December 3, 2013
Dear God,
Before I pack my things up and leave
this place, I intend to write you a letter for the last time on this 30-day
retreat. Perhaps, this letter will focus on thanking you for the many
encounters I have with you, my God. I want my gratitude to be more personal,
intimate and nostalgic. If somebody from the outside world would ask me, “What
happened to your 30 day retreat?” Perhaps this letter will be the answer. Hence, this letter would capsulize my 30 day
encounter with you- 30days when you simply look at me with love and 30 days
when I struggled to look at you straightly and tell you honestly, Hey, God this
is my wounded life.
Two hours from now, the bell will ring
and silence will be lifted up. I will be missing this long silence, my God. It
is because it is in this long silence I encounter you deeply. It is in this
silence when I have an honest conversation with you. It is in silence when I
was able to recognize the monsters that creep down my skin. It is in this
silence when I was able to know that despite my monsters, you have never failed
to embrace me, ever since the day I was born.
Perhaps, your mysterious ways can be
read in silence. That is irony. I can only notice your deep love for me if I
will not say anything or do anything. Thus, this is your invitation to me after
the retreat: I will invite silence in my daily life because your “small, still
voice” can only be heard when I turn that volume off. I do remember then, the
value of what you post in our Chapel in GY, “Be still, I am your God.”
Two hours from now, I am going back to
the noisy world. It needs a lot of effort to invite silence there. I will be
missing you, my God of silence. However, I am hopeful that you will grace me to
find a place in a very noisy world where I can quite myself and just be with
you. I know you will find ways that I can be with you so that I can talk to you
my daily complains and you just simply look at me with love and silence.
Lord, your last word to me was “meet me
in Galilee.” You told me this when you personally appeared to me after you rise
from the dead. Last night, while I gazed at the starry night sky and cold wind
touched my face, something dawned on me about why you want me to go to Galilee.
I guess you want me to follow you.
Galilee is where you start your journey towards Jerusalem. Perhaps, you want me
to start a journey from my own Galilee towards my own Jerusalem. I felt cold
when this insight dawned on me. That cold wind enveloped me with fear. Being
with you for 30 days and witnessing your journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, is
no an easy flight. Along your journey, you have encountered rejections, fears
and loneliness.
Rejections. When you were still a baby
and King Herod threatened to kill you. Your parents have to bring you to Egypt
in order to save you. Your offering of love was not accepted by your own
people.
Fears. I have witness this when you
agonized in that Garden.
Loneliness. I have followed you when you
carry that cross alone. Your friends left you. I mean your closest friends. You
continued to embrace that cross, to be nailed on that cross, even your friends
were not there to witness your pain.
That is why I am afraid. The moment I
will go to my own Galilee, I will be experiencing those rejections, fears and
loneliness. But Lord, there is somehow a fire in me when you appeared to me and
told me to meet you in Galilee. You plant a mustard seed that gives me little
power, little strength to embark on a journey following your track starting in
Galilee. This mustard seed ignites my heart to follow your footsteps.
During this retreat, you visited the
place I rather not go. You went ahead of me. You went to the most unlikely
place of my life. This is my hope. There is nothing to fear when I will start
my journey in Galilee. It is because you were there ahead of me. You assured me, on this retreat, that I will
not be alone in this journey. You will be with me, in case, I get rejected, I
get frightened, and I get lonely along the way.
Lord, throughout the retreat you ask me
to stay with you. You have been telling me, “Stay with me Maki.” And you know I
have struggled to stay with you because there will be days in the retreat when
I felt flat, bored. I often got bored in my prayers. There were many times, I
have to drag my feet to go on prayer, even if I felt nothing happens. Even I
struggled, I did realized that I have received many graces on this retreat. I
felt so blessed. You are indeed a God. You will still be generous enough to
love me even if I struggled to love you, even if I failed to stay with you,
even if I prefer to sleep during my prayers.
That is too much love. Honestly I could
not understand that kind of too much love you showed me on this retreat. I will
be bringing with me that love when I say goodbye to this place. That love kind
of love wherein you simply love me, even though I failed to love you back. Your
love will not diminish if there will come a time that I will not talk to you.
Indeed, true love is not earned. That
is good news. You simply love me.
Period.
Lord,
I know why you often tell me to stay with you. Staying with you means
the fullness of life. If I want fullness of life, I have to stay with you,
wherever you go. If want some meaning in life, I have to go to Galilee and
start a journey with you. In this retreat, you showed me that rejections,
fears, and loneliness are part of experiencing fullness of life. You embraced
those life difficulties. And you know me Lord. I have no power to embrace
those. But you showed me how to embrace these life difficulties: you offer it
to your Abba, Father. Knowing how, I have now enough power
to embrace these life difficulties because you showed me how to deal with those.
Offer these life difficulties to Abba.
Lord, I will be ending this letter. I
will start preparing packing my things and say goodbye to the place. I will
always cherish this place. It is where I meet you and give me little power to
start a journey in Galilee.
But before I end, I would like to thank
you to all people who have helped you find me. Bless them.
Lord, words are not enough to express
how much grateful I am for the things you have done to me on this retreat.
Maki.
When I grow older, I realize
that I have many things that I do not understand about this world I live in. I am
hungry for meaning. I want to connect things. I want to see the world in a
clearer view. I want meaning in the very limited existence I have. I want to
know why I am here. Writing, hoping, could satisfy this deep hunger. 
