A Prayer November 24, 2007

This may be the most unselfish thing that I have done.

Oh God, look after him. Make him happy. Give him all the things that I want for myself. Give him peace, he needs it. Give him joy, he deserves it. Give him all my love-I want none left for myself. I pray that you will forgive him for all his wrongs, and that you will give him a chance to find happiness, even if it’s not with me. Dear God, I tried to cure him from what ails him but I could not. Only You can. Let him rest in Your love. I gave you hatred and You loved me back. I gave You turmoil and yet You insist on giving me peace. Give him all this. Give him all this love. He deserves it more than I. Nevermind me. You can pour all Your hope and wisdom on him, and leave none for me. I think he needs it more. Give me pain, if You will give him life. Give me sorrow, if only he may smile and laugh more. Give me torment, if only he will find peace. Give me all his pains, I can carry his cross for him. Give me Your cross to bear, it’s my turn to weep and grieve. And I can weep and grieve for all eternity if only You will save him.

Hope? April 18, 2007

There is hope.

My classes at UP are nice. Dr. Susan Arco explains very well and she does so in Taglish. That makes the material much easier and more comprehensible. After that, I rush straight to my Biochemistry class at Ateneo, which is good. I’ve been neglecting my Moleskine for the past few weeks. I think I’ll go write stuff down later.

—

So it’s not yet over. And I’ve been thinking about God a lot lately. In the words of C.S. Lewis, is he the “eternal vivisector (you miss, on to the right and you sir, on to the left)” or is he like a dentist: you hate sitting on the dentist’s chair, but he goes on drilling every single time? Either way, God must be essential. Like the dentist, like the vivisector who tells us when to part. Can I imagine a world without dentists? Or a world where our own will were to be let loose? One word: entropy (chaos), the second law of thermodynamics. Rapid entropy, with other reactions taking place at an astounding rate. And it cannot be that way. Much as it would fill my heart with laughter and gratitude, it would cause other people untold sorrow. So, No. My will is not to be done, Thy will be done.

I just realized how meaningful prayer is; how much the intonations actually mean if we only take them to heart. They could mean the difference between life and death. God will bring you to a point where you will cry out my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? He will do so. But he will bring you back.

—

I’m suddenly scared again…. So damn terrified.

Conversations April 14, 2007

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.

Open up. I am here.

I am your bastard child.

I don’t care.

I’m not a prophet.

It is you I want.

Questions April 4, 2007

What kind of a God permits us to meet but doesn’t allow us to stay together?

Ah. Questions to ponder during Holy Week.

What kind of a God allows a woman to become permanently brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound yet fully comprehending upon giving birth to her first child? (true story)

Here’s a wonderful prayer entitled Holy Darkness by Dan Schutte that my aunt shared with me.

I have tried you in fires of affliction,
I have taught your soul to grieve.
In the barren soil of your loneliness,
there I will plant my seed.

I have taught you the price of compassion;
you have stood before the grave.
Though my love can seem like a raging storm,
this is the love that saves.

In your deepest hour of darkness,
I will give you wealth untold.
When the silence stills your spirit,
Will my riches fill your soul.

Westbound March 28, 2007

This is a story about how God turned away from me.

I prayed so hard to Him. I said God, just give me this chance, and I promise that I’ll stop these wrongs. God, please. And who knew that our God could be so literal? He gave me a chance, yes, but at the moment when my chance was to be mine, he left me hanging.

I did all that I could. I did everything. And He comforted me when I couldn’t sleep, and when my mind was too numb from medications. He was there.

Then now, I realized, He only tautened the string, leading me, once again, nowhere. I’m tired. I said, God, I’m tired of this. I’m tired of struggling’ I’m tired of being brought to the very edge of near-completion and then failing miserably, horribly, as if I was brought to the cliff only to be pushed down. And I even thought to myself, I should anger God. I should destroy the very thing He loves: me. I will destroy more so this skin, this face, this body. That should anger Him, hurt him, betray him.

Then I took the little pink pill and everything became dull again, and I was “docile” and I’m okay now. However, there is that inkling of what I felt and it’s like an annoying little tick in my head because I know it’s there but I can’t find it; I can’t rearrange my thoughts anymore to reach it… but I know it’s there.

O Sole Mio February 5, 2007

I had the chance to go confession to Father Roche, SJ (a.k.a. “Papa Roche”). He told me a story about a great sculptor who was permanently paralyzed because of a car accident. Unable to sculpt anymore, he resolved to starve himself to death…

Fr. Roche: “Love is not about what you can give to the beloved, love is about loving the beloved regardless of who you are. It is the complete opposite of self-love.”

—

Poet’s Obligation (Deber del Poeta)
by Pablo Neruda

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell;
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea’s lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn’s castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying “How can I reach the sea?”
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the gray cry of the sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

[edit] January 29, 2007

According to the guidance office, I’m very introverted, “highly intelligent in a very different way,” “the way you see the world, or the way you think is different.”

(“Which is why you don’t agree with me when I tell you you’re intelligent, because you think intelligence is measured in the conventional sense. There is no test to measure yours.”)

That’s new.

But this isn’t: I’m also very depressed, anxious and… (drumroll) “unstable.”

And the last interesting bit is this: “you have trouble distinguishing between real and imagined failure and rejection.”

—

I pray for the strength to pursue my passions.

Masonry, Sanity and New Year’s Resolutions January 1, 2007

The obligatory new year’s vows:

Recapture. Renounce. Rescue.
Remain.

*Find something to surrender to.

—

“It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God.”
-Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (in The Secret Doctrine)

NO. I am not going Luciferian. I just like seeing all the facets.

I learn by painting pictures in my head. Only by seeing a thing from all angles will I fully capture what really is and not how it presents itself.

This is going into my Room of Reversals. It is a hall. It will take its place among other objects there such as The Crusades, Hitler’s Germany, The Witch Trials, Racism, Psychiatry, The Invasions, The Wealth of Nations, New Orleans, Nostradamus, etc.

I probably should be institutionalized, but I’m still free-range.