Sympathy

Sometimes I can easily focus so much in myself and my own problems and inadequacies that I forget there are others who have life even more difficult than me. I read a quote from Maslow that says, “Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.” I wonder why we think that what makes a family is going to Sunday church when in reality what makes a family is not what we do, but who we are as people with the kinship and connection towards others. For the last days I have been able to leave my isolated cave and move into the wilderness of the lives of the people I know. I have been listening to their stories, give a helping hand, cry with them, loose hope and get it back, wonder about future and even life itself, act like little children with new toys, dance salsa, or even play rummikub until 2:00 in the morning knowing that I will have to wake up early to go to church.

But the greatest teaching about sympathy came from three good friends and students at Tennessee Technological University; you see for the last 2 or 3 years I have gone through very emotional journey and once in a while I get into times were my soul gets overwhelmed and I ended up in a stage of self-pity and dive into a very profound depression. I did not want to see anybody or do anything, I just wanted to be at my home feeling miserable about my “supposedly” very complicated and unworthy life. I was there swimming in the sea of tears when suddenly a loud noise transported me back into reality, somebody knocked at the door. -”who could be?”, I said to myself, “I have never received a visit from church people, some I will say, not even know where I live”. I dressed up and went to the door to find out there were three students that came to kidnap me and rescue me from my misery. They simple said: “we came three people, but we will leave four”. So in a defensive way because they have attacked my own privacy and my right to feel down I asked them why do they came?. Again they just answered me,”because that is what friends are for. We will not leave this place unless you come with us, if you do not want to go, then we will stay with you.” Sympathy, “the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another “ (Merreiam-Webstern dictionary).

Let me share this, experiencing God is not all about activities, programs and Sunday services or masses; it is truly about these little events that happen during the rest of the week, when we realize we do not have our lives in control and we need others to help us. God can not be real if we just create a space where we come and “worship” every week, but we can not cry, laugh, get upset, discouraged, depressed, homesick, with the people around us. How can we sing hymns if we can not accept the one who has different lifestyle? How can we be a family without the kinship and the connection?

There is more in life than my own selfish life,

There is more in life than Sunday services,

There is more of God out there, that what is inside…

 

The moment these three people reached out to me, they touched my heart and kinship and connection was born. This is the meaning of Christ’s words when he said, love God,but also love others.

When Receiving Becoms a Gift

it is better to give than to receive; but is even better when you give and it is well received”
That happened to me at Homestead United Methodist Church, and you may wonder why Miguel is talking about an specific church if most of the time he just talk about God. Well I believe God place people, places, moments in our way for us to be able to learn something. Sometimes we learn to be patient, other times to be joyful, may be we learn about good values or the power of generosity, or just simple as becoming good friends so we can have each other in difficult times. But what I learned from this place was far beyond my understanding of love and friendship. I gave a teaching two months ago because my friend Jeff Streszoff who is the pastor invited me to teach to both of his churches,not because he likes the way I teach, but because he was going on vacation and he needed someone to cover up for him (just a little joke for him).

I was nervous because it was a while since I taught in another church as a guest speaker. What if they do not like my teaching? Well at least, I say to myself, if they do not like what I teach they won’t see me again, and Jeff will be in charge to clean up my mess. To be honest I did not prepare a laborious sermon of three points and great tips on how to be a better person. Not at all!..my teaching for that Sunday was done while sitting in a local coffee shop and writing in a holly napkin. (oh with coffee stains and probably cheesecake on it). Holly napkins (named after my aunt Holly, not because of their status, just kidding) are this little piece of papers where great teachings, books, projects and organizations are born. That teaching was not from a Theological research but from my heart. It was a teaching about my own life. From this napkin not only a Sunday teaching was born, but also the title of my book: The Way of Simplicity. I did not prepared hours putting together this, I wrote a couple of scriptures and some ideas and put the napkin in my pocket. The rest of the week I was thinking about it. So when the day came I decided to go as real as possible because I was talking about my own journey into simplicity, so grabbed my jeans, my chaco sandals(good and trendy sandals.( Hey! I am a cool pastor here) and my Mexican guayabera (style of shirt from the gulf of Mexico) and departed to my destination. Oh and I grabbed my napkin.

Let me tell you, I taught with passion and I did a couple of things that I will never do in my own church, but if they did not like it, hey Jeff!!! please clean my mess!!!but what I learn from this Sunday is that is better when you give and it is well received. What I have to give to these people was my honest, sincere, and real heart, they received it and I was blown away from their response. From that experience of giving without expecting anything in return, I became good friend of some members of the church. They offered me their friendship, their home, their food and their unconditional love. They loved me without questioning, they care about me not as a friend of his pastor, or just because I was also a pastor, they cared for me as a friend, as a fellow human being. Their friendship and words they take time to write on facebook have helped me during these difficult moments in my life, and guess what? I received all of that and now I consider them my adopted American family!!!

When we can received what has been given, receiving becomes a gift and a door of opportunities that opens for us and everybody else. Gifts are meant to bless, to bring a good time, or just a nice laugh. When we learn to receive, we are learning to welcome the generous heart of others. Lets start learning not only to give but to receive.

The Nature of Receiving

I was always told that God loves those who give abundantly and that is better to give than to receive; but I was never taught about the action of receiving. To receive is to get something that has given to us. It is welcoming something that, usually someone else, offers to us. I have found out that in our human nature we are more willing to give, than to receive.

When we give, we become generous; but if we do not like to give we become selfish. In the same way when we receive, we are grateful; but if we do not like to receive we become prideful. Dealing with pride I will say is harder than dealing with selfishness, because selfishness deals with ourselves as individuals, but pride is dealing with our reactions when someone else interacts with us.

For me is usually easier to give because in a way I feel that I am doing something good for someone else, giving becomes a very important part of my daily life because it feeds to the ongoing self-acceptance of my soul; it makes me feel that I am important for somebody else and in a way I am helping that person to become a better human being. The problem is that most of the time when we talk about giving, we think is about some kind of financial remuneration; but giving goes beyond just money; we can give our gifts, life, words, and time to others. We could give a word of encouragement, we could give a shoulder for others to cry, we could enjoy a good cup of coffee and give out listening skills for someone who needs to pour out his or her life to us, we could give a helping hand, a trusting heart or just a smile. I have always said that in order to have a good friend we need to invest in time, money and effort. To give helps our self-esteem grow, and that is why God says that He loves the one who gives generously; I think it means that the more you give the more you will be fulfilled, the more you pour out what you have to others, the more you will make space for your life to receive. Because when we give, we will receive. Nature always comes back to itself; you give, you receive.

But most of the time we close that space that giving has freed in ourselves and we do not let anything to come in. This is when we become prideful because we do not feel the need to receive, not worthy of the the generous heart of others. Imagine having a glass that has been sealed in the top of it, every time we pour out water into the glass the water will go everywhere except inside of it. So we can spent hours and many pitchers trying to fill that glass but if the seal is not broken, nothing will come in. That seal is called pride and pride means just knowing we have all we need and we do not need anything more. Pride means we know it all, and nobody can teach us anything else, pride means believing we are better than those ,we think, are not worth of our values. Lamentably in the world there are more prideful people than generous. Receiving is when are able to take that seal from our lives and create a free space for us to be able to receive from others; but we can not make that free space unless we give out from within us. It is the very simple rule of cause and effect. The cause is the giving, the effect is the receiving or vice versa.

So when God says, is better to give than to receive, he/she is not denying the beauty of receiving, but God is teaching us that in order to receive we need to give. This is the nature of receiving, simple as that.

What are you? An open glass or a sealed one!

The Emptiness of my Soul

The emptiness of my soul is one of the hardest things to face. There are moments during the day that the silence of my emotions come alive and awaken the most painful feelings. The empty space of the one I loved resounds in my heart, smiling, disappearing, whispering in my ear. In the silence of my heart, my loved is not there anymore. Her eyes do not shine and the beauty of her soul does not surrounds my wounds. I was never able to loved her in the profound way she loved me, and her sense is not longer breathing on me.

The sound of the wind hitting on the edges of my window crush my heart creating a universe of thoughts and wonders, of doubts and fears creating an uncertain and inaudible echo. It is the nothingness of my soul, but not the beauty of my spirit. It is the absence of a love, but the survival of the heart. Now in this emptiness and silence I dive into my heart, finding the beauty in it and rescuing the left overs of a time when I was loved like I had never been loved again.

But no, my spirit is not down, not at all, because that is what has kept me alive, the beauty of God’s love. The realization that in the search of myself, He is there helping me, consoling me, crying with me and listening to these words that become prayers and passionate shouts of desperation asking for a small touch of His embrace.

But it is in this agony of the emptiness of my soul when I can connect with others and realized that “God is not a private God. The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is also the God who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being” (Here and Now, Nouwen). A shared pain, is a healed pain. It is the realization that in the root of our misery we are just human beings without race, religion, lifestyle or ideologies and we may find a common ground in the adversities of our lives. Nouwen said, “When we unmask the illusion that a person is the difference she or he makes, we can come together on the basis of our common human brokenness and our common need for healing.”(Compassion) It is only when we can empty ourselves, to share the good and the bad, the ugly and the beauty, the anger and joy, the perfect and the many imperfections, that we can free some space for the pain of my neighbor and brother to connect with mine.

Then my emptiness is not longer, but became the deposit of my brother’s heart; and his emptiness is not longer, it became the storage of my soul.

Finding Solitude

“Do not run, but be quiet and silent. Listen attentively to your own struggle. The answer to your question is hidden in your own heart” (Nouwen)

I have not been able to accept my loneliness; the problem is that I have not change the loneliness into solitude. The difference between these two is that loneliness avoids any kind of pain and tries to take me away from confronting myself while trying to get as busy as possible with as many people as possible. Solitude is the other face of this coin, because takes me to uncomfortable places where I need to face my fears, doubts, and even my own self; that most of the time it is very scary. Nouwen said, “By running away from our loneliness and by trying to distract ourselves with people and special experiences, we do not realistically deal with our human predicament.” And after 13 years of arriving to my house and be greeted by my wife, and may be talking about our dreams and hopes together, about having many children (and I wonder sometimes what happened with all those God’s promises), about buying our own home with a big terrace, a good library; and travel together around the world. All these was shattered four months ago when we made the decision in love to take different journeys. We believed our time to be together fulfilled its purpose, and we released our vows to be together. Even though it was a mutual decision, arriving home still seems very difficult, because my empty house represents all what I could not accomplished. For some it may be the faith I never had to be able to changed, others will tell me that I gave up, and many will never understand our decision. But nobody will ever understand us because we are the only ones who have walked in our own shoes.

How can I learn from this emptiness? How can I take my loneliness and change it to become a deep and profound solitude?

All these reminded me that my purpose of life is not anymore about having a great house, an awesome career, a well paid job, but it is to be able to find the true meaning of myself, the joy of knowing that I am loved, and that I can make a difference in the lives of people around me, by the simple moments of life like having coffee, drinking a beer, dancing with students, organizing a birthday party for my friends, by having a good conversation outside of a very cold pool; this is for me true religion, the way of simplicity. Not by all the knowledge that I know, not by following the law of church by perfection, not by pretending to be who I can not be. But “to live a spiritual life that will help me to find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude”(Nouwen, Reaching out).