The other day, I was clearing my bookshelves of old magazines to make room for new books I recently bought. As I was going through the piles, I would set aside one magazine with an interesting article I would read for later; then another one for a beautiful picture I wanted to keep or make a copy of later; then yet another with a factoid I would want to remember. Soon, it seemed I was keeping more old magazines than I was disposing of. It was then I decided to just throw away everything, assuring myself that I will find in the Internet any article I wanted to read or any picture I wanted to save or any factoid I wanted to remember.
It is amazing but in a way expected how easily I can get attached to things, keep them and be encumbered by them as I journey through the portals of my life. Initial attraction becomes a lingering attachment which can eventually become a crippling enslavement. And following Jesus means being able to get up and go at a moment’s notice.I cannot be encumbered by the baggage of the past when Jesus comes calling.
The call can come through the most unexpected manner or at a most inconvenient time. Wait but just for a moment and the super moon has faded away. Blink for just a second and Jonathan and Jane are grown up and gone. I cannot wait to the opportune time to help, love and serve others. That moment is now. I cannot wait for the right time and place to pray. That moment is now and that place is here.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
~ Elizabeth Barret Browning
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
Luke 9:51-62
The youthful cries of yesterday’s “revolutionaries”…the time is now, the place is here. Sometimes, it feels like too heavy a baggage to look at yesterday’s idealism, the perpetual demand for the new, the changes from of old. Yet following Jesus is this non-stop invitation, perhaps even a “season ticket” entitling the holder to every game. And every moment is a process of embracing and letting go, responding to and rejecting an invitation to live, to burst into poetry or simply mesh into silence and peace. And just be!
It is a journey. It is an adventure. Even in ordinary things, there is greater joy in the questing than in possessing what one is questing for. But you know what I like best about the journey? I am not alone. Hindi ako nag-iisa.