Advent: Anticipation and Beginning

(Thought-Random)

        Black Friday gone,  Cyber Monday up and coming,  -what about Advent Sunday?  At least this first of the four Sundays of Advent?

       Christendom starts the Liturgical Year with the Advent Season,  -that would be 4 weeks before Christmas Day.  Many would put parallelisms and connections between Advent and Christmas and Lent in the fact that Advent, being an anticipation of the arrival of Christ,- which would be Christmas; .....  actually reflects a spiritual journey  starting from there up to the consummation of Christ's task of saving mankind ....which falls on Lent's Good Friday.  Others put the 'focus of the entire season on the celebration of the birth of Christ in his First Advent,  and the anticipation of  His return on the Last Judgement - his Second Advent.'  Advent here, thus, means 'arrival'... a meaning very much related to terms such as  'longing', 'expectation', 'preparation'.  And one can't help noticing the 'double focus on the past and future' aspects of time.

        But  wouldn't  you also try to  think of  'advent' used  in everyday events as 'onset',  or 'dawning',  or 'genesis',  .....'alpha', even ,  -or simply  'the beginning'?  Some refer to a new turn in life as 'the advent of my rebirth'!,  others as 'the advent of more interesting challenges for me',  and many more.  If only because of the journey metaphor that the word  'advent'  alludes to,  wouldn't you kinda like trying to use  it to capture  thoughts on beginning this next segment of your life, perhaps?

        If you haven't been taking charge of yourself,  now could be the time.   'Not taking charge' of yourself could mean an indication of  negative emotions in your life like anger, hostility, shyness, and other useless emotions like guilt and worry that you might love hanging  on to.  See, such negativity could range from mild indecision to total inaction,  holding you in a limbo of stagnancy.   And it goes without saying that you need  to break free from any mirror-reflections of such an undesirable past. .  Well, they say that learning from past mistakes is healthy and necessary but just using up your energy in feeling upset and depressed, - that would be unhealthy; .... it won't even change the past.  So what can you do?

       Try this.  Believe that no activity is beyond your potential.  Human experience is yours to enjoy if you are bold enough to explore the unknown.  Try breaking the barriers of convention.  Put an end to procrastination.  All these are gigantic thoughts, but hang on....!.  You have to be open to new experiences but you must also make selective efforts in trying new things.  You can never find self-fulfillment if you permit external forces to  control your feelings, your thoughts, your behavior;  but understand that this does not in any way infer being contemptuous of the law.  Putting off is simply a technique of avoiding doing and obviously allowing you to escape unlikeable activities,  -really an escape from living present moments.  So why not turn the tide for yourself and make a choice for that elusive now?   Because I would suggest all these to myself!!!  

        Most people actually make their life's resolutions on New Year's Day; but some do it at  the start of the Christian Liturgical Year. Today.  This year's first Sunday of Advent,  the season of anticipation for Christ's birth.  In fact, if you you ask me,  I would opt for the latter and for a new beginning.  So I put claim on an advent of this next segment in my life.  I will explore the unknown.   I will break the barriers of convention.   I will put an end to procrastination!!!

  

Prayer

 (Thought-Random)

Interesting Perspective

(Thought-Random)

It's interesting whenever we visit with teachers or healers or so many of you doing such wonderful work ... we notice that the questions that you ask and the way you are approaching your clients or patients... Very often, you forget that your work is about YOUR energy, not about theirs.

That is the biggest difficulty we have in interacting with people who call themselves energy workers . You think you're working in their energy and you're not working in their energy. You're working in your OWN energy.

Now your energy has been affected by your desire to help them but it's still your energy that you're working in, you see.

So you sort of have to disregard where they are but get a sense of where they want to be and then give that your undivided attention.

And people will find you to be MAGIC .

And then we want you to say to them ... This is how you do it.

Otherwise, there will be a line at your door that will ruin your life.

You must give them self-empowerment.

-- Master Course Video, DVD 1, 2005.

-Abraham-Hicks -

Thanks, Bernie!

"Teacher's Pet" - A song of Doris Day

Tough Assignment

(A Toastmaster Basic Speech)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

        Learning how not to be unhappy: -that was a tough assignment I recently gave myself.   I know that happiness is a natural condition of being a person and happiness is easy.  But you know, learning, however, not to be unhappy can be difficult as I now realize.

        Unhappiness is certainly a self-defeating  behavior so why I ask myself can't I even begin to approach achieving this so-called happiness and with it an appetite for living!  I'm sure I do not need a professional background in counseling or a doctorate in the helping professions to understand the principles of effective living. For sure, I can't blame others for my unhappiness... it must be me myself who is causing it and therefore it is I who should do something about it.  And because  psychologists say, 'you feel what you think, and you can learn to think differently about anything - if you decide to do so'....it follows therefore that because I learned how to be unhappy, and now want to be happy, I can unlearn being unhappy...or learn not to be unhappy?

         But see, learning takes thousands of hours to comfortably get to a new habit... like driving!  I remember I had to put in mind the complex synchronization of clutch, stick, gas pedal, brakes - and more, until it became second nature to me...with great difficulty....with  lots of present-moment thinking and reminding and working.   So okay it was tough, but certainly was not a reason to avoid doing it.  But well, I guess I could then regulate my mind to do a physical task such as driving.   And it might work as well in the emotional world, right?   I also learned the habits I have by having had reinforced them.  I get angry, hurt, frustrated, because I learned to be these a long time ago.  So I should be able to learn to not be angry, not hurt, not frustrated just as I had learned to be all these self-defeating things!

        The issue here then, I guess, is choice.  Like opting for a life of misery rather than taking control.  Or vice-versa.  It's not whether I can control my feelings but rather whether I want to or will.   Because I  'feel what I think, and I can learn to think differently about anything at all  - if I decide to do so.'   So I can decide to treat pain and unhappiness with brain control.   I can  take control of my own mind and then practice feeling and behaving in ways  that I choose....like discarding hurtful emotions that immobilize...like getting in touch with my present moment which they say  is the heart of living.   Henry James, himself , in his The Ambassadors, gives the advice: Live all you can,  it's a mistake not to do so.   Even Tolstoy's Yvan Ilych brings about the notion of  'seizing every second of your life and savor it or you lose them forever'!

         So now, right now - I believe a decision should be made.  I should try to beautifully experience my elusive 'now' by allowing myself  to get lost in it. Then everything will fall into place, as they say.  With it,  I should also be able to find happiness. Which should also correspondingly parallel finding a state of not being unhappy.   And  I  would have my assignment done, don't you think?

Mister Toastmaster......

Be My Mentor?

(A Toastmaster Basic Speech)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

        They say that good mentors let you into their world, sharing both professional and personal triumphs and failures.  Their primary role is actually to provide guidance and support...to help you think through difficult decisions...to lead you by example...to be extremely positive and interested in seeing you succeed.  Good mentors thus possess qualities that allow them to instruct you in a beneficial and informative way.  They are patient, understanding, knowledgeable....and of course, there is no single formula for good mentoring.  Styles are as varied as human relationships because the essence of mentoring is the sustained human relationship.

    
       A historical note to mentoring points to antiquity... to the friend of Odysseus, Mentor, whom he placed in charge of his son Telemachus when he went off for the Trojan War. You remember Homer's Iliad and The Odessey, of course?  Well,   the modern usage of the word now is a personal developmental relationship in diverse knowledge transmission situations.  Mentoring, for example, takes different forms in the organizational setting.  The process of an informal transfer of information, mentoring is relevant to work, career or professional development. While we also have youth mentoring, peer mentoring, employee mentoring, we now also have eMentoring, or mentoring online. An interesting upshot. And right here with us in Toastmasters, mentoring,  you know very well, is part and parcel of the reponsibilities as well as the fun of membership.

        But see, I, too, have had the honor and privilege of being called Mentor. Being with both the Academe and Toastmasters International, I realized that  the task seemed to naturally be a need as well as a delightful source of satisfaction just being there. With all the work experience that go along with being a mentor to students as well as to colleagues, it also happens that some unforgettable spice and thrills do turn up.  Because mentoring is equated with work and discipline over and above positive nurturing, listening, and advising,  I had , for instance,  also been identified  not only as Mentor, but fondly as Tormentor too.  Recalling one particular point in time, one of my mentees was upstage accepting a speech excellence award and then followed it by acknowledging me as his Mentor and Tormentor -to the amusement of the audience.  But after the acceptance, he came down the stage to where I was seated and offered me a rose in gratitude - this time to the admiring reaction of the audience.   And moments like that for a mentor are simply priceless!.....

       ... Which is why I never ever  hesitate to accept requests that go:  Please,  -be my mentor?

Mister Toastmaster....

Fire and Ice

(Thought-Random)

On the Overflowing Plate Predicament

(Thought-Random)


Points to ponder from Abraham so apropos to our overflowing plate predicament . . . 

"Most rarely align with their true power, because it seems illogical to them that there is power in relaxation, in letting go, or in love or joy or bliss. Most people do not understand that their true power lies in releasing resistance—which is the only obstacle to their true power.

Most people do not expect their path ...to great abundance to be one of ease and of joy. They have been taught that struggle and hardship and sacrifice are requirements that must be met before the reward of great abundance can be realized. Most do not understand that the very struggle they deliberately involve themselves in, in their quest for success and advantage, actually works against them.

There are so many things that you have been taught to believe that are counter to the powerful Laws of the Universe that it is difficult for you to think your way out. And that is the reason that we present this path of much less resistance.

We want you to breathe rather than try, to relax rather than offer effort, to smile rather than struggle, to be rather than do. For your true power is experienced only from inside the Vortex."

-Abraham


Thanks, Bernie!

Only Time Sweet November

M A E L S T R O M

(Thought-Random)

        Ever heard of the word, maelstrom? Well, I remember it to be one of the vocabulary items I once introduced to my English classes which triggered a good hour's worth of animated discussion.  But let me tell you more about it.  The word came in diverse definitions: -a powerful circular current of water usually the result of conflicting tides;  -a whirlpool violently sucking in objects within a given radius, -a violent, turbulent situation; -a restless, disordered, tumultuous state of affairs.  Pick one of them and that would be a maelstrom!

        In usage, one could go The country was caught in a maelstrom of war.  Or  She was a maelstrom of churning emotions. From Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan, we have In an instant, the ape-man became the center of a biting maelstrom of horror.  And from Moby Dick goes So close did the monster come to the hull when suddenly going down in a maelstrom, he wholly disappeared from view.


        Well, it happens in life that times, you wake up to a lovely morning heralding a phenomenon of a day.   The family's toddler comes up to you to give you a good morning hug, tight... and a kiss, resounding!  A quick glance at your computer's inbox gives you a string of short linguistic shorts ranging from  friendly outbursts like Hi, top of the morning to you! to  more clandestine-sounding whisper-like clips like Lunch or Dinner? Same time same place?.... A quick listening to your phone messages informs  you that you got that new job interview you so hoped for at 9 today....that  the amount of 5 thousand bucks  you questioned your bank on being deducted from your account was rectified to be a deposit instead.... that your online professor did give you that A you so worked very hard for!

        Other times  however, you come to the end of the day like a sudden thunderstorm simply drenched you in your new H&M outfit.  You failed to convince the group at that afternoon meeting of the significance of your proposal.  They opted for that of that guy, your colleague, but whom you so much disliked.   You offended the office receptionist  with a comment you meant to be a compliment as you passed her by on your way out. And you wonder just how that came to be.   You  just rammed the side of your car as you drove into the garage. For this, you have no excuse.  But put all these together and man,  these don't constitute a maelstrom yet.

        Some experiential examples I can pick up from those old classes  might come close to this maelstrom concept.  One, for example,  told us about his having two girl friends, - both he was seriously in love with.  In five months time after graduation, both wanted him to present their marriage plans to their respective families, both of whom were acquaintances of his own.  The problem was that he didn't want to get married yet. He so wanted to take on that job offer in Europe where an uncle lived. This uncle, on the other hand, categorically wanted him married before he moved in to Europe to ensure his emotional stability while at work.  Or so he thought.  I never got to know  how he got out of that - until just recently.

       Another told us of how he had gambled away his tuition through his school-years.  In five months, graduation time, he was supposed to hand in to his parents evidence of having finished a university course.  They had trusted him with handling his own finances - after they put in his hands the money.  What kinda complicated matters is that, at a point where  he ran out of money for his use, he mortgaged their family house.  As expected, the bank then was collecting.  Then his dad was diagnosed with  a life-threatening disease.  The parents were optimistic about their son though.  After graduation, he was going to get a good job and as is common in Asian families, he was expected to tide the family into a much better life. Wow!  Again, I never got to know how he fared until, too, just recently.

        Students, my dear friends, are sometimes identified as  young, carefree, unmindful of responsibility - well, some of them! A lot of them I had known to admire for various reasons.. a lot of them to have touched my life in various ways...   But none of them to have experienced the maelstrom that I am in now. ... as far as I know. There have been fictional depictions of the Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Vernes who describe it as a gigantic circular vortex that reaches the bottom of the ocean.  The real world itself time and again gets into diverse maelstroms in life's day-to-day existence.  Now you might want to ask what's this about mine?  Well, I could talk about it, why not.  But a bit of warning because  should I begin to tell you,  I would be  triggering in your imagination the violence of  an earthquake the likes of  a seven point seven at the richter scale, - a signal five weather report of a hurricane ,  -and a volcanic eruption  the horrific magnitude of a Mount Vesuvius activity... - all  in simultaneous occurrence!  So I'm  thinking I'd rather not.  I only  pray I get out of this soon.  I  do fervently hope so.  I really hope I will.  No, no, I know I will.  I should!!!

                                                           ________________________

But Everything Seemed So Right!

(A Short Story)

        You open up your eyes to dawn's warm and golden sun rays against your window  and you feel a pleasant sting down your spine so you think, oh wow, this is going to be an incredible day. Now that stretch to make you feel energized - not to forget that whisper of a prayer - then you jump into the shower! Feels oh so good!  The coffee comes next, got to be boiling hot! You always want it boiling hot for some strange reason but okay, you take it boiling hot!

        Today's your sked for driving practice and contrary to ordinary days, all goes well. You smoothly go through traffic, your instructor is happy with your parking... she even takes you to the highway and tells you you're awesome.  Worth a smile! Middle of the day's for Toastmasters... you're Toastmaster of the day and since there are guests (one of them tells the group he is celebrating his birthday!),  you do a double job in terms of extra information to have them feel at home right away and they appreciate this. Aside from telling you that you did a great job, that you were simply fantastic, they invite you for lunch, for coffee, -call it a birthday treat, they tell you.... a raincheck they would even take.

         Then you come home to someone mowing the lawn.  The smell of freshly cut grass reminds you of twilight in the countryside. The smell of simple pleasure. It makes you wonder if such a smell came even close to that of falling snow or to that of drifting clouds, or to that of a cool breeze wafted against your face.... if  what these had could at all be called smell. But up the stairs now into the living room, the couch is so inviting  you throw yourself on it. The marvelous sensation of your muscles relaxing is at hand. That great feeling of falling asleep makes you aware of your thoughts floating around your brain, of the radio music at the background fading into white noise.  Somewhere in the middle of all these, however, the breeze from the window gives you a mild chill.  You could go grab your blankets from your bed but don't want to get up now and leave that blissful moment of just about entering sleep!  But somebody notices your dilemma and quietly takes a blanket from the closet to gently spread over you and you feel the warmth radiating all over you as you fall into a deep relaxing rest.

        After the short nap, to your work space in your room you go with a cup of hot coffee to relish.  The foot-thick pile of library books have to be returned today and you push them a little away from the laptop on your desk to give space to your coffee.  You had earlier printed out the reports you have to hand over a little later at this part-time job you hold.  With no more space on the desk you drop the sheets of paper on the floor beside you. Now to your computer to check on the term paper required by that online course you enrolled in. Four months of hard labor on this paper and tomorrow, you expect  no less than an A for the excellent work  and for submitting it on time. Midway reading the second page of the manuscript,  your cell phone rings. You try to reach out for it on the open shelf right in front of you but nope, you can't reach it. You have to stand.  As you do, your right elbow brushes kind of abruptly against the pile of books, making the top three slide off and push the coffee cup down to the floor on your reports, -and scalding a part of your left arm. As you jerk this arm in pain,  you push the rest of the books into the keyboard of your computer and you watch the screen go blank.

        As you stare at the mess feeling petrified, you ask yourself in horror, my entire research gone?  And as your eyes shift to the report under coffee on the floor, your inner self  implodes as you cry out  in frustration, - But everything seemed so right!!!
                                      
                                                       ____________________________

Today, We Remember

(Thought-Random)

        In Catholic churches and cemeteries today,  in the Philippines particularly,  special services honor departed ones - evidence of Catholic devotion and Catholic instinct in remembering them.

        While in the Filipino context, this celebration is a happy one as somehow it brings about some kind of reunion, my thoughts dwell more on the fact that the souls of those who have gone before are aided according to Catholic Dogma.  Some religious sects write out the existence of Purgatory, a place where souls with venial sins still unatoned for are confined after death and must be cleansed first before entering Heaven.  Dante, himself, in his immortal and philosophical Divina Comedia 'geographically' (if I may use the term) sets Purgatorio as the place the soul must climb upward to Paradiso.

        Anyway, Catholics prove the existence of Purgatory from several Scriptural passages.  One I'd like to quote as the Lord saying in the New Testament; he who shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.... the strength of this passage apparently lies in the fact that some sins are washed away in the life to come... in hell there is no forgiveness, in heaven all must have been forgiven,  then there must be a middle position, - a place where certain sins are forgiven.  It cannot be hell, it cannot be heaven, and the Catholic Church calls this place Purgatory..a thought I strongly cling to as I  would love to have all my beloved departed have a chance at that place.

        That on the side,  I do relish remembrances of things past, specially of happy moments with departed loved ones.  Things past are not all happy, of course, but one has to be selective.  And I choose the happy ones.  It certainly is like listening to a smile on the phone.

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