Tuesday, July 7, 2009

I Braved The Rain

Last Sunday, I braved the rain to go to church. The rain kept pouring as I walked the three kilometers from my house. My umbrella was not wide enough. My pair of rubber shoes were wet and so were the seams of my jeans. I reminisced the years when I hated to go to church. For me, going to church was an unpleasant and useless ritual that had existed as a mere tradition. Listening to the sermons of the most hypocritical creatures on earth made my blood boil on Sundays.

I began to have doubts on my religion. I know that many considered going to church as meditation and a cleansing of the spirit. But for me it was different. I saw religion as more of the devil wearing the habit of a priest, who has long horns, speaking in the pulpit. So I made myself complacent just a prayer every time before I went to bed every night. I thought that was enough to nourish me spiritually and I didn’t have to show it publicly as in the church.

But something happened, which changed my spiritual life. I was admitted to the hospital last December. My case was fatal. I then came to know my God. the God who I knew long before to be a forgiving God.

I asked for another chance to live. In my hospital bed I promised God, my creator, that I will serve Him and give the remaining marrow of my life in obeisance to Him. “God, give me another chance to live,” I said. God taught me a lesson I will never forget. It was a lesson in humility, a very good one. You cannot be am antagonist of your creator. The one who makes is the one who breaks. I realized that I was just a pebble in an infinite desert. But a pebble can make itself different. It can make a great difference if it glitters! The greater is the difference when the pebble reflects more light from the sun the way we humans reflect the glitter of God in our lives.

But spiritual metamorphosis was gradual. After I was discharged from the hospital, fifteen hours before the eve of the new year 2009, I was glad that I spent the first day of the year at home. It lightened up my being. I allowed light to get into my being. It was spiritual light. The glitter in my heart increased each day as I allowed to more light to get into my being. I tried to reflect the light.

I no longer think of the devil in the pulpit when I listen to the sermon during mass every Sunday. I only think that we are all humans even the man standing and giving sermons in the pulpit is another human like us and can be more prone to commit sins than we do.

Right now I look at myself first before I condemn others. In this way, I unloaded my self with a very heavy baggage, which I carried for a long time. My spirit lifted up and threw away that load of a gigantic stone, which was stuck to me for decades.

I walked the four kilometers and when I was almost at the church, it stopped raining. The sun shone. The dark clouds disappeared. I passed through the wide open church doors with panels of antique wood and sat on my favorite pew beside one of the painted big stained glass windows of the cathedral. I contemplated while waiting for the mass to begin. I looked up the window and I saw the shine shining brighter, reflecting its light on me for now.I then felt I was a pebble in the desert turned into a piece of diamond reflecting the brightest light in the vastness of the desert.

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on your first post :).

    That made me wonder if I should start going to mass again; I think I have been both an advocate and later an antagonist of religion. God is universal. Religion is cultural. So for now, I'm sticking to that ;) Hopefully I wouldn't need a life and death situation to awaken me, if I am "sleeping" in my faith.

    Good post. More to come I hope.

    Duds

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  2. Duday! My Lord loves my best man so much.. I'm so touched how God revealed Himself. I'm happy that my best man accepted God's invitation.

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