Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Friday, May 14, 2010
A Personal Tribute to Sister Aurora " Au-Au" Caspe, SPC 1958-2010
Memories that will last a lifetime - Remembering Sr. Au-Au - By Bobby P. Sagra
Sr. Au-Au Caspe was born in Cabatuan, Iloilo on August 24,1958. Her family is one of the distinguished families in town, her parents being both elementary school teachers. She grew up in another part of the town, quite away from where I grew up, but being in a small town we come to know each other more or less, especially at school. My first vivid recollection of Sr. Au-Au's personal touch and presence in my life was on September,1978 when she, together with Helen Grana and Pangga Grio attended my Investiture ceremony at the St. Nicolas de Tolentino Catholic Church in Cabatuan. They just graduated from their Nursing Courses at that time from St. Paul's College, Iloilo and being together in Cabatuan National Comprehensive High School I invited them to join my first big day as a seminarian of St. Vincent Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo City.
Years and years went by and I did not meet again Sr. Au-Au in person. I just got news from people who know her how she ended up deciding to join the St. Paul de Chartres Sisters (SPC) and finally made it to her final vows. I went on with my journey of discipleship, finally making it to the ordination to the Catholic priesthood and embarking on a missionary journey to the countries of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and even having ended up to making my First Vows as a Benedictine monk of Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, New Mexico.
In December 8,2007 I decided to leave the Catholic priesthood and monkhood and get married to Marilene Lusaya Torre, a single mom and a widow to the late Edgar Regidor Torre, to whom she has given birth to two children, Isabel Torre and Gabriel Torre. Being a friend and classmate of my wife, Sr. Au-Au gathered all their former classmates in CNCHS who are living in Manila and organized a dinner for us just a week before our wedding day. She herself spent half of the price of the dinner party. Observing her and talking briefly to her, I felt how full of charity and kindness her heart was. My wife and I still talk about that moment when we were so happy being near to her heart and prayers.
Last year, Sr. Au-Au celebrated her 25th Anniversary of Religious Profession. I told my wife to take the time and effort to be personally present there to express gratitude to God and to Sr. Au-Au for all her support of friendship and constant prayers in our married life. My wife went and took some beautiful pictures with Sr. Au-Au that day.
When my wife Marl told me over the phone about the passing away of Sr. Au-Au, my first thought was, God bless her soul, she has truly lived a full and abundant life until the end. Just before writing this, I took a quick glance of the Profile of Sr. Au-Au, especially her further studies, success in leadership and accomplishments. I know very well it was a great sacrifice both for her and her family that instead of contemplating to continue to work as a paid salary nurse and go abroad, she decided to become a nursing nun instead. God called her to become so and she responded with great generosity of self and love. Being a Cabatuananon, this is not surprising for me. The people of Cabatuan are great adventurers and achievers in any field of human endeavor. Truly, Sr. Au-Au will linger in our memory and hearts as a daughter of Cabatuan and a graduate of CNCHS we can be really proud of. She is not only a new heroine of our town. She is also our new saint in heaven. My most sincere condolences to the Caspe Family and to the religious community of the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Good Relationship in Marriage
” A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living the moment.
But how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble? It is fear, I think, that makes us cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next. But when the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance. When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music - then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm.
But should they not also be in tune with a larger rhythm, a natural swinging of the pendulum between sharing and solitude; the intimate and the abstract, the near and the far? And in this image of the pendulum swinging between opposite poles, is there not a clue to the problem of relationships as a whole? Is there not here a hint in understanding and acceptance of the eternal ebb and flow and inevitable intermittency of life’s relationships?
For the life of our emotions and our relationships is intermittent. When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet it is exactly what most of us demand. We have little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
Intermittency - an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb tides of one’s existence? It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach; one has revelation of the secret kingdom at the bottom of the sea.
Here one finds, wading through warm ripples, great horse conches, white sand dollars, and myriads of bright-colored cochina clams glistening in the foam. So beautiful is the still hour of the sea’s withdrawal.
Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.”
- taken from Gift From the Sea
By Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Personal Comments - By Bobby Sagra
I just came home from a weekend holiday trip to Reno, Nevada where I attended the 60th Annual Convention & Trade Show of the California Groundwater Association, October 31-November 1, 2008 held at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Hotel. It is raining outside so I just decided to stay home and spend time in solitude. I remember I have still the book I borrowed from the McCloud Library entitled, Selections From Gift From the Sea written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. After I have made a quick carpentry job on making a book shelf and eating my lunch, I sat and read through it. Over these past days my mind reflected upon what really matters in a relationship. My question got a clear answer above when Anne Morrow Lindbergh said that, “when the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation.” This month of November 2008 will be the eleventh month of the marriage between me and my wife Marl. While I was in my hotel room in Nugget I took time to browse over the scene from my window glass. Down below I saw cargo trains, iron tracks and small storage buildings. I continued browsing and my sight turned to the surrounding mountains and its clouds above. A flock of birds pass by or a domestic plane flies over. There is balance, beauty, harmony in life and in the relationship like marriage I am in, only if I am open to widen the horizon of my browsing heart and mind. In the above write up, Anne Morrow Lindbergh spoke of the principle of “Intermittency” as a lesson to learn especially in dealing with relationship in one’s life. What prompted me to confirm this as true is the experience of seeing two rainbows along the highway on our way back from Reno. A colorful rainbow can only be seen in the intermittent flow of rain, sunshine and a water pond or stream. It is for me another complete show of life’s wonderful flow and rhythm of things. A good mix of each cycle of life is needed to complete a good pattern of living. It is only in my own acceptance of life in its true cycle, rhythm, colors, sounds and myriad paradoxes that I can fully embrace whatever life brings in my field of relationship today. Nikki Giovanni said that “love is the greatest adventure.” I say in a very simple and candid way as far as I have experienced it that love is the only clearest explanation for everything that flows into life, into relationships and into the puzzle of its ebb and returning…, its eternal art of sacred permanence amidst the changing of its seasons and cycles.
In addition to Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s idea of Intermittency as a great foundation in understanding the problems of life and relationships I would like to suggest some basic attitudes one can have so as not to be overwhelmed and overturned from the focus and stability of the relationship. The first is that of honesty. I simply need to be honest with who I am, with what I feel and with what I believe in. I can share this with my wife or friend in a very spontaneous way. The second is that of openness to the myriad possibilities and challenges for growth in my life and in my married relationship. Then the third is the willingness to take action to accept my wife for who she is and to the courage to change the way I relate with her in a more positive, loving and healing ways as we continue to share the joy and the love of each new day in our relationship.
As we celebrate our 11th month Anniversary of Marriage I have only one wish and one prayer for my wife Marl, and that is, for her to be truly happy and grateful for the gift of life and of our love together as we spend the rest of our days in the mystery and wonder of life’s beauty and intermittency.
But how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble? It is fear, I think, that makes us cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next. But when the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance. When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music - then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm.
But should they not also be in tune with a larger rhythm, a natural swinging of the pendulum between sharing and solitude; the intimate and the abstract, the near and the far? And in this image of the pendulum swinging between opposite poles, is there not a clue to the problem of relationships as a whole? Is there not here a hint in understanding and acceptance of the eternal ebb and flow and inevitable intermittency of life’s relationships?
For the life of our emotions and our relationships is intermittent. When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet it is exactly what most of us demand. We have little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
Intermittency - an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb tides of one’s existence? It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach; one has revelation of the secret kingdom at the bottom of the sea.
Here one finds, wading through warm ripples, great horse conches, white sand dollars, and myriads of bright-colored cochina clams glistening in the foam. So beautiful is the still hour of the sea’s withdrawal.
Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.”
- taken from Gift From the Sea
By Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Personal Comments - By Bobby Sagra
I just came home from a weekend holiday trip to Reno, Nevada where I attended the 60th Annual Convention & Trade Show of the California Groundwater Association, October 31-November 1, 2008 held at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Hotel. It is raining outside so I just decided to stay home and spend time in solitude. I remember I have still the book I borrowed from the McCloud Library entitled, Selections From Gift From the Sea written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. After I have made a quick carpentry job on making a book shelf and eating my lunch, I sat and read through it. Over these past days my mind reflected upon what really matters in a relationship. My question got a clear answer above when Anne Morrow Lindbergh said that, “when the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation.” This month of November 2008 will be the eleventh month of the marriage between me and my wife Marl. While I was in my hotel room in Nugget I took time to browse over the scene from my window glass. Down below I saw cargo trains, iron tracks and small storage buildings. I continued browsing and my sight turned to the surrounding mountains and its clouds above. A flock of birds pass by or a domestic plane flies over. There is balance, beauty, harmony in life and in the relationship like marriage I am in, only if I am open to widen the horizon of my browsing heart and mind. In the above write up, Anne Morrow Lindbergh spoke of the principle of “Intermittency” as a lesson to learn especially in dealing with relationship in one’s life. What prompted me to confirm this as true is the experience of seeing two rainbows along the highway on our way back from Reno. A colorful rainbow can only be seen in the intermittent flow of rain, sunshine and a water pond or stream. It is for me another complete show of life’s wonderful flow and rhythm of things. A good mix of each cycle of life is needed to complete a good pattern of living. It is only in my own acceptance of life in its true cycle, rhythm, colors, sounds and myriad paradoxes that I can fully embrace whatever life brings in my field of relationship today. Nikki Giovanni said that “love is the greatest adventure.” I say in a very simple and candid way as far as I have experienced it that love is the only clearest explanation for everything that flows into life, into relationships and into the puzzle of its ebb and returning…, its eternal art of sacred permanence amidst the changing of its seasons and cycles.
In addition to Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s idea of Intermittency as a great foundation in understanding the problems of life and relationships I would like to suggest some basic attitudes one can have so as not to be overwhelmed and overturned from the focus and stability of the relationship. The first is that of honesty. I simply need to be honest with who I am, with what I feel and with what I believe in. I can share this with my wife or friend in a very spontaneous way. The second is that of openness to the myriad possibilities and challenges for growth in my life and in my married relationship. Then the third is the willingness to take action to accept my wife for who she is and to the courage to change the way I relate with her in a more positive, loving and healing ways as we continue to share the joy and the love of each new day in our relationship.
As we celebrate our 11th month Anniversary of Marriage I have only one wish and one prayer for my wife Marl, and that is, for her to be truly happy and grateful for the gift of life and of our love together as we spend the rest of our days in the mystery and wonder of life’s beauty and intermittency.
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