CRISTAL CLEAR AND DOCILES

It is undeniable that in the present times exists an almost bottomless crisis or lack of absolute moral values that could allow us to establish real parameters for the analysis and especially for the setting up of routes or vivential paths that could allow us to walk them, firmly stepping on, through every adverse circumstance in our lives.

For this reasons, and in my innermost reflective moments, the concepts stated by my son Victor in the prayer and worship song he titled “Cristal Clear and Docile” more than twenty years ago, while an adolescent and member of the youth group “Youth for Jesus” we mentored in Guatemala, resound as vivid and appropriate as they did when he sung it with his youthful enthusiasm that energized the whole bunch of kids in the group.

Those years were difficult years. But we always looked ahead with hope and trust in our hearts.

They were very special years for our family life.

Those were principles and values consolidating years, within conceptual contexts, similar but at the same time different for each one of us as individual persons inlaid in a family nucleus walking through very adverse circumstances brought by forced political exile that could not be easily visualized by the run of the mill normal people around.

Cristal clear for my son meant to be essentially clear in his focusing and understanding of the avatars of life.

Being docile for him meant to accept without unnecessary and unreasonable rebellion the well intentioned advice of parents, not only the biological ones but those of his friends, analyzing them with his growing and expanding youthful curiosity, in such a way that led to an exceptional maturity at an early adult age phase.

It has been a wonderful experience seeing him mature into a well organized and Christian individual, under the clear and tangible protection of God that has been always present in our family lives.

It is my desire to encourage all those adolescents in the midst of their confusing but exuberant growing phase, when sharing these special moments in the spiritual growing path of my son, reflected in the lyrics and the music of the prayer and the melody sung by one of his friends in the youth group, who is now a young but well seasoned singer and evangelist.

It is my desire to tell them…

Yes, it can be done! Yes, you can be faithful to the inner person you are without falling into the traps of the world!

Yes, you can face life being crystal clear and docile before God, a God who understands, who loves, who protects who leads and strengthen our inner being!

Yes, you can advance without giving in yourself to the peer pressure, and without compromising your personal identity and integrity!

The challenges out there seem insurmountable and innumerable. The violence and oppression are overwhelming. The wicked ones seem to always have the winning cards in their hands.

But, yes, it can be done! We can be ourselves, without giving up, without giving in, without accepting being changed and crushed by the trials and adversities of life.

Yes, we can be crystal clear and docile, and victors under the guidance and the protection of the Lord!

IN TIME OF CRISIS?… TRUST, SUBMISSION AND BLESSINGS

It is extremely interesting to analyze the cyclical events in mankind history. The spreading out of the imagination, inventive and progress within and according to the generational parameters where they display their occurrences

But men, especially when they based themselves upon their egocentrism, intellectual, material and physical arrogance, always end up losing and repeating the ever and always present mistakes of generation after generation

It is so true and sorrowful the statement of man being the only one who always stumbles upon the same stones on his path and this does not exclude Christians, just for the sake of naming or considering themselves as such type of people.

This makes me remember a very popular saying that states that we are all herdsmen walking up and down the paths of our wrongdoings. Because this is what we usually end up doing, reining in the cattle herds of our inconsequence, wrong assertions and rationalizations

And Christian ministries are not exempt just because they are considered the purest expression of our personal change and the fulfillment of the mandate to love others, especially the abandoned, abused, destitute and helpless, especially if they are children, as we love ourselves

In the bit by bit slippering down road of good intentions when we follow the unstable slopes of human self-sufficiency we, at times, tend to forget that the deeds undertaken on behalf or representation of this God we proclaim we serve, there is always present the temptation to apply human businesslike strategies forgetting that God´s business goals and practices are out rightly different from our particular ways of thought and actions

We should always have in our mind, emotions and spirit the warnings about what should be the real motivations when acting as servants and channels of God´s love, mercy, concern, care and protection

We should always remember that of the ten given dinars, our responsibility for good stewardship and the end of the day rewards, or reproach and chastisements.

We should remember that of being asked more from who have received more.

As well as that of the good shepherds and the lost sheep and that of the utmost importance of faithfulness to the vision when turn into mission and commitment. Mathews 18: 6 and 10

And above everything else the conviction in relation to the fact of the mystery of God´s acting upon our lives and the lives of those entrusted to our protection and care, as a completely different to man´s acting and its catastrophic consequences as the ones we are witnessing and being involved nowadays.

It pains the heart seeing how well founded ministries collapse because of their trusting more human businesslike practices than God´s as this require total trust, submission, unselfishness, righteousness and uncompromising attitudes and actions in order to receive His blessings.

Meanwhile, and while we discern which one of so many visions in relation to solving social and individual maladies is our destined for us by God, permanently, temporarily, or adjusted to the developing stages and phases of our lives.

Meanwhile, let´s pray for all those He had placed in our path. Let´s pray for the grateful as well as the ungrateful. Let´s pray for the shortsighted and the well meant but lacking doers.

But about everything else, let´s pray and implore the blessings of God upon His children, both in age as in spiritual growth, maturity and standing, us included, as well as our families, biological or adopted ones

REFLECTIONS FOR A TEENAGE GIRL

These reflections were borne out of a conversation with my second oldest granddaughter, nearing her 17 birthday celebration and her soon coming start of college.

As I desired her to meditate on this I would, similarly, like to dedicate these thoughts to all those young promises that are starting to bloom, to all those very soon wonderful women to be.

Even if the joy we all experienced while sharing the pictures of her merry times with family and friends,

I consider that the concepts that formed the words because of my longing for a better future and consistency in their lives, are the real substance of my joy for the promise that already have started to transform itself in living entities,

as well as the pain and the sorrow for the mercantilist manipulation of the enthusiasm for the novelties and what is in their minds considered as sophistication.


The motivation for spelling out my considerations is my respect for the innate good and common sense imbedded by God in the conscience of every human being

and my desire to see these young girls and boys striving to find themselves and forge a future for their lives,

in their pursuing of the dream of becoming genuine, authentic, healthy and wholesome and conquering victors

in the challenging feat of confronting the future circumstances of their lives.

TO JUANITA AND IN HER, TO ALL THE YOUNG TEENAGER GIRLS OF THE WORLD

Life is not a rose garden without thorns! Probably you could say… Too many disappointments have already come by! Sure! There are many that have, could, and will pop up in your lives! Of every type! From every source! In any circumstance!

But what is totally illogical and absurd is a young girl wasting their life and renouncing to her right to a future, no matter how immature we could believe she is, because of the rampant alienation and systematic destruction of everything that could smell to social value and personal and positive identity and integrity

We cannot keep on allowing as a routine and everyday news, undeserving of any particular concern or consideration, the red note reports of abandonment, rejection or abuse. it is lacerating and painful the daily spectacle of so many vivential clowns who at the top of their shouts proclaim as indispensable the impossible dreams and placebo solutions for the bleeding remnants tossed aside by uncontrolled and immeasurable materialistic ambitions.

Because the real innocent victims are not only the present ones but also the new ones to come! Because if we consider ourselves victims we are victims only of our own inconsequence! But what about them? What about all those youngsters, male and female, irresponsible and immature who have been already robbed of their innocence, first by the alienation and the widely publicized and promoted consuming consumism and its consequent if not inevitable and in every case shameful emotional and even physical individual and collective rape.

It is a regrettable, inacceptable and shameful attitude even if already a customary one both in the media and in the majority of the bystanding people, because of its innuendo of indifference and tediousness if not of morbid curiosity, the comments about the tragic circumstance of a young and immature teenager throwing herself over a cliff because of a more immature boy, just because of her, feeling depressed and disappointed by his rejection

It hurts too deeply to read the newspapers headlines reporting. In my grandparent´s eyes and understanding there is no justification to just expose such an unnecessary tragedy. It would be so much worthier for all those who consider themselves the pillars of society, to dedicate themselves to the betterment of the integral well being of all the young lives around, starting logically with their own homes, to stop the spreading around of the pervasive example of so many “little spoiled brats and sons and daughters of daddies” who show themselves without shame on so many reality shows and wild on TV episodes.

What we all should do is to encourage their self-esteem in every one of our youngsters, our own and those around, especially in our young girl teenagers, incessantly and exhaustively insisting with our boys so they imprint in their mind, spirit and emotions the need to understand, assimilate and make it their own, what a real manhood is and what the real purpose in life every man is called for to fulfill.

Because everything in life is a challenge to overcome and not and ineludible condemnation, egotistical convenience or failure! Because everything is possible if we have God in our hearts and we face life with energy, optimism, determination and clear conscience.

To you, Juanita, and in you to all the young girls of this world…

Learn to choose! Do not resign yourself to be just manipulated and chosen by undeserving and unworthy of this world!
Remember that you are God´s daughter, and imprint in the innermost part of yourself that you are the apple of His eyes and that you deserve a future where you can be capable to express and transmit all the good that you have within as well as the right to be appreciated, respected and loved by the partners of your lives to be, leaving aside and behind the irresponsible, the insecure, the immature ones, without consideration to their social standing and style