Philia kind

Just two days ago, an old boyfriend flew into town and we met over lunch, followed by dinner before he headed home on a jet plane.

We had a very good time just hanging out and catching up on each other's lives. He was as I remembered, funny, intelligent, engaging, gentlemanly, someone I once contemplated marriage with and a man I still love dearly.

As the conversation flowed, the years disappeared, and we waltzed away an evening of shared histories, wonderful memories and a gentle, mutual affection for each other.

While my heart ached a little as the evening came to an end, for beauty always makes me weep and the evening was hauntingly perfect, I was mainly grateful that I am no longer the woman he once knew - co-dependent, needy and lacking in self-esteem.

Instead, the experience of being loved unconditionally and so generously over the last six years has transformed me into a woman who is confident, sure and comfortable in her own skin, mostly at peace with herself and the world.

Andrew Comisky writes in his book Strength in Weakness that "the freedom to be for another requires security in one's personal identity as male or female".

He offers a Biblical understanding of what it is to be created man and woman which confirmed for me what I had always thought of as my own personal neurosis. Now I know it's just my own 'womanly' tendencies.

In understanding my "more developed relational sensibilities" as woman and the inclination to a "desire" (Genesis 3:16) that Comisky describes as "inordinate desire, an exclusive possessive yearning for the man", I can see why I had previously made 'the man in my life' my entire world and was consequently a slave to my emotional attachment.

It has taken four years of singlehood, time well spent in discovering who, how, what and why I am, and a process that has allowed me to become secure in an identity forged in truth and freedom, bringing balance to who I am as woman.

As I grow into my "true self" I am able to relate to others, especially of the opposite sex, in ways more multi-dimensional and varied than previously. I am able to engage in healthy and affirming friendships with men.
 
Even as I recognize that I will always love PCT for what we had, the eros type of love I had for him has become a philia kind of love and I am now free to love him for who he is, an old and dear friend, nothing more or less. Much kinder to my heart.

After dinner, I came home to the one man who made it all possible - my main man, JC.

And I thank God for that.

Christmas blessing

What are your blessings this Christmas? This question has been uppermost in my mind since I returned from the Philippines last Sunday.

Perhaps it's the physical fatigue (did not get enough sleep abroad) but I've been feeling lackadaisical this entire Christmas week.

Yes, it was great meeting up with friends and having the opportunity to catch up, eat some yummy food but I just couldn't get into the whole spirit of Christmas thing. I am just glad I had already done my all Christmas shopping for I did not have the energy to contend with crowds or the shopping frenzy.

And then Christmas came.

This is season we celebrate the birth of our Saviour King, when Word became flesh. I am not sure if this is a truth I have understood in all its profundity. However, this year, I think I may be closer to the truth and because of that, I have been experiencing a real melange of emotions.

While I am grateful and thankful for where I am today, and for this wonderfully rich relationship I have with Jesus, this same relationship demands more of me than perhaps I am ready for?

To be the hands and feet of our Saviour, to allow Him to be born in me requires me to go with the movements of my heart which can be taxing emotionally.

I returned home from the Philippines energized for having attempted to show the face of love to those who were marginalized and yet at the same time, I have been emotionally zapped out from witnessing the despair and bleakness of those living in squalor.

How can I possibly indulge myself when there are so many who go to bed hungry with no hope of a great tomorrow?

What kind of change can my puny efforts over a couple of days effect? Even if I were to be a true missionary as those I lived in community with for those few days in Philippines, what can I truly do?

It wasn't until today that I realized allowing Christ to be born in me also means giving Him room to perform miracles that I could not humanly imagine or conceive.

That all that is required of me is to keep the faith (by being a good steward and faithful servant), continue to pray for grace and to let Him lead me every step of the way.

And so I rejoice that God has given us His only son because He so loved us and that this newborn babe will save the world in His own inimitable style.

My true blessing this Christmas is to know I should dream the impossible dream for He has already shown me in so many ways how the impossible can come to pass.

Veníte adoremus Dóminum

Birthing Christ

I just spent the last week singing carols (yes, even in Tagalog) and delivering Christmas hampers to the poor living in Montalban, Philippines.

ICPE Philippines*, a Catholic lay missionary organization, organizes a reverse carolling outreach to the people living near the dumpsite in Montalban every year.

In its third year, the reverse carolling intiative sees teams of volunteers fanning the area, visiting the poor families living there to sing Christmas carols, praying with them and giving each family a Christmas hamper filled with goodies that will enable them to have a special meal during Christmas as well as provide them with some basic necessities.

This year, ICPE organized three outreaches on December 16th, 17th and 19th with the latter involving their Balikatan Ministry which comprises members of the community living in the area neighbouring the dumpsite. Some 300 hampers were given out over the three-day period.

While there were many takeaways from the entire experience - the resilience of the people, joy that can exist even in the grimmest of circumstances, the hunger for love that can be satisfied in giving to others, how beauty is a universal language, the importance of good health and what a gift from God children are - the thing that struck me most was the power of a smile.
 
The profound gratitude of the families I visited really moved me for despite the inability to communicate with them, just by smiling at them and trying my best to exude empathy and compassion evoked a response that said, "Welcome and thank you for visiting me. I am so happy you are here, listening to me and acknowledging my existence".

I was humbled and awed in turn by the ability to recognize Christ's presence in the other, who in turn recognized Christ in me.

It was as Mother Teresa said, "Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing".

In the act of a smile given, and a smile received and returned, each moment was a blessing for both the giver and the recipient. Sacred. Priceless.

While the poverty I saw around me made me weep, I was reminded to do what I can and to offer the rest up to God.

He who takes care of every living creature will take care of those I met over the three days of outreach.

I return home grateful for all that I have, and for the opportunity to make this Advent meaningful, allowing Emmanuel to be born again in the world.

* To read more about ICPE Philippines, go to http://www.icpe.org/icpe-philippines.php

Loving parents

A child is a precious gift and parents, both father and mother, cherish and care for the child with a tender, unconditional love on a daily basis.

In an ideal world, that would be how parental love is, however, we live in the real world and in the real world, parents are not perfect people but probably broken or dysfunctional individuals who have been hurt, deprived, manipulated, lied to and abused.

They were once children who either did not experience a life-giving love or perceive that they were loved in a nurturing fashion by parents and significant others.

And so they are now adults who try their best as parents, but often fall short, and in a very human way, foster relationships with their own children that are filled with tension, resentment and laden with baggage of past hurts.

It is therefore no surprise that we are reminded by God in the Decalogue to "Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you."

That it is the first commandment that advises on behaviour to others, apart from God, is significant.

The CCC* states that we should honour our parents as it is to them "whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God". It also states that:

"The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honour, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

"This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons." (2199)

So what are the rewards of observing the fourth commandment?

The CCC says "spiritual fruits, temporal fruits of peace and prosperity", otherwise it "brings great harm to communities and to individuals".

Now those of us who have had bad childhood experiences and still continue to have rocky relationships with our parents may struggle to keep this commandment.

However, if we have an experience of God's love and believe in Him, then we are obliged to try and find a way to fulfil this commandment for this is one of the first and very basic ways we are able to express our love for God.

So how do we accomplish this nigh impossible feat of honouring and loving our parents when they can drive us up the wall and round the bend with just a few choice words?

We must first come to terms with the past. To invite Jesus to be there with us when we revisit painful and hurtful memories, and to release those bad times to Him and ask for a healing of those memories.

As P. brought up last Friday evening, empathy is a great tool in the healing process.

We may never understand fully why our parents did what they did to us as children, or continue to behave in ways that still can be life-destroying, but we can try to be open to who they are as people, to walk a mile in their shoes and then perhaps get a glimmer of understanding of what it means to be them.

I harboured great anger towards my father for a very long time but realized that it was me that I was hurting ultimately. So I came to a decision to let go of the anger and to live my life in a more positive way.

The first realization I arrived at was that I had to accept my father was who he was and that I could never change him as a person. (In other words, I had to love him unconditionally.)

Instead I needed to change how I looked at him, not through the eyes of a hurt child, but through the eyes of an understanding adult who saw him as another human being who had been hurt and disappointed many times in his life, and who did not judge him.

Even though that made a huge difference to our relationship and we both came to know that we loved each other dearly, the relationship was not one that was ever easy or light. But it was one filled with patience, forgiveness, caring, understanding, compassion and fidelity.

The flip side of a "difficult' relationship is that loving such a person ultimately makes you a better person for you are called to draw on the reserves of grace that love (that is a choice and not an emotion) engenders.

I just finished a fab book by Gary Chapman called Love as a Way of  Life and I found it very insightful.

He enumerates the ways we can express love to make it a "successful" experience: kindness, patience, forgiveness, courtesy, humility, generosity and honesty.

If we are able to give love in the way we would like to receive love, an authentic, selfless, self-giving love, then we will indeed live long in the land that God has given us - one filled with peace and a prosperity that is beyond measure.

In this season of Advent, there is no better time to practise the fourth commandment so try honouring your father and your mother today.

* Catechism of the Catholic Church

Reality Project Desire

I have the December blues. It's an awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach for I have run out of time to accomplish the goals I set out to this calendar year due to my own poor time management and lack of discipline.

Yes it's the time of year to sit back (amidst the crazy Christmas prepping) and reflect on how my life has shaped up over the past 12 months.

And yet, there is much that I have accomplished. I give thanks for I am been largely successful in giving back to those around me (in small and big ways, planned and spontaneous) and I have matured both spiritually and emotionally.

I am especially gratified that I have let go of certain notions that have been embedded in my psyche for so many years and I now have a new way of looking at the world. And armed with John Powell's vision therapy, I hope to battle my distortions into pale images that I can see through to the underlying truth.

In the meantime, new goals have popped up on the horizon, while new ideas are brewing, and new desires have been planted in the depths of my being -all of which I have yet to find time to mull over and discern what I am to do with it.

As with any new idea or desire, I want to see it happen instantly. I want to already see the fruition of its alluring potential. I want to drop everything in order to take flight.

A visit to my SD three days back has helped give me some perspective.

After sharing with him my failings and my desires, he said to me three words: Reality. Project. Desire.

He then proceeded to elaborate, "Deal with the reality (of unfinished goals by completing them), then embark on the project (that I have already pondered over for a long while now and need to execute) and sit with the desire (until it becomes clearer)."

I thought it was a fantastic pragmatic approach to life that bore repeating, hence this entry.

He then offered three more words to allay my fears: Confidence, peace and hope.

If my talents are God-given, then I should be confident that when I use them it will be a furtherance of my vocation, and in the act I will find the peace of doing what I am created to do and the hope of breathing life into God's possibilities.

When I shared with him my sense of what this Advent means to me - being pregnant, to be filled with new life and waiting eagerly for its arrival -  he gave me one final sentence that baby Jesus is saying to each of us during this special season:

"I need you to be born again for the world."

The expression of Christ's birth can only be made real through our thoughts and actions.

So what are you doing this Christmas to make it a worthwhile reality?