ON FALLING IN LOVE

Growing with my children brought me more bliss than pain especially because i "grew up" considerably in my meaningful relationship with them, too. Their lovelife not only colored their world but it also did mine. And it still does.

As i sit in our breakfast table, attending to my special child, my memory pleasantly went back to my discussion with my youngest son involving questions on love. He was aged sixteen (16) then but he has had a girlfriend when he was yet eleven (11), which i find both amazing and amusing. I smiled to myself to such wonderful memory because about a year after that I overheard him, in sweet and desperate surrender, telling his older siblings, "Siring ni nanay (mother said), Love. Don't fall in love." To which i repeated lovingly for the sake of my other sons, "Because as sure as you fall IN love, you are going to fall OUT of love, sonner or later."

Over years of observation and sad contemplation (yes, my contemplations are always that, SAD) i figured that maybe, it is our failure to accept/acknowledge our divinity that makes our search for happiness elusive. Maybe we have not really learned to truly love because we always settle for the least - being human (other times, being animal. God forbid!); that we have not trusted ourselves enough so we are not able to go beyond our human nature. Our divine nature has always been inside us waiting to be recognized and accepted but we would rather be Peter Pan's, thinking that there really is a Neverland, and watch our wasted lives drift away.

Why is this so? Could it be because after Christ's coming we have comfortably nestled in the thought that we had been and are saved by God's only Son, anyway? And that being so, we can already remain complacent in the thought that we are loved by God any which way we do things - as we please them - our way? Or could it be a carry over of the gross negligence or over indulgence of our environment/culture in our growing up years that brought us the net effect?

i would never know the definitive answers to these questions, of course, because we differ from one another. And only God has all the answers. One thing i do know and recognize though is that, Christ, God's only Son, came here not only to save us but also to show us the way: SUBMISSION to the Holy Will of our Father in Heaven by SACRIFICE!

Indeed the overlap or interplay of both our animal nature (our basic desires involving our senses) and our human nature (our judgments without divine guidance) makes it very difficult for us to reach our divine nature, which is supposedly our highest nature and our final goal here on earth.

It is our responsibility, alone, to tame/discipline our inferior natures. The acceptance of the fact that "the seeds of destruction are within us" will help us realize the importance of subordinating our natural tendencies/urges. We must not resort to any "blame game". We can never control anybody or anything outside of us after all. We can only control our own self.

This is where forgiveness is crucial because FORGIVENESS is a very important step to finding our divinity. Next to forgiveness is GRATITUDE. This is where we count our blessings instead; where we opt that everything is a matter of correct perspective and right attitude; where we believe in the law of compromise (remember Stephen Covey's Win-Win Theory?); and where we learn to trust again.

God never left. God has always been with us and He will always be. Our search for divinity, in all actuality, is our search for our healthy self-love because only divine love is real love. Human love is either demanding or depleting. We see those everywhere. And it is rampantly observable in a romantic love. It explains for the falling in and the falling out.

In my own quest for my divine nature i adopted the legacy of one of my beloved "earth fathers", Rev. Regis Burzynski, OFM, to guide me through. He had always with him a framed picture of our Blessed Virgin Mary on his table and at the back of it he wrote, IWMI, which he said to mean "I WILL MAKE IT", when i curiously asked him. To this day i am so glad i carried the same conviction. It saved me. And i pray it always will.

Ultimately then, God, in His unconditional love for us, still leaves us pretty much to ourselves, our own free will. And my ultimate words for you to think about are from Og Mandino: "Man is bestowed by God the power to influence his destiny, but (sadly) all he does well is die...a little everyday."

Love your self! Nobody can love you enough but you. Never give in. Never give up. You can make it, if you will. All you need is faith. Believe in your self! GOD BLESS EVERYONE.