Photo taken on March 31, 2012 at Sonya's Garden, Tagaytay City

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.

–Ashley Smith

Seeing

Anna enjoys the breeze on Malapascua Island (March 2012)

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. 
–G. K. Chesterton

Woman, food and God

I understand, fully, why the first temptation to sin came in the form of food.

Food and writing

I start my Food Diary today, praying it will make me more mindful not just of what I invest in my body, but also of how I value myself and God’s workmanship. May this exercise strengthen my ability to say NO to what harms me. I extend this discipline to my writing and pray for the Spirit to gently guide me in a journey that requires more mental and spiritual calisthenics than physical.

Rest

I'm on forced rest—a happy conspiracy between The Coach and my OB-gyne to ensure the success of our baby program, launched this month to mounting pressure from the family and the clamor of well-meaning friends (and a maternal instinct kicking waaay this late, Julia Roberts be darned). I am to avoid any possible stressor. I try not to bother with crumbs that fall from the table or remember a beloved niece’s unplanned pregnancy. I have license to laze.

But what the hey. Hotwired in my system is a happy-go-lucky stress lever. It activates even when I am happy or on a vacation. It takes a lot for me to keep still. (I, of course, prefer to call it ebullience.)

I hate working; ergo, in my mind, I am not a workaholic. So when my writer-friend Sandra sent me an email from Korea on how God desires me for me to rest, it jarred me, but only a bit. A workaholic, I thought, is one who enjoys working hard and long hours. I don’t. A workaholic is compulsive. I’m not.

But friends—the good ones—they don’t let us get away with specious arguments. Germaine staged an intervention in her apartment last year.

“You’re a workaholic,” she said.

“No, I’m not.” I said. “I just always have a lot of work.”

Silence. And then laughter: much of it incredulous, much of it from me.

The thing is I feel guilty when I rest. I feel guilty when I’m not productive. Mix that with unrelenting slothfulness and a massive dose of procrastination (perhaps arising from perfectionism?), and we’ve got a Janet waiting to explode.

I get my guilt from my mother, whose love language is service. She has borne much of the burden for the family, and there is never time for her, for us, much less for rest. Six children on a schoolteacher’s salary meant there was much to do, much to finish. Her busyness told me: if she stops, the house, our home, our family, will fall apart.

The laziness is all my own, a shortcoming that has hardened into an attitude because I was, growing up, pretty much left to my own devices. “Suma nimo,” my mother would say whenever I asked permission. It’s up to you—appealing to one’s maturity, one’s discretion—you decide. I guess I decided to be lazy, to not exert myself. It was easier, fun, that way. I was a child. I still am, that way.

The perfectionism—the fear of failing—I suffered from my father. Papa, a closet writer, has elegant, extravagant handwriting, with the curlicues and whorls of his letters all set in a flourish. Mama’s writing was neat and coordinated, like that of a schoolteacher who knew she was meant to be one. There was such a tenderness to her letters. I was ten when my father asked me to write in a card meant for my uncle in Marikina. My writing was still finding its place, my hand unsteady in its youth. He took one look at what I wrote, clucked, and said, “Kabati nimo’g agi!” Your handwriting is awful.

Three years ago I finally understood it was around that time I stopped writing the stories and poems I started when I was seven. I didn’t plan on stopping. I didn’t even realize I did. And I had forgotten that incident. It took me twenty-four years to return to that first love, to acknowledge it as such. I am glad I rediscovered writing, though now I still struggle to allow myself to fail. (I thank Joseph Chilton Pearce who said, “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”)

The beauty of God’s love—which I discover in fresher, very real ways each day—is that it allows me to see myself the way He does, unsullied by my own unforgiving eyes or those of my parents. I don’t have to do anything to merit His grace. I give Him joy, just as I am, and there is nothing I can do to add to or take away from that incomprehensible, all-encompassing love. I do not need to perform for Him.

It is true, what Sandra sent my way last year, that God does want me to rest, not just from my labors, but also from my mixed-up conceptions of what I ought to be and what I ought to do. To cut the ties of a past that can torment the present, I pray in the Spirit to break the yoke of guilt, burden-bearing, laziness and perfectionism I find in myself. I forgive myself—are we not often tougher on ourselves than on others?—even for the ways I responded to negative things in my life, and those who allowed those things in my life.

And I will rest.





The lovely cartoon is by the talented and inspiring Inkygirl.

Perfect love

Off to the hospital in a few hours for tests to prep me for Friday's surgery, this time to have four holes bored into me in a laparoscopic cholicystectomy—terribly expensive medico-babble to remove my ailing gall bladder.

Dreading yet another round of needles and stitches, fasting, and sleep deprivation (the nurses' specialty, oh how they excel at it). It's the second in this year's medical drama, and, please God, the last.

The Coach has of late been working 18-hour days, juggling his job and my hospital preps and funding, but—bless him—he still takes time to soothe my fears. When we got wind this morning of the staggering costs that would again dent our budget, he was, in his words, "not worried, but..." And he paused, the mobile phone connection clear enough to relay his sigh, "...I am shaken." Then he gathered himself, becoming the tender warrior that he is, and said, "This is not a problem, Jan. As long as we're together, we're okay."

He sleeps now, bone-tired, and perhaps will only be a bit refreshed when he rises in just a few hours to put in some work before he brings me to the hospital.

Poor dear. How can I tell him I am not prepared for tomorrow when he himself has gone through as much emotional turmoil as I have? He will quote to me one of his favorite psalms, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." He will remind me of the Lord's faithfulness in all the good and bad years we've been together—twenty-one!—and tick off the many things we are grateful for, and then he will hug me, make me laugh and think of all the junk food and trans fats I can finally have in my post-op diet.

Tonight I choose to meditate on Paul's words to young Timothy, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." The argument is easy to follow: The Lord loves me more than I can ever comprehend, He who knitted me carefully in my mother's womb; His Will for me is perfect, acceptable and pleasing; He is mighty to save; how He desires me to fare on Friday is all part of His purpose for me. There is no room for fear for perfect love—His, and what He shows through The Coach—casts out fear.

Thank you, Coach, for being the Lord's strongest tangible reminder of His love.

Faith, love, time and my friend SN

My friend SN was in a spiritual funk, a path I’ve been on several times. I’d like to share portions of what I wrote her, rewritten to suit this space.

Dear SN,

I'm sorry to hear you feel like you're "away" from God. Perhaps there are some things in your life you need to sort out. Our relationship with God is sometimes affected, strongly, by our relationship with our earth fathers and mothers. The father and mother wounds we have dictate how we see, appreciate and deal with God the Father.

Don't worry about not being "diligent." Our relationship with God is not a set of do's and don'ts—reading the Bible, praying, reaching out, etc.—no, never like that. Ours is really a relationship: dealing, talking, searching, hurting, processing, understanding. We deal with God out of the overflow of our hearts as to what He has done for such as unworthy as we.

Sometimes what we lack is awe, for a love as unfathomable as His.

And we lack reverential fear, at what He is and what He can do.

The world is too loud: it drowns out His still, small voice. But do not ever think that the God of the Old Testament has changed: He's still the same—powerful, majestic, holy. God of the OT flexes a muscle and the man holding the ark dies. He speaks, and a world is formed. This world that chooses to hurt Him so, He can wipe off the universe with a single word, a thought. But He chooses to love us gently, inspite of.

Reading His Word is just like wanting to hear a beloved's voice. Approach it that way. Know that the author wrote it for you, you whom He formed with such care, attention and love.

The Lord is a big guy. He can take all your ranting, and not blink. I've had numerous occasions to just rail at Him, to wrestle with Him, but He knows me so well, as He should—He made me, after all—and what I do doesn't surprise Him. But what I do can hurt Him, grieve Him.

When I run away from Him, it is not so much that He gets angry or wrathful and brings the heavens down on me (as He could, but doesn't), but it's more that He gets grieved at the willful rejection. Like we would, if we were to be rejected.

God is a loving Father and desires no more than to be yours. For us He made an entire world, and peopled it for us. What we do—fellowship, worship, quiet time, prayer—is really just our response to Him. It is not borne out of guilt or duty, but of love.

Ours is a heart-to-heart relationship, a spirit calling out to a Spirit. God always looks to the heart, not to the letter of the law. My prayer is that you would really hear Him speak to you, to encounter Him in fresh, new ways that will make your relationship with Him flower and just come alive, that you would be so sensitive to Him that you would hear Him, always, on the street, while you work, as you sleep.

Love,
J

A Father's Heart

My college friend, V, a photographer and artist, was born a fish. Even when I had a few years’ head start on him, he still takes to diving better than I do. He is unfazed by the weight of the sea, unafraid to take risks even when his decisions violate NAUI safety guidelines, as well as all the laws of physics. I was his buddy when he first dived in Anilao, and he should’ve paid me for that service for he kept speeding after every fish he fancied, parting away from us, and I had to tear after him to lead him back to the pack—no easy feat for he had a UP swim team’s body, built for speed.

When we dived Kho Tao, Thailand, our entire team had to do an emergency ascent after a mere ten minutes: we lost V underwater. He had seen something interesting and tore after it. His lust for life and all its beauty proved far too irresistible.

V is able to bear pain and when he severely hurt his back in Bohol, he still managed to don his tank for one last dive in Balicasag, never mind that I had to tow him for, oh, about forty minutes.

V is creative, funny and gentle in adversity: when our friend, B, fell into the sea together with V’s camera—one of the first (and very expensive) digital cameras that came out then—V, without missing a beat, hugged the dripping B. He knew B needed more assurance of their friendship than he did over the state of his very wet camera. And when the hard rains lashed at us when we emerged from the Coron seas, with waves that turned white and foamy, and pitched the boat to and fro, V kept us singing for the hour’s trip back to the resort all the songs that contained the words “rain” and “ulan.” And we sang, punctuated by thunder and lightning.

Yet there is an aspect of his life where V is unsure of his footing: fathering. For many years now, V has struggled with his eldest son, who claws at life, at anybody. Several times V finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place. Disciplining his son is such a sorrow: How can V protect his son from his own wrong decisions? Often V finds himself giving up.

But not last night.

Last night V wrote us from Hong Kong, where he and his family have lived for over ten years. The Coach and I read his letter in silence, touched by V's father heart. I asked V's permission to reprint his email here.

Mga kapatid,

Last Friday, my elder son decided to leave home. My wife and I are not in favor of his relationship with his girlfriend because it is detrimental to both of them. The girl is not allowed in the house. On that day I caught them in his room.

My elder son has been making wrong choices in life because of this relationship. He is out of school at the moment, and his violent tendencies have been apparent. He has not been following house rules and advice. He is a total rebel. When he left, I did not decline.

For one whole week, I tried to be strong in my decision to let him go. In fact I locked the gate of the house when I leave so he cannot enter when nobody is home. He cannot take a bath, he cannot eat the food at home. I was hoping that by doing that he will learn his lesson, that it is difficult to be away from your family, that it is difficult to succeed in life without proper education, that life is not easy. He doesn't have money so I assume he cannot be mobile and will probably starve eventually. I thought in my mind, "How long can his friends support him?" All through the week, I was hoping that this experience will teach him life's lesson.

This afternoon, just after office hours (I usually extend my working hours), I received a phone call from him. He said "Papa, why is it that nobody is home? I need to get something from my room." I almost did not hear the other words he said—just the word, "Papa." The word "Papa" melted my heart; it sounded so beautiful to my ears.

That was a spiritual moment. Now I have an idea how God feels when we call him Father. I haven't finished everything I needed to do, but I told him to wait for me because I am on my way home.

If it has been a difficult week for him, so it was for me. I suddenly realized where the pain and frustrations are coming from. What if my colleagues know my son does not live with me anymore? I am supposed to be a good manager, why can't I manage my own son? What if he cannot finish high school in time, or not at all? What about university? Other people's kids are doing well, what went wrong with my son? And the list of questions goes on.

When I heard my son say "Papa," I know deep in my heart that I love my son. I still love my son even if he is a total rebel. I love my son even if he doesn’t get into the university. I still love him even if he does not perform. Children are not trophies, sabi nga ni B. I felt a sense of freedom. Ngayon, alam ko na talaga ang meaning ng unconditional love. Our relationship with our Father God is the same. Even if we, His children, will go astray, it doesn't mean that He will cease to love us.

I will be patient. I will wait. My son is coming back. If I think this way towards my son, I wonder how God feels towards His children.

This night at home, I asked my son if he would like to eat out with me. He said he already had dinner. I told him to sleep in his room tonight: his mother will be arriving tomorrow from New York and his aunt has something for him. I know he was just waiting for the invitation. He went inside his room and sprayed some fragrance. He said he didn't like the smell. Then he asked for two hundred dollars. I gave him two hundred dollars. I felt like I gave him only two ten dollar bills. I wanted to give him some more. After putting the money in his pocket, he said he has to go but will be back. I asked him what time is he coming home. He said, before twelve.

I am not sure if my son has learned his lesson, but I'm quite sure I did.

V