Ever listen to a young teenage boy’s experience of falling in love?
You have to be veeery patient!
Even though youngsters easily confuse love with the slightest romantic inspiring exhilarating heartbeat, no one can deny that theirs (as ours was once) is indeed a unique and unforgettable experience.
* * *
“Father, she hasn’t answered my text yet!”
“How long ago did you send her a text?”
“Last night …”
Sometime later…
“Father, she hasn’t been replying to any of my e-mails….”
“How many have you sent her so far?”
“Maybe about seven yesterday and three more this morning when I got up….”
“Duh?”
* * *
People in love become very conscious of the minutest details in their relationship. They consider how their thoughts, words and actions will affect the ‘special someone’ in their life. In short, they simply forget themselves because they’re ‘in love’ with an ‘other’.
Whenever something pops out that could affect their relationship, they quickly examine, backtrack and analyze what they may have said or done. They try their very best to immediately rectify, apologize, correct and improve whatever it takes to keep the relationship going, growing and lasting!
In the spiritual life, we often forget that we are also in a real relationship. Sometimes we stress more our wrongs and errors –including what we see in others– but forget to see them within the perspective of an intense and ongoing relationship with our Lord. Perhaps, this is because we are too ‘sin conscious’ which is just another form of being overly ‘self-conscious’, instead of being ‘other conscious’ or ‘love conscious’.
Like people in love, we have to learn how to backtrack and examine ourselves. It is important not to only remain in the WHAT. The WHAT means the ‘fact of knowing what our sins and weaknesses’ are. To remain here would be a static awareness of our condition as sinners.
The WHAT can sometimes be a mental trap. We go to confession loaded with different WHATs of sin. This load naturally carries with it a guilty feeling. If one is not careful, this ‘feeling bad’ can simply revolve around his ego: ‘How could I even commit this?’ or ’What will my director think about me?’
Instead of remaining in this endless tripping ego-analysis, we must apply the proper mode of spiritual backtracking or rewinding known as prayer. Thus, the following steps arise:
Step 1 is the WHAT (obviously): “Lord, I have fallen into this sin or fault and I’m sorry.”
Step 2 is the WHY: “Lord, why do I take your love and grace for granted?”
Step 3 is the WHO: “Lord, what can I learn about myself from this event?”
Step 4 is the HOW: “Jesus, what would you have me do to overcome this, to make up for this, to amend this, etc.?”
When one decides to tackle his sinful condition within the context of a loving relationship with Jesus, he advances because he doesn’t get stuck in only knowing what his sins and infidelities are.
On the contrary, he goes even further because his very weakness becomes his very strength when he trustingly brings them to the presence of God in prayer.
* * *
“So what did you write your ‘special someone’ in your e-mail?”
“Father, I asked if she was getting my text messages!”
“Good grief!”
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