Past lessons

As always I cannot believe how the year has just gone by in such a flash. And once again, I am left with a sense of sadness and regret mingled with a sense of accomplishment and gratitude for how my days have unfolded.

My biggest achievement this year was my silent retreat for it jump-started my sleeping soul to awake from the torpor it had been in for many months.

I am profoundly grateful for such a WOW experience of God, an incredibly insightful and wonderful second naivete.

Even now, eight weeks later, I feel more centred and integrated, with a rejuvenated sense of mission.

The year 2010 has been a year of many losses, a melange of people and personalities who have touched my life are now gone. I still grieve with those who are left behind, for the void is still palpable in the lives of the living.

What these losses, and my May surgery, have taught me is to value the time I have with those I love. Every meeting, every opportunity to connect with someone, be it my mother or an ex-colleague, is precious.

This heightened sense of awareness leads me to treasure life as I live it and to express gratitude for every experience, good and bad.

Our bodies require a balanced lifestyle - frequent exercise and a moderate diet - to remain in homeostasis optimally. I have never felt this more so than now when my body protests any abuse quite vocally.

Although my energy levels are almost back to normal, I must still watch how I push my body for it does not like it when I disconnect mind and body when under fire.

My wish for next year is that I reside more in my body and that I treat it with greater respect than I currently do.

I have also come to the realization that no matter how hard I try, my life will always be busy and trying to do everything I want to will always be a huge juggling act.

The only thing I can do, to safeguard my psychic and emotional well-being, is to ensure I schedule me time into the equation. And more importantly, quiet time with the Lord.

He is the centre of my life and when I do not live out this truth, I always end up untrue to myself for I lose clarity as I meander down a deviated pathway.

As I cherish and nourish my relationship with my Saviour, I intend to continue strengthening the bonds I have with the people around me.

Take what I have begun this year, build on it and move all my relationships to a deeper and more satisfying level of interaction.

And this is how I will honour the past of my mistakes and accomplishments, my joys and sorrows, my losses and gains; to take everything experienced, dissect it and reflect on how to learn from it. Then map and execute a course of action, every day.

I would like to walk a straighter path, and shine as a brighter light. With my past to help me, I know I can make it happen.

Christmas wishes

amid the glasses clinking, holiday feasting

a child like no other came into this world

He is the real reason for celebrating

for He will be the one who saves the world

yet His gift is mostly disparaged, forgotten

among the gifts that glitter and wow

we forget we are a city not forsaken

when we act like kings who cannot bow

although I love Him, I am just as guilty

of not taking time to pay Him homage

caught up in Martha-like hospitality

that wearies me and brings calorie damage

what i wish for is time to sit and chill

make room in my heart for the newborn lad

to radiate peace on earth, to all, goodwill

enthrone Him within; serve with spirit glad

to the ends of the earth banish sadness and pain

we can, if we embody the crux of Christmas

it's all about love, making it our daily refrain

and with the Family rejoice beyond Candlemas

Love reflections

As Advent draws to a close with the lighting of the fourth candle (that represents love) last Sunday, I am suddenly surrounded by people in pain, physical and psychological. People in need of relief, of comfort.

While love is my ethos in life, and I find it easier than joy to attain, I have to be careful to pace myself for my tendency is to do too much, to the point of mental and physical exhaustion.

It's always hard to set boundaries when I see someone in pain but as I am not in such great shape myself, I have been nursing my need for self-preservation lately.

Love of self must come into the equation of loving, for without the ability to love myself, I would not be able to love others in a true self-giving fashion.

Previously, when I lacked the ability to love myself, I found myself lacking in many areas and I was always hungry for the love of others.

In my relationships, there was always a fear that others would also find me as lacking as I found myself. So in order to win their love, I would bend over backwards to be the perfect friend or girlfriend.

I would subsume my self in the process and could never just be me in a relationship, unafraid to be loved, warts and all.

Although old habits die hard and I sometimes feel like that unlovable, dislikeable person inside, I now know that Jesus loves me just the way I am and that is sufficient endorsement for me to rise above my low self-esteem and tell myself I am indeed worthy of love.

Every day I am learning to love myself as He loves me. For seeing myself through the Lord's eyes of love is illuminating.

I can see possibilities I never saw before.

I can hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

I can trust that no matter how awful or bad I am He will always love me and that knowledge arms me with power to be courageous and boldly optimistic.

I find myself more able to love others in ways that are not self-serving or motivated out of fear. Thus, I am free to love unconditionally, with no desire for recompense or recognition.

As I become more adept at being loving and caring in ways that come naturally to me, I ask myself how and what next, for Christ's love is inclusive and unconditional, and if I wish to imitate Him, I must love to the point of uncomfortable vulnerability, and include those whom I may not like or deem undeserving.

This calls for humility in loving. To never think of myself as above anyone. To always let God lead me rather than forcing my will on others and what I think is best for them.

It also calls for a finely tuned sensitivity to know when to go forward, or take a step back. To know when to give in to a situation, or to nudge someone along. To have the wisdom to know what the other needs before he or she even thinks of it.

Perseverance is also needed, to never give up on a person or situation and to let God do His thing in His own time.

And, of course, mercy. For without gentle compassion, an act of love is flat, one-dimensional and devoid of real warmth.

My constant reminder to myself is to never think I am God, for in any given situation, when I have brought about a good outcome, it is not I, but the Lord who has effected the change. And only He can make the impossible happen. We are but His channels of grace.

On the eve of His birthday, the one who is God-is-with-us, I offer my willing heart to love as He loves and hope that it will be a gift worthy of a king.

Hard-won joy

Just when I said I was going to live with joy this week, what should surface in my life but fear from the changes around me, changes that bring disquiet and unease into my heart.

I can just hear the Lord gently challenging me, "How strong is your faith? If you believe in me, then you know I will take care of you, no matter what. Haven't I already done so all these years?"

And I, of course, have to hang my head low for what I am facing right now is nothing compared to what I had to previously. What is more galling is my faith seems weaker at present, compared to what  it was.

It's ironic but it's the niggly changes that eat away at my equanimity more so than the obvious and gargantuan ones.

Here is where I have to fight my inclination to atrophy in complacency and relive a fundamental truth: death leads to new life.

Change is inevitable. Situations and relationships must evolve, and in the process, die many deaths in order to give birth to new possibilities that are unimaginably rich and portentous.

Rather than avoid or resist change which is both a useless exercise and a waste of psychic energy, I must trust in God's plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11-13), be open to how the future unfolds and have sufficient faith to adjust accordingly without cowardly deviations that subvert my integrity.

If I continue to seek God's will in my life with fierce single-mindedness, I will not lose sight of the truth of who I am and what I should be doing, come what may, and I can then forge ahead.

G.K. Chesterton said: "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms: it means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die."

I don't have to like the changes that are happening around me, but I can still live with peace and joy in my heart.

All it takes is a little courage.

*******

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.

-Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Joy of living

Joy or happiness is something we all desire in life and we often go to great lengths to attain what we perceive might give us happiness, forgetting it's not something we can grasp in our hands, but a state of being that can be independent of environmental factors.

We are not helped by the commercialism of the upcoming festive season as we work ourselves into a frenzy of Christmas shopping.

It's just so easy to lose focus and make Christmas about giving and receiving unnecessary, expensive gifts, and feasting and drinking to excess. Where joy is understood as doing, doing, doing and not simply being.

I find that feeling happy is not something that makes an impact on my consciousness like despair, anger or gloom. I actually have to ask myself how I feel in order to identify my sense of wellbeing.

What gives me a sense of lightheartedness, inner peace or satisfaction is sometimes so nebulous and transitory that I have to reflect back on the day past in order to recognize these fleeting moments of quiet exultation or pleasure.

I am glad for the practice of prayer that allows me to connect to my interior life and my inner self, the self that is naked and trusting before the Lord, free to be beloved and beautiful.

This coming before Him and realizing that everything I have comes from Him enables me to recognize the blessings I have received in the day and to be grateful; to consequently give thanks.

In gratitude oft lies joy, and a peace "the world cannot give" so that even in difficult times, I can hope without losing faith or come tumbling down like a house of cards.

When Mary said yes to being the mother of Jesus, she must've known she was in for a tough time. How was she going to explain to Joseph, her fiance, that she was pregnant by and with God?

How was she going to explain the scandal of pre-marital pregnancy to her family and friends, something so dishonourable that it could lead to her death by stoning?

She must've been terrified and confused, yet filled with joy; desperate to have someone acknowledge her still secret condition, so when Elizabeth and the foetus John responded with such joyous affirmation, she simply burst into a song of great exultation.

The great joy evinced by the protagonists in the Visitation scene clearly marks them as people of unyielding faith (John was to demonstrate this when he grew up) and largely in tune with the Spirit.

During an Advent talk I attended, the concept of consecration was raised. To be set aside for God. If we are all created to be dedicated to God, to be holy people, how do we fulfil this aspect of our "design"?

Like Mary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, we must be completely open to the Spirit who will guide us and not allow the joy of the Lord to abandon us even in times of uncertainty, destruction and loss.

As for me, I aim to live joyously, especially during this third week of Advent, for what could be more wonderful than the miracle of life given and redeemed?

Eucharistic peace

The second Advent candle lit today symbolizes peace. Faced as we are with not just the threats of war or civil unrest around the world, but also disharmony within families, is world peace ever attainable?

Isaiah talks about the wolf and the lamb living together, the lion with the calf - possible only if we let a little child lead us. While Paul echoes this in his letter to the Romans - if indeed we follow Scripture and live as Jesus did, then we can hope to see the peace of Christ in our communities and our lifetimes.

In attempting to bring about peace, we are called to be radical, like John the Baptist. As Fr. Arro pointed out in his homily today, we must not give in to the darkness but instead we must be the light shining in the darkness, illuminating the way and transforming people's lives.

I started the morning saying to God, are you kidding? It is too monumental, an uphill battle all the way and I am not confident I have it in me to be a peace-maker, or a hope-spreader, for that matter.

Could I "let peace begin with me"? (There was something I needed to do today and I was quite apprehensive about it.)

The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word eucharistia which means thanksgiving and in many ways lately, I have been reminded of the power of the Eucharist, the most recent being Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, the Sacrament of Charity.

The Eucharist is the "source and summit" of life and the "food of truth", if we recognize it as such. For the sacrifice of Jesus was no small one; through it, good has triumphed over evil. The battle has been won.

These are truths we are all familiar with but do we believe them and do we act as people who are in touch with these truths?

To bolster my confidence, I went to the adoration room and spent some time with Jesus before mass.

I sat, at first, in self-doubt, surrounded by my fears, but as I began to offer up my emotions and insecurities, a sense of peace stole over me.

In acknowledging my own limitations and shortcomings and inviting the Spirit of Jesus to take over, my heart grew calm and I knew that I only had to rely on God's wisdom and all would be well. And it was.

I am amazed at how things unfolded this afternoon and I can really see that wisdom is, as interpreted in the Bible, to know God and to do what He wants.

While the fractured world around me will not become whole overnight, I know that I can make a difference, insignificant as it may be, and I should not be afraid to try.

As I journey further into the second week of expectant waiting, I am hopeful that I can see justice "flourish and peace till the moon fails" if I rely on the gift of the Eucharist to lead me.

A precious gift I am eternally thankful for.