SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Harrison Ambler is Eye w/o I. He is the main character of Robert Ludlum’s The Ambler Warning. He is thrown into the present without self. His past is a dark shadow. His records have been erased. Nothing much to anchor on for his present course of action. Except the acquired skills of a trained assassin and the inborn trait to read the mind of his enemy. Not knowing whether he is heel or a hero, an oppressor or a savior out to assassinate or save a well-beloved world leader. Without knowing who he is, he loses the power of choice. His eyes have become a mere camera just recording without interpretation. His eyes are bereft of his own face. To put on his face is to seek out his control.
A Prosperous New Year to One and All! Happy New Year to the Dumaguete Metropost, the Dumaguetenos, and the Negrenses. Y2K10 is gone. Y2K11 has come. The old is past, the new is here. We welcome another year-long of living with hope. Hoping that Planet Earth whirling through space is always in its orbit. It is another year-long season, another circle, another orbit of our lives. It is another time for a New Year’s resolution. Otherwise, we will just be going round and round, like a dog chasing its own tail, going in circle mired conforming to the world sans transformation.
Ambler is leading a double life. He is Tarquin. As Ambler he loves, as Tarquin he is programmed and wired to kill. Ambler Warning is Ludlum’s spy thriller version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella in 1885 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde –a personification of the duality of good and evil. Ambler and Dr. Jekyll love inspire, Tarquin and Mr. Hyde like a raging volcano spew fear. Just like the fear generated by the number 12 21 2012 when the Mayan Calendar ends on December 21, 2012. Extrapolated by the Movie 2012 as the end of the World, it shakes moviegoers with the Earth crust crumbling, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and glaciers displacements. Neutrinos from a massive solar flare increase the Earth’s core temperature triggering the colossal disasters with peoples like ants scampering barely surviving in the persons of 400K superior human breeds who have been chosen to board the Arks. It is only a movie, but the gathering fear seems to give birth to its reality.
We greet the New Year with a bit of trepidation. Fear of the unknown is causing the involuntary trembling. We want to get in control. Yet, we are still uncertain which one is the reality, which one is the illusion–the life here on Earth or the life hereafter.
In the attempt to be in control we get confuse whether we are humans playing God or gods masquerading as humans, pulsating from illusion to delusion. We forget that Yahweh breathed life to a cold mold of dead clay–the reality that our origin, our source, our breath of life comes from the realm of the Spirit. Things in this world are time-bound. They pass away. As created beings in time past we are just memories, today–a pretentious vapor, and tomorrow–a shimmering haze in the horizon.
Babylon! A word. A place with rich Biblical connotation. Babylon A.D. is a French sci-fi movie, Vin Diesel starring. As the mercenary Toorop, Vin takes a high-risk mission to escort (a genetically-modified Mary) Aurora from a Noelite convent in Russia to give a virgin birth in America. Her father is a cybernetic genius, her mother a high priestess of the Noelite religion. While still a fetus, Aurora’s father using advanced medical techniques enhanced her brain with a supercomputer. The genetic modification enabled her to speak 19 languages at two years old. Though growing from a baby to womanhood in the convent, she knows how to operate an old model Russian submarine, knows that a caged tiger is a clone, read one’s intention, anticipate danger, and tells that she is pregnant with twins. She has the brain of a supercomputer. Yet she is very caring and compassionate the exact opposite of her mother the High Priestess who is scheming to establish the primacy of the Noelights with the modern day virgin birth. Her mother knows only the light of the blinding blaze of power, fame, and fortune dawning on her on Miracle Day, the day Aurora is to deliver her virgin-birth babies.
Things a-changing. Times a-changing. The more they remain the same. How many generations have come and go, how many years have come and go since the birth of the God-man? Round and round the season goes, round and round generations roll over one after another. It is the windmills in our minds, the battle over the mind, the never-ending battle of good against evil. Since the birth of Jesus, man has made a giant stride in science and technology. The three wise men were guided by the star and rode on camels to visit Jesus. Now when we travel, we are guided by the technological eye in the sky the GPSand we have options to travel by land, sea, or air on a jet plane. Herod used foot soldiers, horses, spears, and swords in killing the Innocents. Now we have weapons of mass destruction, even a bomb that spares buildings while it annihilates living things. Clone, stem cell, genetically modified organism (food), test tube baby, cybernetics, and plastic surgery are now within the grasp of modern man. Yet human nature remains essentially evil. The great leap forward in scientific and technological advances is mainly used to serve mankind’s vanity and greed for power which spawn lust, corruption, and violence.
Everything boils down to our lost identity–an eye w/o I. Without realizing who we are in Jesus and what we are, we lose our bearing and direction as human beings.
In the state of grace, our weakness is made perfect in Jesus if we choose to let the Holy Spirit in-dwell in our hearts knowing well that we are God’s children. In this Yuletide season and the breaking of the New Year, may we bear the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit. May we journey through the year with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. A prosperous New Year to one and all!
