A quest in the morning

This morning I had to wake up early because our entire school is required to watch the opening games of the varsity volleyball and basketball teams of several schools in Metro Manila. Actually, for my batch, we’re required to watch at least five games by my PE teacher who happens to be the volleyball team coach. Five games! What am I gonna do for five games? I hate sports and I can’t decide which is worse: playing it, or watching it. Playing sports gets me all sweaty and watching it bores me to tears, unless a really hot guy with a really hot body is playing. Unfortunately for me, there are no hot guys in my school unless you count in the butches in the varsity basketball team (puh-lease). So begrudgingly, I woke up at that unholy hour of the morning and dragged my ass into the shower.

The plan was to meet Angelica and Dona at St. Benedict College, get our PE teacher’s signature as proof that we were there and then go to the New Life Christian Center where Angelica attends service. Actually, the reason why I went to her church was because I was supposed to strategize a way for her to talk to her crush of three years, Ryan. I was also curious about the way their service goes because Angelica told me they really dance and sing the songs and stuff. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to think of a way for her to talk to Ryan. But my experience in her church was an interesting one. The church was right next to St. Bene but to my horror, the sidewalk was crawling with caterpillars! It wasn’t exactly crawling, but there sure was a whole damn lot of it. If you know me very well, you could’ve just imagined me there: shrieking and doing this sort of half-hop half-walk accompanied by screams of “Eww! Eww!” I have a very good reason to be afraid of caterpillars because if one of it lands on me I’m going to break out in hives, which will lead me to scratch myself till my skin is raw. Plus, they look really disgusting. So we decided to walk on the road instead. Never mind if we get run over. Just as long as a caterpillar doesn’t touch my sensitive skin.

It turns out that Angelica and Dona have been going to the same church for three years, but they’ve never met each other. I can see why; it’s a big congregation. The place looked more like an auditorium to me than it looked like a church. There was no altar, no cross. On the left side of the stage was the choir, on the right side were a set of drums, a keyboard and two guys playing an electric guitar. I thought the service would be something like the Methodist churches I went to in LA, or like Casey’s church which I thoroughly enjoyed. This however, was entirely different. Angelica was right, the people were really into worshipping and singing. But in my opinion, I think it was a tad exaggerated. The people there were all raising their hands and swaying El-Shaddai-like. Uhh okay…I was just sorta standing there and observing everything. Dona told me once that the reason why people do that is because they feel the Holy Spirit and they want to celebrate. Well, I feel the Holy Spirit and I felt it there too but I’d rather celebrate in the silence of prayer.

In the midst of this dancing I thought, “Get me to the nearest Catholic church, now!” I missed the quiet of your typical Catholic church, of the beautiful voices of the choir, the smell of incense, the prayers, the image of Jesus Christ impaled on the cross. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to mass in a church, because other than the masses we’re supposed to attend at school held in the auditorium, the last time I went to mass was on Christmas day. Ever since my brother died, we stopped going to mass. So maybe one of these days I’ll go to mass, bask in the solemnity of it all and thank God I was baptized a Catholic.

I spent the rest of my afternoon reading the biography of Anne Boleyn and then catching up on the sleep I lost from waking up early. My cat acts like he’s possessed sometimes, and I can’t help but think he is. Out of nowhere, he will let out this really loud meow that resembles a war cry, jumps on my bed and starts attacking my legs and foot through the comforter. It doesn’t really hurt that much at first but after a while it does..stupid cat.