Kathleen's kindness

“Sometimes I think that I could have said something …” After she said these words, I felt a lump in my throat and a great feeling of gentleness in my heart. It is one of those very touching moments in my life when I felt overwhelmed with the love of someone. She has accompanied me as I journeyed through a long period of pain. With her words I suddenly had the intuition that this special person has really entered into my own pain.

It is not easy to be with persons who are undergoing a difficult period,especially that kind of pain that is within, that interior pain which one can never even share. What can you say? Is it necessary to say something? If the person says she doesn’t need you, do you take her words at face value? What if she has been hurting for a long time? What can you do to stop the hurting?

So it is that at that very moment, I felt overwhelmed by grace. Something good has come out of the long Calvary. It is the realization that patient love does exist.

She hasn’t solved my problem. She has made me discover the treasure that I have, that of being accompanied by a person who is willing to enter into my pain. At that low point when I have lost all of my self-esteem, somebody has taken time to stay with me. More than anything, this made me realize that I had value. Somebody was willing to waste her time on me.

We cannot live others’ lives for them. We can rejoice with their joys and cry with their sorrows; but each person has to go through life’s moments and experiences of solitude, in order to discover the meaning of life and of who we are.

Our patience, trust and faith are the best gifts we can offer each other as we go through the dark, believing that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy birthday

The other day I celebrated my "birthday".
Last year, on October 16, after so many months of dryness and of dragging myself one day at a time, I suddenly had my eureka moment. I do not know what precipitated it, or what was its context, but I just had a very sure feeling deep in my heart that "the days of mourning are over". The feeling wasn't the result of the resolution of anything because my life's situation practically stayed the same, but I knew in my heart that my life was turning around, that, finally, the joy of the new dawn is coming.
So it is that I have chosen October 16 as my new birthday. Every year I will celebrate it because it reminds me that God will never allow anything to break me. I just have to trust Him. How can my small mind ever grasp life's great mystery? It's presumptuous to think so.
God didn't fail me. He never will.

Wait

I got inspired by the Gospel today. Actually, I have been struck by this passage last year and it has sort of accompanied my journey.

Then he said to them, 'Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.' Luke 12:15

Since God is a loving Father who takes care of our moment-by-moment needs, I call it my “daily bread spirituality”, I believe that, once again, He has enabled me to have an insight into my journey at this point in my life. I came across a book by Anselm Grün, OSB, “The Spiritual Challenge of Midlife”, and I know that it is a treasure. It doesn’t solve my questions, nor does it quench my angst, but, as I said, it offered me an insight, nay, so many insights, that I am even tempted to say that this “midlife crisis” is actually a blessing.

Midlife is an invitation to change perspective and to go inward, to know, not through your head but through your heart, after a lot of tears and o being bent and bruised, that what makes me happy is not to be in charge of my life. Rather, true joy comes from knowing that God is the only security. Hoarding doesn’t make me secure. Only gratitude and trust can.

Here are the words of the book. I cannot paraphrase them as I am afraid of losing their beauty and depth.

Many people get into a midlife religious crisis because they have the will to conquer religious life in the same way they conquered their professional lives. They continually want to grab onto religious experiences and, as it were, amass a spiritual fortune. Dullness and disappointment in prayer are an indication that I must give up the search for the God experiences, let go of my striving for ownership, and just be very simple before God. What is important is that I surrender myself entirely to God without constantly demanding gifts from him, such as rest, security or religious gratification. Detachment also requires the readiness to suffer. Detachment does not mean that one has found calm and enjoyment. On the contrary, one is willing to give up these things and is ready to let God lead one into the fray…

People should not break away from the difficulty, but simply wait. One cannot free oneself by one’s own power. A person can do nothing but wait for God himself to lead one into a new spiritual maturity. This also means trusting that God will not leave a person in distress without providing a positive outcome…

Midlife crisis also involves an internal change of leadership. It is no longer I, but God, who leads.

They are ours; they are God's

I was at a youth encounter in Punta de Tralca, Chile, last weekend. I was struck by one of the prayers shared by one of the participants...
that we may realize that streetchildren are not children of the streets. They are God's; they are ours.

Grateful

Two and a half years ago, something happened that has turned my life upside down. It was something unexpected, and until now I am still clueless as to the real reason behind it. The experience has made me question the goodness of people and the goodness of life itself.
I have tried to face the issue despite my natural tendency to be afraid of confrontation, whether with myself or with others.
I have tried to “blackmail” God, asking Him to take away the hurt, just as a child would do with his mother after a scratch or a fall.
I have tried to be patient and to let time pass, thinking that things will get back on the right course.
I have tried to change myself, thinking that if I became a “better” person the situation will change.
I have tried a lot of things, a lot of techniques. I was telling myself that I was trying to be positive about the whole thing, but maybe, yes, probably, deep within my heart, I was longing for a return to the past, to my happy and uncomplicated life.
Things did not turn out that way. Rather, they turned out for the better.
I am grateful for the experience because I have learned and discovered so much about myself and about life.
I have discovered that my good and even heroic actions are always tainted by self-seeking. But I have also discovered that I can reach out and turn the other cheek.
I’ve learned that things change, people change, and it is not their fault that they do. It is the reality of life. But I have also learned that each person tries his/her best, that no one willfully hurts others.
I have discovered that the most devastating experience that could happen to me is not failure in my work or career, but the fracture in a human relationship. But I have also discovered that I am strong.
I’ve learned that the heart always wins over the head. But I have also learned that the heart reasons out on its own, and though it may take time, it can learn to fight or to let go.
Do I wish that the experience never happened to me? I think that the question is useless; though I would not wish that kind of experience on any body because I know how it almost broke me.
The experience made me believe all the more in the goodness and wisdom of God. It is in my weakness, in the lowest point in my life that I came face to face with the beauty of life and the resilience and dignity of the human spirit.
The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall fear.