To Florence, Unbreakable Nightingale

We'll be taking a break from our King Saul series and give way to an issue that has touched my heart this past week. It's about a 21-year-old nurse who, on the night of September 25 this year, was gang-raped by around 10 men then left for dead on a vacant lot near the hospital she works in.

Her identity is presently protected behind the pseudonym Florence. It has been reported that afer the men took turns raping her, a huge wooden plank was smashed against her face and a large rock dropped on her head (1). She was left for dead, found naked and unconscious the next day in a grassy area at the back of the hospital where she worked (2).

The reports on this case continue to update. Yesterday, a "suspect" surfaced claiming that there merely had been two attackers and not ten as previously reported. The new suspect, an ex-militiaman states a story of how he tried to flee to Surigao but returns to face his responsibility after being conscience-stricken. By the prospects indicated by the news, the Philippine National Police seems ready to accept this story, calling him a "vital suspect" (3). Its Chief Director General Raul Bacalzo claimed that case "100 percent solved" (3).

Now, I know it's a very sensational case: emotions are running high; everybody wants someone to blame; religious human-rights organizations wanting justice and wanting it now; and the police is just hard-pressed to come up with a result to appease the bloodthirsty public. But let's all calm down. If we all love Florence, if we claim that we care about this fragile little girl named Florence, let's control ourselves.

We all know how sentimental we are when it comes to the ideal of justice. We want justice for this, justice for that. Corrupt people, whether in the police or in the line of the suspects, have been known to throw the emotional crowd off its course through a number of ways. One of this is to bring to the surface a fall guy. Just to let the "din of justice" die down, some guy just appears out of nowhere and claims "Yep, I did it." And knowing the bloodthirsty crowd rallying behind the cause of justice, it is just too emotional to feed on anything with the tag "suspect" on its chest. Please, let's just all calm down and be vigilant!

Let us remember that the roster of suspects include people with government connections. An October 2 news revealed one suspect as the son of a retired employee of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Maguindanao (2). But perhaps the most controversial of the suspects is the son of the mayor of the very town Florence was raped in(4). In the news item the mayor, Mayor Abdula Campong of South Upi, Maguindanao, had expressed assurance to fully cooperate in the investigation of the incident.(4)

We who are waiting and praying for justice and the swift and glorious recovery of Florence should be focused on another matter, a matter more important than hanging someone for this heinous crime. We should be focused on Florence. It is important that we not only think about Florence as a victim--for she is no longer a victim--but celebrate her survival. She lives, which means she is strong. I find it a tremendous wonder that one 21 years of age, a female, faced with all the powers of hell, dragged and raped repeatedly and terrified and mauled to near-death could ever survive. The onslaught of at least two strong sex-crazed psychos would have been too much of a child of fragile frame. But she survives. It is and shall remain a wonder for me to look at this news item and find a 21-year-old female nurse dragged to hell, made to make her way out of the tunnel of terror, and come out of death miraculously alive! That is strength. That is power.

According to the news, she has survived though the right side of her body has been paralyzed due to the vicious blows she received to the head. Wanting justice and wanting these guys in death row or in torture or in any hellish punishment worse than death is a given. We all want them to suffer the same fate and the same terror that Florence felt during the moment of her greatest ordeal, the helplessness, the hopelessness that no one was there for her--her father was nowhere; no brother or boyfriend could be found. If I may be so bold to express my animalistic judgment--if there was such a thing--I'd opt for at least the most beloved and adored female linked to every convict in this case repeatedly raped and tortured and slammed with wood, slab of rock, or the side of a mountain, or whatever have you! I want them to experience the helplessness and the hopelessness grip their hearts as the shadow of terror falls upon them in the very same way Florence was enshrouded during the period of her greatest ordeal. So there is no death penalty for these wannabe sexpsychos, good! We'll give them a taste of some things that will make them run to the embrace of death and find that the law of the land prohibits the death penalty.

I am angry. I am furious. I am incensed at the way the police are handling this case! Just because some jerk confesses to the crime, it's "100 percent solved"? What kind of police idiot is this? I thought there is an investigation going on? When Florence pointed the suspects, the invesitgation began. And now some bozo suddenly admits--and the first bozo, I must say--it's "solved"? What happened to the investigation? What happened to the other side of due process where there is supposed to be a prosecution and an defense in deliberation to prove whether or not this moron is the real thing or a fall guy--as he now looks very well to be? Due process is supposed to work for the accused or the accuser!

To Florence, we love you. You remind me of that movie Unbreakable many years ago which starred Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Bruce Willis played a man in the story who was never sick all his life, while Jackson one who had been weak and sick since youth. When fated to meet, Jackson asked Willis why the latter ever chose to be a security guard. Out of all the jobs that Willis could work in, why did he ever choose one that entailed protecting human life? If you've seen the movie, you know it's all about heroes. Heroes just like you.

To you, let me be a Jackson here: out of all the vocations you can ever take, why have you chosen to be a nurse, one that entails saving human lives? I would basically understand if you would answer something along the line of lifting you family out of poverty. But I believe it's something more than that. With you surviving the onslaught of wicked people, you have something important to fulfill in this life. And probably a part of this purpose is to give inspiration to all who have fallen under wickedness.

You are unique in your strength, Florence. You are unique as a beacon of hope for all who have fallen who can be like you and rise back to life. You are the fallen's symbol of power, the symbol that they need not be called victims forever. You have risen, which makes you a victor!

Florence, you are truly one of amazing wonder. You are a small fragile boat sent out into open sea to face the dangers of storms. You drifted into the very heart of where the storms are made, where the force of many storms will shatter the mightiest, most seaworthy sea vessel. You sailed right through the heart of it. But instead of being tossed and turned, you splintered it. You passed through an ordeal that could make the Titanic break, that could rip apart a ship crafted by the genius of modern technology, and you made it back into port. All who see you are astonished that your light fragile frame had braved all the power of the open sea and yet you survive. A girl of but 21 had received in her body the brunt of death and yet she is miraculously alive!

You have been through a lot, too much for a child your age to have experienced. And we, the common people, think that by searching for the perpetrators and bringing them to justice is the best gift we can ever give you to console your broken spirit. As it turns out, justice is a given. Justice is a promise. The Bible and every other faith I know promises justice to the innocent who have fallen trap to the snares of the wicked. Florence, for surviving, for rising miraculously to life, you deserve all our respect, admiration, excitement, and love. You are everything a hero is made of. You are made of steel. You have looked death straight at the face and yet live. You are a wonder of power and grace. The moment you fought back with all your strength, you have stopped being a victim. You are no longer a victim. You are hero. You are our baby Florence. You are hero. And we love you.

Jan Mythos

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NOTES:

(1) JV.GMANews TV, Suspect says 'only 2 men' raped nurse in Maguindana" News Update, http://newsupd8.blogspot.com/2010/10/suspect-says-only-2-men-raped-nurse-in.html

(2) "Suspects in gang rape of nurse in Maguindanao nabbed," Nursing Review,
http://www.nursingreview.net/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,0/catid,14/func,view/id,225/

(3) "Gang-rape sa volunteer nurse sa Maguindanao, lutas na ? PNP chief" GMA NEWS.TV, http://www.gmanews.tv/story/202663/gang-rape-sa-volunteer-nurse-sa-maguindanao-lutas-na-pnp-chief

(4) Charlie Senase, "Mayor with son linked to gang rape vows to cooperate in probe" Inquirer Mindanao, Inquirer.net, First Posted 13:27:00 10/02/2010, ttp://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20101002-295568/Mayor-with-son-linked-to-gang-rape-vows-to-cooperate-in-probe.

PHOTO CREDITS:

www.corbisimages.com

Lesson from the Life of King Saul: Tracing His Early Life

Remember this 2001 movie with Brendan Frazer and Rachel Weisz? Yup, that's it: The Mummy Returns. The man standing beside them on the foreground is Israeli actor Oded Fehr. If any of us is wondering what King Saul may have looked like, Fehr may be a good replica for the King: a stand-up kind of guy, a head taller than any of his countrymen. The very thing that got him volunteered into the throne from the beginning.(Picture Credit: Copyright 2001 Universal Studios.)

I. Saul's Early Life:

Little can be gleaned of Saul in the records of his pre-king days and it can be safe to say that the dispositions of anger, fear, and envy may have had roots in his past. Nevertheless, general Biblical records show that Saul started out good.

In 1 Samuel 9–10, we can gather that he was considerate of his father, obedient to the charge of finding the lost donkeys, and wanting not to be a source of anxiety if he lingered too long without any word to his father about how he fared. In verse 2, he was noted to be “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others.” This last statement was even re-echoed in 10:23. In this same verse, we find Saul hiding among the baggage which delayed his ordination as king. For us today, we find this impulse of timidity a little “cute.” It’s like, “Awww, isn’t that nice: just like Gideon hiding in his father’s threshing floor, or Moses trembling before the burning bush and volunteering his brother Aaron, instead of himself, to free the Israelites in Egypt.” And we can also recall how that suggestion by Moses infuriated God in Exodus 4:14.

Further into 1 Samuel 10:27 is a documentation of the presence of some “troublemakers” who “despised him” in the crowd that came to witness his appointment as king. No such mention of troublemakers was made during the anointing of David or, much less, Solomon. In relation to this is Saul’s mysterious silence. In the same way, the passage is silent as to why these troublemakers were ever mentioned at all. It can, however, give us a clue to a character of Saul as seen by those individuals that day: a character that brought him at odds with the Prophet Samuel and God.

II. Saul's Emotional Instability

Saul lived a life of emotional instability, in that he was not sensible enough to apply or remember the basic self-discipline expected of a respectable member of the Israelite society. Every Israelite raised in the Scriptures, which Moses had already furnished for the nation three hundred years further back, knew that the world’s first murder was committed by Cain due to his failure to “master” the sin that was crouching in his life (Genesis 4:7). Emotional self-control was nothing new to the people of Israel. The proverbs on the subject made by King Solomon simply reinforced what the Israelite society already practiced and upheld.

Throughout his tenure as king, Saul exhibited a variety of mood swings that panned between terror and wrath. He was a character of emotional instability. In spite of the transformation God performed on his character in 1 Samuel 10:9, it was this flaw that led to his downfall. It is what is known to us today as something that we need to specially focus on and give more effort and discipline in renewing even with prayer, fasting, and counseling. Saul, however, never bothered with this, probably because he was too proud, too busy, or too blind to the fact of it. Just like Cain in Genesis 4, Saul was too careless to master the sin crouching into his life.

If the story of King Saul, instead of David's, ever be made for the movies, I'd vote for this guy to play the King. (Picture Credit: Copyright 2001 Universal Studios.)

Saul was a man of anger. In many instances, Saul launched out almost unstoppable in the zeal of burning anger. For a while this worked. In 1 Samuel 11:6, he “burned with anger” when he learned about the dilemma of Jabesh Gilead. The Spirit of God used this anger to fuel his drive to inspire all of Israel to engage the besieging Ammonites into war. Soon, however, this fuel became so combustible that it led him into a murderous rampage to send David running, the slaughter of the priests and the inhabitants of Nob, and a breach of a vow made hundreds of years before involving the Gibeonites later bringing a three-year famine into Israel during the time of David. The passage in 2 Samuel 21:2 states that “Saul in his zeal…had tried to annihilate” the Gibeonites. The word “zeal” in this verse is the Hebrew qana, affirming a malicious zeal
borne out of jealousy or envy.

Even Saul’s tiniest tendency pointed toward a violent disposition. 1 Samuel 15:27 documents how Saul in desperation caught hold of the edge of Samuel’s robe and tore it when the Prophet turned his back to leave. Here, Saul had just willfully disobeyed a Divine mandate to completely annihilate the Amalekites and everything that belonged to them, when he caught sight of the best of the sheep and cattle.

Fear and timidity was no stranger in Saul’s life. In 1 Samuel 10:27 he was greatly intimidated by the derision of his detractors. In 1 Samuel 13:12, the sight of the great Philistine army in Micmash paralyzed him in seven days of fear, deciding to wait for the time of the Prophet Samuel’s arrival instead of launching out an offensive on the enemy. He “felt compelled” to offer the burnt offering Samuel was supposed to dedicate as he did in the end of the breaking of the siege of Jabesh Gilead. This infuriated the Prophet when he arrived at Saul’s camp at Gilgal to find the Israelite army caught up in an impasse caused by Saul’s tentativeness. In 1 Samuel 17:16, another stalemate maneuvered by the Philistines froze the Israelite king and his army into petrified indecision. A giant named Goliath walked out before the armies and issued a challenge “every morning and every evening” for “forty days.” The single good thing that came out of this deadlock was that it provided the avenue for David to rise and Goliath to fall.

(Next up: Saul's Legendary Disobedience.)

Lessons In the Life of King Saul: A King Possessed?

THE DEVOLUTION OF SAUL SANK DEEPER until he was as terrible as a beast in bloodlust when he chased David all over Israel. Beast was a proper typology of this king whose inability to hold rein of his impulses drew him mad. Notice the sudden shift of royal murderous temper to that of relent and remorse in 1 Samuel 24:16 to 21, where he even wept. Aloud.

But Saul pursues David a second time. Talk about mood swings! It is clear how his nature of rage and this tormenting spirit had permanently possessed him. David and a warrior creeps down into the king’s camp while they all had fallen into deep slumber and snatches evidences close to where the king lay to later show him and the entire camp how easy it was to slay him. Again: Saul’s heart changes color from red to yellow—"Is that your voice, David my son?" (1 Samuel 26:17) "I have sinned. Come back, David my son. Because you considered my life precious today, I will not try to harm you again. Surely I have acted like a fool and have erred greatly” (verse 21). Had not his death occurred in a battle against the Philistines shortly after that, Saul might have pursued David a third time.

To us reading this account of Saul’s life, it will be plain for us to conclude that the mental torment of fear and rage had finally deteriorated into insanity. Remember, however, that this type of insanity is associated with, and with all the fingerprints of, demonic oppression. And the ultimate goal of oppression is possession. Almost every Christian who has handled demons in exorcism before know that demonic oppression is the final step that leads to possession. Saul’s type of demon-possession was similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia, in that the spirit visited him at intermittent times. This explains why the king was normal at one moment then homicidal all of a sudden. This would also explain 1 Samuel 18:12 why “Saul was afraid of David.” There was only one reason for Saul’s fear of David, and it was not because he knew the latter would eventually take his throne and be the next king, greater and more beloved. Simply, “because the Lord was with David.”

An evil spirit cannot withstand the Presence of God. In Psalm 68:1, David pointed out in poetic rejoicing: “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also that hate Him flee before Him” (King James Version). So great is a demon’s fear of His Presence that the very hint of His approach can send it scuttling away. This can be seen in Matthew 15:21–28 where a Canaanite mother was pleading for Jesus to deliver her possessed daughter. Jesus granted the deliverance, even though He found no need to physically come face to face with the victim. Notice in verse 22 how the mother addressed Jesus: “Son of David.”

The people of ancient Israel understood the association of demons (also known as unclean spirits) with certain types of insanity. In the New Testament, the opponents of Jesus accused Him of being “demon-possessed and raving mad” (John 10:20). In the same way, there were physical impairments that were of supernatural origin. In one instance, Jesus dealt with a demon-possessed man “who was blind and mute” (Matthew 12:22). The result of the instantaneous deliverance was also the restoration of the man’s sight and speech. For such a miracle alone, Jesus received a unique kind of amazement from all over Israel during His time because, before Him, there has almost been no known permanent deliverance for a demoniac.

The Old Testament method of exorcism was based on the atoning blood of sacrificial “goats and calves and ashes of a heifer sprinkled on them who are…unclean” to “ceremonially…sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean” (Hebrews 9:13, emphasis mine). With such rituals and methods did the priests and religious leaders in Jesus’ time treat a demoniac. The resulting ceremonial “outward cleanness” was the basis of Jesus’ remark when he described a newly delivered victim’s condition as being “swept clean and put in order” (Luke 11:25): something very inviting to a visiting demon. In Hebrews 10:4, these rituals were never meant to cleanse permanently, being merely “annual reminders of sins” (verse 3). When Jesus came casting demons out, the authority He wielded commanded permanence, drawing people’s amazement far and wide, very quickly (Luke 4:36). Jesus’ method was something simply new: to “give orders to evil spirits and they come out!” In Matthew 9:33 documents how the people remarked, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

Before Jesus, David held the record of having the most unique method of casting out demons: exorcism by harp music. The element of permanent delivery of the victim, however, was not there; and he was required to play once again “whenever the spirit…came upon Saul” (1 Samuel 16:23).


Demon possession in the Old Testament was deemed as a principal sign of the judgment of God in the life of a person. There was virtually no deliverance from it that it was a fact certain for the spirit to return and plague its victim repeatedly. Jesus in the New Testament cited this fact in the gospels, Luke 11:24 and 25—“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’” The very attacks of Satan himself are characteristic of this. In Luke 4:13, after an unsuccessful endeavor to tempt Jesus three times, he fled “until and opportune time.” It is an accepted fact, as further stated by Jesus, that the subsequent re-possession of the demoniac ill “worse than the first” (11:26). Because of this, the victim was cast far from the populously sanctified Israelite cities and towns into lonely regions, like the wilderness, where he could do the least damage and hopefully find death.

This popular view toward demon possession is somewhat suggested in the very syntax of the phrase “an [or, the] evil spirit from the Lord” in 1 Samuel 16:14, 17 and 23. The innate emphasis of this passage is quite the opposite of what it appears to suggest. God did not send the evil spirit; He was not the source of it. Instead, the invasion of this spirit came the instant God withdrew His Holy Spirit from Saul. Notice that verse 14 begins with the clause, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul.” This departure of the Spirit, thus, opened the opportunity for an evil spirit to attack Saul. Perhaps the best word to use here is “abandoned,” in that Saul was deserted for whatever influence that found its way to him. The phrase “from the Lord” simply hinting on the grammatical mood of speech , can therefore be interpreted: “as if from the Lord.”

There are, however, evidences in the Scriptures that show God deliberately handing over the life of one mortal over to the enemy, such as what was done to Job. Here, Satan was not authorized to take Job’s life, unlike with Saul. In the New Testament, this principle continues to exist in 1 Corinthians 5:5, where the Apostle Paul charged the church members to “hand [the offender] over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”

In the Old Testament, a demon-possessed individual was viewed as a walking deadman awaiting death. His life is viewed as that of the fallen angels’, destined for hell yet continue to walk the earth before the appointed time of their judgment. This kind of life can be seen in the documented case of the Gadarene demoniac in Mark 5:1?20 and Luke 8:26?38. In Luke’s account, the man “for a long time…had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs” (verse 27) in addition to other “solitary places” where the demon would drive him into (verse 29). Permanence, to settle down in a home and establish a livelihood, is a quality of the living; but not to a demon-possessed who cares nothing for his own existence, as a beast headed for destruction. In the same way, note how Saul was driven two times to scour the Palestinian countryside. In light of a possessing demon’s restless disposition, it may seem that Saul enjoyed the travel alone apart from his desire to see his target slain.

The study ain't done yet. More King Saul to come.

PHOTO CREDITS: Corbis images

Lessons in the Life of King Saul

I WISH I COULD TELL YOU THAT THIS KING lived a fairy tale life and it was happily ever after for him in the end. But it was not. He was groomed by God to be the Chosen Nation's first king. Today, however, many scholars try to blot out his name as the Nation's first and award it instead to his successor, David son of Jesse. From the heights of God's favor, King Saul slid into obscurity and a gruesome end. In reading of his last days, one could not help but and ask, "Why, God?" when Saul pleaded for the wisdom and His holy presence when he was faced by the massive Philistine army poised to attack his land. What went wrong?

I. The Torment of Fear

We have seen it in the movies, heard it in stories, read about it in books, but never have we thought it take place in the Bible: an actual ghost haunting. And it happened to the first king of ancient Israel, King Saul.

In 1 Samuel 16:14, it says that, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” With a little word study, the Hebrew word ra was used for the word “evil.” The connotation of ra, according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, covers attributes of harm, affliction, hurt, misery, aggravation, and even mischief. From this alone, those of us familiar with King Saul through Bible bedtime stories and Sunday school have always pictured him sullen and enraged. And justifiably so since most of his last days were spent in murderous pursuit of David. But the next word in our study may slightly change how we have traditionally viewed the way this evil spirit affected him.

As often as we have pictured King Saul in furious rampage, dark circles under his eyes, wielding a spear, we have also seen him clench-fisted and curled on his throne glowering in a fit of rage. This may not be what the word “tormented” suggests. The Bible used the word ba`ath, which means “afraid.” Although the Bible never mentioned the king wailing and screaming in fear in the night, it actually mentions that an evil spirit terrified him, so often so much that in fact the following verse shows how his palace staff members saw the terror he suffered from the ghost. The dread was go great that for his closest personnel to offer their unsolicited advices (more or less) on how to exorcize this demon meant that the haunting was taking precedence over the vital affairs of state, and probably even over the health of good ol’ King Saul.

Through young David son of Jesse, the exorcism was successful. Partially, that is, in that 1 Samuel 16:23 uses the word “Whenever” to begin its statement: “Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” In the New Living Translation, the word “whenever” is also used by the servants during the time they were making their proposition to the king: “Let us find a good musician to play the harp whenever the tormenting spirit troubles you” (verse 16, emphasis mine). “Whenever” means that the spirit never left him permanently. And this was clear as the story of the king’s life came to a violent close in the end of 1 Samuel. In chapter 28, he finally comes face to face with this spirit who takes the form of the Prophet Samuel through the conjuring of the witch of Endor, making its final threat that came to pass in the battle on Mount Gilboa.

II. The Torment of Rage:

Saul’s Jealousy and Envy. The spirit’s torment of fear gradually ended shortly after David assumed his role as the king’s personal harp player. And after the sixteenth chapter of 1 Samuel, it was not heard from again. But a frightening event took place after David got promoted from harp musician to warrior. In the midst of all the singing and rejoicing and victory, “an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul” (18:10). What happened? 1 Samuel 18:8 reveals one tiny attitude that served as an open gate for the spirit to seize: jealousy.

David’s “Tens of Thousands.” The passage before this is very noteworthy: “Saul was very angry, this refrain galled him” (verse 8). The “refrain” that displeased him was the women’s song to which they even danced to that went, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (verse 7). Upon hearing this, Saul developed “a jealous eye” (verse 9) on David on the suspicion of “what more can he get [next] but the kingdom.”

It can also be construed that Saul was caught blindsided by the attention women were giving to David than to him. Remember that from his pre-king days, Saul already enjoyed the attention of admiration from his countrymen, being one “impressive” and “without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others” (1 Samuel 9:2). The passage “a head taller than any of the others” was reiterated in 10:23. In 9:12 to 13, the girls he and his servant met were remarkably helpful when they asked for directions where the Prophet Samuel lived.

Saul valued public opinion; he was sensitive to the sentiments of the people around him, which is why he was easily swayed along with the single wave of popular emotion. In 1 Samuel 13:11–12, when his men panicked, so did he. In 18:5, he extracted pride from the approval of all the people and his officers when he opted to give David a high rank in his army for the incident with Goliath. For that same reason, however, the magnet of popularity now fell on David. And Saul could not take it.

Saul’s Recruitment of Mighty Men. In 1 Samuel 16:21 to 22, another element of Saul’s jealousy is revealed in how possessively he treated David. Leading up to this, 14:52 attests that Saul, throughout his reign, was in the habit of gathering for himself brave and mighty men whom he imperiously took into his service. It was the same with David, except that when the boy started service, it is said that Saul “liked him very much” (verse 21) and even made a request the boy’s father to “allow David to remain in [his royal] service” (verse 22). Then in the eighteenth chapter, “Saul kept David with him, and did not let him return to his father’s house” (verse 2). David proved to be an excellent harp player, then a successful warrior (verse 5), and a most worthy friend to his son Jonathan (verses 1, 3 and 4). So long as David remained under the service of the king and his son, treatments and relationship flowed in the terms of love and peace. But when David’s popularity rose to rival that of his and his house, as suggested by the women’s refrain in 18:7, Saul found his subordinate’s good fortune too sour for him to bear.

And so one seemingly uneventful yet fine day, while David was playing the harp, Saul suddenly found a spear, grabbed it, and decided to play pin-the-kid-on-the-wall (1 Samuel 18:11). This urge came while the king “was prophesying in his house” (verse 10). The spirit world was open for him—but to someone else, not to God. The uncanny unfolding of events did not stop. In verse 12, notice that “Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had left Saul.”

Saul and the Gibeonites. The story of Saul’s treachery of the Gibeonites stemmed from his “zeal for Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 21:2). The three-year famine that resulted because of this proved no valid connection between his “zeal” and the murder of the Gibeonites. It is not precisely indicated whether this happened before or after the time of the Amalekite controversy, yet the lesson in this mistake is found in Saul’s attempt to deliver “Divine Judgment” upon whom he arbitrarily chose.

The Gibeonites were a race of Canaanites who, during Joshua’s invasion of the Promised Land, resorted into a ruse to elicit a treaty and keep them from the exterminating sword of the Israelites. The story is in the ninth chapter of Joshua. The big mistake here was that the Israelites “did not inquire of the Lord” (Joshua 9:14) to see through the deception. It can be understood that the Gibeonites orchestrated a successful tactic that maneuvered the Israelites into considering them as they were during their wandering days in the desert.

A Gibeonite delegation set out dressed in rags and dragging along donkeys loaded with worn-out sacks and wineskins cracked and mended. The Israelites, seeing themselves in the shoes of this weary and impoverished caravan and probably even remembering the command of God never to vex a stranger (Exodus 22:21), regarding how it was being strangers themselves (Exodus 23:9), thought it was alright to establish a peace treaty with these people. Yet the most compelling testimony of these strangers was when they claimed to be “from a very distant country” (Joshua 9:9). The Gibeonite deception was so elaborate that it had in its arsenal a great deal of documented events “of the fame of the Lord,” enough to puff up the heads of His people.

The peace treaty that was struck that day was based on an oath to God that must never be broken, no matter how infuriated the Israelites became three days later when they found out that the Gibeonites were actually “neighbors, living near them” (verse 16). In this context was the rage of Saul based, when “in his zeal…(he) tried to annihilate them” (2 Samuel 21:2). In mindless rage, with no regard of the consequences of breaking an everlasting oath made by his forefather Joshua, Saul sought to accomplish for “Israel and Judah” what had never been or must never be attempted. What Joshua and the Israelites then dreaded of falling on them for breaking an oath descended upon Israel during David’s reign, and it cost the lives of seven of Saul’s male descendants. David handed to the Gibeonites seven of Saul’s surviving grandsons to be slain and exposed in the very city Saul had named for himself (2 Samuel 21:7–9). The word “zeal” in this verse is the Hebrew qana, affirming a malicious zeal borne out of jealousy or envy.



It was a misplaced zeal that Saul launched himself against the Gibeonites. It was a zeal that was supposed to have surfaced in the offensive against the Amalekites.

So it was now fear and rage possessing the king. It seems that David’s harp was no longer effective to keep this demon away from toying with his beloved king. At that point, there was nothing more David could do. It was clear that Saul had allowed for to be controlled by this tormenting spirit that numerous times he had carried out feats of defiance against God: the murder of the priests of Nob and his pursuit of David even when he had already seen the blessing of God upon the young man’s life, even the certainty of becoming the next king of Israel. His compulsive temper quickly developed into a personality damage that ultimately destroyed his life, the life of his sons, and his household.

More study on King Saul to come.

PHOTO CREDITS: CorbisImages.com

Age of Legend: The Highlander

PERHAPS THE GREATEST reason for the success of the Highlander concept is that it embodies the age-old desire of the human being to live forever. Immortality entails a plethora of other eternal dreams involving youth and strength. Duncan MacLeod, in one of the episodes, encouragingly details the life as being whatever one wants to be. And in his four-hundred-year life, he has been, as the narration goes, “a warrior, a lover, a wanderer”—and a chopper of heads, because being his kind of an Immortal forces him to engage in life-or-death struggles with others like him, for the death of one such being brings to the victor something called “the Quickening”: an uncanny transference of power with the manifestation of thunder and lightning amidst a ripping whirlwind.

No matter how old the dream of immortality has been, the Highlander movies, television series, and books have successfully profited out of the concept. The inspiration that brought the Highlander to life came in 1980, when Gregory Widen concluded a summer vacation in Scotland where he came face to face with what to him was a handsome suit of armor, triggering his imagination about what would it be like for a knight to live in our present age. The knight immediately translated into an immortal, and the foundation was laid for a story he was to make entitled “Shadow Clan,” the script of which he later sold in 1982 that landed in the hands of director Russell Mulcahy.

Although the first Highlander film failed to draw instant success in the United States, it was different in Europe and other places internationally where a notably wide and persistent popularity developed [1], to quickly elevate the movie into cult classic status. The Film As Art review awarded it with four out of four stars, hailing Highlander as “a classic film that will continue to be cherished and watched as the world of movie-making continues to grow and change” [1]. FilmCritic.com fearlessly toasted to as “the greatest action film ever made” [1]. This tremendous popularity may have pre-echoed its advent as the casting was joined by acting living legend Sean Connery, one of the very few today whose very presence is a prophecy of forthcoming renown. This renown gave birth of four more sequels and a television series that lasted six seasons.

Adrian Paul surpassed Highlander: The Series producers by competently portraying one of sci-fi's greatest characters; and directing two of the show's best episodes of all time. Despite these, however, there remains a large part of Paul's skills that is underrated, if not unexplored.

Like The Highlander movie of 1986, Highlander: The Series blazed a six-season trail on television that critics like DVD Verdict called “unique and inspiring” [2]. For each season, DVD Verdict respectively graded Highlander: The Series with a 92 for the first; a 93 for the second, the show’s highest ever reached; a 90 for the third; again, a 92 for the fourth; an 87 for the fifth; and a 70 for the sixth, sadly its lowest. The last season seemed to be a launch pad for the new spin-off series the producers were experimenting on entitled Highlander: The Raven, which featured Elizabeth Gracen, a regular guest in Highlander: The Series, in the lead as Raven. As a result, a number of episodes only featured Duncan MacLeod in cameos and two did not even show him at all. It was also said that Adrian Paul was seeking lesser involvement in the series in that he was gearing up for a career in the movies.

The Series rocketed to success despite casting a virtual unknown in playing the lead role of Duncan MacLeod. The producers, somewhat finding the ruggedly handsome Adrian Paul as a young Sean Connery [2], proved their choice unquestionably wise in that Paul revealed competence not only as The Series’ flag-carrying character but in also directing the episodes “Homeland” and “Revelation 6:8,” both hailed as among the four best of the entire series. Paul’s portrayal of Duncan MacLeod placed the character on TV Guide’s eleventh in a list of 25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends in its August 2004 issue [2].

The Highlander Universe

Highlander II: The Quickening Christopher Lambert and one of the movie world's living legends Sean Connery.

The Highlander stories follow a powerful scheme, a scheme so attractive in its apparent simplicity but engages the aficionado into a very stable, layer-after-layer sub-structuring mythology. First, it features immortals: beings born into the world who look every bit human but are generally endowed with eternal life. Ironically, however, in spite of this gift, the immortal is vulnerable to experience his life momentarily expire under certain threatening situations, particularly accidents. In most of the stories, it was through such conditions that an individual realized his gift. And usually, there was an older immortal awaiting his resurrection to adopt him and train him in the ways of immortal survival, for, again, in spite of the gift of eternal life, an immortal can be killed forever.

There is a ritualistic way of slaying an immortal and this is perpetrated by most immortals engaged in an activity called “The Game,” wherein two—and only two—immortals attempt to decapitate each other in a duel. This concept regarding the beheading of an opponent may have been borrowed from an ancient Celtic belief that a person's head is the seat of his power. Taking a warrior's head, therefore, meant taking his power. It was traditional for the ancient Celts to impale their victims' heads on top of poles or spears, in addition to casting and carving the images of human heads on certain accessories, including the hilt of their swords and daggers.

There could be no more than two immortals in the battle and it could not be waged on “holy ground,” which may mean a temple, a graveyard, a church, a mosque, or probably any place dedicated to religious activities. In this effect, immortals make holy ground their refuge should they seek temporary or even permanent withdrawal from The Game.

Every immortal is equipped with a precognitive sense that buzzes when he comes within certain radius of another immortal’s presence. This alarm mechanism, called The Buzz [2], was felt by Connor MacLeod the first time he encountered Kurgan in the field of battle. According to immortal mentors, the Buzz tells one to prepare. For battle.

From Highlander II: The Quickening, Michael Ironside and Christopher Lambert duel it out for the head.

When an immortal faces the fatal misfortune of defeat, when his head flies off from his neck by the victor’s blade, transference of “power” termed “The Quickening” takes place where the victor receives all of the victim’s abilities, skills, talents, wisdom, and experiences good or bad. It can be hinted that the loser’s personality, good or bad, may even be absorbed by the winner. If this is true, then it can be also implied that an immortal’s soul may evolve for better or for worse throughout the process of winning matches.

The Quickening, also said to be destructive to electrical and electronic devices that happen to be stationed within the area of the event. (PHOTO CREDIT: http://l.yimg.com/
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As earlier explained, The Quickening is evidenced by a rush of elemental disturbance of mostly thunder, lightning, and a strong whirlwind that surrounds the victorious immortal. The Quickening occurs every time a beheading takes place whether or not another immortal is present to receive the victim’s power. An example is a weak-willed immortal that solitarily devises and carries out a way to decapitate himself. Another is when an immortal is executed by a mortal, as what happened to the old immortal Darius when he was slain headless by the renegade watcher James Horton. In this situation, a manifestation of The Quickening may have been triggered, but because a mortal can neither absorb an immortal’s power nor be transformed into an immortal by it, the spiritual transference dissipated.

The Duncan MacLeod in the fitting, all-familiar ending to an exciting swordfight.If you happen to have left your documents in an area where a Quickening took place, you may have better luck finding it in, oh, Kansas? (PHOTO CREDIT: http://venturebeat.com/.)

The Game has been “played” by many immortals since time immemorial. Some immortals, like Darius, Methos, and even Duncan MacLeod, with their own unique reasons and motivations, chose to stay away from the deadly struggle. The first one, in a sincere decision to follow the way of peace, preferred to be a Catholic priest. The second admittedly lived a life in hiding, fearing the fact that, through the years, head-hunting immortals have grown more skillful in their deadly craft and that his sword skill was not enough to save him from them. Duncan did it for love.

Peter Wingfield as the old immortal Methos, a character that took over Darius as Duncan MacLeod's dear friend. (PHOTO CREDIT: http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/scaramouche/69/Methos2.jpg.)

In the pilot episode of Highlander: The Series, Duncan is introduced living a simple life with a stunningly lovely wife by the name of Tessa Noel, played by Alexandra Vandernoot. They ran an antique shop called the MacLeod & Noel Antiques. Connor—Christopher Lambert himself—one day appears to urge Duncan to rejoin The Game and aid the cause of good to triumph over evil (a concept dealt earlier regarding the evolution of the immortal's soul). Because of love, Duncan was disinclined to agree. The arrival, however, of the evil immortal Slan Quince who was currently after Duncan’s head forces this lover to re-don his katana and receive the rush of The Quickening once again.

What immortal heart or eye dare resist thy lovely symmetry? Moving on after Highlander: The Series, the ever-lovely Belgian actress Alexandra Vandernoot, once donned—and fittingly donned!—the character Tessa Noel: the mortal greatly loved by Duncan MacLeod.

Yet though Duncan had rejoined and experienced rush after rush of The Quickening from countless opponents, he had developed no taste for The Game. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have despised it, though he was resigned to the truth that these deadly one-on-one battles would soon culminate into a final war called The Gathering. The concept of The Gathering is like a Ragnarok wherein, as all the Viking deities battle to the death, so will all remaining immortals. But unlike the Ragnarok where no one is meant survive, The Gathering will yield a victor, the “only one” spoken of in the beginning narration of every Highlander: The Series episode, who will claim The Prize.

Boy, don’t you just love these capitalized-and-articled common nouns—The Buzz, The Game, The Gathering, The Prize, the Only One, and here's one more.Until The, er, the movie Highlander: The Source (2007), no one had a clue what The Prize was. (PHOTO CREDIT: http://upload.
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Until the fifth Highlander movie, one could only guess what The Prize would have been. One disadvantage of being an immortal was the inability of one to produce an offspring. It could be gathered from the stories that it was the mortals as well that produced the immortals. Duncan MacLeod once sarcastically commented that the only role of the immortals was to kill each other in the shadows while the mortal multitude advanced and developed in life. MacLeod then was speaking in context to The Gathering, which he soon won in Highlander: The Source. The Prize was The Source: the mother of all the immortals and with whom Duncan became one with in marriage to thus begin a race of immortals, possibly on earth.

Duncan MacLeod surviving The Gathering and winning The Prize could have been easily concluded in the beginning narration of each episode of The Series: “In the end, there could be only one. He is Duncan MacLeod. The Highlander.” And in the end, after all related movies, television series, books, audios, and multimedia games, The Highlander has become a twenty-plus-year-running documentation of the winner of The Game of immortals.

I am Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. Check thee out my awesome blade. And check thee out how I brandish it! Feel the wind split in its keenness! Yeah! Yeah, indeed! (PHOTO CREDIT: Baverel Didier/Corbis Kipa. Spin blur enhancement mine.)

The Deadgame Endgame

WHAT CANNOT BE SOMEWHAT easily absorbed was how the story of Connor MacLeod ended. In Highlander: Endgame (2000), both starring Lambert and Paul, Connor forced Duncan into a duel leading to the first one’s decapitation. Connor was convinced of three things: that Kurgan was far more than a match for either him or Duncan; that it would take his power and Duncan’s combined to defeat Kurgan; and that between Duncan and himself, Duncan was the better fighter. So Connor forces his clansman into a duel where Connor meets his end. The Quickening merges both clansmen’s power into a force to match Kurgan. Connor’s death failed to convince some fans of the soundness in martyring the original Highlander, much like with how Duncan’s sidekick Richie Ryan, in the television series, was killed off, most of all by Duncan’s sword. To this day, many are those who argue whether the death of Richie was necessary at all. END?

Stan Kirch as Richie Ryan, one of the costliest casualties of producer discretion. An original cast member, he was introduced as Duncan's sidekick in season one's first episode. Then the producers one day decided, Hey, why not make him an immortal? After all, he too handsome an' we wouldn't want all those good looks going to waste, now would we? And the legend of Richie Ryan grew. And then one day again, they concluded a meeting to kill him off. Repercussions? Richie's death was supposed to be the fifth season's cliffhanger for the start of the sixth. But with him gone by then, with fandom in an uproar, and with Duncan's appearance starting to languish, The Series quickly drifted into cancelville. Before being killed off, Richie Ryan had already been making scarce appearances throughout the episodes after becoming an immortal, cultivating some speculation that he may have then been ripe for a Highlander spin-off. A spin-off series was indeed launched—Highlander: The Raven—but had nothing to do with Richie. What would have it been like if his character lived the course of his immortal life, long enough to have his own spin-off series? Highlander: The Legend of Richie Ryan?

References:

1. http:\en.wikipedia.com\wiki\Highlander (film)
2. http:\en.wikipedia.com\wiki\Highlander The Series