Loving wholeheartedly

Yesterday, at lunch, I was sharing with D how during our wedding day P and I were astonished at how our respective circles of family and friends intersected in so many ways. I had also shared previously the story of how we had met, thanks to B, his sister, to whom we are both eternally grateful. She then pronounced God planned for you to be together from the day you were born. Profound and true.

I have always believed that God has indeed earmarked a particular man to be my spouse. However, due to the many wrong turns of my younger years, I thought I had frittered away my opportunity. That's it, my girl, you made your choices in life, you turned away from God and His ways, so there is a price to that. There are always consequences to actions even though I also knew that God does not punish us for being bad or stupid. It was what it was.

Intellectually I knew that it was difficult for a woman in her latter years to find a spouse, so in those intervening years, post-conversion, when I was then in my forties and very much single, I focused on the one thing that brought me joy and fulfilment, on the one person whom I called Spouse, Jesus.

I expended all my energy on seeking His ways and getting to know Him better. I no longer compromised my own principles, but sought to love Him as is recommended in today's Gospel, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength, and to love my neighbour as myself.

As I approach my fourth month of marriage where I find myself still in awe and deeply grateful for the man whom God has given to me as husband, I am more in love with my Lord and my God the more I grow to love P. I pray that I never lose this sense of wonderment and delight at how much Jesus loves me, or for the many gifts my Father bestows on me daily, and how the Holy Spirit is such a bountiful and limitless source of comfort and joy.

While there are many ongoing internal struggles on what is the right thing to do, that is, how do I balance the responsibilities of being a wife and mother (I do regard P's children as my own) with everything else I am called to be and do in life, I do not let them overwhelm me. And when my spirits do flag, I return to the Lenten promise of purification and inner peace found in prayer, fasting and alms-giving.

Jesus gently reprimanded Martha and reminded her that there is only one thing that is necessary in life, the better part that her sister Mary had wisely chosen. What this means for me, in real terms, is to let go of the things that are not necessary - excessive exterior busyness, irrational fears, complaints, my unhappiness at things that do not go my way, prejudices, proud stubbornness, distractedness, critical and judgmental ways, and my dominant tendencies that make me impatient and abrasive (thanks D for the insightful DISC workshop).

We are mid-way through Lent. My prayer for the remainder of Lent is that I can live the Gospel message of the day more authentically and productively: To love my Lord and my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength, and to love my neighbour as myself.

Making dreams come true

I had a potential near death experience last Wednesday. The aircraft that I was on veered upwards suddenly in the last seconds of landing, climbing the skies on whining engines. At no point did I think I was going to die although I was praying hard that we made the necessary altitude without mishap. We were literally carried on wings of prayer to finally land safely on the second pass down the runway.

This got me wondering how in my life I have had many of these near misses, and some I probably wasn't even aware of, and I am grateful for the protection that the Lord has always afforded me. My logic, this time around was, Jesus, you just gave me P, surely we would have more time as a couple before we are separated in this life? Let me live my dream a little while more. Plus, when my community prayed for me in my courtship days, C saw us growing old together, a couple of contented and blissed out senior citizens tending to our bonsai.

Ever since it became clear that P and I were to be married, I began to look again at the dream of marriage and motherhood given to me in 2003 with different eyes. Before I met P, I had thought I was realizing that dream in an alternative way, and I was not doing too badly either. Now I know that P is the man of my dreams, and I am amazed at how the Lord has fulfilled not just my dream, but P's as well.

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph who, like the Joseph of the Old Testament, was a man to whom the Lord spoke in dreams. The angel of the Lord spoke to Saint Joseph four times, the first was to tell him of the divine nature of the child in Mary's womb, and for him to be husband to Mary and father to Immanuel, God is with us. It never fails to amaze me how Joseph "arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him". Such active faith. To hear and to obey without question. If only I were as obedient as Joseph to the Lord's prompting.

Coming back to dreams, God speaks to us, like Joseph, in dreams. Some may not be as immediate or urgent as Joseph's, received when we are asleep, but the dreams of our heart are there not by accident.

Dreams are planted inside each of us, waiting for us to have the courage to act like Joseph did. Dreams also require us to keep believing and persevering for we will need to struggle and put in much effort in order to make them real. Sacrifice is the stuff of dreams, but the rewards are inestimable. Dreams are the making of each of us, where we actualize our selves, become the great men and women we were created to be.

Now that I am living out my dream of marriage, I strive to make my marriage a dream come true, and that means to live with a heart full of gratitude, a joyful attitude, and a spirit ever willing to be transformed by the beauty of the mundane. The ordinary days are filled with tiny miracles waiting to be discovered, quiet yet extraordinary moments. Often we blink, and miss them, or we are too distracted to even notice them when they are staring us in the face.

As I live out my marriage covenant daily, I am reminded of how it is first a covenant I honour with Jesus, then with P. This, then, allows me to live out the words of the prayer of generosity by Saint Ignatius of Loyola with greater conviction:

Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.

Today, as a dear sister of mine takes the step to legalize her marriage with the man God has put in her life, I rejoice, and I pray that she and M will continue to make the dreams that God has placed within their hearts come true. In that way, they will walk even closer to God, as P and I are doing. Much happiness forever, dear A and M. AMDG.

Vocation of active listening

At mass on Sunday, Father Adrian asked us to reflect on our vocation and how are we living it out? He asked us to take the Transfiguration story and to make it our own in a different way that we usually reflect on this key event in the life of Christ. Father Adrian preached that the point where God speaks over Peter's words in the story is the point where Peter actually realises what his vocation was, and that is primarily to listen to the Beloved Son of God.

For us, it is the same, we are called to listen to the Father, and then to listen, and to follow Jesus. This is vocation pared down to the bare bones. Ironically, I was listening to the radio on Friday and they were talking about active listening being a lost art and much-needed one in order to build harmony within relationships, families, and in any social situation, including negotiating with insurgents.

According to the expert, we tend to focus too much on offering solutions and giving our own opinions that more often than not we are not offering the person what he or she really needs, and that is the space to be truly heard, and thus, to be validated and affirmed.

Conflict can hardly be resolved if we merely hear, but do not listen. True empathy requires a listening heart that is able to capture the essence of what is being communicated (clarification is sought by paraphrasing frequently the message back to the speaker) and then to do what is requested, which may be to do nothing at all. Active listening requires us to act in the way that is perceived as what was requested and most helpful to the other party.

Likewise, to listen to God, we need to create the necessary silence through stillness to be able to hear what God is saying. As I sat quietly in the adoration room last Saturday, I had actually asked Jesus a question on vocation, where was I to go next, what should I do to spread the Good News?

Since marriage, I feel as if my world has

shrunk for I have been ruthlessly cutting the threads of my past that have no place in my current life. I have curtailed numerous activities, placing my marriage as my main priority. Thus voids have formed, dark, mysterious holes that are waiting to be filled in my new life.

While I am impatient to swing into action and accomplish many things, I am cognizant of the fact that I need to master the basics before I take on the more complicated. I need to just 'be' in my new environment, giving myself the time to enjoy the novel space and role I have undertaken. The best thing I can possibly do for now is to be an active listener.

What I also got from my quiet time last Saturday is to allow Jesus to continue to be the loving Bridegroom so that I can be the loving Bride to P and my new family. Some of the empty spaces within my heart must remain liminal spaces for now. It's okay to remain dormant and quiescent, as long as I strive to catch, and savour God's intimate whispers to me.

When I reflect on the graces I have received in these recent months, I am awed at the Father's generosity for so much has already been given to me. Even amidst my struggles I recognize that He honours my efforts and applauds my achievements, even the most insignificant ones. And He keeps fulfilling the desires of my heart. So instead of being too hasty in acting and relying on my human intellect to tell me how to act, it is best to listen with an open and obedient heart to Jesus to know what I should be doing in my life. As Peter found his vocation in keeping quiet and still, I will continue to find mine in adopting the same humble posture.

Lenten reload

We are in the season of Lent. It is, as my SD put it, a season of joy, of turning back and reconnecting with Jesus by going into the desert of peace and quiet.

As I write this I am physically exhausted and fluey. I realise I have not truly sat back and reflected in stillness for a while now. There are always things to do, places to go, and even though I do set aside time for prayer and daily mass, I have not set aside me time to just burn and laze the day away. I haven't even had time to blog properly which is one of the ways I reflect and come into the presence of the Lord. Lent reminds me appropriately to slow down and wander into the quiet of the desert, praying and fasting.

Last week when my SD told me that Lent is a time to unload what is too much of myself and too much of life around me, I laughed, for I have already begun the process of whittling away the too much of myself, especially since the beginning of this year. Marriage kind of does that to you, for in order to make it work, it has to be less of me and more of we.

And when life gets too overwhelming, let go of what's not necessary and focus on the essentials. The little, niggly things do not matter in the long run, so live and let live. P and I are in it for the long haul and we both want the same thing, that is to grow old together gracefully, harmoniously and joyfully. Thus the process of refinement is constant.

Of course some of it is easy, it is just a question of forming new habits of 'cleaving' (human beings are very resilient after all, and it's whether we want to change or not, plus the pain of change does dissipate after a while)), whereas other bits, which involve the ego or the quirks in his and my personality may not be so easy, but are not insurmountable. That is where we are called to listen to each other carefully, to hear the spoken and unspoken words in each other's heart.

I therefore welcome the season of Lent, a season of renewal, and a good reminder to unload and reload. Just as we need to give our closets and homes the occasional spring cleaning, we need to junk the bad habits, unhelpful idiosyncrasies and unhealthy dysfunctions of our inner beings to become the people we were created to be: good, trusting and happy individuals who live life to the fullest, glorifying God wherever we go by bringing happiness and light to the world.

What do I want this Lent? I really want to be like Jesus. I want to have His peace of mind, his compassionate nature and wisdom even in the face of dissonance, chaos, suffering and pain. I want to be a pleasure, first to myself and God, then to loved ones, and all I meet.

I hope to fast from too much non-essential activity and from complaining (even as I maintain the discipline of two actual fast days a week); add a period of silence during my prayer time to hear His voice and just soak in His presence; and give alms by being a cheerful giver, giving help wherever it is needed. I have also initiated praying for those who persecute me and people I don't much like, which is a personal challenge. If it pleases Him, then let me unload the extraneous and irrelevant, and reload the edifying and holy this Lenten season.