Holy balance

This afternoon I was accused by someone of being too holy and therefore I lacked balance in life. She meant it kindly so I was quite amused for I have been feeling quite the opposite lately and had only just begun to find my equilibrium again.

On the surface, I am very involved in "holy" activities, and I am not quite a deadbeat yet. However, faith and good works go hand in hand and my interior life has had me wandering aimlessly in the freezing desert night and I have been suffering from acedia, a debilitating, spiritual malaise that has impeded my ability to work or pray with joy.

Thank goodness for my "holy" activities for they have kept me from sailing over a cliff into despair.

Thank God for Saint Ignatius whose examen is invaluable for self-awareness has helped me inch my way forward; and for Blessed John Paul II whose Theology of the Body inspires me to express my sexuality with passion and verve.

I am most grateful for Scripture and the Sacraments that have given me the impetus to move toward magnanimity, for without supernatural aid, I would not have been able to extricate myself from the quicksand of acedia-like mediocrity.

One of my "holy" activities has involved attending Jeff Cavins'  Psalms, the School of Prayer, and I was blown away last evening when we covered the Penitential Psalms and the concept of sin for I could see clearly how sin was impacting me.

Cavins talks about why sin is so deadly for we often do not set out to sin and when we do sin, we are mostly unaware of our own culpability. It thus becomes like a trap we have walked into and need outside help to escape from.

He defines sin as chet, Hebrew for missing the mark; a choice we make to abuse our God-given freedom; living as though God does not exist, embodying a practical atheism; or an act disobedience.

Cavins quotes from Blessed John Paul II's Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliation and Penance in which JPII defines sin as a rupture with God, a turning away from He who sustains life and is ultimately suicidal.

Since by sinning man refuses to submit to God, his internal balance is also destroyed and it is precisely within himself that contradictions and conflicts arise. Wounded in this way, man almost inevitably causes damage to the fabric of his relationship with others and with the created world.

Every sin has both personal and social repercussions:

The mystery of sin is composed of this twofold wound which the sinner opens in himself and in his relationship with his neighbor. Therefore one can speak of personal and social sin: From one point of view, every sin is personal; from another point of view, every sin is social insofar as and because it also has social repercussions.

I had forgotten about the social effects of sin, and had only been lamenting the effects of my tidak apa* state from a personal viewpoint, wallowing alone in my zombie state.

I had dismissed how irascible and intolerant I have become, snapping at people and behaving most uncharitably to all and sundry. Even my recent fractured toe was a result of my impatience and disarrayed inner state.

As I have not been too thrilled about my recent bad behaviour, I have already been submitting with humility, in silent prayer, my desires to God. Now I can add the classic seven penitential psalms of 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143 to my prayer time.

Coincidentally we are in chapter nine of Landmarks which is about excessive positive and negative attachments, or addictions and aversions that curtail our inner freedom.

What I discovered was I have an excessive aversion to failure that stems from an excessive attachment to excellence. This skewed desire drives me to seek perfection and to feed my compulsion of being right all the time.

Conversely I am also a non-starter who chokes easily when she finally comes off the blocks and then gives up without a fight. I am impaled on the horns of pride and sloth simultaneously.

Last night's lesson thus reminded me of the importance and necessity of penitence. "A humble, contrite heart" that acknowledges God as the sole author of my life. For only then can I free myself from the hook of attachment and point True North, toward God; to hang in perfect balance as Christ did on the cross, He who freely chose obedience to God out of deep love for both His Father and for humanity despite knowing the grim end He would face.

For this evening's sharing, one of the reflection questions was whether we still struggle with our undesirable attachments in life once we have found a way to liberate ourselves and my answer is it is and will always be a struggle. There are neither instant nor permanent cures, and there will invariably be ups and downs in one's spiritual journey.

As for dear L, thank you for caring and I am so glad that I am finally walking out of the disorienting woods.

I can only ever wish I will be too holy.

* a state of indifference and not caring about anything in life

Saying goodbye

This week, I said goodbye to two colleagues who have become friends and it has been bitter-sweet.

While I know very well that nothing in life lasts forever, it is hard to welcome change when these are people who have brought much joy and laughter into my life, besides having taken care of me so well.

Sure, you will remain friends, and some of my dearest friends are people I have met on the job, but it is not the same.

I also mourn their departure for I feel that something that was truly special to me has ended. Letting go of this will be hard, but at the same time, I am powerless to keep things as they were. It would be futile to try and stop change, detrimental even.

If I cannot stop it, then I must learn to deal with it, much as it unsettles me. First comes the acceptance that change is fundamental to life. Thus the practice of mindfulness is a good one for it helps me not to take for granted the people I know and love on a daily basis. And to give ample thanks for their presence in my life. 

Plus, as Rick said to Ilsa in Casablanca, "We'll always have Paris," and I have memories to last me a lifetime. Even if we were never to meet again, I would carry the love and affection we have shared in my heart, and thinking on that past would always make me smile.

But as I am sure we will meet again, seeing as Singapore is not big, I look forward to creating more great memories in the near future, K and K.

So saying goodbye may not be the worst thing on earth but the inception of great possibilities, a ripening of friendship, as it has been in other workplace friendships that I have. Yet I cannot help but feel some vestigial sadness despite my positive rationalizations.

In all this, the words of Saint Teresa of Avila remind and comfort me best:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God 
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

K and K, home girls, thank you for having been an integral part of my life this last handful of years, for being part of an "era" I hold dear. And for all the richness and order you have brought to my life, I thank you and I love you ladies. God's grace be upon you both and let's meet up and party soon.

 

Transforming choices

Women are never completely happy with the hair that they are born with. The ones born with curly hair want straight hair, and the ones with straight want curly. We spend a lot of time and money teasing, torturing our hair to make it look the way we want it, and sometimes still hating the results.

There's nothing wrong in putting some effort into looking good and thereby feeling good about oneself but there is a line which when we cross, takes us into a world of obsessive, narcissistic tendencies, and where our emotional wellbeing, based on our appearance, rises and falls like the stock market. An unhealthy state of affairs that can easily breed disordered desires.

Just as we cannot completely change physical attributes like our hair, we cannot change the circumstances of our birth, or our experiences in life. However, we can change the way we look at them, and how we then choose to act.

What may seem like constraints may become platforms for happiness.

Manfred Max-Neef classifies fundamental human needs* as subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom. Out of these needs our desires are born.

Margaret Silf talks about how we respond to our desires in chapter eight of Landmarks by either taking or giving. Do our desires (disordered) breed an inner consumerism, driving us "to suck things into ourselves", resulting in a "diminishment of the desired object"?

Or do our desires (ordered) draw a response that moves us out of ourselves into a creative relationship, whereby we surrender "something in our hearts to the power of the 'other'" leading to transformation and an enriching encounter between us and the other?

Are we grateful for the graces we have received and in turn bless others by paying it forward, for fulfilling our desires must be more than just a purely self-gratification exercise, seeing as we are social beings living on one planet together. What is good for me must be good for the other.

In my younger days, my desire for love led me to choose relationships that were self-serving, crippling and destructive to my emotional wellbeing. I was more unhappy than happy. I can now clearly see how disordered my desire for love was back then for there was no peace in my heart and I was a total mess.

My desire for love has not changed today. But what has changed is that I have chosen to give my heart to one man to lead me to a deeper understanding of my desires, the desires He has put into my heart. Call Him God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit, He alone knows the inner workings of my heart and waits on me to reveal them to me, if I but ask Him and listen.

Even without husband or children, I feel loved and I experience contentment and the deep joy of having an intimate and living relationship with my Almighty. He who feeds me with "honey from the rock" and "kisses me with kisses of his mouth", with a "love more delightful than wine".

Pope Paul VI said in Gaudium et Spes that man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self. This is a truth I discover more and more each day. For in the sincere giving of self, I find I receive much, much more than I expect.

As Silf pointed out: "No one ever does what they don't choose to do." So amidst all our conflicting desires, we can choose to submit them to God and follow His lead. To transform our disordered desires into something that brings life, joy and beauty not just to us but to those around us.

It begins first with an acceptance of who we are, confronting our darkness and embracing our weaknesses. Learning to love the recalcitrant parts of ourselves like our hair and see the beauty of God's creation in us.

Choosing to order our desires in the light of God's love.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs

Amazing grace

I came across this definition of grace from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship and it made me reflect how much of grace in my life is costly or cheap?

For although grace is a wonderful thing and I couldn't live without it, it is a word I take too lightly at times, just because grace is generous, free, totally unexpected and, most of all, completely undeserved.

Bonhoeffer wrote:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Precisely because we know that God has already forgiven us our sins BEFORE we ask for forgiveness, there is a complacency and sometimes even a delay before we choose God's ways. We behave merely as believers and not disciples.

Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'

It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

Discipleship implies surrender, discipline, and at times great sacrifice, but because I have paid a high price, I now have a better appreciation of the true value of grace.

The beauty of costly grace can only be seen when it is actively sought. The beauty of inner peace, abundant joy and a storing up of faith reserves that tide me over in times of spiritual dryness or desolation.

Whether costly or cheap, God's grace is ubiquitous, and something I must be more grateful for daily.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware

Lamentation

Has it been nine years since you departed?
Funny, I could've sworn it was yesterday.
I still mourn when I think of how we parted,
It wouldn't have been if I had had my way.
The world has turned and times have changed a lot,
Yet what remains the same is you and me.
Our bond of love eternal, free from rot. 
Until we meet this life will have to be,
Devoid of a harbour that sheltered me.
The seed you planted has grown and matured.
Its blooms perfume the garden gloriously,
While all enjoy its fruit and are nurtured.
As they sit in its shade contentedly.
If only you were here yourself to see. 

Deepest desire

While reflecting on what were my deepest desires, I came across one I've sort of placed in a box and shelved for it is hard to make relevant in my single state of life: the desire for marriage and motherhood.

This desire is one I grapple with most, in terms of understanding and living out. I vacillate between frozen cluelessness and relying completely on God to unravel the mystery; to not lean on my human understanding but on His alone.

I was inspired last week by a speech Pope Benedict XVI made where he said every person is created "so that he may enter into dialogue with the Infinite," and "the aching desire for this dialogue remains in man, like a signature imprinted with fire in his soul and body by the Creator himself."

Pope Ben noted that this longing is not only in the human soul, but "even every fiber of my flesh is made to find its peace, its fulfillment in God. And this tension cannot be erased from man’s heart: even when he rejects or denies God, the thirst for the infinite that abides in man does not disappear."

I find what he says to be true and I also see my desire for marriage and motherhood as inextricably tied up with this yearning for the Infinite, the need to be in deep communion and intimacy with God.

Therefore if I live my life as vocation, gathering up all the desires of my heart placed within me by God, and offering them up as an act of faith, trusting that "God has" my "happiness at heart", then I am able to expand my vision and view my deepest desire as extremely relevant in my journey.

I need only to say and act out my yes to make this desire lodged deep within a living reality, one that touches the minds and hearts of those I meet.

Pope Ben put it best.

Everything... every relationship, every joy, as well as every difficulty, finds its ultimate meaning in being an opportunity for a relationship with the Infinite, a voice of God that continually calls to us and invites us to lift our gaze, to find the complete fulfillment of our humanity in belonging to Him.

I may never get married and I most definitely will not bear a child, but I can take this desire for marriage and motherhood and instead of living tragically with unconsummated desires, I can live with the gratitude and joy of a woman so loved that she cannot help but radiate this love to the world.

And there are days I think I succeed very well in making this desire tangible. Especially when I follow Mary's lead, the impossible can but come to fruition.

Day of rest

I had a really busy weekend so I am grateful that today is a public holiday. Waking up naturally without having to get ready to rush out the door is a most under-rated and rare pleasure.

It was so great to have time to yawn and stretch, then pick up the phone to chat with two good friends who live in different time zones - what a treat!

The Sabbath is a weekly day of rest or time of worship which we can make a beautiful act of faith by saying to the Lord, this day I give to you.

Father David called the Sabbath a duty and I completely agree with him, for a day of rest is vital for wellbeing and growth. We all need to take time to slow down, to "cease  and desist" from pursuing material goals and remember that it is in the Creator that we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

As it was proclaimed so powerfully yesterday at mass in Proverbs 9:6, "Leave your folly, and walk in the ways of perception." We can only do so if we take time to reflect on our actions and the circumstances of the past week, to see where we met Jesus and where we walked past Him blindly. And how we can perhaps catch those missed opportunities in the week to come.

If we do not pause to ruminate, then we will miss the opportunity to nurture our seeds of faith and watch them unfurl tentative pale green fingers toward the sun. We may end up walking in circles, exhausted yet unable to stop walking, compelled as we are by our restless hearts.

Mindfulness and introspection, this is what a day of rest affords. It allows me to assimilate all the wonderful nuggets of wisdom I have received and see how I can apply them to my life so that I can really walk with perception.

One such nugget was a talk I attended last night by Azriel Cohen who gave the group a flavour of what Doctor Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing was about. We  were challenged to not just live in the world of intellect and emotion, but of sensation as well.

According to Doctor Stephen Porges who developed the Polyvagal Theory, our physiological state dictates our psychological experience and our range of behaviour. Thus sensation, has its own wisdom.

If we track the sensations in our body, that wisdom may even help us make decisions that save our lives as shared by Azriel Cohen in a personal experience of how he narrowly escaped death.

I know I tend to ignore the sensations in my body to its detriment so last night is a reminder that it is time to listen to my body more acutely and make wiser choices.

As dusk falls, I'm thankful for this day of simply being, of Sabbath.

Channelling Christ

My friend J recently sent me an email that shared the concept of Ubuntu. When I looked up Wikipedia*, Ubuntu means: "I am what I am because of who we all are." (a definition offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.) What I really liked was a quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered in a 1999 book: A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. Archbishop Tutu further elaborated in 2008: One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity. This concept of Ubuntu is not unique and it is similar to how the ancient Hawaiians defined the Aloha Spirit, and how Christ Himself defined humanity. Jesus himself gave us a new commandment that sums up the ethos of Christianity: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Simple, powerful and altogether not easy to accomplish. If we do as Jesus did, then we would be preaching the good news to the poor, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming freedom for captives, releasing from darkness prisoners and comforting all who mourn. (Luke 14:18) We would take the social teaching of the Catholic Church seriously which espouses human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity. We would actively love the least of our brothers and sisters in order to show our love for Christ. We would reach out to strangers, the needy, sick and imprisoned, and not just stay within the comforting confines of our own little worlds. Edmund Burke said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." It's quite easy to feel disassociated and become inured to the acts of violence, injustice, abuse and calamity we read about in the newspapers and therefore do nothing. Unless we begin to think that every act of injustice, abuse or indignity against any human being is an act of injustice, abuse and indignity against me, in our shared humanity. Ubuntu. Or Christ. * To read more, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)

Talk story

In Hawaii, when friends meet up, they will talk story. Last night, the W2W Ministry met up to share what were the favourite fairy-tales and stories of their childhood bringing new depth to the meaning of talk story.

In chapter seven of Margaret Silf's Landmarks, we are encouraged to reflect on these stories of the past in order that we get to the heart of our desiring, connecting "these deep and universal desires (and fears) to the feelings we are experiencing ourselves, in our particular circumstances."

Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Xiao Tian Tian and the Rainbow-Coloured Flower, The Little Matchgirl, The Happy Prince, the Nativity Story, Swan Lake, the story of Creation and The Fall, The Six Swans, The Ugly Duckling and stories of real life heroes... these were some of the stories that spoke to our collective hearts.

Behind each story is a desire: to be attractive, to be accepted, to be loved, to have a community of friends, to be free, to be transformed and become who I truly am, to go beyond death to life, to overcome evil, to be good and pure, to take up the cause of justice in the world, to claim a place within the story of Creation, to be pregnant with the hope of new life, to perform miracles, to be heroines, to be family, and to be seekers of what is true, good and beautiful.

These are some of the aspirations of the women in the group, ordinary women with a desire to live extraordinary lives of love and glory. Each one of us is already on the road in pursuit of our individual, unique dream, living out our deepest desires in part. And yet, how each of our stories continues is unclear.

Recognizing the patterns of our own desires and the deeper underlying roots -what we wish we were, what we wished we possessed, what we dream of doing or becoming - is good but we need to confront what Margaret Silf calls the But-Bird, the fears that prevent us from fulfilling our desires. 

The negative energies of our fears can drain the positive energies of our desires, clipping our wings and keeping the birds in our hearts earthbound. These negative inner movements or false spirits can be seen to wage "a deliberate, lifelong campaign against the fulfilment of the God-dream (our deepest desires) in us. Thus we must learn not to fall prey to these false spirits but to allow the positive movements, the good spirits, to grow in strength and purpose.

Prayer is the first step to take in discerning between the two and making the choice to follow the positive movements. To educate our desires and integrate our thinking, feeling and willing so that we will be able to moderate our decisions and move toward leading cheerful, fulfilling lives.

Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Whether we take a step towards or away from that place is up to us. But that's another story, best reserved for another time.

Desire deep

As I watched the closing of the London 2012 Olympic Games this morning, I know I will miss the visual feast of lithe, muscled bodies performing nigh impossible feats of physicality.

There is something incredibly beautiful about the smooth, practised movements of an athlete at her/his peak, giving the performance of her/his life with maximum focus and heart.

The lessons I draw from this penultimate sporting event are varied. Firstly I am reminded that the body is made for movement and it would serve me well to keep mine in working order by maintaining good health and physical fitness through diet and exercise.

I also like that the Games transcend socio-economic, racial and cultural boundaries, levelling the playing field so that every participant is judged purely on skill, with a fair chance at winning. The politics of real life rarely allow for such unbiased judging. If only we can apply the rules of fair play to life more often.

Watching some of the athletes interviewed on YouTube brought home to me how much discipline and sacrifice are required. Their deceptively effortless movements lure me into forgetting how many hours of gruelling practice each athlete must undergo in order to arrive at this point in competition.

The road must've been strewn with failure, obstacles, injury, pain, frustration and even despair, and yet, no matter how arduous the journey has been, not one of them gave up. Thus every athlete present at the Games is already a winner, with an attitude to match.

As Randy Pausch proclaimed in The Last Lecture: 

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” 

So the Olympics is largely about dreams, chasing our dreams and attaining our deepest desires. For each Olympian, the dream leading up to the Games was clear: be good enough to qualify as a participant in the Games. At the Games itself, the dream was to win a medal and/or to break a record. To surpass themselves, and others in competition.

For the rest of us, dreams and desires are a little less defined at times, but no less important. Saint Ignatius knew the significance of dreams and desires for he himself had great dreams that were shattered by injury and led him to finally dream the dreams that God had placed within him, desiring God's desire in his life.

The tricky thing is knowing the difference between ordered and disordered desires. To be able to "distinguish between superficial wants and wishes and the desires that express God's own desire for our lives."

Living as we do in an age where advertisers and media are clamouring to convince us what our desires are (often before we even know them), it is vital to clarify what are truly the desires of our heart.

This simple differentiation in Just Call Me Lopez by Margaret Silf is apt:

"Disordered desires tend to be all about me and can make me greedy and possessive, taking what I think I want without any care for the effects on others or on creation as a whole. Ordered desires attract me toward what is life-giving, not just for me but for the greater good, and if I follow them, I not only do no harm but actually add to the greater good."

Disordered desires cannot bring true happiness for like a child that grasps selfishly at gratification, we are only momentarily satisfied, before we lust after something else, and yet another thing. The pursuit becomes an endless self-indulgent quest.

Whereas if we follow the ordered desires of our heart, we will actually be led to move out of ourselves toward self-actualization, which may not be about easy choices (just ask any Olympian) but will bring satisfaction, a sense of achievement and joy.

So it is worthwhile to examine our desires to uncover what Margaret Silf calls our root desires in Landmarks. To figure out what drives us to act and how we can actualize our gifts and talents and share them with the rest of the world.

Because our deepest desires have been planted within us by God, if we take time to spend time with Him in prayer, in contemplation, we will walk forward by God's wisdom, if not by human insight.

I'd like to share the beautiful ending of Silf's Just Call Me Lopez, which is at the heart of Ignatian spirituality:

"Trust your own story, for God is in every moment of it. Trust your own experience, for it is the raw material from which God is shaping God's Dream in you. Don't worry if you do not know who or what "God" is. Let the mystery be a mystery, and don't try to grasp it with your own understanding, or pin it down into the limits of your own memory, or manipulate it to conform to your own narrow will... God's love and grace are all you need."

Remedy for grief

When it comes to this time of the year, my thoughts turn to my father with a mix of sadness, regret and yearning. It is coming up soon to the nine-year mark since my father passed away. How time has marched on solidly.

While I have learned to live with this great loss in my life, I remember too clearly those endless days of caring for him, watching him suffer, his body grow weaker and die a little more every day.

My good friend L who just lost her sister to cancer and was one of her sister's caregivers remarked that unless you experience what cancer can do to a loved one, you cannot quite understand the magnitude of the loss someone goes through for the journey with those dying of cancer is unique in its unrelentingly onslaught of loss, in every shape, form and shade imaginable.

I said it was like being able to see the thestrals in Harry Potter's world, the winged horses that can only be seen by one who has witnessed death at least once. Not many see them and they are often feared and misunderstood.

One is transformed irrevocably by this unwelcome experience of death. You become stronger. Wiser. More resilient. The ability to get on with it instead of falling to pieces has been honed. You have plumbed the depths of bitter anger, grief and incomprehensible suffering and risen above the darkness.

Even as Time places his healing hand over these grievous wounds of loss, you are left with scars that will pain you occasionally, but can be considered badges of honour.

While all the amount of wishing cannot bring my father back for me to undo the hurts of the past and to show him the love I never got a chance to, to right all the wrongs, he is never far from me for he lives on in my memory. And he lives most assuredly in my actions.

I can still love him by righting the wrongs in my other familial relationships; by being more forgiving, loving, caring, persevering and patient with my mother and my siblings, and the rest of the clan.

I can be the generous, hospitable, responsible, charitable, dutiful and God-fearing person he was.

I can seek truth as he did, unceasingly. Be the tower of strength he was. Live with integrity and honour as he did.

This is how I combat the inevitable remnants of sadness and regret I feel. My remedy for grief is to live with more courage, more wisdom and much more heart: to love unreservedly and fearlessly.

This morning A and I were talking about how much pleasure and joy we derive from watching plants we tend flourish and bloom, and how God must experience the same mix of emotions when He sees us blossom and come into our own.

I hope that my late father who now watches over me experiences the same.

Contingency lessons

The week started with me reading Father Ronald Rolheiser's article, A Lesson in Contingency* and I experienced one such If Only situation three days later.

I was actually fortunate for I have a near-miss of Father Rolheiser's stolen briefcase in a moment of inattention just Tuesday past, but my luck ran out the next day.

In a bid to demonstrate to a client what not to do so that she would not injure herself, I got hurt instead due to a complete disregard for my own safety.  In retrospect, I could see that I did not listen to my own body on many levels, hence the accident. I thought myself immortal, impervious to harm, and thus was foolhardy due to my impatience.

Now I am woefully sorry for I am limping in pain with a hairline fracture on my big toe, while the rest of my body creaks and moans in protest.

As Father Rolheiser counsels, both perspective and patience (so not my strong suit) are needed. I was filled with bitter regret and anger initially but I am grateful that it was not worse and it "in the grand scheme of things is, in essence, a mosquito-bite." And the over three-hour wait at the A&E for an x-ray and subsequent diagnosis was definitely an exercise in patience.

I like what he goes on to say about how incidents like this are also meant to teach us to recognize and forgive contingency.

"Philosophically, contingency means that, unlike God who is self-sufficient and perfect, we live with limit and imperfection. For us, every one of us, there will be moments of inattention, carelessness, accidents, stupid impatience, and moral lapses. The philosopher, Leibnitz, famously stated that we don't live in the best of all possible universes.

"Thus, there will always be lost purses, stolen briefcases, broken heirlooms, and, much worse, tragic accidents that result in lost children and lost lives. Sometimes too there will be moments of moral carelessness that we will also bitterly regret. We aren't God. We're contingent."

As this week has proven, I am vulnerable to errors in judgement and bodily hurt. But the silver lining in this cloud of contingency has been the love and concern of many people who have offered me succour in my time of need.

For that, I thank the One who is self-sufficient and perfect as I am not.

* http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/?id=1061

Spiritual revolution

Last Friday M emphasized why we needed to layer on our life map (we are in chapter six of Margaret Silf's Landmarks) the moods and feelings we felt as we experienced consolation and desolation in the past for emotions are among life's most powerful drivers to action or inaction.

Emotions such as fear can override reason and will and cause us to act in ways where there is a disconnect or disintegration among our reason, will and emotion, showing up a personal compass that is wonky. That old chestnut from Saint Paul about not understanding what he does - for what I want to do I do not do and what I hate I do - features hugely here.

It was interesting that she brought this up for I have been feeling very stuck in a pattern of behaviour lately and been reflecting on what I can do about it to reprogramme my self to unite both desire and action.

I realized that there was a two-year period of desolation in my late teens that even now has a huge impact on how I view myself and how I react to situations and people around me. When I experience rejection, I run away and I shut down. I get very pessimistic and I give up easily. At times, I don't even try - out of my fear of failure.

All this paralysis does is paint the labels I had placed on myself long ago in fresh neon colours that shriek words like useless, unattractive, unlikeable, ugly and unloveable, a big fat zero in life.

I forget all my accomplishments and discount all my achievements. I mistrust the affirmations I have received and I doubt my gifts and talents. The inner awkward and ineffectual teenager rules my psyche and my life.

But today I was reminded that I can change history. I can wrest control from the old me and become this powerful woman that in many way I already am, it's just that I do not know it and therefore remain stymied in the mud of self-doubt like a statue rooted to the ground.

In the Gospel today, Jesus defines working for God or doing God's work as simply believing in the one whom He has sent: Jesus himself who is the true bread that gives life to the world.

As I have consciously pledged my life to Jesus, and been living out my faith in fairly radical ways especially in these last nine years, I HAVE become that fearless, untiring pilgrim on the road - I just happen to be taking slight detours here and there...

This was revealed to me in a conversation I was having with P over coffee this afternoon for we were comparing lives and it struck me that I knew where I was going and I was very at peace with my "mission" in life, whereas he was quite miserable and clueless as to what he should do next. It took all my inner reserve not to jump up and shout at him, "Jesus is the way!" thereby startling him, but truly I am grateful for the living faith that centres me.

To get back to that life-changing moment I had this morning, it comes from the words Saint Paul uttered to the Ephesians:

Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.

Thank the Lord for the wisdom of saints, saints who may have had chequered pasts but did not let that stop them from being the great men and women they were. A greatness that comes from living in the truth of God's love and living out that truth to others.

So, here I am, faced with the opportunity of a workweek that promises me time to do the things I have not been doing. I pray for the ability to go beyond my past desolation to work on believing in myself and my abilities so that I become the person that, thus far, I have only been dreaming of becoming; to make revolution a reality.

As tomorrow is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, this week's intention of mine is a fitting one.

Uncovering hidden furniture

All  of us have hidden, inner furniture, hair-trigger points that can set us off without us even realizing it. We morph into crazy people and/or fall into a depressive state, wondering why life sucks so badly. We walk around in a funk, feeling drained and empty inside, driven to fill our days with manic activity.

We are now in chapter five of Margaret Silf's Landmarks, The Nettle-Bed and the Rose-Garden where we are encouraged to use the consciousness examen to help us track our moods and feelings to notice where our feelings of turmoil come from for these "feelings will have their ultimate source in something that is not of God, but has to do with our own kingdoms."

The inner furniture of our psyche mostly originate from past events that impact us negatively, sensitizing us to evoke unreasonable or extreme reactions from us that can hurt both us and the people around us when they unwittingly bump into them.

Often we are not even aware of our own adverse reactions nor are we able to pinpoint the actual triggers. There is often a huge disconnect between how we perceive reality and how others see it.

Two weeks ago A and D performed a powerful skit to show how the sometimes invisible furniture in our inner room can hold us in bondage and isolate us from the world.

As A stressed, our furniture will always remain in the living rooms of our psyche, but if we learn to live with them, keeping them in plain sight, we can eventually view them fondly as we do old friends and even use them to our advantage to help us grow as people.

"When we do not allow ourselves to be in sync with God and discover who we are, our internal structure 'WHO' becomes unstable. We then allow our experiences (inner furniture) to shape our world, making us unstable. Eventually, like the sinkhole, due to an erosion process, our top caves in. Our whole selves crumble."

Why bother acknowledging our hidden furniture and changing? Because if we don't, we will be unstable like sink holes with possible catastrophic results when we explode or implode, creating a depression in the landscape that can claim victims, ourselves included.

But if we bring them to light, we can pray specifically for wisdom to know how to deal with particular issues, the thorns in our flesh so that we can grow beyond our woundedness and become the men and women we were created to be, bold and fearless in loving, where God's power is made perfect in our weaknesses.

For it is only in God's light that truth is without bias, clear in its unvarnished state, and clear enough for us to see with the eyes of our heart, in order to make decisions with wisdom.

The recommended daily Ignatian Review of Consciousness is a powerful way to enable us to understand ourselves a little more (what are we feeling and why) and to take subsequent steps to change. What Doctor David Benner, last week, calls transformational spirituality. This is essential for there is a natural inclination to hide behind the barriers we create due to our hidden furniture.

Darkness is an uncomfortable refuge that we may have convinced ourselves is where we should stay. And yet, being in darkness drives us to pursue life in ways that may bring gratification but often without consolation. We remain in desolation, aching, hungry and yearning to be filled.

In Ignatian speak, as interpreted by Margaret Silf, desolation turns us in on ourselves, where we spiral down into negative feelings and give up on things that used to be important to us. We feel drained, isolated (even though we are the ones that cut ourselves off from others) and this negative state of being blights our entire consciousness, giving us tunnel vision and worse; we may feel like divers diving in miso soup where visibility is extremely poor.

Consolation, on the other hand, directs our focus outside and beyond ourselves. We feel connected to others and we are able to lift our hearts so that we can see the joys and sorrows of others. We have vision and new energy. We feel inspired and our creative juices flow well. There is balance and our inner vision is refreshed so that we can see where God is most active in our lives and where He is leading us.

Thus being in desolation or consolation is not the same as being unhappy or happy, neither is it directly correlated to the events of our lives but has to do more with how in tune we are to the action of God in our lives (assuming that we do desire to do God's will at all times).

A useful test to apply to our moods, Silf recommends, is to ascertain whether we feel drawn (to God in consolation) or driven (to desolation and away from God) when we respond to situations in our lives. Do we experience peace (from God), even in making difficult decisions, or do we experience unease and disquiet (not from God) when we take the convenient, easy way out.

In the innermost space of my heart, is it sinking and shrinking, turning to lead, a stone that cannot absorb the water of God's goodness (desolation) raining on it; or is my heart like a sponge, soaking up God's grace, expanding till it is big enough to contain other peoples' needs and light enough to fly to God (consolation)?

If we are able to track our moods, to see where we experience desolation and consolation, then we will be able to identify our inner furniture and use tools like cognitive behavioural therapy to effect change.

Most importantly the Review teaches us to lift our hearts up to the Lord in every circumstance and give thanks and sing praise. To direct the focus of each experience, good and especially bad, from us to God so that our hearts can beat in harmony with the heart of God.

Voicing beyond differences

Last Sunday, Father Timothy Radcliffe gave a talk on the relationship between priests and the laity which I found personally inspiring. He brought this complex relationship of priest and laity back to basics: baptism.

In baptism we can find the seeds of how we, the laity, can participate in being church. We are given many graces in baptism besides salvation, chief among which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.

Thus equipped, we can fully participate in Christ's threefold office of priest, prophet and king. The implications of this threefold office can be far-reaching only if we fully appreciate and accept the mantle we have inherited from Christ.

PRIEST
As Father Radcliffe pointed out Christ was a lay person who lived out his office of priesthood by representing God's love for us and ours for God. He was the "incarnate smile of God" and lived this responsibility of mediator beyond conventional ecclesiastical worship.

If we wish to worship as He did, we must go beyond the rituals of prayer and Eucharistic celebration to becoming ministers of His love in all our roles and relationships. To relate to others and call them "by the names that mothers call their children when they are not angry with them" (I absolutely love this description of a personal name).

When we connect with others in kindness or when we pray with an aching, despairing heart for those we love, we share in Christ's priesthood and we make His and the Father's love present in the world.

PROPHET
As prophets, we are called to witness by speaking God's powerful, creative and healing word which is at the centre of moral life. Out of chaos, God spoke and created the world. Likewise, we can speak God's word to bring life and order.

Father Radcliffe exhorted those whose lives are bound up with words such as teachers, writers, politicians and journalists to speak words that give life, sustain, encourage and empower. As Saint Paul said to the Ephesians in chapter 4 verse 29, speak words that "will give grace to those who hear".

So as Christians, we need to tell the truth without destroying people, "to be honest and not collude with prejudice". If we can do this, then we are living out our prophetic office as Jesus did his.

KING
"Being grown up means having a voice in your church, community or nation," said Father Radcliffe. We each have a responsibility to be a voice in the world that stops evil in its tracks with a voice that awakens hope and encourages peace.

Wherever we are placed in family, community and society, we can and must speak up or speak out to uphold our beliefs. As Father Radcliffe emphasized having a voice is more important than being democratic for democracy can tear organizations apart.

To exercise our voice of authority, one must first recognize authority as Christ did, He who accorded respect even to the blind and the lame. Formation is also important: to be founded and grounded not only in God's word and theology, but in the silence of prayer contemplative.

Implicit in formation is also an active interest and involvement in the world and how societies and their governments function, recognizing that we are all related in one common and universal humanity.

DIALOGUE & FRIENDSHIP
Cardinal John Henry Newman identified three forms of authority within the church:

* experience (personal devotion to God which we all have),
* reason (authority of theologians and experts), and
* government of the church (the hierarchy that keeps faithful to Tradition).

Among the three there must be balance where no one form of authority dominates, failing which superstition, an arid rationalism that puts out the fire of love, or ambition and tyranny would reign respectively.

While the Church must look at increasing ways to give the laity voice, which since Vatican II she has, we, the laity, by virtue of our baptism, must look at taking an active role in being part of Church and ultimately move together towards making an affirmative difference to the world we live in.

The relationship between priest and laity must begin first in friendship wherein lies the heart of Christian life: a friendship that flows from engaging in dialogue. Only by reaching out the hand of friendship can we not view the other as an opponent to be feared, bristling at the differences, but instead we can open our hearts and work towards understanding.

This idea of dialogue is one that extends outside the Church. With the way Father Radcliffe has defined the gift of baptism, it is clear that the way forward for all Christians is to embrace our humanity beyond the differences of race, religion and culture, not forgetting that Christ came to save all of humankind.

My challenge is to find a voice that speaks the creative, loving and healing Word while beating evil as Jesus did by "absolving and dissolving it" (great homily Father Romeo).     

Birthday giftings

I have never been big on birthday celebrations but as I get older, I have come to treasure them more for they have become milestones whereby I take stock of how I have been doing and a time where I re-dedicate my life to God and I ask Him to reveal what are His plans for me in the coming 12 months. This birthday week has been truly special for not only have I received the well wishes of friends and family near and far, but the blessings, prayers and affirmation I have received have been lovely gifts of the heart and point the way ahead for me. When one asks, one will receive and my pre-birthday prayers have received an answer through many means. Thus my vocation has been further refined and my spirituality further enriched. Everything I have heard, read or reflected on hones in on being Christ-centred by being anchored in the Word made flesh through dedicated prayer time. While I have been rewarded amply by seeing the fruits of my labour multiply, I cannot rest and grow complacent, and it has become clear to me that I have grown spiritually flabby. Despite the cruise control that I have been operating from, God has been generous with me and I have been able to be a positive influence in others' life, but this is not enough. I remember a lecture Father David gave last year about how we can still be instruments of grace in spite of our sinful state. And if we do not endeavour to grow spiritually, we may sink deeper in sin until our own souls may be in need of redemption even as we are a source of grace for others. Leaders and figures of authority, which we are all called to be, are especially vulnerable for they can still be key builders of His kingdom and yet can be blinded by pride in their own personal lives. They may think I have arrived. I have worked hard enough and all the good fruit I am responsible for must mean I am God's gift to the world. I can slack off. Eventually they slacken so much that they veer off the narrow path completely. To be truly God-centred, one must continually strive for integration of mind, heart and soul. This means having a robust moral compass that yields consistency in all our decisions, big and small, over time. Just as we cannot serve two masters, we cannot live by two standards: Gospel values and world values. We need to constantly check that we are steering True North, towards God all the time, in EVERY area of our lives. This means living honestly, with honour and integrity especially in the littlest things. The moment we succumb to the least bit of dishonesty, we will begin to rationalize our own behaviour and our conscience immediately dulls. I am always amazed at how I can feel extremely guilty over my bad behaviour and how I dismiss it summarily the moment I rationalize the situation. Black turns to white in a blink. Thus we cannot rely on our own resources to build our own little fiefdoms but must look to God to be the source and summit of our lives. Being vigilant and diligent in how we worship, witness and serve is vital, as well as keeping humble, maintaining a teachable heart always. Father Yim spoke about dedicated prayer time during the lectors' recollection last Saturday and I realize I have been relying more on mindfulness and praying whenever I have an opportunity throughout the day which is good but certainly not enough. He reminded me that ministry without spirituality descends into a job where grace is not fully actualized. And the only way to nurture my spirituality apart from dedicated prayer time is to meditate on the Word of God, attend at least one weekday mass besides Sunday mass and to go for reconciliation at least once every two months. He made me realize how much I have minimized spending dedicated time with Jesus. Yesterday Father Timothy Radcliffe spoke about the significance of silence and beauty in his spiritual journey and I was reminded that Christ speaks to me most profoundly and clearly in silence, and that the truth of beauty never fails to touch my soul. And so, a return to contemplative prayer is necessitated as well as frequent consciousness examens. I am excited and not a little scared of the road ahead for my immediate reaction is I am not capable or worthy enough. Why me? But I was reminded by Saint Paul last Sunday: My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. As I have run out of excuses, the best answer to Christ's invitation is a simple yes. My gorgeous guava birthday cake with three flowers to represent the Trinity and serve as a reminder to let my gifts bloom and blossom forth. A heart to represent love which is my ethos in life and the light to represent the light of Christ, a celebratory light that was given to me upon my baptism. The tartness and sweetness of the plum powder reminds me that the sour sweetness of life taken together can become life's most delicious morsels.

Touch stories

Last Sunday Father Romeo talked about the significance of touch in his homily on the haemorrhagic woman and the raising of Jairus’s 12 year old daughter as both were healed with a touch.

As touch is my love language (see Gary Chapman ‘s The Five Love Languages), his homily spoke volumes to me.

While I do experience love in other ways, the one that speaks to me most is touch - I feel especially loved when my godkids plant unabashed, wet kisses on my face and give me bear hugs.

More recently I have learned to treasure the intimate touch of Jesus' hands on my heart. As I touch "the fringe of his being in prayer" (see Peter Kreeft's Lesson One in Prayer), I am given more hope for He loves me because of my foolishness ad foibles, more faith for He shows me how joyous goodness can be, and more love as He transforms my heart with forgiveness and uncommon courage.

One touch and I am healed.
The pain disappears in seconds
My wound stops weeping blood
I am clean. He makes me whole again.

One touch and I awake.
A death-like sleep has lost its hold
My head is clear and I am hungry
He calls, and I respond with joy.

One touch and I am restored.
The world is bathed in roseate light
My heart sings songs of life and love
He crowns my head with jasmine sweet.

Passion-driven life

I watched three great movies recently and what made the three stories so compelling is the common thread that runs through the three. They tell stories of life and the passions that drive people. Billy Elliot is about how a young boy who finds his passion for dance accidentally rises above his impossible circumstances to realize his dream while The Concert is about how passions do not die even though outside forces dictate their demise. They lay dormant until an opportunity arises for dreams to come alive once more. And finally Sixty Six is about the determination of a young boy to throw a lavish bar mitzvah party to mark his coming of age but his plans are thwarted at every turn. Although he does not attain his goal, along the way he finds new passions and also the love and affirmation he longs for in an unexpected way. To be fully alive, we need to be driven by passion. I am not talking about passion for things material or physical which I think is passion at its most superficial and unimaginative but about passion that drives us to create, to be who we truly are, and to impact the lives of others in bold, affirmative strokes or subtly indefinable whispers. Growing up I had no idea what I wanted to do. Even though I was steered in the right direction by "chance" and given many clues along the way, I lacked the confidence to keep at it and so I drifted into mind-numbing paper pushing in order to do the so-called right thing. Like Bernie in Sixty Six, I felt like a loser. I was miserable but balanced out my dissatisfaction by pursuing passions that offered momentary and pretty meaningless pleasure. Hence I merely existed because I lacked the courage to live, until I experienced great loss, the death of my father. Two light bulbs went off with this loss of life. First, I discovered that Jesus truly loves me not because anyone or anything told me so but it came as a real, felt, personal experience. In this true epiphany, I found my first and most significant passion: to love God with all my heart, soul and mind. The God-shaped space in my heart which I was created with was finally being filled when I gave my fiat to God. And it has been awesome ever since. Second, I finally cottoned on that in life there are no dress rehearsals. I only get this one chance to find my bliss. Everything on earth is created with a purpose, what was mine? I knew that I must live true to who I am in order to live meaningfully, joyfully. Only a passion-driven life would enable me to do that.  Saint Augustine said "Love God and (then) do as you will". As Peter Kreeft* explained this: If you truly love God and his will, then doing what you will, will, in fact, be doing what God wills. In loving God and His will, I have indeed been able to discern what are my deepest desires and passions. He created me so He must know what on earth I am to do on this earth. And so I have been following His lead ever since. Kreeft identified seven signs that tell us we are on the right path in knowing the will of God: (1) Scripture, (2) church teaching, (3) human reason (which God created), (4) the appropriate situation, or circumstances (which he controls by his providence), (5) conscience, our innate sense of right and wrong, (6) our individual personal bent or desire or instincts, and (7) prayer. He goes onto to advise: Test your choice by holding it up before God's face. If one of the seven voices says no, don't do it. If none say no, do it. Knowing is oftentimes the easy part, walking the path of passion is the killer, as Jesus himself found out. And yet, the only way to resurrection is death.  Following your heart's passion will present mountains to traverse; involve tears, sacrifice and hard work; and require truckloads of dedication, humility and courage. Plus people look askance at you, especially loved ones, who might even think you downright loony. There will be times when it feels like the whole world is against you. You may even give up for a while, but dreams never completely die as Filipov in The Concert found out. They can come alive again with a little ingenuity and the ability to face your fears. When young Billy in Billy Elliot is asked at his audition for the Royal Ballet School why he likes to dance, he describes his passion for dance as transformative, where he disappears into another world. He finally sums it up in one word: electricity. My good friend B describes her initial conversion experience as being zapped by God and I think this image of electricity and being zapped best describes how I feel when I am living out my passions, especially when I show God how much I love Him and thank Him for giving me my life.   * Peter Kreeft's excellent essay on discernment:  http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/discernment.htm