One Journey

Because there is only one me, one pilgrim, there should only be :One Journey

Check out the link. Everything else goes there.

Happy New Year.

Nothing

What's left of me, once you take away everything else?

I just realized that this blog contains the everything else I have been referring to for a long, long time.

Indeed, what is left of me once you take away everything else? I was stripped off the compromised sense of self I created in order to survive this world in the first quarter of this year and most of my posts in between have been hollow cries of the scattered self concept I mistakenly built in the last 20 years or more of my existence.

So, what's left? Nothing. Really, there is nothing.

Aside from the knowledge that I am loved, deeply and completely, and unconditionally and irrevocably by the One who created all.And yes, I am completely, totally undeserving of that love. But that does not change His love.

So, how's that?

Dying Passion

Do you wonder why you feel so restless, so discontented with life lately?

You know that for the past three years, you have been quite happy with your job, your family, your so called spiritual growth. But there is this niggling feeling, this insistent thought at the back of your mind lately.

You wonder if this niggling feeling began several months ago when your mother refused to allow you to attend that Vocation Discernment seminar you have been invited to attend. The first peace you really felt was during a retreat with the Carmelite Missionaries last summer. Then, you were quite eager to really discern if something else is in your future.

Your mother fears that you might be compelled to do something she is not ready yet. And you agree with her on that. You may not be ready for anything else.

But the realization that something inside you seem to have expanded has started you. Yes, you are still young in the faith and yes, you still have a lot to go to and yes, there is still more out there but a thought bothers: that maybe you gave up on an opportunity to grow.

There is a hunger in your heart and you try to fill it in with the pictures and facts of this one cute professing Christian who plays a mean football. You try to convince yourself that you are happy watching others live the life you feel compelled to join in.

You find yourself growing bigger than your circumstances but your insecurities, your fears and doubts, your guilt, holds you back from completely and fully expanding.

And everyday, you teach, with the lack of passion and fervor you once felt. Because something inside is eating you, killing you day by day. You go through the motions but you no longer feel anything. It's just fear, doubt and guilt now. Your favorite companions in your life.

Hanging by a Moment

What is love? What is it like?

I have never been in love but recently,  I read a Regency romance novel featuring a frumpy heroine who decided to do certain things because she, it appears, has lived a safe existence for so very long.

With the ton considering her as very definitely on the shelf, and with her very own quiet acceptance (by wearing her lace cap and sitting on the spinster's seat as the veritable wallflower), our heroine seems to have snapped out of her trance-like life when her younger sister, considered as the toast of the season, was about to marry a duke.

She made out a list of things she would do. Things that gentlemen do but ladies don't do. Her list included: kissing someone - passionately, gambling in a gentlemen's club, fencing, watching a duel, shooting a pistol, and for once, feel beautiful.

I am planning my own list to...several lists actually. Lists that don't include finishing my Master's Degree in five years, reading Shakespeare's complete works within three years, writing a young adult fantasy novel, working from morning til' night, earning a promotion and all those professionally cool things I have been hankering about.

I want to do something personal. Something different for once. Something for myself. I have no idea what those things are yet but with me falling hopelessly "in-like" with a self-professing Christian football hottie and claiming him, I think that's saying I am really going around the bend.

I need to catch up with real life...

Be Honest

You just finished writing a guide for an emodule and once more, that sad little feeling in your heart starts making itself felt again.

What is this, you wonder. Why is this here in this heart that is unencumbered by any emotional and mortal ties. What is this quiet little ticking that makes itself felt at certain moments? What is this thing that sometimes makes itself apparent with a pained little moan or a solitary tear during unguarded times?

You know you forget that when you are holding a session. You after the adrenaline rush of doing something which you believed has helped someone.

But now, what is this quiet little ticking bomb in your heart that seems to beat oh so subtly amidst the shallow beating of your heart?

You Miss It

 

Of course you know about it and of course you miss it.

For a year (or is it two now?), you missed sitting on a chair, facing another teacher, while your classmates are almos zoning out in sleepiness. But you know, deep inside, you know, how you miss it. How you utterly feel the urge to be the one to just listen and be fascinated by the things you never realized until it was pointed out to you.

 

For a time, you gave up the opportunity of sitting in a classroom because you felt compelled to work for others. It was a good and noble cause but now, you sense that restlessness driving you again. That restlessness and thirst for something sublime and something utterly profound that you are unable to grasp.

 

You miss the college halls that you once traipsed to and fro in your quest to become an educator. You miss the smell of newly bought textbooks. You miss the excessive chatter of seatmates and friends before a class begins. You miss eating that weird concoction of animal entrails with red chili in it (whatever that primitive fare is). You miss the daily hourly bus rides, the rush for jeepneys, the hush stillness of a library on a sleepy afternoon. You miss sitting on benches underneath trees.

 

You just miss the scent, the taste and the feeling of learning amidst the hallowed halls of a century old school that fostered your dreams and drove your ambitions.

A Close Encounter : RI’s GSE Program

 

It’s not something that I personally planned on applying for. In fact, I had never seriously considered applying for any scholarship abroad since I already feel quite content and happy where I am now, thank you very much.  But a mentor, one who has helped guide my career, PP Dr. Helen P. Banez of the Rotary Club of Metro Passi, convinced us to apply for the GSE program of the Rotary Club.

The Rotary Club’s Group Study Exchange program (GSE) aims to immerse a team of four young professionals, ages 21-40 years old,  to different parts of the world. For a month or so, the said team members will experience what it is like to live as professionals in that said corner of the world. True to Rotary’s ideals, the said programs aims to promote goodwill and friendship among people.

After a Club screening and interview conducted last year, the four of us were ranked and sponsored by the RCMP for further screening. Dr. Banez personally made enquiries regarding the screening process and a year later, specifically last August, she told us to be ready because we will be having an interview with a panel in order to determine the representatives for three zones of the club.

RCMP was advised to choose only two representatives and Lorena, a fellow Mobile Teacher, and I prepared to take the journey.

It was something that caught me unprepared because my mind was then on other things. But, to cut the story, I qualified for the District Screening which was conducted yesterday at Bacolod City’s O Hotel.

The RCMP provided a financial assistance of P2,500. Dr. Banez urged me to checked-in at the hotel to reduce the pressure and stress from travelling to Bacolod City.

The interview itself was a nerve wracking endeavour and the questions were intellectually crafted in such a manner as to really test the mettle of the participants. Right after I finished the interview, I did sense that I would not qualify. For one, the 14 others who qualified for the District Interview were very much in the advanced levels of their career paths. They have Master’s Degrees and Docotorate degrees under their belts. There was a practicing physician from Roxas, a CPA from Roxas too, an Administrator or something from Zamboanga, a professor of langauges from Zamboanga, and others of the same caliber. There were also several teachers who made the list.

Here is the criteria used:

20% Knowledge of Profession

20% Knowledge of Country

20% Knowledge of Rotary

10% Personality, Appearance and Attitude

10% Leadership Abilities

It was an experience that opened my eyes to a lot of things. It made me understand that I still have a lot to learn, a lot to undertake in life. Oregon was a somewhat distant dream but it has opened my eyes to realizing so much about where I am right now, what is going on with my career,how and what I am as a Filipino and how I am about as a person socially moving in the world.