Updates - from surviving to thriving - the Serenity Prayer

This is one of those brief posts where I realise that I've not updated this little space on the Interwebs for a very long time and since I'm now on extended Christmas leave and catching my breath, it's probably the best time for me to do that. 

The period of being at a loose end has come to an end (pun not intended) and it's about time to move on. I did ask me the hard questions and part of them were answered as I would describe more fully, in the second part of this post. I was also helped by a series of particularly enlightening conversations with a partner in the law firm where I work, which has opened my eyes to a new way of doing things and understanding what life is all about. 

Suffice to say, it is only by God's grace that I pulled thru this particularly difficult time, in which He saw fit to give me a nice new Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone via the St Ignatius church Junior Youth Ministry raffle ticket draw. I was reading 'the Hobbit' on a fine Sunday morning when I got the call telling me I won the phone - which I instantly thought was a scam! Haha. Luckily despite the boy selling the raffle tickets calling me 'aunty' (wth!), I bought 2 books and well ... God knew I needed that little pick-me-up, as He always knows.  

It's not a perfect phone, but hey, it's good enough for me. And it has a GPS, which I instantly dubbed Moses (to lead me to the Promised Land). So far Moses has been all right, except for the few times when it's been quite stupid, taking me further into Puchong rather than back to Damansara. Times like these I tell Moses to stuff it and just drive my merry way. 

*** 

From surviving to thriving. I did find my answers to the hard questions in the session with Fr Matt Linn SJ end November. I discovered I enjoy making the intangible tangible. To crystallise ideas into words and concepts into narrative. 

That explains why despite the struggles I face, I am still in this profession that I am in. I find that it always begins with an idea or many ideas - what gives me joy is helping clients to clarify, crystallise and formulate their ideas using words and from there, make their ideas happen. The process is sometimes long drawn-out, and often difficult (esp where there is no precedent) but oh my, the beauty of something concluded, completed. And of course, seeking clarity in the morass of documents and papers in a due diligence exercise. It gives me that satisfaction that goes beyond the mere ka-ching of an invoice that has been settled. 

Needless to say, the care of people underscores all I have done before and all I wish to do, in the future. An expression of love, far beyond the bottomline - of which I acknowledge its due importance, that is what I am striving for. 

***

Forgiveness begins to happen when you realise you can't control people's responses and reactions. You can't force people to be kind or to love, you can only be kind to yourself and to them. One of the other things that has helped immensely thru this time has been the Serenity Prayer, and I reproduce below the original Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr:- 

GOD, grant me the serenity

to accept the thingsI cannot change, 
Courage to change thethings I can, and thewisdom to know the difference. 
Living one day at a time;Enjoying one moment at a time;Accepting hardship as thepathway to peace. 
Taking, as He did, thissinful world as it is, not as I would have it. 
Trusting that He will makeall things right if Isurrender to His Will; 
That I may be reasonably happyin this life, and supremelyhappy with Him forever inthe next. 
Amen

Updates / That wordless love / Paper v Touchscreen ***

Hello all,
it's been ages since I last updated this little space of mine on the web - a job change is what I'd like to share. 
To be honest, nobody is more surprised than I am that I am still in legal practice. If you have known me for that long and have been following my story, you would know that I never did see myself as particularly lawyerly - not too polished, slick, clever at buttering up or sharply dressed, or cunning. Or brutal, tough and conscience less, as popular view would have you believe it. 
But here I am, in practice again, working at the kind of place I didn't think I would belong in (large firm with a flurry of activity and movement and all sorts of people, from the ultra happening to the quirky to the quiet) and learning as much and as best as I can everyday. 
I do believe that God has a purpose for me to be there and in as much as there are some pretty rough days and weeks, my corpus of experience (and felt knowledge) is increasing and when the time is right, I shall be able to move on to the next stage of my life to assist others in enriching their own knowledge and carve their paths out. 
*trusting Him and knowing when the time is right* 


*** 


That wordless love - where only action can bring it into the light. 
you didn't have to, you didn't need to. but you still did.
and after a lifetime of deafness, i think i m finally learning to listen and know that in those things you did and have been doing, you were saying 'I love you' in the best way you could.


Thank you. 


***


Prayer time had been about using my smartphone - scrolling down the touchscreen to read the day's readings and reciting the prayers off the screen. 
And every now and then using the Pray-As-You-Go podcast, which I would admit has been wonderful and it's so compact, guiding you through 15 minutes (or so) of the day's reading with stirring music as accompaniment and reflective prayer. 
But nothing beats the good old fashioned paper and ink devotional and my 500 grams Bible - as I flip through the pages, I am reminded why we are a sacramental people and that it is in these very tangible and real things that we find closeness and healing and peace. 


I'll probably go on with both, and as the days become busier and rest periods shorter and shorter, I need to remember, the first fruits belong to Him, and to Him be all praise, honour and glory.


AMDG! 

Prayer - Loving from a distance

(the usual drill - credits for the pix here)

There will be times when others hurt us so badly that we're left reeling in shock,

flailing about and struggling to come to terms with what happened.

And the commandment to love seems nothing more than an impossible mockery,

something beyond our capabilities. We scream out for justice. Vengeance.

Or sit in a stunned silence, unable to respond, numb to everything.

It is in those times that I've found, prayer is loving such people from a distance.

In time, through this prayer, although the distance remains, we find forgiveness and peace.

We find that loving is not an impossible task, simply that we need to draw upon God to open our hearts

and His infinite source and supply of love. He supplies the grace, it is for us to yield to Him.

The painful feelings and memories. will be there, but they are never the end of the matter.

What is forgiveness then but another facet of love?

And forgiveness, I have found, is not just my matter,

but His, all in all.

Family Tree - Matthew West

Except for the Vampire Diaries references, this song is super awesome, and it made me cry the first time I heard it on the radio.

For those who suffer the burdens of sins passed down from the family tree, take heart that God has a plan for all of us and that He loves us. When you first realise it, you will be filled with resentment and yet, beyond that resentment, is a calling to overcome and prevail, and to put the past in its proper place. There will be many tears and recriminations, only our own flesh and blood has such power to destroy for such an extended period of time, with no let up seemingly. Strangers we can brush by, our friends perhaps a little less so. But the wounds our family inflicts stay for the longest time, til they become part of our personhood, woven into our stories, bright eyed indignation to muffled cries at night and an inchoate feeling of dissatisfaction and anger and unsettledness.

Even then, deep down, who has not truly desired leaving a legacy that is meaningful? To bring about new life? That natural instinct springs from deep within us, finding ways to override all that disappointment and failures before. And that instinct can only find its complete fulfilment in Christ, who first leads us to realising that there is a bigger life ahead,a truer, deeper and much more lovely life that begins in forgiveness.

Sometimes i think - those who hurt us, provide the wood for us us to build a bridge to understanding others better. Each time we seek to forgive, we nail the pieces of wood together and make them sturdy, something constructive, not just ugly pieces of driftwood, useless and full of splinters.

Desolation / Entanglement / Finding my way back to God

Hello all faithful readers of my blog - it has been that long since I last updated! This in part to my finishing up the LLM over at NUS. Commencement is on 5th July, Deo Gratias as He had truly given me the grace to complete the journey, especially during the last few rough weeks.

Looking back in order for me to look ahead, I've chosen the image of a spiral staircase (this photo was taken at the National Museum of Singapore which I visited a week after my last exam paper) to illustrate my journey thus far.

The time in Singapore has been much more of desolation rather than consolation, and I have often felt painfully lonely rather than blissfully solitary, missing all the things and the life I knew before back home and experiencing difficulty fitting into the community here, Catholic or otherwise.
At other times, I just remember working working working as I was wont to do to forget the sorrow as well as being fuelled by a competitive Type A streak which I had thought was long dormant within me. I am not descending into a self-pitying rant here, only chronicling these struggles helps me understand why I made these mistakes and why I did what I did. The answer is always in the pain.

So one thing led to another, and I found myself in an emotional entanglement, placing divine hopes on a very human person. Disappointment ensued from sins of omission, sins of commission. I learned that the only way to forgiveness is to pray for the person(s) involved and I did so, allowing me to let go and even laugh a little at the absurdity of it all.
As the initial flame burst of wounded emotions and a sense of betrayal died down, I stared at the embers and realised that my soul-deep loneliness had led me there, causing me to see what was never there, and to try and create an enclave of happiness to shield myself from the gaping empty hole I felt inside me. But it couldn't work, because I was frantically doing this without listening to God's gentle warnings against it - whether in my heart deep down, or my family or friends.

The embers are fast becoming ashes now, and I am finding my way back to God. Where once I was a shivering soul trying to warm myself by the light of a candle (pretty impossible!), I will now seek the fire of His love to warm my heart, my soul, my mind. It's not disdaining human company, but learning to move from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, from illusion to prayer (as Henri Nouwen put in his absolutely stirring and lovely book, 'Reaching Out'). He must come first and from Him, all goodness and wholeness flows.

Why then the spiral staircase? Because it's me ascending towards God, as I go higher up the staircase, I am looking down at my life, the same old issues and problems but it all gets so much clearer with this renewed understanding. :)

Letting the heart catch up

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of - Blaise Pascal

As Pascal quite rightly pointed out, the heart and reason run on separate lines - and often, the mind is way ahead of the heart. This is most true when it comes to forgiveness, or what we think is forgiveness. Yes, we know that not forgiving is bad for you. It's wrong to hold grudges, it's best to let go and let bygones be bygones. You can't change the past. It's over anyway. And so your mind has neatly worked it out and you congratulate yourself for being able to let go.

Oho. Come the heart, which never forgets. Which feels the sting of injustice and seethes with anger over wrongs done and endured. Time is not the great healer, it only numbs. So when you do look and feel deeper, to your horror, you find that you are still angry. Unforgiving. Resentful. How and why?

And so, we know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart. Pascal comes to the rescue again. The truth is that we have rationalised the issue, but not forgiven. Forgiveness needs to come from the heart, to be true, and this can take a very long time, especially where the hurts are deep and long-running. We need to let our hearts catch up with our minds and its splendid reasons to forgive and let go. And we can start by acknowledging the extent of our efforts this far without going in deeper is akin to putting a band aid on a breaking heart. Someday we're going to bleed to death and we wouldn't even know why.

Walking around wounded we are, that's what.

(picture credits here)

Book review : - What's So Amazing about Grace?

(Picture credits here)

We often hear that hymn, 'Amazing Grace' being sung at church - but have we ever asked ourselves just what's so amazing about grace? Philip Yancey has, and the end result of his question is the book aptly titled 'What's so Amazing about Grace?' '

For those who may not know him, Philip Yancey is a prolific author of many Christian (although not Catholic) books, ranging from 'Disappointment with God' to 'The Jesus I never knew' and 'Where is God when it hurts'?

The book begins with a description of 'Grace' as the Last Best Word. Grace is described as amazing, encapsulating the essence of the Gospel -a thing which can only be found in Church, even as the world can do so many good things but cannot offer grace. He contrasts it with 'ungrace', a concept elaborated further on. Nevertheless, Yancey offers the caution that he would rather convey than explain grace - and the rest of the book is spent doing just that.

In this regard, Yancey adopts a reverent and yet exuberant tone in his writing. - He is awe-inspired and yet brimming with excitement in sharing with the rest of the world what grace is.

The main text is divided into 4 parts:

1. How Sweet the Sound
2. Breaking the Cycle of Ungrace
3. The Scent of Scandal
4. Grace Notes for a Deaf World
   

In Part 1,Yancey uses Karen Blixen's tale of Babette's Feast to illustrate what grace is. Essentially, it is a gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient. It is entirely free. Grace is in Yancey's words, 'Christianity's best gift to the world', far stronger than vengeance, racism or hate. However, it is in Church that grace is so rarely found, instead 'ungrace' abounds whether by way of strict legalism or a lack of unity. He then goes on to show how guilt exposes a hunger for grace and by extension, love. Yancey builds on this theme by sharing a modernised version of the Prodigal Son parable and ends with the proposition that grace defeats mathematical understanding - God already loves us as much as an infinite God can love.

Part 2 opens with a heart-rending family tale of hatred and anger with no happy ending in sight - caught in the cycle of ungrace. Yancey ends the tale with the observation that grace is unfair, and unreasonable following from the previous chapter. He then makes the point that forgiveness is the only remedy for ungrace. It is an unnatural act, but grace lies in the act of taking the initiative to forgive, defying the entirely natural law of retribution and fairness. He proceeds to argue a strong case why we should forgive - for Christ through His becoming human now understands and makes it possible for us to live free of guilt and be able to forgive in turn. Yancey takes this personal theme and extends it to nations across the canvas of history where forgiveness features - World War II, the fight for equal rights for blacks in the 60s and the late Pope John Paul II's attempted assassination.

The next Part talks about a place for people who don't fit in - what does Grace say about the deviants from the norm and sinners? It makes room for them, and helps us heal our vision to see and love them for who they are. Yancey cautions, however, that grace is not a 'get-out-of-jail' card which allows us to continue living in sin as a life built on love of God soon makes that impossible. Conversely, overly strict legalism pushes grace away - pride and competition renders God but a faraway concept.

Finally, the last few chapters cover how we can make grace a part of this world - Yancey begins with a story of a childhood hero who has now fallen, and takes refuge in a flawed morality instead of grace. Among others, he talks about how living a truly Christian life is akin to 'patches of green' in an inhospitable climate and how grace is in itself a turning to God for grace, who loves us despite our defects and sees our neighbours as sinners, equally loved by God. in short, a grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through "grace-tinted lenses".

All in, reading this book was an emotional experience, with many of Yancey's stories striking a chord in me - in particular the tale of the family trapped in a cycle of ungrace. Although his attempts to make this a global issue is uneven at times, he has mostly succeeded in making the point that grace is the calling for every Christian, every man and woman in this world.
This is not a book about lists and things to do, it engages the heart and mind in considering the world, the people around us and ourselves, even God in a new and clearer light.

A highly recommended read - have your initial ideas challenged and move closer to Him, discarding that mathematics and logic of fairness per se!

of Love leading on to Faith and Hope

1 Peter 4:8
Above all preserve an intense love for each other, since love covers over many a sin.

it's hard to love, and harder still to love intensely those who cause us the most pain. and intense love is often the doorway to intense pain, as is the case with our loved ones (think of our other half, our family members, our closest friends).
we seem to give the power and permission to those closest to us cut deep into the very fabric of our souls through their words and deeds, whether thoughtless or with malicious intent. and how the wounds bleed ... ! they love marks which no stranger could have ever left.

this is the kind of love which comes with a price - and persistence in such love is built on the foundation of persistent faith and hope that there will come a breakthrough - forgiveness, reconciliation, healing for those who are in such pain they cannot but help wounding others in the process.

this is the kind of love which covers over a multitude of sins. the kind of love our Saviour had for all of us, which we are called to imitate and bring into this world.

what's worth starting is worth ending well. while relationships rupture through sin, we can continue to pray and love as best as we can, trusting in God's promise of healing and wholeness in His own time.