i write to believe.

Today is the 9th day of Awaken.   And I find myself at a pause pondering over these words "He sees us in our fullness--no part of us is unawake to Him." I led such a tiring day.  In fact my weariness started last night.  I had some issues to settle and the work today seemed to just pile up with so much urgency that even if I had wanted to slow down and appreciate my remaining days before a month long vacation, I couldn't slow down.  I have asked myself what it would take to just find the balance I need to appreciate this life.  This pace. When the busy-ness starts to eat up your waking moments, it becomes this creature that controls.  Then you start to forget that there were more important things to be preoccupied with than all these anxieties. I forgot the peaceful rhythm because I had wanted to "get things over with" and with that felt the impatience for unresolved issues creeping in.  Peace has been robbed and for most of the day, it looked...

A nudge has prompted me to write on this page again.  Perhaps it's a buried hope.  That ounce of hope I thought I no longer had but has been unearthed.  I start with small steps.  Devoting some time on the reflections that are leading me to understand that my burdens come from a place that needs to be further healed.  So I walk this journey again.  Slowly and trying to let go of the burdens little by little.   She helps me walk.  Believes in me and tells me that I am not alone.  Many have gone through this as well and many have overcome.   On my 7th day and reflecting to hearing Jesus' heart beat.  The one thing I needed to surrender to Him this weekend was this great big fear of not being able to keep my life under control.  I've hobbled my way to believing that this career and this current stature I possess brings me the success I could be proud of.  I thought that being able to work this hard and ...

The Youth Encounter Weekend just ended today and I am quite hesitant to go back to the workplace and leave the wonderful experience of solely focusing on the one thing I love doing the most.  Youth Ministry.  On the drive back home a couple of us have been talking about full time youth ministry and how we can make it happen in this apostolate's generation.  For some of us this has already been a long time vision.  But it remains a dream.  So tonight, I find myself lifting up this dream and hoping for God to bless it and be the Maker I need Him to be. This is an excerpt of a post I wrote in my old blog.  It was written on October 4, 2005 after the 3rd Youth Encounter (the first one I served in).   Given that my writing has been cooperating with me lately, I reminisce about what I wrote back then and find myself feeling the same things tonight.  It's been 7 years.  I cannot believe that it has been that long and yet the wonderful bles...

This year's WalkWay happened at 9:30am this morning.  We were able to grab a breather from all the work (this is prior to finding out that work tomorrow is cancelled).  I was determined to make the reflections find their way into a point of embedding. Here's some photos of that walk.  That reminder that I am the Beloved of a Savior.

I have been tinkering around the keyboard for a couple of weeks now.  To no avail.  I cannot catch my thoughts.  Or perhaps I am not satisfied with what I catch and to my dismay, I just hit the delete button until what is left of my draft is a blank screen. It's 8:00am on Good Friday.  I've barely been able to reflect on anything of relevance to the Holy Week and I'm desperate for anything that will give me a little bit more meaning so that I can carry on till Easter. The past few weeks have been busy.  It's almost that desperate kind of busy where all you do is catch up on the deliverables expected of you.  No time for breath.  No time for life.  Almost suffocated.  But the heart of a volunteer never gives up.  I suppose I got that from ministry work and now I'm applying it to a work environment that continues to be my most difficult cross. The passion of Christ has been something I've always revered only from the dist...

The saga of work environments continue. The past week has been filled with a mix and match of different things.  Activities that allowed me to envision a future of opportunities in the creative industry and activities that kept my mind locked in the unending attempt to fix the present day toil to produce "our daily bread". My interior resolve to keep moving along despite the tremendous heat-scorching discussions about strategy, method and beliefs continue to stretch me to my limits.  What an intellectual battle this is.  Not to mention a spiritual one. While I attempt to remain what the Good Book says "a peacemaker" so that I may be graced with the Blessedness to be called "sons of God"  I am finding it to be such a great challenge to keep my "own peace" amidst all this. Woven into an intricate thread of relationships, I am trying to find a better title for myself just to describe what it is that I do.  And I feel that it is imp...

The past week has gone on with a series of stories and changing events.  One minute I'm focusing on counting machine hours and now I'm focused on understanding the creative industries that the business of my work intersects with.   In the middle of it, I try to keep up with the daily life of a faithful and miss out unfortunately on some of the things that would have increased my understanding about the mysteries of this life.  I am beginning to realize that if I want to deeply meditate on the faithful's life, it will take so much time that I need to be doing just that and not do anything else.   I easily get drawn in to things that require pondering.  It's almost an addiction.  It's like how I prefer to just read instead of go out to the mall and walk around.  How I prefer to write instead of engage with conversations that bore me.   I was participating in this Skype conversation between my uncle and my Mom this morning.  It was...

This morning I ponder upon one of the meditations written by Francis Fernandez in "In Conversation with God".  I have forgotten to read yesterday's words and so I catch up on my devotion by squeezing it in today.  How apt that he quote from Escriva's "Furrow" and say,  The Lord needs strong and courageous souls who refuse to come to terms with mediocrity, but who will be able to enter all kinds of environments with a sure step. {Josemaria Escriva, The Furrow, 405} I've been constantly been entering into all kinds of environments the past few weeks.  Having decided to continue on with youth ministry has given me quite a lot of time and strength to help the younger ministers steady their walk as they sift through the ministry issues and the path they want to walk.  It's taken me from sitting with them in their musings and praying with them in their intellectual struggles to meeting with them almost everyday of the week to simply hear them out...

It's hard to wash away the residue of busy-ness when I don't get into a moment of real silence.  Thoughts just barge in unwanted like, the list of reports due on Tuesday, or the unfinished timelines for a sales plan. This week, I had to get into that mind-frame of shutting out everything else just so I can calculate the hours of how long a project runs until its finished and how much more do we lack to reach a month's worth of sales.   Somewhere in between is the effort to fight off having to struggle with decisions that do not make sense and the question of how long till the realization of support be heeded.  It is that effort of balancing not having to retaliate to every person who can't quite grasp your situation that they unreasonably make conclusions of your lack of progress or your lack of compliance so that you can be more Christ-like in your openness to understand them and in a way find a solution that can appease your own misgivings and theirs.  ...

Reading Christa Well's blog tonight reminded me how I've been absent from my writing the past couple of days and how I need to remain faithful to the journey of being better at my craft.  It's plain and simple.  I write to believe.   She puts it in a something I can easily digest tonight ,  I write songs to communicate with other people, but I write also to imbed more deeply in my own soul the truths I know I'm in need of.   I've gotten back into the daily grind and it's been just two weeks since my vacation and I feel quite detached from the solace of the holiday.  A part of me feels disappointed that I seem to have lost "this peace" but a part of me feels hopeful.  I seem to be moving into a new thing.  It feels like God is doing something new.  While the circumstances surrounding my situation at work seems to not have fully turned around and while I struggle with these feelings of discouragement, I am slowly finding a foothold i...

The mass this morning was beautiful.  I'm glad we went to Pink Sisters today.  It's always uplifting to hear mass at their chapel.  One of the things I love about the priest's homily that encouraged me today was how he pointed out that we often celebrate the new year with so much noise and definitely want to welcome it with a big bang, yet he challenges us to be like Mary, who welcomed her new life in a posture of reflectiveness and silence.   I've found myself wanting to be surrounded by more silence as of late.  Not so much to withdraw from noise but to gain a silence of heart so that I can engage more meaningfully with those around me.  This Christmas vacation in Cebu has given me that.  I still struggle with keeping the peace and often find myself anxious about certain thoughts that cause me discomfort (mostly about work) but I've realized today that when I simply keep thinking about God, His presence permeates the darkness and lifts the heav...

I touched down at Cebu this morning at 30 minutes past 12 noon.  I was an hour delayed.  The pile up of planes waiting for their chance to make the lift off on the run way numbered to about 4 in line.  It took us an hour waiting.  The trip wasn't so peaceful.  Beside me were two tourists trying to figure out their map. A baby couldn't stop crying on the seat behind.  But miraculously I managed to finish 1 chapter of a book.  I was trying to silence my mind from thinking too much.  The things I'll be missing out on.  The things I'll be waiting on.  The things that should be unfolding while I'm gone.  There's so much that's happened and I don't really know where to place myself when 2012 begins.  All I know is that I've made some decisions today and that letter I wrote yesterday has already been sent. I pray for better opportunities of growth.  I pray for some kind of fulfillment. The whole day was spent in the ho...

Reading Ann Voskamp's blog this morning has given me hope in my current situation of being sifted in an experiencing of transition and the changing faces of relationship.  Admittedly it has been difficult to get into the Christmas spirit with all the work that has piled up and all the issues that I have faced.  From my  Google Reader, her post's title cried out for attention. "when its hard to believe in miracles this Christmas." She wrote about her visit to the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I liked this part the most. “I thought they would be one long scroll,” a son murmurs.   “I didn’t know they’d look so… ”   “Fragile.” His brother finds the word for him.   “Oh, but see…” I slowly trace the outline of the fragment on the glass.    “Aren’t these the strongest Words ever written? Words that have beaten back time, that have spoken of Him beyond time Who steps into time, to deliver us out of time… Centuries of humanity ...

taken at home, by the altar. May 2008 Looking through old posts today feel like following breadcrumbs that lead back to home.  This one was an excerpt I got from reading Paulo Coelho back in September 2008. We go out into the world in search of our dreams and ideals, although we often know we put away in inaccessible places, all that which is within our reach. When we discover our mistake, we start to think we’ve lost too much time looking far and wide for something which was nearby; and this is why we allow ourselves to be overcome by a sense of guilt, for past mistakes, for the useless search, for the grief caused.    But that’s not really true: although the treasure is buried in your home, you’ll only find it when you distance yourself. If Peter hadn’t experienced the pain of negation, he would never have been chosen as head of the Church. If the prodigal son hadn’t abandoned everything, he would never have been joyously received by his father. There are c...

There is another kind of martyrdom. It is the martyrdom of facing oneself, one's emotional self. No one wants to face his emotional self. Nobody wants to admit that he or she acts at times like a 10 year old, that they have different moods, that they are afraid of the silliest things. We don't like to face these facts. This is the beginning of our martyrdom. The second stage of the journey toward martyrdom is being torn apart between your emotional states and knowing yourself as you are. The third stage is an ability to really face oneself without all the emotional camouflage. Though painful, it is a stage so filled with grace, that in a sense, it ceases to be a martrydom and becomes a sort of oneness with God. Now one looks at one's sins truly and honestly. That looking is another phase of the martyrdom. But one is no longer upset or in any despair. The martyrdom is being oiled by the love of God. It no longer rubs abrasively, hurtfully. There descends an understandi...

The past few days have been extremely challenging for me.  So many Christmas parties lined up one after another and there has been very little time to take a breather.  The work environment at the office hasn't gotten any better and I'm starting to feel the weariness from carrying all that "heavy load". Today, I made a decision.  Today I decided not to do any work at all.  And while I continue to worry about the events of the coming weeks, I'm standing by my decision.  I don't want to keep doing work that no longer makes sense to me.  I don't want to keep doing work that feels like I'm a puppet on a string.  Today starts the prayer where I ask for new opportunities that will breathe in a me a fresh new beginning. Where I ask for illumination and wisdom from the Spirit so I know which way to walk.   Today I start the offering to heed the words of Christ when He says, "Cast your burdens upon me, those who are heavily laden and I will give ...

One of the things I'm trying to get myself to do is to have a consistent prayer life.  It's a must have.  Over the years I've realized that compared to night caps, vice, and impulsive shopping, there is no better way to find peace of mind than a good hour of silence and prayer.   I've often likened my writing life to my prayer life.  It comes and goes.  Like the ebb and flow of tides.  I lose the anchor and I drift like a log floating aimlessly at sea.  When this happens I know I've either not written enough or not prayed enough.   This afternoon I come across someone who has known the importance of prayer.  His name is Joey Cumagun and he was my highschool professor.  He is known as the Praying Runner and his blog is a tribute to the sport of running in memory of his wife who passed away early this year after battling 11 years of breast cancer.  I am moved by his honesty and his transparency to share the grief he goes thr...

I got my first writing assignment at 12:00mn my time.  But I was sleeping then and was just able to open it early this morning.  I am too eager to delve into it and read all 6 poems through the practice of lectio divina.  But I held back.  I don't want to rush into such a sacred moment most especially since I know I'm not in a complete disposition to appreciate the words and soak in them during a busy weekday.  There is still so much to improve on time management. Yesterday's weight was primarily caused by my inability to handle pressure from other people who had a different work rhythm.  Perhaps you can also say, a different work ethic or a different work value.  I had an early unexpected meeting that asked for the extraction of an urgent report.  Suffice to say, this report is indeed important but what didn't make sense to me was how many ways can such data be manipulated until the outcome is satisfactory?  It feels like pounding sa...

It is a matter of great importance that I come to know the Savior's love completely.  I realized that the anxiety I am not able to overcome is because of the lack of knowing His love.  I tread this crooked road with small and weak steps.  Bombarded by everyday tumult.  The chaos of decisions and the paradox of choices remain such a prison.   I am like this pendulum swinging back and forth.  Loving the work.  Hating the work.  Enlightened and one point.  Distressed in another.  Forgive my inconsistencies.  I am only trying to figure myself out.  And for this I realize that I find it such a great ordeal to write because I am not able to get a complete hold of what I need to write about.   It is Halloween and I'm supposed to get ready to go to a meeting at 9am.  We're having breakfast in Pancake house to meet about a possible sustainable fundraiser for the youth ministry.  Yesterday it was a meeting with t...

It has taken me two weeks to regain the balance and find my way back to this page reflecting on quiet things.  I've done a lot of writing about work.  I've scratched the surface of snippets of thoughts and drawing board ideas of what I would like to muse about.  But I haven't gotten back to this page to write about what I would like to believe in.   Today this writer encourages me to take a look into it again.   Mary DeMuth's article stopped me on my tracks.  I'm supposed to watch my favorite TV series as of the moment but I decided to put it off and think about her words.   You're probably called to write if: People tell you they are changed or challenged by reading your words. Professionals in the writing industry (agents, editors, publishers) have commented on your writing in a very positive way.  You weather criticism about your work with grace and are determined to always write better. You are passionate about the writing cr...