Contrasts

 

Is this beautiful? 

If it is, what makes it beautiful as the candle within shines out in the same way as other tealight candles do?  

It is both light and shadow, hollowness and opacity, a mixture of illumination and darkness - a contrast that creates a pattern that is cast out, cast upon. 

Contrasts...

Is not the sunrise particularly captivating because there is the emerging light that meets the darkness of the passing night? Would sunrise be the sunrise people wake up early to watch if it was just one gigantic blob of blinding light? 

Are not mountains intensely stunning because they rise high above their valleys? Would nature's landscape have the same power to take our breath away if it was just one piece of flat land? 

It is easy to admire the beauty of shadows - of light blocked by a lack of clarity and transparency. Shadows mesmerise, like how my students enjoy playing with them, cast by the light from the classroom projector. It is easy to admire the mountains and valleys, the ups and downs. Because they exist outside of us.

It is not so easy to admire contrasts when they are the shadows of our hearts, when they map the ups and downs of our chaotic life. I don't like such shadows and how I wish they were all eliminated at once! How nice life would be if it was all flat ground, easy to trek across! How about you? 

Yet, the reality is that contrasts exist within me, within each of us. Light and darkness, good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, joy and pain, laughters and tears, hope and despair, love and fear, dreams and reality... the healed and the still hurting, the already and the yet-to-be, the I am and the still becoming.

Can there possibly be beauty in the seemingly imperfect, in the contrasts of our human reality? 

Or should I ask... Why can't there be? 

Why can't we celebrate the process of becoming instead of being so insistent that things must already be? 

We fear the shadows, the pain, the yet-to-be, the reality, the imperfections. Because we know our vulnerability that is capable of receiving deep hurts. We also know our power to hurt another. We fear being overwhelmed, that the boat of our lives be overturned by powers we are helpless towards. We fear the ugly for we long to be loved in our beauty. This is our human nature that longs for love. Love alone fills us. 

Blessed is he who finds love that embraces his contrasts, his human reality. But independent of finding such love, dare we relook at our own perception of what beauty looks like, of what life-charming entails? Dare we love ourselves in the reality of who we are, with the myriad of contrasts that affirms we are only on-the-way and have yet to fully arrive at the perfection we hope for? And then, to extend this love to others? 

Isn't this the redeeming love of God for us that delights in us even as we are only still becoming? The love He nailed to the cross in an irreversible way is such an all-embracing love. Lent isn't, to me, so much a time of intentional fasting and almsgiving to give up something that causes me to feel a pinch. While it is necessary to determinedly turn away from sin and be more loving, the way to this isn't quite to set goals to work towards but rather, by displacement - that I intentionally spend time to look more closely at how God has loved me and treated me, to stay at the foot of the cross for long and allow Jesus hanging there to speak to my heart about what His death and rising are truly about. Filled with His love, redeemed and transformed by His love, only then do I have the reference and capacity to love myself and others in the way I've first been loved. 

I bought this lamp from IKEA a few months ago because I knew its shadows would be beautiful. I only just got struck by its beauty tonight. Isn't it beautiful?

Lent - The son returns (Luke 15:11-32)

Photo by YouTube

The parable of the Prodigal son (click for passage) is a familiar passage. Yet, the beauty of the Gospels never wanes and its messages are never exhausted.

If you take a closer look at the details of the story and/or enter into its scene using the Ignatian contemplation, the Holy Spirit might reveal to you certain details you never saw before. 

I'd like to share one insight today. 

In the story, the father did something most fathers would probably not do - give the son his share of the inheritance prematurely - which meant giving the son the means to live independently, and choose his own lifestyle as he pleased. 

Why did he do that? One might ask if he was in the right state of mind!  Surely, he was well aware that the whole inheritance - accumulated by his own hard work and sensible saving - would be wasted. How much good could that sum of money be used for instead! How could he allow his son to wander so far from home when the latter was going to live irresponsibly? Did he not care if his son met with some mishap far from home and it would be too late to send help? 

The next thing the father did, or rather, did not, was to remain behind instead of going after the son to bring him home. Does not sound like he missed his son very much at all. Or did he? 

"But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him." Lk 15:20 (NRSV)

It was no coincidence that the father saw the son in the far distance. He was still far off. At such a great distance, the son's return could only be noticed by one who was deliberately looking out, every waking moment, as long as the light touched the earth. Every day. So much so that he did not miss the moment when his son's return came within sight. Here is a father who waited, day in, day out, patiently, lovingly; who pined for his son. He would have left the house or stood at a spot where he had an unblocked view of the return path. Who knows how many days he repeated this routine of looking out, only to face the futility of his waiting each night. 

Could it be that this father did not go out to bring his son back not because he did not want to but because his son's return wasn't his choice to make? Perhaps, it was a choice his son had to make for himself. And until he's made that decision, it would have been pointless for the father to drag the empty shell of his son home. Because it wasn't his body - his mere presence in the house - that satisfied the father. But a heart that was at last ready to return home, a personal will that had, at last through the lashes of harsh consequences, has resolved to turn away from the empty pursuits of pleasure and indulgences. To force his son to stay by his side would be to save himself from emotional pain but deprive his son of the opportunity of a life-changing self-discovery. What a huge risk this father took! And what a celebration he had!

Where do we find ourselves in this story and insight?
There are many possibilities. 

Perhaps, we can relate with the son. God gave us free will. He takes huge risks by allowing us to use our limited and flawed capacities to make choices even if it means to see us err. But in the erring, there could be important lessons. In the hymn Ashes, commonly sung on Ash Wednesday, there is a line,

"Though spring has turned to winter, and sunshine turned to rain; the rain we'll use for growing and create ourselves anew..."

If we find ourselves on the path home, can we take heart in using the rain for growing? 

Perhaps, we can relate with the father, even though we may not be fathers ourselves. When others err, or when we see them heading down the wrong path, what do we do? How do we react? To be honest, if it is someone I love very deeply, I tend to panic, my fears stirred up, and I would start trying to do all I can to fix the situation and prevent things from falling apart. But not all life situations are humanly 'fixable'. In times like this, it takes a while but thank God for His graces, there comes a time when I  would become aware of my fears and get reminded of God's invitation to trust, to let go, to allow things and relationships to die in order for it to find new life because it does no one any good to try so hard holding in tact that which is already in pieces. 

Where do you find yourself in this story and insight? 
What situation in your life might God be speaking to as you read this sharing? 

Let's take some silence to listen.

Have a grace-filled Lent.