Change

I 'googled' the definition of the word 'change', and I got a hit of something like: 'make, or become different'. I thought of that as these next days we Filipinos gear up to spend the Lenten Season supposedly basked in spirituality, take time off from our hectic lives and reflect, ponder, and renew our faith, as Catholics. Ok, some may not be Catholics at all, even so, most of us take time to look at our Christianity more deeply at this time of the year. I have no historical sense of why this is so, how even the dates on the calendar are 'designated' as 'the' days. I really do not wish to 'intellectualize' a very sensitive, vulnerable, and understandably untouchable part of Filipinos' lives. 

I try to make sense of the season by accepting that this time of reflection, is a springboard for all of us to make changes in our lives, emulating the example shown by our Christ, who took upon Him all of humanity's sins and died for them. His example, taught us through accounts of twelve normal, ordinary men, who once walked the earth with Him, I perceive to be simply this: love one another. Yes, that's the first of the ten. And that says it all. But how do we love, really? We change, make different, the way we are now, acknowledged to be full of ourselves, terribly in an indiscreet love affair with 'the self'. At this day and age, coming from another time of same versions, avenues to self-indulge are handed to us on a silver platter. There is this tolerance that the world affords us make us more and more into loving ourselves, than, loving others.

So we try to 'change', to love others as commanded by that One Supreme Being who orchestrates from above all that we are, yet fiercely let us find our own ways in this maze He created, so that we learn. That constant giving of His signs, leading us to the right path each day, but we deliberately or not, ignore, well, because we love ourselves more. Or at times, He can be really comedic about it and show us the way by giving us a nudge every now and then, which when we are not strong enough in our faith to endure, would cause one block of our lives to fall, one after the other. Like dominoes, we suddenly realize that the jerk we let our brain and our hearts take over us, crashes the bits and pieces of other lives as well. 

'Change is loss.', I heard from one of the speakers of  a certificate course I went to a couple of years back. I had to rethink that after hearing him say it. Yes, change is loss, a shift from where you now to another,  is loss:  of a moment, of a loved one, of an opportunity, of time spent, of a privilege. Yet we search for that strength to change who we are now, notwithstanding, because we can be better. If there is one thing I do know to be true, the one thing I have come so close to touching, amidst all these spirituality, is that the Guy up there never stops wooing our hearts to love better, to love others, to live for others. And if we fail to do so, He gives us another shot at it, and another, and another. I have always been fearful of change. The mere thought of it makes me dizzy, in anticipation of the efforts, the heartaches, that it is to bring. But because I believe in Him, because despite the way I am, which is so contrary to how I do believe, I will take upon the  challenge of change with all the losses attached to it. I know that change will all be worth the trouble.