Personally on Love - A Gay Man's Audit on the Intangible

Love I believe, within the limited context of my understanding is sine qua non to each and every soul, hence this is my feeble attempt to produce my own conclusions of love in my life’s journey as a gay man, a mixture of my tragic personal vendetta and loyalist view of this bittersweet tasting thing we know as love. I have done my spiritual audit, my paradigm of death and that leaves me with but another greater more delicate and complicated issue to grapple with, my personal audit on love.

At first, love seems to be the purpose of life. Only a few individuals after a series of agonizing events, realizes its true nature, and have a true understanding of what love is. One is then able to appreciate love for what it is, and be prepared for what it brings into ones life with consists of both pain and bliss.

I think the question that I must ask you here before you assume that it is in your best interest to proceed, is the simplest of questions which was posed to college students in a study.

“Have you ever been rejected by someone you really love?” &
“Have you ever rejected someone who really loved you?”

Almost 95% of the respondents answered yes to both, hence, almost nobody gets out of love alive. My answers are an enormous yes to both questions, and perhaps the process in coming up with those answers was one of the reasons which initiated me to construct this audit on love. What began as a simple four paged blog entry turned into a 13 paged monster. If you bowels begin to constrict and you begin to nauseate at the resonance of the word “Love”, then stop here. If the answers are yes to both, and your interest still flickers, you are invited with the rarest of sincerity to continue reading the full audit which is availabe for in the link provided below. Enjoy and feel free to share with whom you think may benefit from it.

Personally on Love - A Gay Man's Audit on the Intangible (Full Version)

Paradigm of Death

We live as if we never die, and when we die, it is as if we had never lived. So is the common practice of homo sapiens, of which I was a faithful practitioner as well, until Death visited me again. Not a simple tap on the shoulder but more of a sweet caress which I could not simply disregard.

You hear of nasty car accidents, you hear tales of how survivors slip past Death’s grip. Or do they actually do? No one slips past Death unless it is allowed by the Fates. But one will never know of it until one experiences the sweet caress of Death, and so it was on a February morning, perhaps due to my own recklessness or fate, that I lost control of my car when I went over the curb and smashed into an oil palm tree before turning turtle seeing the world upside down while hanging from my seat, my safety belt holding me up in mid air. The instinctive vanity of a gay man made me felt my face, nothing, I still had my face, no blood despite the shattered wind screen and windows reduced to bits of shards that could have ended in me being scarface.

This memory is always served to me in a slow motion scene, and I ask myself, was it to remind me of how close I was to Death, that it was in the power of some Divine Providence that with a flick of His little Finger, I would have had my one way ticket Home and on to my next life and my dear friends would have been visiting my empty shell of flesh covered in a white sheet at the morgue and not the emergency ward in UH. The full impact when my car met the tree was the most haunting and rawest of memory that I still have to this day. It begins with the oil palm tree in full view coming closer, the reaction of jamming the breaks and turning the steering to the left until it could go no further, the deafening sound of crushing metal, ripping open the right side of my car from the front headlights to my driver’s door (in a similar way that Titanic was sliced open from its starboard), the wind screen exploding into shards, my head hitting the steering wheel and alas, my upside down view.

“Your life dwells amongst the causes of death, like a lamp standing in a strong breeze” quoted Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland.

I was that close to dying. I could have died, I could have been crushed to death, burnt alive while the fuel was leaking, or worst I could have killed someone, I could never live with such guilt. If only the degree of my left turning was a little lesser, and it became a head on collision, the degree of my injuries would have been totally different. I escaped with a broken tibia and fibula, leaving me at the mercy of crutches for the next quarter of the year. Was I asking for too much? That I should have escaped unhurt be more an appropriate fate for me, upon looking at my car, only then did I realized that Fate must definitely have had a hand in it.

Another following incident during the accident nudges me to this end of thought, when I was dragged out of my car, that of all things someone whom I could not remember handed me my Scapular. A little thing stashed into my dashboard, forgotten, only to return to me in such a peculiar time which such a demand for recognition. I could only see his hand, and my brown Scapular dangling down beautifully, the voice either said “I think this must be yours” or “ I think this must have saved you”. When I took it into my hands, I’m stricken with a memory many months ago, when I was forced to go to confession after being reprimanded by my mother during the month of Advent that I mocked God and His necessity, was this His way of reminding me that there was still a need for God, His silent way of confirming the existence of a greater power? "That "I" am here, I will not prove nor will I reveal myself, but I am here, silently behind the scenes, the stage you call life." Or was this a prelude of instigating another series of self realization episodes on my side.

In that instant I’m reminded of my mortality, one realizes how fleeting life is. The impernance of life. At the verge of cursing my predicament, it welled within me an appreciation of my fate, in my immobility I am to see the true light of this incident. And true enough, it was during this period of “confinement” and “solitude” that I really learnt to spent time with myself, when you only have your own company it can become a challenge. It forced me into a corner, to really think of life, recalibrating it. That in an instant my freedom was taken from me, replaced by this immobility, the cast on my right leg weighed me heavily down like a prisoner with a leaden ball chained to his feet. But it was in such challenges that the spirit arises to greater heights, it stirs like a humpback whale beneath the surface of the water, you only see a crest but beneath lies potent power (ps this could apply to the unsatisfied libido which is accumulating ), its awareness unfolding in repose to its temporal physical disablement. I learnt humility, I counted the numbers of my true friends which was much lesser than I initially thought, another blessing of such an incident. I read books and saw subtle messages that meant something, but most importantly, I slowed down to listen to Life and Death, I am to learn what death was to me.

I had always believed that nothing happens by accident which brings me to the miracle of serendipity by Scott Peck, which incidentally, I serendipitously read about during this period.

“Perhaps we have an instinct not only to preserve our own lives but also to preserve the lives of others. While I have personally not experienced this, I have several friends who have witnessed automobile accidents in which “victims” have crawled virtually intact out of vehicles smashed beyond recognition. Their reaction has been one of pure amazement. “I don’t see how anyone could have survived such a wreck at all, much less without serious injury!” is the pronouncement. How do we explain this? Pure chance? These friends, who are not religious people, were amazed precisely because chance did not seem to be involved in these incidents. “No one could have survived,” they say. Although not religious, and without even thinking deeply about what they were saying, in attempting to digest these experiences my friends made such remarks as “Well, I guess God loves drunks” or “ I guess his number wasn’t up yet”. The reader may choose to assign the mystery of such incidents to be “pure chance,” an unexplainable “quirk” or a “twist of fate” and be satisfied to close the door on further explanation. If we are to examine such incidents further, however, our concept of an instinct to explain them is not terrible satisfactory. Does the inanimate machinery of a motor vehicle possess an instinct to collapse itself in just such a manner as to preserve the contours of the human body within? Or does the human being possess an instinct the moment of impact to conform his contours to the pattern of the collapsing machinery? Such questions seems inherently absurd. While I choose to explore further the possibility that such incidents have an explanation, it is clear that our traditional concept of instinct will not be of help. Of more assistance perhaps will be the concept of synchronicity. ………

The event was so implausible that we knew it could not have occurred by accident. The fact that highly implausible events, for which no cause can be determined within the framework of known natural law, occur with implausible frequency has come to be known as the principle of synchronicity. ……it was mentioned earlier that people not infrequently walk unharmed out of vehicles crushed beyond recognition, and it seemed ridiculous to speculate that the machinery instinctively crumpled in a configuration to protect the rider or that the rider crumpled instinctively in a form to fit the machinery. There is no known natural law whereby the configuration of the vehicle (Event A) caused the rider to survive, or the form of the rider (Event B) caused the vehicle to crumple in a certain way. Nonetheless, although one did not stop the other, Event A or Event B implausibly occurred synchronously – that is, together in time – in such a way that the rider did in fact survive. The principle of synchronicity does not explain why or how this happened; it simply states that such implausible conjunctions of events in time to occur more frequently than would be predicted by chance alone. It does not explain miracles. The principle serves only to make it clear that miracles seem to be matters of timing and matters that are amazingly commonplace.”

So was it pure chance, or maybe the Angel who was suppose to embrace me in protection didnt have big enough wings to cover me and left my right leg sticking out, or was there a guiding Hand allowing this to happen to me but yet preserved my mortality? I dare not vehemently deny it, nor do I shout it, but it lingers. How does one prove it? Only by faith. It was not my time yet, or was it by some amazing grace that saved me? Some Chinese believed that if you slipped death, you life becomes more precious than it was before. So it brings forth an inquisition that this was no mere chance or luck. I could not confirm it myself, but the crux of the matter was, I had begun to accept death as being very real than surreal in our daily lives, and in doing so, I have also begun to respect the life that was given to me. Through my accident, I felt the fear of death, it is nothing that words can describ. I had once said, I’m not afraid of dying. I now stand corrected. The momentarily fear has now transformed to a deep respect and awe for this gateway all fellow humans must inevitably pass through. The fear brought forth the thought that there were so many things to be done, it would be such a disappointment that I would have to leave before my time. But so often, Death never gives warning, the virtue of this incident was Death making itself present to my life, tapping me on my shoulder, reminding me that my life was anything but immortal, that in a fleeting instant, I could sit down and Life as I knew it was no more.

As Seneca so beautifully puts it, “Throughout the whole of life one must continue to learn to live and what will amaze you even more is throughout life one must learn to die.”

No one talks about death, at least not in this part of the world, a fearful word, a fear itself, a taboo.

There is nothing to fear except for fear itself, Iorek B. said, "I master my fears" The fear of death, which so many humans dread, but central to most religions, one should master this fear.

But I could not so aptly describe my view on mastering Death as accurately as Scott Peck does, “If we can live with the knowledge that death is our constant companian, travelling on our left shoulder, then Death can become our ally, still a fearsome one, but one with wise counsel. With deaths' counsel the constant awareness of the limit of our time, to live and love, we can always be guided to make the best use of our time and live life to the fullest. But if we are unwilling to face the fearsome presence of death on our left shoulder, we deprive ourselves of its counsel and cannot possibly live our lifes fully with or love with clarity. When we shy away from death, we inevitably shy away from life.”

To know life, is in itself to know death

When we pick up a stick, we pick up both ends.

“The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss” Thomas Carlyle

This questioned my thoughts and confirms, the further we go along life's journey the more births we see and the more death we witness, hence, more joy, equally more pain. The pain of birth is the pain of death. The further we are from birth the closer we are to death. And most recently, over a business meeting, someone quoted Buddha while describing on the possible fate of businesses, "Life is uncertain, but death is certain.”

We should wait for Death, like a rooster awaits the dawn to crow. I gather, in this short life, that the greatest peace that any man could feel, is the peace of accepting Death. I hope I’m not wrong to draw such conclusions. To find Death before Death finds us. In the Dalai Lama’s Advice on Dying, there is an approach to death which at first I found was shocking, but since the imminent arrival of "D" day is coming, why not prepare for it, however, death should not dominate ones life until extinguishing life’s pleasure to an oblivion, it is balance, that death merely sits on your left shoulder as life rides on your right. I liken this to a perception, that Death is the Tutor who make to us clear what Life the Lecturer is droning about in a class.

“Life is a sexually transmitted disease and there is a 100% mortality rate.” R.D. Laing

Ultimately, we must make that journey of acceptance alone, to accept Death and in its acceptance, Death puts things into perspective. You can ask that to a patient with terminal illness. Many things becomes meaningless and one becomes indifferent to a great many things, yet some things burn brighter with urgency. It is a mixed feeling, like when you’re going on a holiday, you know that you will have to depart at the end of the holiday and the holiday becomes enjoyable as you make the most out of it by knowing time is of the essence, the departure or the ends, gives meaning to the means. Similarly, it is the same with Death, we feel sad it will come one day, but death puts things into perspective that its imminent arrival nudges us to make the most of the time that is left for us. It is then we stop to think, what am I doing? It is in the giving up of the self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid durable joy of life, and it is death that provides life with all its meaning. This “secret” is the central wisdom for all religion.

The journey towards Death is also a journey towards God (God here being a subjective definitive term), it’s correctly described as a spiritual journey of acceptance of returning to what some call the Source. I find hard to describe death without having to touch on the Grand Architect, it seems so right, it’s a gut feeling. The closer you are to Death, the closer one is to God. Undeniably when it comes to Death, it is a giant leap of faith, a faith like the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark. The fact is we do not know, none of us knows what happens after that. Few can say or dare say, upon Death’s hand that there is no God, that there is no Light.

In the words of Eckhart Tolle, “ When a loved one has just died, or you feel your own death approaching, you cannot be happy. That is impossible. But you can be at peace. There may be sadness and tears, but provided that you have relinquished resistance, underneath that sadness you fill a deep serenity, a stillness, a sacred presence. This is the emanation of being, this is inner peace, the good that has no opposite.”

Experiences like this changes you in some ways. Due to some weird logic, I’m glad that this accident was placed in my path, there is some good to it, some self realization that only such an incident could initiate its birth. Thus this incident marks a new phase, a new chapter to be written upon the release of my leg from this cast, and my body shall know freedom, and my spirit know flight again.

"My life is my message" said the Mahatma.

Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.

Suggested Readings - books that inspired the inception of this entry
Advice On Dying and Living a Better Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Profession of Faith

“Faith is the voice in the back of your head that tells you to listen to the voice in the back of your head” Dennis Miller

For die hard brainwashed Catholics, Christmas was never complete without going to Mass. Knowing how busy Her followers were in these unbelieving modern times, the Mother Church tends to the masses of worshippers with many masses beginning from the Eve of Christmas, a few 8pm Masses here, 2 or 3 10pm midnight Masses there, and on Christmas day, there were 7am Masses, 10 or 11 am Masses and for those who missed all the other Masses, there was always a 5.30 pm evening Mass to go to. It was kind of difficult to find an excuse to miss a mass. So here I was trekking my way with my family to a Christmas Eve night mass in a pretty little chapel nicely tucked away on a hill. Another thing besides the sheer numbers of Catholics attending mass on Feast days, Catholics had another particular noticeable habit of being kiasuly early to get seats in the church, now a typical Christmas Mass would have the Church totally filled up to the brim within an hour before the Mass starts, maybe even earlier, after the hour threshold, you will be left with the best places to stand in the Church, then the best places to sit outside the Church, and lastly the best places to stand outside the Church and so on. So being the typical die hard brainwashed blind faith very conscientious Catholic family, we were seated at the Chapel at 6.15pm, good seats with fans blowing in our direction, and guess what? Mass only starts at 8pm. Nevermind. Should I complain and grumble, no, not in this season of yuletide joy, so I just smiled gleefully in appreciation of my lovely seat inside the very warm, sweat inducing chapel while others were standing in Church showing that same of gleeful appreciation on to others seated outside the Church. Do unto others that you wish to be done unto you. Yes, we’re an emphatic lot.

Rule of thumb and a tip for you readers, never go near a Catholic Church during Christmas, Good Friday and Easter if you don’t want to get caught in any unexpected traffic jams.

I had an hour plus to talk to God so perhaps I should use this time to audit my religious and spiritual values for the year.

After a thorough thought, I asked myself what was I? A Catholic? a practicing or non practicing one? Then again, I felt drawn towards Buddhist philosophy and in my humblest of beliefs; I believe that Christ’s teaching was more Buddhist than it was Christian. I meditate with Green Tara and begin my meditation with the sign of the cross, an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be, I bow my head to the east in appreciation of the Grand Architect, above me is my Crucifix and I continue my meditation with the Green Tara’s mantra in the background, observing my deep breathing to getting in touch with my chakras. Upon finishing, I make the sign of the cross and prostrate myself with my head on the floor for a few minutes, in the way a Muslim does, to pay tribute to Mother Earth. So what does this concoction of a cocktail of religious and spiritual practices makes me? If I had to go up for judgment and there were queues of souls heading to Heavens like in immigration, then I’ll foresee I’ll have difficultly in choosing the queue for Catholics, not really? Buddhist line for reincarnation? Perhaps. Atheism, a small period in my life, so that’s out. Alas perhaps the Angel of the Lord would be so fed up, he’d point me to the rojak line. “Etc” or “Dan Lain-lain”. I expect this be the longest and probably the one line with fellow practitioners of the most shunned upon Sodom and Gomorrah traditions.

I come from 3 generations of Catholics, born and bred a Catholic, went to Sunday School whereby they installed the “Catholic Guilt” logic into me which lasts until today. I began life as fervent Catholic who believes in Purgatory and attending Mass regularly for as early as I can remember, I remember Palms for Palm Sunday, waited for Easter Eggs to be given out to children on Easter Vigil Mass. I began searching and thought there couldn’t be a better religion than being Catholic, you could only be so sure of yourself at that age, and I went to youth groups and cell groups right up to my University years with a Catholic zeal that made my mum and dad proud. But all this shadowed a certain part of me which could not express itself in the light of my belief in Catholicism. I would go down on my knees and pray for wisdom, that I would be made “normal”, that it was a “temptation of Satan”, the struggle between being yourself and what you believe in was a silent war within the soul, it was painful, but it was necessary for spiritual growth. And with the coming of freedom in the University, I was left out in the open, armed with only an inadequate weapon called the blind faith in the Catholic faith. No sooner, challenges from other faiths comes scratching on my door, Jehovah’s witnesses, Assembly of God, Anglicans, Methodists and no local university life has escaped being exposed to the call of the Islamic Faith, which seems so much sure of itself compared to the Catholic faith which was by far a leap of faith. The Islamic faith seems to have a logical explanation to everything, it seem realistic to a religious person, but it was not as lenient or as merciful as compared to the Catholic faith. I was in a boarding school for a short period and I slept right next to the speakers which blasted the morning prayers which I eventually subconsciously memorized, I could even memorized the many names of Allah recited by the Muslim brothers at this point in my life, bought a translated Quran and even contemplated to study Arabic. Though brainwashed as a Catholic, the Catholic faith I believed laid a foundation for Her followers to search, I’m not sure how to explain it but being Catholic, I asked questions, I questioned my faith, I searched and searched, I went out on a journey as a prodigal son in search “for what was lost”. In Her magnificence, She is lenient in allowing Her sheep to wander off in search of their own path. I could not imagine if I could have been as open if I were in another faith other than the Catholic Church. The Buddhist faith on the other hand has not crossed on my path as yet, though I browsed its teaching on rare occasions, I was more obsessed with the authenticity of the Catholic Church, its controversial truth and how could my faith be reconcile with my alternative lifestyle. In my desperate search, I found all the monotheistic religion had spoken their views on homosexuality, it was doomed to death, it was an abomination, a twist and a mockery to God’s creation of man and woman. But on the other hand, I was arguing on my knees, how could God be so cruel to create me with such a need and knew it was a sin? Could the love I feel for another man, be of the Devil, how could this love that I have felt for another man be evil? So was it going to be a celibate life till death?

Being Catholic or Christian requires a giant leap of faith.

There was no room for a homosexual in the monotheistic religions, thus was my conclusion. So I left my faith and all faiths in search for something that I was not sure I’m searching for, perhaps God was a convenient escape, but now it was an inconvenient liability holding me back and since I was as such, and since I was damn to hell, I took the plunge in the murky depths of an alternative lifestyle, shutting God out and going to the camp of Sodom and Gomorrah. But you could never shut out God from your life, nor could you shut out the spiritual side of a human being, it was unnatural, an atheist I could not be. As I embrace my lifestyle, there were days when I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and there is a sudden need for me just go on my knees and be in silent reverence for the Almighty. There are times, I would walk into St John’s Cathedral and sit there, alone with God. Sometimes cursing the Heavens for my fate, sometimes asking the Heavens for wisdom, but most of the times asking the Heavens for directions. There were tumultuous times, when I had none to turn to, none to talk to, and I would attend mass, or in the silence of my own room, I would recite the Rosary. After that, there would be a long departure from the Church, but I knew She would always be there for me, in good and bad times, to listen to me rant but never replying, always keeping dumb. Well, it would be schizophrenia if the Heavens actually talked back. And so as I trod the undefined line of a Catholic practicing an alternative lifestyle, the Church could not offer me my spiritual growth anymore, the logic of going to Mass to atone for your sins, to do just good and go to Heaven and Purgatory did not seem relevant anymore, to blindly follow Her man made rules, the Traditions of the Church that I once believe in was all but man made and made no sense in the limited sense and logic of man. I left the Catholic faith again in search for a spiritual spring. Thus, as I a path finder, broken in faith thread the road less travelled, I found the beauty of Buddhism in my yoga and meditation practices, it was comforting, it was a warm welcome, non judgmental and so in the present, it was an alternative to embrace as a an alternative practitioner compared to the harsh and hard doctrines of the Catholic Church. Yet, it didn’t offer the form and structure in which the Catholic Church so rigorously practices, days of obligation, the seven sacraments, the mass, its elegant power structure etc etc etc. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, I believe I could never fully shed my Catholic roots and so I dubbed myself a spiritualist when people ask me of my religion. An atheist was out, a Catholic I was not, it was not glam to be a Catholic, nor was I too enthusiastic to be a hippie New Age person, and I have not fully embraced Buddhism to be called a Buddhist and so “Spiritual” was perhaps the most accurate word I could find. It sounded very kiasu, putting your feet on a few boats the Chinese would say, shifting sand I thought and suddenly I remembered the word of Jesus, “you must be hot or cold, but if you are lukewarm I will spit you out from my mouth!” There were no middle roads for Christianity, it’s with me or you’re against me. So I thought.

On an interview in Reader’s Digest (Oct 08) with Pierce Brosnan on his role Mamma Mia, he was asked whether he still practices Catholicism in which he was reared with. To which he answered, “I was an altar boy. That never le aves you. So when there are churches around, I go to church. I just went yesterday. I also love the teachings of Buddhist philosophy. It’s my own private faith. I don’t preach it, but it’s a faith that is a comfort to me when the night is long.”

So what was my conclusion? After my long path of searching which still remains an even longer path in the time to come, I’ve begun very slowly after shedding much baggage’s, eroding old beliefs and having an openness to other religion, I began to see that there were no four walls to any church, nor were there any ultimatums to any religion, no limitations to the Divine.

The Divine was beyond our understanding, and as I thread this path, one begins to let go of God, one begins to stop trying to understand Him, to put him in a definition of words and just sit back in appreciation and let our soul be basked in the Divine Glory. It was plainly again a leap of faith and that was what believing in God was all about. Faith.

Faith comes from the heart.
Peace is where the heart is.
And God is where the heart is.

Somewhere deep down, I believe everyone searches at one point in their lives, one comes face to face and questions our beliefs. In the simplest of questions, “Where is God?” It is only natural, for we are spiritual beings having a human experience; there is a gut feeling, that we are more than this. What makes “me”, “me”? When I look back at my life, the decisions I’ve made, my falls, my victories, I cannot deny nor can I explain that there is a hidden Hand of God that leads me to where I am today, that deep down I humbly believe nothing happens by accident. Each one us has his or her own roles to play, as a thread runs through a cloth in the grand scheme of things, and it is our responsibility in life, our own individual destiny, to search for this path, to search for the path that is meant for us only. We search, and search and search until we have found something, found what? Your own path. Ultimately, each one of us must find his own path to the Divine. And where was that path? It was to be discovered in the heart, in the silent chambers of our soul.

And in searching and having the ability to draw my own conclusions, I could also see the “thread” which runs through all religions, in the words of Karen Armstrong, “In every religions, lies a great Silence, and that Great Silence is God, and this great silence, this Divine runs through every religion. The central thread which runs through every religion is compassion, the ability to feel with the other, to be able to look into the other with compassion and discover the Divine in the other.”

“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the Torah, the rest is commentary, go and study it.” Rabbi Hillel

And so slowly but surely, I see the light, not a flashy blinding light but just as light enters slowly into the eyes, when we open it in the morning. Awakening.

In my journey and in my search for the Divine, for my purpose, and in understanding this life which was given to me, I have come to the conclusion that Life or God is a patient teacher, never would there be any writing on the wall, or voice talking directly to you nor can anyone on Earth tell you what to do. That would be to easy a job to live and we could always shrugged and blame God too, “You say mah, I follow lah”, No God is much sneakier than that. And it was somewhere at this point that I realize that I was looking for God in the wrong places, outside, when God was truly inside, God is where the heart is. Though we will never really find God in this life but only catch glimpses of God, you still search for God. You have to uncover every thing inside yourself. That is what life is all about, self discovery.

And so it dawned upon me, on the reply of a priest when I confessed myself to be a homosexual many many years ago, asking if I could still receive Holy Communion again, would I be excommunicated to which he never gave me a satisfying reply, he just laugh and told me “to go out and live your life as God meant it to be”. At first it was WTF? Now, I’ve come to understand the meaning of this message.

I’ve also been asked, how then do I reconcile my faith with what I am? I think its a whole ongoing process, we are harmonizing the faith and our lifestyle in a way a piano is tuned to get the notes write. Theres rarely a zenith or a finality to it, and if faith is what we are searching for then we are trying to be in sync with the divine. So what does religion and spirituality mean to a person with an alternative lifestyle, namely a Catholic? Would there be salvation for us? What is meant to be, will be, it is not for us to mince and dice what is to come after our death but what is important is to make use of the time that has been given to us. Indeed this is vague, very vague, but like I said, life is for each one to discover, we walk our own paths.

And I think this journey towards reconciliating with faith is even more important to a homosexual, for life as one is ever so challenging, people come, people go and in times of darkness we are only left with ourselves and our faith to cling to.

So is what I am, an evil, a curse from God? Blessing or Curse, I think God has a reason for everything.

The hymns begin to resonate in the chapel. On this Christmas Eve Mass, I’m required to professed my faith in the Catholic Church, I will do so with a deeper understanding or my belief and more importantly my faith in Life.

And thus, until my next spiritual audit, I remain the Catholic Spiritualist.

Merry Christmas.

“If you can't believe, if you can't accept anything on faith, then you're doomed for a life dominated by doubt.” Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street

Ghosts of Past Relationships

"In a nutshell, loving someone is about giving, not receiving. " Nicholas Sparks

Today is my X’s birthday it was an easy date to remember because it’s a few days before Christmas. Still, knowing my mind’s ability to let things important slip away amidst its fluttering, I made an effort to put a reminder on my Nokia. And indeed I was correct, climbing into my bed just after midnight, oblivious to fact that it was an hour past his birthday, I suddenly remember it and was already dozing to sleep and then somewhere deep down was a force pulling myself out of my bed. I walked groggily down the stairs, keyed in the birthday wish and attached a recent picture of myself and “sent”. He would surely be awake, he was a night owl, I was an early bird.

Sending a birthday wish to my X was a ritual communication exercise with him besides the quarterly calls in a year.

He called me in the morning but I was doing my facial, he called me later in the night but I was having dinner with my parents. So, I returned his call, he was a man of few words, I was a machine gun by comparison. Few words were exchanged and fewer pregnant pauses enough to make things awkward but somehow, somewhere, words were not necessary between us.

I used to ask myself if I’m over him, I can say yes with pretty ribbons tied to it.

A typical Geminian trait of mincing on thoughts, I guess we will never be really over when it comes to our “X”s provided the past relationship was a relationship of substance. In the words of my Confidante, “if there were any substance in a previous relationship, you will always still have a relationship with your X”

Perhaps this is my way of dealing with things, believing that we never really get over our X but it ghosts remains in some special place in our hearts to be pulled out when needed. Every break up leaves a scar somewhere in our hearts, that is beyond our control, but something else is within our control, that is the ability to look at that scar and curse the X or we can look at it and smile.

Some of us bury the ghosts of our past relationships and hide it deep within the inner chambers of our soul never to be heard of again, some of us compete viciously and bitterly with our “X”s, some of us look for the ghost of their X in others.

I have come to accept that there will always be that feeling of concern for my X, similarly, I like to imagine his calls to me were not obligatory to returning my favor, but of sincere concern for my well being, he still thinks I can’t look after myself. I won’t argue on that. This is the remnants of a past relationship, it lives on to the present, it remains in the background of our lives and the moral of the story is?

I think we should never shut out the ghosts of our past relationships, instead we can let the past live in the present and learn from it, however, we should not cling on to them and let them dominate the present or the future.

Bearing this in mind, I believe we should also allow our current soulmates to have some room for the ghosts of their past relationships.

I find it sad though, when I see Xs who totally shut each other off after a relationship. Should not time heal old scars?

Moving forward and away from the edifices of my past relationships, I look with hope into the future. I'm more at peace with myself now, more indifferent towards the possibilities of relationships and when I’m lonely, at least I have the ghosts of my past relationships to keep me company.

Magus Revealed

Many things has passed and gone,
Many things to come in the future,
but none so precious as the present.

Dec 2006, I started my blog
Dec 2007, I did 100 blog entries
June 2008, I killed my blog
Dec 2008, I resurrected my blog

Blog sounds like a dirty word, im thinking of what to blog about, after a hiatus of 6 months.

Maybe i should put an entry which will piss every reader off?

A Note from the Magus

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.

I’ve paid a rather high price for that in the last month.

Some of you have been rather concerned on my flavour of the month being Death which has made Magus Young rather morbid to read. Your concern is very much, with the rarest of sincerities appreciated.

It is the Magus’s nature to mislead and dramatize stories, the Magus is very much alright despite the rather worrisome entries. Some of you would have understood my burden, some of you will eventually know of it.

However, suffice to say, a part of the Magus has died, and the Magus needs to focus on other things in Life. One of the casualties of that will be this blog, which will be updated but rarely.

All things are passing.

When God closes a door, He opens another.

Sleepless

"I'm dying" I thought

"Well everyone is, darling", Death whispers into my ears, "Technically", Death adds and sniggers.

I wake up in the wee hours of the morning, panting with cold sweat.

Nightmares are coming now.

Hmm, this wasnt the drama I envisioned, not this.

I sat at the side of my bed, my T-shirt still damped from the sweat.

Practiced my yogi breathing to calm my nerves before collapsing in bed and eyes peircing the ceiling into oblivion, awaiting sleep to come again.

I thought in sleep I will have peace, now the nightmares.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.