Because Advent is a season of waiting... Beautifully written. :)

The Sacrament Of Waiting 
Fr. James Donelan, S.J.


The English poet John Milton wrote that those who serve only also stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts that all the greatest deeds of deering-do go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting (testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control.) We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations and bus depots are great temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one - or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop.

And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop.

We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success and recognition. We wait to grow up - to reach the stage where we make our own decisions. We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is a part of the tapestry of living - the fabric in which the threads are woven to tell the story of our lives.

Yet current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait "grab all the gusto you can get." So reads one of America's greatest beer ads - get it now! Instant pleasure, instant transcendence. Do not wait for anything. Life is short - eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you will die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom - pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs - they warn against attachments and commitments - against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us - against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure - but even that is fleeting and doubtful - what was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure - "Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated." Not if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, soul as well as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery, brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes into it - how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.

Why is this? Why can we not have it right now what we so desperately want and need? Why must we wait - two years, three years - and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit - the seed to flower - carbon to change to diamond.

There is no simple answer - no more than there is to life's other demands - having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have made other commitments; or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives - having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your own path - good-byes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting - of being present without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other - until they can see things the same way - or let each other freely see things in quite different ways.

There are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance of intimacy of the way they were. They have to wait - in silence - but still present to each other - until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to find shortcuts through life - when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature - isn't it of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but common mystery - that waiting is part of the substance - the basic fabric against which the story of that true love is written.


How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient to wait for it?

Reflections

I read a quote recently that said " if you ever find the fortune of finding the way of life you love, you have to have the courage to live it"

That sort of answers the internal conflict I have been having lately. I guess most people my age are going through this stage of searching and questioning yourself. Am I heading the right path? How will this affect me five years or so from now? How can I succeed? Is there something more in store for me if I do this? Should I even continue this? If yes, why? If no, where will I go and what will I do next?

I believe I am one of those fortunate ones who have found the way of life I want to live. I love my job as a conductor and I love being a trainee of one of the best choirs in the world. I love teaching students who are very enthusiastic to learn. I love learning and making music. I love having gigs every now and then. I love that despite everything that I'm doing, I can still find time to blog, Facebook or twitter. I love that I more or less am in control of my time and each day Is always different from the other and everyday, I learn something new. I love performing every no and then, despite the pressure. The lifestyle I have now is perfect for me... If only it could pay for my bills and eventually sustain a family, I could live this kind of life probably my whole lifetime. It's very fulfilling. Very stressful, but fulfilling.

I wish we lived in a world where we can all find and do whatever we were meant to become without having to think of earning enough. I wish we we could all be whatever we were meant to become. But the world isn't as ideal as that and as the quote said, one must find the courage to live the life you love in a very imperfect world.

One must have the courage. Meaning, it is not easy for we have so many fears and doubts.

Until now I still bear those fears and doubts. But Im doing it anyway, I don't know. Right now, I'm simply enjoying the ride.

Thoughts on Dreams and Finding Peace

I know I should be memorizing scores now but given this rare instance that I am inspired to write, I must write.


Ive recently come across a blog entry of Paulo Coelho about "The 3 Symptoms of Killing our Dreams".

As I was reading the essay, I agreed and was inspired with everything he said until I read the 3rd symptom. It made me think twice about its validity for me, at least philosophically. Heres what it said:

"And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight."
  
I was a bit bothered by his bold statement. What is he saying? That those mothers who have given up dreams to rear children up have refused to fight the good fight? Or those fathers who labor 24/7 in blue collared jobs in order to feed their families have renounced the battle for their dreams? Sometimes, ones dreams may not be in line with what the world calls and needs us to do - but does that mean one has refused to fight the good fight? Should we put them one on the category of "people who have renounced their dreams and didnt fight the good fight" and perceive them as quitters and throw a pitiful eye on them? Sometimes renouncing ones dreams is not even an act of cowardice but an act of selflessness - because one knows there are things more important than his own desires.


"When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being.
We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice.
And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons"


Does this really apply to all? Is he saying that those who do not fight for their dreams will end up being bitter and cruel? Does our life revolve around solely on our dreams? Arent people different? There are those who are ambitious and find contentment in success and there are those who are easily content and find happiness in simple moments. Both are good but neither one is better than the other.

What is it really in dreams that we are so desperate to achieve them? Is it the dream itself or is there something common that we all desire hidden behind different dreams? Will fulfilling our dreams really make us happy?


What is wrong with Sunday afternoons? What is wrong with asking for nothing grand? What is wrong with simplicity? More importantly, what is wrong with being at peace with how life turned out to be? Is it not finding peace the ultimate dream? Some people have had their dreams come true and yet are far from the rays of peace. Will fulfilling our dreams make us really happy?  At the end of the day, when you've done and achieved so much, do you not wish for that peaceful Sunday afternoon? I think more than dreams, we all share the common desire of finding peace and happiness. Pursuing our dreams may be an avenue to finding happiness but it is not the only way. There is more to life than ambition and dreams. There ais love, there is responsibility, there is compassion and there is finding peace where ever point you are in your life. Not everyone will fight for, can fight for and will reach their dreams. But we can always find peace and happiness in the end. And that I believe is what we all must strive to achieve.


Authors note: I know Coelo's main point really is to keep fighting for our dreams or at least try to reach them regardless if we fail or not. Its actually a beautiful message. My point I guess is just this - do not let dreams own you. They can make you vain, corrupt or bitter. Instead, own your dreams and be at peace with the choices you make in your life.