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).

Cold Waters

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.–Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When I saw the pool for the first time, it look so calm, the light of the water fountain was reflecting and creating a rainbow of colors. For my point of view, the water seems very tempting to jump into it. I wanted to impress the guys I invited to join me in this experience of swimming at night, so I took all the bravery I had and without thinking twice I jumped into the pool. To my shocking surprise the water was extremely cold that it took all my breath away, and I will say, some of my brain cells died for the shocking realization to find myself in the midst of very cold water. I still feel my brain a little bit shaky even though that happened almost 2 hours ago.

I believe, in a way, life in itself is like this pool. Sometimes it just seems so calm and pretty that we do not doubt to get in to it; but then we are faced with the shocking cold waters of adversity, bad relationships, prejudice and deception, for a moment, we loose our direction in life and ended up loosing our sense of purpose for ourselves. But it is not that we lost it, it is just doormat due to all the cold moments we have experience in life.

But once we came out from this so cold and painful waters; good conversations happened, and then life becomes a series of good and bad conversations, in deep, profound and superficial, in sharing our hopes and dissolutions, in finding a common ground so we can learn from each other event though there was a long bridge in our ages, ideologies and experiences of life.

Cold waters are not bad, they just shake ourselves, wakes us up and help us get better blood circulation. Our bad and cold experiences, even though hard to face, help us to wake up the life we have in front of us.

So go head and Jump into the cold waters, do not be afraid to be shocked!…..

Freedom

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”

–Abraham Lincoln

“Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.”

–Albert Camus

According to the dictionary, freedom is the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints. It is being able to walk without the chains that kept me attached to the wall of nonacceptance. It is stepping out from the barriers of incarceration of shame and guilt. It is knowing I can go wherever I can because I do not have any restrains on me. People would like chain me back because they can not understand this kind of freedom; for them there is only one freedom, but the problem is that they have never been in captivity. My prison was my unwillingness to be myself.

One of the results of freedom is that I started living without fear. Fear from what others will say, fear from what people–that in a way they are salves of their believes– are pointing and judging. They do not realized that their self imposed holiness is more enslaver than what they can not accept on me. Fear from the comments of unworthiness about holding the pastoral position. Fear from myself, from my own inadequacy as a human being, from failing as someone who seeks the deeper waters of God. Fear from what the future will bring.

Freedom after living in captivity for many years is something that can not be explained unless you have experienced it. It is breathing every morning and being able to go wherever I want and not where others want me to go. It is accepting my reality as the one beloved by the Beloved. Freedom smells, sometimes it brings a sweet and grateful odor; but other times brings an incredible and horrible smell that bends me down trying to grasp as much clean air as possible; but still freedom is my true liberty to become and accept the one God has loved: ME.

Jon Goodwin send me a quote of one of the two people I have adopted as spiritual directors in my life and reminded me that even though things do not seem clear, God still there. Thank you Jon because even though you know who really I am, you still love me, and this quote was a great gift for me because I am facing the consequences of my freedom.

“We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish the uncertainty, and redeem the times. But the crowd of witnesses in Hebrew 11 testifies that this is not the case. Our trust does not bring final clarity on this earth. It does not still the chaos or dull the pain or provide a crutch. When all else is unclear, the heart of trust says, as Jesus did on the cross, “ Into your hands I commit my spirit”–Brennan Manning.

Exposed II

“We hide behind pretty faces which we put on for the benefit of our public. And in time we may even come to forget what we are hiding, and think that our assumed pretty face is what we really look like”–Simon Tugwell

The more I talked to university students I realized that we are, as representatives of the church, messed up when our dogmas and believes stop us to see beyond our very close minded and ignorant mind. When we want to befriend others with the hidden agenda to “bring them to Christ”, but we are not willing to learn from their own stories .We are messed up when I hide in the rob of pretend holiness and I can not practice being real, vulnerable and open pleasing those who have decided to hide behind their own masks. Oh my gosh! this makes me sick and angry, because instead of showing an open door, open mind, open heart spirituality, I am representing a close door, mind and heart religion. Spirituality, I believe, has to be lived in community, but when I can not be real with others,then it becomes an empty search for something,but not God.

A dear friend of mine, who is a minister, was criticized for sharing his life’s stories, because it is not appropriate to be so open about them. If a religious leader can not be open to their parishioners about what God is doing in his/her life, then I ask, What are we doing then? I really do not understand why vulnerability is a threat to some people. I think we are messed up and we do not have any idea what the true Gospel is all about.

Brennan Manning says that our spiritual life begins with accepting God’s wholehearted love for our wounded, broken, surly, frightened, sorry selves. God call us every one to come out of hiding”, So if we need to come out of hiding, then why our personal stories, our realness, our brokenness is uncomfortable to the ones that have been seating on the church’s pews for many years?. Jesus was known as a friend of sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors, but now we are known as hypocrites and of course we are also known by what we are against.

What are we doing then if we can not be ourselves in Christ? Hiding in pretension and blind holiness? Are we letting people control the way we do ministry so we can please their comfort zone?

I am sorry, but I believe I need to be a naked pastor,and more than this, I need to be a naked human being not in the sense of physical nudity, but spiritual, mentally showing who I am and, as my international friend said, having a good heart and mind.

“Pretending we have no wounds is a self-absorbed life. Fear and shame drive me to conceal my wounds, it’s not just others I keep in the dark” –Brennan Manning