A typhoon on Good Friday?

Now they are telling us that a typhoon may be around just in time for Good Friday. Nothing should be more certain than a bright and hot summer day on Good Friday and the only thing we have to dread is that annual penitence of computing our taxes.

Sure, there may be some afternoon drizzles after the Seven Last Word sermons have been delivered. But I take that as God’s way of dramatizing His message that all is forgiven and washed away with His ultimate sacrifice and we have the opportunity to start fresh.  

Afternoon April showers are just about the most welcome thing at this time of the year. More so as it seems the searing heat of the tropical sun had become more and more unbearable lately.

I suspect the headache that comes as the temperature rises is because of age and the thought that we are about to part with the monetary value of four months labor to the tax collector. Four months we could have been on vacation...

And for me, Joker Arroyo could have been another cause of a headache, but I give up trying to have a decent discussion with him.

Just two things: I didn’t defend nuclear energy. I just said they took away 620MW and didn’t replace it, contributing to the blackouts. As for the late Sen. Vicente Paterno, I did report to him directly and traveled with him around the country and had time to talk.

I now leave Joker to his ad hominem style of discussing. If I didn’t respect him for other things, I would have thought that meanness is its own all-consuming punishment.

So now we must deal with an off season typhoon. The typhoon is expected to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility today, but its effect will not be felt until about Friday.

Surely, a typhoon on Good Friday would be welcome. Even if it dissipates, its rain clouds will do us some good. All those parched farmlands they have been showing in the nightly newscasts can use some water… so with La Mesa and Angat Dams that supply our water needs.

The nice thing about this Good Friday typhoon, Chedeng or international name Maysak, it isn’t likely to be life threatening, based on the latest forecasts.

According to Accuweather, “Maysak will soon begin to feel the influence of increasingly strong wind shear as it tracks across the western Philippines Sea. This wind shear will begin a weakening trend as the typhoon approaches the Philippines.”

My worry about Maysak has more to do with how erratic our weather patterns appear to have become. It used to be that typhoons were unheard of in the middle of summer. Now, it seems nothing is sacred for these typhoons… not even Good Friday.

It has to be another proof of climate change, thanks to our lifestyle and our many activities that have disrupted the environment rather significantly. It was reported that Antartica has hit its highest recorded temperature Tuesday last week after setting another high reading the day before.

Up north in the Arctic region, it was reported early last month that the amount of ice cover took a sharp downturn in the last week of February and has been dwindling since. According to theweathernetork.com, with more open, ice-free water exposed to sunlight for a longer period of the year, it will mean more energy being stored up, and more heat in the Arctic Ocean.

Also being blamed on climate change is the growing number of mysterious craters popping up in Siberia. Investigators think melting permafrost due to the warming climate is releasing methane gas that’s been trapped in the soil. A trapped packet of methane could be put under enough pressure by the soil above that they explode. Methane released to the atmosphere is a powerful greenhouse gas that impacts on the Earth’s climate and will cause sea levels to rise.

It is all inter-related. We all have to work hard to mitigate the negative impact of climate change on us. In time, with the rising sea levels, our low lying cities including those in Metro Manila may be under water. 

There was a time when humans can expect almost clockwork certainty in weather patterns. Not anymore, it seems.  All that’s certain is the rising and the setting of the sun. For everything else, there is certainty to the uncertainty that climate change brings.

Even our faith is also severely tested each day. Pedophile and other errant members of the clergy obsessed with material treasures have damaged our faith in the holiness of the so-called men of God. No less than Pope Francis found it necessary to warn the priests and religious of the Church against living too closely attached to money.

“When profiteering enters the church, may it be in the priests or in the religious, it is ugly… How many scandals in the church and how much loss of liberty for money!” the Pontiff exclaimed.

The finger pointing among those we trusted to lead us in the aftermath of Mamasapano is another reason to lose faith. It seems we are still lost in the wilderness without a leader who is truly anointed by God, a David or a Solomon, who has wisdom and with the welfare of God’s people in mind. And worse, we can see no such leader in the horizon. All we see are ambitious men. We have much to pray for.

Then last week, I am sure many of us were shocked to learn that the co-pilot of that Germanwings flight deliberately crashed the plane on an unforgiving mountainside in France. I could almost feel the terror of the passengers as they realized what was going on and that their lives will violently end within minutes.

That murderous, if mentally challenged pilot certainly shattered the blind faith I normally have with pilots. Up until then, I didn’t give it a second thought to entrust my life to a pilot’s expert and safe handling of the flights I take. Now I will look at pilots wondering if they are happy or have some emotional problem that endangers my safety and that of my co-passengers.

Faith has become very fragile in our times. Neither man nor Mother Nature can be trusted any more. Everything we do has become a calculated risk and we have become more cynical than is good for us.

In the end, we know we still need faith in something or someone to be able to carry on with life. Otherwise, we drift on, scared of every step we take and what the future might bring.

I realize it does not work for everyone. But for me, this is how my Christian faith has worked. It is more than a survival raft in a sea of troubles.

I think of Christ, the Son of God who became man, who willingly suffered at the hands of those He came to Earth for to save. That’s the Good Friday story that replenishes my faith in my God, who despite my sinfulness, never tires of trying to save me.

When all else seem to fail, only our faith in Christ remains strong. When it seems betrayal has become the norm, there is only Christ to depend on.

Without that basic faith in Christ, little seems to make sense.

Here’s something to think about this Lenten season. Because Jesus Christ has risen, we know we all have a chance of being saved, if we only believe in Him… Through Christ, we can have eternal life in the company of our God and His angels and saints.

It is a refreshing and reassuring thought in the wilting heat of Good Friday when our faith is tested, to know Resurrection is on Sunday… and all is well again… even if a typhoon blows into town.

A Happy Easter to all our readers.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco