Guest Blogger: Agape by Tony Robles

My Guest Blogger is Tony Robles who shares his personal essay, "Agape." This story is part of the book Finding God: True Stories of Spiritual Encounters (Ed. Cecilia Brainard). The book won the 2019 Gintong Aklat Award in the Philippines. 

AGAPE

by

Tony Robles

The race was lost before it began. There I stood next to the starting blocks waiting for the fellow in the white cap to say, “Runners, on your mark, get set. . . BANG!” How did I get into this situation—all those white faces in the stands. Who were they? I stood on the track with five or six other boys—all a bit older, all a bit pink in the oppressive Florida sun. I glanced at them and wondered what they were thinking. I looked up at the sea of white faces in the stands and became nauseated. My intestinal discomfort wasn’t primarily due to the sea of white faces surrounding me as it was the fact that I knew I was in a race I wouldn’t— no, couldn’t win. Somehow I wished the fellow in the white cap would just pull the trigger and get it over with. As I stood, I entertained the thought of the fellow in the white cap shooting me—perhaps in the leg or in the ass—then I’d have a legitimate excuse not to run. They would just cart me off and I’d be forgotten quickly.

 

Guest Blogger: Thank you by Raquel Villavicencio Balagtas

My Guest Blogger is Raquel Villavicencio Balagtas whose moving personal essay, "Thank You", is part of the book, Finding God: True Stories of Spiritual Encounters (Edited by Cecilia Brainard & Orosa, Anvil 2009).  The book won the Gintong Aklat Award for 2010). Thank you Raquel.

~~~

THANK YOU

by Raquel Villavicencio Balagtas

It was February 2006, two years and five months to date, when I read a pamphlet titled, “How to Avoid Purgatory.” It was given to me by Sister Lily Natividad of the Divine Endeavors Organization (DEO) exactly one year earlier, February 2005, when I went home to Manila.

I said thank you, took it back with me to Charleston, SC, and set it aside, with no intention of reading it at all. I was, still at that time, what I would describe as a “last in, first out Sunday Mass goer,” a cradle Catholic. 

I was cleaning my book shelf, February 2006, when I saw the pamphlet again. I read it and my life has never been the same again. Like St. Augustine, in many ways, I can say to God: “Late have I loved You.”

I was fifty-nine years and two months old, still married to George, but residing separately. I found myself first in New York in 1990. Then I moved to Charleston, SC in 1993 and have been here ever since.