trusting God – Appointed by God

Passion

Dave Canovas

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

Just how did you do it?

How did you not flinch when it was too painful? When you fell while carrying the weight of the world, how did you rise up again? How far ahead did you see when your present was too agonizing? How far back did you have to look to remember that you were everything but a criminal?

How did you not break when they shattered you? When rebuked, how did you not hate? How long did it take you to forgive? A minute? A day?

How had you chosen pain over glory? Dying over living? How were you not reminded of ruthlessness by those scars, that instead of waging chaos you uttered “peace be with you”? How did you do it?

Lover of my soul, how do I become whole again?

Peace be with you.

Dave Canovas

I joined FB just few months ago. I refused to have one, most of my entire adult life. I thought it was rife with negativity and I thought there would be triggers there for me. Not good for my mental wellbeing but somehow thanks to the “snooze” option my wife taught me. That way I could avoid people posting messages of hate, sexism, racism and bullying. Just as there are positive messages out there, it is also replete with messages that could disturb your peace.

Peace is so hard to come by of late. Wars are being waged everywhere ranging from small to large scale and everything in between. Keeping an ear to the ground of Philippine election and politics has piqued my mental wellbeing recently.

Too bad that it is just few weeks from Easter Sunday when we were reminded of the powerful words Jesus spoke; “Peace be with you”. Today I thought it is time to invite peace again in my life. In our lives.

Know when to give up. Maybe the story has to end at some point. Maybe the wheels have to stop turning and start recharging. Maybe the fight is not worth it anymore. The time to stop is when you become exhausted, unproductive, vengeful, angered, unnerved, confused. Perhaps the best recourse is to “accept the things you cannot change (serenity prayer)”.

Forgive and ask for forgiveness. When others hurt us or when we hurt others, that is when it becomes most difficult. That is when you feel heavy. You sweat during those sleepless nights. But when we forgive or ask for forgiveness, it becomes lighter on our shoulder.

Years ago when I challenged a 4 year old boy into capturing his thoughts into drawing, I asked “What does peace look like?”I was really impressed with what I witnessed – a love heart drawn on paper. When I asked, “What does war look like?”. He started to draw vigorously, chaotic lines. I knew it was really war that he drew because of his “angry” body movements while he drew.

It is time to choose that tidy love heart of peace rather than the angry lines of war. It is time to remember and live what Jesus said after His resurrection, “Peace be with you”.

Beating the seven deadly sins

Dave Canovas

What is the opposite of pride? I thought it’s humility but the sharing of a speaker in a weekend retreat I attended had me reconsider my answer. He thought that it’s love.

Not since watching the film “Seven” have I given the seven deadly sins a good stare. I did agree with the speaker that love is the opposite of pride (Proverbs 16:5 – “arrogant in heart”). But I am also convinced that, so are gluttony (Philippians 3:19 -“their god is their belly”; envy (Proverbs 14:30 – the one the “makes the bones rot”); sloth ( Proverbs 19:15 – “idle person”); wrath (Matthew 26:52 – those “who take the sword”); greed (1 Timothy 6:10 – “love of money”) and lust (1 Corinthians 6:18 – “sexual immorality”).

Love’s OTHER-centeredness, no doubt, opposes the seven deadly sins’ SELF-centeredness.

In my life, I have wondered how I have fought a sinful thought.

First is by recognising these sins on their onset. These sins could sometimes blend into our skin slowly, cunningly and quite subtly. We watch out for signs of these sins and nip it in the bud before we get consumed by them.

I would call these early signs my moments of unease. Guilt-ridden urge. Sweating. Racing heartbeat. Feeling a “bit sad”. A mind peppered with the “what if’s”. Fantasizing and daydreaming. Cravings. Mindless scrolling on the phone. Restless feet. Indecisiveness. Aimless pressing of the TV remote control. Stressful eating. My signs could go on and based on my history, these underlie these sins. Before any of these signs spiral out of control, I try to nip it in the bud. But how?

Pray and in praying, each word really matters. Fr. Andrew Ricci has always suggested to NAME IT in our prayer. It does not have to be grand, thought-out well or grammatically correct. It just needs to be flowing, honest and specific. God I am feeling the urge to forgo again an opportunity. God I am feeling lazy today and I am not being productive. God, I am feeling the urge to stay home, lie on the couch, miss church and become slothful. God, I am being stuck in my thoughts and my cravings. You know that this could lead me to excess and become a glutton. God, I am feeling uneasy right now that I don’t have what my neighbour has. This is envy and it is not ok. Deliver me from envy and help me realise that what I have is enough. God, I don’t really understand why I am feeling annoyed right now. Help me through my feelings before it boils over and becomes anger. Prayer at its most specific could help win against the enemy.

In early childhood education, there is what is called dispositions or habits of the mind. If we train ourselves to resort to prayer every time we are challenged by sinful thoughts, then the mind becomes a very powerful tool which could stomp sins on their head.

Since love is the opposite of the seven deadly sins then it is only love that can vanquish them. When you love, then there is the “other” to think about; the “other” that we see beyond the “self”.

Giving to others for example, vanquishes greed. The law of marginal utility tells us that no matter how much material things we acquire, we will never ever be satisfied. Greed just gets us caught in the cycle of buying things that will never be as satisfying as when it is new but being generous? This empties us and allows us to see that others’ happiness could be truly gratifying.

When I slack, feel unmotivated and slothful, I think of the “other” who might benefit if I look ahead and soldier on; perhaps the children I teach who could learn from my enthusiasm or my family whom I could build great memories with. Lying on the couch all day is not what I would consider loving.

Beating the seven deadly sins today does not mean we have slayed them for good. Sinful thoughts are here to stay. A sinful thought is that unwanted visitor always wanting to hang out with us at home, at work or even at church. It could stare right at us through our TV screens. But remember that God is also here to stay; His goodness endures forever. God also loves to hang out with us in every corner of our home, at work and certainly He is alive and longs for us, at church. He is ready to meet us at each moment we are tested.

Excessive complaining and how it could ail our souls

When we grumble a lot, we become arrogant people thinking we deserve better more than what God has provided us and blessed us, with. When we complain a lot, we rely on our own understanding and deny the great wisdom that is of God’s.

Over breakfast, my elder daughter, looking anxious, blurted out she had a dream that it was the start of school. “That was not a dream, that was a nightmare!”, whinged my younger one.

That is so true for many of us. Depending on which part of the world we are from, Christmas is season of joy, especially if we have that two-week break and luckier, if we have a month-long one. Coming from this long hiatus, we dread going back to the normalcy of work.

I am not going to lie but I do share my daughters’ sentiments . Sometimes, I succumb to grumbling, myself. The only difference is that I do not speak it loud. I hid it in the innermost part of me, challenge that whinging sign of discontent and later, quell it. I ask myself, “what difference is complaining going to make?”. Halting the thought of discontent, thoughts grumbling become mere clouds hovering above me, passing before my eyes, and moving until it no longer matters and words of complaint, no longer spoken.

Whinging, grumbling, moaning, “reklamo (Filipino term)” or complaining, has sadly been, becoming a culture. A habit. A really bad, bad, bad habit. Like Thor hammering it away, I usually find myself gathering enough strength and momentum to break that habit, myself.

Complaining a lot, we do not realise, could be a sign of things that could be ailing our souls.

When we grumble and express discontent over our supposed blessings (i.e. our job, roof on our heads, food on our table), we declare that we deserve better – a better job, better looks, better house, better spouse, steak rather than fish, I-phone 12 over its countless predecessors. We yearn to be in some other place rather than we we are. On a couch. On a holiday cruise. In a restaurant. When we grumble a lot, we become arrogant people thinking we deserve better more than what God has provided us and blessed us, with. When we complain a lot, we rely on our own understanding and deny the great wisdom that is of God’s.

Grumbling and feeling we deserve better, is subtly, pride. In Proverbs 16:5, we are reminded not to be arrogant and proud:

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.

Excessive complaining, is lack of trust, lurking in the dark. Jesus spoke about trust in John 14:1:

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

If we are truly who we say we are, believers and practitioners of God’s divine wisdom, then we must keep our grumbling and complaining at bay and under control, if not fully extinguished.

I can only imagine how excessive complaining could lead us to the worst and how it could consume and turn us to sinful arrogance, pride, sloth and greed. I, myself, will stomp on the habit of complaining even before it gets up my easily-swayed brain. How about you?