Lessons from Chile

I'm not ashamed to say I got teary-eyed watching the rescue of the Chilean miners. After a year of not-so-good and downright ugly news, a bit of good news is always good. There are still a lot of things to take care of, starting with their own personal lives, but today would be a time to celebrate the second chance of life they've had.

What struck me after watching a bit of again last night was the verse written at the back of the shirts they used to go up. Francis Frangipane was the first to mention this, and I want to highlight it as well. It's Psalm 95:4: In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.

It's such an appropriate verse and it speaks about the faith of the miners. We know, being a former Spanish colony, how religious Chile is. It speaks volumes about their confidence and trust that they would be rescued. After all, at the back of their shirts also was the phrase (in Spanish): "To God belongs the honor and the glory." So they knew where credit was due.

I think you also have to recognize the effort put on by the leaders led by President Sebastian Pinera. Sorry, Pres. Noy, but that was leadership - being there, encouraging the miners and rescuers, making the decisions in consultation with the rest. President Pinera recognized that the pride of the country was at stake by saving these men, and their identity as a country would forever be tied up by this. If our country could be conscious of these then we may have a future, especially after the hostage taking crisis.

What the future holds for these men, only God knows. This for me was the best news of the year, and it's something that I learned from watching these men, the leaders and their families.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Science Of Cam-Whoring

So I was listening to the radio here in Manila today, and the DJ talks about how cheap it is to own a digicam nowadays. Not surprisingly, the narcissists in folks come out, especially when they score a brand new camera. Because of this, it has given rise to the term "camwhoring." I think we're all familiar with this term. Just visit any person's profile in Multiply, Facebook or Friendster and you get the idea, especially if it's a 500 picture album entitled "~!me!~" Looking at camwhoring made me realize that there practically countless ways of posing and holding a camera when taking a pic. Here are some of the examples I can think of: 1.) The arms-forward picture of yourself and/or with a group. 2.) The top view arms-forward pic (to hide the double/triple chin and show off the cleavage or man-boobs). 3.) The bottom view pic (when not listening to your teacher or bored during a meeting). 4.) The picture of yourself while looking at a mirror, wit...
Read more

Processing LeBron

Image
By now, every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about the "Decision" of LeBron James to go to the Heat. Much has been said as well of all the controversy and the fallout of what he has done. It makes for an interesting case study because of the economic and emotional factors involved. We all know LeBron was a local Ohio boy who was considered one of Cleveland's own. That he left them to join Miami - on international television, no less - is really one hell of a very public breakupd. Everybody has an opinion on this, me included. Sports fans would know that Cleveland is not Boston, New York or Los Angeles in terms of championships. Why? Well, it's because they consider themselves cursed, as this article brilliantly lists . The Cavs have never won an NBA title, while the NFL's Browns last won in the 1960's. Baseball's Indians have it worse, last winning in 1948, and were two outs ( two outs!!!) away from winning the World Series in 1997. So the people of ...
Read more

A Funky Kind Of Blog

This is really Simon McMenemy’s fault. It’s his fault that I had to follow his twitter handle, and that her avatar and twitter name had to come out on “People to Follow.” I saw that she looked cute and must like football, too. So I followed her. No activity was done from my end for the next two weeks (I swear, it was two weeks, no stalking involved. Except for that one time about Anne Curtis.). It’s funny though how one innocent question posted on Twitter can lead to so much in the last four months. A question posted on the schedule of the Community Shield lead me to reply, then lead to comments about the game. After the game, it turned to tweets  about music. Turned out that she is a singer, and a passionate lover of music and the arts. I thought that she was somebody special, and worth gettting to know more. So I thought of saying something as simple as tweeting and texting “Good morning, beautiful.” I didn’t expect that it would make such an impact to her, and ...
Read more