Tatay

I can not forget you, Tatay. My thoughts oft return to those times. At the Center not so long ago, where much of the memories of my life-long commitment to recovery were forged. So much has happened since but those times shall always be near me.

Those times I shall always carry thankfully - along with the brothers who helped us help ourselves along. As well as the people in the persons of our family, friends, patrons and faithful public servants - around us who made a safe space where it all became possible...

To make recovery as real a choice to each of us - as can be. Real enough to rival the choice to use.

Because for the addict, one choice alone seem to lead to happiness, and in the past, the addiction won itself out almost every time. This almost ate up my confidence completely. And my sanity too. My own addiction made me believe in the illusion that it was something happy even though my heart did not want it and my mind knew it was an insanity to believe.

However, armed with a many numbered experience-in-recovery, I have come to know these day the choice that nowadays I have to live with. I have a real choice now; a fighting chance.

And so along with it must come the truths that must always be present in my mind like a companion in the midst of my journeys away from the Center.

At the Center not so long ago, there were two pillars of sanity and silent sources of compassion. Who always wanted to give us the best. There was love in everything we eat, I knew. That we may know, in the midst of all that pain and transformation, there was hope in everything we do. We called them Tatay and Nanay - two humble public servants. Neither of them were famous - nor did they want to be. But both of them were true to themselves, I know.

The Tatay I know seem to be aloof. But he was like that for a purpose. His distance was like a fence. It was for us a measure of safety.

Now he has passed away. This was some time ago. I know this seems late. But truth is I can not bear not to mention him here. And salute his life.

God bless you, Tatay. God love you, Nanay. Thank you and peace be with you both.

P. S.
The best Batchoy I learned how to cook with Tatay.

TGIF Prayer

Lord Jesus, my thoughtful Savior
Who gently and lovingly brought me through another working week,
and blessed my humble efforts with meaningful success,
seeing me through each day with great patience and much virtue,
here I stand with Thee now - yet again - at the threshold of another weekend
caught in the realization that I have no right to ruin this moment for You.

So hear me say,

"I thank You and I love You
and I offer to You all of this weekend,
to make of it as You will.

Amen.

From my Journal 20130811Sun

In short, I think we're doing fine.

I'm doing fine. Work is good and my recovery is blessed. Family is still family - complete with tampuhan at dramahan - and my friends are the family who makes up for what my family lacks. We truly complete each other, good or bad, and I love every last bit of every last one of us.

I'm single and always in love, get to work full time with full hours, get to serve in Church every Fridays and Saturdays, get to find my own leisure every Sundays, and in a poor country, get to feel I am already rich.

Indeed, I outwardly go through a lot of adversity, but it will be quite difficult for anyone in my shoes to fathom a universe without a God.

Alhamdulillah. Alleluia. Bless the LORD.

Far Shores

When love is near to us,
everything in our love draws close
to our hearts: Far shores become near.



Life lived in their moments
are more precious than life lived
in their seconds.

For all moments in life
are but natural to our living,
they have no count...
being by God
blessed.

But seconds can be counted,
even by its fractions, even by its sums,
being a thing of man-made measure
and are therefore,
fleeting.

For all things without count
are all the things that truly matter
to the heart of Man.

Starshine,
which one contains the other?
---<--@

Here's Oliver!

Oliver is my therapy cat. Let me tell you how I met him -

I was walking out back of the center when I noticed this cat walking up on the wall towards me. He was mostly of the vanilla persuasion with orange marmalade points and a tail half bent near the tippy tip - a semi-putot, as it were in Filipino.

We saw eye to eye and for an instant. I sized him up. He sized me up. He looked at me for a moment with those little cat eyes that were like mysterious ebony slits suspended in a sparkly sea of lively gold. Then he meowed at me as if to say, "hello there, I'm going to be your cat." And so it was. This was some ten months ago.

Well, all I really heard was "meow" but the meaning was still there. It just takes time to really understand cats, you see. Anyway, what was really clear to me then was that this cat was going to be my friend.

And so I received his friendship as gift. I was thankful.

Over the days and the months I spent with that cat I realized that God is trying to teach me something through His creature - something about my recovery. One thing is for sure, my God cares enough about my recovery to send me this little cat of His. For I was the only patient with an approved therapy cat at the center. I began to appreciate my little buddy, Oliver.

Well, that's the name I eventually called my feisty little feline buddy. I tried Vincent but he was not a Vincent. I tried Swissy which is a name of one of our childhood cats but he was no Swissy. Oliver somehow stuck and so that's what we (Oliver and I) agreed his name would be.

Now, some people think cats are self-centered but that's only because they fail to treat every cat as an individual. People think they could fit all cats in a convenient little box. Not so. There's no stereotyping cats. One must be willing to trust cats to truly understand cats.

To really understand the manner by which cats like to express their own way of companionship, one must learn to be patient about them, accepting both the good and the bad with paws and claws, dander and fur, whisker and fang and all. One must love first and then understand.

And one must never try to think ahead of a cat! This would only lead to frustration. Cats like to live in the moment, you see: Not in the past, not in the future, my friend, just today. So when my Oliver is giving me therapy - we're always in the moment: JFT.

Active addiction affects not just human relationships. It affects all relationships. It breaks our natural connection with all living things - cats, dogs, plants, and trees - so that locked up in that prison from within the self we become truly isolated.

Even the angels weep when the darkness of drug abuse pulls our souls deep in the mire of things beneath our human dignity. Their tears fall like the rain that we never see from those prisons we create from within ourselves. Only God could bust us loose. But we first must learn to hearken to His voice. Unfortunately, not all addicts survive this process.

I am grateful I did knowing I could not have done it alone.

So thank You LORD and thank you all!

Thank you, Oliver!

Of course, there are still those familiar temptations and problems thrown willy-nilly amidst the vicissitudes of this life - but once one becomes familiar with what life - in those moments - has to offer, patiently and resolutely, one soon learns of a freedom that was not there before. Recovery then becomes a viable choice - the freedom to be free at last.

Truly, there is life after drugs.

---<--@

A really bad sketch of Oliver the cat.

Endless Blue Sky Sunshine

Live your truth responsibly!

Speak it like you mean it.

Share it like you love it.

Keep it like you really care,

gripping it not with your hands,
but embracing it with your heart.

Nurture it as if it were yours
knowing always to be thankful
to the one God of Whose Reality
is the one Truelight you reflect;
the one LORD by Whose desire
you are called to become you.

So strive with courage and heart
despairing not, dear Starshine,
but being always of good cheer -
you are beautiful without effort!

So be like all hope is become;
walk like you're never forgot;
dance like you are truly alive;
sing like the world cares not;
smile like worries have an end;
laugh like each moment is free;
breathe like your prayer begun;
shine like you belonged forever!

By sweet surrender to the Light
be the gold of sunbeams sharp
against the darkness of the night
flying upon the wings of eagles
into the blue of an endless sky.
---<--@

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."

- Norman Vincent Peale

An Accounting of Time

Our dearest Starshine;

Let me teach you
the way in which thy heart
does perceive the idea of numbers
and the concept of its operation
in those realms where
the mathematics of physicality
and the limits of its reality
in terms temporal
and in measures finite
does never and shall never agree
with the reality of things within.

Because the substance of thy soul
is the abode of the timeless
that in terms eternal
and in measures infinite
are an accounting of thy heart
that amidst thy comings and goings
perceive things as they are
like a vision of love forever
in moments standing still
and not as they seem to be
amidst the darkness of things
that appear and disappear
with the rise and fall
of the tides of exile time.

One is not the beginning
for one is time neither begun
nor is one perceived to have an end
because one is an infinity
and two is not two things together
but two things that become one
for three are not three things apart
but two things made one whole one
by the Love that visits
each our longing for itself.

And so when you shall perceive
each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,

(e.g. family and friends but above all conjugal love)
among all truly human relationships
you shall think only of one.

And when you shall seek to perceive
each our own expressions of hope
in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life
(e.g. complementarity of the sexes)

you shall think only of two.

And when you shall seek to perceive
those things born to thy own heart's longing
and felt through the beauty of remembrances

(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator)
awakening to thy slow awakening dream
you shall think only of three.

And ever be aware that the medium

of thy constant reality from within
is an emerging continuum of gratitude
spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit
bursting with the joy of living life
born from things that cleave as truth
unto that vast universe in thy soul
that make you think of the many
but return you always to one -

the One, O my Starshine,

the LORD!

The one Giver above His gifts.

Time is not distance for time is distant

only to those with distant hearts.

Nor is distance a hindrance to our hearts
that in the timeless, beholds and is beheld.

PEACE, I salute you.

---<--@

Therefore,

1 is for Perfection

2 is for Unity

3 is for Peace

Moreover,

4 is for Solidity/Strength

5 is for Belonging/Nation

6 is for Opposition/Division

7 is for Spirit

8 is for Probation/Tribulation

9 is for Retribution

10 is for Endings/Beginnings

A love that is undivided is a love that is one. And a love that is one makes all your family your friends and all your friends your family. Remember the LORD and His kindness all thy days: Strive to love with one love alone.

For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.

- Matthew 12: 50