cpe week three reflection
Lifestyle Check. Since Day One I have been exposed to the realities of poverty in the PGH charity wards—patients who have not taken medication for x number of days because they could no longer buy the expensive antibiotics, leaving their wounds fresh and open to infection; attendants who eat only once a day because the only money they are holding on to is less than fifty pesos just enough to get them home and mobile to source more funds; families who mortgaged their house and lot as collateral to the hospital as they could no longer pay for the enormous bills that accumulated; necessary operations postponed or cancelled because the prescribed materials and medicines could not be bought etc. etc.
But what struck me most during this past week was the 24 hour manual pumping of respirator bags by attendants to provide needed air to their patients’ lungs. I saw this in Ward 3 and later in the evening during my night duty at the ER. Wow! I was impressed by the love of the attendants for their patients. But, with the same degree, I was depressed that they could not afford at all something that was for me relatively affordable and disposable. My God! I have been introspecting since that incident about my attitude towards money and my tendency towards consumerism, materialism and food-ism. The scene was revolting and I was really put to shame. I have to review my life in the light of these realities. Some changes have to be done.
Relationship 101. I no longer know how to relate. This is what came out during my last processing. Being fixated with a particular kind of friendship, unconsciously and subtly, I was controlling or, should I say, limiting relationships according to that to which I am fixated with. I did not want to be vulnerable to the other. Everything was according to my own terms, what was convenient and easy for me, what I think and feel and not really taking into account the other’s say and what he or she brings into the relationship. It was all about me, selfish me! No wonder I feel unloved. I control and expect, forgetting that I can only be surprised and satisfied if it is freely and spontaneously given by the generous creativity of an other’s love for me. Then I harp on the constant chorus of my life: “But no one loves me. No one will ever love me because I am unlovable.” Holding on to this thesis just brings in a multitude of complications.
I just came out of a movie (which I never thought I would learn something from) and somehow could not forget a line towards the end. The girl told the guy: “Whoever said you were unworthy of love? You hide under that excuse! No wonder you are afraid to love as well!” The key to all this is just to do it. To love! Loving is one of the crafts you learn only by doing. But I should break from the paradigm I have been holding on to for almost half my life now. It no longer exists. It is a fiction of memory’s nostalgia. As Sr. Mercia often says: “Hindi na pwede! Wasakin mo yan!” And hopefully, things will fall into place when I already allow someone to be really present in my life, to affect me.
Please be there to catch me when I fall…
God’s Work. CPE has really been a grace-filled experience so far individually and as a class. We are not exactly the same persons we were when we started three weeks ago. We are also not exactly the same Baktas Class anymore. We even got better!
Personally, deeper self knowledge brings unbelievable inner peace due to radical self-acceptance resulting to potent and powerful freedom to choose and change. Interpersonally, lives have interconnected, histories and futures have intertwined.
All these could only have happened because Someone else was working on us, journeying with us. I can feel it! I can feel God’s grace at work! It is very palpable, very real! It is very powerful! Thanks be to God!
September 18th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Jayvee was my soter during my seminary days (remember pablo). He is always reaching to those who are retentionally struggled. Almost everybody in baktas was looking forward on how this good guy will attack the tesis statement in oral exam from which i was benefited more.
I am just happy to learn that he is not only sharing his academic expertise but he is now sharing his learnings in his cpe which is really a learning of life w/c is more beneficial to his future ministry.
Bahagihan mo ako ng marami mo pang ginintuang bunga ng pagmumunimuni ng iyong cpe