Tranche di Vie (Slice of Life)

"I know that every soul cannot be alike. There must be different kinds so that each of the perfections of God can be specially honored. To me, he has revealed his infinite mercy, and I see all his other attributes in the light of that. Thus they all seem glowing with love: His justice, perhaps, even more than the others, is clothed with love, for how sweet a joy it is to think that God is just; that on other words, he make allowances for our weaknesses and understands perfectly the frailty of our humanity..."

The Authobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux:Story of a Soul, translated by John Beevers (Manila:Sinag-tala Publisheres,Inc.) copyright 1957,135.

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"Tita, I think you should start catechizing kids again," whispered my seven-year-old niece one day while I was preparing to go for work...

 "We were talking about you yesterday..."

I knew it was coming. It was my mom's turn ... she has kept quiet for the past few weeks but was very observant... so I knew it was her time to speak...

She texted me in the morning from my room and simply told me to go out... 

have fun... 

just LIVE...

I was expending too much time with my "invisible friends..."

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While at mass, God reverted my eyes towards Him... 

Out of roads 
Music by: Arnel Dc Aquino sj . Lyrics: Johnny Go sj
Arranger: Arnel Dc Aquino Sj . Performer: Veepee Pinpin

I just run out of roads again
Don't know where to turn
I started counting stars again
Then I lost my way

I just ran out of time again
Will I ever learn?
To stop my chase of hours again
Only to learn I've lost the day?

The last thing I need
Is to hear this whisper in the wind

The last thing I want
Is this voice that rises from within

I'll need to go home soon, I know
But maybe tomorrow, not now
When the last thing I need here and now
Is the lasting need for You

I've been rushing out of rooms again
Too afraid to stay
I've been dreaming of some rainbow's end

But the colors melt away

Should my heart be like an open door
Helpless to the storm
Permit Your wind to touch my soul
Only to leave this aching song? 

The last thing I need
Is to hear this whisper in the wind
The last thing I want
Is this voice that rises from within 

I'll need to go home soon, I know
But maybe tomorrow, not now
When the last thing I need here and now
Is the lasting need for You

The one thing I need
Is to hear this whisper in the wind
The last thing I want
Is this voice that rises from within

I need to go home soon to You
Won't wait for tomorrow, right now
Is this haunthing need for You
This haunting need for You

(source: http://mgaputonimimi.blogspot.com/2009/01/out-of-roads.html; 
video: http://youtu.be/_dfwC9G-RTs

When have I ever started becoming a beggar?
perfectly ostensible with my pain?
 I asked myself...


... inordinately seeking attention from 
people... 


When have I started giving in to reveries? 


...loosing my boundaries and flexing my morals...

...filling the ache and void with fleeting 


desires... 

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So, it's You and me again...

I've heard Your voice through 


my friends...


I knew it was You...


I offer You everything that is beyond me... 


I offer You my heart...


Help me to fix my gaze on You...

Everything is Grace

Gratitude is not a simple emotion or an obvious attitude.

 It is a difficult discipline to consantly reclaim my whole past as the concrete way in which God has led me to this moment and is sending me into the future. 

It is hard precisely because it challenges me to face the painful moments---experiences of rejection and abandonment,feelings of loss and failure---and gradually to discover in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for deeper love,stronger hope,and broader faith..

by Henri Nouwen,In My Own Words:compiled by Robert Durback, Chapter 3:Response (Ligouri,Missouri:Ligouri Publications,2001), 72.

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“Tita, we badly need a break, we’ve been working too hard,”

cried my two nieces the other day.

I wouldn’t have missed a day at work for nothing…but I did for two days… 

My mother originally thought of it as repose… but the kids were tagging along all day…

They whispered, “We’ll show you what fun is all about,” winking at each other… 

reminding me of Phineas and Ferb... 

oh okay,  they are cherubims...

So, off we went to Calaruega, an ideal place for weddings and retreats…

We had been there December last 

year, but we never really had a

 chance to explore it...  a revisit was 

more likely... 

  

Oh, how we run...

free like birds... 

we had the place to ourselves....

I never felt such freedom in my 

life.... 

  

...I felt so much at one with nature...

and with God...

"Place yourself in the dimensions of infinity and eternity, where there are no boundaries, where there is no end..."

-Karen Katafiasz

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I would really have preferred to be alone... but I realized 

that God wasn't calling me for that... 

I could be so immersed in solitude but if He wasn't 

present there... then it would have been empty...

I was oblivious to everybody else around me...

 then my nieces called me again...

We proceeded to Casita Ysabel... it was at the end of the 

road of Batangas...

Everybody else was complaining... but when we saw it... I 

thought it was worth the long trip... 

We slipped into the beach for awhile...

I had more fun I guess... We forgot about time...

I wasn't thinking of work...

I was just there... 

and for the first time in many days, my soul had its rest.

I am gradually learning that the call to gratitude asks us to say

 "everything is grace." (Weavings)

In His Embrace

Somewhere in a place I've never travelled

...in the abyss of infinity lies that great wealth which I was searching for.

 I looked for solace in the arms of a friend and He took me there...

 gently... 

                       patiently...

                                                                      leading me the way...

I awoke at the sound of my alarm at 5… hmmm… it seems that I’ve been dreaming of Romeo and Juliet again… I replayed this scene over and over in my mind... but everything went hazy afterwards… I must've slept again...

I got up a few minutes after and quietly greeted the day with a prayer… my heart was led to reflect on Jessica’s

Enjoying the Dance

It reminded me of a prayer I used in my Ignatian retreat

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It has been an unusual day. I have been keeping to myself lately. My colleague must have felt that so she brought her little daughter at work. God knows, I couldn’t resist the sight of a child. And the little girl immediately pulled a chair beside me and played there the whole afternoon. We had a pretty good time. Little did she know that she brought a ray of hope my way.

As I walked my way home, a blind man serenaded the streets with his love songs… what caught my attention was another song I heard over the station. I was thinking of Sam at that time…

he dedicated that to me two years ago…

 I was his wildflower…

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Some friends broke my silence last night … God just wouldn't  allow that I bend and look at my miseries... so He sent His angels to pull me out...

 I was tasting some songs… mulling over lyrics… we  weaved a whole tapestry of connected thoughts… it was heart more than mind that I saw at work...

God was present until I slept. He sent the last angel to whisper His words of love...

You're beautiful...

"Quando sei faccia a faccia con Dio non puoi fare nulla che renderti conto di essere un nulla e di non avere nulla(When you are face-to-face with God, you cannot do anything but regard yourself of being nothing and having nothing). Dio parla nel silenzio del tuo cuore (God speaks in the silence of your heart). Se ti metti davanti a Dio in preghiera e in silenzio (If you put yourself before God in prayer and in silence), Dio sicuramente ti parlera (God will surely speak to you): e soltanto quando realizzi la tua nullita (it is only when we realize our nothingness), il tuo vuoto (our emptiness), che Dio puo riempirti (that God can refill us)."---Mother Teresa (Salverio Gaeta.Il Segreto di Madre Teresa:Il diario e le lettere inedite dei colloqui con Gesu riportati alla luce dal processo di beatificazione. ( Mondadori Printing S.p.A --- Stabilmento NSM --- Cles Trento),Edizioni Piemme Spa,2002.)

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Break the Silence

 I’ve forgotten how it felt like… I had frozen every emotion at work to evade it
 but here it comes knocking again...   
like a sting that sensitizes me endlessly…

It has been a month that I’ve been contemplating on my moods. 
My Irish art mentor Kevin taught me that emotions and creativity have nothing to do with each other… I could draw and paint well… make music and dance regardless of what I feel… those are talents embedded in me….

and I keep on looking back at what my friend Jim wrote on ABS… 

the more I feel like not doing something…the more I should exert effort on doing it...

How do I keep on putting my heart out there.?

Fuga Mundi: On Matters of Sexuality

I wrote this for my friend, I hope you get to read this... thank you for giving me something to ponder on...

I just came back from Italy when three younglings approached me (in separate occasions) and asked me if I wanted to "make out" with them...

 I raised my eyebrow in disbelief

 ( nobody dared ask me about this when I was younger )... 

but I laughed instead of being enraged for they asked me frivolously (like asking me what my name was)... I never saw myself a cougar... so my reaction surprised them as I slapped them with the words, "No, I don't go for PMS." I thought that ended there... but one backfired and told me to stop hypocrisy and the "Virgin Mary effect"... I thanked God for that insult hurled on me... I knew that he was angry I declined his overnight invitation but I wouldn't mind being called "fusty" either.

I know I've made graver mistakes in the past... I will not wash hands and pretend that I'm innocent... God always pulls me out of the mire... I asked God to preserve my innocence but He knew better... I would've been selfish and proud if I were, so He gave me thorns in the flesh which are known to my confessor...

Listening to my friends's dilemmas regarding promiscuity, sexual permissiveness, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancies, masturbation, pornography, homosexuality... widened my understanding of the world.

Celibacy is not for everybody but chastity is... and it's the greatest challenge in this world...

Opting for the higher cause doesn't mean fear of sex/marriage nor repression of sexual feelings...

I remember the kids we visited in La Foresta who were rehabilitated from drug addiction. Their motto is: TEMPora, TEMPera, TEMPore (It takes Time to Temper the Temper)... The same goes with our sexual feelings, they can be tamed... 

The intensity of the sexual urges might also come from our hormones ( women have to know about the movement of their cycle )... and our limbic system (okay, don't look for it elsewhere, it's found in the brain)...

Just a side story, recently, I read about the quest for female viagra to activate the limbic system... oh well...

Anyway, if we succor our sexual desires with overexposure to pornographic materials... then our lust grows...

 so my friend,  I ask you what do you feed your mind and your heart?

STD: The Netbook

I’ve worked in HD for four years... was always assigned in Hepa B patients...had my finger pricked while injecting hemopoetin to a Hepatitis C infected patient… then I saw through my Intravenous Training handling BT cases two years ago...

 no wonder an STD :P

Come to think of it, I’ve contracted STD on the eve of the International Nurses Day… oh and ... laugh laugh dear friends… 

 I caught the infection through my ‘eyes’...

…reading Rimly perhaps… whose pathophysiology traces back from Lady Estrogen . 

and Jessica Brant. 

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To you Rimly, thank you for this STD...

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Along with the STD is the deal:

1. Make up ONE totally ridiculous story about yourself that is a complete rip-off from a movie. It can be as long or short as you want; clean or crass as you want.

2. Pass it on to whomever you feel is deserving of this STD – or accept it and keep it for yourself; it’s your blog – it’s your choice.

3. If you choose to accept this STD, please link your acceptance post back to http://rimlybezbaruah.blogspot.com/ -- and to the person who gave you your STD (in your case it would be http://grazieadio.blogspot.com/ )

You get the point?
You can choose to keep your STD for yourself. Yet if you choose to pass your STD around do it fervently and don’t forget to back link

4. Use the acronym “STD” as much as possible within you post (send SEO’s into a tale spin) I have used it 12x’s within this post.

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One of my favorite movies... 

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. 

You and me... 

everyday." 

— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

...won't we ever get tired? 

Here’s the offer:

Two nights ago, while talking with two tagged friends, I brought up the subject on Japan's latest innovation---something I  perused in the local newspaper and  confirmed in the net---regarding robotic sex.

Floro Mercene says (This is On Me,Tempo,July20,2009,Vol.27, No.201,p.6), "Sexbots will be disease free;they won't judge one's sexual performance;and they won't say no.They will never have a headache or demand alimony." He continues, (p 7) "Would electronic and robotic sex reduce teen pregnancy, STDs, abortions, pedophilia and prostitution? The jury is still out on these implications. However, boundaries, barriers and beliefs will be challenged."

A product that will actually appeal to "men" and okay, "women" for a bigger WHAT that awaits all of us...

Are we really talking of progress here or is man out for his devolution?

I'll put my mind to rest now, I occupy a big cyberspace, i know,and my instincts are telling me I better get some sleep.

How do you handle this...

Aaron Offord

Fher Ymas Visual Artist

Jessica Mokrzycki

Jorie Pacli

Lisa Marie Farfalla

Mari Sterling Wilbur

Sheril Benedict

Sumit Chakraborty

I saw you tagged already... tagging you again (or have I missed your STD post? ) :P


Charlie Nitric

Jim Brandano