The End.

It's December.
...Of 2011.

I refuse to let another day go by without writing anything. You should see the drafts I have written up -- where to start? I am all over the place.

But, what better way than to start with the end.

If I were to begin summarizing this insane year, my entire life, I would have to start with the Son -- the same way Rapunzel's story starts with a drop of light from the Sun, forever elevating the value of the flower that healed her mother and allowed her to be born.

As the wonderful solar system exists, it continues to narrate the wonderful and mystical movements of our lives. Until the 15th century, the whole world accepted a geocentric concept in which the Sun revolved around the earth. Truth-seeking individuals proposed a contrary belief that it is the earth that actually revolves around the big stationary ball of fire, the Sun. But of course, those with authority received these fellas with such hostility. The world condemned not their truth, but a Universal truth. Literally.

Running parallel with the story of my life, of our lives whether you honestly choose to believe or not, we, too, have a tendency to condemn a truth that is not only paradox to the surface-level and what-you-see-is-what-you-get facts, but also a truth that does not revolve around us. It is hard for us to grasp a truth beyond ourselves. It is hard for us to come to terms that we were created for something else, someone else(s) other than ourselves. Why? Because we still think that the whole universe still revolves around us. We need to look beyond ourselves to find that there is indeed more to life than our dreams, our individualities, our pasts, our beings -- ourselves.

On the other hand, it is equally important and, if anything, extremely necessary for us to look within ourselves to discover the truth beyond the superficial appearances of everything in life. Look at the sun, for example. If we only looked at it as it rises and sets on the horizon, we'd never believe that the earth revolves around the beautiful star. However, if we look within ourselves, we'd realize that it is we who are constantly changing, constantly moving. We not only learn the truth about our dynamic and progressive characters, but we also learn the truth about the sun -- it neither rises nor sets.

As for me, it is the same truth that reflects the only begotten Son, my God. In all honesty, I feel extremely uncomfortable throwing out particulars because subtlety, as I'd like to think it, is my style. In addition to that, I just don't want to seem like I'm forcing my beliefs on someone else. But the truth is, this is who I am. I believe in God, I believe God -- and when he establishes the church with the first pope, Peter, I believe that it really is His way of leaving man a bridge back home to the heart of His maker that is eternally held up with the gift of grace and forgiveness... so that he may never lose himself. "The creature vanishes without his maker."

In the same way we learn the truth about the sun, I've also come to learn about the Catholic faith. Simply said, it is way more than it seems. What seems like a list of rules that limits one is actually a list of truths that elevate us as human beings the same way the drop of sun into the flower allows it to be more than what it is. Similarly, the faith allows me to be a healing instrument because the core of Roman Catholicism is to not only believe in selfless, unconditional love, but to also practice it. It wasn't until the day I decided to forgive and look beyond the human institution, that I was able to see its divine origin. When Jesus himself said to Peter, "upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." That is what it means to have divine origin. A few millenia late, no gates of the netherworld, no schism have prevailed at destroying the Tradition of the Church that traces all the way back to Jesus. Perhaps, for me, this is the intellectual sun that illuminates every other truth that every culture, every faith, every individual believes. I have found it to be the truth that makes every other truth come into full circle.

I really spent all of my life trying to play it safe when it comes to fully expressing the things I stand for and believe in in fear of encroaching the rights of others. However, I have come to learn that fully expressing oneself is not an 'encroachment,' as it seems to be, but rather a simple request of asking to give my truth a chance. I don't claim to know everything or anything, as a matter of fact, but it is for that very reason that I find it ever more necessary to stand for the things I believe in.

Personally, I don't want to die simply believing in ideas of faith, hope, forgiveness, and of love. I want to die as someone whose life manifests the realities and the truths of faith, hope, forgiveness, and of love.

Ideas are powerful. Ideas lived out are humanly impossible -- which is exactly why we need to believe in someone greater than ourselves, someone beyond, someone within.

Here's to the end, and here's to a new beginning.