To be grateful

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. 
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” 
― Thomas Merton

"Thank You!" is one of the most common phrases uttered in various ways, languages and occasions in daily life.  It is also a very basic prayer stance when a person is overwhelmed and overshadowed by the love of God and His many blessings.  The year 2014 is almost over and everybody is preparing to peek into the New Year 2015 once its doors are opened wide.  I am taking speedy effort to write something here since it has been quite a while that I have come home to my own blog, rest for a while and gain new wisdom and insight.

Every day there is an abundance of God's blessings to be grateful for.  An ongoing attitude of gratitude is a mark of an "Anawim", a biblical image of those who rely solely on God and who keep total trust and confidence on Him.  Life, the whole of human existence and its colorful paraphernalia of activities and experiences is a pure gift of God.  God is the breath of life, the "Ruah" of all living beings.  Living a life based on the belief and conviction that God is the giver and author of everything is the entry towards living a full, joyful and grateful life.

Personally, as I review for a brief moment, the passages of my own life's journey, I cannot help but sing my own song of praise and thanksgiving to God for being there for me every step of the way.  God was there during the moment of my birth in "karma".  God was present during those first days of motherly love and care given to me.  God was there when at barely eight months, I was taken over by my grandmother to nurse and babysit me until I grow older.  God was there in my growing up years.  He was there in my studies.  He was there in my great moments of being ordained to the Catholic priesthood and sent to the missions.  God was there in my becoming a Benedictine monk for some time.  God was there in my decision to get married.  God was there in my finding a work and waiting for my wife to come to the U.S. and join me.  God is here with us, as we live day by day working, loving and caring for each other and our folks back home in the Philippines.  For all of these, my heart sings a song of thanks to God for all His love and blessings.

In many ways I am still an imperfect human being living in a strange and imperfect world.  Yes, I believe in God's guidance and help in my daily journey of faith.  Every new day, I open up my heart and mind to His guidance, stirrings and direction.  I know I am trudging along the road of many surprising twists and turns, of many challenges and moments of fulfillment and satisfaction.  I am very grateful for my wife, my friends and family members who are still there a call or a message away, to encourage me when I am down, to support me when I am weary, and to challenge me to grow when I am stalled and stuck up.

Gratitude has been my song, gratitude is still my song, and gratitude will always be my song.  The more I stay grateful, the more I grow in love and faith in the God of my own understanding.  Here I am Lord, grateful for your love and ready to embark on the service of love wherever I go out of love for you and gratitude for everything!



   

A Prayer On Becoming a Contemplative - By Thomas Merton

  Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire.  Shine in my mind, although perhaps this means "be darkness to my experience," but occupy my heart with Your tremendous Life.  Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for Your service.  Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy.  I will hear Your voice and I will hear all the harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns.  Sheep's wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in Your service; I will give the rest to Your poor.  Let me use all things for one sole reason:  to find my joy in giving You glory.

  Therefore keep me, above all things, from sin.  Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul.  Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds  and poisons my heart.  Keep me from the sins that eat a man's flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured.  Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice and ambition that suffocate my life.  Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labour in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal.  Stanch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding.  Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.

  Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth.  Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.

  But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love.  Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love that I may love, not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.

  For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone.  (Amen.)

Personal Comment and Reflection - By Bobby Sagra

..."But give me strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest,...possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love...."

  If Thomas Merton is alive and has a Facebook account, I will be among the first to like and be a fan of him.  I was still very young then, when I first read a written book of Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.  I don't have anymore a copy of that book because I only borrowed it from the library, but it left a very deep impression on me about the vision and spirituality of the author.  I have also read other classic works of Thomas Merton like the Seven Storey Mountain and the Vow of Conversation.  Now I am reading Seeds of Contemplation from where I got the the prayer above.  Indeed, contemplation is a personal call from God to discover Him in a new way in one's own spiritual journey of faith, love and hope.  God is all knowing and is present in all of His creation, especially in all of us members of the human family. To begin to contemplate is to make God the One to whom our hearts desire, the One to whom our minds seek to grasp and understand, the One to whom our restless soul can find true and lasting rest.

  Hence, the source, reason and goal of contemplation is God.  The process of contemplation is seeking God 24/7 in every nook and corner of His creation, in every moment and experience of life, in His revelation of Himself in silence, in the marketplace of unending sounds and voices of people, in the byways of society, in emptiness and fullness, in poverty and sickness and even death. To be a contemplative is to make a decision to make seeking God a way of everyday life, so that at the end of each day, when sunset comes, our eyes can glance to the western horizon and say a prayer of gratitude for the gift of having that experience of the divine and the love of God in the hours of the day that etched a portrait of God in our souls, hearts and minds.

  The beauty of God's creation is that He created our minds to know Him, our hearts to love Him and our souls to find rest in Him.  When our minds are cluttered by the avalanche of digital communications, our hearts confused and broken by the hurts and pains and cajoled by the joy and celebrations in the satellite of our human relationships, God comes to us in silence and prayer and assures our souls that whatever happens He loves us still and will show us the way to peace, to wholeness and to mend our broken hearts.

   If not tended daily by the love of God, our souls are like a flower I found in the balcony of an elderly which was dying and without flowers.  I put the pot in the sun to receive the healing rays and I water it every morning and evening.  To my amazement after a while, the flower came back to life, and now is giving joy to those who come to get amazed at her beauty in the midst of God's creation.

  Let us therefore become the beloved that God dreamed us to be, the sons and daughters that our Father in heaven wants us to behave and the followers of the holy footsteps of Him who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

  

  

Remembering Patty

Remembering Patty

   She was cute, petite, small and full of life, energy and love.  Everyone who comes to the house likes her.  Her million dollar smile welcomes, delights and comforts all.  Just moments after she passed away, my wife and I have the moment of grace to be with  her sorrowful son and daughter in law by her bedside.

   I recall with feelings of nostalgia and grateful reminiscence those times when I served Patty's favorite coffee in the mornings, accompanied her to walk outside, watched NBA basketball games with her and brought her to rest on her bed at night.  I also remember those times when I would ask her to help me dry the dishes or fold the clothes from the laundry.  Helping out was her therapy and we will always try to find something for her to do to make her happy.

   Patty loves her family and was friendly and kind to all.  She and her husband Ed stayed for few years in the Philippines when Ed served as a U.S. Navy officer in Subic Bay and Olongapo.  I saw photos of happy memories of the Filipino friends they both came to know and have fun with during their stay there.  She will always ask where Ed is and will wait for Ed to come home.  She fondly remembers the day of her birth, May the 18th, 1933.  She is always happy to see her son and daughter in law, her grandchildren and her brother visiting her.  She loves her dog Einstein and she misses her room upstairs in the house where she last stayed.

   Among the residents we took care of, Patty stands out as one to be greatly missed.  My wife and I cried the moment we saw Patty's lifeless body.  In our hearts were treasured experiences of taking care of her as she made her journey home to be with her husband Ed and her Maker.  How short, fast and mysterious those times of being with her day by day, night after night in the residential care facility we worked for almost a year where Patty stayed till the end of her life on earth.  Now, her joy is complete as she smiles from the window of heaven  looking at us, who still makes our day to day journey here.  My wife prayed to her for something and immediately came the effective response.

   It is a night of the first moon.  We went out to eat dinner at Cicero's Pizza and just before I got into the car I saw the crescent moon in the dark western horizon.  The moon shines out of the first darkness of the summer evening.  It is indeed a cycle of life and death.  When the day of life is over and darkness prevails over the earth, the moon comes and gives a shining glow of hope, a vision of light and new life in the night just after a day has ended.  I see Patty's beautiful smile in the new moon and in the silent whisper of the summer breeze I hear the echo of her loving heart and caring soul.  Such a fullness of life from such an exuberant and kind person as Patty is a real rejuvenation and joy for us who came to know, love and care for her.

   

  

   

On the Meaning of Life, Dying and Death

On the Meaning of Life, Dying and Death
              - by Bobby Sagra

Oh, that my steps might be steady,
keeping to the course you set;
Then I'd never have any regrets
in comparing my life with your counsel.

         - Psalm 119:5-6

   It is now the Fall Season and it is a beautiful time of the year.
My mind still ponders on the recent experience that happened in the facility for the elderly that my wife and I are working.
Last September 29, in the early afternoon, Don, one of our hospice patients gasped his last breath and passed on to the next life.  At the moment of his death those present were his wife Joanne, the two attending nurses and myself doing the spiritual prayers and commendation of his soul to his Maker.  It was a peaceful, quiet and calm dying for him, like a falling leaf in Autumn, his body settled on the ground of life and his soul soar back to the Author of creation.

   The day before his death, I was able to cut his fingernails, my wife was able to give him something to eat for breakfast and I gave him his last sip of coffee.  Few hours before his death, I was able to gave him a shave, cleaned him up and put on a new T-shirt and underwear.  In short, we did everything to prepare him.  He breathed his last at the very moment when I was saying the final prayers for him.  His wife said to me later, "that is the last thing he has been waiting for."  Now, what is left in the room he stayed for about one year is silence and emptiness and the still gentle breeze of the morning air.  It was full moon during the night that Don passed away.  I took some time to water our roses in front of the house and took a glance at the moon.  My soul has found a rest in the contemplation that like the moon in its fullness, our lives on earth slowly ebbs away and loses its light in the cosmos when the moment comes.

Even without my saying it, my heart grieves whenever someone to whom I have been a part of passed on to the next life.  The beauty and art of what my wife and I are doing here is that we take care of those who are at the brink of dying and consummation of their lives.  Each day, we try to make them feel loved, cherished and cared for in a very special way.  This is their last chance to make a breakthrough in what St. Elizabeth of the Trinity counseled, "Let yourself be loved."  While being compensated fairly in doing this job, our greatest investment is along the spiritual lines of doing our task with love and special care, to give joy and satisfaction to these God's children waiting for their final hour on earth.

   However small and humble is the task that we are doing, I tell my wife that the key is to see Jesus in the poor we serve and care for Him in each of the persons of these elderly Americans.  It is in the gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter  25 on the account about the  last judgment that Jesus was very clear and strong in saying that "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of my least brethren, you did it to me." ( Mt. 25:40)  My wife and I are glad that we are in the very site of the Kingdom of God where every day we serve the poor, the sick, the elderly and the dying as we lift them up out of the bed in the morning, bathe them, groom them,clothe them, give them something to eat and drink, entertain them and stay with them during the day, bring them to bed at night and cover their bodies with sheets and blankets.  There is nothing great or grand in what we are doing because they are the usual ordinary things that most people in the Philippines and other poor Asian countries manage to do for their elderly at home.  But here, while the poor economic situation is still trending, this is the job God has given us to do to earn our living and help our folks at home, but in the finding of the meaning and purpose of what we do, our eyes have a glimpse of heaven, our hearts have a treasured and lingering joy, our souls have found consolation in the peaceful, happy and contented faces of our residents.

   Life is a series of confrontation of many realities, including old age and dying.  While still younger, yet getting older too it is good to pause and reflect on what is really we are up to here on earth?  As the cycle of life continues, as the seasons come and go, as the days keep adding up to our years, what is it that gives true joy and meaning.  Maybe for some, the fulfillment of the American dream of having a good job, a decent house, a nice car and good standing in relationship with others are enough to arrive at the feeling of  happiness and satisfaction.  True success and contentment in life do not only lie in gaining whatever material gadgets to enjoy and be proud of, but it is giving and sharing one's life for others.  There is a kernel of wisdom in the saying that, "it is not what you get that counts, it is what you give away, you keep what you give up."  There is nothing wrong with becoming secure, comfortable and stable for that is the result of hard earned labor through the years, but if having acquired some kind of stability, one becomes indifferent and callous in being sensitive and responsive to love God's poor in our society, all the things we consider our possessions become only some sort of vanity and status, if not gloated selfishness and greed.  In the Kingdom of God, the true heirs of heavenly home are those who while remaining poor and ordinary, their hearts are rich with loving and caring, their eyes are clear to see their neighbors' needs, their ears are happy to hear someone's voice crying out for help.

While wrestling for the answer to the question about life, dying and death, during that day that Don died in our residential care facility, I checked our calendar of biblical quotes and on September 29, lo and behold, these words are written:

"Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat.  But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.  In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life.  But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal." (John 12:24-25)

   Don gave up his last breath of life while I was ministering to him.  As I contemplate on that moment now, he also ministered to my soul by the witness of his courage to give up his life and let it go.  The asceticism of giving up something, or some place or some community or family or someone and letting the experience go is an experience of dying itself.  The many series of giving up and letting go prepare each one of us for that moment of dying and giving up of our life.  May God give us the wisdom today to treasure every moment and keep the spirit of giving up and letting go become a daily discipline, so that like Don, we can gain the courage to give up and let go in the end.

My Idea of God

  

   Everything is God' expression of Himself as love.  My conception in the womb of my mother, my birth, my childhood, my young life, my adult life, every place, every person I came in contact with, every experience...is a manifestation in human form of that consistent thread, "God is love."
   Yes, for reasons beyond my own limited understanding, life has been unfair on few occasions, which left me with the mistaken feeling of being neglected and being improperly cared for and nurtured.  God, after all is a loving Father, a caring Mother in the vortex of my life.  My needs early on as a child were provided for and I grew up healthy and strong in a town deeply rooted in religion, intellectual pursuits and professionalism.  Out of the abundance of the love of God in my life, I have been blessed and gifted with intelligence, wit and talents for me to have all the coping up mechanisms to make it in real life irregardless of people, places and circumstances around me.
   God is truly love.  God is the flapping yellow butterfly, the singing bird of my awakening, the soaring eagle of my hopes and dreams.  God is the consolation and reprieve of my deepest hurts and pains, the sure and comforting refuge of my tiresome journey.  When I am having those moments when I am down and troubled and I need some help, God comes to me in many disguises.  I receive a letter of encouragement, get a phone call, get a visit from a friend, eat something to be happy about life a "halo-halo" (mixed fruits in ice), a beautiful view of the full moon or the red sunset, etc.  Through the many crossroads of  life, the expressions of the love of God I have the been blessed to experience were wonderful, colorful and amazing.  In my life now, God never ceases to amuse me.  God has brought me to many beautiful places around the world and in every place came along beautiful and wonderful friends and acquaintances. 
   In Italy, where I stayed for two good and exciting years, I have been given a new name, "Amato" which means beloved of God.  In this spiritual name I see the  purpose of my whole life, seeing my life in all the absurdity of the past, the joy of the present and promise of the future in the context of God loving me until the end.  Having received so much loved, I am glad to share God's love to others in every possible way.  Even the most painful of my experiences has been made holy in the covenant of God's love in my life.  My very breath, my very skin and color, my own personality is handcrafted in the very fine and subtle fabric of God's love.  What else can a Master Craftsman produce, if not a masterpiece for His delight and glory?
   Recently, my life has been full of the most pleasant surprises.  I got married to a very lovely and wonderful person.  I became a U.S. citizen in June,2010.  I was able to join a big international convention in San Antonio, Texas in July, 2010.  I was able to become an editor of an international newsletter called World Hello.  My wife and I got the opportunity to move to New Jersey and visit New York City and Atlantic City.  We became much closer in understanding and loving one another despite of unavoidable differences.  Each time we pray, our needs are met and new opportunities come alight.
   Today, I allow myself some quiet time to immerse once again in the depths and wonder of God's love.  I feel in a very real way the great rejuvenation of my inner being, a healing transformation of my manhood, a recurring relaxation of my mind and a prevailing serenity of spirit.  Deep within, besides some minor health issues I am happy and at peace.  I have found the One my soul was longing for in my heartfelt knowledge of the love of God.
   God's love is like a cascading waterfall when it comes to my life in many simple, unique and goose bumps moments.  It comes very real in times when I am able to give myself out of love to someone.  Once, when I was still a Benedictine monk I attended a Regional Charismatic Conference in Glorieta, New Mexico.  In that gathering I volunteered to work for children.  A nun was handling a teaching session and she asked the children if they celebrate their birthdays.  Everyone raised their hands except one boy of about ten years old.  At the end of the session there was a break and I saw the boy's mom with her boy.  I introduced myself to them and spent some time to talk with them.  I found out that the boy's father left them when he was still in the womb of his mom.  The mother asked me to explain to the boy how it happened.  I talked to the boy and told him how at a very young age I was taken away from my parents by my grandmother and I grew up without real parental supervision.  I told him, he was much luckier than I am because he has his mom always besides him.  In that moment, tears rolled down from our eyes as I embraced both the mother and the boy.  There are many other occasions in my life where I felt God is so close to me and also feel the joy and peace that surpasses understanding.  Love and joy come along each time I get out of myself to love another person.  God is no longer just an idea.  He comes fully alive and present in each work of love done and completed.
   

Healing Redemptive Love

Healing Redemptive Love

"LOVE REDEEMS. DESPITE all the lovelessness that surrounds us, nothing has been able to block our longing for love, the intensity of our yearning.  The understanding that love redeems appears to be a resilient aspect of the heart's knowledge.  The healing power of redemptive love lures us and calls us toward the possibility of healing.  We cannot for the presence of the heart's knowledge.  Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love no matter the conditions of our lives, the degree of our depravity or despair.  The persistence of this call gives us reason to hope.  Without hope, we cannot return to love.  Breaking our sense of isolation and opening up the window of opportunity, hope provides us with a reason to go forward.  It is a practice of positive thinking.  Being positive, living in a permanent state of hopelessness, renews the spirit.  Renewing our faith in love's promise, hope is our covenant."

                                                                      -  ALL ABOUT LOVE
                                                                         BY BELL HOOKS

Personal Reflection/Insight:
   During the week, most especially at those moments when I was not feeling well due to some physical pain, I took time to think back of my past experiences, making a quick survey how complicated and difficult those moments when I was longing and searching for possible breakthrough of hope.  Then love nestled gently like the rains of early spring in my heart's desert place.  Then and there, I was strengthened, renewed and rejuvenated by uncontainable feelings for another human being.  
   Being married and in a committed love relationship now, at times I pause and look at this person whom God has given me to share my life with.  And to be honest, I am still mesmerized my the mystery and beauty of God reflected in her, the kindness of heart, the comely appearance, the gentle voice, the hearty laughter, the healing hands.  Despite the humble situation we are in our place under the sun, we take it moment by moment to continue to share, care and love one another.  love truly makes life exciting and bearable to live, especially when you share it with the one God has chosen for you.
   The healing process and love's redeeming power comes piece by piece in the daily small gestures of thoughtfulness, understanding, concern and hope for the better promise of tomorrow.  Henri Nouwen's image of the wounder healer comes again in a poignant way.  Struck and wounded by love's error searching in the past, now we become angels of hope, friends of peace, healers of love for each other.  At the resurrection, no wonder why Jesus was so spontaneous in showing his wounded hands, feet and heart to his fearful disciples.  He witnessed to them the true courageous, brave and pure power of love.  He still loves each of them and all of us despite the pain and the death He suffered out of love.  In being apostles of love, we can also be resurrected redeemers of a world bereft of love as it is truly is.

Ships Returning Home

ships returning

                                      home

   We all are ships returning home laden with
life's experiences, memories of work, good times
and sorrows, each with his special cargo;
  And it is our common lot to show the marks
of the voyage, here a shattered prow, there 
a patched rigging, and every hulk turned black 
by the unceasing batter of the restless wave.
  May we be thankful for fair weather and smooth
seas, and in times of storm have the courage
and patience that mark every good mariner;
  And, over all, may we have the cheering hope
of joyful meetings, as our ship at last drops anchor
in the still water of the eternal harbor.

                               - Max Ehrmann
                                 The Desiderata of Faith

Personal Comment & Reflection:
  The image of coming home is a very ordinary life phenomenon.  Part of man's restlessness of being is that he is always on a certain quest, on a journey, or going out even to far and unknown places to find food for his family and meaning for his life.  Coming home is the easier and relaxing part and as Max Ehrmann said like ships we return home bringing with us our experiences.  It is not just physical coming home, it can also be spiritual.  Each of us has a spiritual abode, the Kingdom of God within.  Prayer is the way for this coming home and writing too.  As we bring our experiences of the day in prayer, we stand or simply sit humbly before God, knowing that every moment lived with awareness and a listening heart becomes a road to a holy walk with God at every juncture of our life's experience.  Out of the depths of our inner longings, joys and hopes, we echo to our ever loving and listening God our songs of praise, our cry for forgiveness, our acceptance of people, things and situations and our aspirations for better days ahead.  Yes, as we come home to God in prayer, we also come home to our true self, God's apple of His loving eyes!

                                       -  Bobby Parian Sagra