(written last August 26)
Never assume that your life is as interesting to others as it is to yourself.
A wise axiom. In the more than three months since I've been writing this blog entry. I have only on rare occasions focused on my own life, and the things that is happening to me lately. But this particular entry will be an exception because I have just undergone a major transition and believe it's helpful for you to know at least the broad strokes of the life of the one who stands behind the words he or she is reading.
So what's happened in my life? So, after I left Loyola House last April, I have to support myself and my family. Thus, finding a new job was one of the very daunting task for me to do. In the span of 4 months I have been employed 3 times. The previous was not that successful. The 1st one, I have taken the duty of being a "school director." And take note of the close and open parenthesis. It was really the shortest stint of my entire career. Let's just say that my boss and I have different views on education. For him it was to grow more profitably but for me to really have the chance to form and influence young minds to be better and good Christians and citizens of this country. After all... I cannot blame him for his disposition, because he came from the "other" school. You know what I mean. Anyway, the second one, was a bit "dream" job for me, but it wasn't meant to be after all. We were affected by the current economic crisis in America. Our finances are down also, since I am the new guy, I have to be the "sacrificial lamb" and let the old staff do their job.
What's my new job? I've been a training supervisor/ officer in a BPO in ortigas Pasig City. I would like to say that I am happy with my job also. Though, its not financially rewarding (the pay is still little) but I am gaining all the experience that I need.
I what I promised in my last 8-day retreat, I will still continue what I have been doing inside the Society, that is: building God's kingdom through my simple ways as a lay person. I have some innovations here in the office, like improving the training modules by infusing in them some value oriented stuff. Also, I have innovated a better way to have a suitable retention rate of the sales specialist. And at the present moment, I am giving a values formation seminars to all the supervisors and next (hopefully) the managers about Heroic Leadership.
I will, of course, continue to do some teaching (though less than what I've been doing before). I am volunteering in a NGO who does some modular classes for kids, grades 1 to 4, addressing the conflict in Mindanao and to promote peace among Muslims and Christians. I still give retreats, counseling and prayer sessions on a appointment basis (well, some of them are pro-bono). And also some media work for JesCom and watch out for my script that will be aired this coming October.
Leaving those places and the friends and colleagues I met there has been the hardest part of this. I've never been good at saying good-bye and I'd just got through the worst of grieving last April when I had to leave. Moving isn't easy.
But I'm excited about being a lay person and have always enjoyed the opportunity inherent in going to a new place and meeting new people. Painful as it is to have to move, it's also a graced-opportunity because we meet new people and every person we allow into our live makes us richer.
Moving means saying good-bye, but it also means saying hello. Moreover persons we've had to say good-bye to don't leave us. We carry them with us, as part of us, as part of who we are and what we bring to our new situation. When we stand before new people in a new place we stand there not as persons who have come out of a vacuum, but as men and women formed in heart, soul, mind, and body by that nexus of family and friendships out of which we've come.
What we bring to a new situation is very much the people and the things that have touched us in our previous ones. In a real way, we carry family and friends with us as part of who we are and what we do. I can't imagine either my life or my person today without factoring-in all the persons, friend and foe, I've met in the different places I've lived: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao I shed some tears leaving every one of these places, but now each of them will always be home for me.
Once home, we'll always find our way back there, even when for all kinds of reasons we have to go far away. That's true for family and for the friends I've made in the various places I've lived, or met elsewhere along the way.
I am now in a new place, with a new job, inside a new work place, meeting new friends. But my old family and friends, and all those places I've lived and worked en route here, will always be home for me .
