). I was happy waiting for my tickets. And waiting … and waiting ….. and waiting. Ok, whatever joys I had gained from the hassle-less re-booking were a bit depleted by my Burger King attitude (you can have it your way) so I have to say that on my Customer Experience scale, Delta pretty much broke even.

All being said and done, we made our flight, made it to America and made it home. I live to tell the tale (another +1 for Delta) and the saga of my life takes another turn in the road, yet this time with Jennifer by my side. A years worth of immigration paperwork is done, the import taxes on my wife are paid and I can freely enjoy my wife’s company (maintenance fees excluded). Thank you to the in-laws for housing us, thank you to the TSA for not groping us and thank you to the Airport Customs officials for actually smiling this time (except for that one guy who yelled at us to change lines). But most of all, thank you to everyone for your prayers and to God for answering them: she finally came to America.

Well, the trip going to the Philippines will be rather ordinary. The return trip however, that will be quite extraordinary. After 10 months of immigration paper work, Jennifer has her visa in hand and I can finally bring her here. Watching her make the journey makes the trip entirely remarkable and one I’m likely to never forget.

She is both nervous and excited. I must also confess that I am likewise nervous and excited for her. It’s a whole new world for her and I both. I know what it’s like to enter the grocery store of a foreign country and be awestruck;I’ll relive it on her first trip to Walmart Target. I can hardly wait for the zoo trip!

Every thing so familiar to me is dark territory to her and it’ll take time for her to adjust. My life style is gaining and, while hers is too, she is also leaving a lot behind. The familiar territory of friends and family is a sacrifice she is making. I can only wonder how long it will be before she gets to partake in an Ilonggo conversation as I recall my numerous trips that didn’t involve any English. Culture shock will hit her very, very soon.

Despite the hurdles to come, I am glad it’s over. I miss her and, frankly speaking, I’m tired of missing her. I’m ready to wake up next to the familiar warmth of her hand and enjoy those morning moments over coffee as we so oft used to do. I’m ready to have someone greet me with kisses after work other than the dog (no offense Sparky) and I’m ready to begin again. All being said and done, I know that can happen now.

My first emergency room visit for those chest pains introduced me to a whole new world. Sonograms, EKG’s, and blood pressure monitors would become very familiar to me. Blood tests would become routine. The crytpo-linguistic speak of doctors that was once foreign began to infest my brain and roll off of my lips like the blabbering of a three year old. By my third or fourth visit I had become a professional patient, knowing all the routines and questions of the doctors before they even stepped into the room.

The first attack I suffered left me bedridden for almost 3 days. After test after test, the physicians diagnosis was that I needed a support group for my “anxiety”. I can’t begin to describe the anger I felt. I had undoubtedly imagined many things in my life but the pain in my chest was no delusion. If they couldn’t find something wrong, they obviously weren’t looking very well.

Four years after that first day, I encountered an educated doctor who recognized the prolapse in my mitral valve. What a relief! I really didn’t need the medication he offered (beta blockers to shrink the heart) but I did need the justification that, after so many unsuccessful hospital visits, I had finally documented that I wasn’t crazy. The horrible pains in my chest were real.

To this day, I refuse to go to the doctor unless I know what I need. The doctor does not treat me, I treat me. I merely go to the doctor for his convenient prescription pad. No more do I live under the false illusions that the doctor is responsible for my healthcare; I am responsible for my healthcare. I have no intention of being anyone’s guinea pig anymore so they can “practice” their profession.

I survived dengue in the Philippines and I also treated myself for Typhoid with nothing more than determination and an internet connection. I have fought fever and flu alike, all the time avoiding the medical clinics except when necessary. I feel quite inclined to ask medical doctors questions on things I don’t understand but I in know way feel that they are in charge: it’s my life at stake, not theirs. This attitude has kept me alive and healthy (both physically and in my wallet).

When I’m sick, I hate being the professional patient. I would love to pine away in my physical misery while the doctor consoles me with a stethoscope and gives me a prescription to make everything better. Unfortunately, healthcare is just not that simple. As long as colleges continue to churn out degrees alongside the existence of MCAT brain-dumps then I’ll have to continue to self-examine, self-medicate and recover on the values of my own personal Hippocratic oath. Sure, maybe I’m bitter at the medical profession, but I’m still very, very much alive.

Incense to a burning house
Tear drops in the sweat
Lanterns in a moonlit sky
Helping me forget
How yesterday made her way
Where tomorrow used to sleep
Jackals I once gazed upon
Now drowning in her deep

And forever she cries silent
To the scars upon my back
As if to burn instead of churn
The fictions from the fact

But still I came from yesterday
Never knowing what I knew
Falling hard as I fell for her
But now I stand for you

Time and distance have not been the only hurdles though. Typhoon Nesat almost threw us a curve-ball. Torrential rains caused delays with her arriving for the 2nd day of her medical exam and she had to pass through several kilometers of flood waters to make it back home. God was gracious: the medical was efficiently processed and she made it home safely (albeit soaking wet, tired, and weak). Others were not so fortunate and 21+ persons were killed in the winds and floods. Well over 70,000 were forced into evacuation centers.

The worst, God willing, is now behind us and the expenses of this endeavor should subside. Fees to the Dept. of Homeland Security, the National Visa Center, Federal Express costs, countless photocopies, and transportation needs have left an unimaginable hole in my wallet. A simple act of marriage has left this American with the indelible impression of having to pay import taxes on his wife. American citizens should have a cheaper more efficient process for their spouses! The irony in that statement is that they have improved the process. I can only thank God that it’s now coming to an end.

Jennifer & I are both naturally nervous about her upcoming interview. We’ve endured over 10 months of waiting & paperwork for the less than 15-minute moment where her visa will be approved. The paperwork is all in order and there shouldn’t be any problems but the nerves are still racked about as the moment approaches. We’ve read all about the interview experiences of others and noticed the sometimes petty reasons that create denials or delays. It adds to the tension. I don’t talk about it as I don’t want Jen stirred up but I’m sure she knows I worry. We do our best to forget the fear and focus on the excitement of her upcoming trip here.

When all is said and done, I look forward to her being here, evoking the tales of her visa journey. It’ll be nice to share the more in depth moments that have been hitherto withheld. There will be much to write about. Until then, I live with the outer view of her coming interview and wait patiently for that day to come.