A Brave New Love

Just when I thought I couldn't be any more in love with Jesus, he shakes things up in my life to remind me that this great romantic adventure of loving him means experiencing something that is forever, brave, unconditional, and is neither bound by time nor space. It never ends. Just when I couldn't think of any more ways God can fill my heart, he breaks it to make more room for Himself, others, and much to my surprise, me. 

I know that it is quite ironic to think of loving ourselves as a heartbreaking experience, but it really is. As a matter of fact, I find it to be the most heartbreaking kind of all. Loving myself goes beyond having a good and healthy self-esteem; it goes beyond having confidence in my skills, talents, and wonderful sense of humor (haha.) It isn't the absence of my insecurities or of my greatest fears. On the contrary, it's being able to recognize them and realize that I am not my sinfulness, I am made in the image of God, of love. 

In learning to love myself, I have had to face all that is bad, broken, and still in the process of healing about myself. In addition to recognizing such things as true, I've had to learn how to look at myself in the mirror seeing and knowing all those things, and still be able to say to myself: "You're worth it. I love you even more today." 

But before I could ever mean what I say when I say those words, I first had to internalize and truly believe that I only love because God loved us first. That He said it first: "You're worth it. I love you even more today." He said it when he came down from heaven, suffered and died for us, and rose from the dead to gain eternal life for us in heaven; "to make us by grace what he is by nature -- a child of God:" And there, lies all of our divine and irrevocable worth. My worth. And in my worth, lies my strength. My power. My capacity to love as He does. 

My power to say no to myself, and yes to the good of another. My will to say no to myself, and yes to the will of God. My worth allows me to love without demands because my worth tells me that I am already loved beyond what I can ever imagine.

Loving myself is not about having the control to fulfill my heart's desires on my own. It is having the strength to choose love, to choose God's good will above all even if it has little to nothing to do with me because it is simply what is best. If we can love ourselves this way, what more others who we will always find to be more deserving than we could ever be? 

You see, that's why even when you already find yourself so immersed in that kind of love, God continues to stretch you to fill you with more. When God breaks your heart to make room for Himself, others, and you, he's asking "How much do you really love me? How much more can you give?" 

Such questions are often accompanied by the feeling of already running on empty. Already having given everything. But that's the beauty of being faced with those questions when you feel you've reached nothing. That's the beauty of being stretched, of being broken to be filled again. It means love continues to demand love. This means that just when we thought we've hit rock bottom, God opens up a place within the depths of ourselves to reveal that there's more. 

More of Him, more of others, more of you. Be not afraid to discover what lies beyond what we know today. Be not afraid to lose the good for the great. Be not afraid to lose your self in order to gain eternity with Christ, Love Incarnate himself. Be not afraid of losing, of surrendering, of being emptied out, of being made anew. Be not afraid of loving with that kind of love because it will always, always lead the other to life, to the infinite source of love. You are never lacking with that kind of fearless and brave love. 

Give more, love more, choose to be more because "much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more." 

Welcome to this brave new love. May your life forever be changed. 

Life lessons.

In the short amount of life that I've lived so far, I've come to notice that life is but a series of arrival and departures, of opening and closing doors, of highs and lows, and goodbyes and hellos. I've also come to realize that the spaces between are often these transitional phases of waiting that call for longanimity. In between are these moments of absolute stillness -- no movement, just being. 

Ironically enough, it's in these times I find myself unable to be still. So it's in these times, that I remember some of the most important lessons I have learned in my life thus far. 

1. I am nobody's fixer, healer, source of joy or of fulfillment.

I am a beggar, a sick person, the dying, the marginalized in society, but I know where to go for my needs. The best thing I can do is share that treasure with others. I can only hope to point towards the direction of Jesus who is the ultimate source of healing and fulfillment.

2. Things are always becoming undone -- They'll fail, they'll disappoint. All things are passing.

For this reason, we don't dwell on what has been destroyed or what seems to be falling apart. Similarly, we don't rest our weary heads on things. When certain things in your life are changing, let them and just be who you are. Have courage.

3. Though circumstances of life constantly change, One thing remains.

God is able. He is faithful. The love stored up in heaven for us is infinite. We need to remain confident and secure in God's promise. Don't let anything rob you of your peace, your joy, or of your hope in God. Look ahead, bless all with your love and presence. Be confident in all because the One who is the fixer, the healer, and the source of all is great, is able. There is wisdom in all that He is and in all that He does. Trust.

4. This is not it.

Lift your head up when you are bogged down. Set your mind and your heart onto things that are eternal. Set your life on Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the mediator between Heaven and Earth, God and man, the mind and heart. Find your way in Him.

5. Turn to Mary.

She is the ultimate defense against evil, and ourselves. She unites us to her Son, who is our life. She shows us how to love and be loved with the kind that liberates and brings us Heaven. (Happy birthday, Mama)

6. Everything God does is for us.

Sometimes, it doesn't always feel like God is on our side or that he hears us at all especially during our low points, but that's the very wisdom of God. It is beyond words or feelings. It simply is. The love of God is so pure  that it will always need our 'yes' before it can enter our hearts. If we allow Him, His love is powerful enough to break every chain that binds us. 

7. God always, always, always gives us the right amount of grace in the moment that we need it. 

There's no need to always be wondering about the "What should I do?" Sometimes, all that God asks of us is to be still while He does the work in us. "Patience obtains all things." 

8. Prayer is powerful.

It's important to realize that we won't be the ones to hold the answers for people... and that will oftentimes make you feel utterly helpless. This helplessness is so humbling though that it makes one feel and realize that only God can truly make things happen in our lives. The best thing we can do for others is to lift them up to the Lord. 

"As soon as you truly abandon yourself in the Lord, you will know how to be content with whatever happens. You will not lose your peace if your undertakings do not turn out the way you hoped, even if you have put everything into them, and used all the means necessary. For they will have "turned out" the way God wants them to." - St. Jose Maria Escriva

The Fine Line

As our sisterly ritual, my roommates and I often let our happy and even sad thoughts bounce off the four walls of our room as we lie in our beds in hopeful search of the answers to some of our biggest questions in life. Last night, I rhetorically asked them about the fine line between guarding your heart and risking everything in the name of love:

Where is it? This line between guarding your heart for in it are the sources of life and loving fearlessly and perfectly because anything less, frankly, cannot be truly love at all -- where do these grounds exist, and how can I place myself firmly there? I find myself approaching this fine line, but never really reaching it. 

It seems that I tend to fall way too far on one end of the spectrum. If I'm not recklessly wearing my heart on my sleeve, I am hiding it in a cave. Protecting your heart is wise and prudent, yes! But somehow, as I do it, I feel in some ways so afraid to leave this figurative tower I have built for myself. As if the opportunity cost of guarding my heart is love. I grow so fearful and almost cynical about the world that I am longing to love so deeply. Sometimes, I even lose sense of not just who I am, but who I am meant to be. 

In the midst of my rambling, my roommate Kathryn sits up and asks me to repeat the question because it seems that she might have an answer for me. Like a feather slowly falling onto her lap, she offers me peace of mind in three simple words:

At the Altar, she says. 

In the very moment that those words were graciously uttered, nothing could have made more sense. That fine line is where we gather together before Him for Mass or in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Altar is the heart to heart connection made in prayer before the Real Presence of Jesus. In coming to Him as we are - broken, wounded, and in need of healing, He protects us. He shields our hearts not from what might break them, but from what might shrink, pollute, and pervert them. God does this by pouring Himself out to us. By emptying us of all that He is not, He fills us with nothing but love. Nothing but Himself. 

I come to God so that he may do for me what I cannot -- to guard my heart and to love purely at the same time. I come to him because I do not protect my heart, He does. I cannot protect what I do not know. And truth be told, I cannot protect what I do not know how to love. I don't think I really know how to love and cherish my own heart; I'm far too selfish. Far too fearful.

More importantly, I am not the source of my own love. I cannot love without being loved by God first. There is nothing in this world that is mine. I should have nothing to fear when I love because this love will never run out and is always more than enough. The love I have, the love I give is the love that flows straight from the Altar where Christ offers himself up daily and totally for us to find our place in life and death, love and fear, and the Maker and His Beloved. 

Surrender in humility to God is our first and only step. 

About time.

“We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.” - Tim, in About Time

Time is a funny thing. It is the wave that carries each event that takes place in our lives. When time passes, so much of us changes and becomes something completely different from the past thus totally altering the future. And it’s in a way absolutely scary. 

I can plan and plan and I do because it is my way of somehow cushioning the surprise blow that is sure to come in the ever uncertain future. But the thing is plans change as often as my mind does. So what am I to do? Never plan? Never make decisions? Never have any opinions or thoughts on any thing that goes on in my life? Stay still?

No, if anything, I think it’s to remain flexible. To go from moment to moment. Not in a fickle, indecisive, and imprudent way, but rather in a bold and courageous and extremely honest way. It is to give every attention to the present moment in a calm and collected way. It's to have faith.

As of right now in my life, I don’t know how I got here, but I am just glad that I got here at all. My heart wants so much, it waits for so much, but I know all I have is what I got in front of me. It’s not so much that it’s all I have, but rather, it’s all I can really do anything about right now.

Lord, help me face each moment with all of me so as to relish the time I have. So as to travel with no regrets. So as to live the moment fully that there would be no need for me to even desire wanting to repeat it again. 

To be or not to be at all.

We are often caught up in the dilemma that life is too short, yet, at the same time, that there is "the rest of our lives" to do what we want. Regardless of what the case really is, we only get one moment to be. We are in a specific time and space for every moment that we live. All cliches aside, we can't really worry about tomorrow. We can't worry if what we're doing now is wrong, is inadequate or whatever else we fear it could be. Redemption is hauntingly beautiful, and we must trust that every new morning is a new day to redeem and be redeemed. It's what the love of God did for us and it is what His love will continue to do for us for the rest of our lives.

Each moment that we are in must find themselves leading up towards the Divine Moment that we have all been created for. There needs to be a purpose for everything we do -- an absolute purpose that will make sense of the subjective and relative events that we experience in life. By the end of it all, I just want to be gazing at the face of my Maker, not just enveloped in his loving arms, but one with Him. This is the overarching purpose for every little thing I do in my life. Though it seems limiting and binding to say that there is this "absolute," I literally cannot imagine a more freeing paradox than this. To know Him is to know myself, and to know myself is the key to loving fearlessly and learning how to let others love me, too.

Recognize your humanity, embrace the desires that break you and make you because it is all ultimately a part of who you are. You cannot run from yourself. Are we not aware of the burning desire within us to be more of who we are? Are we not aware of the crippling fears, the lies, and anxieties that imprison us? Why do we choose to settle? Why do we choose to remain as people of ideas and beliefs, and not of action and conviction? "Be perfect as I am, as the Father is perfect..." God is perfect because he is pure act. His thoughts, ideas, and dreams for man are pure and truly good, but what makes him perfect is the way he manifests them into reality. He lives. He is.

This is the kind of perfection I strive for: It is to push through every mistake with repentance in my heart. It is to push through every day. It is to learn how to wait for my own desires to be desires reflecting a pure love for self and others. The perfection I strive for is to simply be the person that I am: wounded, unsure of myself, healing, incomplete, too much, not enough... yet whole, complete, just right, and real. I am not merely a list of the things I wish I could be nor am I a list of things that people choose to like about me, I am all of it and more. Just like you, simple yet complex. Just like you, I am a beautiful person.

I am His beautiful person, therefore I fearlessly am.

The Greatest Gift

My favorite image of Christmas is none other than the creche representing the birth scene of Jesus. There is not a more perfect representation of not only the real reason (for me the only reason) for the season: The birth of love Incarnate; of the one who made my soul feel its worth; of the one who makes my heart fatter; of the one who day after day shows me my life is worth living; of the one who has not only promised me, but has given me the grace to accept his gift of eternity.

The Savior of this world enters the battle scene not as a knight in shining armor on his steed, but as this beaming and innocent baby. He doesn't bring anything since he is the very light that breaks through the night, the healing for the broken, the hope for the hopeless, and the freedom to the captives. May I never forget that as he is all these things that I am the broken, the hopeless of a dark world held captive by the hardness of my very own heart. The reason for His coming. I am the reason for His birth. Jesus came, and, as any baby would, he melted the coldness of my fragile heart. This babe was born to die so that I can have life everlasting.

If his life isn't the greatest gift of all, then I don't know what is. His life makes everything else I remember to celebrate today possible. The gift Himself is the source of every other gift in my life. He didn't just give me gifts, he gave me himself who is the infinite source of my infinite desires.

The birth of Christ taking place in a lowly manger reminds me that some of the greatest gifts I have ever received came at a most humbling time of my life. It is often when I least expect it, and where I least expect to receive that I begin to realize how blessed I am. It's when God strips me of everything I thought I wanted for myself that I find myself left with only what I've simply always needed. These moments are the moments when I am thankful to realize that I am never lacking in anything and this is a miracle I refuse to take for granted. Christmas truly is a time to remember that the greatest gifts, if not all gifts, come unexpectedly. They are never something we deserve nor are they ends of a goal for which we work hard. They are not prizes or rewards for a job well done. They are given freely and out of love.

Jesus coming to us as a baby in this season reminds me that gifts are fragile and always require great care. Though there is nothing I can do to deserve the blessings in my life, my part is necessary in taking care of these gifts. I hope to never forget to recognize Him as the source of my everything. I hope to love the gifts He has given me enough to always share them with others.

True joy and true peace comes from realizing that we have been given everything that we need. When you realize that you will always have everything you need, you will have no fear of being generous because you realize that you have absolutely nothing to lose. A good gift transforms us and allows us to see that everything else around us is a gift. A gift does not point to itself, but rather to the love that moves the heart of the giver. Let us remember to always love the Giver more than His gifts. Let us simply remember Him. Christmas teaches us how to receive gifts, how to cherish them, and, ultimately, how to give ourselves as gifts to others.

May you find that your greatest gift is in the great mystery of His love for you.

All Aboard.

A reflection of life on the move.

As I watched people board the train and patiently wait for their next destination, I felt a familiar feeling in my heart: An affirming and really warm feeling that I always get whenever I see people enter the chapel.

We’re all, in one way or another, aware of your presence God. Of your existence. 

What else could it be that has the power to move beings as selfish and as weak as we are to try again every single day? I don’t know if I could do what I do everyday… as small as it is… if I only did it for myself. I couldn't spend hours of studying or even years of being in school if it weren't for a future I hope to prepare for. I'll give up a certain good because I know there is something greater at hand. No one waits patiently on the train or better yet waiting for the next train to come and get to where they need to be for themselves alone. There is something greater that moves us. 

We all believe in someone greater than ourselves. We all make the sacrifices necessary for reasons beyond ourselves. We all live for reasons outside ourselves. 

I guess the hard part is trusting in all that you tell us and all that you promise us. Hoping in the things that we cannot see. Lord, if you haven’t noticed, we tend to hurt each other here. We break promises after promises to one another. We allow our unbridled passions to rule over us and undo the good of your creation. We say one thing and mean it, but immediately take it back the next moment.We break each other’s trusts. We hurt one another. We steal. We lie. We kill. We hurt! With all of our limitations, Lord, how are we to trust? How are our broken hearts and jaded minds supposed to trust? 

I just wanna hold your people in my heart. I want to love them all and give them the hope that no matter what it’s going to be okay! Sometimes, we feel as if all that time has done for us is prove us right about the brokenness of this world. About the inadequacies and about the wrongness of this world. We feel as if all that time has done is repeatedly remind us that people will always find a way of disappointing us. And in time, instead of giving the world another chance, we just build our walls even higher and keep her out. She’s no longer welcome. She has to do so much to prove herself. Is this how it works? Are we here to prove something to each other? 

I’m beginning to realize that to love this life and to love this world is to be forgiving of life and the people we encounter everyday. How can we even truly say that we’ve loved and will continue to love if and only if the world is good to us? I say that I love your creation, I love this life… but when it started breaking my heart, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know what it really means to love. 

I think we all want to love, and it’s real up until the point that our hearts have been done wrong. That our hearts have been crushed and stepped on. Up until the point that we’ve opened ourselves to someone and they’ve disappointed us. Or when we disappoint them. The real love doesn’t come in until after all of that has been done… or so it feels. The decision to love deepens the respect and appreciation from the beginning. At that point, forgiveness takes us on a different route and teaches us to love in a different way. 

The hardest part is trusting that we will be freed, that we will find peace, that we will be at peace in the midst of all the chaos and the ruins. Moreover, that we, too, can find the strength and humility to forgive ourselves. This is the trust that we have in God: Blind, but certain in knowing that we will be taken care of through it all. 

Here’s to blind surrender. May everything I do be done with love. 

Dr. Frank

Dr. Frank teaches the philosophy course on Augustine's Confessions. (Yes, I know: an entire class on Augustine's Confessions alone. It's real.) I had met him at a debate for BBC's radio show on immigration. He was sitting next to his wife, and I thought he was just the sweetest husband to his lady. He would always point at her each time she stood up to say something: "Isn't she so clever?"I was even more excited to have him as my professor for my already-assumed favorite class of ever. Maybe he'd say I was clever, too! Then today, I had him as a professor.

Quite a different experience.

Little did I know, Dr. Frank has been blessed with a name that suits his personality best: Frank. This man is not afraid to tell you you're wrong or that your opinion -- though it is yours -- can be irrelevant. I don't mean to disrespect him at all because I actually really respect his ability to guide his students in this manner. He can healthily address the issues of our misconception and direct us to a more insightful perspective. He's not one of those teachers who thinks that there is no such thing as a wrong answer. He challenges you to speak your mind, to learn to stand by your thoughts, and most importantly, he makes you realize that there is always still more you can learn.

Where am I going with this? First day of class, and I already feel intimidated and a tad bit discouraged to share my thoughts on the works. I'm already petrified to say something wrong; I'm scared to be humiliated in front of the class if I ever say anything that's even remotely close to being irrelevant...again.

After my ego recovered (haha), I realized that there is no shame in learning you have been mistaken. There is no shame in knowing only a fraction of what there is to know. If anything, I should let him know all that I'm thinking so I can either be affirmed of my own thoughts or be guided more. It's a win-win situation. There is no greater joy than knowing that there is an infinite amount of surprises that life has in store for us.

If there is anything I learned starting this school year, it's that I know so little -- despite my burning passion for what I love, and whether we learn things in life the hard way or the not so hard way, learning can only be possible if we realize our perpetual need for it.

Life's a beach.

This is life. 

Like waves, we'll crash against the shore only to go back out into the ocean. We'll kiss goodbye the sparkling sand only to return time after time with our hellos. Every time we come back, we'll bring something new. We'll come back anew. Be brave to face the newness. Be brave to say your goodbyes. Be brave and believe in see you laters. Be brave and say your hellos. Be brave enough to go against the current. Be brave to be carried by the currents of life. Be brave. 

Like waves, we are part of something bigger. There's so much more to the life that we're living, and the most beautiful part is that there's already also so much in the life that we are living. Never rush to go away or to move towards the shore. At the same time, don't delay when you know what you know. No matter how far you go out in the ocean, like waves, we were made to keep coming back to the shore. Seek the Truth that you have been made to keep coming back to. There will be no fear in venturing out into the deep, the unknown, or the uncharted parts of life when you know you can come back to a safe place. The biggest regret we'll have in life will be allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by our fear of failure or of losing. Let the old cliche ring true: "Ask yourself what you would do if you knew you couldn't fail then go do it." At the end of it all, our failures and our successes in life are all integral parts of the victory that await us. At the end of it all, it will only be the beginning. Life really is the adventure that never ends. Let its depth be as immeasurable as the deepest parts of the ocean. Someday, we will kiss this temporal life goodbye to greet eternity hello. 

This is life... and more.

Life as I know it.

When it rains, it pours. It couldn't be more true or relevant to life when the faithful psalmist sings of the faithfulness of God. It's more than true when God sees the depth of our hearts and fulfills our every intricate desire. Just about a year ago, as this picture shows, I stood still to be with the hurried dreamers, lazy daydreamers, the go-getters, and even those broken-hearted from their forgotten dreams. 

It wasn't easy to stop and smell the flowers in this concrete jungle. I was always too concerned about finding ways out of the crowd. I was always more concerned about getting to where I needed to be than enjoying the beauty that surrounded me. If I even tried to admire the beautiful architecture or greet people, I'd get left behind, honked at, or just pushed to the direction everyone else is going. 

But the pursuit of our hearts should leave us no choice, but to be brave enough to be among the crowd despite the fears we may have of being in it. We can't let the distractions of this life keep us from boldly seeking out the beauty it has to offer. Life is that beautiful. God has made life to be that valuable that nothing ought to stand in the way of our living it. St. Irenaeus himself said, "The glory of God is man fully alive." It's never a smooth ride through life, but for that very reason we can confidently say that we have true joy and true peace -- and we know true Beauty because we have been in the crowd that has experienced suffering and pain, we have been in a crowd filled with soldiers that fight battles of their own. We do not become sadness, suffering, or pain when we find ourselves in the crowd of life. Rather, we become one another's bearers of every ounce of pain and grief lightening each other's load. We become the bearers of faith, hope, and love. When anchored to God who is the source of all that is truly good, we can be in a crowd and never have the fear of getting lost.

No, it's never an easy walk, but it is a miracle, a privilege, and a great adventure in itself to be among the ones who can leave you behind, the ones who will honk at you, and the ones you never plan on encountering, but happily bump into in life anyway. 

Love is.

No matter how we define love, by the end of the day, we're always going to find ourselves faced with a love that requires a leap of faith, an act of self-emptying, and a radical openness to the newness that it brings into our lives. The road of our lives don't become easier; the crosses we bear don't get lighter. Love isn't a test that begins and one day ends. Nevertheless, love does something to each and everyone of us that makes life worth living. Correction -- that makes it possible to live at all.

I'd like to believe that this world wants to find itself in love for it is a powerful and wonderful thing to be. Ironically enough, we find ourselves surrounded by all kinds of poverty. Each and everyone of us, if we haven't already, will feel robbed, cheated, and taken advantage of. Our hurts can often lead us to become poor in sincerity, in magnanimity, in joy, in hopefulness, in faith -- in life. We restlessly strive to find the love that will heal us, renew us, and make us brave enough to love again, but instead, we often find ourselves settling for what will distract us from experiencing this hunger, this need. 

We live extremely fast-paced lives. We somehow convince ourselves that loving others is no longer worth it. We don't have time except for ourselves. We don't give enough because we are always feeling like we're in need of something. We focus so much on ourselves that we become unaware of the need of this world for love, gentleness, and kindness. This world is noisy, and we like that. We like that because, truth be told, sometimes the truth about ourselves can scare us. We don't know it, but we separate ourselves from our need to love and it kills us. It destroys everything that is fundamentally human about us.

When we really listen to the true needs of our hearts, we will hear its cry for what is real. The heart doesn't just need affection, it needs love that is faithful to the end. It doesn't just need sentimentality, it needs sense; it needs wisdom and prudence to find authentic peace. The heart doesn't just need to be led by pure thoughts, it needs bodily actions that follow. Our true poverty is our hunger to not just be loved, but to be vulnerable, to be exposed in the light of the truth of our beings and be loved despite of it. Knowing this -- all of this and more -- scares us because sometimes we don't feel that our hearts are worthy of more than the things we settle for. We don't feel that we are capable of such greatness. Of infinite mercy when we fail. 

In the moments that loving seems most foolish, humiliating, and even scary, we have to hold on to our desire to love - to give of ourselves- even tighter. The heart has to constantly fight from unbecoming its true self. Therefore, we must also always remember that this is a battle worth dying for. And with every occasion of love, we will be dying to ourselves. In emptying ourselves, we become each other's guides in the rough roads of life; we become each other's Simon because we help carry each other's cross. To love is to live.

Whatever the reason we have for wanting to love and be loved, it is always simply because to love is to simply be. It is the manifestation of the holiness that is our calling -- our destiny. Our need for love to fill our lives transcends us all, but we have to believe that love is real; and when we love, it impacts us here and now.

Rock the boat.

The readings for yesterday could not have been more on point. (Read them here.) Love letters signed, sealed, and delivered just at the right time. 

Last summer, I really took the story of the multiplication of the fishes and loaves to heart. In a way, I really felt God take the little love I had been dying to give and multiplied it so I could love even more. God took the little that I had and made it more than enough to share with everyone I was to meet.

The gospel yesterday was what happened after the miracle. Jesus sent them ahead on a boat to Bethsaida while he remained to pray on the shore. As the disciples rowed their boat, a terrifying storm shook them and tossed them about the sea. Jesus saw them, and at about the fourth watch of the night, they saw Jesus walking towards them on the water. They were terrified at the sight of him.

“Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Jesus got on the boat and the storm died down.

After having just witnessed the incident of the loaves, anybody should have realized the great, supernatural, and divine providence of God. What need is there for fear? Instead, their hearts were hardened.

I can’t say I wouldn’t have felt what the disciples did. The heart hardens when fear strikes because it has been deceived to think that it is its way of protecting it. That that’s how one takes courage. When in reality, that’s how one hides, cowers, and self-destructs when it is actually an occasion to rise above. After having experienced even only a fraction of the ineffable and unfathomable greatness of God, why should I ever turn back even when faced with a most terrifying storm in my life? 

The true courage lies in the faith that no storm could break us, that there is no such thing as abandoning the boat that God places us in. It is much easier to abandon that boat and abandon the journey than it is to sit still, trust, and witness the life-changing miracles that will carry us through the stormy seas.

Sometimes, I wonder why it was necessary to go through everything that preceded my existence to happen so that I would come into existence. Nevertheless, I am so thankful that God created me because then I am able to come to know Him and of His love that changes lives, that adds color to this world, that makes everything around us a miracle. That allows us to experience true peace, true joy. To be alive and to be tossed about in this tumultuous sea of life is a gift in itself because to be alive is to crave to love and be loved, and I know of no greater experience.

The older we get, the rougher our walk of life seems to get. Things we never expected to happen happen. Bad seems to get worse. The good seems only to be a thing of the past. My prayer is for my heart to remain open, childlike, and always hopeful. These storms will surely pass and if we keep our hearts open, love is sure to enter. Love is sure to always make things new. To forgive when we are sorry. To find us when we’re lost. 

I think love is the journey. Nature may have the power to shake even the most rooted trees or stir and disturb the stillness of the oceans that fill the earth, but love can change the course of nature. It is beyond what we simply know to be natural, to be possible. Love walks on water, sits still, drives man crazy and out of his wits; love heals the deepest pains. Love simply is. Take courage because to love is to not grow cold when it burns. Take courage because love is to burn even brighter when the rest of the world grows colder. It is to continuously bear the burning of the light that brings us clarity, fullness, and life. True courage lies in loving under any circumstances. No matter what. Unconditionally. The fullness of life lies in being able to love even when the storms of heartbreak, loss, hatred, and pride shake us. Simply because it is who we are. 

Rock the boat that says otherwise. Rock the boat that tells you to settle. Rock the boat that tells you to stop giving second chances. Rock the boat that degrades the beauty of life and love because this is all we’ll ever know. May the rest of our lives be filled with love that grows, that nurtures, that creates, that reminds us that nothing is impossible. 

New Day

As much as I try to get things together, life always has a way of bursting at the seams. After always fighting it though, I'm always more than happy that it does.

I categorize everything. I had this ‘Project 2012’ last year where I would write every single day, and I had to be completely honest with how I was feeling, what happened that day, etc. No matter how emotional or cold or over the top it was — I was going to write it. It was interesting in a way that it taught me that it was the kind of honesty people deserve to hear. On top of that, I also started my ‘traveling journal.’ I was really blessed with the opportunity to travel to several places last year, and I wanted every city, every state, every face to somehow add their colorful threads to the tapestry of my life. Little did I know that with every take-off and landing, I would also be traveling into the uncharted parts of myself and see the depth of what God calls me to give to the world. There’s always more to see, to learn, and, thus, to give. Then, there was my little prayer journal where I’d scribble down prayers and thoughts in my smaller-sized journal. The biggest thing I learned was probably that God can handle any questions, any argument (that you are sure to lose). Moreover, no matter how distant I was in the year, He was always waiting, and never too proud to remind me of His love. 

Maybe I want 2013 to be different and a little unpredictable. A little less typical. So I’m going to start by writing a new year’s entry on the 2nd of January. Just kidding, I wanted to do it yesterday, but I didn’t have the time. 

Time. This year, I want to learn how to make more of that. To learn how to use that more wisely. To learn how to wait more patiently. To learn how to not race so much with it. To learn how to just dance with time. To be more graceful about it, because this time we have is not ours, and last year, I was to learn, realize, and be affirmed in the most heartbreaking way possible that it’s not ours to have, to control. 

[I’ll give you your own paragraph] Sigfrid’s passing changed my world then and to this day affects the way I see life around me. It’s crazy because I know I’ll only feel a fraction of the heartache of many others, most especially his family. I miss you, dude. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have served you, to have shared a passion for serving and loving God, spoken word, music, and food with you. I’m really sorry I didn’t get to show you the only spoken word I wrote in my life. I’m sorry we didn’t get to collaborate on a piece. I’m sorry I didn’t get to watch you do your drum major thang on the field. But I wrote a new piece that I practiced over and over again, and I’m sure you’ve heard that. It’s for you.

It just put so much into perspective for me. It humbled me. The past year has been a year filled with heartaches and losses, and I couldn’t help but see the bigger picture. Something greater was at hand, and I was but a pixel in that image. Nevertheless, regardless of how small, I was a part of that image.

This life is funny. Sometimes, it makes you feel things as utterly joyful and inexplicably incredible as making memories, learning and growing to love a person, and as heartbreaking as losing and having to part ways with them. The heartaches, the losing, the disappointment can make life seem so daunting. They can find a way to lock us up in our figurative guarded towers and give less second chances, trust less, love less, look and listen less. As you can see, our fears will have a way of making us … less.

The world isn’t going to change. This year, I’ll meet new people as I did last year. In the same way, this year will present challenges that I’ve been facing either recently or my entire life. My heart will break, my heart will be filled with joy, my heart will receive blessings, my heart will hurt others. Just like every other year. But I can be different. The accumulating amounts of disappointments, heartaches, fears, and regrets ought to have me paralyzed by now, but maybe that’s the challenge of this year — that we continue to be more despite the temptation to be less. Despite the fear that we are less. 

People will hurt you, people will disappoint you. You will hurt people. You will disappoint people. I don’t want to have to say it, but life is too short. But in that short time, we are constantly being shaped by factors we can and can’t control. “May God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change what we can and the wisdom to know the difference.” The point is to always find the humility that will direct our eyes to fearlessly say the truth that lies in our hearts. The point is to see a new day and not just a new year. 

Thanks for yesterday, everyone, and make it a good day tomorrow.

Margaret Eleanor

The moon hung low above the city lights that shone like stars of the Milky Way while the train gently rocked its passengers to sleep. All but Margaret Eleanor and myself.

While others shut the world out with their music, I immediately immersed myself in Elie Wiesel's vivid and compelling account of the Holocaust in Night. I moved somberly through the pages with Elie from Birkenau to Auschwitz to Buna when all of a sudden I was kindly reminded that there were others on the train. A sweet, old lady who had just successfully put her right sock on sighed heavily of relief. (It isn't exactly what people normally do on the train, but there are occasional passengers who don't often do normal things on the train.) When she didn't have to, she turned around to say that she liked my scarf. I was delighted although the scarf belongs to my sister. She took the time to say such words with her fragile voice. To most people, a thank you would have been the end to that conversation as we are advised to never talk to strangers. For us, it was just the beginning.

My eager thank you led her to notice my accent and ask where I am from originally. She then came to tell me how she's from Canada and frequently attended Catholic summer boarding schools in England. (What was this lady doing on a DART train in Texas!?) She saw my rental copy of Night and asked my view on the Holocaust. (Actually, if I heard correctly, she asked what I thought was going to happen in the Holocaust.) She asked what I was studying in school, and she thanked me for wanting to be a teacher. When she said goodbye, she genuinely told me (with a hint of nonchalance) to "have a good life." We both knew we would never see each other again.

A wise nun told me that God brings people into our lives to teach us more about ourselves and the world around us. It dawned on me how ordinary encounters are with people. Sometimes all you get is just that chance, and with others, you get a million second chance. Maybe it's because with some all you need is that one time, and others, you need plenty more. Nevertheless, they come into our lives as easily as the words hi and hello dissipate into thin air as soon as it is exchanged by two strangers. At some point, we'll realize that our life passes as quickly as my encounter with Miss Margaret Eleanor, but as Robert Frost puts it, it goes on. As soon as she left, the train went on.

The train slowly came to a stop, and I tiptoed into a sleeping world. No birds, no traffic, no other sound, not even the whistling of the gentle breeze, dared to interrupt a world at rest. Maybe this is why some people love driving down an empty highway at night. There's hardly any fear or guards necessary to be in the world when it is peacefully asleep. For the first time, I realized what my philosophy professor meant by "true openness" to the world because at that particular time, the world I lived in made me feel safe.

I looked to my left and there were the twinkling lights of the Dallas skyline. Right above downtown was the half-moon; I was both intrigued, amazed, and, most of all, humbled by how we'll only see one side of the moon for as long as we live. As if it had a secret we are to never know. Walking further, looking at the constellations of Orion, Canis Major, the Taurus, and the Pleiades reminded me of when I first learned about them in my Astronomy class. Even the sky was no longer a sea of strangeness, but one that has a warrior and his belt, the world's guard dog, or the seven sisters to rise and greet you every night. The feeling of being watched over and surrounded by familiarity consumed me and I felt like I really belonged to my city, my world, the entire universe.

I highly doubt that true openness to the world necessarily means talk to every stranger you meet or find a rather strange connection with stars. Rather, it is perhaps in realizing that our corners in this universe that we often find ordinary are filled with diamonds in the rough. Margaret's face may have been even more washed out by the color of her faded clothing, but her story illuminated her face despite the cracks that formed from the cold temperatures. The grays in her hair and the wrinkles on her face were her own lines in the book of her life that she's yet to write or maybe even never write. In first opening ourselves to embrace the ordinary moments, more importantly those that seem even less ordinary, we discover the incandescent beauty of this old world. We realize that despite the things that make our lives difficult and seem utterly unbearable, there are people like Elie Wiesel and other victims of the Holocaust who are rich with stories untold and even Margaret Eleanor who, even at her old age, is still only at the beginning of her life. We are not alone.

When you realize that there's more to this life than just you, you'll find not necessarily where you belong, but just that you belong. Mine just happened to start with a simple, "I like your scarf."

Be yourself.

After a long time of not having written anything, I can't believe I'm going to write about 'being yourself.' Talk about a writer's no-no. When I have tried to think of more ways to be original and clever, I find myself chanting ever proudly the overly used cliche that is often drilled into the malleable minds of elementary students, and forever etched onto your overpriced high school yearbooks.

Be yourself. But not in the "don't ever change" kind of way because I feel like that would be an utter betrayal to being you. We don't live a life of a one-beat song. The paradoxes, the unforeseen events that either shake us, break us, or bend us; by the end of it all, when we choose to live, these moments eventually make us. Not even in the "I don't care about what society has to say about me" kind of way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd just like to think that you and I are both dynamic beings. Most of all, a self true to itself is one who is aware not only of themselves but those around them. 

Just when you think you know, you'll realize how much more life has to offer for you to learn. It never really ends. You get deeper into the richness and beauty that captures our day to day experiences. With the passing of a life, a small hello can all of a sudden mean so much; at the end of it all, all that matters is that something started, something was shared. With the breaking of relationships, the simple uttering of the words 'I'm sorry' can heal so much. With a deepened confusion about how life works, a simple act of faith can bring about so much certainty, hope, and courage. 

Santa Teresa de Avila said, "It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves." And this is why to be yourself is to have the courage to first enter into yourself. It goes beyond finding who you are, knowing the ins and outs of yourself. It goes beyond that. It is in accepting what you find and what you come to learn about yourself and being open to constantly be shaped, renovated, improved, cleaned, and taken care of by the same Maker who has put the universe, the world, and your life in order. Courage doesn't lie in being capable of creating an image, a character for yourself. It lies in being able to step out of who you are and letting people in, letting whatever comes about in life - to shape you, to teach you, and to show you more you. A discovery to the self cannot be made alone. 

Maybe the reason why "be yourself" has become a meaningless chant of loving, living and being is because we have completely lost all sense of what it means to be courageous. Like love, courage has been a word that man has redefined over time. The worse part is that it has been so reduced to a mere facade of 'bravery;' it has been muddied and obscured to simply become a means of avoiding humiliation.

To be yourself by simply appearing to be courageous, and avoiding looking like a fool is just that. You avoid looking like a fool. It doesn't make you any less of it. It doesn't make you less of what you really are. And it's ironic because we always try to seem like a finished product, with so much greatness to offer. When in reality, all we're ever going to be is a constant discovery of more uncharted parts of ourselves. A constant journey of being humbled to the realization that the one thing we try to always have is something we've never had in the first place -- control. If we don't let ourselves discover; If we don't let ourselves be fools for a little bit to ask, to trust, to be hurt, and to learn, we will find ourselves fools for life. The saying, after all, is "be yourself" and not "May your life put on a show for everyone."

By the end of the day, you're left with yourself and not the one you act like to others. By the end of the day, you're going to find yourself wanting to be better than the you yesterday. By the end of the day, to be yourself is really to do something about it.