Touch

A few months ago I developed a new passion – Korean soaps. What I find so refreshing about the story lines is that the lovers wait until they are committed to each other in a ‘legitimate’ relationship before consummating their love. They touch each other’s minds and hearts first, exploring and loving the innermost being of the other with enduring depth. They build a spiritual bond of intimacy, often subsuming their own needs and desires to affirm the other with life-giving, unconditional love.

I want one of those, please. Then it hit me, I DO have a lover just like that. And He loves me so much that He even gave up His life for me. It was a startling reminder and it made the presence of Jesus so real in my life.

In today’s world of instant gratification and ‘free’ love, intimacy and sexuality have been severely circumscribed into pleasure-seeking forays of the physical. And yet, loneliness remains, keenly felt even when it’s ignored, much like the elephant in the living-room. At best, it’s all a temporary fix.

Love, of the kind that nourishes the soul and weathers the challenges of life indomitably through the passage of time, has become an increasingly rare commodity. Intimacy, the lifeblood of relationships, is desperately sought, but not found. I spent years looking for that love, and intimacy, and it was only when I focused wholeheartedly on Jesus that I found what I’ve been searching for all along.

In the process, I had to lose my life to find it for I had to let go of old perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and ideas and be reborn in Christ. Letting God lead was a paradigm shift for me and not without intense struggle. At times, even now. However, I can’t imagine how I used to live my life standing outside God’s house, riddled with fears, full of existential angst.

So, you may ask, how can I be in love or feel loved by someone who has no skin? By letting those around me to be Christ for me. By allowing the presence of Jesus to enter my world and touch me through contemplative prayer. By opening myself to the power of the Eucharist. Ron Rolheiser likens the Eucharist to God’s physical embrace or kiss. It is in that moment of receiving the Eucharist that we touch Jesus in a very radically physical way.

I am learning, every day, to embrace a new reality. The reality of a faith-seeking understanding, where the mystery of God unfolds in very concrete and unique ways in my life. Revelling in the growing intimacy of this multi-faceted relationship I am in, that nurtures my spirituality and the very essence of my femininity. Jesus is my father, my mother, my sibling, my friend, my soul-mate, my play-mate, my lover and my spouse. My all in all.

“And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.” Hosea 2:19-20

This is a declaration of love that speaks directly to my heart – a declaration that Jesus makes to each of us, as He invites us into communion with Him.

So while I hope to one day experience the love that Ki Joo and Tae Yeong, or Jang Geum and Min Jung Ho share, I am content to sit at His feet and bask in the warm glow of His love. To touch the hem of His cloak and be touched by His healing love.

Covenant
Unbidden You came, tiptoeing in joyfully
With childlike simplicity, touched my heart deeply.
Life holds such promise, hope grows daily so freely
Perceptions alter, once touched by Your purity.
The road ahead is lit with crystal clarity
My name has been called, to service in charity,
By your grace only, Lord, I am yours, completely.

By Jackie Pau, January 2005

Birthday wishes

Today is my father’s birthday. If he were still with us he would be 74. I still remember the look of sadness on Dad’s face the last birthday he spent with us. He knew that his body was failing him, and despite his fighting spirit, he would not be able to overcome what the cancer was doing to his body for much longer.

It was heartbreaking to witness, and not be able to acknowledge the truth of the situation. At the time, we were all desperately fighting the cancer with hope, as if thinking positive thoughts would’ve willed the illness away. To acknowledge the truth would’ve been to give in and be defeated, and that was not an option. There were still things he wanted to do in his life, milestones he wanted to achieve, like celebrating 50 years of marriage with my mother. However, the healing we prayed for came, just not in the way we willed.

On this day three years ago, there was a wistfulness, an underlying sorrow to the forced cheerfulness in the atmosphere. And yet, God’s grace was present as well. In the gracious humility that Dad accepted the situation, in the love my Mum and the four of us were able to show him in our acts of service – to the end.

Happy Birthday Dad. May you be at the Lord’s side, interceding for us. Continue to guide us and bless us with your love and wisdom. Till we are all together again. Much love and XXX

Letting go

Finally the 100 pages of the book were sent for colour separation last Friday evening. It was difficult for me to sign off and say, “Yes, it is ready for printing right now,” for the perfectionist in me wanted to go through all 100 pages one more time with a fine-tooth comb. Due to lack of time, I did not proofread all the pages myself through the several iterations it underwent, although more than one pair of eyes actually went over those pages. Ah, but I had to let it go and trust that the errors that remain are so insignificant that they would not be spotted by the lay reader.

For me, letting go has always been a challenge. Old clothes no longer fit to be worn. Habits or rituals I have out-grown. Relationships that have peaked and arrived in winter permanently. Things, situations, people, that I have formed an attachment to, but presently out-moded, defunct, no longer applicable in my life, and yet, I find myself still languishing in the comfort of the old and familiar, that may not necessarily be life-giving or enriching. But when I made the choice to walk in God’s ways at the end of 2003, it was a choice to do a 180, abandon the person I had been and be made new in Christ. To take up my cross and follow Him, lose my life for His sake and find it.

One of those choices I made a year ago was to let go of a relationship. In obedience to the Lord, I had stayed on another year, working towards what I thought was marriage, by mutual consent. It was not to be. It was time to let go. And so I did.

In retrospect, I can understand the value of that extra year, for I learned to walk by and in faith, and I bore the fruits of courage, spiritual depth and wisdom, blossoming into a woman who could love fully with no fear. But at the time, I was SHATTERED.

Shattered. Crushed. Into a million pieces
The day we said goodbye. Annihilated.
Ripped apart. Completely devastated.
Pain floods every cell and Death entices
My spirit into a desert of frost.
Where my heart used to beat is a black hole.
I’m undone, underground, no longer whole.
Destroyed deep inside myself - I am lost.
The dark night of my soul presides with glee
Where the future shrieks whispers diabolic
While despair and hopelessness gaily frolic
Nightmares without respite; nowhere to flee.
Will I break out from this insanity?
To thumb my nose at Life’s temerity.

A year on, I have found healing to leave the bitterness of betrayal and rejection behind me, and grow into a woman cherished, well-loved by those around me. I feel strong, beautiful and blessed. I love who I am, where I am and I give thanks, every day, for this state of grace.

Complete and utter dependence on Christ makes it easy to let go.

Love ends

Powerful and raw, grief brands my psyche
Indelibly tempered by agony.
Sublime almost, in its intensity
All focus fades, save for the ssss-scraped knee.
Dark doubts, crippling lies swarm like buzzing bees
Self-recriminations breed rampantly
Rabid ‘What ifs’ unleash a litany
Love found, and lost, exacts a brutal fee.
Silenced are the songs that beguile and bind
Promises lie withered, dead on the vine.
Betrayal blights the peach glow of sunshine,
Our paths diverge, souls never to entwine.
Trapped in a void, on acrid ghosts I dine,
Misery is all I seek now, and find.

by Jackie Pau, August 2005

Mad about work

It’s been slightly crazy lately, hence the silence. I start the day teaching at 7:00 am and then make it home to start writing after lunch. Racing to finish what has turned into an urgent job (a book of 70-odd pages) due to poor planning on the client’s side (impossible deadlines are always the result of a client’s or agency’s hemming and hawing, never the copywriter), I often finish work at midnight, with just a short break in between for dinner. While the body is protesting mightily with aches in places too many to inventory, and the mind is overactive running a million miles a minute on stress adrenaline, there is a great sense of achievement from work accomplished during that day. And a marginal sense of pride at churning out halfway decent work. Whether the work is decent is debatable, but at midnight, if it’s a coherent piece of writing, that’s pretty decent in my book – and the client’s (one hopes).

The last two weeks has made me realize I enjoy working hard. It needn’t be as extreme as just past and ongoing experience, but I do miss the buzz of trying to finish 20 tasks a minute. The challenge is exhilarating. And the financial rewards aren’t too shabby either. The only downside is the inability to sleep at night and the bone-seeping tiredness. That I will not miss.

The other thing this project has done is to remind me that writing is one of the main talents I have been graced with, and in using it, I am doing what I was put on this earth to do. I’ve always maintained that God has a great sense of humour and this is one example of it. Those of you who know who Matthew is, will know that he is my first book, the one I’ve been trying to write for quite some time now (won’t say exactly how long for it’s q embarrassing to admit to my lack of self-discipline and inability to focus).

I did set out with serious intent in June, being a slow teaching month, seeing as everyone was away on vacation, but got side-tracked by this project. I get the feeling that Jesus looked at me and went, “Yah, right, woman, I’ve heard that one before,” and instead decided to have me hone my skills and earn some moolah at the same time, given my impending need of it in September when I get really serious about my Pilates certification. He knows what I need – can’t argue with that. Plus, I did bring up my lack of discipline in my regular meeting with my spiritual director and he told me that I should pray to have Him channel my energies. I did as my SD suggested and I have been channelled –big time. So whoever said God does not answer prayer should talk to me!

Actually the reason why I began my blog is through the Lord’s prompting as well. I am not quite sure why, or whether the people who read it will find it enriching in some way, but will continue to be guided by the Spirit. I suppose ultimately I would like to share that walking God’s ways, through the ‘narrow gate’, is highly challenging, yet incredibly rewarding. How easy it is to fall from grace, but, if I seek with humbled, contrite spirit, He will forgive me and continue to bless me.

In today’s second reading, Paul talks about his ‘thorn in the flesh’ and how he still struggles against this thorn despite being a man with an abundance of God’s spirit in him. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Wow, what a powerful, affirming message from Jesus. I don’t need to be perfect (thank God indeed), and as long as I seek His grace, I will be fine, in fact, more than fine.