Buhay na buhay

In the Homily during yesterday's Mass, the priest made a good point regarding life. He explained that while death is the complete loss of life (though theologically and based on my Catholic upbringing I believe it can be regarded as the beginning of eternity - in St. Francis' Prayer "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.") we actually lose part of our life force through the pain, suffering, sickness and other tribulations that we experience as we journey in this physical word. It is quite easy to imagine what pain, suffering and sickness are. What is too often difficult to realize are the small things, the minute losses that we experience that we tend to disregard as insignificant yet in summary contributes to a larger loss.

The bottomline is we should keep in check these "losses," both the obvious and the not so obvious types. I liked the analogy to the cell phone where references to being low batt and needing recharging should remind us of the healing power of faith and that it is by God's grace that we are restored. I would just like to add a personal note on this. We should also learn to "let go" if not most of the time (that it is necessary) then at least once in a while. As they say...don't sweat the small stuff. I myself am guilty of making mountains out of molehills and most of the time this occurs in my mind - a surefire way of getting stressed out with only oneself to blame.

Take the case of a meeting I attended last week. As we sat waiting for our room to be prepared, the lawyer beside me mentioned something. I had to ask him again what he said as it didn't immediately register what with our preliminaries on the contract we were to discuss as well as the work activities for our project. I must admit I was a bit surprised and pleasantly amused by his observation..."Ang ganda ng paintings. Buhay na buhay ang kulay." In my many previous visits to various offices such as the legal office where we had our meeting, I had always had my brain full of things we regarded as important yet in my preoccupation, I failed to see what was around...nice paintings indeed. These are but simple things we often disregard, we often assume are trivial and yet we lose something when we fail to appreciate such little things around us, forgetting that God is in these little things - we are restored in so many ways that we have always tended to diminish.