Many people have been asking me where I am. Maybe because they don't see me bubbling on Facebook. Just to quell fears of my alien abduction or my untimely death, it's Lent and I just felt that the time is right to let go of some things, for now.
Someone objected violently. How is it that I keep on posting notes in Facebook? We'll, that's the beauty of RSS feeds. You see, my blog and my Facebook account are married happily. Whenever I post in Blogger, it gets reposted in Gmail Buzz and in Facebook. So don't get scandalized if Facebook tells you that I posted something in the middle of the night. It's the Facebook server pulling my blog writings off Blogger.
Facebook will have to wait until Easter. Ciao!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Skills and Talents
I like Sunday afternoons because its at my disposal for personal use. Today, I honed my shooting skills in Basketball, maybe inching up one percent from zero in the three-point shoot-out efficiency scale. The aspirants were using the other basketball court so I had to do with the age-old Ferrari court and I met aspirant Geobert there, practicing his football kicks.
A conversation started amid the bouncing balls and I told him that I need to improve my skills in preparation for my practical training. You see, you have a little bit of everything so that you can be of some help to the boys in many ways. You don't have to master all skills, the basics would have can already win hearts. Then he pointed, and it is universal truth, that we always have some forte we can be proud about and some areas where the room of improvement is as big as a standard-size football dome.
Then I surprised both of us when I said that what is not your talent is your skill. We all have our talents, some are naturally good dancers who groove as if they don't have a bit of bone in their limbs, some are natural virtuoso's who are music incarnate, some are angels that seemed to have lost their way going to the choir their voices so sweet and melodious a single note is enough to rouse varied emotions and a bucketful of tears. Talents are natural, we all have them but not all of them.
What is not your talent is your skill. It means you might be naturally good at it but you can always improve by practice and hard work. It also means that any skill can be learned also by practice and hard work, and all skills are essentially reachable by anyone who aspires. As the Milo advertisement goes, great things start from small beginnings, I could become a professional three point shooter. I wish.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Back to the Basic
We are now in the third day of Lent and I can already feel it settling inside my soul. The bareness of Lent, the reduced noise, the tempered day, and the discipline is not something that is quite inviting, but having gone 24 times through the season, I begin to see its value.
The bareness of Lent is best seen in the sanctuary of the chapel where the sacristan removes the regal decors and the remaining flamboyance of the previous feasts. It is just bare cold stone and a few necessary things. It represents the way we remember who we truly are without the many layers of coatings we use to hide our true selves. It is the removal of all those layers of grime and sin that has accumulated over time, to reveal the marble that is God's workpiece.
Silence could be deafening because once you remove the noise outside, you take notice of the noise inside you. We make a lot of noise. We Bosconians are known for our boisterous laugh and high spirits. But there are other levels of noise than those in the wavelengths perceptible by the human ear. There is the noise of daily life, things that are not necessary and useful but we do them anyway without knowing why. There is the noise of society, those prejudices and stereotyping we take part in because it is common. There are many more outside the person and shared by many. Taking notice of them and lowering their volume makes us aware of the more noise inside.
The noise inside is more difficult to face. When the mind is too preoccupied of other things it loses track of what is essential, and when the heart starts to explode in a volcanic eruption of suppressed emotions and of issues and traumas we are too afraid to face, who can bear it? The noise inside us needs more effort to quiet down. A real effort at focusing and discipline is the key.
And here comes the real value of Lent, it invites us to practice focus and discipline, values the world undervalues. Like a tool that needs to be sharpened, the human will is sharpened by self-discipline after a year of abuse and misuse. They say practice makes perfect, if so, then Lent is that practice of following Christ more faithfully through self-discipline. Don Bosco is right after all. We don't need to do extraordinary penance, for going back to the basic, what is already there to discipline is enough penance for us to please the Lord as we traverse the road to perfection.
The bareness of Lent is best seen in the sanctuary of the chapel where the sacristan removes the regal decors and the remaining flamboyance of the previous feasts. It is just bare cold stone and a few necessary things. It represents the way we remember who we truly are without the many layers of coatings we use to hide our true selves. It is the removal of all those layers of grime and sin that has accumulated over time, to reveal the marble that is God's workpiece.
Silence could be deafening because once you remove the noise outside, you take notice of the noise inside you. We make a lot of noise. We Bosconians are known for our boisterous laugh and high spirits. But there are other levels of noise than those in the wavelengths perceptible by the human ear. There is the noise of daily life, things that are not necessary and useful but we do them anyway without knowing why. There is the noise of society, those prejudices and stereotyping we take part in because it is common. There are many more outside the person and shared by many. Taking notice of them and lowering their volume makes us aware of the more noise inside.
The noise inside is more difficult to face. When the mind is too preoccupied of other things it loses track of what is essential, and when the heart starts to explode in a volcanic eruption of suppressed emotions and of issues and traumas we are too afraid to face, who can bear it? The noise inside us needs more effort to quiet down. A real effort at focusing and discipline is the key.
And here comes the real value of Lent, it invites us to practice focus and discipline, values the world undervalues. Like a tool that needs to be sharpened, the human will is sharpened by self-discipline after a year of abuse and misuse. They say practice makes perfect, if so, then Lent is that practice of following Christ more faithfully through self-discipline. Don Bosco is right after all. We don't need to do extraordinary penance, for going back to the basic, what is already there to discipline is enough penance for us to please the Lord as we traverse the road to perfection.
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