What Went Unsaid

 

Image from: https://www.facebook.com/digitalchristian

Today, I just announced on Facebook that I plan on quitting it for a while. I have been trying to do that for several months now but the need to be connected, to see what others are doing, what they may be thinking, to share this “awesome” part of me that just screams to be shared… these are the reasons that stop me every time I decide to quit.

I am a certified Facebook junkie. If I had the beauty and the body, I probably would be posting ‘selfies’ too. All I have is my brainy-brag moments. I just love to brag!(and not in a good way too).

However, Facebook sometimes depresses me. Every time I see negative status updates, war declarations, petty quarrels, and angry tirades, I just feel depress all the time.Every time I see people my age post pictures of their babies, handsome husbands and pretty wives (of course they are beautiful people, they found partners after all)I just feel pea-green with jealousy. Pictures of travels to foreign places just make me downright envious that often, I would feel bad for myself. And I would end up crying myself to sleep all because good ol’ me has not left the Philippines after all (and yes, I would forget to pray too).

For the past years, Facebook has become an open journal of certain thoughts I don’t share to people personally. What I could have told my learners, friends, my brothers and sisters,co-workers,  I end up posting to the whole world – and those words don’t mean much to those who read them and those who matter don’t always end up reading them.

I believe I just replaced my book addiction with online addiction. And I don’t feel alive doing that. I just feel like I need my Facebook fix or else…

But there’s the good side to Facebook too. The pages and posts dedicated to Christ always uplift my soul. I would miss them. I would miss my Facebook friends whom I stalk simply because I want to witness their secret relationship with the Lord and I want to see what make them so different from mere weak mortals like me. I would miss posting my thoughts too and believing that my little ideas, insights and realizations are making a difference in someone else’s life just as what the Facebook posts of those Ate’s and Kuya’s from SFC has done with my days.

I would miss the soul-inspiring digital works of art from several Facebook pages too. They enliven my desktop every day.

I would still keep blogging but for now, I long to spend time with the One who matters and its definitely not Zuckey’s baby.

Raw Emotions

I can't keep doing this and still have a heart left in me. I can't keep doing this and still look at my face in the mirror every morning (which, no wonder, I seldom do).

When you care, you get hurt. You can never be too sure. It's just so frightening out there. There really is no security.

I keep looking back at days when all I had to do after I finished reading a historical romance novel was stare at all those trees, and that fancy afternoon atmosphere brought about by the shimmering light of the fading sun... ah, I had such wonderful dreams of the future then.

Now, I am in my past's future, and I keep thinking about my present's past and dreaming of my future. If I don't snap out of this now, I will probably spend most of my life reliving my pasts and dreaming of the future but never really existing in the present.

Well, this is me when  God and I stop talking. This is me after Ender's Game. This is me, while looking into the A&E test passers list and finding only one of my learners name.I have not yet finished poring over the list, I pray that I will be able to find some more. Honestly, I am breaking down here and no one's there to hold my hand. (And we have our Foundations of Education examination tomorrow to boot!).

I am afraid. And today, I just feel so small...like an insignificant speck of light in Ender's vast universe of buggers, waiting for annihilation!

God’s Gifts and Love Ripples

I guess I can’t help it. I used to spend valentines day and its aftermath being too busy to ponder or think. With my sore eyes, I can’t do that. And my family forced me to quarantine myself for two days now.
I spent the day after my 29th valentine’s day thinking: I think I found him. I found the guy that I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I found my so called “ideal man”. And I know I will not do anything about it (not after the rejected 4th grade love letter nor the early adulthood fan mail).

He is someone I met in 2012 when I was not hoping to meet anyone, just the miracle of a life that is going to change for the better.I tempered the feelings and admired him from a distance. I was determined to just admire and not feel anything.

The first time I met him, he did not really impress me until he started talking. I know and feel he will understand me and understand the struggles I was going through. I like his honesty, his maturity and his love of family. I admire his zeal and love and focus and passion for God. I know I would love talking to him and he would be able to understand me.

This man inspired me. When I think about him, I feel good inside. I like knowing he is there and that my ideal is not impossible after all. I did once say I would know if I meet the one I would want to marry right? I was right. I did say I will never just “settle” right? And I probably never will.

He and I are unlike in many ways. He loves freely, he can cook, he is gregarious and spontaneous and open whilst I still lurk in the shadows, fearful of love, doubtful of human nature and distrustful of a whole host of things. He is beyond my reach at all. I know about him and he does not know about me. He lives in another region and I don’t know if I will ever see him again.I like knowing he has a reserved space in his heart for the woman who will be his wife someday. He is very conscious of this partner who will enter his life in the future. Whoever she is, she is very lucky and blessed to have a husband who would honor his vows, who will raise a family he will lead to God, who would love and cherish the woman he marries till his dying day. His sons and daughters would be very blessed to have him as a father. This is how I admire him so!

He deserves a woman who will complement him. Who will take care of him, love him, be loyal to him and share his passion, love and commitment.  And I am praying that he will find her. Few men would say they wanted to get married, but he is very eager for his very own God’s gift. God, it just hurts a bit to think about it. Me, praying like this. I would pray that He set him aside for me but I am not the one for him. Sad to say, my ideal man has a perfectly different ideal woman in mind.

This is reality.

He is waiting for his God’s gift while I keep wondering if God has something as good for me.

Dear Heart 1: A Post-Valentine Reflection

 

I was astounded by one of Macrina Weiderkehr’s reflections on John 14:1-14.

Let me lift her lines on this:

“A troubled, anxious heart is like a little person. It has its own personality and we do need to learn how to be with it. Here are some ways of being present to your troubled heart.

1. Take if for a walk in the early morning hours when few people are around.

2. Sit with it for long hours gazing into the waters of the lake.

3. Take it to a window at night. Turn out the light; open the curtains and gaze at the stars.

4. Light a candle. Sit down and empty your dear head of thoughts to the extent possible. Become one with your breathing. Let your breath become your prayer.

5. Write a poem for it! Sing it a song!

6. Take it for dancing lessons!

7. Listen to a beautiful piece of music with it!

8. Introduce it to the wide-open spaces of a meadow and fresh air.

9. Have tea with it and maybe even invite a friend.

10. Take it to church for holy hour.

                                            - from Abide, Keeping Vigil with the Word of God

I want to follow what she said but since I am too scattered to write a poem for it, let me write a letter then, an open letter to my heart.

Dear Heart,

In the 28 years that you beat on my chest, I never really thought of you as a part of me. Your presence in the cavity on my chest embarrassed me. We used to be friends when I was younger. I used to wear you on my sleeves. I used to openly share you with others. We used to laugh out loud. We used to have friends. We used to sing, and talk long hours with someone else’s heart. We used to play and run freely in the meadows. We cried when my grandfather died. When you stopped crying and I saw others crying inside that church, we would start again.

You used to beat so fast when I see guys I admire from afar. When I first wrote a love letter and handed it to that crush who crushed you in return, you retreated a little. But you would come out to play with your best friends and we found other guys to admire. We just made sure never to let others know.

Then, do you remember the one time we were about to leave school and someone teased me that I am so OA. I felt OA was bad and thus, you were bad. I stopped talking and listening to you, didn’t I? It’s easier to temper my reactions when I can no longer feel you.

Now, you have completely hidden yourself from me. Even at those points I allowed myself to feel emotions, I do not trust what you allowed me to feel. And sometimes, I cannot even identify what I feel.

I am sorry for hiding you, for locking you up for so long. I know it made my life easier. No one made fun of me again. No one hurt me. No, I did not care enough to be hurt. I had no feelings. 

Now, you have become a stranger to me. Who are you? What are you? At times, you scare me now. The way you beat, the way you want things I think you should not want. The way you just seem to take over me. Take my hand again. Talk to me. Let me feel you. Get out of hiding and look at Him. Let Him heal you after the way I have treated you. Let Him assure you that you are safe in His hands. That yes, you will still get hurt, will still feel pain but that’s okay. One touch of His healing hands and you will be okay again. Scarred yes but alive, beating, living, breathing.

Stop hiding. Join me in prayer, in worship. You can cry before Him. You can tell Him everything since He already knows them anyway. Let Him hold you and take care of you as I never did. I am sorry for hiding you for so long, for rejecting you, for not getting to know you.

When I first read Macrina’s reflections a few days ago, I am sorry for thinking how recalcitrant and contrary and bratty you have grown. I am sorry for being angry that you refused to subject yourself to my will, my mind. I am sorry for feeling perplexed and disappointed that you are one broken piece of organ that I can do without! I am sorry for being impatient with your unpredictability, your tantrums. I did not try to understand you. I have ignored and abandoned and starved you of love and affection from others and from myself thinking it would protect me from pain, rejection and disappointments.

No wonder you’d rebel.  No wonder you would be uncontrollable. You have so much in you, so much you could have shared which I have controlled, curtailed and killed. Get out of that cell now. It is safe there but it’s not a happy place to be.

I know a much safer place for you. In His hands is where you should be. Because He will take very good care of you.

                                                                                                        Love,

                                                                                              Heaven’s Mind

Borrowed Prayer

 

 

I started reading Macrina Wiederkehr’s book last year. I bought the book last June 15, 2013 and I have yet to finish it. My excuse? Good books are meant to be savored, not rushed through.

I think she was one of the reasons why I have grown fascinated with religious sisters. They are very human. But very drawn to the divine. I like the way she thinks and I think I would have wanted to be around her, observe her, listen to her and be inspired by her. She made me think of nuns, religious sisters and the clergy in a different way. She made me wonder if lay people can be the same. Could we also think in the way that they do? ( And it made me think, if I am so pleased by how she thinks and what she stands for, what must God be feeling towards her? Huh.)

I am fascinated by the way their mind ticks. And she made me think about the saints. If the living religious sisters can be like this, how about those who have been perfected by God’s grace? They have already passed through this life, so what was their life like? Before they were drawn to the Divine and after that? But I digress…

Anyway, I opened her book again today and her prayer is something that appeals to me, to my heart today. With her, I am praying this prayer too:

O God, My Refuge, My Path of Life Forever,

This I know to be true – when I needed a refuge, it was always for you whom I was seeking! Every time I tried to fill my emptiness with too many things, too much food, too many words, too much work, it was always you for whom I was seeking. Every time I hoarded more than I needed, it was you for whom I was hungering. Every time I searched in the wrong places, I was searching for you. Every time I wanted to be right more than I wanted the truth, it was you for whom I was yearning. It was always you! You are my path of life. It was always you to whom I wanted to flee for refuge. May my refuge be in you!

Amen.

Love and Other Drugs (Pt.2)

 

I read too much.

I have tried starting my blog several times with that. Reading is my chosen drug. My guilty little pleasure, along with food.

I read too much. Not a lot, but too much. I don’t read to enlighten the mind. I don’t read for literary entertainment. I do not read to know or be aware. I read to escape.

I do not have much of a life if I compare my life with that of people my age. I don’t go to parties. I never went on any night-outs. I never drink (except for red wine). I never shopped except for essential stuff (meaning books). I never leave home on weekends except for school and lately, church or SFC activities. I never went places except for work-related seminars and trainings (and I never ventured out of the venue, not in Baguio, certainly not in Tagaytay or in Manila (except for that expensive dinner with our City’s first lady) although several concerned souls dragged me around Cebu twice or thrice).

I guess when you don’t have much experience, you compensate somewhere. I compensate by reading a lot. If I can say vicarious living is experience, I would say I have been through a lot of scandalous reading material to offer me one lifetime of experience over people my age. I know stuff I am not supposed to know and I am aware of things women my age and my background and upbringing should not know about.

My teachers used to warn Nanay about the reading materials I pore over during school breaks. I hated them for ruining my enjoyment of a spicy historical romance novel and because of their reaction, I would often raise up my books covered with scantily dressed couples cavorting on lush, verdant, forest-like backgrounds, just to irritate them.

But my teachers were right. I have become addicted to these books. Whenever I am upset, I read. Whenever I am worried, scared, troubled, I read. If I do not read, I eat. Sometimes,I wish Nanay carefully monitored what I was reading all those years ago. (If I get married and have a daughter, my daughter will be reading books on my lap!).

Reading is so much easier than praying.

Reading does not bring your problems and your helplessness to mind. Reading let’s you cover up your scars, and your fears. It let’s you forget the troubles you have. It let’s you escape.

Praying reminds you of your helplessness, your powerlessness, your lack of control and your ignorance. It points out how little control you have over everything. It reminds you how human you are… how much dependent your are on God.

Reading takes away that sense of dependence. It makes you feel a false sense of being powerful and in control because you can read anytime you please. You can even skip to the back portion and know the story before hand.

But reading just makes you feel more confused, more unhappy. It binds you in its endless, utter hopeless spiral of reading and reading more to numb you from everything else.

Praying is freeing. After a long, open-hearted and honest moment of prayer, you would feel refreshed, comforted, assured. You can leave all your worries in His hands because You have been assured that He cares, He loves, and He is involved in your life and that He wants what is best for you.

Reading leaves you hopeless, more desperate and bound by the need to read more books. But prayer let’s you live. Truly live.

I know I don’t treat reading in it’s proper context and I don’t resort to prayer when I am so upset and troubled that I can barely think. I can pray when everything is okay but when sorrow, fear, pain and disappointment drowns my heart, I resort to reading.

Reading has brought me a lot of trouble. Sometimes, I wish I don’t know that much or that I can erase certain stuff, images and scenes I have stored in my head. But I can’t.

I should remember however that the love of reading is God’s gift too. But if I abuse it, it would be the devil’s tool.

Lord, teach me to use reading in good, helpful and Godly ways. Remind me that in every book I read, You are always looking over my shoulders. Lead me to good books that would nourish my soul and my heart and not just titillate my senses.

A quote from Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB comes to mind:

God is the sustaining presence that is our inheritance, our greatest good, our refuge in times of trouble. When we court other gods, the troubles in our lives tend to increase.

Regrets

Need I say more?