Staying awake

I have been following the journey of Hōkūleʻa, the double hulled canoe that is sailing around the world using only ancient methods of navigation, that is, to navigate by the stars, sun, waves and even sea birds.

Pwo Navigator Nainoa Thompson using the sunrise to gauge location after sailing through the night using the stars for direction. Taken from Hokulea Crew Facebook page, September 10.

Navigator Ka'iulani Murphy was explaining dead reckoning and this is what she said:

You only know where you are based on knowing where you come from. And you need to keep track of all the clues along the way.

Navigation is, after all, the process of determining where you are, where you want to go and how to get there. Thus to navigate well and stay on course, the navigator must stay awake through the night, into the day. Sometimes he or she must stay awake for as long as three days at a stretch, surreptitiously taking mini cat naps in the day.

I find the process of navigation fascinating for I have such a poor sense of direction and I wonder what I would do if I were at sea literally? I would definitely get lost. I would also be falling asleep at the helm. It is fitting that the season of Advent commences with an exhortation by Jesus to stay awake.

I certainly know where I come from and I do know where I want to go, but there are days I am hazy about how to get there. To make it worse, it is so easy to be lulled into the slumber of complacency, inertia and a comfortable spirituality.

How do I stay awake? How do I read the signs that are strewn along my path to clue me into walking in the right direction? Quality prayer time is the simple yet difficult to achieve answer.

It is therefore quite timely that Advent is here, to prepare my heart and for me to wake up from my sleep of being distracted, unfocused and undisciplined in my time management.

I leave for reverse carolling*on Thursday, so I hope that the next two weeks will be a time of renewal and intimate encounter with Jesus. I desire to find baby Jesus in the homes of the families we will be visiting around Tagaytay and Montalban in the Philippines; to allow the joy of His imminent birth to light our hearts with a warmth that will carry all of us through to Christmas Day.

My gift this Advent is to stay awake by being as mindful and prayerful as often as I draw breath. I want to also make the remaining days of 2014 count. May God grant that I ride the waves of Advent and arrive on the shores of Christmas with a ready heart, alert, expectant and alive, in time to celebrate.

* Instead of expecting a monetary gift for carolling as is customary in the Philippines, I will be teaming up with ICPE Mission Philippines and other volunteers to sing, pray and leave a hamper of Christmas goodies with each family we visit.

Sharpening our world vision

While riding the bus recently I missed my stop because the bus captain was daydreaming. It was only when I said it did not matter and that I just wanted him to be more attentive in future (conveyed in my most gentle manner, a great effort for the usual brusque me) that he abandoned his aggressive manner and apologized.

It struck me this is how we are as a people now. Hard, defensive and aggressive. Attack first even when in the wrong. It doesn't take much to get our back up for the boundaries of our personal worlds seem to have swelled radically, spilling over into others' worlds obtrusively. And we bristle when people so much as brush softly past our enormous, hyper fragile bubble worlds.

In the World segment of Vision Therapy, we are reminded that the biblical imperative is to love persons and use things. John Powell highlighted the theology of possession which is to enjoy fully what we have been given in this world by our Creator, but to also hold our possessions lightly in our hands, especially possessions like money, authority, acclaim and status. I would include possessions such as our intellect, talents and capabilities as well.

When we walk around with clenched fists, unwilling to let go of our possessions, we become less loving and joyful, we become watchful and distrustful, ready to pounce on those who dare lay their grubby fingers on our stuff. We end up using people to get what we want. We become afraid to live. We even cut ourselves off from the parts of reality we do not want to face or cope with and therefore excise the experience of living out both pain and pleasure in their fullness. We think only of ourselves and we do not want to deal with inconvenience, especially when it comes to others who cause it.

To counter unhealthy possessive tendencies, we are encouraged to foster a theology of dispossession which is to be free of the tyranny of our possessions. To unshackle our hearts and to instead save our hearts for love, and to save our love for persons.

This entails us keep giving God our blank cheque every day so that even when our backs are against the wall, we can respond with open hands.

As John Powell put it:

Life is always questioning us about our vision. Life is always in the dust of our daily living. Life is always exposing our attitudes to us if we are willing to let it do that for us. If we connect this to the biblical imperative to love persons and use things then life is constantly examining our conscience for us.

The frictions of life lay in our priorities, exposing our preferences, what we really love, and how we are called to love. Matthew, chapter 25, tells us how we are called to live in order to meet Jesus: Loving persons and using things, which come at a price. It is precisely at the moment we think we cannot afford to come out of our comfortable worlds that we must.

Helping the least of our brethren does not come when we have time and money on our hands, or only when it is convenient for us. The time is not later, but now. We should give not just out of excess - time or money - but when we do not think we can.

Feed the hungry instead of splurging on what we ourselves are lusting to eat. Welcome the stranger even when we are down and least feel like it. Clothe others by forgoing something new we desire. Look after the sick when we ourselves are not feeling all that great. Take the trouble to visit those in prison, by giving up precious and carefully hoarded free time.

When I am most tempted to say I want to be left alone and I don't want to have to care for others then I know I am called to be more available: to forget my own exhaustion and reach out; to give up my own personal preferences for the good of the other; and to give back until it hurts my bank account. I am constantly asked to come out of my comfort zone and venture into the disturbing, deeper waters of the world and unite with it.

On November 18, during his morning homily Pope Francis reminded us against living a "comfortable spirituality" where we are content to be "lukewarm". He warned that feeling spiritually comfortable is a state of sin for we do not wish to engage in the world other than in ways that predict what is good for us. We only care for appearances, expending all our energies so that we look good spiritually on the outside, ignoring that a humble, contrite heart moving in the Spirit is more important. We reject a real conversion of heart that calls for action as Zacchaeus who gave back what he had taken. To love persons and use things requires a poverty of spirit that requires us to make selfless and good choices.

I like what Elizabeth Duffy wrote in her meditation for November 24* on the widow with two coins, She, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood Luke 21:4.

Any time we think we can no longer bear a particular circumstance, we've actually reached an opportunity - there's a chance to obey, to suffer, to serve, to give in spite of ourselves and the apparent poverty of our circumstances.

When we've reached rock bottom, our very next breath is a coin in the basket.

A good way to live life, in poverty, not tied to our possessions, material or otherwise.

Rudyard Kipling's poem If says it all for me, so enjoy:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

* See October-December 2014 issue of Living Faith.

10 wonderful things single people take for granted

I will not lie. Being single can seem the worst thing on earth on days you just need someone to give you their undivided attention and sympathy, hug and kiss you and tell you honey it will be alright. Singlehood can also be the kiss of death in certain social situations. Then there is the deep ache of loneliness weighing your heart down so that it hurts to even breathe.

But there are great blessings in being single that even I forget when I am whining at God telling Him you told me my vocation is marriage and motherhood so why am I alone? I am as miserable as Hannah was when she cried in the temple, praying for a child.

My deepest sorrow in life is that I will never hold my own child against my breast and croon words of love to her. And what do I do with the names I have picked out for my unborn children? Being single can really bite, but it can also be awesome and amazing. Here's why.

1.    Sleeping alone rocks
I love snuggling in my own bed, falling asleep without someone breathing in my face or snoring in my ear. I can sleep deeply for I don't wake up when someone steals my covers or moves about in bed. I can snore as loudly as I want and make all kinds of rude noises without having to feel embarrassed or apologize. I don't have to worry about bad breath or smell his bad breath. And all those romantic couple cuddly poses you see in movies, so not comfortable. All you get is a crick in the neck. Trust me, sleeping alone rocks.

2.    Jesus is The One
We all look for the perfect soulmate in life, the one person who gets us completely and loves us despite knowing all our flaws. Jesus is that perfect once-in-a-lifetime spouse. He loves me unconditionally and He will never betray me - more like I will be the unfaithful party who will be forgiven my sins before I even utter sorry. Go figure.

Every day He showers me with little gifts to make me feel loved. He guides me when I am lost and He protects me when I am afraid. He always shows me a good time. And when he can't show up in person, he always sends somebody else to take good care of me. He is the consummate lover. Whenever I am sad and lonely, his is the voice that tells me honey it will be alright. And it is.

3.   I am not alone
As the Michael Jackson song goes: You are not alone, I am here with you. This is what God whispers to me in the dark, destructive storms of life as well as in the bright, sunny days. He is with me always and will never desert me. I may not always believe this or feel comforted by this promise He made me, yet He is there, a stalwart presence, my saviour and my song. Oh that today I would listen to His voice with an open and tender heart and see His face.

4.    The joy of eating alone
It may feel awkward eating alone in a fine dining restaurant but eating on your own has its merits. I can enjoy my food without having to make any obligatory small talk. Especially after a long, hard day at work, vegging out in front of the telly with my dinner can be the most appetizing option. Best of all, I can eat whatever I want without having to consider someone else's food likes and dislikes.

5.    I get to play good times mummy
I love children and children love me. I am good at taking care of children and I enjoy the company of little munchkins. Although I would have wanted children of my own, I am increasingly grateful I have none for motherhood is not an easy vocation, especially today. It isn't just the tensions of juggling work and home, but the world as it is today, where hatred, injustice, violence and sexual perversion abound. How would I protect and teach my children well? Better to get my baby fix by playing with the children of others for a few hours and leaving them with their parents to go home to a silent apartment. The sound of silence is never as sweet as after a few hours of screaming kids.

6.    The power of one
Being single means total freedom. I get to choose whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it. I can be as selfish as I wish to be and I don't have to plan my life around someone else's schedule. My energies revolve around my life alone. What I earn I get to spend on myself. It does mean I end up doing things on my own when it's nice to share life at times, but it is all par for the course. There is no ideal state of life except yours and what you make of it.

7.    Filial piety is no struggle
I am Asian and family means the world to me. To be able to take care of my parents is one of life's greatest blessings, to repay them for their love and sacrifice. Without a husband and children to look after means I can look after my parents in the way I would want.

I am grateful for the experience of being one of my father's primary caregiver in the last six months of his life for it taught me how to love in a way that has transformed me into a stronger, kinder and wiser person. In losing him I found God, an incredibly enriching trade off. Plus, being Catholic, I know that I have not really lost my father. He is waiting for me and we will be reunited in eternity.

Living with my mother and taking care of her is one of my greatest joys today for she is my best friend and my champion. I sometimes mourn the day she will depart, but this also makes me celebrate the present when she is here with me now.

8.    Life is a great adventure
Being single means I am flying with fewer restrictions. Marriage means you must cleave to your spouse. Motherhood means your children's welfare is paramount. What about singles? What am I called to do in order to come out of I, me and myself and do something worthwhile with my life? In this respect, the world is my oyster. I can do many small things with great love and reach out to more people than I could if I were married with children. I can take off on mission outreaches with minimum fuss and planning. In giving God the controls, I have been and continue to be on the ride of my life. It is awesome.

9.    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Is my life beautiful? It is because I made a conscious choice to look for beauty in my life every day. And it is always there if I look carefully enough. There is always something to be grateful for even on days I wish I had never gotten out of bed. The smile of the aunty who served me my Milo peng. The glorious coolness of tropical Singapore when it rains cats and dogs. There is even beauty in the tears of loneliness I weep, for in loneliness are the seeds of my supreme humanity, the call to love. When I say yes to the call with a heart devoid of selfishness and ego, it leads to great and beauteous acts.

10.    Let the creative juices flow
Being single challenges me to be creative, as God is, which is to be extremely creative. I may not be married with children even though this is my deepest desire, but that doesn't mean I am short-changed of the experience of being married and of being a mother.

I can be as loving, caring, faithful, nurturing, giving, patient, forgiving, generous and compassionate as a wife and mother is with the people I love. I can exercise all the gifts I have with others around me. It just takes a little more imagination, a little more work and a tweaking of one's perspective to see I am wife and mother, even as a single woman, and without the woes of a real married mother. It doesn't get better than that.

Why being single is not so bad

I met K for coffee the other day and what made me smile was how she tried to "corrupt" me. You must find someone. Never mind marriage, forget it. Just look for someone to love, for companionship.

I love you, K, and know that you love me, but get thee behind me, satan.

Seeing as platonic relationships are not in vogue, I don't know why my friends bother to try changing my views when they know I am an orthodox Catholic. Chastity is my choice and not one that sits well with many men today so I am realistically living my life as a chaste, single woman. I may not have set out to be single but it is not as cursed a life as people seem to think. I am happy. I am productive. I am creative. I am fulfilled.

As I do not moralize when I am with friends who live less than exemplary lives, I wish they would return the favour and stop preaching to me. Yes, I believe that lust, masturbation, fornication and adultery are serious sins, but more than that, I believe that they pervert love and lead to an unhealthy obsession with sex and to sexual addictions. I prefer to remain free of addiction for I know what it is like to be held prisoner to it.

I also choose to experience love the way God created love to be experienced. Christopher West summed it up in four words: Free, Total, Faithful and Fruitful. Only a man who loves me for who I am and is willing to die for me will suit. Thus, Jesus Christ is the man for me. His act of love over 2,000 years ago speaks volumes to me even today and so I have opted to make Him a very real presence in my life.

I am not interested in using but in giving when it comes to relationships. I refuse to use a man, woman or thing to stave off loneliness for I know that loneliness in itself is not a bad thing and is part of the human condition. Loneliness drives me to seek union with God and in seeking union with God, I find myself connecting with others in loving and life-giving ways that fulfil me and give me joy. It does take time and constant effort to get it right, to move out of the depressed inertia loneliness often spawns, but when I succeed, something inside changes. I am purer, stronger.

This is the true gift of Christianity, of my Catholic faith, the deep understanding of what I was created for and how I should live my life: to serve with love. In saying yes to the personal and unique mission God has entrusted me, I am renewed and made whole time and again. Making God my first priority has made me His. It's a grace that is more than sufficient and like loneliness, you have to experience it for yourself, if not, you will not get it. All I can do is encourage you to try Gospel living. Seek to die to self.

Even if loneliness remains the gnawing physical pain Shireen Dadkhah describes in her article 10 heartbreaking struggles single people never talk about*, it is lessened and made bearable for self-giving love cleanses the soul. Being good to others makes one’s entire being light up and hum with quiet joy. 

As the song goes, you're nobody till somebody loves you...so find yourself somebody to love. Yes, even if nobody loves you, you can choose to love someone. I am not talking about celebrity adulation or stalker obsessive kind of love here, people. Love your difficult parent or someone who needs a helping hand. This has surprising rewards.

It is a myth that couples live idyllic lives. Even married folks get lonely, ask them. If they are truly honest, they will tell you they sometimes wish they were single again for they are weighed down with more responsibilities and yet, still feel achingly unfulfilled occasionally. 

Some even choose to remain lonely in a relationship than be single for the word single conjures up horrors for them. Pardon my French but that's absolute baloney the world would have you think is true, that single people are lonelier people. I have seen friends remain in relationship hell because they cannot handle the thought of going solo until they are forced to do so and what they all find is uncoupling is actually liberating. Life goes on, better than before, after the dust settles.

When I asked my friend N last Sunday how she celebrated her recent birthday, she pointed at her two young children: it was either looking after her, or him. She didn't get time off from being a mummy. Certainly the path ahead may be clearer for married people but it isn't any easier (more circumscribed if anything). Forget about the grass being greener. It is neither on either side. We all have our highs and lows whether we are part of a couple or single.

Sure, eating alone sucks, the universe operates in pairs, there is no one to hug you when you need one, cooking for one is a pain and the deafening silence of being home alone can be frightening, but bear in mind that happiness is not something we can find, like a lost earring or a new restaurant. Neither is it something we can pray for, hoping that God will grant it in an instant.

Likewise, loneliness is not something we can dissipate by railing at God or envying others. Neither can we eradicate it with one night stands, retail therapy or partying one’s brains out. That’s just treating the symptoms, disastrously, I might add, and it only breeds narcissism of the worst order.

While some of what Shireen Dadkhah writes resonates with me, perhaps because I am older than Shireen, having eaten more salt than she has rice as Grandma would say, I can declare being single doesn’t have to be one constant heartache, one eternal sorrow, even if it can be a colossal struggle at times.

Life is so much more than one’s state of life. Love comes in more ways than what is portrayed in the movies as the ultimate prize: boy meets girl, they fall in love and they live happily ever after. Single people are called to experience love in more ways than married people, to really get creative. The possibilities are infinite. Explore them. Quit being lazy or self-indulgent. Think outside of the box of social convention. Grow into your passions. Actualize the desires God places in your heart. Most of all, stop buying into the idea that a single person is a sad lesser being, incomplete and flawed. Live well in spite of your limitations. It is possible to be single and living in joyous solitude.

I did not choose to be single, but I can surely choose to work with it and be at peace with it. I know it’s clichéd but keep looking for the half-full glass and then give thanks for whatever you find in the glass. Or perhaps it is empty because you have already tasted the living water** but don't quite know it yet. 

* You can read Shireen Dadkhah’s article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/shireen-dadkhah/2014/11/10-absolutely-heartbreaking-struggles-single-people-never-talk-about/

** Like the woman at the well when she encountered Jesus. 

Sustaining a revolution of tenderness

Lately I have been in a little bit of a funk which is bad for I am impatient and irritable. I dread participating actively in the world and worse, the awkward, ungainly teenager who suffers from low self-esteem, zero confidence and a pessimistic world view reigns. She brings me back to the place of failure, regret and self-recrimination, and holds me there, prisoner to fear and paranoia.

My vision of others, God and the world distorts wildly and I withdraw into an introspective half-life, much like the disciples before both the Passion and Pentecost. I run away. I lie to myself first, then others. I deny Christ. I stop praying and I reject love which could strengthen me and bring out the best in me. I react childishly constantly. I lose the wisdom and maturity to make good decisions. I am faithless. Worst of all, I betray the ones who love me most.

In this defeatist state of mind it is so easy to think nobody loves me and that what I do is worthless. Why would God bother with useless, petty me? He must be mad to love a "sourpuss" like me. The pope warns against such temptations in Evangelii Gaudium, EG, his latest document. A missionary spirituality requires self-awareness to guard against a heightened individualism, a crisis of identity and a cooling of fervour.

The grace that has aided me through this season of winter has been a certain level of faith even as I battled my spiritual sloth. This has kept me afloat so that I made it to work, Bible classes and ministry meetings without being a complete grouch despite my lack of inner joy.

My faith is founded on better days, days when I knew I was the disciple whom Jesus loves. As my spiritual director pointed out, this is the thrust of John's Gospel: to abide in God so much that I can identify I am the beloved disciple, the one who lays her head on his chest, knowing He sayangs* me; and who recognizes, "It is the Lord," when my senses tell me otherwise.

As Pope Francis writes encouragingly in Evangelii Gaudium (84): With the eyes of faith, we can see the light which the Holy Spirit always radiates in the midst of darkness, never forgetting that “where sin increased, grace has abounded all the more (Rom 5:20).

Apart from allowing my memories of past grace moments to fuel my enthusiasm to serve, I also hold fast to what Saint Paul was told: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). In surrendering my weaknesses to the Lord, His strength and power will grow in me, perfecting me.

Two recent events stand out as testimony to His love for me and encourage me to a renewed encounter with Christ every day. The first is this:

I had completely forgotten I had a client to teach at eight in the morning two Fridays ago so I was prepared to get up late. I had already woken up but was still lolling around in bed when in my head I heard the name of my client spoken. Immediately that sparked a memory of us making the appointment and I jumped out of bed, raced to get ready and I managed to make the appointment by a hair. Thank God for guardian angels who remind perimenopausal, brain-clouded women where they need to be.

The second incident happened last Saturday after I attended All Saints’ Day mass at Saint Ignatius and was on the bus home. I alighted only to discover that I had dropped my wallet on the bus. Without a cent on me, I needed assistance desperately. Completely helpless, I prayed. I asked Saints Jude and Anthony for their intercession, as well as my mum and A, who happened to text me at the time.

Then I asked a man who was waiting at the bus stop if he could be so kind as to donate the bus fare for me to get to the bus depot and track my wallet down. He handed me two dollars without hesitation. When I boarded the bus and explained my plight to the driver, he acceded sympathetically to my hitching a free ride. Blurting out thanks profusely, I returned the money to my Good Samaritan who was reluctant to take it at first. Amazingly, I managed to retrieve my wallet with contents intact when I reached the depot.

Words cannot begin to describe my gratitude. I am grateful for the kindness of strangers as I am for the communion of saints, but I am most thankful that even in my insignificant, small life, God has shown great interest and love. How can I therefore stay uninvolved and apathetic when I am shown such care at every turn?

Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness. EG 88

The saints of yesteryear are proof that a revolution of tenderness existed when they walked this earth and still exists to change the world today. If I am to be part of the revolution, I need to shape up and ensure I keep exercising my faith. But first, I need to find my joy back, bit by bit. 

* Malay for dotes on or loves.