Liuliu

I wanted to title this reflection, “life and death in the erotic embrace,” but that may raise eyebrows so we focus on our reaching double-six in time, or, some way of seeing this as a completion given that when I was growing up, the relative life expectancy of the Filipino male was 56. Liuliu has other meanings in Putonghua (aka Guoyu and Mandarin in Taiwan and HK, and China before 1949); the language spells a word similarly four times but in four tones, thereby, having different meanings.

Folks may be curious why Chinese and Koreans seem enamored with the number “8” in telephone numbers and car tags. Eight is pronounced ba while the word for prosperity fa is phonetically close, thus, a string of “eights” generally means a good number.

Double six is the same. The word liuliudashan also means business savvy, sophistication and smoothness in manners and conduct, particularly in social relationships. Liuliu also refers to movement of water, from the ferocity of rapids to the timeless meandering of river flow downstream. Then there is the movement toward adventure, to leave the security of home as when a young one finally grows up to forsake the comfort of parental nest and strike out on one’s own. This is not just moving out to a dorm in college. Many Pinoys in my time got on an ocean liner or airplane headed halfway around the world to start anew, and for some, never looking back except remit earnings to loved ones.

We hit the double-six on the Gregorian calendar this Monday. We were two days past a score when we boarded an APL from Manila to San Francisco on the Cleveland. My folks were in Northern Luzon at the time, and Papa sent Mama to see me off; had my UP Law student buddy close to the plank as well. I would have joined him in Civil Law and the Philippine Bar Association as I had originally intended but got derailed by the challenge of Canon Law, a study more extensive for it went beyond Constitutional Law and traditions of liberté, egalité, fraternité. We charted instead the various threads from the Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia, Aegean ethics and Roman jurisprudence, European renaissance, Marx and Engels, Nietzche and Hegel, American Exceptionalism and global existentialism, and now, Obama’s practical and legal maneuvers for change.

Downside to some was foregoing the wealth of a politician (my mother’s family traces a long line of politicos and they are not wanting of real estate), or corporation law (buddy and cousins have impressive mahogany paneled offices), rather than the monastic mendicancy we appropriated, which is a source of filial embarrassment and apology.

But this reflection is not about my personal circumstances. It is about the affirmation of birth, which is celebrated on the 66th annual culmination of mine. Culmination is the operative word. The celebration of birth is not separate from the affirmation of its completion. The journey into life is simultaneously the journey into death. “To die, to sleep…” was Will’s poetry. The Torah had a seven-day cycle and now we know that our blood is replenished anew on a 7-day cycle. The Levant gave us the 28-day lunar cycle, and the Egyptians, the 365-day solar year. Human life is one unique unrepeatable journey of existence, and the human psyche had been ingenious in giving it mindful cycles from start to finish. We die as we live, we live as we die!

This may very well be apocryphal but a Jesuit acquaintance narrated it long ago. Pope John XXIII reportedly told of the story of a prominent Pope going to heaven bedecked in his signature purple robe, and upon meeting simple Peter, regaled him of all the deeds and accomplishments he achieved while being the head of the Vatican See.

After the litany of awards and honored distinctions, Peter asked: “Yes, we know you were an active Pope, but were you Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli?” Giovanni XXIII bolted out of bed, realizing that his dream was not about regal Pope Pius XII but about him. His only accountability, and the final one, is whether he was faithful of being the creature that he was created to be, and that meant, the freedom to create and recreate himself, creatio ex nihilo (out of nothing), every step of the way.

“Just be it” is my slogan to paraphrase Nike’s. There is no justification or rationalization for living. Showing up and completing creatureliness is my covenant of finitude. It is the “jazz of my life.” The liturgical phrase is alpha-omega: “to die is to live.” This is not about belief. This is a statement about life in any orientation. For as long as one hangs on to any illusion, or construct of mind, we do not live. We are captive of idolatry. The ecstasy of hallelujah is a choice, and birthdays have a way of reminding us that in our nakedness, we are mysteriously sustained as we hang over the abyss.

So Liuliu is not just about moving, it is most profoundly moving out of the comfort and security of the familiar, of our treasured idolatry. Monday morning, will be the first day of our 67th year, and when the witching hour strikes, we physically bid Saipan, adieu!