Return to Innocence
September 13, 2008 by hames-1977
A neighbor who lives nextdoor had a caged lovebird hanging in the hallway in our apartment. I was awakened one morning by its relentless chirping as if I was awakened by some familiar bird songs I once heard from my hometown’s parish church. There was a surging of long distant emotions that was laid dormant through all these years. A sanctified feeling of saintly wonder. The innocence of a child in his first communion.
In my reverie I remember that I was walking down there on the aisle to accept God. An obedience to one of His blessed sacraments. Dressed in white, I clasped both hands as a sign of my faith, allegiance and devotion. I remember the reverberating sound of the church organ, the ringing of the church bells, the whispered recitation of the rosary, the faint glow of the communion candles, the gleaming chandeliers above, the nauseating fragrance of gardenias, the painted figures of saints up in the ceiling, the adorned relics at the altar, the divine light that streams through the stained glass windows, the choir’s angelic voices and that familiar bird song. All these things had engulf this child’s frailty.
I felt afraid. Not because of the magnanimity of that space in which a child like me could not grasp. But because of the idea that I am surrendering to a God that can’t be seen. That can’t be touched. How could I ever let this Unknown guard and shield me, while knowing that I am in fact, facing each day without a father and a mother by my side?
But there is this divine force that has swept over me. An assuring voice that gently whispered, herein I will find refuge and a constant companion. That herein, is someone who will watch over me and will listen to every word I have to say. And I think then, that the birds perched at the church’s clerestory are my divine witnesses. Like angels in their joyful throng. Singing their sweet songs as if revelling that another has triumphed to find favor in His sight.
From then on up to this age, I have tried to chase the divine light and that familiar bird song among the many churches I have been to. To say my silent prayers. To ask for guidance.
But I have grown impatient over the years. Trying to recollect that innocent moments I have felt during my first communion. But it never repeated itself. They are just some fleeting feelings of spirituality that meant little to me.
And these feelings had grown into spiritual discontent. Discontent among spiritual wolves cloaked in the veil of fractured holiness. Of self-proclaimed shepherds misleading their own flock. Of ministers who pretended like kings in the higher places. Of preachers who viewed the church as their fiefdom. Of this world’s manufactured spirituality.
I fled away. Far away and shield myself from the magnanimity of this world’s hypocrisy. Even in church, that once I thought to be my refuge.
Gone are those moments of that child-like faith. Gone are those moments that God communicates so closely and the doors of heaven are open for the innocent prayers I used to say.
And there in the hallway, by the morning light, I pulled a chair to sit beside that lovebird in the cage and listen to its chirping. I don’t know how long I am sitting there and drifted away from this realm. But what I felt is that I am ushered back to that same place where once, my innocence had been. And I felt that God is clasping my little fragile hands into His. The divine light and the bird song has finally returned by my side.
I just hope that this lovebird be loosened and set free from this cage, someday. Like me. And savor freedom on its wings and fly. Basking in the splendid streams of sunlight. So divine.
Marvin,
At 30, I found the words that formed my life’s mantra - it is there all along, but I never listened fearing to confront the truth I’ve always ignored. But enlightenment would always come and we could never stop it. Sooner or later it would manifest in a cloth we never expect enlightenment to wear to meet us face to face like what it did to me.
At 30, it made me write. But it didn’t come that easy. It made me write many mornings in many pages before a gemstone of thoughts emerged from the the dunes of sand I was digging for treasure.
At 30, it made me love. A love so fleeting it was gone before I even know it was love, but it made me write poetry. Hundreds of them, later I realized I just wanted to hold on to the feeling so I could contenue writing.
At 30, I’ve learned to love other than myself and allowed another person to love me - and I cling to the feeling long after the person was gone.
At 30, I set myself free from the bondage of great expectations that my family, my religion, my friends, my bosses and collegues, the people who know me, and I myself put myself in. Everything that I do then conform to the pattern that all these forces imposed upon me - I never allowed myself to get out of that suffocating box because of my fear of rejection and my forever hunger for acceptance.
The bondage started when I was 12 when I entered the seminary - I remember myself as a free spirited child before that, a child full of life and have the whole world before him . But then the child have to descend to the bottom of the lowest he could get in his life - I never thought I could rise again from there. It is a long story - I’m still in the process of writing that part of my life I dare not confront completely until now because the scar it left me, God knows, still hurts. In my piece “His Name Is Ethan,” an essay still in progress(I contenue to update it) about my bonsai tree, I briefly mention that part of my story. Please find link below:
http://jeques.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/his-name-is-ethan/
I connect to how you look at the church and the people that run our religion then, and now. I feel the same way. When I entered the seminary. I have an ideal thoughts of the church and the religious people - but then, what I saw inside failed my ideals and changed the way I look at them forever. I was like as you were in your first communion - I always had high regard for the church, the place and the people inside for me then is synonymous to holliness and sanctity. Little did I know that the people inside is no different to the cruelty of the world outside and even worse.
When I was expelled from seminary the following year, I feel like a seedling uprooted, drifting with the currents of a flooded river after my life’s storm to uncertain direction. Nobody even throw me a rope I could cling to so I could swim back to the bank. My father even added to the strong currents of the river with his raging anger with me bringing home shame to the family. He never listened to my side of the story - he is just like you and me before we found out some flaws, blinded by the holy fecade that the church projects outside. And so I lost my direction - I was an agnostic for awhile, but in those years of soul search I never gave up my faith. I never questioned the relationship I had with God - I always thought he was my life raft I cling to when I was thriving to survive in that raging river.
God has His way - He had proven me that many times.
At 30, I made peace with my creator. My spirituality is anchored to the strong ties I made withHim during my most trying times when I feel the whole world was against me.
At 30, my mind in bondage has been freed, my heart in restraints have been emancipated and so the coining of my life’s mantra:
“‘Tis great to think with a free mind;
‘Tis wonderful to love with an unrestrained heart.”
I really hope you would soon free the caged lovebirds of your thoughts, of your heart and let it sing love songs that it meant to sing. Birds like our spirits are meant to be free, to fly, to soar, to sing, to love.
Let me know if you had set it free, I want to hear it sing, I want to listen to its songs.
I wish you well.
~ Jeques