My failure as a mother

To be a good mother was my greatest desire 20 years ago. From the first moments of knowing that I was going to be a mum, I wanted only the best for my daughter. I had no idea how I was going to do it but I knew that I would not settle for anything less than being a good mum. I would not let her suffer or go through what I went through in my childhood. It didn't take me long to realize that being a mum was the most difficult job I have ever done.

Then my son came along after five years. I have worked hard at being the best mum that I can be...to love my children...to teach them how to love and be grateful…to trust and love God above all. The painful part is in spite of how much I love them, I have also let them down.

Being a mum has made me appreciate my own mother. I realize all the heartaches and love that went into raising me and that she did the best that she knew how to do at that time and era. Yes, she has let me down and failed at times. I wasn’t the most loved child, in fact I received no love from her in my early years. Learning from her mistakes, all I want is to love and protect my children at all cost; provide and give them the best within my means and ability. But no, I have not been the perfect mother and yes, I have failed my children.

I strive to be a good mother but motherhood is not easy at all. Despite loving them unconditionally, I failed to understand simply how to be a good mother... not to mention the best. I do not know how to love them the way they want, how to protect them, how to emphasize and feel their pain in a very personal way. I have done many things in my life perfectly but I as a mum, I have failed. Is there such a thing as a perfect mother?

Letting go

Letting go and letting God…we hear it all the time, but only a few of us really live our lives this way and the truth is that it’s easier said than done. Is it so simple to let go of the uncontrollable and unchangeable in life? Surely I am not responsible to affect a change or correct a problem which is beyond my competency, power and authority. That’s an obvious fact. Of course, I can start being rational about what I can and cannot do, be realistic and accepting my powerlessness…. but a mother’s pain doesn’t heal and never fade away. It hurts and some days more badly.

When I was young, often time I sat and wondered how and why my mother always sit and ponder. Eyes and stare so far as if she has the whole world to bear. Her struggles, she endures. Hiding her pain and acting strong. Finally, now I understand…. my children’s hurt can turn my life painfully upside down. A sword has pierced my heart, the bleeding never stop. What else can I do but to pray for God’s grace to let me walk in faith. Having seen God’s faithfulness over and over, I will enter God’s rest and place my trust in Him.

What is integrity?

Integrity is one of the most important and oft-cited of virtue terms. Many philosophers have been particularly interested to understand what it is for a person to exhibit integrity throughout his/her life. What is it to be a person of integrity? A virtue either motivates a person to act in desirable ways as benevolence moves a person to act for another's good or it enables a person to act in desirable ways as courage enables a person to act well. If integrity is no more than maintenance of identity, however, it can play neither of these roles. On the identity view of integrity, to act with integrity is just to act in a way that accurately reflects your sense of who you are; to act from motives, interests and commitments that’s certainly more an intrinsic desires than anything else.

Integrity determines beforehand what we will be regardless of the circumstances. Integrity is the 'decision maker' between being happy and being fragmented. It frees us to be a whole person no matter what comes our way. Socrates said "The key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be" and he can’t be more right.

Presence not presents

Children need our presence not our presents. It is important for parents to spend time with their children and not just buying them things to show them that they are present. The best gifts I receive are tokens of love and concern from those I care about and those who care about me. Often the gift of time is the best present of all. Parents communicate the values to children by giving time, by our presence, by giving ourselves, not just presents.

Is brain death still life?

In 1968, Harvard Medical School changed the definition of death. It no longer based on cardiac and circulatory arrest but on a flat electroencephalogram. Electroencephalography is useful but not essential in determining brain death. It amounted to a radical change in the conception of death. The Catholic Church has also implicitly accepted this definition of death but with many reservations.

The scientific justification lies in the definition of the nervous system that casts doubt precisely on the fact that the brain causes the disintegration of the body. Since then, the organ indicative of death is the brain, no longer the heart. Before the invention of life-support systems, brain death always led quickly to death of the body. With new technology patients who were dead could still have a heartbeat and gave the false impression that they were very much alive while kept on a ventilator, giving hope to grieving families that the person may suddenly wake up. This false hope sometimes prevents their families from donating their organs but it may also be prompted by a specific interest i.e. the need for organs transplants.

Hence, ethical considerations are crucial to defining criteria for brain death, which in most countries must be met before efforts to extend life may be ended. Such criteria include deep coma with a known cause, absence of any brainstem functions and the exclusion of hypothermia, drugs, and poison as causes. Organ donors must therefore be declared brain-dead before their organs may be removed for transplant. These considerations obviously give rise to new bioethical problems for the Catholic Church. An interesting question is when can life support be legally end and who will play God? Although this is one of life's most painful experiences, it also can be a rich time of expressions of love and gratitude.

Law and justice

The law, alone and aloof by its very nature has no access to the pain and suffering of the victims just as it does not have the passion that might justify the cruel act of murder, rape and abuses. The legal mind is always thinking of law never of love. The legal mind thinks of justice but never of compassion. The legal minds and the criminal minds are two sides of the same coin. All legal minds are basically criminal and all criminal minds have the potential to become outstanding legal mind. So, where is the justice?

Can a leopard change its spots?

Everyone wants to become a better person. The difficult part is not wanting to be better, it is whether a leopard can change its spots or not and getting motivated to expand the list of positive attributes. You can have all the desire in the world to change and become a better person but when it comes down to doing it, it is often a different story.

A leopard cannot change its spots just as a tiger cannot change its stripes. I believe they are quite contented as they are. One cannot change one’s essential and basic nature. This metaphoric expression originated in an ancient Greek proverb that appears in Jeremiah 13:23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil."

Which brings us back to the original question: can a leopard change its spots? No, the only spot the leopard can change is its position! Anyway, it is not the leopard's spots that one needs to worry about… it’s the jaws and teeth.

Where to find angry and bitter people

Henri Nouwen once remarked that he found it curious that many of the people he knew who were very angry and bitter were people he had met in church circles and places of ministry. How sad, how disgraceful, how disappointing and how true……

A rescue or a redemption

How can a loving, merciful and powerful God allow so much suffering and evil in our world? This is by far the most difficult spiritual question throughout the ages. Where is God when bad things happen and why didn’t God act in the face of suffering? There have been countless attempts to answer this question and even more attempts to offer some kind of acceptable theoretical explanation. In reality God is able to stop all the innocent suffering and evils in the world. However, what is at stake is the free will He gives us and in His magnitude, respects and refuses to violate it even when it would seem beneficial to do so. Free will gives us the possibility of changing or destroying the world. Is this free will one of God’s greatest regret?

Fundamentally, dogmatic theology taught that God is not so much a rescuing God but a redeeming one. The Almighty Father did not save Jesus from death on the cross but allows him to die and then raises him up again. God doesn’t necessarily intervene and rescue us from suffering, evil and death; instead he redeems our suffering afterwards. Ultimately, is this what we want? A rescue or a redemption? Do you think those who are suffering will prefer to have the tangible rescue or accept God’s silent and absence and trusting that in the end all will be well and our pain will someday be redeemed in God’s embrace. Where are you, God?

Be the change you want to see in the world

Be the change you want to see in the world….. and I wonder, is it true? If you were to be that change, will the world actually change or are you just being hopelessly naive? Gandhi said “you must be the change you want to see in the world” and he did it. He was a revolutionary man who was able to accomplish India’s emergence as a nation without starting a revolution. He advocated no violence and atrocity and India was transformed because of the commitment of one man that made the dream of millions came true.

What change can we effect? What's the difference we want to make in the world? The concern is that not everyone bothers about the world enough to want to change it. That is the selfish nature of men. I live for myself and what I have is mine alone. There is no need to bother about the rest of the world, for what can the world give me that I myself cannot get. This is evident everywhere, there is a lack of committed volunteers worldwide, the lack of funds given to non-profit organizations and right down to the measly salary given to workers in such organizations as compared to those in the corporate sector. Why do people not recognize that the world needs them as much as they need the world?

All significant change throughout history has occurred not because of nations, militaries, governments and certainly not even the United Nations. They happened as a result of the courage and commitment of individuals. People like Joan of Ark, St Francis of Assisi, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Mother Teresa. They might not have done it alone, but they were, without question, the “change” makers in the sense that they believe that they can and will make a difference.

The genesis for change is awareness. We cannot change what we don’t acknowledge as wrong, immoral or not working. What we can do is to follow Roosevelt's timeless advice, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Maybe what I'm looking for is not change, just continuity. To carry on the works that others have done in the hope of making the world a better place to live and to love our neighbours as in the parable of “The Good Samaritan”. Yeah, we don't need the changes. We just need a storm and an ark to shake the world in a gentle way. But who is going to build the ark? Where is Noah? And I am not referring to Evan Almighty!

Heaven and hell on earth

We are created for a very simple, beautiful and wonderful life… that’s an ideology but in truth, life is but a paradox. We have to accept in humility that there are millions of things which we cannot understand or simply on the grounds that we are unable to comprehend them.

What is the purpose of my life? All the trials and tribulations, pains and sufferings… am I suppose to accept it not as a curse or punishment but a gift with a very specific purposes? Can I view my life as a challenge, a testing ground for faith, trust and hope? With unconditional love, one will not be afraid of the windstorms of life. Unfortunately, it may not be just a drizzle but a typhoon that devastates your whole being. We make our own heaven or hell…. yet sometimes it only takes one person to create a living hell for us.

The society in which we live has shredded me to pieces. Why did God allow free will that man could be either Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde? We see the inhumanity of man in which each one of us is capable of becoming a Nazi monster yet at the end of the other spectrum, we also have the ability to become a Mother Teresa. Alas…. life is too taxing at this moment. Sometimes I smile and most of the times I cry….

I am sad

Sorrow is a part of our existence. Even the best among us cannot escape feeling sad at times. I am feeling very sad today.......

What is the meaning of life?

What is the meaning of life? Is it the meaning of being human or the meaning of life to each individual living it? If we're all going to be dead in the end anyway, what difference does it make as to what we do with our lives? Does the finality of death make life meaningless? Perhaps it is better to talk about its significance, authenticity, importance, rather than meaning itself. Human beings could choose their ends with the sovereignty to define their own meaning for their lives. Even if there no answer to the question of meaning of life, there is still the need to get through day to day. People who believe in God could still find their lives meaningless while on the other hand, atheists who have significant missions and relationships could feel their lives overflowing with meaning. What does meaning mean? Throughout the centuries, different philosophers have different answers. Existentialists find no meaning in life. Wittgenstein reckoned the question itself is meaningless. To the Darwinians, the meaning of life is evolution and more life. Perhaps the question is not so much about the meaning of life, but about living it….“How should I live?” and finding something beyond to discover an answer. If we ask the question “How to live life to the fullest?”, we probably get a whole new lot of answers.