BEING THERE

       Reflection should be empowering.  It should lead us to new insights and commitments.  However, hope as we might, this is not always the case.  Hence, most oftentimes the opposite occurs.  Reflection can also sometimes immobilize us.  It continuously reminds us of the gap between our willing and wanting and our acting, our desire and drive and our performance, our calling and intention and our achievements.

      Sadly, try as we might, this gap will never be totally eradicated or closed.  We will never achieve all that we would like to do.

      Like there are two stories of our life: the public and the private.  There is the story that is known to our close kin like that of our family and our friends and the story that we embroider inside our own heads.  These two stories do not always converge.  There can be the public success and the personal inner pain.  There can be the social persona of strength and the inner persona of anxiety, vulnerability and fragility. 

     It is not easy and perhaps never will be, to integrate the two stories.  Yet we must begin to hear its tale and listen to its pain and disappointment.  Integrating the two stories will mean that both have to change.  The story of strength should thus start to reflect a new fragility and vulnerability.  The story of fear and anxiety should then start to reflect new hope and optimism.

     Thus, in our attempt to integrate these two paths, it will bring about a new sense of wholeness and well being.  For in our journey towards maturity it entails not only integrating the light but also the dark side of our story.  Success and pain, strength and vulnerability thus weave a new pattern of being that paradoxically does not diminish us, rather makes us more sensitive and thus stronger.

     There is however a downside to our quest for integration, to become spiritually attuned persons.  We can become so concerned to hear what our inner voice or what the spirit is saying that we become sometimes more concerned with only listening than with carrying out the things we feel we must do.

       Moreover, we can also become paralytic by just wanting only to hear things explicitly when more often than not the spirit only whispers embryonic ideas.  Thus, from the inner voice we oftentimes do not get fully developed plans.  More often, we just get vague intuitions and as yet unclear suggestions.

        It is important therefore, that, we are satisfied with this and thus start to find ways by which we can express these undeveloped ideas.  Hence, the movement to praxis is not from clearly developed plans.  Rather, frequently it is the movement from the hunch to try things out, to a much clearer understanding of what should we be doing and how should we do it.  We thus need to put legs to our ideas, for it is only by working things out in the real world that our idea can become clearer.  The challenge to ‘do it,’ therefore, becomes an important part of confirming our thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams.

     For setting our hearts on something involves not only serious aspirations, but also strong determination.  It involves not only prayerful consideration, but also purposeful action.  Since we frequently fall prey in setting our hearts on that which is only a vague shadow, hence, we need to learn to make faith practical by beginning to walk in that which is not yet wholly clear.

     Why this hardship in our quest?  For the more self-reflective we are, the more aware we become of our failings and imperfections even when others think that we are doing well.  It has nothing to do with living a lie or being inconsistent.  It is rather, a recognition of our humanity and the incompleteness that we all must acknowledge, face, accept and endure.

      This recognition however, need not and should not be disempowering.  It need not make us pessimistic and skeptical.  For it can also have the opposite effects.  Thus, it can make us realize that good comes out of imperfection, strength out of weakness, and blessing out of our fragility. 

     But this can only happen when even in the midst of our quest for wholeness we can see hope in the face of our imperfections.  Then we can truly ‘be there.’
___________
Written by: Swiss Wenger

Email: swisswenger09@gmail.com

URL: http://makingsenseofeverything.blogspot.com/

NO MATTER HOW LOUDLY WE PROTEST

        Time is the fire in which we all burn.  Every second that passes by, we grow older.  Slowly.  Irreversibly.  Inevitably.  Eventually, time would gain the upper hand.  Someday, we would all die.

        As a matter of fact, at one point of our lives, we will find ourselves on the verge of death, gasping and fighting for our dear life.  We hold on to our last breath because we are afraid to die.  There is nothing we can do then but to cry in anguish over our pathetic condition.

        Yet, death only tells us that we must live life now, in the moment --- that tomorrow is illusion and never comes.  It tells us that it is not the quantity of our days, or hours, or years that matter, but rather the quality of the time spent.  Every day is new.  Every moment is fresh.  Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance.  Time is relative.  It is ours, given freely to spend wisely or to squander idly, but never to be hoarded.  Time past is gone and all the moaning will never bring it back.

        Death also teaches us the impermanence of all things.  All things change.  All things die.  To be attached to thing or people, both of which will surely vanish, can only bring despair, for eventually one is left with only a handful of dust or a frail memory.  Life that is free of attachment lives in the moment and makes no demand that the moment last.  Life's concern is not with the future but with the present.  To wait for life is to love to wait, nothing more.

        For some, the fear of dying may lead them to think that this earthly life is all there is.  Thus, they satisfy themselves with doing what they want without any regard for others.  However, try as they might they never seem to achieve complete happiness.  Each acquisition leads to desire for procuration.  More!  More!  More! 

 A vicious cycle, indeed.  Alas, they fail to realize the emptiness of their actions.  Only a fool would seek something infinite from the finite.

        However, try as we might not to fall prey to this perennial hunger to have more, we still commit the same mistake.  Especially in these troubled times, nothing matters to many of us except our own lives.  Our only concern is anything that will make us happy.  In our pursuit of happiness, however, we allow ourselves to fall into the snare of temptation and to be controlled by our worldly possessions believing that these are the only things we need to live.  We search for what is earthly but ephemeral, not for what is heavenly but eternal.  In the end, we cry out in desperation because despite accumulating earthly possessions, we still find our lives empty.

        After all, death teaches us that in the long run nothing belongs to us.  Even if we desire to form permanent attachments or possess, we in truth cannot.  Things will break in spite of us.  People will depart when it is their time no matter how loudly we protest.
__________

Written by: Swiss Wenger

Email: swisswenger09@gmail.com

URL: http://makingsenseofeverything.blogspot.com/