Have just come back from my holidays at Genting Highland over the weekend. I feel so good and clean after my purification with all the body scrub and facial deep cleansing after my spiritual purification and awakening call from the holidays. My plan to Genting Highland was so last minute that I did not have time to apply for leave on last Friday after clearing all my work at my workplace. Basically, all my plans during the weekend were changed because of this trip. The prompting within me was very strong to go for this trip. Well, I have a fruitful trip with God reminding me and speaking to me about certain issues in my life. It was also my opportunity to get away from the haze here as I have been quite badly hit with poor appetite and insomnia. My whole body system is upset by this haze. My stay at Genting allowed me to have some fresh air though the air there may not be very good with many vehicles passing by. But, as compared to the air quality here, I feel much better there.
It was quite weird that I went from the hazy Singapore to the foggy Genting Highland. On a superficial level, it was silly for me to move from a place with quite low visibility to another place with worse visibility. However, the impact on me was very different. In Singapore, before my trip to Genting, the haze hit my body system which caused me to have poor appetite, sleeping quality with fever, headache and bad cough from the attack on my lungs at times. It affected my whole well being. However, when I was at Genting, I could eat properly with good quality of sleep. My body managed to breathe in fresh air. I thank God for the precious fresh air that I could breathe. I appreciate better the fresh air which may be free and I may have taken for granted most of the time. The haze in Singapore helps me to realize and appreciate at a deeper level the fresh air as a gift from God. So, as long as I live, God is giving me a gift every second through the air that I breathe.
It also comes to my mind about sins. I may think that it is right for me to hit back at another person when he/she attacks me first, it is right for me to be involved with adultery because we enjoy being with each other so much even though we may be married, it is right for me to rob or steal because it is all God’s fault for putting me in a poor family, etc. All these scenarios are similar to the haze in Singapore. Can we claim that the hazy condition in Singapore is the same as the foggy atmosphere at Genting? Can we claim that the air quality in the hazy Singapore is as good as the one at Genting? We know that the answer is ‘No!’ I can always justify that it is romantic to have such hazy condition in Singapore as if we were all staying at Genting. But, deep down in our hearts, we know that the air that we are breathing now has negative impact on our health and we will fall very sick and may even die in the long run. Some people with poor health have been suffering from this hazy condition. This goes the same to our sins. We may justify our sins in whichever reasons or ways that we want. We may ask what is wrong with my sins such as justifying with if the other person has attacked me, why I cannot hit back, why I must be the one losing by giving in and it is my right for me to hit back, if we enjoy being with each other so much and why we cannot continue to enjoy each other, if God has put me in such poverty, I do not see anything wrong with stealing or robbing from someone who is better off than me, etc. Ultimately, deep down, my conscience is pricked whenever I commit such sins. I do not feel at peace. In Genting, I can go out in the open space to enjoy fresh air and it does my body good. In the hazy Singapore, if I jog outdoor as usual despite the bad air quality, I will fall even more sickly. I have to hide myself indoor. Just like the case of hiding indoor from the haze, sins are just like the haze. The guilty parties have to hide these sinful parts of themselves from the others. Can they tell people they always revenge whenever people have offended them? Can they announce their affairs and share with their spouses that they are having affairs outside? Can they confess to the others that the things or money that they are enjoying now come from stealing or robbing others? If they refuse to repent, they will fall more and more sickly at spiritual, emotional, mental and even physiological levels. They always have to hide all these sinful areas of their lives in darkness where the Satan will continue to deceive them with such beautiful lies. Lies, white or beautiful or bad, and even half truth are still not truth. They distort the path God has meant for you to walk. Only by walking in Truth in Christ, will a person be healed with Love and keep on going back to God and walk towards holiness.
God spoke to me through the movies that I watched during my holidays at Genting. It was rather funny that according to superstition, I should not be watching horror movies or show about death as they would bring bad luck to me at the casino. Well, I did lose alot at the casino but I still enjoyed fruits out of God’s message of Love through the movies. One of them was “Child Eye’. I was amazed at the visual effect about the dark world of this female ghost filled with agony of her delivery to a child who was half dog and half human and confusion about how she had died which led her to misunderstand that her spouse had murdered her. She was filled with powerful hatred. She was feeling very lonely and had captured the three young couples who were having their holidays at the hostel where the female ghost and her family had stayed to accompany her in her world. The visual effect had been imprinted in my mind. It was a world of hers in darkness with fire consuming everywhere and the things in her world were made of papers. When she was trying to kill the female protagonist, Rainie, with the intention of destroying her (Rainie’s) relationship with her boyfriend, she touched her stomach and felt another set of heartbeats and realized Rainie was pregnant. Then, the female ghost woke up from her confusion and realized that she had tried to kill her half dog and half human baby and her husband had accidentally killed her and broke his own leg in the midst of stopping her from killing the baby. One main thing hit me was after Rainie had pleaded to her to let her live for the sake of her (Rainie’s) unborn child and the female ghost confessed to Rainie that she really yearned to see her spouse and Rainie advised her that she (the female ghost) had been living in her world of hatred which had stopped her from meeting her spouse in the real world, she cried and was touched and her world with all the things around her were melting away which brought all of them back to reality. This part of the show had the greatest impact on me. I have learnt that if I refuse to forgive the people who have wronged me and continue to hold on to the grudges, just like the female ghost, I will be living in my world of darkness with the anger and hatred of fire consuming me deep within, not allowing myself to love others in the world. I may be distorting all the truth of the situations and the people involved as all my views are distorted or clouded by my biases and hatred and unforgiveness. I can never allow myself to get into the world of others to love them as who they are and forgive them when they have wronged me. Ultimately, I become a soul which am trapped in the world of darkness with uncontrolled fire of hatred and unforgiveness eating me up deep within.
The other show was ‘Departure’. I had watched it in the cinema when it was first shown in Singapore. This show is very powerful. It has never failed to touch me and speak to me. I was watching it again in the coach on my way back to Singapore. During that moment, it was the part of the show where the undertaker was a good friend of the deceased boss of the bathhouse that spoke to me. He was the person who had to close the casket of his deceased close friend and send her off personally and lifted it for her to be cremated. One thing he said struck me. He mentioned that death was not the end but a gate for all of us to enter through to the other world. This suddenly came to my mind about the ‘narrow gate to the heaven’ in the bible. Basically, it just came to my mind that death is the’ narrow gate to the heaven’. How do I explain why some people go to hell or continue to be in purgatory? To clarify, I am not a priest or religious sister to give theological explanation of it. It is just my view that why some souls end up in hell or continue to be in purgatory because they have been blinded by sins to have missed the ‘narrow gate to heaven’. The narrow gate is always there. These sins in them cause them to lock themselves in the state or dimension of darkness or condemnation just like how the female ghost in the ‘Child Eye’ had done to herself. Only through opening oneself to admit one’s sins and for the Love to slowly transform him, then he will be able to be slowly cleared from this darkness and see the ‘narrow gate of heaven’. Only then, his pure state allows him to enjoy the magnificent glory of God in heaven. I imagine a soul full of sins, even if he has managed to enter though the ‘narrow gate of heaven’, his tainted self will not be able to withstand the powerful glory of God and will be tortured as if being pierced or burnt to torture. Such similar illustration can be drawn from how a person is pricked or consumed with guilt after murdering his loved one. Of course, in the case of the sinful soul, the torture to him is beyond any words of description.
It is up to my free will to choose to open myself for God to shine into the dark areas of my life and repent and go through purification in this world through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Many friends have asked me why we, Catholics, need to confess our sins to the priests. Can’t we confess to God directly? I simply tell them they can choose to confess to God directly. Since God is present in the faces of the priests, wouldn’t it be more comforting and thankful and convinced that I, as a human being with five senses, can see God in the faces of the priests and listen for myself that my sins are forgiven and absolved? We are not confessing our sins to the priests. Rather, we are confessing to God in the faces of the priests so that God can come down to our human level and be present through the physical bodies of the priests and tell us verbally that we are forgiven. It is more powerful and transformative for us to experience God’s mercy through our communication with God in the priests during the Sacrament of Reconciliation through our five senses. How can I not be thankful that God loves me so much that He has come down to my human level in the priests to forgive my sins?
During my reflection at Genting, I suddenly recalled my supervisors and teachers have been telling me just because I am smart, it does not mean I can get away from troubles all the time. Well, I do not think that I am smart though I have got no ideas why they think I am smart and some of my classmates thought I was a distinction student. My educational level is low. But, they are right that I always get my way out of troubles. During school days, my teacher was very surprised and told me if other students got into the troubles which I got into, they would be expelled immediately but I managed to get out of troubles and almost got expelled much later. I guess sometimes, as fallen human beings, we try to test water to see how far we can go without God. We may have this rebellious streak in us from time to time to see if we can do things according to our own will without God. Those are the times when we try to put ourselves above God where the sin of pride leads us to carry out the acts of sin. Look at Eve. She was warned by God not to touch the fruit. She went against the warning and even got Adam to eat it with her. Sometimes, my sins will also get others to sin with me. Whatever I do or say, I must own my responsibility. When things go wrong, I should never blame others immediately as I have a part to play. My sins will affect negatively or hurt the others. If I continue to insist on my way of sins, my way will only lead to way of destruction and darkness where other people and God can no longer reach me as I lock myself inside. I can never blame God and people for being absent from my life when in actual fact, God and the people who care for and love me are always there. It is I who choose to lock myself in the world of darkness and refuse to reach out to receive the love of God and others with a generous heart to slowly melt my dark world for me to live in Light.
I really enjoy my Genting Holidays. Though I am poorer in material terms, I am much wealthier as I have gained much more spiritually with God. God has answered my prayer as I had prayed for a fruitful trip. Well, I am much richer now. Time for me to share such riches with the others so that these riches can multiply through sharing. How about you? What are your riches in life? Care to share them? I don’t mind having some of them from you. Woo hoo...Life is great!! God loves you and I love you too... :)
With Love,
Elena
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