family

everything at different speeds. i feel like that umberto boccioni sculpture. well that sculpture mostly shows speed - a propelling forward kind of speed. but because it is so solid there is a lot of weight that makes it feel everything is at a different pace. some parts are angular and suggest a bit more static compared to the parts that have swooping edges, as if in transit, as if in flight. 

how strange for such a juxtaposition to be in a sculpture - the sculpture of the traditional type, even, in bronze or some kind of metal, and not some kind of installation of cotton balls and rocks.

i am having a hard time focusing. my mind keeps wandering, half thinking about things that happened today and half getting distracted by what's around me.

as i stood up to turn and face the front after speaking with a tito and tita, my arm was spinning the chair round and i realised the chair ended up in the perfect place to accommodate J. i think i am going to call him P from now on so that i can call his brother J instead. i was surprised to see him. we said hi. he sat in the chair i meant to go back to, so i sat next to him instead. How are you, i asked, Are you ready? all packed? and he just shrugged. he said he didn't want to go anymore. It's just cold feet, i said. and he proceeded to say he got our stuff and looked happy and he said he would use the ashtray. 

take care of him Lord. and bring him home. i know you are stirring something. i can feel it. he feels different now from when i interacted with him the first month, before he completely went off the grid to me (and apparently others). i know and i believe that this is just barely the beginning and that you are bringing healing to where it is needed the most. like a colleague said in an email today - everything happens for a good reason, no matter how challenging or frustrating the situation that arises. 

keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will. (ecclesiastes 11:6)

when he left i was a little sad. i thought we would all be able to talk even for a little while, just to see him off. it suddenly felt like when i was leaving, 6 years ago. K had told me - don't get tapilok. tubig na yan.

V shook things up at the state address. i listened and watched and i wish i had felt more but that afternoon i felt like i wasn't really part of it. it felt alien. or i felt an alien. i couldn't feel or see the disposition of the leadership because i didn't know them enough, those people who sat across from the audience. i didn't know their heart for the community. and maybe i also didn't know mine. because this is more extended family and my spirit needs to set straight its own family right now. the distance with K is still difficult for me and a lot of the time i am too careful to not overstep closeness or be annoying. i can feel the friction whenever she asks Do you get it? in a lot of situations, like she really doesn't know if i'm even there at all or if i'm completely different person. 

it's funny that P talked about sharing Christ in fellowship. i don't know how much of what he ended up saying at the podium was purely cerebral, but i was just praying that he could listen to what he was saying. that we are drawn to people who carry Christ. last week i saw him slipping from his usual crowd. i saw the exhaustion. i usher your light into this house Lord. guide him back. i know you will show him the wounds and i know that's what he fears. but i also know that you will show him strength. show him how humility is a step forward in the right direction. i know you will show him that you are taking care of him. i know you will show him that it was love that had been there all along, and nothing else.