Dogs In The Yard

I want to sleep for a week. Hook myself up to a dextrose drip, turn off the external noise of TV-radio-cell phones, turn up the airconditioning (or open the moutain windows), curl up in a sea of pillows and engulf myself in a warm fleece blanket...and sleep. Yum.

It's almost like that old Paul McCrane song from the movie Fame - I remember that we used to sing this song at my last job (as a harassed, sleepless teenage assistant at a media production house) in 1989 (eeek) before I finally decided to give law school a shot:

I want to be bad
And not even care
I want to go out of my head somewhere
I want to run crazy
Like the dogs in the yard
I want to cut the rope
But it's getting so much harder

I think I'll play poker
Stay out every night
Throw stones at the water
In the morning light

I want to be lazy like the dogs in the yard
Why can't I fly tonight?
Why can't I sleep all morning?

Why not? Because I am now a Christian working for Someone Higher Up, and no longer a hedonist (Poker? Stay out every night? Been there, done that). No wonder that the song continues, "I'm going out of my mind tonight, that's where I'm going..."

But I still feel like sleeping for a week...or at least for 9 full hours. My back still hurts. Sigh. I gotta get to those green pastures soon.

Take Me Away

Teach me to rest (Silence my heart, Lord)
Teach me to rest in You (Silence my heart)
Teach me to rest (Silence my heart, Lord)
Teach me to rest in You, take me away
And make me Your own
O my King, make me Your own.

I'm so exhausted that this morning, I woke up tired. After more than 8 hours of sleep. On a Sunday. Geez.

The day before that, for the first time since I started serving at He Cares - scratch that, for the first time since goodness knows when - I slept through my alarm. My noisy, vibrating, very annoying phone alarm (it sounds like someone impatiently flipping through radio stations). Not just through the alarm itself but through all its snooze reminders, from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m., when I finally opened one eye to see what time it was. Eek. The spirit was willing, but the body overruled. Much to my horror and dismay, especially since I was supposed to cook...but since I'd been sick the day before and got caught by the coup chaos, they'd probably already taken precautionary measures. I didn't even make it to afternoon intercession, or to any of my other evening appointments, for that matter. Very unlike me, if I may say so. I was just so tired!

Draw me to come (Nearer Your throne, Lord)
Draw me to come to You (Nearer Your throne)
Draw me to come (Nearer Your throne, Lord)
Draw me to come to You, take me away
And make me Your own
O my King, make me Your own

And today, on the way to and from Cali for a day trip, I kept dozing off in the car (good thing I wasn't driving!), even worse than Ney who'd been up all night with a bum stomach. My back was hurting, I didn't feel too chatty; all I could do was watch the dogs and the monkey and the birds and wish I were as simple an animal as they are (I don't even think that's a grammatically correct sentence, but whuttheheck). I guess I'm just rundown and dog-tired. Saint-Bernard/Great-Dane/Bull-Mastiff tired.

Purify me (Mold me anew, Lord)
Purify me for You (Mold me anew)
Puriy me (Mold me anew, Lord)
Purify me for You, take me away
And make me Your own
O my King, make me Your own

It probably didn't help very much that I've been very bad with my hours these last couple of weeks - having too much of a good time with friends old and new, especially the last few days/nights/er, mornings. It's not as if I haven't been through "worse," but the combined exhaustion from service and socializing and stress has been taking its toll. I'm physically and mentally in need of rejuvenation - not to mention spiritually - and this stupid politicking going on in the country's capital isn't making me feel any better.

Don't even get me started...I'm sick to the stomach of all of these clowns posturing and standing on their heads in their ridiculous attempts at power play. Administration, opposition, leftists, rightists, fascists, loyalists, "humanists," animists, cultists - it's disgusting, because you can see right through them. All they really want is power, in one way or another, and the silliest thing is that while they all seem so "united" in their opposition against the current administration, we all know that they'll be at each other's throats again the minute they get what they want. We've been through one too many EDSAs and disastrous aftermaths not to notice the ugly cycle. The problem is that we always put the exact same person in power - he or she just happens to be a different size, shape, gender, or political color, but they're all the same, at bottom. I don't understand why all these people can be so shortsighted - my only question, which no one has answered thus far to my satisfaction (legally, much less otherwise), is: THEN WHAT?? Put any other person in the Presidency by whatever means - snap election, "vox populi," or good grief, constitutional succession - and by golly you can be 150% sure that in three days many of these very same jerks will be back on the streets again for EDSA 5,6,7...a horrific thought, very much like the innumerable Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. Then again, I'd take Freddie Krueger over any of these people, any time. I don't know when I got this jaded, but you will never get me to EDSA or any of those rallying points again just to put the "same person" in power. I suppose the common Filipino has been used one too many times for his own good...and that he's finally wised up to it. Better to be united behind Manny Pacquiao, but even if they manage to get him elected President, you can be sure they'll cut him down before he ever knew what hit him. I love my country, but politicians and those politicians who pretend not to be are the scourge of the land and my pet peeves. Growl.

May I give joy (Praise to the Father)
May I give joy to You (Praise to the Son)
May I give joy (Praise to the Spirit)
May I give joy to You, take me away
And make me Your own
O my King, make me Your own.


I'm sure I'm not giving any joy to my Father with all this ranting - but I'm very quickly getting sucked into the quicksand of the city's negative energy and am too tired to struggle (no wonder I only have the energy to complain). Good thing I have a radical sabbatical coming up - to rest, refresh, and restore in green pastures...and to spend time with the Shepherd in a place where I can more clearly hear His voice.

Take me away, and make me Your own...O my King, make me Your own. :-)

Mommy

Perhaps one of the most hurtful things I ever told her was, "I love you, because you're my mother, but in life I would not have chosen you as a friend." But the testimony to how she really loves me, despite and in spite of that, and of my many other transgressions and shortcomings, is evidence of the fact that, next to my Jesus, she is the best friend I could ever have.

She worries, and worries inordinately and sometimes unnecessarily, about my well-being. While she tries to hold me back from potentially disastrous courses of action I may take, she has the graciousness to reluctantly let me go and live my own life, and find out for myself whether I shall fly or fall flat on my face. And, if so, she's always there with band-aids and Betadine.

She wants the best, and only the best, for the ones she calls her own. She's seen my heartaches and witnessed my heartbreaks, and has her own opinons as to the guys in my life - the jerks, the jokers, the knights in shining armor, and everyone else in between. But because she loves me, she will try to love the jerks because I happen to love them, while praying that the knight of her choice will someday bring me to my senses...sometimes, you have to wonder if indeed Mother knows best.

She takes care of me, when no one else seems inclined to do so, especially since I sometimes make it my business to take care of everyone else. She takes me to dinners that I do not have the strength or talent to cook; buys me things that I no longer have the spending capacity to acquire; allows me to go on flights of whimsy that may seem crazy to the world but, to some extent, have meaning in her eyes.

She has no idea what a blog is, and that I am writing about her. If somehow I ever leave this world ahead of time and neglect to keep her up to speed, I would appreciate if someone out there would tell her. She's the best, even if she does not think so or if we her children do not let her know, and I thank God for who and what she is and has been and will be in my life. My Mom. Whoever I let into my life as a partner had better learn to love her to pieces - perhaps even more than I do - and appreciate who she is, for God's greater glory. Amen.

Character

Had a four-hour(!) conversation with a soul sister today (yesterday?), talking about many things and nothing-s, about direction and discernment and men and character.

Character. Phillips Brooks said that "character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones." Some people live only in the "greatness" of their moments; sadly, they fall short in the humdrum of everyday, although this is what counts the most. I saw this poster that tells of "men of character" in the parish office of Abatan in Benguet, and every word rings true.

"THE WORLD NEEDS MEN...
who cannot be bought;
whose word is their bond;
who put character above wealth;
who possess opinions and a will;
who are larger than their vocations;
who do not hesitate to take chances;
who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
who will make no compromise with wrong;
whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
who will not say they do it 'because everybody else does it';
who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity;
who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
who can say 'no' with emphasis, although all the rest of the
world says 'yes.'"

And may their tribe increase and prosper.

Spend It To Save It

Father JBoy - note to self, see him before the month is up; Lex, Thursday after the 6 p.m. Mass? - wrote something that I'd read earlier but which all of the sudden seems so much more apt today:

"There are certain things that are lost by being kept, and saved by being used. The essence of life is in risking life and spending life, not in saving it and hoarding it...

"Love: How do I find true love? By doing it, as 1st Reading from James: what is faith without work. If you say you love another person, but you do not show it, it is useless. If you say you care about workers and their plight, but do not concretely act on it, you are then a liar. Love is about doing and expressing it in action. St. Ignatius said that love ought to find expression more in deeds than in words. It means that love should be spent to save it."

Amen. As one of the most famous spendthrifts of love once said, which I will never tire of repeating, for I've discovered for myself its fascinating truth: "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." (Blessed Teresa of Calcutta ) Show it. Spend it. Be wasteful, prodigal with your love. And then draw even more deeper from the inexhaustible Source of all Love. Repeat as many times as necessary, for the rest of your life.

That's my game plan, starting now if I haven't already. :-) Be loved, and be love, beloved.

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope the gentle reader will indulge me for a little while as I share some of the best verbal expressions of love I've come across. I admit it's a little sappy, but it's Valentine's Day tomorrow after all, and I'm feeling especially loving, and especially loved:

Love Sonnet IX

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

- Pablo Neruda

From Love Unexpressed

They love us, and we know it; this suffices for reason's share.
Why should they pause to give that love expression with gentle care?
Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching with all the gnawing pain
Of hungry love that longs to hear the music, and longs and longs in vain.

We love them, and they know it; if we falter, with fingers numb,
Among the unused strings of love's expression, the notes are dumb.
We shrink within ourselves in voiceless sorrow, leaving the words unsaid,
And, side by side with those we love the dearest, in silence on we tread.

Thus on we tread, and thus each heart in silence its fate fulfils,
Waiting and hoping for the heavenly music beyond the distant hills.
The only difference of the love in heaven from love on earth below Is:
Here we love and know not how to tell it, and there we all shall know.

- Constance Fenimore Woolson

This Will Not Win Him

Reason says,
I will win him with my eloquence.

Love says,
I will win him with my silence.

Soul says,
How can I ever win him
When all I have is already his?

He does not want, he does not worry,
He does not seek a sublime state of euphoria -
How then can I win him
With sweet wine or gold?

He is not bound by the senses -
How then can I win him
With all the riches of China?

He is an angel,
Though he appears in the form of a man.
Even angels cannot fly in his presence -
How then can I win him
By assuming a heavenly form?

He flies on the wings of God,
His food is pure light -
How then can I win him
With a loaf of baked bread?

He is neither a merchant, nor a tradesman -
How then can I win him
With a plan of great profit?

He is not blind, nor easily fooled -
How then can I win him
By lying in bed as if gravely ill?

I will go mad, pull out my hair,
Grind my face in the dirt -
How will this win him?

He sees everything -
how can I ever fool him?

He is not a seeker of fame,
A prince addicted to the praise of poets -
How then can I win him
With flowing rhymes and poetic verses?

The glory of his unseen form
Fills the whole universe
How then can I win him
With a mere promise of paradise?

I may cover the earth with roses,
I may fill the ocean with tears,
I may shake the heavens with praises -
none of this will win him.

There is only one way to win him,
this Beloved of mine -

Become his.

- M. Jalaluddin Rumi

Untitled

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

- Rumi

A Tear And A Smile

I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
for the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
to flow from my every part turn into laughter.
I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
of life's secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and
to be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
a smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.

I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than
that I live weary and despairing.

I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the
depths of my spirit,for I have seen those who are
satisfied the most wretched of people.
I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing,
and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.

With evening's coming the flower folds her petals
and sleeps, embracingher longing.
At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet
the sun's kiss.

The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment.
A tear and a smile.

The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come
together and area cloud.

And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys
until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping
to the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to return
to the sea, its home.

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.
A tear and a smile.

And so does the spirit become separated from
the greater spirit to move in the world of matter
and pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
and the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
and return whence it came.

To the ocean of Love and Beauty - to God.

- Kahlil Gibran

Ang Panginoon Ang Aking Pastol

The Lord is my Shepherd...

I gave a little talk to the Montalban moms (and dads) today, about Psalm 23 and the Gentle Shepherd who pastures His sheep. I am one of them - one of those stupid sheep who needs eternal guidance lest she fall off a cliff or wander into the jaws of a ravenous wolf or tip over and find herself unable to get rightside up again.

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood...

I've been a little lost lately. God has taken me to so many new places, and seemingly He has allowed me the freedom to explore the vastness of His new territories, so I'm suddenly at a loss as to where I belong. At least I know to WHOM I belong. Over an "accidental" one-to-one dinner last night, Kuya JD asked me about my plans to venture into foreign lands, and suggested that I may be grounded enough in God, unlike the other times I set my foot on alien soil, to thrive and prosper abroad. I have had many opportunities to make a living elsewhere; and actually LIVE elsewhere, but thus far nothing has felt quite right. As I told Kuya, it would be relatively easy - a no-brainer in some situations - to qualify as and get a good paying job as a lawyer in the West, get married to some blond, blue-eyed Yankee (erm, cough cough), and earn the million-peso equivalent of a few piddling dollars. But I've chosen not to do so. All these things are no longer in the game plan of my life.

But being sent out into the nations, for His greater glory, seems to be. And where I will be sent out -nations, provinces, next-door barangays - is a question left to be answered. I know that my Shepherd will guide me to the green pastures where I am to graze, and perhaps where I am to help Him shepherd His flock. Even now, I can feel that He is taking me to a new level of discipleship; to a new arena where I can be of use to Him. Where exactly is yet to be determined. But His will be done. :-)

God's Spontaneity and My Filofax

This year, I started using once again a "necessary accessory" that I'd surrendered at the beginning of 2005, in a gesture of total submission to a greater Schedule. But since I received a very attractive filofax in my favorite color this past Christmas, I began to put it to good use - writing down appointments and birthdays that I might forget; "backing up" my directory the laborious, old-fashioned, and extremely reliable way (writing down names and numbers!); making lists of things to do.

And yet, although I tend to prefer stability over spontaneity (the "control freak" monster in me still rears its ugly head once in a while; one particular person knows what I'm talking about), my filofax is now subjected to a lot more flexibility than I'd ever thought possible. Plans that don't push through don't really irk me as much as they used to (i.e., maddeningly so!), and although people who don't do what they say or stay true to their word still get my goat, it's become a lot easier to be patient with their shortcomings. Especially in the light of my own. And ever since I began to completely submit (or at least attempt to do so) every single day to God's direction and discretion, He's made some plans of His own.

Last week's planner entries are evidence enough. I'd originally declined - for personal reasons - a friend's invite to go up to the mountains, although I sorely needed time away from the city. Come Saturday night, I'd decided, God-willing, to make the trip only until Baguio City, where I'd stay behind to spend some quiet time alone until our return to Manila on Tuesday. But as He would have it (a next-door neighbor's untimely death on the morning we arrived - her fresh corpse on the living room floor being a portent of things to come - effectively deterred plans of staying home alone!), I made it all the way up to the mountains anyway, where we extended our stay until Friday! Because on Tuesday, just when we'd decided to stay another day, a bus fell off a cliff - and families had to be comforted, wakes to be attended, photos and videos and reports had to be taken, TV networks entertained, a new route out of Kabayan not involving any more buses to be found...

A schedule shot to pieces, but God is good and there was nothing extremely urgent in my calendar that couldn't give way to these pressing circumstances. In the midst of all this death and tragedy, I managed to maintain my regular prayer time at the St. Francis Xavier Church, one of my favorite places to converse with and listen to God. Because of the unfamiliar spontaneity that characterized the week, I found myself asking Him each and every morning: "Why am I here? What do You need me to do?" And He was ready with His answers, each and every day as the week wore on, through His Word, through His word, and through His circumstances, unusual though they may be. And more answers are forthcoming.

With all the changes and crossing-outs, my filofax is beginning to look more like a journal than a planner, which is probably for the best. I could continue to map out a regimented schedule that would make my day run like clockwork - but leave out the beautiful unpredictability of God's Higher Scheme. And so I do what I've found to work best: make plans, submit them all to Him for approval/disapproval, and let Him direct the course of my days. Amen.

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5