Remember that Everything Has God's Fingerprints on It

Remember that Everything Has God's Fingerprints on It

   Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that everything that God has created is potentially holy.  Our task as humans is to find that holiness in what appear to be unholy situations.  He suggests that when we can learn to do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls.  It's easy to see God's beauty in a beautiful sunrise, a snow-capped mountain, the smile of a healthy child, or in ocean waves crashing on a sandy beach.  But we can learn to find holiness in seemingly ugly circumstances - difficult life lessons, a family tragedy, or a struggle for life?

   When our life is filled with the desire to see holiness in everyday things, something magical begins to happen.  A feeling of peace emerges.  We begin to see nurturing aspects of daily living that were previously hidden to us.  When we remember that everything has God's fingerprints on it, that alone makes it special.  If we remember this spiritual fact while we are dealing with a difficult person or struggling to pay our bills, it broadens our perspective.  It helps us to remember that God also created the person you are dealing with or that, despite your struggle to pay your bills, you are truly blessed to have all that you do.

   Somewhere in the back of our mind, try to remember that everything has God's fingerprints on it.  The fact that we can't see the beauty in something doesn't suggest that it's not there.  Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with a broad enough perspective to see it.

               - Taken from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff - By Richard Carlson, Ph.D.

Personal Reflection/Comments:

  

   Once in a while I try to put down my thoughts in writing after reading something out of a book I am reading for my daily meditation.  Sometimes, I feel it is good to write how I am touched by God through the writings of another person.  In life, fingerprints are usually invisible to the normal human eye unless one takes a closer microscopic view of something our fingers come in contact with.  If this is so true with us humans, how much more with God's fingerprints in the daily events and situations of our lives.  Honestly, I have moments when I cried out to God in the dark, and shouting out my incapacity to see His presence, most especially in the struggles and difficulties of my life.  It takes a little while before I can recognize God's fingerprints uncovered underneath the camouflage of pain or sorrow.  Yes, it is indeed true that it is much easier to see God's mark in the beauty of life that abounds.  However, one has to invest a lot of faith searching and prayerful  cruising before the heart can rest in the peace of God amidst the restlessness and confusion of the human condition.

   In my life story is contained the mysterious power of God's redeeming love.  In all its beauty and intermissions of pain, brokenness and illness, God's fingerprints made everything holy and ingredient for my spiritual growth.  I am fully aware today that I cannot take for granted my ongoing quest to see God's signature in every experience of my life.  When I was just a little boy I have a simple dream of living in a peaceful and quiet place abounding in beauty and abundance of God's delights.  In my real adult life I experienced quite the contrary.  I have been into situations I dared not even want to be, seeming hopeless ordeal of my human spirit, yet not without God's love and grace to save and bring me to a safe and secure dwelling place for my weary soul.

   The more I delve into life's realities and live through its mysteries, the more I discover and experience the giftedness of life, in all its stark reality of contradictions and unfathomable reasons and purposes.  But in the light of God's love, kindness and goodness, I am beginning to understand, all is well and everything is good, because God's fingerprints are always present.  My soul rejoices in God my savior, my heart sings a song of joy and thanksgiving to God for cuddling me like an infant as a mother cradles her baby.

If you want to be happy

"  If you want to be happy,
     Begin where you are,
Don't wait for some rapture
     That's future and far.
Begin to be joyous, begin to be glad
     And soon you'll forget.
That you were ever were sad."  

I went to the McCloud Post Office on Saturday morning to get my mails. I saw a smiling face of an elderly man sitting on a car parked in front of the post office.  I see this man every morning when I go to work there during the week days.  He usually comes all by himself and driving his own car to get his mails.  But on this particular day, he was with two ladies, one driving the car and the other seated at the back seat.  Since we know each other by face I went nearer to say hi and greet them.  Bursting with joy, the man said to me, these are my daughters, they came to visit me.  Then I said, "   Oh, I am so happy for you, have a nice day!"    For me, moments like this are unique and rare in life.  My joy in my job today is that each morning I meet different kinds of people who live in this little old mill town. Most often I will receive a compliment like, "  This place smells so neat and clean!"   or "  You are doing a great job!"    And my heart will sing a song of joy and gratitude to God and I will celebrate another day of having done God's most perfect will, to be the best I can be as His hands and feet in the world. Happiness is being attuned to what is true, good and beautiful in life as gifts of God, the giver of life and the designer of all creation.  One needs eyes to see, ears to hear, soul to perceive the innumerable sparkles of joys that abound in the here and now.
Yesterday, I went with a group of friends for a sailing trip at Lake Almanor.  While my friends were sharing things about their family life, I took time to get some photos and to contemplate.  My memory brought me to that scene in the gospel when Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called his first disciples.  He said, "  Come, follow me"  .  They left everything and followed Him.  And the found the real joy they were seeking for in life.  I have that same experience many many years ago when I was still a college student and I was watching the beautiful sunset at Manila Bay, Philippines.  I heard the same call and began my journey of discipleship.  When we were going home from that sailing trip, while we were driving home in the darkness of the night, I was telling my friend, Lynn E., that lake reminded me of stories in the gospel of Jesus making a trip with his disciples to the lake.  They too were busy and tired after doing the Father's business of spreading the good news.  They need to relax and be by themselves to sail, to rest, to pray.  And after they got rejuvenated they went on to spread the good news to other towns and villages. These days I am learning to be gentle with myself and to relish the simple joys of daily life as I continue to seek the face of God in the moments of each new day.  I work to earn my living and rest, relax and pray to balance my life.  I have always the greatest joy to spend quality time with my wife Marl on a daily basis as we abide to our motto:  "  Love will always find a way."  in terms of communication and other important foundations of married life.  In my apartment, I have a door post which says, "  It is better to give than to receive"   .  I keep giving myself in many ways of service to others and also treasure what life gives to me every day.  I always tell my wife, let us be contented with what we have, everything comes from God as blessings!



"  The way to be happy is to make others happy.
Helping others is the secret of all success ---
in business, in the arts and in the home."  

Courage to Change

Any day we wish, we can discipline ourselves to change it all.  Any day we wish, we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge.  Any day we wish, we can start a new activity.  Any day we wish, we can start the process of life change.  We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We can also do nothing.  We can pretend rather than perform.  And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are.  We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence.  The choices are ours to make.  But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause.  As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves."  We created our circumstances by our past choices.  We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today.

Those who are in search of the good life do not need more answers or more time to think things over to reach better conclusions.  The need the truth.  They need the whole truth.  And they need nothing but the truth.

We cannot allow our errors in judgment, repeated every day, to lead us down the wrong path.  We must keep coming back to those basics that make the biggest difference in how our life works out.  And then we must make the very choices that will bring life, happiness and joy into our daily lives.

And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life - If you don't like how things are, change it!  You're not a tree.  You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life - and it all begins with your very own power of choice.

              From Change Begins with Choice by Jim Rohn

Personal Reflection: 

   

In my very own personal life, I have a lot changes and still some more changes are in the offing.  What is important for me now is be very wise and prudent in making those choices that will bring life, happiness and joy into our daily lives as pointed out by Jim Rohn.  Indeed, we can make choices that can manufacture our joy, or choices that can create misery.  It is really a great gift to have this freedom to choose.  To use this freedom of choice in a responsible and loving way makes a lot of difference.

A Dream - A Blue Vestment

I had a good sleep last night and I had a dream.  I was vested with a blue vestment for some kind of a liturgical service.  My companions were looking for some kind of white or red vestment, but they cannot find one.  So I settled with the blue one.


Personal Prayer/Reflection:
Today is Good Friday. My wife said to me early this morning over the phone that it is flaming hot in Manila as far as climate is concerned. Whereas here in MCCLOUD, California we are having a snow storm and it is expected to reach up to 8 inches of snow. I went to work this morning and went back home immediately to keep myself safe. I don't know if we can have the Good Friday liturgy at St. Barnabas, but hopefully they will give me a call about it. As I thought and ponder about my dream, I remember the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her portraits she is always arrayed with blue colored or white vestments. The vestment I wore in my dream was similar to what she usually wears, a blue vestment dotted with some stars. I just write this dream so I will not forget it this time. I have a beautiful, serene and peaceful feeling after the dream. Fr. Ted Ridgway, the Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Mt. Shasta, California saw me having some quiet prayerful moment just before our celebration of the Agape Meal and Eucharist yesterday evening, Maundy Thursday. He smiled at me and said that he mailed a letter containing a very favorable recommendation that he and Larry Holben made about me to Bishop Barry Beisner, our Diocesan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California, USA. He said, he and Larry Holben will meet up with Bishop Barry on April 15,2010 and he will make a follow up to his letter. In my dream, I was vested with a blue vestment and I tried to understand few things about it. One of the things I received as an insight is that as a servant of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been always there in my life. I got ordained to the Catholic priesthood on September 7,1990 on the eve of the celebration of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The ordination was done in a shrine dedicated to her name, The EDSA Shrine of Mary, Queen of Peace in Mandaluyong City, Philippines. That was almost 20 years ago. Now I have left the Catholic Church and joined the Episcopal Church. I am a married man now and doing some active service in our church every Sunday as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, with a certain hope to be re-accepted and commissioned as a priest of the Episcopal Church. The dream gave me a new vision of what kind of discipleship will I have in the Episcopal Church. It will be one according to the heart and spirit of the Mother of God. Today as I pause and take a good reflection at what happened in Calvary on Good Friday, I see the image of Mary as the one who is also having the greatest of pain and suffering, the loss of her son Jesus. My heart goes all out in unity and love to all those who lost their loved one's. May God console and give new strength and hope to all these! Good Friday is about dying and self-emptying in love. It points to the very essential of what life is all about, not the collection of things, power and status, but a clearing out of the debris of sin and guilt in one's life, so we can all live in joy and freedom as God's children redeemed by the Blood of Christ on the Cross.Last night before I slept, I read SERMON 7, THE CROSS OF CHRIST THE MEASURE OF THE WORLD by JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. At the end of the sermon, John Newman, an Anglican priest who was converted to become a Catholic and died a saintly death as a Cardinal said, "And so, too, as regards this world with all its enjoyments and disappointments. Let us not trust it; let us not give our hearts to it; let us not begin with it. Let us begin with faith; let us begin with Christ; let us begin with His Cross and the humiliation to which it leads. Let us first be drawn to Him who is lifted up, that so He may, with Himself, freely give us all things. Let us "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," and then all those things of this world "will be added to us". They alone are able truly to enjoy this world, who begin with the world unseen. They alone enjoy it, who have first abstained from it. They alone can truly feast, who have first fasted; they alone are able to use the world, who have learned to abuse it; they alone inherit it, who take it as a shadow of the world to come, and who for that world to come relinquish it."