Mirror mirror

There is something I always say, it is possible for us to live without sin, the only thing which stops us is ourselves. I know this is true, the grace of Christ enables us to come to a state of perfection and it is our unwillingness to aim high. Every time I tell my self I’m going to try, I fail, and then I get discouraged and end up convincing it is not possible and give up. I try and settle for less because I do not see how I can reach to that level where I should be. I want to be perfect and I hate myself for not getting there.

This is my problem. I have this ideal of where I “should be” and I try to act as that person. I try and I fail because I’m not that person. I am who I am. I have written before about the ideal self or rather the false self which Thomas Merton writes about. For me, I created in my mind this person who achieves his fullest potential, does everything he is told by his parents, makes the right decision all the time, loves everyone equally and knows just what to say and when. This persona is of one who knows exactly what to do to fix any problem.

Do you know how much of BS that is? Honestly, in my mind, even now, that is perfection. I try so hard to be that person that I forget who I am now. I make mistakes, and I can’t do everything right, and there are many times I fail, and will fail, in what I have to do, but it those times which God will use to bring forth perfection. I fail to see the good I have done now, in my life and the lives of others. I fail because I can’t see all of it and I don’t really need to see it now.

So, what does it mean to be perfect? Well, I suppose the best way to look at it is to see the example of Christ. It says in Philippians 2 that Christ, though He was God, did not regard equality with God.  He humbly accepted who He was and what He needed to do and at times it wasn’t easy for Him, but He kept moving forward. When I read this, I saw true perfection. Perfection is not a standard I should reach or a goal to set for myself. Perfection is living my life. Simply by living it, I can bring forth perfection. Why? Because if I live as who I am, then I allow God to move through me, with me and in me.

I know I’m going to screw up and maybe even make bigger mistakes than I have made yet, but I know God is at work in all things. Really, our hope for everything working out is in the fact that it is working out now, in this mess, this chaos called life.

Father God, I come before you as I am, nothing more and nothing less. I come as Your child, Your creation. I really don’t know what to do or what to say. There are times I feel like a complete failure. Yet, I know in your eyes I am never a failure and all I have done you take to make something beautiful. All things work out for Your Glory, and Your glory is found in our Love for you and Your Love for us and in our Love for each other. Father, free us from our own thoughts and help us to take a chill pill and just relax. Let us see how EVERYTHING is in YOUR CONTROL and you got it covered. Thank for loving us so much and giving us everything. Simply let us fall into this Love You have for us. Thank you.

Dreams and reality

So, I had an awesome conversation with a friend of mine today. It was one of those coffee shop talks where at the end life suddenly makes sense and you are left somehow comforted knowing your both okay and life will be life.

Many revelations/realizations/epiphanies/enlightenments were made as we spoke about lives, our relationships (family, friends, etc.) and our thoughts. A few things stuck out which I wanted to share and which relates to what I am speaking about now. 

One of the main problems with my evaluation of my relationships or rather my perception of my relationships is that I make judgments based on an ideal persona of myself. I have configured in my head  my “best self.” I feel as if I should act a certain way, I should do certain things and I should live my life according to certain rules. I have created this “perfect” person who I should be. My decisions, my evaluations on life is based on this ideal self. So, I experience disappointments, a sense of failure, rejection, and fear because I see that I do not live up to this ideal.

I was reading the results of a personality test and one of them mentioned Thomas Merton in relation to the persona of an Idealist. Thomas Merton wrote of a false self. If I understand him correctly, this false self is the image we create of our selves which is not our true selves and then we make our choices for this person and then, just like I experienced, we all fall short of our own expectations. Now people tend to react differently to this, but in the end we are still far from our false self.

What should be interesting note is God’s perspective on this. When God looks at us, He doesn’t see this self we created. Instead He sees us as He created us. He sees our hearts, our soul’s desire to love Him and all that He created. He sees the goodness in our hearts. He does see our mistakes, our sins, and our foolishness, but He sees the deeper pain and hurt which is the cause our mistakes, sins and foolishness. One of the things which my friend mentioned was something her professor told her. Nearly every response we have is caused through either fear or pain. The fear and the pain comes from the emptiness we feel inside at times. God passionately desires for us to be completely filled. For this reason Jesus said He came to give life and life in abundance.

Perfection then is not a life without flaws, but a life fully lived. To live our lives fully, for us to be fully human is for us to be fully awake to the realization that God loves us so immensely. He loves us fully and wants us to live our lives fully. He knows for us to truly live our life, we will make mistakes, that we will move away from Him, that we will hurt Him, but He knows we will also glorify Him in all things, even in the bad things. He knows our ultimate end, if we realize too, is in union with Him. Our souls cannot rest until we rest in His love.

Merciful and ever Loving Lord, how your Heart beats for us? With such passion and power you Love us. Your Love wipes away all fear and pain which resides in our souls. We are broken Oh Lord. Rebuild us again through your resurrecting Love.

God come to our assistance, Lord make haste to help us. We am in need of you. The pain in our hearts overcome us. It wears us down and eats us up. Bring forth my God the beauty from this pain.

A new day You have created for us now. You have given us this time to rise from the ashes and be completely restored to the glory in which you created us. Move oh Lord in us, through us, and with us. We fall through the darkness into Your hands. Thank you, Love. Thank you for catching us.

Amen.

Do you feel it? Do you see the comfort and excitement there is in this knowledge? Oh How the fire burns within me to Love now. If not, we need to get some coffee soon as well…

Love’s desire

All I want right now is to feel the act of loving and being loved in return. There is pain in my heart, and it almost comes out as tears in my eyes. I do not think it is a restlessness per say. I have peace in knowing that in the end, I will be happy, content and complete. Right now though, I just want to be in a deep relation. In a place where I feel myself given completely and received completely. I want someone who shares who I am, and I can share in her are and receive the completeness of her.

I say her, because it seems I can be so intimate with a girl. I want to be intimate with a girl. I do not mean I want to have sex with someone. I want to be in her presence aware of my love for her and her love for me. I want the freedom  to express the love I have and I want her to be free to love me. It is said that perfect love drives out all fear. What does it mean to have perfect love. How can I love as such? With those who I am close with, I do not have the freedom to express my love because of what it would mean, whether it is the fear of rejection or the fear of not doing the right thing. I want to put away my thoughts, my inhibitions, my restrictions and just be in a state of love.

Honestly, this is the love God has for me. He is so in love with me and only if I were open to His love, then  I would not feel this emptiness. Thankfully, the emptiness is not as strong as it was before because only rarely do I let myself dwell in the darkness. Now, I spent myself with others, and in that I can see myself moving way from closing in on myself and I see the freedom to be me.

I have though gotten a bit to comfortable in this environment. I hope for this to last, but I will not be in the same place for long. Soon my world, my routines, the people I spend time with will change. I have spent so much energy to build up here the opening to my freedom.

But, I built the key around me, not within me. I allowed my core to be covered in a hardened wall. A wall that even I have hard time penetrating.

Oh Lord my God. You who is the Lord of all, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. In You exists eternity and infinity. In You am I whole and complete. I claim to Love You and I surrender to you all of myself. Only you know the truth of my statement. I see inside of me the struggle to remain in what I can build up and what I can control. The freedom I seek is the answer to the way of life I have chosen. Your Love. Free me, my Eternal Lover. Free me, make me yours. Free me from the chains I have placed on my soul. I seek to dance. I desire to Love. I want to be as one.

Refiner of all, pour Yourself into me and set me on fire. Shine forth the Light of Sanctifying Love and purify my body, mind, and my soul. Burn around me Oh Spirit till I am aflame. Let me be as You are, Love. Let the essence of who I am be You.

Thank you Oh God for your Love and patience. I know I am to be with You in the end and nothing can change Your Will. Help me to say with all I am “Behold your servant, do with me as You Will.” Here I am Lord, speak and let your servant listen to Your Word.

Amen.

The problem with males….

Don’t worry, I’m not here to criticize every male and bring down the “patriarchal control” that is in place, supposedly. The only thing I wish right now is to write many things which are on my mind.

I said it before… I do like a girl…. or at least I think so…. See, I find that we, as males, have a hard time knowing really what we want in terms of the emotional aspect in relationships.

The problem is worse for me because I tend to forget about the past and the future and just live in the present. If I am having a good time now, I don’t care about what has happened or what will happen.

This attitude helps a lot with stress, but causes many repressive and emotional problems. I can never tell what I am feeling. Although, I keep hearing people say, “You’ll know when your there.” Great advice for a man who constantly analyzes (and most of the time overanalyzes) everything.

Here I sit on the balcony of a beautiful apartment. But real beauty is outside. I can hear people talking on the balcony next to me. There is a slight smell of someone smoking, but the wind quickly blows it away and brings in the smell of nature to me. I see the sky as the sun has just set. Still remains a little light, and the western sky faintly glowing. The clouds dims the light even more and the lights of the city is shinning brighter as time moves on. A long sigh leaves…. and there is peace here.

In my mind though, questions flood from every . Where am I going? What should I do with my life? What do I want? What do I feel? What is right? What is wrong? Am I alone?

I can hear a plane fly by. The sounds of traffic slowly makes me drift into a trance and then I get distracted by the messages on meebo.

I really want to write about the issues in my mind. I just don’t know how to do so. But, here is what I feel. The girl I like (I’m trying to figure it out, so I don’t know what else to say), is a great girl. She is beautiful, Indian (I love India, and possibly move there), sings and dances ( I love music), very spiritual ( I could grow with her in my Charismatic Spirituality), cute, sometimes quirky (which I love), helps me to grow in faith, helps me to mature, and constantly tries to motivate me to be a better person.

She is a great person, but I don’t know how I really feel. I have been saying for so long that even though I don’t feel it sometimes, I know I like her. Yet I wonder, if when I think I like her because I want to call her and tell her what all going on, or when I am not doing anything I would want to call her. I love being with her and she is so much fun and weird.

Can I imagine my life with her? Yes, in a way I can. She would be a great mother and wife and friend. All of which I seem to be looking for.

So what is my problem? I have just described an amazing situation to be in, so what is it that is bothering me? The problem is me.

When I look at myself, I see a person who is so involved with what is now. I do think about her, yet, sometimes I don’t really call her. I don’t take time out from what I am doing just to make sure she is okay. She is constantly caring about me. Everyday she tries her best to make sure I am doing okay. She remembers every little thing that I have to do and makes sure I do it.

I don’t do that back. I don’t express that or feel the need to express that to her. I do care for her. I really do. I want to make sure she is okay. If she is hurting, I want to make it okay. But, I do that with my friends, except with her, I do it so much more. I mean, In the past week, the week when I have not really have not been able to talk to most of my friends or my family,I spoke to her the most.

I am attracted to her, a lot. I am. I just don’t know if I am supposed to be here. It’s not because I don’t feel like I shouldn’t. Just that, I don’t feel like I am (possibly I don’t want) to be in a relationship. I value her a lot. But now I wonder if I value her as a close friend. Everything I said before still applies. Everything she is to me, she will be to me ( and I think has been) as one of my closest friends. I don’t want to loose her and at the same time, I can’t keep hurting her.

She has asked me questions of whether I still want her, or if I am tired of her, or if I like her. I don’t want her to leave, to move away from my life. I am not tired of her, because I do appreciate who she is and I am so comfortable around her. I do like her as a person, and I love her as a best friend.

The sky has darkened to night. The lights shimmer and glow brighter than when I first sat down to write. The breeze is still there. Peace says the earth. Love says the sky. Truth says my heart.

The truth is….. I am not committed to her and I can not continue to let her think I am….

Changes of the heart

Shall I begin as I have and will? It sure has been awhile since last wrote something. I feel this is a place of peace and chaos. I come here, when I remember about this, to let go of many things which are in my heart. I have come today though to say where I stand now.

I just read the previous blogs. To be honest, I read the last one I wrote yesterday and just now I read the first blog I ever wrote. It is interesting for me to see the changes I have gone through since then. I realize I am at a different place now. First, i do not write this out of confusion, rather, there is clarity of sorts without certainty.

As far as the girl goes, “R”, there has been some peace since this past weekend. I was able to go for a retreat known as Youth 2000. About half way through the retreat I had made the choice to tell her I think we should be just friends not friends who like each other. (Trust me, there is a huge difference, and a difference between friends who like each other and friends who are attached to each other. Found the hard way the differences.) Yet, something happened with me. I am not sure what, but all of those thoughts left me. I just came to a point where I accepted we are friends who like each other but, I would try and talk to her about all that is going on.

I may not ever know what happened, what I do know is why there was so much struggle for me. Even though we were just friends, I was struggling between being her boyfriend and her friend. So, if I did not talk to her and was just hanging out with my friends and just have fun, I would feel guilty. What made it worse for me was the fact she would tell me every time a guy would flirt with her and she would feel bad. It made feel as if I too am supposed to be guilty about such things. Yes, I know it is not rational, but that is what I felt. Also, I am a selfish guy. Sometimes I just want to do what I want and sometimes all I wanted to do was too waste time. If I spoke with her, I would know what I should and knowing that I was not doing as I should would upset her which would upset me and I did not want to feel upset. Basically, I am used to living a life of instant pleasure. Even with helping people, I love it, and because I love it, I will keep doing it. This part of me, this habit, is changing and I will get rid of it, at least for the most part. The problem is that the habit is here and now. I do not want to keep disappointing her and upsetting her because I am not living up to my full potential.

Those were my thoughts, now I find myself in a different place. As a close friend told me last night, we human beings will disappoint each other. That is a fact because we can never live up to someone else’s expectation of us. I have my weakness and if I am honest about it, and I am honest with her, then I know it will be good and that God will lead us where He wants us. We are friends who like each other, and we are willing to let it flow as it needs to. There will be tensions, misunderstandings, sadness, but also peace, happiness, encouragement and hope. Is she the one for me? I do not know, but I do see God working in our friendship, in what we have and I will continue to offer this to God. BTW, I also do realize I like her a lot even if I do not feel anything at times, which is weird because in a way I feel that about God. I know I love God but do not feel in love with God. Hmm… this entry is getting long, so next time I will expound more on that…. for now, God Bless… Take care… Have fun… PEACE!