A Little Taste of Heaven

"Lie back, watch TV, eat chicharon..." You could hear the longing in Kuya Joe Dean's voice as he half-jokingly revealed what he would rather be doing on a warm Sunday afternoon. After all, it was supposed to be a day of rest after a long Saturday of service, but instead he was at the Center conducting a facilitators' workshop for the upcoming Life in the Spirit Seminar. Three of us - AG, Judith, and myself - were there as well to help out, but he did most of the grunt work. A few lazy hours of TV-watching and extra large doses of cholesterol would have been a little taste of heaven indeed for Kuya, and I hope he got his rest last Sunday (I suppose not, because he got awfully sick in the next succeeding days).

Last Thursday was an extra-long day (as all Thursdays have been, since my acceptance of the Montalban mission and the "convening" of the Thursday prayer group), and, in the midst of tracking down lyrics and printing out song sheets and preparing for the evening's worship, AG, who on top of the extra-long day was also suffering the after-shocks of an extra-long night of hauling the last pieces of heaviest stuff from the Bakang's former place of residence, had fallen asleep sprawled across the bed. "Sarap matulog," he yawned, when it was time to head off. "We can sleep all we want in heaven bro," I said, echoing Kuya Joe Dean's (and Mother Teresa's!) motto. A little taste of heaven, indeed...sleep, wonderful, uninterrupted sleep.

And sleep's been a luxury I've been missing the last several days - my friends will attest to how many times I've dozed off (horrors!) on our nights up and out. They've been magnificently polite about my state of sleepiness, but I've been known to stay up until the break of dawn and the rising of the sun, so this is a new thing, even for me. Then again, I've recently been blessed with the ability to awaken the dawning - the Spirit nudges me awake at 6:30 a.m. (if not earlier, in certain cases!) and I've been starting my days early in the morning. Lots of stuff accomplished with an early start, but batteries start to run out much earlier as well...

So these last two days - Sunday and Monday - have been a tremendous blessing. My lack of sleep (especially with the Friday night sleepover in Montalban where I don't think I got more than 2 hours' worth of sound sleep) was compensated with one of my favorite tastes of heaven: a sleep marathon on Sunday, punctuated only with noodle-cooking sessions and a few hours reading Harry Potter 6 (The Half-Blood Prince...someone died, won't let the cat out of the bag so find out for yourself). I slept and slept and slept like there was no tomorrow, only to wake up for meals and Mass. Yuuuuuummmmmmmmy. Monday was a little more of the same, except that the restlessness was back...I needed - and longed - to be doing something else, to be on any of the missions He's given me, but it was still a "rest" day, no matter how restless I got. Now I think I know a little bit about how Kuya feels! But I got some sleep in as well...a very welcome afternoon siesta which I hardly get the chance to indulge in anymore. Plus I finished Harry Potter 6, rediscovered one of my favorite poets (see my other blog for more details), and sent off some long overdue emails. And I managed to make some lamb caldereta as well. Not bad. This little taste of heaven will, hopefully, go a long way.