Traces of God

These days at Mass, we are reading the book of Exodus. In it Moses is referred to as the person "who spoke to God face to face, as one man speaks to another", yet even Moses did not see God in all His glory because no man sees God and still lives.
But God told Moses, "When my glory passes I will set you in the hollow of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face is not to be seen."
Deep in each person's heart is the desire to know God. Maybe many of us do not know that it is God we are searching for as we search for joy, peace, life, serenity. Many times we do not realize that the unquenchable thirst, the angst that come to us once in a while, is the heart searching for God.
We cannot see God in His full glory, after all, we are limited creatures! But God shows Himself to us after He has passed us by.
We cannot see God face to face. We cannot fully comprehend Him. Otherwise, we would be God, too. But God is present in our every day life. And it is only on hindsight that we become aware of His presence, when we look back and review our experiences. We see that we are never alone. We see God's traces in our daily life.
So why continue to search for God? In reality, it is in our search for Him that we grow and we discover who we truly are.

Woman, why are you weeping?

I love Saint Mary Magdalene, and for many reasons. The first reason is, "she loved much".
The second reason is, she was totally true to herself that she was not afraid to show her weakness. When she saw the empty tomb, she started to cry, and it is in this state of weeping that Jesus encountered her.
For many people, crying, especially weeping, is a sign of weakness. How many people would want to be seen with their puffy eyes and red nose? I don't think we would find many. Each person wants to show to the world that he or she is strong. Nobody wants to be laughed at or pitied.
But in reality, how many of us can really say that everything is really okay. I mean, deep within our hearts, can we really say that nothing or no one really touches us to the point of crying?
When I reached forty, I have had a lot of exercise in crying. In fact, a friend called me a "cornball". My childhood friends and my classmates in high school and college would not believe this because they have always known me as the "jolly-bing". Anyway, nowadays I cry for a lot of reasons: when I have a headache or other physical pains, when I am tired, when I am touched by what I am reading or what I am watching, when I wax nostalgic, when I have a strong experience of any sort, when I realize the goodness of God expressed especially in small things, when I think about the transitoriness of life, etc., etc.
Actually crying does me a lot of good. I don't really cry in full view of others because I still haven't overcome human respect. But I do a lot of crying. It does me good because it makes me realize my boundaries, that at the end of the day, everything is on loan. Crying helps me to be in solidarity with the countless men and women who suffer for small or big reasons. It makes me remember that I need God, and that this God I believe in is a tender God who comforts those who mourn, who wipes away the tears...

Joseph's story is every person's story

These days we have been reading the story of Joseph and his brothers. This story has always fascinated me since I was a child. Joseph - the chosen one, the fair-skinned son of the beloved wife.
Joseph has certainly lived a charmed life as a boy, but everything ended in a flash. He certainly wasn't prepared for that fateful day when his life took an unexpected turn. Tired of being second best and of being lumped together in the generic term "Jacob's other sons", Joseph's brothers wanted to get rid of him. The first plan was to kill him, but one brother interceded "let's just sell him to the travelling merchants..."
Joseph pleaded, after all, these are his brothers. They have the same father, they ate at the same table. But the brothers' hearts have already been hardened. Envy and jealousy have a way of killing whatever spark of reason there is.
Then begins Joseph's many adventures...
From being sold as a slave, to being jailed, to being a high official in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh himself.
It is a real dumpsters-to-throne story.
It takes only a few chapters of the book of Genesis to see how Joseph's life story had a happy ending.
In real life, it must not have been very easy for Joseph. Who knows how many nights he laid awake trembling with fear while he was with the caravan of the travelling merchants. What did he feel everytime he remembered his brothers' treachery and betrayal? How long did he struggle to accept that he was now alone in a hostile and foreign world, and that he would never see his beloved father again? Did he ever blame himself for what happened? Did revenge ever enter his mind? What about death, did he ever think of death as a sweet end to everything?
The Bible doesn't give answers to these questions, but given the number of years that it took before he ever saw his brothers again, I am sure that Joseph did not even imagine that his life would have not only a happy, but a glorious ending!
I guess Joseph's story is the story of every man and woman.
There are times in our life when we feel that there is no way out, that we have already exhausted all our options, that everything conspires to lead us to a downward spiral. There are many experiences that just don't make sense, no matter how much time and attention we give to dissecting them. There is just nothing in them for us except suffering.
But somehow, we survive, in different ways.
These experiences change us.
Probably for many of us, our stories will not have Joseph's perfect ending, that is, full closure, with people and events that have treated us badly, trampled our self-esteem and forced us to go on a very lonely journey.
For many of us, the happy ending will be something "quiet", like when we come to realize that, indeed, something good has happened out of the bad blows that life has dealt us with.
We do not know how long it will take before we arrive at this realization. That is why we need the presence of Someone who can be our deep center, Someone who will not give us the answers like a vendo machine, but Someone who will keep us company as we go through the journey's ups and downs, lights and shadows.
God will help us to read the beautiful stories that He writes with our life's crooked lines.

Peter and Paul

Peter and Paul, two great saints.
Peter and Paul, two pillars of the Church.
Funny but when we think of great people, we always expect them to be perfect. But these two were not.
Peter, despite the privilege conferred on him by Jesus Himself, to be the first among the apostles, denied any knowledge of Jesus in front of a slave girl, of all people.
Paul, the great apostle, talked about a thorn in the flesh, most probably, in our vocabulary, a defect.
Somehow these two tell me that greatness is not equal to perfection. Greatness does not mean being somebody other than yourself so that you can conform to a certain model.
Greatness is truth. It is being truthful to oneself. It is accepting who I am, both my lights and shadows. No person is without anything positive or good.
When we live our lives according to who we are, without regrets, without excuses, then we are on the road to greatness.
Lastly, greatness does not mean being popular or being acclaimed.
Greatness is to feel good about oneself and to do my part, little though it may be, to make life a little bit better and kinder to someone.
When I can say, with a twinkle in my eyes, "I feel great!", this is the greatness that really matters.

God has no fingers

Today's first reading is from Genesis 18:16-33, where Abraham bargained with God so God won't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if He finds some righteous people there. The bargain went from fifty to ten. When he arrived at ten, Abraham stopped, probably thinking that it would be too much of a stretch to expect God to agree to a number lower than ten.
In a take on this story, one author re-wrote the story with a twist in the ending: As Abraham was leaving, he failed to see that God did not have hands...
I was struck by this second ending. If Abraham looked closely, he would have seen that God does not have hands. He would have realized that without hands, God cannot count whether there are ten righteous people among the peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is the God I believe in, a God of infinite mercy and goodness. This is the God that Jesus introduced to us, a God that forgives seven times seven; meaning, without limits.
Our God doesn't keep an account book.
We often take for granted the power of supplication, of praying for others. Since God is a God of mercy and compassion, He is happy when we partake of His mercy and compassion.
In the end, perhaps the bargaining is not really with God but with ourselves. Can I lower my "boundaries" from fifty to zero, and be able to forgive with all my heart? Can I widen my heart so as to give space even to people who do not "deserve" it?

Never the same

Every person, at one time or another, goes through a "Humpty Dumpty" experience, when the world, as it is known, suddenly crashes and "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again".
This experience normally catches one by surprise, though, as one looks back, there may have already been signs along the way.
When the Humpty Dumpty experience happens, the first reaction is to ask oneself: Where did I go wrong? What didn't I do right? Why did this happen to me?
Then follows the frantic attempt to re-create the lost world, to try to put back things as they were. But, somehow, one finds out that the pieces of the puzzle don't fit anymore. You suddenly get the insight that, no matter how hard you try, it won't work, that any attempt is futile.
But your heart is afraid to surrender because, after all, the old world, despite its imperfections, is the only world you know.
Then daily life becomes a battleground:
between resistance and abandonment;
between holding on and letting go;
between self-blame and compassion;
between resentment and gratitude;
between despair and moving on.
It will take time before one finally reaches a certain level of equilibrium, when you start to see life in a realistic way, but with hope.
And there will still be moments of uncertainty, but that is okay because they remind you that this life is not our permanent home.
Yes, you will heal, but you're never the same.

Not in control

These days I am living in tension, that is, there are so many things in my mind and in my heart. When they surface, I don't have the time to face them because there are more pressing works to attend to. When I find time, I cannot recover the stirrings that have surfaced during my busy time; but subconsciously, I am not at ease because I know that there is something I have to attend to.
This situation has now become so normal and ordinary in my life. I don't know whether it is temporary, or whether I will be able to get back a little semblance of "serenity".
I admit that I am not in control of my life. The words "Lord, just let me live through this day", has become my mantra.
In a way, I find this expression very dry and bereft of creativity. It is like I am back to Level 1, that is, my life is just a fight for survival.
On the other hand, it could be an expression of an important lesson I have learned the hard way: Without God, I am nothing.