“Looking for Direction”
Lent 2010 – Day 22a; Saturday, March 13.
Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
I went to pay respect to my Franciscan friend who passed away. The parish church is located in Depok, now a suburb of Jakarta, quite a distance from where I stay. I got e-mails and text messages about the direction. I also made phone calls to make sure that I got it right. I even asked a Jesuit brother to drive for me, while I made sure that we were on the right track. Having someone with me made the journey feel safer.
There were several spots where the road trickily splits into several directions. We had clear information, but we still had to decide which one to take. It reminds me of my journey of conversion. Because God trusts me, God leaves to me the decision on what direction to take. The possibility of making a wrong turn is still there. But we simply couldn’t think too long. The cars behind would honk angrily!
Conversion is a challenge. It’s a long drive to the unknown places. It requires true masculine spirit. So I wonder, why there are not so many men attracted to this challenge.
Showing posts with label decision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decision. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Love Decision
“Love Decision”
Lent 2010 – Day 5; Monday, February 22; Feast of St. Peter’s Chair
Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
Love is a decision. After the highs of the “in-love” stage is over, the time will come when one should make a decision to love. It’s the moment when one is invited to go beyond theoretical knowledge. While it isn’t feeling anymore, it isn’t simply about logics either. Love is not simply mathematical calculation. It’s a decision of the heart.
In terms of making and changing decision, we humans are expert compared to God. Yes. I don’t think that God has ever changed the decision to love me no matter what. We humans take time. In some cases, it seems to take a lifetime to decide to love God back. No wonder we need Lent every year, and we are just the same messy people.
Here is a paradox. When I finally decide to totally love God, it’s actually a decision to let myself be loved totally by God. Being loved so much is a lot scarier than loving itself.
Lent 2010 – Day 5; Monday, February 22; Feast of St. Peter’s Chair
Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
Love is a decision. After the highs of the “in-love” stage is over, the time will come when one should make a decision to love. It’s the moment when one is invited to go beyond theoretical knowledge. While it isn’t feeling anymore, it isn’t simply about logics either. Love is not simply mathematical calculation. It’s a decision of the heart.
In terms of making and changing decision, we humans are expert compared to God. Yes. I don’t think that God has ever changed the decision to love me no matter what. We humans take time. In some cases, it seems to take a lifetime to decide to love God back. No wonder we need Lent every year, and we are just the same messy people.
Here is a paradox. When I finally decide to totally love God, it’s actually a decision to let myself be loved totally by God. Being loved so much is a lot scarier than loving itself.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Nobly Destroyed
“Nobly Destroyed”
Lent 2009 – Third Sunday Year B (Mar 15)
By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
I’ve just come home from a wedding party of an old friend. Everybody was happy. Finally at the age of forty-three this dear friend of ours decided to settle down, get married, and start a new life. Some of us came with their wives and children. Looking again at old faces always thrills. Those faces represent different sets of choices they have made along the way, willingly or not. During those precious minutes together we were brought back to a distant past when we used to sleep in the same dormitory, eat the same food, drink the same water, and yet at the same time we were also silently marveled by the differences life has created on each one of us.
Life appears to be continuous alterations of “building” – “destroying” – “rebuilding.” It is painful to start building from ground zero up. It is more painful to accept the fact that what we have built has to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt anew. Each stage demands a decision. Though at times the forces out there feel so overwhelming, we have to make a decision on how to go through. God builds a relationship, a covenant, gives a set of norms to be obeyed. We destroy the relationship by doing precisely what is forbidden. God rebuilds. And the story goes on. The magnificent temple has been built over the years, but it turns out that it will be destroyed only to be rebuilt into a completely new and unimaginable one. Along these alterations, we learn how to make better choices.
That blood-stained wooden cross speaks loudly to the world about the high price to be paid so that our building of sins can be destroyed and a new building of virtues can be rebuilt. If I think that to be destroyed is painful, for God it is more painful to see my resistance to be destroyed. God sees a lot more the better building. I simply do not want to see it at all right now. This destruction can be very painful precisely because it is a noble destruction.
Lent 2009 – Third Sunday Year B (Mar 15)
By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
I’ve just come home from a wedding party of an old friend. Everybody was happy. Finally at the age of forty-three this dear friend of ours decided to settle down, get married, and start a new life. Some of us came with their wives and children. Looking again at old faces always thrills. Those faces represent different sets of choices they have made along the way, willingly or not. During those precious minutes together we were brought back to a distant past when we used to sleep in the same dormitory, eat the same food, drink the same water, and yet at the same time we were also silently marveled by the differences life has created on each one of us.
Life appears to be continuous alterations of “building” – “destroying” – “rebuilding.” It is painful to start building from ground zero up. It is more painful to accept the fact that what we have built has to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt anew. Each stage demands a decision. Though at times the forces out there feel so overwhelming, we have to make a decision on how to go through. God builds a relationship, a covenant, gives a set of norms to be obeyed. We destroy the relationship by doing precisely what is forbidden. God rebuilds. And the story goes on. The magnificent temple has been built over the years, but it turns out that it will be destroyed only to be rebuilt into a completely new and unimaginable one. Along these alterations, we learn how to make better choices.
That blood-stained wooden cross speaks loudly to the world about the high price to be paid so that our building of sins can be destroyed and a new building of virtues can be rebuilt. If I think that to be destroyed is painful, for God it is more painful to see my resistance to be destroyed. God sees a lot more the better building. I simply do not want to see it at all right now. This destruction can be very painful precisely because it is a noble destruction.
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