By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
For the last two days, we had a taste of deep American traditions: Thanksgiving day and the following day so-called Black Friday, the rapturous delight of compulsive shoppers.
For the first time in my intermittent trips to the US entailed these two keenly awaited celebrated days, no different from our acutely anticipated Christmas season in the Philippines. We spent our Thanksgiving day in the cozy home of a long time Filipino residents in Napa Valley, with whom we indulged in festive conversation as we partook of the food galore before and around us, in an exact ambiance of Philippine Christmas dinner (since Filipinos in America regard or celebrate Thanksgiving like Christmas). As the weather was harshly chilly, our visiting party, finally experienced, as it were, the proverbial dinner at Christmas time in an American home whose surroundings are totally snow-filled, a setting l used to see in Christmas cards as a simple-minded young lad.
Black Friday was a different story. It was a disappointment for me and my wife. Our party went to Great Mall In Milpitas City less than an hour drive from our hotel in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, to enjoy the American nation’s touted big discounts of items sold. It is a cavernous mall worthy of its name Great Mall that houses a typical Outlet of branded products but mixed with the usual American department stores like Marshall, Burlington, and the rest of these stores’ coterie that always group together in a circular fashion to make up as the shopping centers in American States. As we entered the mall, a massive bustling action swamped us as a throng of shoppers jockeyed for a place in queues that have snaked through the different outlet and department stores to wait for their turn to bag a heavily discounted item. The scenario is worst than that of a wet market in the Philippines totally crowded with buyers that grapple to wrest a low priced fish, the difference being that the Milpitas mall deals on dry wares. This fiercely fought genuine discount in a so-called Black Friday in this land of milk and honey is really huge ranging from 50% to 70%, hence, this huge crowd congregating in a mall to pounce on a chance for a dear discount.
But it takes the sheer patience of Job to queue in a snail-pace moving long queues amid a suffocating or Covid infecting crowd. Certainly Job virtue did not impress me and l issued to my compulsive shopping wife a legalistic “cease and desist” order to shop on that day. And, like complying with a court order, my wife submissively followed, the irresistible humongous discounts notwithstanding. We decided to look for a place outside of that covered huge mall to while away the time or to eat, while we awaited our companions then embroiled in the pandemonium that was the Great Mall. And lo and behold, there situated an ideal one just outside the mall: an Outback Steakhouse outlet. Inside this big restaurant was total quietness, only a few patrons, and the dignity and aura of a formal dining restaurant, in overwhelming contrast to the wet market noise and din of the mall nearby — a big consolation for the disappointment, if not the exasperation, of my wife to whom shopping is a total ecstasy, she being a compulsive shopper possessed of that kind of blindness to perils bound to bedevil a compulsive gambler. Here, we had great and relaxing moments, specially with a cup of coffee on hand, sending my wife’s passionate urge for shopping ecstasy and my sheer stress for financial torment into total oblivion.
At this juncture, let me expand my subject to impart a life’s grand lesson. Above scenario underscores our ideal, almost perfect, state of our conjugal partnership. My wife (whom l legally married in the US in a wedding march “Elvis Presley” choired, some years ago under the generous sponsorship of my brother and sister-in-law in LA, and with the full blessings of my two God-fearing sons) and l complement each other in almost all aspects of life’s issues, thereby making our union in perfect stead that l hope will continue, God permitting more, to abide. I am hopelessly impatient and quick to anger (improprieties l shared with biblical Peter and Moses ), but my wife has the patience of Job; I tend to clutter and be disorderly with physical things and appearance, whereas she is totally neat and well organized, always quick to fix my raiment and my public countenance and always quick on the draw with a spurting perfume to ensure my good smelling in public before l dash out of the house; and many more complementing dispositions.
She tends to be spendthrift, but because l am hiredwired in Ilocano blood and DNA, l go for penny-pinching. I strongly rein in her thriftless ways and she humbly submits to my severe disciplinarian persona.
And here lies the crux of our peace and harmony—my wife adheres deeply to God’s wisdom, amidst her lavish ways that she readily yields to my discipline—that wives should submit themselves—“in everything”— to their husbands who are God-fearing. (For wives who seek conjugal peace don’t fail to read Ephesians 5:22, Ephesians 5:24). “Wives” here is a term not to be taken in its restrictive sense, but to include women who have genuinely and with resolve bound themselves to their men and these men to them to live together in a legitimate and righteous cohabitation, without having undergone any legal or ceremonial officiation of marriage ceremony. These relationships are divinely regarded. Joseph and Mary of the Bible had a mere honest and genuine agreement to marry each other. But the Holy Spirit came to their lives to add more to or make clear the concepts of marital relationships. Before any formal marriage, the Holy Scriptures described Joseph already as “her (Mary’s) husband” and Mary “thy (Joseph’s) wife” (Please confirm thru Matthew 1:19-20, KJV), and no less than the the angel of God made this categorical attribution—well prior to any official marriage—to Mary when the angel told Joseph, “Joseph thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”
Consistently, this “deemed spouses” doctrine is amplified and written on stone in Galatians 3:15, which recognizes that when a man and a woman come to a solemn and legitimate covenant to live together without the benefit of a formal or ritual marriage, and seriously take each other as husband and wife, they should be deemed as such —spiritually. “Even an agreement made between two persons is firm. After that agreement is accepted by both people, no one can stop it or add anything to it.” (Galatians 3:15, NCV). Consequently, public respect is due them as spouses.
I exhort the Marys of these informal home settlers to likewise do the bidding of Ephesians 5:22, and Ephesians 5:24, and put more stability to the more threatening vicissitudes of their informal togetherness.
Our human mind is too small or too pretentious and proud to grasp or foresee the overwhelming and transcending impact of God’s Word, like our subject in point: Ephesians 5:22 and Ephesians 5:24. (To confirm this, please read Isaiah 55:8-9). “What hit me?,” is a bull’s eye expression of our naivete or foolhardiness in failing to see the forthcoming consequences of repudiating God’s laws— as we are jolted by the fruits of what we have sown. That’s why God enjoins us to trust Him. (Please consult Proverbs 3:5-6). For He sees all things now, tomorrow—in all eternity. (Please read Hebrews 4:13, Isaiah 46:9-10, Job 35:21 and Proverbs 15:3). He flawlessly guides us, yet we repudiate His ways, like a running train (a man’s life) running off from its railroad tracts (the wisdom or God laws). The result is nothing but a disaster.
In the same vein, our congressmen who reportedly instituted divorce into law do clear violence to God’s law that husband and wife cannot be separated by human intervention (see this truth in Mark 10:8-9, Matthew 19:5-6). As divorce dishonors God’s law, it will certainly does much, much more harm than good with all its ripples of seen and unforseen issues. Given that the family is universally conceded as the basic unit of society that profoundly impacts on individual development, on social order and on the country’s economic progress, a more deliberate consideration of our All-Wise Creator’s counsel must have been accorded. His flawless, pure and sharp wisdom has, from eternity, persistently and irrevocably glorified or convicted all human affairs for “thy will be done” at all times being the absolute Sovereign Power over all creation. (Please read Isaiah 46:10). But as the devil has put thoughts into the hearts of these Dishonorable congressmen to be “wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight,” (Isaiah 5:21) they are unable to appreciate God’s Word. How can they, when their object of faithful worship is money? Stealing blind the people by inordinately and conspicuously helping themselves on the latter’s taxes is simply and purely in keeping with their ungodly faith. How then can we expect laws of wisdom from these children of the “Ruler of this World” (2 Corinthians 4:4), whose minds this “Ruler” has blinded and rendered unable to “do what is right”?(1 John 3:10)
To our lawmakers: Please be reminded that God has ordained—“there is a time for everything” (Fail not, read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), a time certainly for you “to weep” and a time for our wantonly abused people “to laugh” and “to dance”—
as always. History concedes that!
