Saturday was a day for debate and trying to make sense of a life we struggle to live but cannot understand. What do you believe: God pre-ordains? Everything happens for a reason a la the chaos theory? Or is life, like your ideology, a blank slate? 'Anything goes, whatever will be will be'?
Then, how do you account for the differences between you and me? Did God exercise justice and fairness? Or am I really just nothing masquerading as something and hoping someone buys it?

But it all comes back to one or the other, and what my longing soul can deal with embracing.

As high as heavens are above the earth,
as high are my ways and thoughts
above yours.
-- Isaiah 55:9

But today, I like this version better:

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
Before the second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on
Walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it

Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight
You're packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen

You could have flown away
A singing bird
In an open cage
Who will only fly
Only fly for freedom

Walk on
Walk on
What you got
You can't deny it
Can't sell it or buy it
Walk on
Walk on

You stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on
Walk on

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you care
It's only time
And I'll never fill up all my mind
All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress up
And all that you see

All you create
All that you wreck
All that you hate
--U2

posted by beautiful at 8:54 pm

On Death...

After watching snippets of footage on TV about the Pope's death on Sunday, I also watched part of Oprah where they were interviewing the late Christohper Reeve's wife. I remember her telling the audience about how the remainder of her husband's life spent as an invalid wasn't a waste, because he continued to give hope and strength to the people around him, and to people who were like him. His ambition to make a difference to the world and to touch peoples' lives was fulfilled in his paralysis, because he showed how life went on despite tragedy. Life becomes different, but it also becomes normal once again, and it made him to thankful to still be alive.

Imagine the kind of faith you need to accept a life like that. You can't move, and you have to depend so completely on other people for care. A grown man. And his wife was saying how in spite of it all, she told him: 'you're still you', and she didn't stop loving him. Now imagine the kind of strength you need to be a caregiver. It moved me so much then, and in retrospect I think what she said is all the more admirable, because a friend shared with me today on how difficult it is to look at someone so sick, and so grotesquely deformed and to see that person suffering tremendously. Somehow Christopher Reeve's wife could look past it all and see the man she loved and still loves.

And then, of course, after the journey is made, the inevitability of death remains. The event itself is of certainty. I've always been a bit iffy about the idea of dying and not knowing what happens after that. Do I expire? What's expiration for eternity like? If I make it to Heaven, what will it be like? What will the post-death me be like?

But somehow, with the Pope's death and my attending Mass tonight, those doubts have somewhat abated. His life, his suffering, his final moments: it all makes so much sense now. It has all been traded for something pure, perfect and glorious. It wasn't just death, it was death in Christ. This is what I've missed out on all those years of my life when I went into fits of anxiety thinking about death as loss. In a weird way, death is the final reward, the icing on the cake...

So here I am. All of twenty. I am alive. And I want to use the remainder of this life meaningfully. Lord, let me do what is right in Your sight. From this moment till death, use me as an instrument to do the things I am meant to do. I love you.

posted by beautiful at 9:08 am