Freedom and Wealth

Yes it's been a long time. I guess after the 8-day retreat, I went back to using pen and paper. Also did quite a bit of reading at the retreat, and continued since then. I can finally say that I've finished one book, the one that I keep by the side of my "throne". And in the meanwhile I've started on a few other books. At this moment I have 8 books which I am reading halfway. More on that later.

 

But the last nearly 2 months has been quite interesting. October was my turn to do sunday sessions, did a session on Remembering. Also had rosary prayers every friday night organised by LOG, and quite a lot from all the groups turned up. So many youths hungering to grow in faith... Praise God!!! Was also busy rushing around to get the testimonials, and Fr Fossion's one was so cute. Probably scan it and post it up someday. Then, sent in the application forms, so do continue to pray for me. Went for the seminary day of prayer for vocations, Jovita led the P&W, think his first time, quite good.

 

November was Fr Mike's birthday, did a session for IHM's youth charge, can't believe that I gave a talk on Evangelization. But thanks to the Spirit, managed to pull it off, really surprised by it ;Þ Then I also started a new job. It's with a social enterprise, which is a company that is non-profit, all the profits go into its charitable works of running training programs for migrants and ex-offenders. The technical engineer was moving on to another job, and they needed time to find a replacement, and at the same time needed to maintain it's current contracts. So I told them I can help them in the interim... Quite fun actually. Get paid to do the stuff I do at home, maintaining my hardware, installing modems and wireless networks, updating websites.

 

Yup so that's what I've been doing... So now to the topic of this post. Which is the reason why I'm resuming blogging. Something I read today really struck me, and coupled with this new tool I'm trying out called Qumana, it's a desktop publishing tool, which means I dun need to login to blogger to edit and post. Something which might be useful when I don't use the internet that often. I'm digressing....like that how to finish by midnite.

 

One of the books I'm currently reading is, Reaching for the Invisible God, which I blogged about when I started reading it in may, but still haven't finished after 6 months. But luckily this book needs to be read and reflected on. Like how it applies to your life, and so it's not so important to remember what was written in the previous chapters to understand the current one.

 

And today I was reading the chapters on the mature adult relationship with God (after the childlike relationship). The chapter starts with

"Wise parents nudge their children away from dependence toward freedom, for their goal is to produce independent adults. Lovers, however choose a new kind of voluntary dependence: possessing freedom, they gladly give it away... That adult relationship reveals, I believe, what God has always sought from human beings: not the clinging, helpless love of a child who has no real choice, but the mature, freely given commitment of a lover."

Further on, it talks about spiritual discipline, not out of duty, but out of desire to please and be close to God. And how the world can understand and encourage atheletes to devote their time and effort to train to be the best, but can't understand why a person would go for mass or pray daily. Now this is the part which struck me the most.

"Thomas Merton drew a parallel between freedom and the wealth a rich man enjoys. A rich man if he wants to can light cigarettes with dollar bills, and Merton before his conversion, squandered his freedom in the same way with his partying and drinking. A wiser rich man would invest his money so that he may reap the benefits later on, Merton too chose to invest his freedom by entering a monastery."

For me this concept of freedom being spent/squandered/invested like wealth really intrigued me. I guess I never really saw freedom as something to be used wisely. Talents and gifts, yes, like in sunday's and today's gospel. But freedom, was whether to use the talent or not. We often say offer your gifts back to God, or choose to do His will. That God GAVE us this freedom, has taken on a new meaning for me. Our freedom is a gift, and something which I can offer back to Him. Blows my mind thinking about it.

 

He goes on to say, how the holy people like St Francis, St Benedict, Mother Teresa, "investing their freedom in discipline, secure a deeper freedom unavailable elsewhere".

 

Ok it's near 1am, this is the reason why I didn't want to blog earlier. And I think this program isn't going to help either....The font is so small, doesn't seem like writing much. But I think when it's displayed on my blog, with it's smaller width and it's bigger font, would be really long. Hope you made it all the way to the end. Sorry for the long, irrelevant intro ;Þ