Unshackled

December 7, 2010. 9:08PM

I released myself from the tyranny of Facebook.
Because I can.
Ah, freedom!

Meteor Shower: Geminid 2007

"Uy, shooting star!!!"
"Saan?"
"Ayun, meron ulit! Yehey!"
"Mag-wish ka na!"
"Ha?! Wala nang shooting star.."

So there we were, all seven of us, on the viewdeck, having a conversation about swimming pools and sembreak plans, when suddenly, we were interrupted by shooting stars.

I didn't even know that there was going to be a Geminid meteor shower that night.

I craned my neck upwards just to catch a glimpse of that elusive heavenly display.

Nothing.

After a short while, i saw three shooting stars successively streaking through the starry night sky. We were all applauding and hooting like giddy children as the meteors vaporized into thin air.

"Mag-wish ka na," Bernie said to RC. Somehow, everyone on the viewdeck made a wish.

I didn't.

Not because I didn't want to but because I didn't know how. When do you actually start making a wish? Do you make it before, during, or after the meteor makes its dash across the sky? I have long asked that question but I haven't really seriously asked anyone about it.

If you make a wish before you actually see one, would that count? Shooting stars could be so elusive, you could have kept wishing and wishing and end up not seeing a single one at all.

Suppose you make a wish as soon as it appears. I tried that many times, with precision and timing, but I often fail to complete the "wish" since the shooting star would have already burnt itself up completely.

Now, wouldn't making a wish after you've seen one, make the whole point of wishing on a shooting star pointless, since you would be wishing on something which has already disappeared?

Anyway, I still wonder about how to do the "wishing on a shooting star" properly. hehe.

by the way, I ended up with six sightings that night.

Oh, and after that, I looked up one of my old notebooks and found an old poem (in Filipino) which I wrote after the Leonid shower in 2002:

LEONIDS 2002

mamaya
aabangan ko
ang pag-ambon
ng mga kwitis-langit.

maglalatag ako
ng banig
at ako'y titingala,
nganganga,
at maghihintay
ng grasya
mula sa itaas.

gusto ko kasing makatikim
ng nagbabagang bato,
tulad ni Isaias,
nang maranasan ko
kung papaano
mag-dilang anghel.

Taken from my journal, dated December 16, 2007.

Lost in Traslacion

It was the first day of my first visit to Naga and I found myself amidst the swarm of fanatical devotees to Ina, as the locals endearingly call the image of Our Lady of Peñafrancia. The traslacion, as the procession was called, was a yearly event that signaled the start of the novena to Ina.

Originally, I had no plans of joining the procession of voyadores; I was already forewarned by some brothers about the creatively concocted stench of liquor and sweat and body odor. I was told about the danger of being crushed in the stampede of devotees clawing their way through the thick cordon of voyadores just to touch or wipe their hankies on the image of Ina. And of course, I was skeptical of public and fanatical shows of devotion.

Yet, there I was, about three layers of voyadores away from the image of Ina, almost sucked into the vortex that held the crowd's attention. At first, I could not understand how some men were crying as they joined that religious commotion. That is, until I actually got lost in the traslacion.

The feeling was that of something that spoke to your gut--raw, powerful, palpable, instinctive, engaging, overwhelming.

The rawness of the experience felt like it punctured something in me. but instead of blood, it oozed hot, stinging tears.


Taken from my journal entry, dated Sept 11, 2007.

Hypertension

150/100.

No, they're not test scores nor eyesight measurements.

Lately, I've been trading blood pressure stats with some of the scholastics. There has been an outbreak of hypertension diagnoses, ever since I got a 140/100 a month ago. When my hypertensive condition was detected last month, some of the scholastics decided to have their BPs checked as well, only to discover that I wasn't the only one with fairly high stats.

Earlier this evening, as we were trading jokes outside the oratory, I suddenly felt something snap in my nape. It triggered a sharp pinching kind of pain, and I immediately thought that it might have something to do with my blood pressure. IJ and Jhaw then told me to go to the infirmary to have myself checked since by that time i was already breaking into a cold sweat. When we went to the infirmary, one of the nurses took my BP and informed me that my current stat was 150/100. Of course, I panicked. I didn't want to get sick again because it was so depressing to be confined to a room and find yourself suddenly incapable of doing the things you often take for granted.

Thanks to but unlike Wordsworth, I call these moments of utter vulnerability and helplessness my "intimations of mortality." I'm still young and being sick like this makes death less of a possibility; instead it becomes as real as my own Damocles' sword. I know death would eventually come but its own random timing scares me. 

My situation reminds me of Heidegger's insight on being-towards-death. My most individual and extreme possibility is death. No one can experience death for me. I alone will experience it. It is what individuates me and at the same time, unites me with everyone else.

Heidegger cautions against inauthentic living -- a kind of living that denies this mortal destiny. And yet, here I am, afraid of dying as if i am not going to die at all. On second thought, maybe it's not death I'm afraid of, maybe it's the pain that comes with sickness. In my case, the physical pain is only secondary. The pain of being incapacitated is even more painful, I think. To be fully conscious and yet unable to to act out one's conscious thoughts, I surmise, must be a really painful experience.

Yet maybe, these kinds of pain are birth pangs of an emergent spirituality. Recognizing my own limitedness can be a real blow to my ego. But perhaps, after the self that i had been holding on to has been shattered, when the dust of confusion settles, i would begin to see myself and my life more clearly. I am not in control. I am merely clay in the Potter's hand. 

Taken from my journal entry, dated Nov 12, 2007.

LSS

"So far away...doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore..."

It must be echoing some deep-set sentiment, this song. Bamboo's rendition gets to me when i listen to it. Some old songs have that effect. You play them and they transport you back in time when that same song had some meaning to you. I'm not sure though what meaning it had for me for that hypothetical "then".

I grew up listening to "High School Life" and "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina". I listened to these songs, brimming with emotions, profound feelings that surely a four or seven year old would not have understood. Yet, i can recall moments when I actually shed tears listening to Sharon Cuneta wax about high school when i had not even reached Grade One!

Songs follow a logic of their own. So does the heart, as Pascal reminds us. It's quite a miracle when you have lyrics that perfectly match the melody. Both these elements intertwine inextricably. You forcibly take one out and the song dies.

Miracles also happen when you have songs that fill the gaps in your consciousness. These gaps are often the things you haven't really figured out that much. It cries out silently. It screams mutely. Only the song soothes. Only the melody assures.

And you just quietly sing along... 

So far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know that you're just time away

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
How I wish I could, but you're so far away

One more song about movin' along the highway
Can't say much of anything that's new
If I could only work this life out my way
I'd rather spend it bein' close to you

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know you're so far away

Travelin' around sure gets me down and lonely
Nothin' else to do but close my mind
I sure hope the road don't come to own me
But there's so many dreams I've yet to find

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn't help to know you're so far away

Taken from my journal entry, dated March 5, 2007.

Thrill

Imagine ziplining at 12 meters per second through an almost 700 meter long cable, dangling facedown from a harness 600 feet up in the air, gliding across a landscape of precipitous waterfalls, rocky streams, and pointy trees.

Imagine doing it twice, in span of a few minutes, but covering half the distance.

As I was waiting for my turn to take that zipline ride near Lake Sebu, I wondered what draws people to attempt such stunts.

Ziplining entails a lot of risks, raises a lot of fears, but promises a one-of-a-kind experience.

I stepped up to that platform — palms clammy, heart pounding through my chest, vision blurring — and for a split second, I wanted to back out. I was immensely nervous that I could feel my courage ebbing with each millisecond. I couldn't even clench my fist because my strength was leaking out of me, as well.

I definitely knew I was afraid. Of heights. Of plummeting to my death. Of the ropes snapping. Of some freak accident happening despite the park's safety measures (I hope).

I certainly knew I was excited. To take the challenge. To take the adventure. To face my fears. To experience the prospect of a thrilling ride.

Thrill is the intersection of fear and excitement. Eventually, it was thrill that pushed me off the platform, and kept me company for the longest 45 seconds of my life.

Midway through the zipline, my initial primal scream ran out. When I had finished shouting at the top of my lungs, I was finally able to take in the awesome beauty of it all.

"Lord," 

was the first and only thing I could think about. It wasn't a curse word, really. I just couldn't think of anything that was almost as majestic and transcendental.

Then I remembered the people whom I wished would also experience what I was going through at that point. I have heard that when someone brushes shoulders with death, one only sees the faces of the most important people in one's life.

I guess I learned something from that brief detail, I spontaneously became aware of the most important people in my life. And as much as I have tried to suppress your memory, I saw your face clearly then; you were smiling the way you smiled when we took our first motorcycle ride together.

The lure of the thrill pushed me off the platform. Thrill is a powerful motivation. It can make you feel alive, or it can get you killed. When it comes to thrill, life and death become flip sides of the same coin. You begin to understand clearly when you are in those limit situations.

I think that is why I'm attracted to it. When I was younger, I lived for those moments. But not anymore. I just enjoy them as they come. Thrill might give one a reason to stay alive, but living from one thrill to the next may not necessarily keep one alive. Thrills are meant to be enjoyed for their ephemeral character. Its magnificence lies in its very transience.

I'd like to keep it that way. Because when the extraordinary becomes the ordinary, what else is there to live for?

Suppressed

I was planning to meet up with a childhood friend.


Well, we're not exactly friends, since we barely even talked to each other. When we were in Grade 6, we sat next to each other, but I never had the chance to engage her in a conversation that lasted for more than a minute. Now that I think about it, I've never talked to her at all. Not inside the classroom, at least.


My first and only real conversation with her, which lasted more than a minute, was almost twenty years after and it was only over the phone. It was a surreal feeling to finally talk to her after all those years. 


I felt like a schoolboy all over again. Stuttering. Blushing. Fumbling.


While we never had those conversations that defined relationships, I have retained memories that revealed connections. I certainly felt connected to her, although I never knew for certain if she felt the same way too.


That afternoon, as I was about to board the plane on the way to the city where she lived, I sent her a text message asking if she was free that night for dinner or coffee.


But since I had to turn off the phone as I boarded the plane, I only received her reply when I arrived in the city where she lived.

My heart raced and crashed as soon as I read her message. She couldn't meet up because she was not feeling well that day. She was even absent for work.


I was disappointed...


But then she also said she would be free the next evening.


And if my fingers could express themselves as it scrolled through her message on my phone, it would stutter, blush, and fumble.


But then I could only stay for a night because the next day I'd be moving to another city.


I felt torn. I would have wanted to stay behind. But I could not. I should not. I better not.


Some things do not happen for a reason.


But oh, how I would have wanted to see her.

Distance

Taken from a journal entry I recovered from my HDD, dated January 1, 2009.

(For New Year’s Day 2009)
distantia (L.) “stand apart”

Was it any different this year? I’ve slept through the new year’s countdown. Coming from Payatas, we had a simple media noche of ham, sardines with olives and capers, and chicken lollipops. It was a rather dull feast. I think the highlight of it was the bottle of liquor that had gold flakes in it. It seemed pathetic that someone would gush over this, just to initiate a conversation. I didn’t pick up on it, though. I remember I said something like, “yeah, that’s nice, but I don’t really drink.” Do you think I was being grinchy? Well, I just thought that maybe part of my New Year’s resolution would be to say what I really mean to say and not beat around the bush trying to be tactful or mindful of hurting other people’s feelings. Would that make me less of a Christian?


I didn’t feel like greeting anybody “happy new year”; although I managed to greet around five or seven people. I got a pleasant surprise from one of the Juniors. He told me that he brought pasalubong from his hometown. I didn’t really expect that he’d seriously remember or even bother about what I had told him before he left for vacation. But he did, and I must say, I was happy about it.


I wanted to write something about distance. My parents are currently abroad, spending the holidays with my sister. I wanted to write something sentimental and profound. Like how distance, depending on your frame of mind, either separates or brings people closer. I wanted to try something like exploring its etymology. Like how it literally means “to stand apart”. Distance creates space that allows for individuals to respect each other’s solitude. To distance yourself from a relationship is to see it from a vantage point, which closeness and intimacy cannot imagine. Distance holds up a mirror before us, where we begin to see how much of what we desire about the other person reveals how needy we sometimes can be.

Distance can be convenient. I love my family when they’re not around. I sometimes think that I grow deeper affection for them when I’m not with them. I imagine how things would be different if I spent Xmas or New Year’s with them, but looking back on past Christmases and New Years, I felt lonely nonetheless.

Homily: AtSCA Silent Retreat 2010

AtSCA Silent Retreat 2010 Homily (Oct 21, 2010 Thursday)
GOSPEL READING: Luke 12: 49-53

Truth divides. But it divides not because truth depends on how people see it, or that there are different versions of it. It divides because truth strikes deep, goes right into the heart of you, and splits you up like an axe chopping into a solid log. 

"How shall we distinguish the true mystic from the false?" asked the disciples who had an inordinate interest in the occult. 

"How do you distinguish the true sleeper from the one who is feigning or pretending to be asleep?" asked the Master.

"There's no way. Only the sleeper knows when he is feigning," said the disciples.

The Master smiled. 

Later he said, "The feigning sleeper can delude others — he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself."

Truth divides because it is difficult. It is easier to delude ourselves. It's easier to think of reasons to justify ourselves. When somebody approaches us and tells us: Can I be honest with you? We instinctively recoil from that confrontation. It makes us upset. Honesty is often brutal. It is unpleasant. It is something we do not want to hear. It is as if somebody collars you and pushes your back against the wall. And you cannot run away, and even if you could break from its clutches, it continues to hound you. It leaves its mark on you. It sears and brands you for life.

Truth hurts. It hurts because it strips you naked. It scrapes away the layers of defenses that you have built around yourself. It peels you like it peels off an onion. There will be tears and it will expose your core as hollow. It confronts you and shows you how, in spite of all your attempts at an image makeover, you are still, who you have always been — fragile, insecure, empty, shallow, vulnerable. 

Jesus did not mince words. He did not sugarcoat. He told it as it is. And by telling it as it is, loyalties were divided, men and women walked away sad and grieving, some of his followers had to leave and abandon him. 

How could he have done that? Because he saw things as they are. He saw himself as he is. He saw other people as they are. In a sense, he is the most realistic of us all. 

There is a latin saying: Veritas liberabit vos. The truth will set you free. 

For the most part of our lives, we have always tried to live according to a why. We are hooked on finding out our reason for being — our why. 

Like that Nescafe ad, "Para kanino ka bumabangon?" It does sound cute. It sounds reasonable. 

But let me quote a short verse from Angelus Silesius, a German mystic and poet, to push the boundaries of your thought:

The rose is without why, it blooms because it blooms,

It pays no attention to itself, nor asks whether one sees it.

Listen to how it would sound if we transpose "love" for "rose":

Love is without why, it loves because it loves,

It pays no attention to itself, nor asks whether one loves it. 

Perhaps you are all crazy in coming to this retreat. When you could have gone elsewhere. When you have been doing something else. When you could have been learning things that other people already know. Not some crazy idea. Not something as radical as what you have been used to thinking about.

There was this old ad from Apple that goes something like this:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. 

They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Strange, they said the same things about Jesus. That he was crazy, that he was a misfit, that he was a rebel, that he was a troublemaker. 

Veritas liberabit vos. The truth will set you free.

And when truth sets you free from all your illusions and attachments and addictions, you will come to realize an even simpler but equally profound truth. 

Nihil sine Deo. Nothing without God. I am nothing without God.

That in the stark nakedness and intense fragility of your own being — the paradox of it all: that there is no emptiness. There is no nothingness. There is only an abiding presence. There is only love. There is only God. 

And once you begin to recognize that. You will begin see with the eyes of God. You will see "the butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish human being." 

For Dad on His 58th Birthday

This was taken from a brief journal entry I wrote on December 18, 2007.
Happy 58th Birthday, Dad! I can’t really say these things in front of you, but like you, I express myself better in writing.


IN NEED OF A GOOD STORY

My father isn’t a good storyteller. 

Which is why i could never figure how, even after all these years, i can still vividly remember the stories he told me when i was much younger. 

Dad had this annoying habit of leaving stories unfinished. Most of the time, he would fall asleep even before he could finish. He would be right in the middle of a tale and then – the familiar silence and the subsequent snore. Whenever he fell asleep, Dad was impervious to my persistent efforts at waking him up and making him continue with his story.

Because of this, Dad often told stories in random fragments which you had to re-arrange in order to build a plot. He would talk about his own Tatay, my grandfather, who fought during the Korean War. 

Then he would fall asleep. 

The next chance I get to listen to him, he would be talking about his own grandmother and how she had this “anting-anting” that made her invisible to the Japanese. 

Then he would fall asleep. 

By the next episode, he would be telling me about his own Nanay, my grandmother, and how she saw a “tiyanak” eating a ripe mango. 

Then he would fall asleep. 

Again.

In spite of protracted plots that spanned several incongruous segments, I was captivated by Dad’s stories. While I knew, even at that young age, that some of his tales were rather incredible, I listened attentively and pretended that I believed in every detail he mentioned. Tiyanak and anting-anting notwithstanding.

Dad’s narrative style was not spectacular. In fact, he narrated stories as if he were merely suggesting and providing simple captions for the images in my mind. He couldn’t really paint scenes with words. He wasn’t poetic nor dramatic. He spoke plainly, and yet, somehow, he stirred my imagination. I don’t know how he did that.

Even now, Dad still isn’t a good storyteller. 

Though he doesn’t fall asleep anymore with his own stories, he already fumbles with his sentences and has developed an even more terrible sense of plot flow and timing.

But when he tries to tell me a story, I listen.

And I don’t know how he does that.

Endings

This was from an email I sent to an old friend whom I hold in high esteem as a teacher.
Dated Sept 27, 2010.

Dear Sir ********,

Thanks for being there. I appreciate it very much.


I finally have time to respond.
I'm currently looking after my dad who had an accident the day before my ordination.
He wasn't able to attend and witness my ordination because of that accident.
When I was in first year college, I remembered praying for two things. That I'll gain wisdom, and that my life will be interesting. Apparently, asking for those two graces is like wishing for a keg of gunpowder and a lighted matchstick. I wrote that personal essay two days before ordination. And then a day before the event, something happens to my Dad. That kind of event seems to be God's notion of "interesting." So I understand that that is perhaps what my novice master meant when he told me, "Be careful what you pray for." And the resulting wisdom: Huwag kang magsasalita ng patapos. I should've known better: it was never about certainty, but hope. I still carry with me something I learned from one of our discussions in medieval philosophy: believing as if.


It might be too early to wax sentimental over endings, since this new state is merely the beginning. I've never understood the kind of ending that results from something that has run its course. Some endings were often abrupt, or were decided for me by other people. Some endings were facile that they didn't deserve a cathartic celebration. Some endings were not really endings because I kept on looking back or clinging on. I never appreciated endings because I didn't have the satisfaction of natural, well-worn closures.


Saturday's event was an ending of sorts for me. I didn't have the privilege of attending my own college graduation. What replaced that was my entrance day to the novitiate. But somehow, I knew that it was not really an ending and I was merely trying to compensate. And then my first vows came, and I thought that this could be it--my first valid ending. Yet, I still found that experience wanting.


All these vocation promotions seemingly emphasize novelty: "Join the Jesuits. Go to new places. Meet new friends. Have new experiences. That may seem understandable; after all, I wonder who'd join us if we advertised this way:"Join the Jesuits. Get uprooted every now and then. Say frequent goodbyes. Attach and detach." Jesuit formation, as I experienced it, was a rehearsal of endings. It was a training in goodbyes.


If endings were like symphonies, the actual goodbye would be one of its movements. For me, it would be a scherzo: humorous, awkward, fast-moving. 

Now that I think about it, it does seem like a four-movement symphony. Some might think that all endings are sad. Maybe it takes experience to listen to its subtle beauty.

As in a symphony, an allegro might initiate the first movement. Then the adagio--the slow languorous movement that precedes the actual goodbye. And the scherzo, finally capping off with a possible rondo--a return to the original theme.

I imagined last Saturday's ordination as the initial notes of my own rondo. It was an ending of sorts, but it wasn't sad at all. It was beautiful but not in a poignant way. It was "like a drop of water penetrating a sponge," as Ignatius would say.

Sa atin pa, swabe ang dating.

Mahirap nang magsalita ng patapos. But if my intuition is right, a real ending does not bind, but frees.  It does not close doors, but opens possibilities. That was the kind of ending I experienced last Saturday. 

Salamat talaga sa Dyos. At salamat din sa pagtulong sa pagtatabas ng masukal kong kaisipan.

Nilalasap ko ang lichtung.

xoxo

What Ithaca Means

As you set out for Ithaca,
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery... 

I began my life as a Jesuit at the age of twenty. While most of my peers began their careers at around the same age, I took the road that led to the novitiate.

I initially pursued that path with idealism and excitement. Along with my fellow novices, we were welcomed by the daily schedule that drilled us in the pillars of Jesuit formation: prayer, community, studies, apostolate. Concretely, that meant observing de more — waking up, praying, going to Mass, eating, cleaning the house, studying, resting, playing, gardening, taking a shower, recreating, and sleeping — the structured routine that initiated novices in settling into the discipline of religious life. De more assured that there was a proper time for everything. It became our "daily grind."

The "daily grind" was not a misnomer; after the first few months, it wore out the novelty of the novitiate. Back then, it was a struggle to survive the boredom of the routine and the ordinary. If anything, de more disabused me of my romantic notions of Jesuit life.

The "daily grind" of de more sharpens your life into what is essential. But I did not see it that way. I was young and I did not appreciate the tedium of de more. I had just taken my first few steps, and I was already wondering if this was the same thing I enlisted for. I was disappointed. Things did not turn out to be as exciting as I would've wanted them to be.

I didn't know it then, but that disappointment marked the first of many. I became well-acquainted with disappointment. I experienced it firsthand, and I acquainted others with disappointment, too. Jesuit life followed a certain "way of proceeding," which was a fancy term to refer to how a Jesuit should think and act and live out their lives. I tried to configure myself in relation to that standard. I evaluated who I was in terms of what I was expected to be. It turned out to be tiring and disappointing.

Disappointment is not really about expectations not matching reality; it is all about blindness to what is actually happening. Disappointment is obstinately seeing what one wants to see, instead of paying attention to reality as it unfolds before one's very eyes.

My first real adventure in the Society of Jesus was not being sent to the missions in Bukidnon, or working in a factory in Pasig. It was nothing of that sort; the adventure was getting in touch with reality, sifting through who I thought I was and who I really am, of what I wanted to happen and what was really happening, of breaking through the superficial and plunging into the deep.

I had imagined Jesuit life literally taking me to distant places. But the real journey was going to take place within. I was not setting out from home; in fact, I was going to find my way back home.

It was uncharted territory. I knew I was heading for something definite, but I didn't know how to get there. There were no clear roads to take at that point. Everything then seemed shrouded in a fog of uncertainty.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them...

From an outsider's perspective, religious life seems incomprehensible and outrageous. How do you make sense of a rule that prohibits the use of shampoo and deodorant? How do you make sense of men who could be earning more voluntarily subsisting on a monthly allowance of P150? How do you make sense of a month-long silent retreat? How do you make sense of the vow of poverty? Or chastity? Or obedience? After the first fervor, the vows suddenly seemed like anachronisms. I had a lot of questions because I could not understand. Despite the fact that I had already spent a few years as a Jesuit, I still viewed everything as an outsider.

One is bound to be disappointed with religious life if one persists in seeing things in the usual way.

Religious life thrives on seeing the inherent paradoxes of life. To appreciate a paradox, one must look at it closely. It demands to be examined because how else can you make sense of "joy in suffering" or "strength in weakness" if not by looking at it and seeing beyond the seeming contradiction. Avoiding any form of suffering is an almost instinctive reaction, yet there is also such a thing as redemptive suffering. But how can that be? 

Religious life thrives on reversals. Those who mourn will be comforted. The poor shall inherit the earth. The humble will be exalted. The wise will not understand. This kind of order thwarts the logic of the world. It is a scandal to common sensibility. Yet these reversals beg one's curiosity: How can that be?

I was young and I did not understand paradoxes or reversals. Because I did not understand, I was afraid.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

I never thought I would reach this far, nor did I even imagine that I would reach this point. The road has been a long one, and there were times when I thought of stopping and turning back. It was not easy. Many times, I felt impatient about whether this path was meaningful at all. Many times, I felt that I was missing out on a lot of things. Many times, other options were just as equally attractive.

I was young when I began this journey. I've grown older since; in the next eight years, I will have already spent half of my life as a Jesuit. Over the years, disappointment has given way to some truth. While there were breakthrough moments that seemed extraordinary enough to sustain one's interest, for the most part, the real discoveries actually happened in the ordinary, the uninteresting, the routine, the tedious. But one does not usually see these as they happen. Sometimes, the eyes have to be washed with tears to be able to see clearly.

Some people think that religious life is totally immune from what everyone else has to deal with. It may be true in certain matters, but I cannot totally agree with that. Life happens to everyone. There is no escaping it. Not even in religious life. Life's rawness has a way of making you honestly deal with who you are. Pain, failure, suffering, loss — they are like friends who tell you things you don't really hear from people who don't know you that well. Pain, failure, suffering, loss — they arrest your attention and focus it on what you should really be focusing on. These realities empty you out so that you can eventually be filled.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 

In two days, I will be ordained a deacon, and in the next six months, a priest.

There is that privileged moment that occurs after being away for a long while, and home is already within sight. It is a time when one feels somewhere in between a desire to go home and a desire to just keep on going. It is a time when one recognizes that while the destination may have motivated you to begin and continue your journey; in the end, it is the journey that eventually makes the destination meaningful.

Most people only get to see what we have become, and point to that as a manifestation of how grace has worked in our lives. Sometimes, I think that way, too. But seeing it that way is missing the real spectacle.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you. 

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean. 

There is a time for everything. In the same way that one cannot force a seed to grow into a plant, an insight cannot be forced if its time has not yet come. Growth involves a lot of waiting patiently, hopefully, and respectfully. My initial disappointment with Jesuit life was because I could not wait patiently, hopefully, and respectfully.

I'm not as young as I used to be. Over the years, reality has remained the same. But I'm learning to embrace pain, failure, suffering, and loss. I'm also learning to appreciate paradoxes and reversals. In other words, I'm learning to pay close attention to life as it unveils. God is in the details of the ordinary.

My destination is almost within sight. The paradox and reversal in my entire journey is clearer:

God calls the unworthy; I am a sinner, yet called.

I wrote this on a Wednesday morning, a few days before my diaconate ordination. A fellow Jesuit, F.D.A., asked me to write a brief reflection for the Jesuit website, phjesuits.org.

Revival

Four years have passed...


I think it's time to revive this blog.


Note: Today happens to be Dad's 58th birthday.
Note 2: I think I'll adopt some style conventions. Main Entries shall be written using Georgia. Commentaries will be in italicized Helvetica.  

Isang Liham Para sa Aking Guro

Dear Sir Eddieboy,

Thanks for being there. I appreciate it very much.

I finally have time to respond. 
I'm currently looking after my dad who had an accident the day before my ordination.
He wasn't able to attend and witness my ordination because of that accident.
When I was in first year college, I remembered praying for two things. That I'll gain wisdom, and that my life will be interesting.
Apparently, asking for those two graces is like wishing for a keg of gunpowder and a lighted matchstick. 
I wrote that personal essay two days before ordination. And then a day before the event, something happens to my Dad.
That kind of event seems to be God's notion of "interesting."
So I understand that that is perhaps what my novice master meant when he told me, "Be careful what you pray for." 
And the resulting wisdom: Huwag kang magsasalita ng patapos. I should've known better: it was never about certainty, but hope.
I still carry with me something I learned from one of our discussions in medieval philosophy: believing as if.

It might be too early to wax sentimental over endings, since this new state is merely the beginning.
I've never understood the kind of ending that results from something that has run its course.
Some endings were often abrupt, or were decided for me by other people. 
Some endings were facile that they didn't deserve a cathartic celebration.
Some endings were not really endings because I kept on looking back or clinging on.
I never appreciated endings because I didn't have the satisfaction of natural, well-worn closures.

Saturday's event was an ending of sorts for me. 
I didn't have the privilege of attending my own college graduation. 
What replaced that was my entrance day to the novitiate.
But somehow, I knew that it was not really an ending and I was merely trying to compensate.
And then my first vows came, and I thought that this could be it--my first valid ending.
Yet, I still found that experience wanting.

All these vocation promotions seemingly emphasize novelty: "Join the Jesuits. Go to new places. Meet new friends. Have new experiences.
That may seem understandable; after all, I wonder who'd join us if we advertised this way:"Join the Jesuits. Get uprooted every now and then. Say frequent goodbyes. Attach and detach."
Jesuit formation, as I experienced it, was a rehearsal of endings. It was a training in goodbyes.

If endings were like symphonies, the actual goodbye would be one of its movements. For me, it would be a scherzo: humorous, awkward, fast-moving. 

Now that I think about it, it does seem like a four-movement symphony.

Some might think that all endings are sad. Maybe it takes experience to listen to its subtle beauty.

As in a symphony, an allegro might initiate the first movement. 

Then the adagio--the slow languorous movement that precedes the actual goodbye.

And the scherzo, finally capping off with a possible rondo--a return to the original theme.

I imagined last Saturday's ordination as the initial notes of my own rondo.

It was an ending of sorts, but it wasn't sad at all. 

It was beautiful but not in a poignant way.

It was "like a drop of water penetrating a sponge," as Ignatius would say.

Sa atin pa, swabe ang dating.

Mahirap nang magsalita ng patapos. 

But if my intuition is right, a real ending does not bind, but frees. 

It does not close doors, but opens possibilities.

That was the kind of ending I experienced last Saturday.

Salamat talaga sa Dyos.

At salamat din sa pagtulong sa pagtatabas ng masukal kong kaisipan.

Nilalasap ko ang lichtung.

Ulysses

What Ithaca Means

As you set out for Ithaca,

hope your road is a long one, 

full of adventure, full of discovery... 

I began my life as a Jesuit at the age of twenty. While most of my peers began their careers at around the same age, I took the road that led to the novitiate. 

I initially pursued that path with idealism and excitement. Along with my fellow novices, we were welcomed by the daily schedule that drilled us in the pillars of Jesuit formation: prayer, community, studies, apostolate. Concretely, that meant observing de more — waking up, praying, going to Mass, eating, cleaning the house, studying, resting, playing, gardening, taking a shower, recreating, and sleeping — the structured routine that initiated novices in settling into the discipline of religious life. De more assured that there was a proper time for everything. It became our "daily grind." 

The "daily grind" was not a misnomer; after the first few months, it wore out the novelty of the novitiate. Back then, it was a struggle to survive the boredom of the routine and the ordinary. If anything, de more disabused me of my romantic notions of Jesuit life. 

The "daily grind" of de more sharpens your life into what is essential. But I did not see it that way. I was young and I did not appreciate the tedium of de more. I had just taken my first few steps, and I was already wondering if this was the same thing I enlisted for. I was disappointed. Things did not turn out to be as exciting as I would've wanted them to be. 

I didn't know it then, but that disappointment marked the first of many. I became well-acquainted with disappointment. I experienced it firsthand, and I acquainted others with disappointment, too. Jesuit life followed a certain "way of proceeding," which was a fancy term to refer to how a Jesuit should think and act and live out their lives. I tried to configure myself in relation to that standard. I evaluated who I was in terms of what I was expected to be. It turned out to be tiring and disappointing. 

Disappointment is not really about expectations not matching reality; it is all about blindness to what is actually happening. Disappointment is obstinately seeing what one wants to see, instead of paying attention to reality as it unfolds before one's very eyes. 

My first real adventure in the Society of Jesus was not being sent to the missions in Bukidnon, or working in a factory in Pasig. It was nothing of that sort; the adventure was getting in touch with reality, sifting through who I thought I was and who I really am, of what I wanted to happen and what was really happening, of breaking through the superficial and plunging into the deep. 

I had imagined Jesuit life literally taking me to distant places. But the real journey was going to take place within. I was not setting out from home; in fact, I was going to find my way back home. 

It was uncharted territory. I knew I was heading for something definite, but I didn't know how to get there. There were no clear roads to take at that point. Everything then seemed shrouded in a fog of uncertainty. 

Laistrygonians, Cyclops, 

angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them...

From an outsider's perspective, religious life seems incomprehensible and outrageous. How do you make sense of a rule that prohibits the use of shampoo and deodorant? How do you make sense of men who could be earning more voluntarily subsisting on a monthly allowance of P150? How do you make sense of a month-long silent retreat? How do you make sense of the vow of poverty? Or chastity? Or obedience? After the first fervor, the vows suddenly seemed like anachronisms. I had a lot of questions because I could not understand. Despite the fact that I had already spent a few years as a Jesuit, I still viewed everything as an outsider. 

One is bound to be disappointed with religious life if one persists in seeing things in the usual way. 

Religious life thrives on seeing the inherent paradoxes of life. To appreciate a paradox, one must look at it closely. It demands to be examined because how else can you make sense of "joy in suffering" or "strength in weakness" if not by looking at it and seeing beyond the seeming contradiction. Avoiding any form of suffering is an almost instinctive reaction, yet there is also such a thing as redemptive suffering. But how can that be? 

Religious life thrives on reversals. Those who mourn will be comforted. The poor shall inherit the earth. The humble will be exalted. The wise will not understand. This kind of order thwarts the logic of the world. It is a scandal to common sensibility. Yet these reversals beg one's curiosity: How can that be? 

I was young and I did not understand paradoxes or reversals. Because I did not understand, I was afraid. 

Keep Ithaca always in your mind. 

Arriving there is what you’re destined for. 

But don’t hurry the journey at all. 

Better if it lasts for years, 

so you’re old by the time you reach the island, 

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, 

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich. 

I never thought I would reach this far, nor did I even imagine that I would reach this point. The road has been a long one, and there were times when I thought of stopping and turning back. It was not easy. Many times, I felt impatient about whether this path was meaningful at all. Many times, I felt that I was missing out on a lot of things. Many times, other options were just as equally attractive. 

I was young when I began this journey. I've grown older since; in the next eight years, I will have already spent half of my life as a Jesuit. Over the years, disappointment has given way to some truth. While there were breakthrough moments that seemed extraordinary enough to sustain one's interest, for the most part, the real discoveries actually happened in the ordinary, the uninteresting, the routine, the tedious. But one does not usually see these as they happen. Sometimes, the eyes have to be washed with tears to be able to see clearly. 

Some people think that religious life is totally immune from what everyone else has to deal with. It may be true in certain matters, but I cannot totally agree with that. Life happens to everyone. There is no escaping it. Not even in religious life. Life's rawness has a way of making you honestly deal with who you are. Pain, failure, suffering, loss — they are like friends who tell you things you don't really hear from people who don't know you that well. Pain, failure, suffering, loss — they arrest your attention and focus it on what you should really be focusing on. These realities empty you out so that you can eventually be filled. 

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. 

Without her you wouldn’t have set out. 

She has nothing left to give you now. 

In two days, I will be ordained a deacon, and in the next six months, a priest. 

There is that privileged moment that occurs after being away for a long while, and home is already within sight. It is a time when one feels somewhere in between a desire to go home and a desire to just keep on going. It is a time when one recognizes that while the destination may have motivated you to begin and continue your journey; in the end, it is the journey that eventually makes the destination meaningful. 

Most people only get to see what we have become, and point to that as a manifestation of how grace has worked in our lives. Sometimes, I think that way, too. But seeing it that way is missing the real spectacle. 

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you. 

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, 

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean. 

There is a time for everything. In the same way that one cannot force a seed to grow into a plant, an insight cannot be forced if its time has not yet come. Growth involves a lot of waiting patiently, hopefully, and respectfully. My initial disappointment with Jesuit life was because I could not wait patiently, hopefully, and respectfully. 

I'm not as young as I used to be. Over the years, reality has remained the same. But I'm learning to embrace pain, failure, suffering, and loss. I'm also learning to appreciate paradoxes and reversals. In other words, I'm learning to pay close attention to life as it unveils. God is in the details of the ordinary. 

My destination is almost within sight. The paradox and reversal in my entire journey is clearer: 

God calls the unworthy; I am a sinner, yet called.