Knots Form Relationships

I never knew how much work one has to put into tying knots until last weekend at our Lenten retreat. One of the activity prepared for the kids was making knotted rosaries.  I’ve learned it takes as much time and effort to make a knot as to untangle one.  This is similar to the jumble of knots in our lives.  Sometimes it can be seen as a negative metaphor, but not all knots are bad.  We use the expression “tying the knot” to allude to getting married.  Knots form relationships. 

 

 

Imagine a group of young adults and kids sitting together trying and struggling desperately to tie rosary knots.  It may sound and look easy, but simple tasks can create intricate bonds.  Through the spinning, twisting and turning of the strands, our lives became intertwined.  Not all the knots are evenly separated or the same size, but they are connected to one another.  Similarly, all the people we meet are unique, but connects us together.  That’s what God desires of us, to get closer and be knotted with us.  Relationship breeds love and love is the most powerful, transformative force that can tie and wrap hearts.   

 

I made a comment saying if God wants us to pray, he would have made the rosaries easier to make.  But in a more serious note, the best prayer we can give to God is to make time for one another, fully listen, and smile with our eyes.  Prayer is not only about the act, but the being.  It is about being in the presence and be wholly present so that we can be in relationship with one another.  This is what almsgiving is about.  To give not just from our surplus, but from our core so that it makes us uncomfortable.  When we share ourselves to others, we deepen our relationships with them.  This goes the same for God because meetings, papers, classes and jobs will go away, but our relationship with God will be forever. 

 

Lord, help me to tenderly draw near today, to You and to others.

 

 



This prayer is about the other type of knots, but it's such a great prayer not to share:

 

 

Adorn Your Brokenness With Gold

“Despite what you may believe, you can disappoint people and still be good enough.  You can make mistakes and still be capable and talented.  You can let people down and still be worthwhile and deserving of love.  Everyone has disappointed someone they care about.  Everyone messes up, lets people down, and make mistakes.  Not because we’re inadequate or fundamentally inept, but because we’re imperfect and fundamentally human.  Expecting anything different is setting yourself up for failure.”  - Daniell Koepke

 

We tend to focus more on our brokenness in life rather than giving a fair balance to our gifts and strengths.  Many times, we feel like we don’t belong, not good enough or not loved.  That yearning for our definition of what’s perfect for us leaves no room for what it means to be human.  We want to do things to make of our identity, but we are human ‘beings’ and not human ‘doings’ for a reason. 

 

Another factor that ties us down is fear.  The fear of failure, misunderstood, abandoned.  The fear of being a disappointment and being vulnerable.  Fear confines us so much that sometimes we fail to notice that the opposite of fear is love.  Iris Murdoch wrote: “A common soldier dies without fear, Jesus died afraid!”  He struggled with fear to the point of sweating blood.  But fear did not deter him, love overcame that. 

 

With all of the pressures of life, we often break down and don’t know what to do with our brokenness.  One of the songs that I ran into this weekend that helps understand that dilemma is called “Japanese Bowl” by Peter Mayer.  Peter’s lyrics talks about how he is like one of the ancient Japanese bowls that is broken, but adorned with gold between the cracks.  This process is known as Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer resin mixed with gold, silver or platinum.  I find that to be a beautiful image.  The point was not to be afraid or ashamed and hide the cracks or throw the broken pieces away.  But to make them shine even more!  Each of our broken pieces in life gives us an opportunity to look deep down inside of us and do some self-reflection.  No matter the amount of cracks we amassed in our lives, the gold makes us whole again.  This is the Paschal Mystery, Jesus himself became broken at the cross for us to become whole again. 

 

Even though we will never be the same again with the cracks, we are indeed still whole.  Through our experiences, we become more beautiful and more unique than we were first created.  Our broken fibers can be mended and put back together artfully through time and persistence.  We are left with a unique mark in us made of gold.  This is one way of celebrating our humanity.  The cracks remind us that we are all humans and for it is God alone who can make perfect of our weaknesses.  So what can we do with our brokenness?  Embrace them and fill them with gold.

 

DAY 4: CONNECT #40acts

Not until I graduated college and moved to Chicago, I didn’t realize how important it was to connect.  Because my family, friends and the usual surroundings that I’m used to are so far away from me, I take fewer things for granted.  I enjoy reconnecting with people every time I come back to Seattle.  The constant coming and going does take a toll on me sometimes because people’s lives are constantly moving and changing.  When I finally finish catching up, I have to leave so the endless cycle seems to circulate itself when I come back again.  I guess partly it’s the life that I have chosen.  Like any vocations, along with the many joys, there are sacrifices.  I miss a lot of life events of those that I care about.  I’m not there as often so I don’t know the inside jokes.  But it’s easy to look at the glass as half empty and forget the bottom half sometimes.

The theme for today is connecting.  We in the United States do a bad job at this.  It is unusual for a person to initiate a conversation with someone sitting on a bus or train on their way to work because we are loyal in keeping our urban solitude commandment.  Thanks to technological advances, physical distance doesn’t mean much anymore because our neighbors can be physical close to us for years and we still aren’t as close to them in relationship as we are to someone who is thousands of miles away.  I envy other cultures that are more communal when I travel outside the U.S.  Sometimes I yearn to be acknowledged, to say “hi” to and being asked “how are you?”  I love hugs and smiles, it brighten my day. 

I say this because I wish I knew all of these things ten years ago.  It was about ten years ago that my family lived next door to an Irish-American family.  They had four daughters, one in particular had pretty blue eyes.  I can still remember and visualize even today holding her because she was probably 5 or 6 at the time. And just like that, 10 years later, I recently found out that she took her own life at a mere age of 16.  Thinking back, I regret not keeping in touch and reconnecting when we moved out that neighborhood.  I really wish I did because maybe I could have changed her mind, or at least be there to tell her in her last moments of life how much I loved her.  Maybe that would change something, or at least made her feel that she's not alone.

Of course life is full of “could have’s” and “should have’s” but the past can be looked at as a precious gift in itself.  I will always have that image of me holding her in my arms.  What gives me hope is that I know at this moment, she is in arms that are more tender than mine, more loving, and more gentle.  However, consoling as that may be, it doesn’t fully take the pain away.  When someone we care about dies, it leaves a scar in our heart.  This is especially agonizing when the death is from suicide.  But in the end, if we truly believe our God is one who is loving, compassionate, and understanding, we can rest assured that through God’s infinite mercy, my beautiful blue-eyed girl will be embraced by arms far gentler than mine running to hold her.       

DAY 3: BLESSINGS #40acts

The theme for the third day is “Tool Up” which I interpreted it as blessings because all my experiences, skills, faith, resources, intelligence, passions and networks are really God’s gifts for me.  I am supposed to list them and bless someone with one of them for today.  Since many of you know my head is very inflatable at times so I’ll spare you from being too conceited and talking about myself for ten pages.  I’ll just be brief and list three.

1. My family, friends and community… there is just no way I am who I am today without their love, support and care.  In this mix are also the students I have taught and my beloved kids, who aren’t kids anymore. 

2. My passion… ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a missionary.  I wanted to be an instrument of God’s peace.  My passion is why I am doing what I am doing today.  The meaning of my life is to recognize my gifts and talents, the purpose of my life to give them all away.  My vocation is to be a prophet of love, servant of reconciliation and visionary of hope. 

3. My bed… I spend a third of my life on it, I can’t live without it.  It’s my favorite place to pray and reflect.  It’s where I do a lot of my reading and writing.  Some of my favorite poetry pieces I write were born from my bed.

My utmost piece of all has to be the “Butterfly Poem.”  Every time I share it with people it always make them smile.  Hope it can do the same for you.

THE BUTTERFLY POEM

Look it's butter,

No, it's a fly.

NO! It's a butterfly!

 

DAY 2: GENEROSITY #40acts

I’m supposed to get a jar today to put spare change in.  I thought I would promote Operation Rice Bowl instead since our family participates in that every year.  I have yet to go and grab one so I put a generic picture.  If you’re looking for charities to give to this Lent, I would highly suggest Catholic Relief Service (http://crs.org/), Compassion (http://www.compassion.com/) and Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/).  CRS is one of those best charities I know and the people there and the work they do are amazing.

It always makes me feel guilty when I’m approached by a panhandler and I have to say no to them.  This is partly because I doubt their authenticity of really being in need or that they are just trying to feed their addictions.  Of course not all panhandlers are dishonest.  In fact, most of the panhandlers I actually encountered seem genuine.  But there’s something about not wanting to feel cheated or used that refrain me from giving out so often.  The whole point of this is really not about “me”.  When we give, we are being in solidarity with our sisters and brothers who are less fortunate than us.  The Catholic Social Teachings call us to have preferential option for the poor and imitate the love of Christ through others.  This does not mean we have to give to every person we see that asks us for money.  No, that is rather absurd because there will always be poor people.  But as Christians, we are called to be charitable, with our money, our time, and our love.  Sometimes people just want our undivided attention to talk to so we give them our full presence.  Generosity is love expressed outward in a smile, a hug or a prayer.  Even Jesus did not heal everyone.  We recognize our limitations as human beings and give in ways our vocations lead us.  That can be giving out money, volunteering in a food pantry, visiting the elderly, cleaning dishes for our family, or simply loving ourselves more.  To love, one has to know what love is by loving ourselves (BUT NOT TOO MUCH!).

Do Lent Generously, #40acts

For the next 40 days, I thought I would challenge myself and commit to doing Lent generously.  When I first saw this http://www.40acts.org.uk/the-challenge/, I thought how wonderful it would be to give back, do good and live generously.  But 40 days is a long time, so pray for me to make it to at least day 7, so I can make up an excuse that I have completed it since 7 is biblically a number of completion. 

Day 1: GRATITUDE

For the first day I’m supposed to create a journal and begin a gratitude list.  I keep an electronic journal so I took a picture of my computer and a listography book that I adore. 

Gratitude is nonetheless the essence of our faith.  Eucharist means thanksgiving.  But often times, it is still hard for me to thank people.  This isn’t because I am not grateful and am not able to express my gratitude, it is because I have the tendency to ask for help only as the last resort.  I want to prove to myself that I am not dependent on anyone and can handle things by myself most of the time.  Therefore, a “thank you” means I am no longer in control because I am not self-sufficient. 

But thank goodness there are people in my life that are able to smack the arrogance and pride out of me sometimes.  The kind and generous people that humble me, the holy people that inspire me, and the whole-hearted people that love me.  They remind me what it truly means to live a Eucharistic life, to always praise God and give thanks to the abundance of God’s goodness.  The Lord gives and the Lord… gives some more.  Blessed be the name of the Lord!

And how blessed am I for having awesome people that donated bibles for my confirmation class.  They arrived today and I am genuinely thankful for your generosity.  This is the fruits of your kindness, not pictured below are ten little Mother Teresa prayer booklets for Lent that are coming (I had extra money left for this so our God is not a “God-of-just-enough” but a “God-of-more-than-enough”!).  I was also gifted this crown of thorns from the Bethlehem area.  I’m truly grateful and thankful for your support in spreading the Joy of the Gospel.  My prayers are with you during this holy season.         

 

They say 'giving is better than receiving' so I always choose the lesser of the two and give other people a chance to do the better.  The small sacrifices I make on a daily basis :)  Have a blessed Lent everyone!

Finding God Between The Sheeps

Sleep…..  We spend about a third of our life in this condition.  That means, since I’m 24, I can claim that I’ve spent approximately 8 years sleeping.  And if you know me well, that number is probably higher.  But the point is, that’s a lot of sleeping.  And yet, we tend to ignore this part of our lives. 

Every day, I spend some good number of my life doing explicitly religious activities.  Whether it is worshipping, celebrating the Eucharist, praying, adoration, spiritual reading or school, I have a set of mental theology that accompanies with what I do.  But I probably spend twice as much time a week sleeping and yet, I have never thought about it theologically.

C.J. Mahaney in his book titled Humility: True Greatness, says that sleep is a daily gift from God.  Psalm 127:2 says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved in his sleep.”  Sleep is a gift so graciously provided in God’s lavish generosity and love that if one neglects this gift, they will suffer from anxiety and health consequences.  God is good and sleep is part of God’s goodness to us.  The importance of having a proper night’s rest reflects not only onto our physical well-being, but also our spiritual wellness.  Therefore, recognizing the theological significance of our slumber is essential.   

There are three theological points that I want to make about sleep.  First, God does not sleep.  We are able to rest because we know that God is on the watch and God is in control.  Our God is the God of the all-nighter.  When we sleep peacefully, it can be a manifestation of our trust in God and we are able to renew our mind with the calm assurances of the promises of God.  It reminds us of our dependence on God and gives us an opportunity to entrust ourselves, our entire self to God’s care.  Secondly, having to sleep proves that we are not God.  I particularly enjoy this quote from Fr. James Martin, SJ, “The Good News is that there is a Messiah.  The Better News is that it’s not you!”  As we sleep, strength is restored, the mind is cleared, and we are prepared to serve God another day.  God could have created us without a need to sleep and devote more time to do God’s work.  But each night as we are confronted with the need to sleep again, we are reminded that we are not self-sufficient.  So when we are tired, we can be humbled to our humanity and rest.  Jesus in his full humanity, slept.  When anxiety causes us to have difficulty sleeping, we can imagine Jesus sleeping in our boat and ask him to calm the storm.  Having Jesus in our boat is better than having a hundred people bailing water!

Third, sleep is a good practice for death.  I always wondered why in the children prayer before bed it had to mention about the possibility of death, “Now I lay me down to sleep… if I should die before I wake…”.  As I grew older, I realized that it makes sense to recite a miniature kind of last will right before I turn off my conscious control of my heart and mind, and recline into a state of total oblivion.  That moment when we consciously choose to be unconscious and let ourselves go, is a daily opportunity to relinquish control to our God and a reminder of our baptism into Christ’s death.  We lay down our body and the control of our conscious mind to say that we are not the Creator.  There is only the One who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) and neither you nor I am the One.  Sleep as Mahaney puts it beautifully, “is a picture and a parable of what it means to be a Christian.  Your sleep tonight will be a small but real act of faith.  You’ll lay your full weight on a bed, trusting this structure to support you.  You can fully relax, because no effort at supporting yourself is required; something else is holding you up.  And in the same way, throughout the night as you sleep, someone else is sustaining you.  This is a picture of what it’s like to belong to Christ.”



I pray that we would all sleep sweetly and refreshingly tonight, with souls stilled and quieted, like trusting children in the arms of God (Psalm 131).