Early this morning, I was given a dream.
In it I saw my father who was happy, healthy and chatting easily with my 2nd aunt, and my 2nd and 6th uncles after a weekday afternoon mass at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd. We all happened to attend the same mass and had spotted each other and were standing around in the car park for a quick chat.
When I saw him standing there in his blue pyjamas, I was overjoyed to see him. For it was so great to be able to see him smile, standing there looking so well even though it was a dream.
It is five years to the day since he passed on. I still remember his last day with us very vividly. The eventual realization that it was indeed his final day as he slowly slipped into a coma. And how the night before he must've known the end was near for he thanked us for taking care of him.
Thinking of him still makes me weep and I don't think I will ever stop mourning his loss. It is something I am glad for, for it proves to me that love is stronger even than death, and I know that this love that binds me to him will eventually see us reunited in the Father's embrace.
Regardless of loss, time moves on inexorably. Rather than wallow in sorrow, I choose to celebrate my father's life every day in the way I try to live up to his ideals of honour and integrity.
Every act of care and selfless giving to my mother.
Every deed of generosity that echoes his willingness to help those who were less privileged.
Every endeavour to forgive and actively foster family ties.
Every meal that is cooked with love and seasoned with his tastebuds of perfectionism.
And so tonight Mum and I sat down to a fine repast of fresh oysters, bratwurst and chilled white wine to give thanks to the man who lived life to the fullest in every sense of the word.
While life with Dad had its moments, there were also wonderful memories.
I choose to let go of the bad and cherish the good and I am grateful for the wonderful gift I received this early morn.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Olympian efforts
What a day of Olympic watching! Michael Phelps won his eighth goal, an absolute coup, although not unexpected. Especially coming a day after his previous spectacular win in the 100m butterfly by 0.01 of a second.
The women's marathon saw 38 year-old Constantina Tomescu-Dita from Romania break away from the pack midway to take the gold over a minute before the other runners.
What also made the marathon gripping to watch was that world record-holder Paula Radcliffe of Britain who chased the elusive Olympic medal yet again had to concede defeat from injury (she's still recovering from a stress fracture in her thigh bone). Her courage in completing the race despite having to stop midway to deal with leg cramps was inspiring.
In my book, every woman who completed the marathon is a winner. It is as St. Paul would put it a case of running "the good race" where determination, perseverance, strength, discipline and a whole lotta heart are needed. Every runner displayed all these qualities in full measure.
In the case of Phelps's eighth goal it was the US swim team's effort that made it possible. Working as parts of "one body", bringing their individual strengths to play to pursue a dream and attain it. It was high drama at its best.
The Olympics underscored all that I have been absorbing over the last few weeks about the body. There is no separation of spirit and body and it is the force of the spirit within a body that enables a person to strive and attain his or her goals.
Through the body we connect to the world. The Olympics idealizes the best of human bonding where political differences are set aside and a common bond is forged through the love of sport and the ability to hone the human body to physical peak and display its prowess.
Those of us who can't, just sit in front of the telly and marvel at how the human body can be pushed to the limit and achieve what seems to be impossible.
We are reminded that the impossible is made possible if we but only try.
The women's marathon saw 38 year-old Constantina Tomescu-Dita from Romania break away from the pack midway to take the gold over a minute before the other runners.
What also made the marathon gripping to watch was that world record-holder Paula Radcliffe of Britain who chased the elusive Olympic medal yet again had to concede defeat from injury (she's still recovering from a stress fracture in her thigh bone). Her courage in completing the race despite having to stop midway to deal with leg cramps was inspiring.
In my book, every woman who completed the marathon is a winner. It is as St. Paul would put it a case of running "the good race" where determination, perseverance, strength, discipline and a whole lotta heart are needed. Every runner displayed all these qualities in full measure.
In the case of Phelps's eighth goal it was the US swim team's effort that made it possible. Working as parts of "one body", bringing their individual strengths to play to pursue a dream and attain it. It was high drama at its best.
The Olympics underscored all that I have been absorbing over the last few weeks about the body. There is no separation of spirit and body and it is the force of the spirit within a body that enables a person to strive and attain his or her goals.
Through the body we connect to the world. The Olympics idealizes the best of human bonding where political differences are set aside and a common bond is forged through the love of sport and the ability to hone the human body to physical peak and display its prowess.
Those of us who can't, just sit in front of the telly and marvel at how the human body can be pushed to the limit and achieve what seems to be impossible.
We are reminded that the impossible is made possible if we but only try.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Spiritual time outs
There is an article by columnist Erma Bombeck which she wrote when she was diagnosed with cancer entitled "If I had my life to live over" and in it she enumerates ways in which she would have been less concerned with doing things efficiently, practically or responsibly and been more spontaneous and laid back.
Essentially she would have taken more time to smell the roses, live in the moment and not sweat the small stuff.
It's hard not to rush along in life doing, doing, doing for the culture we live in applauds accomplishment and achievement, measuring success by concrete acts and material wealth.
So how much money have you made today? How many people have you saved?
What about how many people have you made smile today? Who has felt loved today by your care and concern?
Often we forget it's the small gestures that can mean a lot. A common courtesy. Acknowledging the presence of the other by giving our utmost attention to the person. Taking the time to listen to someone and be there for them.
We are so conditioned to focus on the destination or goal that we forget the importance of the journey. Or to have fun as we journey.
I am guilty of doing this quite often. Trying to keep to my daily schedule, I rush from place to place. I cut out the niceties and tend to be very business-like in my dealings.
When I get into efficiency mode, I usually feel depleted by day's end for I sacrificed quality by doing and forgetting to enjoy what I'm doing. Worse, I set out trying to do too much and feel like a failure when I do not accomplish all that I set out to do.
And it all becomes so much meaningless activity.
It's nigh impossible to slow down the pace of my life but I have learnt to create spiritual time outs during the day.
To create spaces where I converse with Jesus and thank Him for the small graces that touch my life as I go about my day: the sun shining in a blue, blue sky, the food stall seller who did not charge me full price for my breakfast, or the appearance of the bus I need when I am running late.
Constantly touching base with Him and offering my day to Him helps me surrender any anxiety I have over things not going my way. Quite vital for a control freak like me who likes to exert her will over life.
And I am also reminded to open my eyes to the beauty of the world around me, inhale life and exude enjoyment for all that He gives me every day.
It thus becomes time well spent.
Essentially she would have taken more time to smell the roses, live in the moment and not sweat the small stuff.
It's hard not to rush along in life doing, doing, doing for the culture we live in applauds accomplishment and achievement, measuring success by concrete acts and material wealth.
So how much money have you made today? How many people have you saved?
What about how many people have you made smile today? Who has felt loved today by your care and concern?
Often we forget it's the small gestures that can mean a lot. A common courtesy. Acknowledging the presence of the other by giving our utmost attention to the person. Taking the time to listen to someone and be there for them.
We are so conditioned to focus on the destination or goal that we forget the importance of the journey. Or to have fun as we journey.
I am guilty of doing this quite often. Trying to keep to my daily schedule, I rush from place to place. I cut out the niceties and tend to be very business-like in my dealings.
When I get into efficiency mode, I usually feel depleted by day's end for I sacrificed quality by doing and forgetting to enjoy what I'm doing. Worse, I set out trying to do too much and feel like a failure when I do not accomplish all that I set out to do.
And it all becomes so much meaningless activity.
It's nigh impossible to slow down the pace of my life but I have learnt to create spiritual time outs during the day.
To create spaces where I converse with Jesus and thank Him for the small graces that touch my life as I go about my day: the sun shining in a blue, blue sky, the food stall seller who did not charge me full price for my breakfast, or the appearance of the bus I need when I am running late.
Constantly touching base with Him and offering my day to Him helps me surrender any anxiety I have over things not going my way. Quite vital for a control freak like me who likes to exert her will over life.
And I am also reminded to open my eyes to the beauty of the world around me, inhale life and exude enjoyment for all that He gives me every day.
It thus becomes time well spent.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
A perfect love
Today at lunch she said to me
Who is this new man in your life?
Who has got you aglow with joy
Blooming, like a morning glory?
Come on, out with it, tell me his name
For you are clearly not the same.
I said to her there is no man,
No one new: He’s been in my life
From the very start; the first time
I drew breath, He was there, smiling.
In his eyes, a deep love shining.
It’s just that now I see him clearly.
How could I begin to explain?
What I experience in my being
Is something the world dismisses
As unreal, too good to be true.
The primordial promise often sought,
In worldly things that come to naught.
It took me a while to find him
Whispering in the wind he’s barely
Discernible. You have to choose.
Are you the grain of wheat that dies
To bear new life, take on new guise?
Or are you made of stone, just lawful?
As our love grows, a nuptial fruit
I live in him and him in me.
He is my way, my truth, my life
My lover forever, my knight.
Although, at times, I lose the fervour
He is there, loving as ever.
The perfect man, a perfect love
How did I do it, you may ask?
You must seek in order to find
What is there in the beginning.
For only then what is fright’ning
Will be revealed as the priceless pearl.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Saying yes
Finally, the mountain of work has been conquered and the book (yes the mountain is a book of sorts) goes into printing tomorrow. I've had to work almost every day while I was in Melbourne (just got back Saturday night) but thank God for movable deadlines where the impossible is made possible.
I am humbled by how the Lord knows exactly what I need and provides so generously. And I am encouraged to keep saying yes, even when I say yes to things that scare me and that I do not think I am good enough to tackle them.
This has been my biggest learning lesson of the summer.
In the movie Out of Africa, Karen Blixen makes this wry comment: "When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers."
I used to subscribe to that cynical view on life. Now looking at the quote, I see that the operative word is "gods", not God.
Anyone who has tried to serve two masters or worship false idols will know that choosing something or a course of action that stems from selfish desires may bring joy, but it also brings with it suffering - usually to those around him, if not to the chooser himself or herself.
Over lunch today, C. just shared with me that someone we both know, a staunch Christian in the past, has now chosen to abandon his role as husband and father in order to pursue his own personal happiness.
It made me stop to think how easy it is to stop saying yes to God and to say yes instead to the pursuit of self pleasures.
How easy it is to forget that Jesus really loves us and He wants only good things for us, that it's never in His plan to make us suffer.
How easy to take such an unselfish love for granted and not treasure the very thing we are seeking for in life.
How easy to fall from grace.
So what is it that can change the hearts and minds of good, even great people, and make them do a 180 degree turn, eschewing all they chose and worked for previously?
A lot hinges on how we view God. Do we view Him as vengeful, a policeman god who will punish us for our transgressions?
Or as a Santa Claus god to whom we pray only when we want something from Him?
Or a watchmaker god who creates the world and then steps back and lets it function on its own, a benevolent but distant being?
I used to think God was all of the above until I experienced first-hand that compassionate, merciful, unconditional love that the psalmists write about in the book of Psalms.
It was like falling in love for the very first time - a special and unique, never-before experienced event - so memorable that the event is burned indelibly in my consciousness. A true burning bush experience.
But like all memories, it can get displaced by wants and desires and even such a deep, personal experience of love can be discounted and forgotten.
And so it's important to say yes every new day, building on the first time I said yes to Jesus as I accepted his warm embrace of love.
Saying yes involves hard work. It's not an action I carry out on principle, on "blind faith". I have to work at getting to know Jesus as a person, what are His Father's plans for me and constantly finetune my ability to discern how the Spirit moves in my life.
It's all about making informed decisions and choices in life every step of the way.
This also involves getting to know myself and understanding myself better as a person, accepting myself, the good and the bad, and having the courage to allow Him to mould me as He wills.
The latter is the most difficult for it requires purification and reformation, which, at times, can be most painful. So why do it you may ask?
No one else in this world will love me with such depth and kindness - who accepts me for who I am and who is always there for me, till the end of time and beyond.
Now how can I say no to that?
I am humbled by how the Lord knows exactly what I need and provides so generously. And I am encouraged to keep saying yes, even when I say yes to things that scare me and that I do not think I am good enough to tackle them.
This has been my biggest learning lesson of the summer.
In the movie Out of Africa, Karen Blixen makes this wry comment: "When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers."
I used to subscribe to that cynical view on life. Now looking at the quote, I see that the operative word is "gods", not God.
Anyone who has tried to serve two masters or worship false idols will know that choosing something or a course of action that stems from selfish desires may bring joy, but it also brings with it suffering - usually to those around him, if not to the chooser himself or herself.
Over lunch today, C. just shared with me that someone we both know, a staunch Christian in the past, has now chosen to abandon his role as husband and father in order to pursue his own personal happiness.
It made me stop to think how easy it is to stop saying yes to God and to say yes instead to the pursuit of self pleasures.
How easy it is to forget that Jesus really loves us and He wants only good things for us, that it's never in His plan to make us suffer.
How easy to take such an unselfish love for granted and not treasure the very thing we are seeking for in life.
How easy to fall from grace.
So what is it that can change the hearts and minds of good, even great people, and make them do a 180 degree turn, eschewing all they chose and worked for previously?
A lot hinges on how we view God. Do we view Him as vengeful, a policeman god who will punish us for our transgressions?
Or as a Santa Claus god to whom we pray only when we want something from Him?
Or a watchmaker god who creates the world and then steps back and lets it function on its own, a benevolent but distant being?
I used to think God was all of the above until I experienced first-hand that compassionate, merciful, unconditional love that the psalmists write about in the book of Psalms.
It was like falling in love for the very first time - a special and unique, never-before experienced event - so memorable that the event is burned indelibly in my consciousness. A true burning bush experience.
But like all memories, it can get displaced by wants and desires and even such a deep, personal experience of love can be discounted and forgotten.
And so it's important to say yes every new day, building on the first time I said yes to Jesus as I accepted his warm embrace of love.
Saying yes involves hard work. It's not an action I carry out on principle, on "blind faith". I have to work at getting to know Jesus as a person, what are His Father's plans for me and constantly finetune my ability to discern how the Spirit moves in my life.
It's all about making informed decisions and choices in life every step of the way.
This also involves getting to know myself and understanding myself better as a person, accepting myself, the good and the bad, and having the courage to allow Him to mould me as He wills.
The latter is the most difficult for it requires purification and reformation, which, at times, can be most painful. So why do it you may ask?
No one else in this world will love me with such depth and kindness - who accepts me for who I am and who is always there for me, till the end of time and beyond.
Now how can I say no to that?
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