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Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 20 March 2025
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”
It is exactly what I am experiencing these days since we had our university management team-building seminar in Batangas last weekend when my realizations there were reinforced in my ongoing annual personal retreat here in Novaliches that started Monday evening.
It is a moment of consolation when suddenly, the whole universe conspires not only to get whatever you want but simply to affirm you being on the right track, giving you the proverbial pat on the shoulder that everything is going fine, everything falling into its right places.
Pardon me for writing for the third time about perspectives and point-of-view (POV) as I could not contain the joy of the fruits of my prayers.
Another thing is the fact that when I took these photos randomly, there was no plan at all in writing about the subject of perspective. Never thought how these photos would turn out to be pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on perspective and POV.
We have reflected the other day how our perspectives of things and people as well as events contribute to the understanding or breakdown in communication as they reveal our inner thoughts and dispositions. It is not only important at how we narrate a story from whatever POV but most of all, at how open are we in refining our perspectives so that we achieve unity.
(More photos from our team-building in Batangas.)
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Lights at the lobby of Canyon Woods taken from below. -
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Sunset from my room… -
sunrise from same room. -
Delighful scene of window and moon at night.
During our Holy Hour Tuesday night to cap our first day of prayers, I realized something very close to our subject of perspective while praying over the following gospel passage regarding the Mystery of God:
Jesus told his disciples, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be” (Matthew 6:22-23).
When we have the right perspective in life, we get a clear vision of life too.
That is why in our previous blog we have said we need to refine our perspective like an artist who has to spend and invest time not only in his/her studies but most especially in his/her dealing and interactions with people to come up with an obra maestra.
Living, after all, is an art, of our participation in the grace of God to bring out the best in each of us. St. Paul was very clear about this perspective regarding leadership and community life that both aim to show the giftedness of every member.
Our perspectives are put to the test in moments of darkness like when we are in trials and tribulations, difficulties and crises. It is during darkness in life when people are distinguished from merely having sight or with a vision. According to the American writer Helen Keller, the worst thing that can happen in life is for anyone with sight not to have any vision at all.
Of course, we all know Helen was blind who wrote some of the loveliest poetry of her time.
Many people just have sight that can be easily blurred that eventually affect their perspective. It is more than looking from the inside or from the outside (POV) but of how we see or look at everything and everyone from within us.
A person of vision always sees beyond and therefore achieves more, always more fulfilled and fruitful than those who merely sees things, people and events as they are.
People with the right perspective will always have vision in seeing everything despite many obstacles in life. They remain focused on what they “see” that others could not see at all. With a right perspective and proper vision, that person still sees when “darkness is his only light and hopelessness is his only hope” (T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets).
My spiritual director since 2016, Jesuit Father Danny Gozar asked me during outside prayer periods that I “deliberately appreciate” God’s creation like feeling the gentle breeze, walking barefooted to be caressed by the green grass soaked in morning dew, feel the burning heat of the sun and if it rains – which it did briefly – try to get wet to feel the raindrops.
What struck me most were the many sounds of nature here in Sacred Heart Novitiate due to its mini-forest.
Crows caw the whole day along with the crickets while the ugly gecko fills the whole place with its cries of tu…ko! tu…ko!
Their sounds were so musical to my ears, sounds I have last heard decades ago while growing up in the province but almost totally gone in the city.
What is amusing is how with merely the sounds they make, we can form images of how these creatures look like!
The same thing with God himself.
When we are formed in Jesus Christ’s perspectives in life, everything around us becomes a reminder of God’s presence, of himself with us. We cannot see him but with his gift of vision, we see him. And follow him.
That is why, with proper perspective comes vision. Then, mission!
