“On Death and Dying“

The idea of death makes one aware of one's life, one's vital being – that which is impermanent and will one day end.  When this vitality is appreciate, one feels free – for there is no urgency to perform some act that will cancel the possibility of death, seeing as though there is no such act.  In this sense, all human activity is absurd, and the real freedom is to be aware of life in its actually and totally, of its beauty and its pain. (Albert Camus)

 

There are 5 stages of grief or sorrow for terminally ill persons may go through upon learning of their terminal illness. These five stages are:

1. First is Denial. What is the first thing they do? The first reaction is shock. The universal first reaction to hearing the news is, “No.”  The second stage that quickly follows is denial. Terminally ill patients would say: “This cannot be happening to me.”
2. Second is Anger. “%$@^##& car!”, “I should have junked you years ago.” Do we slam our hand on the steering wheel? I have. “I should just leave you out in the rain and let you rust.”
3. Third is Bargaining. Like when we are going to work realizing that we’re going to be late for work, we say “Oh please car, if you will just start one more time I promise I’ll buy you a brand new battery, get a tune up, new tires, belts and hoses, and keep you in perfect working condition.
4. Fourth is Depression. This is one of the examples of what we say when we are depressed: “Oh God, what am I going to do. I’m going to be late for work. I give up. My job is at risk and I don’t really care anymore. What is the use?”
5. Fifth is Acceptance — “Ok. It’s dead. Guess I had better call the Auto Club or find another way to work. Time to get on with my day; I’ll deal with this later,” is one of the statements we say when we accept our situation.

Source: #Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Thank you letter to Men...(Happy men's day!)

Dear Men..
Sometimes I wonder where you draw your strength from.
You stay for months without buying clothes for yourself all because you want to put food on the table...
You stay hungry just so your family can eat and survive..
You get dressed and leave the house without direction, but you come back home with money after toiling day and night..

Some of you have been embarrassed, disgraced and abused because you can't afford to get a decent job and when you bring home peanuts, they throw it right back in your face..
I know how you have deprived yourself of basic education just so your children can eat..
Most times you are insulted, abused by people you are older than, but you take the insults all because of your wife and kids..
Your parents look up to you for survival and they don't even care if you have a job or not, you just have to provide for the family..
You pay huge bride prices just to marry the woman you love and you end up taking care of her family, take care of her siblings and even train some of them..
How you do all these amazes me and I pray the good lord to bless your hustle..
Stay alive for your mother, your wife and your kids!!
If you have a man that tries, a brother that tries, take one day and appreciate him, he might be starving just for you to survive!!
Dear men, thou art blessed!!

Happy International Workers’ Day - May 1

As we celebrate the international workers' day - May 1, it is a special moment to appreciate labour and work in terms of some basic values:

1. As Vocation: Through labour and work, we give meaning to our existence. We realize that we are not just here to waste time and to occupy space. We have a unique role to play; we have contributions to make in our world. 
2. As Stewardship: Through labour and work, we show the highest accountability for all the talents and abilities that God, nature and education endowed on us. 
3. As Service: Through our labour and work, we employ our talents and abilities not only to make a living but to meet the needs of others.

LOVE: a “very demanding mistress"

Many relationships that seemed strong at the 

beginning are falling apart when the “good times”   

leave and the “bad times” come.

God promises to “give you divine strength in hard times and to be always faithful to you. God cannot be unfaithful and so you can be utterly certain that he will always be by your side, ready and eager to give you whatever you need along the road you will travel together.

True love is not an emotion or feeling that flees during the bad times, but it is a choice rooted in the grace that came when the relationship started.

So, what does it mean to love one another? It means self-sacrifice and self-donation. It means giving yourself to the other with no conditions, no strings attached and even where this incurs suffering.

“Some relationships have the attitude of ‘I will love you so long as you love me.’ That is the wrong sentiment. The true Christian stance should be ‘I will love you always, even if you do not love me back.’ My love for you is not a faucet which I can turn on and off. It is an immutable fact, and you 

can totally trust in that.”

“Other relationships say, ‘I will love you as long as you meet my needs.’  Well, that is hardly love at all. It is totally conditional, and the bottom line is, of course, that no human being can meet all of your needs all of the time and you can’t either."

Love means serving one another. And, to do that well it means exploring each other as persons, discovering what makes your other happy and content, knowing what makes him or her unhappy or sad or even irritable and then setting about the holy task of serving with your special talents. Do everything for the other which is pleasing and as much as you can avoid that which is displeasing.

A test of true love is a “willingness to lay down your life for one another; which could happen in two ways.

The first way is in the day-to-day routine of life, dying to self for the sake of the other in all kinds of little ways, giving up your immediate needs in the interest of your partner.

The second way is not the likeliest, but who knows what the Holy Spirit may ask of you, and that is to actually risk and even lose your life in order to save the other. The first way is the white martyrdom of day-to-day living. The second way is the red martyrdom, which guarantees instant entry into heaven.

McDonald calls love a “very demanding mistress.” “She demands everything you’ve got in donating your all to your partner.”

Love: always ready for benefit of Doubt.

Love is not deceived . . . but it is always

ready to give the benefit of the doubt.

            Thomas Inman, in the 19th century, recommended that his fellow doctors not prescribe a medicine for a cure if they weren’t sure it would work. They were to give the patient “the benefit of our doubts.” This phrase is also a legal term meaning that if a jury has conflicting evidence that makes the jurors doubtful, they are to give the verdict of “not guilty.”

           

Perhaps as human persons, we can learn from and apply this medical and legal phrase to our relationships. Better yet, we can learn from the Bible about giving the benefit of the doubt to others. First Corinthians 13:7 says that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

            Leon Morris, in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, says this about the phrase “believes all things”: “To see the best in others . . . . This does not mean that love is gullible, but that it does not think the worst (as is the way of the world). It retains its faith. Love is not deceived . . . but it is always ready to give the benefit of the doubt.”

            When we hear something negative about others or we’re suspicious about the motive for their actions, let’s stop before we judge their intentions as wrong or bad. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

-MMM-

Choice: the heart of Friendship.

            A faithful friend is an elixir of life,

a sturdy shelter and a treasure.

We all know from our experience that one of the great blessings in life is friendship. We value our friends deeply. We are very aware that our lives would be the poorer without them.

            One of the books of the Old Testament, from which we don’t often read, the Book of Sirach, has some very striking things to say about friendship. It was written about one hundred and eighty years before the birth of Jesus. It is clearly written by someone who knew the value of friendship in his own life. At one point, the author says the following about friendship: ‘a faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: whoever has found one has found a treasure. There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend, and no scales can measure their excellence. A faithful friend is an elixir of life; and those who fear the Lord will find one’. The image of a faithful friend as a sturdy shelter, as a treasure, rings true to all our experience.

            It is difficult to say how or why friendships happen. There was a very well known book written by Norman Vincent Peale, ‘How to make friends and influence people’. However, there is only so much any of us can do to make a friendship happen, because, as we know, a friendship has to be mutual. I may want to be someone’s friend, but unless that person wants to be my friend, the friendship won’t come to pass. Friendships happen when two people chose each other as friends. If I chose someone as a friend, I need that person to chose me as their friend for the friendship to come to pass.

            Choice is at the heart of friendship, the choice of two people for each other. One of the more painful experiences of life is when the choice I make to befriend someone is not reciprocated by that person.

-MMM-

Motivation: Keep rolling the boat...

My Mom used to cook beans,  but before she cooks the beans, she picks the bad and useless beans and throw them at the backyard whilst she cook the good beans. 

But when it rains, the bad beans becomes seed and grows up and looks beautiful. 

The same person who threw them away starts to harvest them. She realizes that the beans she threw away has *VALUE* . 

Don't cry when people *THROW* you at the *BACKYARD* , Don't cry when people *REJECTS* you, Don't cry while they are *LOOKING DOWN* on you.

 The *RAIN* is coming and the same people who are *REJECTING* you today will beg to *HARVEST* you tomorrow.