Guiding Light

Today's psalm, Psalm 27, is an especially rousing one and one which gives me heart in times of struggle.

Entitled Triumphant Song of Confidence of David, it is one of bold testimony of the Lord's protection and fidelity.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?"

It is a psalm that I can see St. Paul praying often for the triumph of light over darkness is one he experienced most literally in his body on the road to Damascus.

As I reflected on the feast day of St. Paul's conversion last Friday, I gave thanks for his enthusiasm and untiring effort to bring Christ to the rest of the world - something that he continues to do today through his letters.

St. Paul's letters, which pre-dated the writing of the four gospels, are a source of inspiration and a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of one man.

Variations on the same theme, his letters to diverse communities answered the questions each struggled with, and addressed specific needs in very practical terms, becoming a how-to guide on living in the Spirit.

While I do not pretend to offer such profound wisdom in my blog writing, I do aspire to bring Christ to those who read it.

To get people to give pause and ponder a little.

Get curious about this amazing man, Jesus Christ, who lived over 2,000 years ago and why He still continues to impact so many lives today.

Like St. Paul, the presence of Jesus is real in my life, and this living relationship I have with Christ brings me such joy that I want very much to spread this joy to everyone I meet.

To say to those who live in darkness that life doesn't have to be that way. There is a much better alternative.

As Psalm 27 proclaims "I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

This has become a truth I live out every single day.

While there are passages of dark I have to navigate through in life - it's never all hunky dory all the time - I know that if I focus on the light ahead that is Christ, then He will guide me through tough times. He will never forsake me.

I am content to "live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life" and I can no longer envisage my life any other way.

All it takes, as Fr. Arro advised today in his homily, is for us to make time for prayer and reading Scripture on a regular basis.

So seek His face and you will not lose your way.

Where are you?

Where are you?
I cannot see your face.
I cannot hear your voice.
I cannot touch your hand.

In every heartbeat,
Every breath you take,
I am there.
Within you
All around you
Deep calling on deep
Enfolded in your desires
Your will and mine are one.

You see me in the old woman you helped across the street.
You hear me in the cool breeze rippling through the trees.
You feel me in the fond embrace of a beloved friend.

How do I know you are real?

I am real because you are.
Made in my image and likeness,
You are my hands and feet
You are my eyes and ears
You are my heart.
My spirit lives in you.

Ask and my love will always be given to you abundantly.
Seek and you will always find me.
Knock and my door will always open wide in welcome.

I get it. I do.
I see you clearly in the open plains of my heart.
I hear your voice in the silence of your Word proclaimed.
I feel your warmth in the glow of the setting sun
Or a child’s shy smile.

Most of all, I truly experience your boundless love for me and
I am transformed forever.

Inspired by Mark 5:25-34

The real thing

I just watched an episode of CSI which featured a host club, where women visited and chose a host from the meat book, who would then spend time with the paying female client.

During their time together, the host would cultivate a "relationship" with his client by listening to her, making her laugh and "making her feel like a queen", loved and respected.

Sex actually marked the end of the "relationship" so the meetings were mainly platonic.

What was horrifyingly tragic was that a stripper, Cotton Candy, who bared her body for money, had deluded herself into believing that Jesse, her paid host, who had another 24 other "relationships" at any one time, was "her fiancee".

While this is pure TV fiction, we cannot deny the very human need for love and acceptance in life.

We all crave for love, to be loved for who we are, unconditionally, totally.

Unfortunately, by today's standards, this most commonly translates into the physical level, sex.

You just have to tune into MTV to see scantily clad women who gyrate desperately to gain the attention of men.

Sexy has become the ultimate "testament" of womanhood.

The need for Cotton Candy to believe in something more than just sex harks back to the real meaning of relationships, intimacy that transcends the physical.

Emotional ties that are the backbone of all relationships.

However, because eros, carnality, is the most gratuitous and easiest adaptation of agape, a more selfless, sacrificial love, it is the most widely embraced.

After all, it calls for one to luxuriate in the sensate and hang the Puritanical, fiddly definition of love which demands way too much from a person.

Instant gratification beats happily-ever-after which only happens in fairy tales, going by today's divorce rates.

Why are absolutes so difficult to live by? Is relativism the season that is here to stay?

I hope not. I am, by nature, an idealist.

I believe that the sacrifice that God made, to be born as man and to consequently give his life to prove His love for ALL mankind is the ultimate form of love, and to honour the highest degree of love, I choose to live by a code that is increasingly seen as archaic and out-moded.

Never mind that at heart, it is the most practical and logical choice.

Reality has never been a very comfortable bed-fellow. Rationalism is infinitely more attractive.

While I know it's unlikely that I will find a life partner who has "clean hands and pure heart" despite my desire for marriage, I know I will not settle for less.

I have tried carnality and I can tell you that it is a pale second to the love that Jesus offers.

He is the embodiment of the perfect ""host", who delights in my imperfections and really loves me for who I am.

Best of all, His love is gift, with no price tag or strings attached.

If I never find a human spouse, then I am most happy to live with my heavenly one.

Sure, I sometimes yearn for a real human body to hug and who hugs me back in love, but if I have to settle for what Christopher West terms "counterfeit love" in his interpretation of JP2's Theology of the Body, I would rather wait for the real thing.

If not in this lifetime, then in the next.

Reality rules.

Magi gifts

The wise men or magi gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to honour a baby whom they had read the skies to find. A journey which took them to a humble stable in Bethlehem.

One they undertook, not because they were grounded in the faith of Abraham, but because they had studied the stars and could discern something unusual and wondrous was happening that gave them the impetus to set out on a journey.

While on vacation in Phuket over Christmas, I chanced upon this great Marcel Proust quotation on a T-shirt of a fellow hotel guest:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

This became the theme of my brief holiday with Mum. Every morning on our walk on the beach, we found new things to delight in as we scanned the soon-familiar shoreline.

Every new sand dollar I spotted brought back the excitement I felt as a child when I discovered a treasure for my shell collection.

Every new step we took on the powder-soft sand was a shared affirmation of life.

There is such visceral pleasure in being an active participant in the act of giving and in watching someone you love experience the same joy you feel in simple things like watching the sun set or supping on a chewy banana roti.

My gift this Epiphany is one I hope I give every day, whether on vacation or not, and that is to give myself in love to those around me.

And like the magi, may I always ponder on and follow the star that leads me to Christ- as I gaze on it with new eyes at every juncture of the journey.

Excising the past

The new year is an appropriate time to get rid of the old and start life anew.

I've lived with a lump in my right breast I detected through BSE (breast self-examination which every woman should practise every month) over three years ago and have done nothing about except monitor diligently.

As I went for my annual mammogram and ultrasound last December, I decided that I had enough of the alarmed looks and stony silences I received as the tumour showed up on the X-ray looking decidedly cancerous (jagged edges instead of smooth).

Never mind that it hasn't changed shape or size in three years. With cancer, who knows when a benign growth transforms ominously into one loaded with abnormal cells that will spread and kill the host body?

Given rising medical costs, I thought to myself it's time for action.

I opted for local anaesthesia as the quicker and less disruptive option as my doctor and surgeon, Dr. Hoe, presented this alternative to me.

A visit to his clinic and within the hour, I would walk out the door about a gramme lighter.

It took an hour and a half (with another half hour spent prior the procedure to mark the location with ultrasound) as it was deeper than expected.

I was mostly calm and relaxed before and through the entire procedure, although the last bit where he stitched me up was decidedly uncomfortable as the anaesthesia was wearing off.

It was novel and strange to have someone cut a hole into you, stretch open the hole, stick a finger inside to determine the location of the tumour and subsequently excise a part of you.

To hear and smell the cauterizing of blood vessels to stop the bleeding, know what size needles were used to finally stitch you up...

I am glad I was conscious through the entire operation, so that I could continually pray that the Spirit guide my surgeon's hands.

There was even room for levity when Dr. Hoe tried to apply more anaesthesia and it accidentally spurted skyward, landing on my eyebrow. I enquired quizzically, "Botox too?" and he and his nurse both burst out laughing.

Best of all was the call from his nurse the day after informing me that it was benign.

B. said she knew that would be the result. Tongue in cheek, I said so did I.

Given the Scripture verse I picked at the W2W's new year's thanksgiving dinner, I was unafraid:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me." - Psalm 23:4

What I took away from the whole experience is that medicine can indeed be a noble profession and not just an extremely lucrative one.

The impression one gets mostly is that specialists specialize only in lightening your pocketbook.

Dr. Hoe has been great from day one, always cheerful and ever-ready to answer silly questions of mine with patience and clarity. He has always taken the time to allay my fears. And his nurse and receptionist are equally friendly and warm.

What impressed me most during the operation was the way he spoke to Christine, his nurse, politely and with respect.

Notwithstanding that he was thorough and precise, and took the time to explain to me what was happening throughout.

I feel blessed to have so much to be thankful for just into the new year and I am grateful not just for the skill of my surgeon, but the concern and care of all the people He has placed in my life.

And I see that life is blessing and blessing is life.

New year bright

Start the year right by acknowledging all that we have comes from a higher power, who has chosen us.

In Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen encourages us to reclaim an awareness of God's love and the fact that we are each chosen by Him, rather than allow others to "determine whether we are chosen or not" and find ourselves "caught in the net of a suffocating world that accepts or rejects us according to its own agenda of efficiency and control".

As we gathered together this new year's evening at the ICPE Singapore HQ to give thanks for the graces experienced in 2007 and to offer up a new year resolution, we did just that.

A community of women, we prayed for each other as each woman came before the Holy Family to offer up her unique gift of resolve and her gratitude.

No celebration is complete without eating so we dipped and munched our way through an incredible spread of food laid out around the steamboat. Finishing the feast with a dessert of orange cake and ice cream. Yum!

Conventionally we mark time in seconds, hours and days, weeks, months and years, but we'd do well to remember what Nouwen goes on to say:

"Our preciousness, uniqueness and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time - our brief existence - but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity. "

So let us live 2008 in His time. Walking in His light.