Songs my father taught me

If Dad were alive, he would be 81 today. Even though he has been gone for almost 10 years, what he taught me, in words and action, remain fresh and powerful. I'd like to remember him by sharing what he taught me, refrains he crooned as I was growing up:

*  If the truth hurts, too bad - accept it and learn to incorporate it into your life.

*  Honour your word and behave with integrity always.

*  A righteous person can walk with confidence and stand tall, with head held high.

*  Fear nothing and no one but God.

*  Family is everything so do everything you can for family.

*  Share what you have with others. Give generously for all you have comes from the Almighty.

*  Never despise someone who has less for we are all equals under the sun, regardless of sex, race or creed.

*  Money, status or power does not make me, or anyone else, for that matter, greater.

*  Honesty is the best policy so tell it like it is.

*  Do not gossip or speak ill of others.

*  Every voice has a story to relate, sorrows and joys to share. Make time to listen, then honour that person by speaking truth into his/her life.

*  Champion the underdog, fight for the rights of the oppressed and help the less fortunate.

*  Do the right thing always, even if it might cost you your life.

*  Give your best in all you do. Strive for perfection.

*  Play fair and play by the rules for the ends do not justify the means.

*  Manners matter big time, all the time. Be polite, considerate and respectful of others. Be punctual.
 
*  A lady must walk, act and talk like a lady, exuding grace and beauty wherever she goes.

*  A real man never hits a woman, or another man when he is down.

*  Fight to the very end! Never give up even if you fall. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going.

*  In your darkest hour, remember, it, too, shall pass.

*  Uphold your heritage, learn how to hold and use chopsticks the right way.

*  Don't ever stop learning.

*  The family that dines frequently together, stays together. (And the food must be good. If it is sub-standard, don't eat it.)

Finally, in tribute to his sports-mad, soccer-crazy ways, something he was fond of saying which is a fitting metaphor for life, if you think about it...

*  The ball is round.

Love you and miss you, Daddy.

Family time

Last week a bunch of relatives came to visit and only one, my uncle, remains, with a few more weeks of vacation time.

It was a treat to see them all and it set me to thinking about family and how the family is a microcosm of community, a diverse group of people living together.

I have three brothers and it is never ceases to amaze me just how different we are as people in terms of lifestyle and beliefs. We should not get along but we do, in some weird and wonderful fashion.

Then we have parents who drive us crazy with their idiosyncrasies, while we, in turn, cause them innumerable headaches and heartache.

We also have naggy, often stubborn grandparents who can be doting and lovable. Not least we have an extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews in whom we see an array of personalities that irk, frustrate yet make us laugh in parts.

What was God thinking when He put me in this family of crazy people? This is a thought that has crossed many a mind I am sure.

That we are in the families we are in is no accident. Thus the way to sainthood must surely be to accept our relatives and love them unconditionally. Certainly oceans of patience, forbearance, compassion and forgiveness are needed, while a spark of divine help does not hurt either.

As the saying goes, we can choose our friends, but not our relatives. This does not mean we choose to have nothing to do with them. We can, of course, choose that, but if we truly seek spiritual maturity, then turning to our families is the shortest route to holiness. Try putting up with a difficult and demanding parent or a brat of a child and you will understand what I mean.

The sad thing is most of us choose the easy option of making our friends our family, while keeping a safe distance from our true families.

Sure, friends are important and vital for our emotional and spiritual well-being, but most friendships are not deep enough or altruistic enough to proffer a life-giving candour and honesty that may be necessary at times.

Like how we may need a kick in the pants when we wander off the path and it is often a family member who can deliver a home truth we don't want to hear. Friends, even well-meaning ones, mostly do not overstep the boundaries that families trample all over in good and bad ways.

When families fall short of healthy, life-giving love, we are called to rise above our familial circumstances and shine the light of God's love and mercy in our families. This means forgiving seventy times seven times, and more, even if you feel like murdering someone. No one said it was going to be a walk in the park.

I believe the call to mission begins first within our own families. Not the easiest thing to accomplish for as Jesus commented, a prophet will always be rejected in his own hometown. But, I reckon, it is the most rewarding for when we see people we love prosper and thrive, basking in the sunshine of God's abundant love, we rejoice with them, even as we enjoy the warmth of His love ourselves.

We are in the families we are in for a reason. If we take up the gauntlet of living with and loving our family through the differences, creating peace and harmony in our homes, then the world will indeed become a better place. World peace will no longer be unattainable then.

Make time for your family.  

Expressing faith

In Pope Francis's first encyclical Lumen Fidei*, the Pope stresses the importance of shared expressions of faith in the family for faith is first and foremost "born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals His love" "in every age of life".

 

We are invited to see and hear Him in every relationship we have - "for every man and woman represents a blessing for me" - and to use our voices and our lives to proclaim the truth of His love to everyone as faith is meant "to find expression in words and to be proclaimed".

 

In my family, the transmission of faith was always left to others and we never talked about God in my home. Hence what I learned about God was what my catechism teachers taught me and while it was foundational, it lacked a personal sense of who God, Jesus, was.

 

I learnt "Jesus loves me, yes I know, for the Bible tells me so" but, so what? It was an arid, distant sort of love I experienced. And I was good because this was the way I should be, especially if I didn't want to go to hell.

 

The adults around me could not show me who Jesus was for we never talked about Him, and their relationship with Him was probably much like what I learned about in school, a respectful but superficial one with the forbidding, sometimes benign, transcendent God I could not touch.

 

As the Pope writes: Our culture has lost its sense of God's tangible presence and activity in our world. While I never doubted God's existence, I never saw Him around much either, just occasional glimpses.

 

It was only when I saw how God touched my father during his illness, and how He spoke to my family during that period that I realized just how real Jesus was. I began to see with the light of faith and what I saw transformed me.

 

The Spirit of love was palpable in the unusual gentleness of my father's temperament and in our familial solidarity in that time of crisis.

 

He sent angels to administer to us in the form of my Second Aunt who cooked special meals for my father, my eldest cousin who visited frequently, showering love and concern on my father, my missionary cousin who was a wise and comforting spiritual guide, the hospice doctors and nurses who would advise us medically when they visited, and strangers who strengthened him with prayer.

 

In inviting Jesus to be the centre of our lives, He became an intimate of the family and showed us just how much He loved us every single day.

 

Since then, I have learned to discern just how real and solid a presence Jesus is in my life, how much He loves me and how faithful He is to flaky me.

 

Whenever I stop to reflect on the goodness of God, I am always amazed. Jesus is with me in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, through thick and thin. He is truly "my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest" as WH Auden wrote.

 

In the last ten years exploring and studying the faith of my forefathers, I have found wondrous truths reside in Mother Church who is indeed the "storehouse of memory" and the "deposit of faith".

 

Therefore I strive to give voice and form to the truths I find daily in my "profession of faith, the celebration of the sacraments, the path of the ten commandments, and prayer".

 

We are called to love beyond fear, and beyond evil, to reach out and build bonds with others, to be as one, in body and spirit, for "If faith is not one, then it is not faith".

 

It will not be an easy journey for we will be tested and persecuted, we will experience suffering, but faith will always bring hope, and enable us to fathom "what makes human life precious and unique" and find our "place in the universe".

 

As Pope Francis writes:

 

Faith is no refuge for the fainthearted but something which enhances our lives. It makes us aware of a magnificent calling, the vocation of love. It assures us that this love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for it is based on God's faithfulness which is stronger than our every weakness.

 

Be brave. Express your faith by loving the others in your life. And don't forget to share it audibly and visibly with your family today.

 

* http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

The gift of emptiness

E asked me how I felt yesterday, it being my birthday, and I was not able to give an answer. Post-exam exhaustion (thanks once again to all who have supported me through this period, the written exam went well, I think), plus a head cold, have left me feeling muddled and depleted.

Today I came up with an answer: Empty. While I am happy to have accomplished what I set out to these past 12 months, culminating in my exams, I feel empty, almost as if I have lost purpose in life. Yet I know this to be inaccurate for I know where I am heading and I already see new doors opening.

Perhaps it's just being in the liminal space, on the cusp of something new, which causes me to feel this way. There is the next mountain to conquer... so take a deep breath and start climbing.

Emptiness is not necessarily a bad thing, not unlike fear, for good or bad depends solely on our response.

Apart from my acute fear of failing, I have enjoyed this period of intense industry. I felt inspired and intellectually invigorated. I could cook and eat healthily (which always makes me feel good), and I got to spend more time with my mother who invariably makes me laugh. Studying hard was a novel and strangely edifying experience as well.

The word jubilee denotes celebration, a time of freedom and rest. Yesterday marked the official start of my “jubilee” year for I have a strong sense that the 12 months before me will be a very special time for me.

E advised that I take some time to bask in the glow of recently fulfilled desires, to sit and smell the fragrance of the good fruit I have produced, to taste and see that the Lord has been good to me. Thus empty is a suitable starting point: to rest in the emptiness and let the Lord fill me.

Gratitude, joy, inner peace, contentment, there are only accessible if I contemplate the moments, epiphanies and rhythms of my life. My ability to know what I should do this year hinges on the time I spend at the feet of Jesus, pondering in my heart, like Mother Mary, the mysteries in my life that are yet to unfold.

I know this to be true for having made a concerted effort to pray regularly these last few weeks has indeed given me strength and a rare grace under fire. What has sustained me most this difficult period was praying Saint Ignatius’s Suscipe daily, which is a prayer of kenosis, a self-emptying of one’s own will.

So emptiness could well be the best birthday present I receive this year.