Detach from the need to possess…

Handwritten in print letters and inserted under the plastic cover of one of the daily devotional books I try to rigorously go through each day is a summary of an article long-forgotten as for me to be completely clueless about its source or origins. But here it is anyway, copied word for word:

SPIRITUALITY AFTER 50
1. Detach from wounds and anger. Forgive all.
2. Detach from – Need to possess. Achieve, Or be the center of attraction
3. Say Goodbye to earth/loved ones.
4. Let go of sophistication. Be simple.
5. Immerse in language of silence.

Why this? Please allow me to backtrack.

Yesterday, I posted on my FB wall a couple of pictures of the new house we are constructing. My kids have seen them, so with some of my FB friends and relatives. Several comments were to my mind very insightful. Wendy mentioned project, while Joyce and Letti mentioned undertaking, all in the context of the new house. These were both revealing and insightful and let me tell you why.

The idea of building a new house was not new; it germinated over 2 years ago. It was triggered initially by the condition of the old one-storey house we are staying in RER, built in 1975 and now hemmed in on 3 sides by similar structures. The heat and humidity inside the house has made living almost intolerable without the constant use of electric fans and air-conditioning, aggravated by our losing battle with pesky termites, waged over many, many years.

That aside, the important concern lies in this. When we mentioned to friends and relations our desire to construct a new house, more than one responded this way: Why a new house at this stage in your life?

Believe me I was not offended. Friends and relations do not wake up in the morning promising to insult or offend friends and relations at the first opportunity. Rather it opened a critical facet that should have been factored in our decision-making but was not explored, touched, or even realized.

Yes, why indeed should we have to go through the whole tedious process – of buying a lot, paying rounds of confusing taxes and fees, engaging professionals to plan on a house that had to be both functional and secure, and of course, affordable, plus a myriad of other stuff that boggles the mind and pocketbook?

We all undoubtedly reach a certain stage in our lives where we begin to feel comfortable with what we have acquired and use. The alluring familiarity of it all is such a strong aphrodisiac making change quite a formidable task. And for me, doubly so. I develop very strong attachments to petty inconsequential things most people would dispose of without much thought. I guard or stow solicitously my hoards of old furniture, old books/pocketbooks/magazines, written documents, pictures, clothes, etc.

But this never came up in all our planning for the new house. How we were going to deal with all this. It did not even cross my mind albeit daily I had to leaf through my daily readings and would have to be blind to miss the 5 points enumerated above. Specifically and ominously in a big booming voice the second of such strictures - detach from the need to possess.

But the die was cast and inevitability had taken over. So indeed, this has become a project which has taken on the nature of an undertaking.

All considered, it is all for the good. As Wendy said – for wife and family. And imagine since it is constructed of concrete and metal, in a hundred years hence, they hopefully should be referring to it as the ancestral home of some Neri family.

That feels good.

Facial History

Contrary to conventional wisdom the human face by many self-evident accounts appears to be the real window to a person’s history and identity and thus defines his significance. A symbol of his inner person that no other part of him can equal. It is the fine recording slate that tallies his failures and successes, the accompanying pains or joys; that bring either frowns or smiles that over time delicate facial muscles learn not only to remember reflexively but to leave more than superficial traces.

Its lines, grooves, ridges, and furrows are the tell-tale signs translated from the panoply of emotions unconsciously exhibited to etch and engrave remains of the life-bearing challenges that man is heir to.

While not many faces may launch a thousand ships as did Helen of Troy, our countless celluloid celebrities swear and live by them. For many they are their sure-fire capital to fame and glory. We remember many of them for their faces, their extraordinarily chiseled features that separate them from the rest of the cookie-cutter world.

But for most of us, our precious irreplaceable countenance reveals the hallowed pages we write on as we age. The concomitant pains and sorrows translated into lines, grooves and ridges – that we now picturesquely describe as crow's feet, age wrinkles, etc.

Here’s a little project for our vainglorious world. Building our own facial history to measure, compare, or simply to view with nonchalance the effects of our lives on our faces as we age. Of course, apart from the inevitable onslaught of aging on flesh and bones. And attitudes.

For one thing, close and long-time friends and relatives ought to be tickled pink vividly recalling the happy times and treasured camaraderie of earlier years associated with the metamorphosing face of the subject. It cannot help but bring floods of smiling memories.

This lazy and petty experiment aims to plot out some kind of pictorial “annual rings” layout, marking down the memorable events of periods as reflected in one’s countenance – say, like the years when we were lean and mean or having too much hair growth was the problem.

Since one’s face typically mirrors the prevailing emotions of the times, do we see a portrait or a series of them as portraying appearance of subdued sadness, or repressed apprehension, or inner peace and happiness? Or have we been more enigmatic in exhibiting our emotions? Why?

With the digital age, this project has become an easy treat, using only, say the MS proprietary app, Paint, which one can find in any Windows version, to collate the pictures arranged chronologically.

I offer mine as a clinical sample. I enjoin my few but loyal readers to try to create their own.

Of Living and Dying: Revisited

Originally posted in 2005.

We are not only a very unique species, but also very interesting, tightly bound together with a strong strand of ironies and paradoxes.

Let me delve on one such interesting paradox.

It almost always makes for good, emotional, and moving theatre when the life or death of one soldier, or it could be a band of soldiers, is plucked out from anonymity and served to us in a platter of glaring and inspiring detail. I call this our “Saving Private Ryan” moment, since which one of us cannot identify and empathize with the unique circumstances of the man Matt Damon played.

When anonymity is replaced with personal details, we are almost always moved emotionally and intellectually and may thus exhibit a myriad of moods and emotions, ranging from respect, love, honor, fear, inspiration, and even to hate. Hate for the powers that be responsible for bringing about the set of circumstances to rain on our perceived hero or heroes.

But in another vein, we appear to be anesthetized emotionally when dealing with large anonymous numbers. We cannot seem to fathom our emotional depths when we are confronted with unthinkably large numbers. Private Ryan was one life and we invested our entire emotional cache on his life, conveniently shunting aside the countless thousands who died on the beaches of Normandy alone, who did not have to die but obviously died for a cause they believed in. But a single life such as a Private Ryan pushes to the fore the idealism of our profound emotional qualities.

We also find ourselves unable to invest emotionally on the countless other young soldiers and civilians who died in wars and conflicts past. About 55,000 GIs died in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. At least 15 million soldiers and civilians died during WW2. Etc, .

Saddam sitting on his cell is responsible for at least a million deaths, from the time he ascended to power, through the Iran-Iraq War, through the first gulf war, through the present war, and down to his jail cell time. Yet we are quite emotionally detached from him and his dastardly deeds, (and others like him) as though he never quite existed or mattered. Yet surprisingly, many vigorously hate the man responsible for taking him out of power. It is arguable if we have invested enough grief for all the hapless thousands who died in the WTC attacks. We can hardly remember how many idealistic young men died during the regime of Marcos, though we clearly continue to reminisce to this day of the billions he stole and the single life of a Ninoy Aquino. What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Several hundred of thousand lives wiped out in seconds. But then we cannot identify with a single Japanese life from those holocausts.

The same would be true with what is presently happening in Sudan where genocide is in progress. We may have to wait until one life is highlighted in detail before we can release and give rein to our profound emotions.

Why is this so? All those who died in conflict possessed the same life, with the same values and potentials, as any other life of any other color, race, and ethnicity.

If one perceives life as having value unto itself then it is most important that everybody lives and not die. But we have been taught that earthly life is not that significant. Christ taught by example about sacrificing a life so a greater good can be attained. Earthly life then has value when it has purpose, not because it is life and has to be lived to its natural end.

One of my sons reminisced about another fellow officer who died. He had known him quite well, sometimes doing duty for him. He was of his age, married also with two young kids. He was off-duty and was riding his bike home on a stretch of freeway when a hit-and-run rig ended his life abruptly. I caught a bit of the news about this officer’s funeral. And the comment of one fellow officer caught my attention. The guy said that the deceased lived and died doing what he liked to do, riding his bike.

He did not say that he died too young, or that some crazy guy snatched this man’s life away from his family, his work, and his friends. But that this young man lived doing what he liked to do.

UPDATE (3/27/2011)

Admittedly, it feels good to get confirmation for some self-arrived conclusions, from such as this one.

In the 1960s, the economist Thomas Schelling performed research demonstrating that people are more likely to be moved by single victims than by statistics.

UPDATE May 8, 2011

Another most recent validation confirming our unexplained bias toward the defense of “single victims than by statistics”. This time with the welcomed demise of the Number 1 terrorist in the world – Osama bin Laden. Again, we have heard many consoling voices, typically from the far left spectrum, decrying the death of bin Laden and condemning this unilateral act of the US of A as unmitigated assassination. Completely forgetting the heinous acts of this individual which have resulted in the deaths of countless people, mostly innocent victims. Even the Arab Street cannot extricate itself from the rut it finds itself in blindly coming to the defense of the dead terrorist. – at any time and at all costs.

Aiming for Total Human Growth

Human growth entails not only physical maturity, or emotional/mental ripening, but also and more importantly, maturation in consciousness or spirituality or awareness. The last one appears as the hardest to attain and most likely to be overlooked in the development process. When was the last time one was taught to be more conscious/spiritual? This process entails a drastic and even painful break from traditional and learned thinking, which usually tend to be inflexible, too structured and patterned, and most of the time static to a point that it is not open to creativity and tolerance. Putting one’s stakes to tradition means feeling safe, secure, and sure. It usually is the easier path to take rather than the tortuous and oftentimes confusing path of creativity. The former makes it easy on the conscience and mind, and easy to rationalize to an inquiring mind. It also makes it easy to dismiss a petulant mind. Admittedly, one cannot give a workable definition of what this level of spirituality/consciousness is. It does not lend itself easily to words. Or more honestly, because one’s abilities to express are typically not sufficiently honed to enable one to reduce thoughts to words.

It necessarily involves or brings into play one’s spiritual faith. Its seed is initially implanted and nurtured during one’s youth, going through similar but more profound growing phases as one’s physical, intellectual, and emotional aspects. Through our voluntary and conscious efforts, we must probe into, first of all, its existence, and secondly, arrive at a determination that we can rise above that initial level by our own efforts. Of necessity, this requires arduous preparation like serious reading and introspection. Any empowerment attained will be achieved through our deliberate and purposeful efforts and not something taken for granted such as our physical growth.

During childhood, most of what we do and think is purely for selfish motives. We are instructed to do things primarily because of the good that we directly derive from them. In fine, all for our own self-preservation. Very little altruism is involved in our childhood activities. To mature, we should graduate from this pupal stage into a much nobler stage.

It should start with man’s gaining control of himself and his surroundings. His sense appetites which are geared toward whetting his baser nature must be kept in check. Spirituality commences or is enhanced with his ability at self-denial. The initial conquest must be one's own body.

Heightened awareness of surrounding physical and intangible realities can lead to more effective control and/or handling of them, in keeping with their avowed purposes and reasons for being. Maybe this is what is inferred to by the biblical passage about man exercising dominion over all things created.

Some random thoughts about why this spiritual growth is of paramount importance to man’s being true to his noble nature and his destiny.

A. Learning to think beyond one’s self and welfare, taking into account the impact of every act on others; and finally, acting always based on that judgment.

B. Giving a spiritual/metaphysical bent or flavor to most, if not all, of the things that we do and think. To be in the world, but not of this world.

C. Developing a healthy disregard/disdain for earthly life, to a point where one is not saddled by the burden of the prospect of death, nor fearful of death itself, and positively, to a point where one is able to entertain the prospect of surrendering one’s life for a worthy cause if and when the need arises.

D. Nurturing a positive frustration/impatience at the myriad of hedonistic trivialities presently inundating all facts of human living, especially in the more developed societies. A deep longing and aspiration for the more basic and real Christ-like values of daily living.

E. The possible attainment of some form of human perfection in one’s own life. Christ exudes/possesses great powers (as gauged by our present human standards) because he is human perfect, too. He has absolute and complete control of his human self. To illustrate, when he got angry, it was not because he allowed the situation to control his emotional response, although it was definitely beyond the shadow of a doubt warranted. Instead, he willed to exhibit the emotion of just anger. If we can only approximate that level of human perfection, it would be safe to assume that we would then also possess powers beyond our wildest dreams. This would be in consonance with the circumstance of our creation, that we are made to the image and likeness of God. Because we are God’s image, we are endowed with a very complex nature. We must therefore allow the notion that there is still so much to be learned about it while at the same time, it continues to evolve and grow to higher levels. How much then of the inexplicable occurrences around us can be attributed as paranormal rather than as supernatural? The theory of an ever expanding universe hints at how finite boundaries are continually being shattered as our minds probe and explore beyond the known realities. In a true sense, there is no limit to reality in the same way that there is no limit to what we individually and collectively can think of. Creation is a continuous process, and those already created are in constant evolution from day to day. Every human act and thought adds to that pool of creation. God made us such that this creative power comes to us naturally. Philosophers postulate that reality is what we “think” it is. And in the final analysis, all creation owes it continued existence to the Godhead, who must at all times be fully aware of its existence.

The foundation of our faith is anchored on our belief that God revealed Himself to man in the Bible. I submit that man on his own can come to a realization of the existence of God, but being limited and finite he cannot fully comprehend the extent of God. All this is consistent with our understanding that God made man to his image and gave him free will. Nor has many fully grasped the full scope and extent of his own human nature, its capabilities and potentials for growth.

One problem is immediately encountered in accepting THAT basis of our faith. Why did God reveal Himself only to us Christians? What makes us very special? Could he not reveal Himself to all men throughout human history in a special way so that the opportunity to understand and worship Him would be available to everybody in a fair and just way? If we accept this premise, then differences in our perception and understanding of Him would be attributable to the level of awareness/spirituality each one of us will have attained, which as stated previously, is largely voluntary and optional.

WRITTEN THOUGHTS FROM WAY PAST

Rummaging through yellow-eared papers kept in rarely-visited cabinets is much like reliving one’s past. One discovers old stray ideas reduced to writing and slipped through anonymous folders, and invariably forgotten amidst the many cares of youthful life. Here’s a few self-decided to be fit to publish.

Thinking About Man’s Free Will

The “created” or “creature” both singly and collectively can never equal to the “Creator”, although in some respects the former can be likened to the latter. The created exhibits certain characteristics and powers that are reflective of the Creator. One of them is free will. The question then is: Was this free will given to him at the onset of his creation? If not, at what point of his growth/evolution was it installed so that from that point on, he was on his way to almost unlimited growth and development if he chooses to?

One plausible theory one can postulate given what we now know about how homo sapiens evolved through the ages may be that at the point when man consciously distanced himself from group consciousness and embarked on his own, he became a being singularly responsible for his action. He took a choice and decided not to be an involuntary part of a whole that he had originally been involuntarily assigned to. This probably gave birth to the concepts of law and order, crime and punishment, heaven and hell, ethics and morality, etc. This rending away from group consciousness could be the start of the Genesis accounts. A poor parallel may be how planetary order is maintained, where universal physical laws are in effect. Chaos would ensue when for example certain planets do not follow this order. Unless other laws somehow kick in to attempt to bring back order and harmony.

The integrity of man’s free will is left intact in prayer if we have the proper attitude toward it. One common reason for praying is to ask God for certain things to happen, like work opportunities, job offers, good health, victory in contest, etc. When we pray we access God’s presence but He does not make things happen for us, notwithstanding the worthiness or silliness of our supplications. He simply makes known that various opportunities/options, choices are available. We still have to make free choices; thus, preserving the integrity of our free will. Conversely, we are still fully responsible for our actions, and not Him.

If our plea involves an action on the part of a third party, say, a job offer, He is not in turn infringing on the free will of another. What He does is simply to present/implant/make available certain ideas/options/thoughts to the other person. If it comes out that the reply to your plea for a job offer is favorable, it is because the other party freely chose to make the offer. If the answer is negative, then it is also because he said no and not because God said no.


Role of Self-denial in Man’s Life

The emotions of love/lust/longing are rooted in man’s psyche/mind/soul/inner being, apart of and distinct from his temporal body. However, to express/gratify these, man has to work through his body. He is man because he is body and soul, not a body and a soul. Expression/gratification may be in the form of thoughts about the subject/object, face-to-face vision, interactive communication, touch, intercourse, etc. And if these are not possible/feasible, maybe flights of fantasy are resorted to. These emotions are definite attributes of the nobler nature of man, his soul. Therefore, their expression/gratification do not necessarily signify an inability to control one’s sense appetites, or that man is giving free reins to the needs of his body for truly these are needs of the soul too. Thus, we ought to ask whether we should always deny ourselves these lusty thoughts/longing simply because we grew up feeling guilty about them.

Heaven on Earth?

The Church teaches that being in the state of sanctifying grace is sharing in the life of God and that the ultimate reward is the beatific vision (heaven) which is the face-to-face audience with God. Another tenet states that in the valid reception of Holy Communion, the body and blood of Christ become part and parcel of us, making us God-like, here and now and on earth – a foretaste of heaven.

What exactly does this mean? Is it only symbolic? Or is it attainable in its true sense? How is it manifested in daily life?

To be truly true, there must be a higher level of existence/spirituality attainable here and now, which can be experienced by man under his present state here on earth. The obvious question is how to attain this level and what means to use. Once attained, many should be able to exude powers ordinarily considered supranatural. Some possible examples would be extra-sensory powers, mind-over-matter experiences, etc. – much like what Christ had while on earth. Or on a practicable level, man could become more event- and/or people-sensitive so that he becomes more able to understand and interact in a more effective and enlightened way – be more able to accept human events/realities in a better perspective. Spirituality/wisdom enables us to see through the hedonistic trappings and evaluate realities according to their ultimate purposes and values. These should be attainable by anybody, be he a believer of Catholic dogma or not.