Ongkingco
New!”
This is a three-letter word that always catches attention! Perhaps you are already wondering what is new in this article!
We simply enjoy seeing, hearing and having new things! Opening gifts on Christmas, buying a new gadget or equipment, purchasing a new car and visiting a foreign country are just a few examples of how fond we are of the NEW!
But experience today demonstrates that new is already old with after so little time. This is very true of the world of science and technology: gadgets, equipment and other tools rapidly replaced each other by better, faster and storage-heftier devices.
The moment you unbox your device, it immediately comes in contact with the air, gets fingerprints and smudges, starts to gather micro-sized dust and fiber and begins its brief journey of wear and tear. Thus, it’s no longer new.
In reality, much of the excitement over the new concerns material things. This thrill is, I believe, an expression of our inner longing for the something new in us. This is the harder, but more valuable, endeavor that every person seeks to achieve: the NYOU!
One way to experience this, though it may be quite strong, is that of death. Not our own, that will in time come, but of our loved ones. Someone’s death, and more so having accompanied a dying person, is always a very powerful and new experience. No one can ever say that he is used to death, and especially of someone he loved.
Death has a medicinal effect for the living. It makes us realize that we cannot forever cling to the artificial newness outside of us because it has little or no bearing for the Eternal New that every soul yearns for.
Death makes us experience the following new things: the eternity that embraces time, the silence becomes more audible with the voice of a loved no longer heard, the absence that becomes a new presence and the stillness which replaces the once active and engaging role of the deceased.
The weight of eternity, the eloquence of silence, the absorbing absence-presence and the dynamic stillness are new interior experiences. These spiritual gems mysteriously renew our souls. Unlike material things, which we seek to control and condition, these are simply received as gifts to which we abandon ourselves to.
Despite the harshness of death, we begin to treasure the new realities it brings into our lives. By nurturing them, we grow in our capacity never to grow old which results from being attached to material things. We learn not to succumb to life’s monotonous material flux that eventually dries up our once-parched soul that is now watered and revived by the transforming realities brought by death.
But for eternity, silence, absence-presence and stillness to remain cultivating our souls, we need not wait for death. They may be obtained constantly and fruitfully when we choose to die every day: seeking occasions to kill pride and vainglory, stepping on laziness and gluttony and clamping on the triggers of anger and greed. It is only in these small and constant battles — undoubtedly, with the help of grace — that we will become ourselves NYOU!
“If a seed does not fall to the ground and die…”