Behind The Exterior

It's been a week since my Dad has been hospitalized in Cebu Doctors Hospital because of infection complications caused by a small eruption of his skin in the scrotum area. It's been two weeks or so since I started my new job. It's been almost 2 months since my grandmother passed away.

Barely recovering from another, it piles up on you like a stack of unfinished work. I know I have seen God's grace in all situations and I have witnessed his glory fall upon my life. But there are still some things that are left dwelling in my emotions that need to be healed only in God's time.

The human frailty still exists but I find myself even more persistent in enduring what this life is giving me. Not quick to succumb to despair. But ever so quick in holding on to hope. I am certain that what sustains me now isn't my own strength, not even my own will. For I am not a patient person nor am I an easily forgiving soul.

I am watching my Dad sleep on the hospital bed. Finally the series of visits have died down for today. I'm hoping that it will stay a little bit more quiet for a while so that I can hear myself think. The residue of fear is still quite fresh. I was almost prepared to give up and accept the inevitable. I stared at it in the face and a flood of memories rushed through me. The pictures printed on my memory bracelet stood out on waking moments where I'd stare into space wondering how my Dad was doing while I was still in Manila. I was already trying to imagine what it would be like should he not survive this. Thinking about it caused such a painful ache in my heart.

It is quite different when you face the reality of death this way. When it is your Dad's life ticking on a clock. I can now imagine what kind of pain my parents felt when they lost their own parents too. I am quite lucky though because I am given another chance to understand what dying and losing someone means before it actually happens. And so I am able to live the new chapter of my family's life a little bit differently.

This Christmas Season has indeed been different. Starting off this New Year full of promise and hope manifests a little bit differently for me this time. But despite all the seeming tumult that shakes the exterior circumstances of my journey, I am growing more steadfast in faith. Closer to seeing the truth the lies behind REAL LOVE.

A Brief Epiphany on Walking

I see other people's lives cross mine. Sometimes I can't help but look and feel a bit envious of their own progress. I look back at mine and wonder if I've gone as far. I've slowly started to learn not to concern myself with other people's lives in that matter because it doesn't help keep me in place. When I was walking up the steep road on my way back home, my legs were getting strained. I could walk upright because I had to lunge my body forward to keep being held back by the slope's gravity. If I looked ahead, I could see that the road was long and the top was far away from me. But if I looked at my shoes, I could see that the next step was just one foot forward away. And that was what kept me going. Just taking one foot forward at a time.

Eventually I arrived. For any experienced athlete that walk was chicken feed. But for me, it's quite a feat to decide to even begin in the first place. I suppose this is where my romance with exercise begins. Since I have already been enamored in my spirit, now it's time to let that flow through my body.

Finding Spirit in the Financial Crisis

I've been running into this topic for the past week. I cannot claim to be the most informed person in the world. I am always not up to date about current events in whatever aspect of life except if it's about the Church. Yes, I probably am a self-proclaimed recluse. But there are reasons and the reasons have helped me realize that it is okay to keep being a recluse as long as I don't become indifferent to the movement of life that I affect around me or are being affected by something I can help alleviate. So I look up once in a while or open my eyes from the moments of contemplative-active living to see what and how everybody is getting along.

I ran into a Facebook Note from my friend Anjani all the way from Holland entitled Global Economic Crisis: A Historic Opportunity for Transformation. and I immediately took note of the word transformation. After having recently attended a forum at the Asian Institute of Management that nitpicked and fed our brains on the causes of this crisis and what one can do to survive it, there was no mention on how it actually is an opportunity for global transformation. Looking at this global crisis in that manner now has moved me to take part of the opportunity of being transformed myself. Hence, keeping myself informed and involved with everything that's got to do with it including how the Church thinks.

In this article I saw in my cousin Pat's blog, he pointed that what endures through all crisis is God.

After all the intellectual debacle of expert economists, politicians, businessmen, housewives or even farmers, in the end there will be no formula for overcoming a depression except the united mindset of goodwill amongst men. Where does all good begin? God. For non-Christians it's begins with other things maybe but the idea of holding on to a collective unifying force greater than all of mankind's capability always arises in the face of all challenges that seem impossible to overcome.

I find it interesting that even the Pope has something affirming to say about what's been troubling corporate giants. It's a comforting thought that even through the stonehearted walls of money making machines, the Spirit finds its way to breath life.