Luncheon challenge

One of my worst nightmares is to be put into a roomful of strangers who know each other well and I found myself in exactly that situation last weekend, with the exception of my good friend who had invited me to lunch.

I was extremely uncomfortable and knew I would be but went anyway because I love M. and wanted to celebrate with her (plus I had not seen her in a while). I also have a masochistic streak in me and like to challenge myself.

I came home with a tension headache.

So this made me ask myself why I had such an adverse reaction? Why was I so stressed out? There were a number of reasons:

*  I am an introvert who enjoys being alone; never bored with my own company.

*  I hate small talk for I find it meaningless and therefore am quite bad at it.
*  I was painfully shy as a teenager because I had low self-esteem and I have never really outgrown the awkward, gauche girl I was.

Yup, I am socially inept although I have learnt how to get by most times. Although last Sunday was not one of those times and I felt I was failing miserably, hence the headache ("Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and eat worms...").

It is quite disgruntling to note that I can still be a prisoner of my teenaged angst-filled years where I felt like an unloved, weird misfit.

And yet, I know that this is who I am and I am still learning to embrace my own unique shortcomings and weaknesses.

We are bombarded daily with messages of  how we should look (slim, youthful and sexy) and what will make us happy (more designer stuff, living the high life with an adoring good-looking, rich partner, etc.) and it's so easy to fall into the trap of self-loathing for how many of us actually attain the celebrated ideals?

And if we do, can we hold on to them or do they turn out to be illusory and too transient for lasting happiness?

This is where I feel blessed to be grounded and centred on Christ. One of my greatest esteem-boosters has been my affirming relationship with Jesus for through Him, I know what's important  in my life.

As Saint Paul said to the Colossians: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

With Christ, I know I am loved for who I am exactly where I am, without having to lift a finger to prove anything. He also points me in the right direction and best of all, I don't have to be perfect to attain my goals.

The journey is definitely more significant than the destination and if I maintain the right disposition and attitude in life, pointing towards Christ always, I will be near perfect in my bumbling, surly social persona. And even when I fall.

So when I do fall short of my own expectations, I remind myself it's okay, I am still loved, and not to get into a self-hate downward spiral about it.

At the same time I recognize that there is always room for improvement. As my aunt L. was fond of saying: Be content with what you have, but not with what you are.

Maybe the next lunch with strangers will be easier. I will be "better". Let's hope so for I am going for two separate luncheons today to celebrate Eid with friends.

Update 5:30pm: I enjoyed myself at both places - the food and conversation with strangers were equally good. Yay!

Life and death

I've just finished the module on bioethics and when we covered end of life, it brought back memories of journeying with my father and also with a friend, A.

Vestiges of grief still cloud my heart even though it will be eight years to the day that my father departed.

Whether dealing with issues like contraceptives, IVF, abortion, organ transplants or euthanasia, the same principles hold:

*  Good ends do not justify evil means.

*  The objective good of the human person is to be respected over the private best interest of the individual.

*  Equal dignity is accorded to every person regardless of whether he or she has a voice (this includes the embryonic and comatose) or state of life (young or old, rich or poor).

Obstacles to acceptance of these principles are utilitarianism and Cartesian dualism where human life is measured by functionality and we tend to think we can treat our bodies as objects.

This has led to a disregard for the inviolability of human life, especially in the womb and at the end of life.

I am glad I have the principles written above to guide me through life for I have seen firsthand how easy it is to make wrong decisions out of fear or guilt when it comes to the process of dying.

It is tough to watch someone you love suffering and dying a slow death before your eyes.

As you support them in their fight against death, agonizing if treatment decisions made are the right ones (at what point does the treatment from curative become palliative), you also combat a mix of fear, grief, anger and guilt that course through you, the helpless bystander.

You wish their suffering would end yet you are not ready to let them go in the arms of death for you fear you will never recover from the loss.

One of the reasons why people subscribe to euthanasia is because they do not want to be a burden to those around them. They may see their existence as meaningless for they are no longer functional and they want to end their suffering.

I was privileged to journey with my father who was always courageous and looked life, and death, straight in the eye.

One of his greatest fears in life was to be a burden on others for he was a proud man. Yet in his battle with cancer which I would consider humiliating for someone who was so fiercely independent, he abandoned himself to God and in the process found strength to face death with inspiring grace.

Never once did he contemplate giving up fighting the disease. At the same time, he wisely knew that his time on earth was in the hands of the Almighty, to the second he drew his last breath.

Watching how A suffered the indignity of being a guinea pig as she desperately sought a cure to the end made me resolute that I would do my best to choose the truth, no matter how unpalatable it is.

I have made known my wishes to family and friends that I would not wish for disproportionate means to be used to keep me alive, in the event I am unable to make the decision myself.

I am also very clear in my mind that suicide is never an option no matter how tough my life may get. God willing, I will be given the strength to maintain this stance should I be faced with great suffering.

My greatest wish is that I will be my father's daughter to the end: living life meaningfully and dying with undying faith.

Of love and marriage

In Theology of the Body, marriage is used as the icon that best exemplifies the kind of love God has for us and created us to experience in union with Him.

A love that is free, total, faithful and fruitful.

The idea of marital love is hard for many of us to grasp, especially those of us who are not in that state of life.

In the current W2W group of 14 women, only two are married. So how can the rest of us live out TOB?

Some of us have found it hard going in accepting this icon and applying TOB to our lives for our understanding of love and marriage is shaped very much by culture and tradition.

I initially thought that if I am not married I will not be able to live out the God-meaning of my body fully, that I am only able to be a self-donating gift to another in marriage.

While the example of marriage is supposed to best describe the strength and purity of love we are each called to receive and give, it does not mean that being single, I am unable to fulfil or experience this type of love.

It does not mean that I am doomed to an existence of loneliness and sexual frustration if I remain on my own.

What I have had to do in order to crack the conundrum of the spousal meaning of my body as a single woman is to understand the vocation of marriage differently.

That I am first called to an intimate, spousal relationship with the living God. To live out that free, total, faithful and fruitful relationship that Jesus Himself had with His Father.

It has meant flying in the face of popular thinking (not easy), that a woman needs a man to be delivered of loneliness and that it is better to be in a bad relationship than no relationship at all. Or being single is a sad and lonely existence.

Why else do women stick out abusive and dead-end relationships for years? Or value relationships with men who are not good for them?

I must admit I do fall into the trap of sometimes wanting the perfect Hollywood ending of woman gets hero and sails off into the sunset in his arms, but I know it's just a romanticized depiction of love that is more wishful than realistic.

Plus I have experienced the fruits of a close relationship with Jesus and it's been awesome.

I know I am deeply loved as a woman and that has built my self-confidence and given me a sound sense of identity.

My life has meaning because I am utilizing my gifts in ways that bring me great satisfaction and joy.

There is the coherence of truth and the beauty of integration in who I am.

All this because I've allowed myself to be loved and respected as the bride and sister of the Bridegroom in Song of Songs.

It is hard to surmount the cultural mores of society to embrace the true dignity of our identity as man or woman, as we were each uniquely created, but JPII's wisdom has helped me recognize it increasingly.

TOB may not be an easy message to internalize but once it happens, love follows and it all makes perfect sense.

Love and marriage can be mine today and I do not have to wait by my window, waiting for my prince to come.

He is already here.

Uplifting thoughts

E asked me how do I keep uplifted all the time. It made me smile for I haven't felt much like a happy camper lately.

July has been a difficult month for me: visitors, a gruelling 10-day course, vertigo (for the first time ever) and severe back pain have reduced me to permanent dark eye circles and perpetual grouchiness.

Maintaining a normal, placid exterior was tough but what helped me, as in all less than ideal situations I've faced is knowing that it would pass, and to have been given the grace to keep limping along in the meantime.

Perspective is a great teacher. I have been through worse times in my life so this was a walk in the park in comparison, miserable as I felt.

Plus, even when the going was bleak in recent times past, my faith kept me going. knowing that Jesus was walking with me every step of the way, cheering me on and comforting me when I needed a shoulder to cry on by way of caring friends and kind strangers gave me the heart to persevere.

The power of my faith lies in my living relationship with the Trinitarian God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In last week's Bible Timeline talk, the topic of commandments came up and rather than looking at commandments or Church teachings as hampering and enjoyment-curtailing dos and don'ts, one should consider them in the context of covenant and relationship.

Until I understood my faith in terms of a covenantal blessing and sought to cherish and nurture my relationship with God, I saw God as a killjoy policeman god whom I resented for making me feel bad and guilty all the time.

I turned away from Him and tried to find happiness on my own terms. The Hebrew word for sin chet means missing the mark and I never quite found lasting happiness or peace in my God-free actions. I kept missing the mark repeatedly.

Until I realized that far from being a policeman god, God was "gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love" (Psalm 145).

He loved me and never stopped loving me through my years of self-imposed exile and promises to love me forever.

I fell in love with Him (how can one not love a man who is so gentle, loyal and sincere) and gave Him my pledge of love, "in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health".  

So even though I may have to walk through valleys dark and deep in the future (and just walked through a short one recently), I know He is with me always, guiding me with loving hands.

This is what keeps me uplifted. His love keeps me warm inside and this warmth melts away the bitter iciness of anger, unforgiveness, anguish, loss and envy.

The truth of love

My elder bro and I were chatting (yes, July/August has been busy for me for my brothers - eldest and youngest - and my uncle have stopped by for a visit) and the conversation centred around the Chinese zodiac.

"Rats do not get along with horses, monkeys or dragons," he stated with something akin to surprise. I had to smile at his reaction for he was born into a family with a horse, monkey and dragon and we all muddle along just fine.

Well, Dad was not exactly the easiest of people to live with but it would have been the same no matter what year he was born in. I love the man deeply and I still respect and uphold his beliefs and values but living with him was like living on the edge of a constantly erupting volcano - tumultuous and nerve-wrecking.

I then said to J, it doesn't really matter what zodiac sign we are as long as we have empathy. It's about choice - choosing to love your family even when they drive you crazy.

It's certainly the preeminent way of learning how to cultivate the virtues of kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, acceptance, generosity, flexibility and self-control, and more...the family is indeed the school of humanity.

There is some truth in zodiac signs but I don't put much stock in them for it's all the same with fortune-tellers, astrologers, palmists, etc., what is revealed is partially true and partial truths can be misguiding, especially if we come to believe in them completely and base our decisions on what is represented as truth.

Lest we forget, the devil's currency is half-truths. And as the old saying goes: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

We may be tempted to close our minds and hearts to other truths which may be more valid or liberating, falling victim to tunnel vision, or even worse, divisive prejudice.

Or we could end up limiting ourselves and our aspirations which would be tragic for self-fulfilling prophecies are all lie sans truth.

We are the lords of our lives in that we have each been given free will and an intellect to figure out which paths we want to take in life.

To give away our power to reason to another person and let this other decide how we should act is how we allow dictators to be born.

Yes, we all need a little visibility in life at times, especially when it comes to big decisions. That's where the only soothsayer worth consulting is God for He alone deals in Truth (and He gives it away for free).

More importantly, He created us out of love and wants to bless us, without any ulterior motive or hidden agenda.

And He has. Not just with goodness, reason and will, but with a thirst for love, beauty and truth.

The question is do we trust His blessings and apply ourselves to make them fully ours? Do we wait on His timing? Or are we impatient and easily swayed by false prophets who dazzle with seductive half-truths?

So even though big bro and I may have very different opinions and life choices, we are unified by love, beginning first with the love of my parents for each other from which flows their love for each of us that cements the love between us siblings.

I don't pretend to comprehend what makes him tick but I do strive to love and accept him for who he is and I would go to bat for him any time, knowing he would do the same for me.

For in life, there are no coincidences and I know we are all in the same family (the entire motley crew) for a reason - to learn how to love each other (differences, warts and all) and help each other get to heaven, and to have fun along the way as we do it.

This is the power and beauty of love. And that's the truth. 

The goodness of loneliness

I read with interest Sumiko Tan's column last Sunday on how marriage has not solved the problem of her loneliness for I have been reflecting on loneliness lately.

A number of women around me have been experiencing loss in their lives and are trying to come to terms with the yawning ache the loss has been left inside them and I have been wondering what can I say to them to make them feel better?

It was also a question my SD asked me recently. So how do I deal with loneliness?

I have spent a lot of my life lonely and restless. Even when I was in a relationship, there was a void in me that could not be filled, so I could identify with what Tan is experiencing.

Shouldn't being in a relationship signal the end of loneliness? On the contrary, as she pointed out, "it can worsen the ache" for despite  having "found a mate, you're basically still in this alone".

Ironically, it was only when I made the decision to be single that I learnt how to deal with loneliness for only then could I break free of the chains of habit and fear to make the journey inward and to find what I had spent my whole life looking for.

It was as Saint Augustine himself wrote: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

In endeavouring to see the "face of God" (a desire which had lain buried deep inside of me, forgotten) I embarked on a journey of purifying my heart and I have found many wonderful things, but chiefly a panacea for the worst of my lonely pangs.

I found myself first - my history, my identity and my mission. Nothing like knowing what you were put on this earth to do to give new heart and a fresh outlook. And when the going gets tough, it helps keep you focused.

Scripture has been pivotal in providing clues, and still points me in the right direction when I have questions. It is rightly termed God's love letter to humanity and is concrete evidence of His presence in our midst.

My Bible Timeline group recently asked why it was that the Holy Book was filled with stories of a bunch of weak, greedy, lustful, violent and feckless people and a seemingly vengeful God.

Reading the Old Testament would hardly convert non-believers or help them understand why Christianity can be about unconditional and merciful love.

I found a fitting answer to this question in Ronald Rolheiser's The Restless Heart* for as he put it as with all true stories of the heart, they are also the story of our hearts. As such they can provide us with much liberating insight.

The stories of the Old Testament are "also revelation stories" which reveal "the heart of God and God's understanding of our hearts. Because of this they possess qualities of timelessness, universality, insight, and healing that go beyond the power of our own stories."

Bible stories are about real people who have struggled with the same issues we now grapple with and offer us either signs of encouragement or little nuggets of wisdom.

Apart from finding my own story and place within salvation history, re-discovering a sense of the sacred has given me a renewed zest for life and a delighted appreciation for the created world.

In the book of Genesis, Esau is described as a "profane" man, one who "treated the holy as common" and sold his birthright for a bowl of lentils.

I had done the same previously when I had not understood the profundity of my identity as child of God. I gave it away and remained lost in a self-centred definition of freedom and love.

To esteem the goodness of the Creator, the beauty of His creations, and the inspired work of holy men and women have challenged me to expand my own heart and be open to the movement of the Spirit in the quotidian hum of daily living.

To be awed like a child who looks at the world with eyes of wonder and sees miracles at every turn, this is how I aspire to live life and when I succeed, I am filled with joy and inner peace. And I rest in Him.

Regaining my sense of the sacred has also enabled me to find God in all things. In the gentle breeze, in my mother's laughter, in the frustration of missing my bus and in the lonely ache of my heart.

Yes, loneliness never goes away for it is a condition of the human heart. But in the still point of prayer; in being available not just to God but to people He has surrounded me with; in being actively involved  and connected in "the community of life", the gnawing ache of loneliness is lessened.

This spirituality of loneliness is one displayed most admirably by Mother Teresa who despite experiencing the absence of God in her latter years, continued to reach out and love others.

Her loneliness made her empathize with the poor and unwanted, and kept her humble in spite of her acknowledged greatness.

So loneliness need not be a dreaded foe or a destructive force that pushes us to addictive, insalubrious behaviour or unending depression.

Instead it can propel us to come out of our shell and to maybe, just maybe find God in a different way and help us build a deeper, more intimate bond with Him. We don't have to sing the blues alone.

Loneliness can be a good thing. It is all up to us to make it worthwhile, to make it good.

* Father Rolheiser's book identifies possible causes of loneliness and the different types of loneliness. He also offers a way out of being enslaved by loneliness or restlessness which I have found works. Great book - worth a read.