THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING

Reposting THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING, an excerpt from God's Crooked Lines: The Search for Truth by James F. Donelan, S.J. that did the email forwarding circuit in late 2007.


---------- Forwarded message ----------

THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING

How difficult it is that a desire for something is planted in our
hearts, yet it is withheld from us. What comes to mind is a baby in a
mother's womb, already a baby, yet still being formed. Or a mango tree
filled with fruit, yet not ready for the picking, still waiting to
ripen.

Many years ago, while wrestling with the word waiting, I happened to
be at the 12:15 p.m. mass at the AIM Chapel when Father Donelan, S.J.
delivered this beautiful sermon. It spoke to me so clearly. It was
what my heart needed to hear. In fact, I went back for the same day's
afternoon mass and listened to Fr. Donelan read it again.

THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING
(from God's Crooked Lines: The Search for Truth
by James F. Donelan, S.J.)

The English poet John Milton wrote that those also serve who only
stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait
render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline,
more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our
cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our
hearts than all the greatest deeds of derring-do go by the name of
action.

Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life. There is a meaning
hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important
mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Every day is filled with those little moments of waiting, testing our
patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control --- pasensya
lang. We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a
friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in line at cinemas,
theaters and concerts. Our airline terminals, railway stations and bus
depots are great temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait
in joy for the arrival of a loved one, or wait in sadness to say
goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We wait for birthdays and
vacations. We wait for Christmas. We wait for spring to come or
autumn, for the rains to begin or to stop.

And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait
for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next
step. We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion.
We wait for success and recognition. We wait to grow up, to reach the
stage where we make our own decisions.

We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is a part of the
tapestry of living, the fabric in which the threads are woven to tell
the story of our lives.

Yet current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait. "Grab
all the gusto you can get!" So reads one of America's greatest beer
advertisements: Get it now. Instant transcendence. Don't wait for
anything. Life is short. Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow
you'll die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and
irresponsible freedom, pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs. They
warn against attachments and commitment, against expecting anything of
anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us. They warn us
against vows and promises, against duty and responsibility, against
dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to
hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure, but even that is
fleeting and doubtful. What was it Shakespeare said about the mad
pursuit of pleasure? "Past reason hunted, past reason hated." No, if
we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, soul as well
as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to wait, we
will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a
mystery, brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf
falling from a tree. Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes
into it, how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish
through a lifetime.

Why is this? Why can't we have it right now what we so desperately
want and need? Why must we wait - two years, three years - and
seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should
take so long to bear fruit, the seed to flower, or for carbon to
change into diamond.

There is no simple answer, no more than there is to life's other
demands - having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you
or they have made other commitments, or because they have to grow and
find the meaning of their own lives; having yourself to leave home and
loved ones to find your own path. Goodbyes, like waiting, are also
sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs
patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is
no way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except
through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting -
of being present without making demands or asking rewards. There is
nothing harder to do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity
of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other - until they can see things the same way
- or let each other freely see things in quite different ways. There
are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance of
intimacy of the way they were. They have to wait - in silence - but
still present to each other - until the pain subsides to an ache and
then only a memory and the threads of the tapestry can be woven
together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait? When we try to find short cuts
through life? When we try to incubate love and rush blindly and
foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible
enough to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved.
Think of all the great love stories of history and literature. Isn't
it of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but
common mystery, that waiting is part of the substance, the basic
fabric against which the story of that true love is written?

How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient
to wait for it?

Speed Dating Fundraiser

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SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED

Speech by Bill Watterson
Kenyon College (in Gambier Ohio) Commencement
May 20, 1990

I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going.

As I walk up the steps to the postoffice, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? ...Wait, didn't I graduate already?? How old AM I?" Then I wake up.

Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing.

I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn't give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I'm emboldened by the fact that I can't remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won't remember of yours either.

In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book.

Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints, and I could work for several hours at a stretch.

The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn't much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry.

The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn't seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.
My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaborate picture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don't get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that's what I did.

Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.

It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.
If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running.

You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by: absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.

A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.

I don't look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I'd have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it's too late.
Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I'd drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.

Boy, was I smug.

As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me. By the end of the summer, I'd been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn't give refunds.

Watching my career explode on the lauchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn't have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and I returned to my firs love, comic strips.
For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job.

A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it.

It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.

It's funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that's what it means to be in an ivory tower.

Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli sci books that I'd somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don't care about what you're doing, and the only reason you're there is to pay the bills.
Thoreau said,

"the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."


That's one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.

When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.


I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

I still haven't drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.
Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn't in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.

Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn't what I caught. I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.

To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.

As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted a piece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons.

Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.

The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need.
What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts.

On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we've been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.


You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.

Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime.

But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.

I think you'll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know.

With luck, you've also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you'd never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.

Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you'll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed.

I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.

Bill Watterson

WHAT MATTERS

CTALK By Cito Beltran
The Philippine Star 02/09/2007

Having opted to live a less stressful lifestyle away from the limelight or the Rat Race, it's but normal for people who made the choice, to sometimes wonder if they did the right thing.

They experience pangs of guilt about being under employed, less productive and certainly reduced in their income potential. While everyone else is BUSY making a LIVING, you ask yourself if it's a mature thing to be at home or semi-retired at the farm.

Are you wasting all your God-given talents raising kids, growing your own food, or simply living on very little money and simple needs? Shouldn't you be involved in today's politics, today's technology? And are your friends right about saying "Sayang Ka"?

Last month, a friend called me about an opening in a major corporation that was paying P300,000 a month, all the perks, and even a brand new Volvo. My friend asked me how I would react if the job was offered to me since I was very qualified.

It took me all of 5 seconds to tell her I wouldn't accept it.
To begin with P100,000 would certainly end up with the government as taxes. That would leave me with only P200,000.

To earn that, I would have to be at work by eight everyday, instead of coming up with imaginative tricks to wake up my daughter like placing her puppy in her bed, or simply standing over her watching this angelic child in her field of dreams.

I would have to eat breakfast by six, leave the house by 6:30. That means no more breakfast conversations with my wife and certainly an end to our morning prayers not just for us but for family and friends.

From the P200,000, I would have to spend at least P20,000 a month or 10% of net to pay for gasoline driving the brand new Volvo to office everyday.

So in effect, I would only be earning P180,000 or even less. Not to mention that my friends who sell Mercedes Benzes, Jaguars, etc. would brand me as a traitor.

From the net salary of +/- P180,000, I would have to give up the lunch I have with my wife 3 to 4 times a week at home.

Instead my power of choice adds another burden where I would have to decide daily where in the business district I ought to have lunch, merienda if needed, and from time to time even dinner. I would have to choose from a menu instead of whipping up something in my kitchen.

When you add up the bill, plus service charge, plus VAT you can easily average another P20,000 in expenses. Which means, that what we originally thought would be a net income of P200,000 has now gone down to P160,000.

In the absence of maintenance you can enter about P10,000 as your average monthly repair bill for labor and materials. So now, you discover you're only earning P150,000 a month.

Instead of being in a HOME I own, I will have to try to be "at home" in an office where I will be spending more of my "awake time". This finally solves the puzzle; why do we always fill our offices with personal stuff which we will have to take home in a box when we retire, resign or get fired?

From having my independence and personal views, I would then have a real live flesh and bones Boss (because of what I thought was P200,000 a month salary) can tell me how to jump! Someone who's seniority or proprietary rights automatically makes him right even if he's stupid.

Because you now have to spend most of the time at the office or behind a desk, you can't do your regular walk in the park or jog around the village which is also your bonding time with your spouse, your kids, or your dogs. You either join a gym or get a personal trainer.

When you total fees, travel, and outfits, your monthly fitness bill would be around P5,000 which means your net pay just went down to P145,000 a month or less than half the original offered salary.

My dear wife reminds me to include clothing and image-related expenditures specially for women. The clothes, the make-up, the jewelry, as well as the business accessories such as the laptop loaded with Vistas program, the latest cell phones, iPod etc.

Even if you paid all of that on installment for 24 months, it would be in the area of P20,000 a month which further reduces your income to P125,000 a month.

The problem with this major part of the expense is many people mistakenly call them necessary investments, professional expense, but don't see them as deductions from PERSONAL wealth.

It would also mean, not sharing the responsibility of taking our child to school, missing out on small talk that tell you big things in children's minds, and dropping out on all the parent-child activities.

I would also nullify all the adjustments we made in the last 5 years where we integrated home life with work in order to be more of a family than employees with a family.

Speaking of home life, anyone who spends a lot of time at work can testify that in your absence you will have to hire a full crew to do all the maintenance and repair you use to prevent or do yourself when you spend time at home.

In your absence, who's going to fix leaking roofs, flooded toilets, busted aircons, creaking doors, or all the usual things REAL MEN with real tools do?

If I actually went out to get the job that pays P300,000 plus a brand new Volvo, it would have cost me breakfasts with my wife, trips to school with my daughter, morning talks and prayers with God, affirmation of my role as husband, father. I would be relinquishing responsibility for my house, as well as my home.

What we've done is determine what really matters, what and how much we really need, give up what we don't need or care for and trust in God and not in men.

This is what I call real life cost-benefit analysis. To make an accounting of what we think we're getting against what we know we're losing. Sometimes earning more actually costs more.

Eternally beautiful

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Reflections and writing style of a 50-something Atenista.
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Eternally beautiful
Humming in my UNIVERSE
By Jim Paredes
The Philippine STAR 11/05/2006

Exactly 29 years ago on Oct. 29, Lydia and I walked down the aisle. She was 20 and I was 25, both of us wide-eyed but so sure of ourselves and our decision to stay together forever as we plunged into matrimony. We were sure, the way young people tend to be certain, that it was going to be an adventure. But little did we know that it was going to be a big one, probably the biggest one we'd ever know.

Getting married is like signing a blank check. You have no idea how much it will cost you. You are committing an unquantifiable amount of material and emotional capital – time, money, patience, sacrifice, and an infinite number of things you have not even begun to imagine that you must deal with eventually.

Many of them are real minefields as Lydia and I, like all couples, soon discovered. There are the in-laws, kids, expenses, the balance between career and family life, personal habits, sex, jealousy, etc. There is also the process of arriving at a "negotiated settlement" on how to deal with things like getting along with each other's friends, child rearing, spending habits, religion, hobbies, and how much "independence" the partners should be allowed. The institution of marriage, as we inherited it, was very complicated.

One of the things I found out much later in our married life is that there is a difference between a love affair and a marriage. A love affair has a dynamic that is different from a marital bond. Generally, love affairs are not meant to last. They are meant to have a beginning and an end. Why? Because they are about two separate people bonded by romantic, oceanic feelings of what seems like love. They live for the intense feeling, riding it as far as it will go and split up when the thrill is gone.

Marriage, on the other hand, is the experience of life by two people as a couple. Many times, new couples discover that they are not an easy fit, as Lydia and I discovered early on. That's why in a marital relationship one must necessarily give up big parts of himself/herself to the union to get a payback. While one may still want some privacy and independence, one cannot have them without a large dose of a shared life. From the start until the end, marriage is about two people experiencing one and the same lifetime.

It starts with romance and the sexual thrill of being with each other, but you can only count on those for so long. Anyone married for more than 10 years can attest that there are times when the attraction which seemed so strong when you first laid eyes on each other as single people can be non-existent for long periods. Viewed from the perspective of a love affair, that is certainly not a good thing. One may feel like the journey has reached a stretch of uninteresting flatlands. The joyride is over.

But from the perspective of a long marriage, this is simply a hiatus of sorts, or may even be the first signs of a qualitative change in the way one loves. It can be disconcerting at first but if you stick around long enough, the picture starts to get clearer. While gone may be (from time to time) the breathtaking highs and exhilarating moments, something else may be happening. Author M. Scott Peck put it so well when he wrote that "the death of romantic love can be the start of true love."

In our early years, Lydia and I felt that being married meant we had to do something dramatic all the time to keep it going. But as we got older, the doing often gave way to just being. Where before, love had to be "proven" by the sparkling diamond on her finger, or the great trip abroad, or the special dinner with wine in some plush place, love in our 29-year marriage feels no compulsion to prove itself as dramatically. Having long walks, conversations after dinner, holding hands during long drives, snuggling in bed or just simply being together – sometimes without even talking – have often taken the place of all that. While sex can still be as great as ever, the truth is, as an older couple, we have discovered other ways to remain interested in each other. There is not only comfort but magic in the "ordinary," as one realizes that love can be expressed in simply caring or supporting each other's steps towards personal and spiritual growth.

One of the big recent highlights of our journey as life partners was Lydia's big cancer scare three years ago. We felt so helpless as we tried to deal with the fear of losing each other. But we took it on as a couple. As far as we were concerned, we both had cancer. Those were days of great emotional upheaval. Ironically, they were also moments of calm and assurance. Even as we cried about it, we also learned that we loved each other enough to willingly suffer together because, paradoxically, by doing so, we eased each other's pain.

This may sound flippant, if not cruel, but looking back, I can say that if I could only guarantee survival, I would recommend cancer to everyone because of what it has done for Lydia and me. It has been such a rare opportunity to meet and accept unconditionally the hard-to-take faces of love that we often run away from. Yet when we bit the bullet, we opened ourselves to greater depth and began to see the face of the Divine in the other human being we had chosen to love. Only then did we realize that all the suffering made sense.

In the end, the very suffering we undergo turns into something eternally beautiful.

New Year's resolutions for a happier life

http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=3744

For more and more people the unending stream of media reports on failures, frauds, violence, setbacks and frustration has become a source of growing discomfort. But optimism can still triumph over cynicism. A practical guide for those who want to stay optimistic and healthy.

Choose your information sources carefully
Television news is more entertainment than news. Many local newspapers are advertising vehicles and, therefore, are seldom controversial. Beware of psychic pollution. Learn how to put news in its proper perspective. Many of us suffer from information overload and can become addicted to dramatic news with its life-or-death pitch. This is a manufactured reality, like a drug or alcohol high. Limit your digestion of sensational news. Don't allow your thoughts to become dominated by the lives of strangers and events you cannot control. Be ruthless about what you allow into your mind. Make an agreement with yourself about how much time you will worry about a given subject each day. Stick to it. You will notice a difference in how you feel.

Make your world smaller
The domination of media and advertising can overshadow our personal lives with a bigger, more fearful world. We have to choose which world holds our allegiance. If we really look around our own lives, in our own towns and our neighbourhoods, we see that things are not as fearful or violent as they are often portrayed in the media. We have to trust the reality of our own lives. Get close to your world. Go out walking in the woods near your house or in your neighbourhood. Get to know your immediate environment by getting to know your neighbours and spending more time at home. You will find that a comforting reality exists all around you.

Grow a progressive community
When we feel oppressed by circumstances or by society, it is often because we feel alone. It's important in tough times to find a community of like-minded people. In the early years as parents, questions about our children bring us together, and these early communities can sustain us through our whole parenting lives. We can also develop communities of people who share the same political, social, environmental, or spiritual beliefs.

Infuse everyday events with magic and ritual
Make meals a time of community and connection with loved ones. Eat at home more. Ask friends over for dinner. Turn washing, drying, and ironing clothes into acts that add order and rhythm to life. Rediscover the smell of line-dried clothes. Make your home a place of solace and refuge. Create an inspiring and regenerative personal environment. You will feel a difference.

Sing and dance
In the most difficult of times people sing and dance. Get some new music to listen to in the car or at home. Better yet, get together with friends to listen to and play live music. Teach yourself songs in the shower and the car. Dance anywhere. Dance in the living room, in the car, while you're gardening or working outside. Immerse yourself in music, and it will make you feel better.

Choose your companions carefully
In times of oppression and difficulties, it is especially important to keep good companions. Our companions strongly influence not only our opinion of ourselves, but also our state of mind. The dramatic emotions of others can lead us to develop a more negative and hopeless view of the world. On the other hand, companions who have a new sense of things or who talk of life in positive and hopeful terms can help us to feel strong enough to tackle life's challenges. These friends give us courage.

Lead an examined life
Tough times require honesty and self-reflection. It is easy to take things personally when the chips are down. Increased self-awareness allows us to take responsibility appropriately and to let go of what we can't control. It is important to cultivate the habit of self-reflection.

Focus on others
Sometimes when we are absorbed by a problem in our family or in society at large, we lose perspective. We exaggerate our own importance. Our problems become the worst in the history of the world. Helping others, especially children, can put things in perspective.

Become an activist
Find a cause that you believe in and support it at whatever level you can. Give money or time. Become a member. Educate and organise others. Vote. Register others to vote. And remember that activism is not about instant success, but about long-term social change. Talk to your kids about peace. While others may wonder how to talk to children about war, talk to your children about peace. Protect them from overexposure to war talk and war images. It's important to answer their questions openly and honestly, but follow their lead. Include them in conversations about peace and justice. Talk openly with them and others about your beliefs.

Don't be a victim
Often, when times are hard, we bemoan our bad luck. Why me? Why now? When you can refrain from taking life personally, however, you can act more effectively. Tough times will generate courage in proportion to the difficulty of the situation. It is tempting to criticise things as they are without having any idea of how to improve them. Part of the seduction of modern times is the false belief that this is as good as it gets, that things couldn't possibly be any better. The wisdom of living your own reality despite tough times is that your everyday reality ever improves itself; it always gives birth to a more positive future. Spend time imagining solutions to the problems you face in your life or to the problems of society. Talk to your friends about positive solutions. Take action to add at least one positive solution to your life.

Keep your sense of humour
At the heart of an optimistic spirit lies a hearty sense of humour. When you can laugh at yourself and the world, you can keep perspective. When you can't, you know that you need some help. Reach out to others when you've lost your sense of humour. Watch a funny movie or do The Twist. We must create our own personal realities to raise our children with hope and optimism. We must become increasingly active in re-creating democracy in our lives and in our society. Our personal lives parallel the collective. Speak with your own voice and it will uplift others. Work on your own life and it will inspire others. Come together with one another and you will touch others. Keep hope alive for the future, for the children. Children are the evidence that love, not fear, is the answer.

Christmas not X-mas

I'm always wary of using the word "X-mas"-- there's something improper (even disrespectful) about it..got this fwd today-- recommended reading before you send out those text and email blasts this Sunday. :)


MERRY CHRISTMAS, dear friends and family! :)
*******************************************************
Hi Friends in Christ,

It takes just take a couple of seconds to write the word CHRISTMAS instead of X-Mas but people get used to write X-mas.

Please do not save time on "CHRIST" (MAS) by writing "X" (MAS). ?

CHRIST gave his Life for us so that we may be saved and it’s a pity that we are unable to SPARE a few seconds of time to write his name with pride as 'CHRIST"MAS. ? (CHRIST as MAN AND SAVIOUR).

The word "Christmas" means "Christ mass,"
Mass= a special celebration of the Lord's supper -- called a mass in the Roman Catholic Church and a Communion supper in most Protestant churches.

So meaning of Christmass is Lord CHRIST special celebration service….

Then what is the meaning of Xmass…??????? What is X ????

In mathematics x=nothing…….are we saying Christ is nothing……????
’X ‘doesn’t have any value…….are we evaluating X= Christ…?????? ?
Please stop writing XMAS or Please stop wishing happy XMAS……

Do not encourage yourselves in buying cards with the words X? MAS, but make sure you give CHRIST HIS rightful name,
Which is the name above all names, that every knee shall bow and every Tongue confesses that 'JESUS CHRIST IS LORD".

WHAT DOES THE WORD "CHRISTMAS" MEAN?

The modern English word "Christmas" comes from Christes maesse, "Christ's mass," the Old English name for the service of Holy Communion that commemorates Christ's birth. Familiar names for Christmas from other languages, such as the Spanish Navidad and the French Noël, are derived from the Latin, dies natalis, "Day of the Birth."

WHY DOES CHRISTMAS FALL ON DECEMBER 25TH?

While Scripture contains many details about Christ's nativity, it does not record the exact date of His birth. However, ancient documents show that the Christian community in Rome began celebrating the Lord's Nativity on December 25th starting around the year A.D. 336. No one knows for sure why the early Roman Christians chose December 25th, but the most widely held explanation is that they appropriated the already
existing winter solstice festival honoring the pagan sun god, Mithras. This popular festival was known as natalis solis invicti or "Birth of the Unconquered Sun." According to this theory, Christian leaders in Rome chose December 25th to turn people away from the pagan Unconquered Sun and toward Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness (see Malachi 4:2). This connection to the Roman sun cult has led some contemporary Christians to reject the celebration of Christian as pagan and sinful.
On the other hand, there is also some evidence to suggest that the choice of December 25th was based on attempts by early theologians to calculate the date of Christ's birth and that it had nothing to do with the natalis solis invicti. The article Calculating Christmas by William J. Tighe discusses in detail this explanation of the date of Christmas.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/ docs/issues/ 16.10docs/ 16-10pg12. html


WHAT IS THE LITURGICAL COLOR FOR CHRISTMAS?

White, the color of joy, holiness, and light, is the proper liturgical color for the Christmas season. Red, the color of martyrdom, is generally used for the festivals of Saint Stephen and the Holy Innocents (see below).

Make room for CHRIST in this and every CHRISTMAS!
All Honor and Glory to our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

“Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.”