Baggage Claim... Again?

"Baggage Claim… Again?"

(Casual Blogging Series #6 – Sunday, December 13, 2009) – Birthday Reflection

By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ

I know this is not new. I must have mentioned it several times. Recently I’ve been traveling across the globe: in October westwards to Rome, Italy, and last week eastwards to the down under, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. I’ve earned a nickname, for better or for worse, a “flying priest.” During those trips, as had happened several times before, the baggage claim experiences turned out to be significant.

Waiting for my bag on the baggage belt can become like life-or-death experience. If after some time I don’t see my bag, I begin to worry: Is it coming? Has someone stolen it? Has it been taken by mistake? Once I see it, I feel such a big thrill. But this time something new dawned on me. Assuming that there is no malice, why on earth do people take a wrong bag that doesn’t really belong to them? I can only find one answer: because the bag itself appears to be theirs! No surprise! Many bags just look the same! [And worse, if you go to Indonesia, they don’t really check your baggage claim tags before you walk out from the airport! Oh well…]

This made me think. If I were like a bag moving on the baggage belt, who will pick me and claim me? What would be on my bag tag? Is it clearly written “Christ’s,” or what? This is what I have done so many times: I put other names on it. Here are some examples: “Career’s” – “Pleasure’s” – “Comfort’s” – “Lust’s” – “Fame’s” – “Pride’s” – “Intimacy’s” – “Success’s” and on and on and on… you name it. Whenever I put those names on top of the real label “Christ’s,” then of course, I make my life such a mess. Not only that, I hurt others as well, because I turn their sincere trust into just a cheap toy!

Yesterday, December 12, I turned 43. I thank God for so many wonderful people who have always been there to peel off other labels I have glued on my life bag tag, and make the real one visible, “Christ’s”! And when they see me being taken away, they are willing to fight for me… “God, You know me, nothing hidden to You…”

Wasting for Investing

“Wasting for Investing”
Lent 2009 – Day 16 (Mar 14)

By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ

“Waste your time, invest their trust!” This is a simple wisdom that I have made as a reminder for myself. I am blessed with so many young Jesuits around me. I am aware of my own limitation and woundedness as a human being. Yet at the same time I have been entrusted with these young and promising Jesuits under my care. This logic of “wasting for investing” at the same time also train me in the virtue of patiently waiting.

I wonder how much God has wasted time with me. I wonder how long God has been patiently waiting. I wonder how much trust God has seen developing in me. Any story of conversion is a story of how an investment begins to show the benefit. When a son who out of a sudden decides to run away from home we may think that he is completely lost. What will change the story is the amount of time that his father has wasted with him. It will take time before his son eventually realizes that he can completely trust his father. Then there will be an unstoppable power within his son to say: “I’m coming home, Dad!”

So, start with “wasting,” and you will see that you are actually “investing” something priceless, namely “trust.” In the meantime you learn how to do a good “waiting.” For God, the name for such “wasting” is “mercy,” the name for such “trust” is “conversion,” and the name for such "waiting" is "life." What a great God!