Gratitude and Birthdays

I didn't take pictures of last night.  The laughs.  The jokes.  The hi-fives.  The colorful drinks.  It has been quite a while since I just let myself enjoy the moment and really appreciate the company of friends.  The past few months have been loaded as I have written in the last few posts.  But last night, gave me something most unexpected.  Last night, I felt my birthday.  

And feeling my birthday, means feeling grateful.  

I am grateful that I am alive and that I have been able to hurdle a lot of challenges that could have brought me down in an instant.  I am grateful that I am able to find my place despite the unstructured environment at work.  I am grateful that I know who I can be myself with even though I continue to not be so sure of who I am.  I am grateful that I have bridged gaps in my family and other relationships.  I am grateful that I have the strength to help others even when I am not always good at it. 

I am grateful that I can write even if the strings of words come out like a torrent of jumbled up thoughts.  I am grateful that there are people who continue to inspire me to write and remain authentic to my true nature.  I am grateful that there are people who pray for me and believe in me.  I am grateful that there are people I can dream with.  I am grateful that even if my life runs through crooked lines, God always makes it straight.  

I marvel at how only a few hours of laughter and genuine togetherness can make up for 9 hours of heavy  pondering on work issues.  

I want to be able to keep on living and writing and believing.  Hopefully when I stand before Peter's gates, I can peacefully say, "I've loved." 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Art and Business

Letting myself unwind for the past couple of hours after an intense dialogue with executives on business strategy and leadership philosophies.  I ran into this video.  Aside from faith, what motivates me is my passion for art or any related artistic experience.  Finding a relationship between deepening my faith and learning about how artistic experiences can help this deepening process has been an ongoing pursuit for me since I graduated from business school.   I've realized how art can help me become more grounded and reflective in anything I do which translates to almost a prayerful experience.  This helps me understand why faith is needed in pursuing any experience and in understanding the aspects that strengthen faith, I am able to keep up with my perseverance of pursuing any experience.  An elective I took up in business school called "Self-Mastery and the Arts" has convinced me how important the impact of art is in one's life.  In that study, I...
Read more

Anxious No More

Image
There are many interesting things that have been happening to me these past 3 weeks. It's been a journey out of and into another chapter of my life.  And this chapter is the chapter that makes me face that thing I want to do the most.   Write.   The stories on this page have been slow because I've been trying to discover what it is that I want to really write about and when I ask myself this question, I begin to ask myself the most important question: what am I really about?  It doesn't feel so difficult to ask now compared to before.  I'd squirm and I'd let my gaze wander off into a blank wall or I'd stiffen up and change the subject because I don't really want to dig in too deep and ask myself that because I fear the answer to that question.  I fear having to say it out loud.  I fear having to type it out here.   What am I really about?  I don't really know.   I don't really have it all figured out just yet.  It'...
Read more

Lectio Divina | A Reflection on Yehuda Amichai's "The Amen Stone"

Image
It took me a week to finally choose a poem I resonated with among the six poems I was assigned to reflect on through the ancient practice of sacred reading called  lectio divina .  The experience of being in a writing course (albeit online) has given me the liberation to explore the power of words and unearth the gift I know I've long locked within.  The gift of realizing I have the same power as well. My writing process was a painful unraveling.  I could not write immediately.  I could not catch the thought and pin it down on paper.  I tried reading other books that would get the flow of creativity going and to no avail the anxiety caught on and forced me to take a break.  So I did.  And went back on it again this weekend.  I had to recalibrate my mind for 2 hours.  Removing the residue of the business mind that forces me to constrict my definitions of life in a less human sounding voice.  I began my  meditatio  o...
Read more