At the End of the Tunnel

I have been riding the dregs the past two weeks.
So many unsettled issues, unanswered questions and untamed instincts have been popping out of my mind and have been haunting me whether the life I'm treading is for real, mere baloney.

I was at the height of it all when my mom called me over the phone, via long distance. I told her that my heart was once again in connivance with my mind, arguing whether or not i would stay as a novice, or I would go ahead and find my life which i thought i lost more than four years ago.
I told her that i wanted to stay, but i really felt that i needed to go out.
I told that to my classmates too, and to my Novice Master.
And so far, I havent gotten an answer.
But at least I learned two very important lessons.
First, being open about all of these is an enormous help. Ever since I was able to put a handle on it, i seemed to be in control. I felt that it was not only me handling the problem, but that my whole community is helping me solve it, or at least get over with it.

Second, although i realized to my demise, that the six months i have been spending here have all been in vain, i was affirmeed that whether i would leave or stay, i would have to back it up with a firm and deep motivation. These are not anymore the days of song and dance. I dont want to spend another day here just because of the company, the friendship, the peace and security. Nor do i want to spend another day outside just because of the freedom, the fame, the money and the family i would miss having.


I have to stand up to a more solid motivation. One that would hold me and say you're not living your life today for no reason at all. This is not a one-day-at-a-time life. This is a life meant to prepare you for your real life: in heaven.

Over and above all these, one image comes to mind. The light at the end of the tunnel.

It says to me never to give up. That even though it is dark, even though it is wet and muddy, even though it is a long way out, there will always be that small glimmer of light, of hope, meant to push you forward.

And that's what's keeping me. The hope that there is and will always be the light at the end of all these.

Anak!

I know I've thought of this before, but in all honesty, I just cant put it into practice.

Last Tuesday, we had our class in Religious Life. Our professor, Fr. Godo, shared in depth on the topic of HUMILITY. And in the middle of the discussion, he injected pointers from St. Therese of Lisieux on how it is to practice humility.

Humility, at its best is authentic and genuine when it flourishes into what we call a "Spiritual Childhood": a state of awareness of God's fatherhood and consequent filial dependence on Him.
Phew.
Big words.

But really, aren't children the best examples of what it is to be looking up all the time? Aren't they the ones whom we call innocent, frail, unimportant?
St. Therese practiced just that. And she shares with all of us five practical pointers on how it is to become like her.

First, there has to be ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE in God. Just like how it is said in Mt. 7:7-8: Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.
I am not the asking person. I was taught that you should always do everything you can before asking help. And the person who does not do anything is not worthy of any help. This was ingrained in me since I was young. And from there flourished my life of always needing to achieve something, and most of it bearing only my name. But Absolute Confidence is totally the opposite! it is when you have reached the pinnacle of Faith, that you let things unfold before your eyes, knowing that everything is under His command.

Second, the Saint ponts out that there has to be an ABSENCE OF DEBILITATING SELF-PREOCCUPATION. In short, a total banishment of ANXIETY. I really dont have to expound about this with myself, because in a scale of 1-10, my anxiety level shoots up to 15! The Gospel says: look at the birds, they do not reap, nor sow, but your Father in heaven takes care of them. Are you not more than birds?... (Mt.6:25-34) Without this, God's grace can never permeate your self-preoccupation!

Third, Humility of being a chld of God should be equal to a love proving itself by OBEDIENCE. If God tells you to jump from a cliff, you should do so with total obedience. If God removes your talents, melts away your dashing good looks, or shoves you with people who are but pests in your life, accept it with all humility: obedient that everything is given by God.
I'm not good at this either. I should be on the winning team. I should be sure always. And most of the time, obedience happens when you least expect it.

the fourth and fifth are rather similar: one has to have a love of preference for the FATHER, and one has to have a concern for the Father's GLORY. You see, humility works best when you bounce back all your blessings, your graces to the One who gave them to you in the first place. And looking back at myself, the times when i receive applause and keep the fame to myself, the times when i get a compliment and bask in the limelight even for a while, are those times when i feel the lowest. i feel that i didnt give justice to Him who crowned me with such honors in the first place. And mind you, it can be very difficult.

This is what Spiritual Childhood is all about.
Knowing and Accepting that God is MY Father, and that he is in charge of my life.

Birthday Mo Ngayon

e.miguel.f.ramirez
August 2007 SHNovitiate

D DM7 G
Napapansin mo ba’ng ibang ihip ng hangin
F#m Asus-A
Dahil birthday mo ngayon?
D DM7 G
Iyong mga ngiti’y dulot ng panalangin
F#m Asus-A
Dahil birthday mo ngayon
Am D/F#
Sana’y ‘yong mga mithiin ay lagi mong isipin
G Asus-A
Na galing sa Diyos nating mahal
D DM7 G
Para ‘yong maramdaman ang saya ng damdamin
Asus – A D
Dahil birthday mo ngayon!

Voices’ Echo (A Blessing Song)

e.miguel.f.ramirez
August 2007 SHNovitiate

D D/F#
*Let the echo of our voices
G D
Be heard in all the land
D D/F#
From the seas and to the mountains
G A
May the Lord guide your hand
G D/F#
Into the fountain of his mercy,
G - A - D/F#
To the wellsprings of his love
G D/F#
To God’s peace and joy and hope and grace
G - A - D
May he bless you with his love.*

D Bm
At first we though we were alone
G A
In this dark abyss of living
D Bm
But then one day, your light has shone
G A
And you came and started giving
G F#m
And offered all you can to say
Em A
That life depends on loving
G F#m
You taught this to our hearts,
Em A
And now we pray with all our lives:
(Repeat *)

Psalm 63: Your Love (unfinished)

e.miguel.f.ramirez
July 2007 SHNovitiate

G D/F# C/E
O God you are my God, for you I long
Am Bm C Dsus-D
Without you there’s no meaning in this life of mine
G D/F# C/E
For you my soul is pining all night long
Am Bm C D
And I won’t give up my search until I rest in you.

Chorus:
G – A/G F#m D
*For your love, I’d give up all my life
G D/F#
And all the words I sing will be
Em Asus – A
To the wonders of your grace
G – A/G F#m D
‘Coz your love fills my soul with peace
G D/F#
My hand will praise you, O my God
Em
And sing to you... (ending: O, Lord)

Bridge:
F#m G
And in the morning I will rise, and run to your embrace
F#m G
I will offer you my life and see you face to face
Em F#m G – Asus – A
Then I’ll never ask for nothing else but you!

Repeat Chorus, change key (D)

The Pure Lover (From The Song of Songs)

Who is this coming like the dawn,
Fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
Majestic as bannered troops? (6:10)
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
Streaming down the heights of Gilead. (4:1)
Your cheeks look lovely between pendants,
Your neck beautiful with strings of beads.
We will make you earrings of gold
And necklaces of silver. (1:10-11)
You nose is like the cedars of Lebanon (7:4)
Your lips are like threaded scarlet;
Your voice is enchanting. (4:3)
Your hands are dripping with myrrh (5:5)
How beautiful you are,
How lovely,
My beloved,
In your delights! (7:7)

Our topic for this month is Chastity.
So far, the most precious, most needed, most challenging of the virtues.
According to his biographers, Don Bosco preserved his Baptismal Innocence – no traces of impurity, unchastity, immodesty. In fact, he abhors such topics, even over conversations.

I put together this poem from our conference inputs from Fr. Nioret. He takes his notes from the Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis of Sales – one of the principal patrons of the Salesian Society. St. Francis writes about this particular woman: an exemplar of Purity as she is described ever so beautifully in the Song of Songs of King Solomon. The perfect Lover and Bride.
Her eyes are like doves, on account of their clearness.
Her ears bejeweled with gold, an allusion to the pureness of fire-tried gold.
Her nose, like the cedars, an incorruptible wood traditionally used to build the Temple.
Her lips, a red ribbon, a sign of modesty in words.
Her hands dripping with myrrh, a liquid that preserves from corruption.

Such should be the pure and devout soul: my soul, and each soul who wants to be beautiful and splendorous so as to be able to follow Christ. A chaste, clean and pure soul, glorious in an earthly body!

February Song (Josh Groban) and ME!

Where has that old friend gone
Lost in a February song
Tell him it won't be long
Til he opens his eyes,
opens his eyes

Where is that simple day
Before colors broke into shades
And how did I ever fade
Into this life,
into this life

And I never want to let you down
Forgive me if I slip away
When all that I've known is lost and found
I promise you I, I'll come back to you one day

Morning is waking up
And sometimes it's more than just enough
When all that you need to love
Is in front of your eyes
It's in front of your eyes

And I never want to let you down
Forgive me if I slip away
Sometimes it's hard to find the ground
Cause I keep on falling as I try to get away
From this crazy world

Where has that old friend gone
Lost in a February song
Tell him it won't be long
Til he opens his eyes
Opens his eyes

I sang this for Mary on our Special Rosary tribute on her Birthday last Saturday. i took alot of time trying to figure out the lyrics of the song and relating it to Mary... alam mo naman, kailangang i-forcing through! But as i was listening to it again and again, (and with the help of online sources...) i realized that it was really ME.
I am my own Old Friend.
maybe i left him when i grew up and became the complcated, masked and superficial Me that i am now. Where is he? i ask. because my relationships, my work, my vocation is slowly crumbling down if i dont go back to the MIGUEL that i was.

I want to love.
i want to be loved.
but forgive me if i slip away and find myself first.

very true!!!

Don Bosco once addressed a group of clerics making their perpetual profession thus:

“No one should take vows to please a superior, to get an education or for any other human motive, not even to be of service to the Society, but exclusively for the salvation of his own soul and the souls of others.”

Biographical Memoirs, Vol. VIII, p. 126

Ranting and Raving in completely wrong timing

Mary’s birthday offering has just turned black for me.
We’re having a special rosary tonight at the façade of our novitiate house. “Music. Verse. Prayers.” It was conceptualized by Donnie, and is being put, piece by piece, by all of us, little by little.
It’s just so overwhelming that everyone has poured his best (or at least as what I have seen) into practicing his own item for our Lady. Guitar strings have been endlessly strumming, piano keys have been incessantly playing, and oral practices for poetry reading has been underway.
But were not people of the nitty-gritty detail.
We forget things, we miss out on communication, we fall short on foresight.

Yesterday, we had a scolding from our Socius about our proposal to get the work time to finalize the flow of the program and to set up things that are needed for the program. Before being allowed (it was not even a granted permission, on the contrary, a “forced” granted permission: the one you hear after saying the words: “what can we do? You’re late already...”) we had a piece of his mind regarding the sanctity of work time.
Manual work = sacred time.
He was trying to make a point that we had a lot of Free Time this week, and that taking the sacred Work Time (or Study Period, or Prayer Time, or all the other Times for that matter) wasn’t an excuse. And over and above that, we had to have foresight. Planning.

I believe that I’ve gotten a gazillion remarks in the seminary about time management. We let things enter one ear and out the other. There were no violent reactions on our part – I managed to keep my mouth shut – so the scolding vis a vis conference was cut short.

We were able to do the rundown that afternoon. He was there. More suggestions were made. Comments here and there. And we managed to come out with “satisfactory” colors.

Thinking again who says we have Free Time in the first place?
Yes, some of our professors may have been out, but it doesn’t mean that they didn’t leave us with a workload to do.
Noble and I were juggling our Salesianity requirements with this program. Donnie is rushing the Inside Out while compiling texts for the event. Bonnie is just too full with hobbies and personal reports that he too was busy to push the plan forward.
...It’s a good thing that we didn’t have internet for the past days, otherwise, nothing of this sort would even have materialized.

Summing these rants and raves, which is just too heavy to keep and sulk about, it’s just too bad that we weren’t able to give our justification why we had to use that particular work time... and probably the one of today too.
I learned that working is part of a Community Activity. If your work, whether sweeping the lawn, taking out the trash bin, dusting of the cabinets, contributes to the whole welfare of the Community, then you are doing your work just right.
What more can you expect from four individuals, preparing for a birthday offering to Mary, and who need to set up chairs and plants, cook food and finalize all effects, if not for them to do just that? I think sweeping the fallen leaves or arranging the kitchen stockroom or watering the plants can wait, no matter how important they may be, if you are needed to do something right here, right now.

So it’s not that easy to judge us as “people without a planning mentality” or “people without foresight” if you merely look into our situation. Aapat na nga lang kami, pagwawalisin mo pa ng damo pag nakita mo nang nasusunog ang bahay.

late!

It wasnt the first time i skipped games on a sunday.
well, i didnt actually skip it this time, nevertheless, i was late.

very Filipino.
very Me.

I dont know why i dont see anything wrong with being late. maybe it has been ingrained in me that two, three, five minutes of absence wont change or wont hurt anybody.
well, this time, i got something out of being late.

Our sunday DBYC apostolate ends at 4PM. i had KOA practice at three, ended about five minutes to four, and had to attend to individual KOA concerns of the boys. and just before i thought i was free and could play, one of the small boys of the group said that he forgot something up in the now-barred choir loft of the chapel.
so i said, oh, well, what's two or three minutes to assist this boy in getting his stuff?

it was already four o'two by then.

right after we found the keys (that is, after frantically running here and there looking for the key-holder), our friend and batchmate extern-novice Edward, was shouting my name from afar and making BIG gestures, saying, you've got to go to the field and start playing! Fr. Niorz is already fired up, because you're late!

without asking anythig, i knew i was guilty.
and after four months of not being scolded, i relished that feeling which surged into my veins saying patay! lagot nanaman ako! what's my excuse this time?

I bade goodbye to the kid, making sure he got what he needed, and ran, no actually walked in a guilty-looking manner, up the novitiate hill. i was hiding my shame with a smile, when, as if in perfect timing, we passed the football field, and i saw my novice master calling me from afar.
i walked up to him. guilty, but knew that i had nothig to be afraid of. he's not a type who's going to eat you alive, and in public.

he asked me a few questions and made his point. Budget your time. this is not the fist time that happened. and sent me off to suit up.

and on that long, upward walk from the field to the novitiate house, i couldnt but smile and acknowledge my guilt. it was, i think, for the first time, when i didnt have any hard feelings and grumbles after a scolding. it was during that short time, that i felt i had overcome my agressiveness, and just accepted the fact that i was WRONG.

i've never been at home with that realization. because many times, i cover my mistakes with justifications, with ill-feelings, with counter-attacks to the one who corrected me. but at least for that one big and noble moment, i think i just felt what it was like to be humble.
Accepting.
Acknowledging.
Pledging to do better next time.