Nine sets of friends crammed in a short trip. The laughter, learning and longing were priceless. I could have met up with more but my messages were sent on short notice. Still, I believe there’s another time for that soon. There was alignment in schedule even in the absence of a plan. And I came home to another great gift I had been asking for: I met up with a teacher in high school — who has been more of a best friend than a teacher — after more than a decade. Years after she left for New York, I remember searching the ends of the virtual world so I could keep in touch. During those times when I lost her like a limb, Google, Friendster, and Facebook returned no happy results. I felt that if I would never know how she is, I’d lose a part of me, that which she once filled with stories of love and loss, marriage and dreams, and even age-old beauty tips and skin care when I was sixteen, awkward and immature.
Thankfully, finally, she got into Facebook, and catching up with her has been one of my prayers.
Again, with Divine alignment, we met up for batchoy yesterday and I could never thank Him enough! I could have flown directly to CDO but something told me then that I had to come home to Bacolod and fly again the next day. So this was why he brought me home — a gift was waiting!
It was all so short and sweet and girly but that only meant that this wasn’t the last. A little over 50, she’s more beautiful than when I last saw her. Cleanse, tone, moisturize, indeed!
*****
“How can I repay the Lord for all the goodness he has shown me (and my friends and family)?”
My heart sings with no words that can ever come out from my own. I’m thankful that the Psalms can fill in the blanks. But the blanks themselves are full and fluid and whole even without the aid of lines and music. Blank as they are, too, they are suspended in haze, they cause a high in me, and the threat of an addiction is apparent. If I become too comfortable within these blanks, I might be caught up with only the feeling of ecstasy, and lose out on why these rare moments happen: these are allowed to happen only as a trigger for conversion, not as a state for one to permanently seclude himself in. God lets one experience God so that he can go back to the world, and show love and mercy. Otherwise these heightened states will be more egocentric than Christian.
So again, my life challenge is how not to succumb to the comforts of these blanks, especially now that I am tempted to be so self-important and egocentric.
simplicity school 