Saturday, June 19, 2010

Walk With Me

Note: I wrote this during my 4 day silent retreat in Singapore. I have tendencies to do these things while on retreats.

Lord, my heart is full of fear,
Yet I know that you are near,
You are there to wipe my tears,
Your gentle voice I always hear.

Walk with me on this road of life,
Grant me grace and strength to survive,
Teach me the meaning of sacrifice,
So that you will be glorified.

And though I want to walk with you,
I need your love to pull me through,
To you all glory is due,
Because of your love so true.

Guide me Lord, take my hands,
That I can proudly stand,
Shout your love across the land,
To all women, child and men.

23rd September 2009
Jesuit Novitiate, Singapore


The Sands of Time

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

In the movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, there is a dagger that has, as its holder, a glass that holds magical sand. When this sand is released, the person holding the dagger can turn back the clock for a few moments and do whatever he or she wants to adjust when the clock is turned back.

One of the characters, Nizam, who was the uncle of Prince Dastan (the lead character), wanted to use the dagger for a bigger enterprise, he wanted to turn the back the clock to the moment where he would have had the chance to let his brother be killed and he would be the king of Persia. Of course, he was foiled by Prince Dastan. The ending is kind of anti-climactic but, well… it is a movie after all.

But I’m not writing this to talk about the movie. Rather, I was intrigued by the idea of the turning back of the clock. Imagine if we had that dagger or some sort of device that would allow us to turn back the clock of our lives and change whatever that we were never happy about in the past.
Just imagine what we can do with such a device. We can just erase or adjust whatever piece of our past that we do not like or would like to alter and – voila – it is done and our present is immediately altered. After all, what we did in the past will determine our present and what we do now will affect our future.

I’m quite sure that most, if not all of us, struggle with the “what if…” question. There are times when I would ask myself “what if I had done this or had not done that?” and I would often try to think of what possible that outcome would be if the “what if” had happened.

To be honest, there are many what ifs in my life, and I daresay, in many people’s lives as well. We all have our what ifs and many of us would do something to change that what ifs if we could. Statements like “I should have or I should not have” are so common that one would think that we are not happy or satisfied with who we are.

If I had such an opportunity, I would be tempted to alter my past too. After all, there were many things that I’d wish I’d done differently and in many instances in my past, I wish I could have acted differently. The question is, why should I?

I’m sure that there will people who will say “You can easily say you don’t want to alter your past because it is not possible. But what if you could? Would you do it?” To be perfectly honest, my answer would be no. Regardless of whether it is possible or not, my answer would still and always be a no.

To me, it is not the matter altering the past to make my present better or to change what I do not like, To me, it is whether I am satisfied or content with who I am at present moment. I can change or influence my future with the decisions that I make now. But what or who I am now is a result of my actions in the past. If I’m happy with who I am right now, why would I want to change my past?

While it is true that I can change my past actions and make myself a better person or a more studious person so that I would be a successful person, I would not be the same person that I am now. I would not have met some of my really wonderful friends and experienced some of the most wonderful time in my life. And that is a fact.

What I did in the past may not be the best actions or decisions in the world but through these actions and decisions, they have made me into the person that I am today. I may have many regrets about my past but I would certainly not exchange it for anything the world may offer. For me, I am happy with who I am now. With so many wonderful friends and family members, why would I want to change anything?

There is one other thing. In the movie, turning the clock back too much (by breaking the Sandglass) would bring about Armageddon and the end of the world. To me, if I were change or alter my past, the consequences may not be pleasant. After all, like one of Newton’s Law, which states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, whatever we change in our past may have negative repercussions on our present and possibly our future. And it does not just affect us. It affects those around us as well.

Do we want to harm ourselves or those whom we love just for something which we perceive would make us a better person? That is a question only we ourselves can answer.