This Life

I was awakened this morning to what sounded like my Dad coughing up a lung. He was recently diagnosed with bronchitis and has been house bound for the past week. Another victim of the harsh Alberta winters which are known for their sub 30 degree temperatures, I know he will recover but it will take time.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Calgary training in accident and damage identification and reporting. Something our trainer said stood out from the rest. She said, “It’s all about how you play the game.” Later she reprised this by saying, “You have to play the game.”

My heart sank a little bit when I heard this. I guess I grow weary of the preverbal game we do play in order to survive while working towards actually thriving. We all do it. We all have our role. In the end that means there is no one to blame.

I have seen people with so much potential to be individuals with good character, falter and sellout in order to protect themselves or the ones they care for. (Come to think of it the latter is still closely related to the former.) I do not sit in judgment but rather point the finger more harshly at myself. For I have done so many a time.

“I still haven’t found what I am looking for.”

So goes one of my favorite U2 songs. There is a powerful message in the lyric. But it also begs for a follow up question. “What are you looking for?” And even deeper, “is what you are looking for, what you should be looking for?” Finally, “what should we be looking for?”

Last night, as my fiancé and I were internet conferencing over Yahoo, we were sobered by recent events in our families: the sickness of my Dad, an accident involving her brother Dante, and also the financial challenges that lie ahead for both of us. “Itong buhay.” She sighed.

“This life.”

Indeed.

I think about my two sisters and their struggles especially raising young children in this day and age. I wonder about my niece who is has the characteristic “headstrongness” of a Daquila female family member. I also wonder about my nephew who is way too insightful and smart for a kid. I marvel how my sisters find it in them to face the unknown knowing that they have to be responsible not only for themselves but the future generation who are here today.


Keep your chins up! I love you!

Outside the world corrupts and destroys itself more and more each day.

It may seem sappy or even cheesy. In the dramatic build of things it almost seems anticlimactic. But true inner reflection shows us the simple truth. We do need God in our lives.

I need Him.

"Finish what you have started for I cannot do this alone."

Be with me.
Guide me.
Help me.

1 Year Later...

Well its time to jumpstart this blog again after a few months of neglect. I am kind of kicking myself in the ass because of it because when I was faithfully keeping a regular schedule with it I did notice an improvement in my writing. Practice makes perfect.

Back in Fresno during the late 80s my sister Lily and I used to be fans of a radio program called Unshackled. This was a classic radio drama which focused on stories of conversion. I remember that each week the individual whose story was being dramatized would reach a cross roads where they would need to “to face themselves and think.”

I remember during my last few months in Toronto I spent little time in front of the mirror. I slept a lot and lived off of breadsticks from Domino’s Pizza. I wasn’t a very happy person and I felt I had gotten stuck in a rut with no way of getting out. I’m a person who early on realized that there is a difference between simply existing and really living. I was just existing.

I would like to say that being out here has completely turned my life around in such a dramatic way much like the people on that old radio program but instead, I must confess that I am still very much in process. There have been many changes. I now know that I want to do something completely different with the rest of my life. I have rediscovered my love of music and reconnected with my saxophone. I now understand my parents more and much of the “why” for a lot of the unexplained events in my life. I can appreciate how hard work can be and that you really do need to work hard for what you have. However, no matter how hard we work, we will always be dependent on God. And finally, I have rediscovered love and it has rediscovered me.

As my fiancé (!) and I enjoyed a lazy Sabbath afternoon this past weekend in Banff, there was a moment when I lay opposite her on a couch and I was able to watch her intently focus on something she had surfed to on Youtube. She was so into it and her face was unguarded betraying her emotional connection to what she saw. Her eyes caught the light coming from the screen and seemed to glow. While I wasn’t even a part of this moment I felt so close to her and felt like I had experienced intimacy with the one I love.

Lord knows there are struggles ahead. I pray intently for strength. But I also praise Him for the blessings that He has given me over the past year. I pray He finishes what He has started so that we may both one day look back on the journey and simply breathe a sigh of contentment and satisfaction over the road traveled to reach here…