Advent has INDEED begun for me

I've spent this 1st week of Advent pretty much in waiting. Earlier this week, I experienced what waiting for my Grab car can feel like in a city like Bangkok, quite renowned for its traffic jams. A wait of more than 10 minutes was quite the norm. Waiting in the jams, waiting for the plane that was delayed and waiting as the plane flew me back to Singapore. It wasn't a pleasant wait at all with a fever and the short flight from Bangkok felt unending. And then came the wait to disembark, the wait for the luggage.

I waited through the night with a high temperature, just to wait some more at my doctor's the next morning. (She was very kind to see me earlier than expected!) I waited for my temperature to drop, for the cough to stop, for the alternating shivers and perspiration to end. When it is a viral fever, I have learned that there is nothing anyone can do and I just got to wait. I waited in bed the past 3 days to feel more strength, waited for the time I could finally sit up to eat without seeing stars.

Time passed me by without waiting and still I have to wait.

To be honest, I got tired of waiting. It is more annoying to wait this time because I have another trip this Saturday to prepare for. And since it is a retreat, I feel all the more the need to prepare well. It explains the growing frustration that I seem to have wasted 3 days sleeping. And I don't even know if I'll be fit to fly by Saturday though the fever subsided yesterday. More than the physical readiness, I have not packed or run any of my errands. I just don't feel ready for the retreat at all levels.

It is no coincidence that we have just begun this season of Advent. A time of waiting. Mary and Joseph waited 9 months for the arrival of the Son of God. The Jews waited through generations for God to send the Messiah to deliver them from the hands of their enemies. There was a lot of waiting, of anticipation. Unlike my kind of waiting, where I know that if God wills, I will recover my health and I know how that roughly looks like and feels like, the kind of waiting Mary, Joseph and the Jewish people were involved in weren't so defined. In fact, baby Jesus had to wait in Mary's womb too!

But whatever the wait may be like, could it be that the one common purpose (though it may not be the sole purpose) of waiting is to learn to let go of being in control? Of learning that if I care to be honest, I cannot control time and viruses, cures and health. I cannot control when God comes and how He comes and in what form He comes. I may have my plans of what I feel I need to do before my retreat, in preparation for my retreat. But isn't it another timely reminder that I am not the God of my retreat? Can I stop being panicky about being out of control and let go of my fixed ideas of how things need to be and so be finally able to trustingly fall into the unknown of my mysterious God who never fail to surprise me?

Perhaps, there isn't a better way for me to begin Advent. And this is how I am beginning. By allowing myself to lose control more and more. In the waiting, to come to a more authentic self-knowledge and God-knowledge. To learn to be human. And then, perhaps, in my more authentic humanity, I can truly welcome into my emptied heart the King of kings, the humble Child, the Messiah.

I shall wait, in humility and poverty.

How will you wait?

From Fear to Love

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This morning, after reading this terrifying news report (click on link to CNA), I was clearly feeling fearful. Fearful of falling prey to these evil people who seem to have lost all sense of life's sanctity, the sanctity of others and of what it truly means to be a human person. Not even a servile fear of God (fear of God's punishment) seem to be informing the choices they make. Quite immediately, my reaction was to inform my family about this, post the report on Facebook so that others may be cautious, and then to continue my project of clearing out photos from my Facebook with greater urgency. I started reacting out of that fear. 

Beneath this more immediate reaction, hidden out of the radar of my consciousness, something else was happening at a deeper level. That fear was starting to form another story or perhaps, to reinforce previous stories out of which I live. The story that I am not safe, that this world is truly evil, people cannot be trusted. And how these stories then lead to the belief that I cannot afford to be vulnerable, this screwed up humanity is not worth my time and life. My self-protective wall is reinstated and I will be on self-defense mode, constantly on a lookout for what is bad and imperfect and potentially threatening to me. I know this thread. I will soon grow spikes all around me; spikes that can be shot at will in any direction before I am even able to catch myself or hold myself back. Or at the very least, I will be fully armored and all people will encounter is that cold, hard, metal suit. My attention would be shifted increasingly onto myself and my well-being. I will be moving towards narcissism and further away from transcendence and love. 

By God's tremendous grace, He reminded me in prayer that there is a different direction, a different way. A way that is not a foolish gullibility and naivety but a way to be human. It began first with the recognition and acknowledgment of that deadly emotion called fear. And then, He reminded me of what He showed me during my 30 day retreat last year, that in every person, though hidden, ignored, evaded, repressed, suppressed whatsoever, there is that presence of the Divine. That part in each person that still desires good and love, and seeks goodness and love. And God will not take away His Divine presence that has already been gifted to each person made in His image and likeness. 

In this reminder, I was being called to the Magis, the more beyond myself. To recognise these evildoers in ways in which I wasn't able to recognise them this morning, and perhaps, also in ways they themselves do not yet recognise themselves. I was being called to recognise them the way in which God has recognised me in my sinfulness, when I couldn't even recognise myself as being that beloved child of God the Father, created out of love and meant for love. 

It is amazing that the disgust, fear and paranoia I felt this morning are nowhere to be found now. And I am given the grace then to hold this sinfulness of humanity in a healthier, more loving and life-giving manner. The grace also to hold these people up to God for God to touch, forgive and heal. And I gradually entered a calm, a rootedness in God and the ability then to wait on this God who holds humanity in His loving embrace, yes, even in our wretchedness. A waiting that is charged with hope in a God who can transform any death into new life, a resurrection that I have witnessed in my life too. 

And at the end of the day, what lingers are gratitude and consolation. God keeps His candle lit in the dark even when there are treacherous gales trying to extinguish its tiny flame. God be praised and glorified. 

Are there any fears in you that need God's transforming grace too?