Outside the Glass House*

Dug this up from eons back. :))

“Not all free acts lead to freedom.  In fact if you’re not careful, the choices you freely make may cost you a life of genuine freedom.” – Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising

I grew up in a “glass house”, squeezed my way out and found my way back – a different person.  I was educated in an exclusive school for girls, brought up by relatively conservative parents, and had religion rammed down my throat.  One can’t blame my thirst for autonomy.  I went through high school fostering a life-long goal of stepping out into the freedom of university life. It seemed like this dream skyrocketed into reality when I entered UP – the bastion of liberty.  Suddenly, I could do away with curfew, sleep late and wake up late, speak my mind without being told to shut up, go on out-of-town trips without parental permission and supervision, manage my own budget, try new stuff I never did before and just do what I want to do.  These I did trusting myself enough not to cross any self-imposed danger zones.  And oh, how I thrived…and floundered.

The very institution I thought would be my ticket to freedom only made me thirst for more.  I couldn’t be satiated with even a freethinking environment.  My classes taught by the most liberal minds only offered half-baked answers to the deepest questions.  I was free to speak all the expletives I want, yet the words felt like empty utterances.  I shifted gears from the classrooms to the extra-curriculars: I joined organizations, ran for student council and maximized the opportunities that “freedom” extended my way.  Two decades into existing and as for life, I called it a day and concluded the thirst unquenchable and freedom, superficial.  Even outside the glass house, the road to genuine freedom was either non-existent or perfectly elusive. I almost stood at the crossroads and froze.

I have been avoiding having to do with anything devout, religious, pious and orthodox.  It didn’t help my hypercritical mind.  But as resigned as I was, the heavens were still on my favor. I didn’t know what got into me, but maybe because I was trying my knack at cordiality, I did a friend a favor and went to one of their “life parties”.  It turned out she was part of some Christian group in UP and the event was one of their weekly jam gatherings.  And it turned out she was the one who did me a favor. At first,  I was unforgiving with my criticisms but as grace would have it, I listened to the Pastor – with all ears and heart.  He was one who broke mindsets. The message he shared was familiar at the surface, but unfamiliar in depth.  For sure, it touched me but I thought it was just that – a fleeting thug at the heart, one that makes you cry a little and feel like you’re worth more than all the money in the world compounded. But what I didn’t know was that the path to freedom was as simple as hearing a familiar message shared most passionately.

I didn’t grow up with a pastor as a father, but I met one along the way.  I grew up in a comparatively conservative household and had my fair share of being inside the glass house. But I rebelled my way in high school and had my fair share of being outside the glass house. I thought that as long as I was under the jurisdiction of my parents, I’d never be in command of my own life. I almost didn’t pursue law school just to prove a point – that I wasn’t following others’ dream of me.  I guess I’m lucky to have had lived through both worlds and find out the answer isn’t really found inside or outside the glass house. Oftentimes, we point the blame to others or the environment we grew accustomed to.  If we feel wretched inside, it’s so much easier to point the finger at those responsible for all those rules and structures we just have to abide to.  We confuse discipline with blind obedience.  We follow systems out of a shallow understanding of the essence behind them.  And when we are sick of it, we resist because we feel that we are confined in a box.  We see structures as structures and rules as rules.  Without profundity, it is normal behavior to resist. We fail to see that the quest to freedom entails discipline.  The quest to freedom entails the application of prudence, not heedlessness.  And sometimes, the problem isn’t entirely borne by others, but also by our hearts and our mindset.

I had my own dose of enlightenment when at the height of soul-searching, I told my parents I didn’t want to pursue law anymore.  My parents surprised me when they told me it was wholly up to me.  All along I thought it was sin not to live up to their expectations, but it was liberating to know that they loved me and accepted me not because I did anything to please them, but simply because I was their daughter.  As an affirmative response, I am now in law school - but not because others want me to, but because I want to.  Add to that, I find the possibility of pastoring people a noble profession alongside lawyering.  My parents couldn’t understand me at first.  They thought I was shifting religions so they tried to dissuade me.  I could have lashed back at them, downgraded their religion and appeared all too self-righteous because I was, after all, free to do so.  But I shut my mouth, shed some tears and hoped that someday they would understand.  That free act didn’t oppress me.  Because I was free to love, I chose to honor their authority.

The church I know is not a stickler for doctrinal rules but it’s not bereft of them either.   The church I know has its doors ajar for all types of people, yet it doesn’t end there.  As far as I know, the role of the church is not to exclude, but to help set people’s lives in order – that one wouldn’t come out the same wretched person when he first came in.  To do that, the church has to put premium on integrity.  A person who doesn’t practice what he preaches cannot expect his audience to practice what he himself doesn’t.   

Church didn’t change me, but it served as a strong vessel for change.  When I finally came to terms with myself – the ugly and the beautiful – and let myself be confronted with the beauty of forgiveness, I began to allow God to change me and enable me to freely love myself and others.  Freedom, for me, is being set free from all the bondages that a false sense of freedom entangled me.  Freedom is not about us alone. Genuine freedom doesn’t consume us with ourselves and doesn’t hold us back from relating to and loving others who may either hate us or love us in return. It shifts us from our exclusive concept of self and enables us to widen our horizons – to love, to reach out, to forgive, to take risks, and to truly live.

To be free, you need not be away from people with expectations of you. If you need another crowd to do what you are passionate about, then you are not free indeed.  Regardless of people, the choice has always been, is and will always be yours to make. 

*Written in relation and reaction to the Youngblood article "In a glass house" published January 28, 2012.

Tell Your Heart

While revisiting this blog (and with no plans of resuscitating it soon), I came across this entry in the drafts section from almost two years ago.  I wonder why I never really posted it when it strongly strikes a chord. I wish I could tell Mr. Coelho, "My words exactly." But no. He's captured something so spot-on and I can only echo his sentiments. 

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.

“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”

“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.”

“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”

“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”

“That makes sense. Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”

“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”

“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”

“You mean I should listen, even if it’s treasonous?”

“Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart.

“Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,” his heart said. “We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them—the path to their destinies, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out indeed, to be threatening place.

“So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.”

- Excerpt from P. Coelho's The Alchemist

#MultipleIntelligence

There are just some things that make a lot of sense when you're scrolling down your newsfeed. Today, I found this. And to me, it made a lot of sense. :) 

I may never beat or be as good as Einstein when it comes to Quantum Physics (or just plain Physics for goodness' sake!), but I bet he'd never outscore me in karaoke :P or preach with as much passion. :) I'm sure I don't know a whole lot of stuff that my professor knows, but I'm also quite sure that the converse holds true.  I'm just saying that we gotta love and embrace who we are, what God gave us and focus on our respective gifts and strengths. Then, we shine.  We can't drown in other people's expectations.  We aim for a goal and if we miss the first shot, who cares? Never mind the inglorious whisperers on the sidelines, the condescending look on your professor's face, the judgment that passeth the countenance of a stranger.  We try again. 'Coz if we kiss-ass and people please and try to succumb to every expectation, we will fall short at some point and fall prey to depression. So we embrace our identity, our uniqueness, and our abilities in order for us to shine the best we can.  We dust ourselves up, wipe the tears from our eyes and tell ourselves "Sige lang, ok lang yan. Kaya yan." :)

Rekindling an Old Flame

I will write again, soon - after I am settled snug in a workable academic routine and after achieving a considerably stable momentum.

I hope to allot my me-time writing instead of dillydallying in Facebook.  This is hitting two birds with one stone: writing and improving my writing, as I need to take this skill a notch higher, which means that I need to take legal writing more seriously.

In some days, I might probably spew boredom with a lot of words from outer space.  But in outer space, of course it'll make a lot of sense.  The goal is not to alienate.  The goal is to effectively alienate.

I kid. :)