There are times in our lives when we experience a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Not to mention emptiness. We feel bereft and stripped of everything. Stripped down to nothing. In these times of loss, when we are poor in spirit, hungry for that comfort, fearful that what we want may not come or may never come. We stand still facing the unexpected. Sunrise to Sunset, as the fears swiftly fly, living day to day, laden with happiness and tears.
As night comes, thy sacred lamp of day now dipt beneath the horizons leaving a coat of darkness of what once stood bright.
We are trusted to another, entrusted with one another. The extreme feelings of helplessness and weakness mixed with hopefulness of loss of love, of loss of people of pain and yet a mystical relief. Indeed, this is a journey of discovery.
Sometimes we know more about ourselves and others when we are put in extreme situations. At times, all it takes is one single event and it can awaken within us a total stranger who was totally unknown to us, such that the days ahead will show that in living each day and leaving tomorrow to providence, we are slowly born again.
When we commit ourselves into one another's hands there will be risks involved. Some take calculated risks, some dont bother about the risks because they feel it's worth it.
Celebrating the feast of the Holy Cross is a personification of the moments of loss, love, trusting and giving, of unappreciative behavior or ignorant responses. The moments of abandonment and rejection leading to that pain and loss.
We see the symbol of the cross as a symbol of pain and hardship. Of suffering and turmoil. Thats the life of the cross. In the aftermath, the cross stands as a symbol of gain from pain. Of victory and salvation. Thats the triumph of the cross from the life of the cross. There can be no victory without the element of self-giving and self-emptying and humility.
When we gaze at the cross and look into the mirror to see the crosses within us and the cross or crosses we have chosen to take up, it could be in the form of people or incidences of events that are over on on-going. We see and gaze knowing that it took courage to carry it at the beginning, transcending it to a road taking the cross with the spirit of love, a self-emptying form of the father's love. The trust in the saving power of God.
Thats when we find strength in moments of doubt, fear, anxiety, distress, hopelessness and suffering. It is not acquired from anyone in particular it is obtained from that unexplainable trust which could well be defined as faith.
This is the cross i carried for myself for the past months. The journey is almost complete with just a few steps left to complete. There on, the journey would have been a voyage. A voyage where the destination is within me, a voyage where the destination was not a goal or a target in front of me to rush and run for.
A destination that was a process of inward-out experiential development.
Happy Birthday to ME
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