PARADOXICAL

These developments can only remind me of the many things we, people from the world over, never expected would happen in our own lifetime:

- The fall of communism, including the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the rest of the invisible Iron Curtain --> I honestly thought the so-called domino effect would run its course after a few more decades at least

- The end of apartheid in South Africa --> Just when I’ve accepted that man is evil and life is unfair comes this mind-blowing change, which I honestly expected would come only after perhaps a century of mass murder by both sides

- The return of Hong Kong and Macau to China --> If such hot ‘properties’ could be returned, then all natural and cultural treasures looted in the colonized nations can be demanded back?

- “People power” revolution in the Philippines and around the world, with many ongoing, with various results --> I was a 'Marcos baby' and a Marcos loyalist at 15, but I was praying that not a lot of people would get hurt when Cardinal Sin called for a rally. I never expected that almost no one would get hurt and that the demonstration would in no time become a gargantuan street party! And it would be replicated in a lot of countries in the world! We Filipinos wish we could claim the entire credit, but the French and Mahatma Gandhi’s India had something like it before, although most likely, we never consciously thought of them when we staged our own. Meanwhile, it would take years before I admitted to myself that I was deeply scarred about being wrong about Marcos.

- The ongoing fall of the American Empire --> Who would have thought the domination of a highly secularized culture could possibly have an end as well?

- Loose coalitions of Catholics, Evangelicals and Protestants (and even people of non-Christian religions) ministering to one another in love --> Never thought the day would come! The total lack of desire to convert each other into one's religion is simply jaw-dropping!

- A growing global ethic, a world crying out for a third way or a middle way --> The signs are everywhere, and I'm neither talking about communism nor New Age.

- The puzzling popularity of what I thought to be extinct spirituality in the form of meditation, contemplation, silence and the continued popularity of its opposite: rambunctious charismatism --> Funny how I used to despise both, lividly.

- The astounding exchange of free information in the Internet (lots of thanks to Google) --> Wow. This info and opinion junkie is on a roll.

- Business process outsourcing --> I never planned and never thought I'd work on other people's work from other nations -- and at home too.

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