Once Again, Back From The Mountaintop

Kabayan, Benguet. Photo by A.G. Saño

My favorite philosopher and theologian, Peter Kreeft, probably says it best. "What happens when we just meander with nature for a while instead of making something happen? What happens when we forget clocks and obligations, and just watch waves, or stars, or clouds, or sunsets, or rivers? In my experience, at least two things almost always happen. One is natural, the other supernatural. The natural effect can be described as just an overall feeling of refreshment, like cool water in a desert, or a calm after a battle. The supernatural effect is that I can pray better, and want to pray more."

Somehow I'd forgotten that when things get a little rough and my spiritual and emotional perspective clouds up, the only thing I truly need to do is to be still and know He is God. And the best way I've found I can do that is to forget myself and my self-centeredness and get caught up in God's creation. To listen to Him as I contemplate the work of His hands. "Nature teaches me how to listen. How to listen to waves, and thus how to listen in general, and thus how to listen to God. This is an art I know we all need desperately. If we listened, to other people and to God, we would avoid most of our tragedies, wars, divorces, violence, drugs, broken relationships, pains. How can we have faith, hope, and love without listening? How can we enjoy heaven without enjoying listening? How can we be saved unless we learn to listen to God?"

After a while amidst the noise and chaos and challenges of a difficult mission field, it becomes harder to listen to what God wants to say, much less hear Him over the sometimes deafening din. Even regular daily moments of quietness are invaded by the demands of the metropolis - the deadlines and the tasks at hand and the relationships that are all vying for time and attention. A couple of people I share the faith with know about the desolation that was setting in, and the distractions that kept me from training my eyes on Him alone. Apparently, a trip to the mountaintop was in order.

The literal and figurative mountaintop - for up there in the mountains, I encountered God once again, in a way that I'd long been missing. The very first morning out of the city He and I had the first of many long overdue meaningful conversations that I'd been sorely missing - the type that directs my path and reorients my focus to where it should be, upon Whom it should be. In the chilly hours of early morning, as the sun slowly crept into the sky, I had the chance to properly and sincerely praise Him the way I hadn't been able to in all those mornings confined in my city room without a view. Out in nature, He seems so much grander; He inspires even more awe. And, away from the stresses of life and mission, He speaks with a clarity that overwhelms and inspires one to go to the ends of the earth out of sheer love for Him. That's what I was missing. And that's exactly what I needed, and what I encountered this week.

In Baguio, and in the even quieter climes of Kabayan, where I have most frequently encountered Him in the solitude of adoring His Real Presence, He put back the courage in my heart that I so badly needed. The courage to stand up for Him and carry His light to find Him in the darkness; the courage to believe that I belong to Him, I am precious in His eyes, and He has called me by my name; the courage to be renewed in strength against all challenges and adversaries, for I serve the mightiest Being Who was, Who is, and Who is to come; and the courage to love, to truly LOVE the way He did, without question or expectation, no matter what the cost. And He spoke to me through one of the most important figures in my continuing conversion towards a life of following Him as closely as possible. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, the woman whose life changed mine, said: "True love is love that causes us pain, that hurts, and yet brings joy. That is why we must pray to God and ask Him to give us the courage to love."

Courage. Funnily enough, it was the same attribute a friend in the faith likewise discovered this week. I pray that God give me the strength to sustain my own courage in the valley as I continue to seek His will and do His work and spread His light and love wherever He may send me. And may He send me, to the nations, and to ends of the earth, to do His most Holy Will. Higit sa lahat, bago ang lahat! Amen.