cpe week four reflection
Exhaustion! I think CPE has finally taken its toll on me. EXHAUSTED! That’s how I feel now about the week that was. I don’t know why, but somehow, my energy level for patient visitation is not as high this week compared to the previous weeks. If before I was enthusiastic about visitation, even maximizing my time in the wards, last week, I felt that my gusto was depleted leaving me to become a minimalist. Visitation has become a burden that I feel I have to drag myself to.
Given my physical health and condition, I knew that this would come sooner or later. But I am surprised that I am also exhausted emotionally and psychologically. Even though I had a good rest the previous night and a lengthy siesta, still I was not always in the mood to visit and interact with patients. I just had little energy. I can’t explain it. That is just how I felt.
Probably, there was something happening inside me that needed attention too. I needed time and space to visit, attend to and interact with my interiority. And I continue to feel it now. I guess it is an intrinsic part of the deal, a part of the journey.
This is but one month of doing ministry. Imagine doing a lifetime of it as a priest. I get exhausted just by thinking about it! My reasons for pursuing this ministry should really be more than all the exhaustion that would come my way for me to be able to sustain it, to wake up each morning and say: “Yes! Another day of ministry!” HE really should be worth it! And that I can only know and feel thru constant prayer and connection with Him who cannot be outdone in loving. To deepen my relationship with God is to eternally fan the burning coal of my love for Him—my fuel for a lifelong ministry.
Illusion! How can you say goodbye and let go of something so beautiful? Of something that has affirmed your existence as the most important reality on earth?
Easy! Just realize that it is no longer true. An illusion! A fairy tale! A dream!
Everything will crumble, yes. Your identity will break and scatter as the locus of your meaning has been nullified. But this is the only way. This is the only way one can live in the present—life as it is now—to live in reality.
No wonder, waking up in the morning is not always the best feeling in the world. Sometimes it is worse than hell. But you have to wake up because that is how the world works! That is how it was designed to work! That is how our genius and loving God designed it!
It might be helpful and doable if we refrain from making the act of waking up the focus. Probably the focus should be that it is a new day—a new day that could offer experiences just as good or even better than what yesterday has offered.
