letter at 55

i have a friend who celebrated her 55th birthday recently. we have known each other for years, since i was 15. godma, soul-friend, spiritual-companion, sister...someone i trust completely. she has seen me thru' many crises in life and has never wavered in her support and faithfulness to our friendship.

she has given me permission to share this. a letter she penned in her journal on her birthday.

thank you, hele.




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As I passed through 0100 hrs on 29 March this year, I cried out my deep sadness of being born into a life without my birth-mother. The vocabulary of raw loneliness and savage fear were the first experiences I was taught indirectly in my psyche as I was pushed into life through her birth-canal. And as I caught my first breath of life, grief was in the air for in three hours, my birth-mother died. Her death sealed in my soul the seeds of sadness and grief.

Today@55, I recognize my first wounds at birth. I know and accept that these wounds lay deep in my psyche and from these wounds, the root of all that I have thought, said and done – these first wounds rooted my being.

Today@55, it is not my purpose to explain, or even to excuse, my behavior but to throw my whole self into the arms of Jesus to hold me firmly and lovingly so that I can really feel His Love transforming me to the person I was created to be in God’s plan.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for revealing this moment so that I can name the seeds of deep sadness, raw loneliness and savage fear that have grown and rooted my behavior today at 55. I do not want to explain or excuse my sinful acts but I want to understand my inner being (which I been dodging like Jonah!).

So from the seeds of deep sadness, raw loneliness and savage fear, the experiences of nurture and my evolving nature have managed me in small measures of hope and loving and in large measures of pain. Today@55, I lift the veil with the loving and merciful grace of God. With His grace of courage, I will leave the veil lifted so that I can see in His Light, my thoughts, my words, my deeds of pain willfully given to others. My giving is bitter and sour (if truth were to be told) and I desire much to cease Today@55, so help me God. Yes, I desire to walk the journey to understand WHY my thoughts, my words, my actions were so but this is another situation. What I want to surrender Today@55 is my wounded pride which is the root of my sinfulness. What I want to do Today@55 is to repent and to seek forgiveness from those I have wounded by my thoughts, my words and my deeds (though they may not know because I have not been direct and honest with them). Today@55, I will surrender all to God and beg Him to repair my fragmented being. I will repent to Him Today@55 at The Penitential Service for I dearly need to be held and to be healed by our Heavenly Father tonight.

Today@55, I want to be transformed by Love to love. Simple! How simply foolish of me to have fudged IT ALL!

Jesus, please be my ALL in ALL. Amen.

the last time i cried...

Tears

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...a movie, a horse cantering across the meadow, the college basketball team running out into the court at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this, you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.

They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not, God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next"

-adapted from frederick buechner: whistling in the dark

and suddenly, the morning sun

*once again, feeling foolish, remembering the miles of loss i've wandered. there is a tinkle in the sky today as morning stares back at me through its door and beyond , a flash of blinding trees...

*

i write myself to sleep then turned to look deep into this photograph. finding you there, still hidden, untouched.

*

i get used to silence, turn home on a blue day where streets are numbed with noise and you can no longer be heard. i wanted it this way. keeping you distant. far away.

staying in the present moment

days drift to second months. naming and living out these gifts and graces received makes me happy each day over here, in autumn melbourne...

we bless these days and hours,
find time to stay
in the present moment.

• sleeping & waking late
• knowing my family and loved ones home are well and safe
• receiving unexpected, cheeky and encouraging notes on my blog esp from former and present students.
• long streams of msn-ing with the same folks from 7000 miles away
• mental prepworks on my next meal
• cooking in my little hermitage; a newborn dish, spontaneous menus and self-made concoctions (bluecrab...butterfish, rockets, avocados, and the odd maggie mees)
• hunting for new fish and veggies at victoria market
• 30 laps at the glass-housed uni heated pool..woooo!
• flea market buys...(just yesterday, bought 15+ quicksilver, jeanwear and industrie tees and sleeves for less than $50!!!)
• speedy cycles down windy swanston street and beyond...night, day, morning and evening. the crisp cold air clicks inside me.
  
• stopping to see yellow leaves fall on the way to uni
• house-maintenance: having my own kitchen, room and toilet all in one and the self-discipline to clean & scent them when i feel like it! it's decent living.
  
• snuggling up to bed with 14 degrees in tow
• my green fingers: with daily sprigs of mint and thyme sprouting voraciously by the window.
• tuning in to behavioural norms of fellow aussies esp the ones (strangely, mostly asian gals) with their impossibly loud dressing (think poka-dot stockings, cleavage-huffing red tees and green minis!!!). they need to be tagged by fashion-police. mutants.
• intensive research-work at library. i'm smart. or try to be. shelves of books makes me feel so darn brainy. selective readings. eagle-eyed on fine concepts. chiselling argumentative bits. diluting a discourse. me- now, the master of speed-read.
• steely cold silence of 4am nights
• cycling to daily mass & sharing eucharist in lady chapel, newman college. kneeling on pews made from railway logs. earth, stillness of wood. the Lord's prayer.
  
• slow-sipps on a warm cup of harrods tea and watching sun sets from my 8th floor window
• morning perks with my fav mocha. thanks to generous discounts beck and emily at cafe downstairs
• inventing ingenious ways to save money and find time for the occasional spurging...(discovering unused rolls of toilet paper from &*%$%, collecting uncollected newspapers from basement, squeezing toothpastes till the last inches on tube, risk-skimming pages of journals to zap what is most essential (8 cents a piece...ouch!!!) , fine-tuning to perishable food and freshies and finding means to store them at optimal conditions, saving on laundry costs by rewearing odour-sweat free clothes!)
• brisk-cycles into town and other uni lanes , balancing another mocha in hand and muffin dangling from my haversack.
• spotting possums scavaging and mating while on trek on those nocturnal returns from work. feeding them breadcrumbs. spoiling their love rituals.
• giving in to moisturising creams and lotions (finally....but still, they yeeks!). if not i will probably scratch myself to skins and bits.
• daytrips to tarrawarra abbey, long walks and chats with oldtime bro-monks, samuel and joseph
• goodwill and love from people who stepped into my life and left trails of blessings: pat, wailin and ric, fr thinh, dennis, chris, missionaries of love, ordinary aussies and pockets of contacts who keep an eye out for u.

a leaf unlearns its solitude
on wet misty mornings
when aftershowers of cold
breathes baptismal tidings
to awaken mountains and sands of the soul