Life in a Mirror

Why "Life in a Mirror"?

 

I started blogging the moment I learned how to blog. I thought, the best way how I could share what I know is through writing because then (and now, I am such not a good speaker), so I opted to just write my thoughts down.

 

But where do these thoughts come from? I read. I savor life. And thinking a lot is the offshoot. I am not an active child. I was more of the introverted type. And so after reading, most information just got stuck there. They have no way of going out. So mostly, I get to think about them ... a lot.

 

So I face these thoughts squarely, like your eyes looking straight back at you when you face the mirror. The reflection of my thoughts about the things I read and experience are poured down on blank sheets.

 

Then my days became busier. There was a time when I got hold of no book for over a year or two. But I hear a lot. I started experiencing life ... the kind of life so heavy to share. And so I think a lot about this life. Because the moment I cease to think, I cease to believe ... and hope and have faith to the One who brought me here.

 

Reflection with the right values helped me to be stronger despite the painful experiences of the past. I may have bled to death if I haven't had the courage to face life with no pretensions ... no lies.

 

And so I ask you the same question: Are you happy with what your life has to offer?

 

For one thing I have learned about life, happiness and lies -- They are intertwined.

 

Once you have not learned accepting life at face value, you begin building lies after lies after lies. Until you have been trapped in the loops and knots of your own lies. And you will never be happy.

 

Pretending starts within the self. Then you start lying to those important to you. Then to most people in general.

 

Pretension starts when you yourself cannot accept who you are -- your choices, your decisions. Any outside stimulus that reminds you of who you are, you tend to attack. You'd rather do this that put down your defenses for accepting your weaknesses is defeat for you. And you cannot afford to lose. And so you judge others as you have judged yourself. Nobody seems to be good enough for you.

 

And so the cycle goes on ...

 

You lie. You pretend. You defend yourself. You attack. You judge falsely. You talk ill about people. Because this is the only way to make you feel better off. But in reality, you're not ...

 

Because you failed to look into the MIRROR of LIFE.

First Talk: THE BIG BANG

In the NO BEGINNING -- was GOD.

God's breath hovered over a vastness of darkness, silence and peace. God's heartbeat pulsated in endless acres of emptiness -- an emptiness that was pregnant with life.

In a way that we cannot fully comprehend, that seamless space of peaceful silence was God.

And in God's breath and heartbeat -- was YOU.

In the NO BEGINNING.

Eons and eons ago -- in that time which cannot be measured, the promise of life was contracted into an infinitesimally small particle, so small that would not have seen it if you were there because in fact, it was space-less and it was time-less.

The promise of life was compressed energy, hot and dense.

As in everywhere else, God was also in that tiny particle of energy with a very special intent of love.

God was about to create the universe from within, by empowering it in a way that the universe would be able to participate with God in creating itself.

And so through immeasurable years, the energy moved on to greater and greater density transforming into a fireball.

About 14 billion years ago, at the exact, right moment, the fireball exploded mightily.

The energies flew apart, billowing out in all directions with incredible heat -- trillions of degree of heat.

The dispersal of the heat-energies created space, expanding that space more and more as the particles flashed forth further and further.

With this explosion, TIME BEGAN.

And Light came forth and shone everywhere, with no shadows, because there was nothing then.

This was the original energy of the universe.

People call it by different names: the Big Bang, the Flaring Forth, the Birth.

It was just the right moment.

Scientists say that if the explosion had taken place a fraction of a second earlier or later, the universe would never have come to be.

If the explosion had taken place a fraction of a second later, it could never have coalesced into concrete beings at a later stage; a fraction of a second earlier and it would have collapsed back on itself. It was by a slim, almost zero-margin of possibility that THE UNIVERSE CAME INTO BEING.

It was not by chance; it was divinely intended by God who was that energy within.

The mysterious "inness of God" here and in all the forms and beings that would emerge from it in the billions of years.

For a million years there was nothing but light and heat energy from the Big Bang in the vastness of space. It took all these million years for it to cool down. But the light remained in the galactic skies. Vestiges of that seemingly interminable heat energy remained for billions of years later in the form of fire.

Why did it take the universe so long to heat up and to cool down in the process of its becoming?

It was her way because it was God's way, God who was within the explosion, within the blocks of heat-energy everywhere, within the cooling down at last.

And you... you, in all this, was in the heartbeat of God.

This was the first of the four talks given to us during our Recollection -- an annual celebration of all personnel in our school -- a time to recollect the blessings and struggles in our lives; a time to recollect ourselves and our faith in God before we finally say our pledge of commitment and accept the commissioning of the Holy Spirit in our ecological thrust and educational advocacy.

It is indeed a perfect timing for us to re-learn our history, for it is only in re-discovering our forgotten origins that we become more grateful of who we are and what have we become.

It is also a perfect timing to seek God in the midst of all the environmental struggles we are going through, as people, as His co-creators -- we have in some ways followed another path -- the path of damnation, destroying the only world we could live in -- the world He has given us to take care and pro-create and co-create.

Let us not wait for our world to succumb itself to death... for when this world dies, we die with it, too.

So I invite you to journey with me in this great gift of BEING ALIVE.

Sadness

“She had overcome her minor defects only to be defeated by matters of fundamental importance. She had managed to appear utterly independent when she was, in fact, desperately in need of company. When she entered a room, everyone would turn to look at her, but she almost always ended the night alone, in the convent, watching a TV that she hadn’t even bothered to have properly tuned. She gave all her friends the impression that she was a woman to be envied, and she expended most of her energy in trying to behave in accordance with the image she had created of herself.”

- Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

Book smashed right on top of my table – a pile of paper flown all over my cubicle. I saw a woman’s silhouette in the book’s cover. I knew the book by heart. I don’t need to look at the woman who threw the book neither, almost hitting my face, and complain over her attitude because like the silhouette, she too is in tremendous confusion.

I groaned.

And looked at her. All I saw was her back, twenty feet away. I can almost hear her sobbing.

Nine years ago, we were both new in the institution. We got along well. Very well. She would spend the night in my place. My family was hers. And so was I to her family.

After three years in the graduate school, she earned her Master’s Degree while I was still struggling to finish a research proposal.

Another three years, she finished her Doctorate program with the highest academic citation. I graduated with her, too, but with my MA.

Our friendship blossomed despite her moving in to another school – this time as an administrator. Because of her compromised schedule, we seldom had the time to be together. Lesser and lesser time. Shorter and shorter conversations. At the restaurant. Over the phone.

One day, she dashed through my office.

“I filed a tentative leave from work. Lend me a dozen of your books.”

Without question, I gave her what she needed. Then she left.

That was how we were. One waits for the other to open, giving the other ample time to ventilate on her own, the way she wants to. The other would just accept. Listen later.

And that was the last time I saw her. And heard from her, before this.

I arranged the papers back into their order. The intercom rang. Outside call.

“Jo, I’m in our favorite cafeteria.” She hanged.

Her words meant one thing. She was asking me to go. Since it was summer, it was a bit easy for me to leave my piled up work. But it was easier for me to decide to go to her because I sensed she badly needed someone to talk to by the chill in her voice.

“Give me a tall Latte, please.”

The waiter served my order. The rich smooth espresso softened by frothy steamed milk relaxed my senses. I was hoping her Sumatra did the same.

“Did you re-read the lines I marked with my highlighter?”

“Yes, I did.”, was my short reply.

“Damn you! Did you intentionally give me that book?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did you think I will buy that crap?”

Silence.

“I’m entering the convent.”

Her statement was more like a declarative. So I opted to keep my silence. She wasn’t asking for my opinion anyway. I only stared blank at her.

“Damn you! Why are you giving me that kind of stare? Aren’t you saying anything? Tell me I’m stupid! Tell me I’m crazy!”

“Why should I? You know better than I. you have decided. Am I in the position to disagree with your decisions?”

“No.”

“I mean… wouldn’t you ask why.”

“Why?”

“I’m not happy.”

“Would your entering the congregation make you happy?”

“Well at least I’m making something out of my stupid life.”

“Why the lines from the book?”

“They speak so much of the kind of life I lived.”

Silence. (Well, counselors like me always use silence at our advantage.)

“I graduated as class valedictorian. I finished college as magna cum laude. I earned highest academic citations in graduate college. At thirty, I am an academic administrator. I learned to play the piano. Played the violin well. I’m a black-belter. I’m a chess master. I don’t have a husband. No kids to cuddle. All I have are the degrees I earned. Certificates lined all over my wall. No pictures of me smiling or my family or my kids running about. I am alone in my three-storey house. I drive my car myself. My phone rings and it is my superior calling for a meeting. Some papers to be signed. Beating the deadline. Nobody’s telling me to take care. Eat my meals on time. or asking me what time I’ll be home. I wear my clothes, always with appropriate code. Put on my accessories. Not to please the eyes of a man but to look respectable in the eyes of my colleagues. I go to bed at night. Close my eyes. And that’s it.”

Silence.

The rest of our conversation I will keep.

While writing this, she’s sleeping at the other room with my daughter. Tomorrow, I shall take her to the bus terminal – board the bus that will bring her to her destination – for the meantime, that is. While sadness still embraces her soul.

Indeed, many of us are like Maya, wearing our grandest mask by day, sleeping over our tears at night. Tears that seem to end our story. We complain. We ask ourselves whether our decisions had lead us to what and where we really would like to be. And we end up unhappy. Not contented. To some, they find their lives miserable. Useless. No direction. They stagnate. Until one day, they would wake up all torn. No other place to go.

Sometime in my life, I am Maya. So much “what ifs”. At times I am lured to do the inappropriate to give myself a chance for happiness. But most of the time, I just do what norms dictate. If happiness means not hurting other people, following by word the rules of the land, accomplishing assigned tasks on time, then I think I am happy.

But if happiness means doing what you want to do with your life, being true to yourself, getting to your dreams with lesser effort, screaming if you feel like it, then I have to get back to myself once again and start re-writing my life to be really truly happy.

Human Nature. God's Nature.

We ask.




We wish, not hope, that it'll be granted in a sec.




We blame Him and ask questions when our prayers are not granted or when problems come along our way.


We doubt His power.



But we fail to truly listen to what He is telling us through the bits of experiences day by day.



We only look at ourselves. We disregard His own feelings.



When in reality, He has received all the pain and suffering that was supposed to be ours. We failed to hear when He said:

"Are you alright? I might have missed a small piece."