A second life?

Recently I found a website called "Second Life". It practically offers a life very different from the one we really have, a life that has everything we want to: we can choose our appearance, our cloth, our environment... even our first and last name! A very good way to make a dream come true for many... The Paradise, which is best because it was created by us, and we are the ones whom keep it living and using space in the universe.

Is it? Honestly, I don't think so. It sparked my curiosity and I wanted to enter to that "virtual city", but I just couldn't. I didn't even got to choose my own name, because when I was about to do that, I realized how much I like mine! I love to be Isaura, is a not-so-common name and I like it, not because it is barely used, but because my grandma has it too, and that fact is enough to remember me where I come from. We can't move forward in our lives if we don't know where we come from, who we are and who we want to be. In that order.

I could "choose" the way I wanted to look like, but I found myself looking for a haircut, skin color and clothes the most alike possible to the "real ones". I couldn't imagine a different life, a different me. But many can, many want to. Why?

Sometimes is very difficult to have the courage to live the life that had been given to us. Because it is not a human property, a thing we can use the most "convenient" way, it's a gift, a treasure to keep and use properly. And the first step to do this is to be grateful of the life we have, the face, body, personality, soul, dreams, smiles... everything that could help others to find again the life they lost even though they are still walking, talking, surviving...

The missioner Jim Elliot used to say: "live the fullest". When you are working, do it the best. If you're smiling, smile a lot. If you have to cry, cry until your tears dry, but don't ever waste the time you have, because there is no greater sadness to the God that created us and gave us breath of life to see us bury this precious gift and, at the end of the way, we have to realize that our lives just "passed". I love Frank Sinatra's song "My way" because it says something that I really want to say when my path is almost over. But most of all I want to be sure that, once it finishes, the other life, the real Paradise -not an artificial paradise invented by a man- is prepared for me and with my Master with arms wide open.

About loneliness

Loneliness is one of the most common situations in our lives. Sometimes we desire more friends, a romantic relationship, more time with family... We weren't "designed" to spend our lives alone, but there are moments and situations that come and we don't know what to do with them.There is nothing wrong in your desires. Don't feel guilty about what you want, what you feel and how you think things could be better, and be sure that God isn't mad at you at all because of your feelings and desires. He understands. He experimented loneliness himself in the cross, the most painful moments in his 33-years life.

It is good to talk about your feelings and situations with someone you trust, isn't there a person like that in your life right now? Also, have you opened your heart to God, with all your fears, your feelings, even if there is a hint of resenment there? Remember the Psalms: David even asked God to kill his enemies!! He didn't keep anything for himself, he opened his heart and mind to God just as they were and God himself transformed his mind, feelings and life.Sometimes we can think that saying some things that are in our heart and mind to God is inappropriate and He won't like us anymore. God knows how we are made of. And if you don't put before Him all you think feel, want, fear, expect and hope for He can't transform your heart and mind first, and then your life. It is good to read the Psalms and see how David's prayer changes during the prayer, he begins with angst and rage and then he finishes with peace in his heart and worshiping the Lord!

Talk to Him about your loneliness, and how much it bothers you now. Try to build a strong relationship with Him, and with time He will provide friends, spiritual advisors, or any company you need and that will be helpful for you. Don't ask for a great amount of "friends", but for friends that really are there for you and are willing to help you grow in your path with the Lord, even if they are just a few. Maybe you could find youth groups in your parish or school, and that way you can get to know more people, but remember, even those people we admire the most, sometimes they won't act as we could have expected, and they can dissapoint us, even if they don't want to. People are not perfect, but God is. I understand perfectly how you feel, and now I can say my life is different; He made the job, and that's why I worship Him. Be not afraid, and offer your loneliness to the Lord, He'll know what to do with it, but when you offer it to Him, and offer your mind and heart as they are right now, He can transform all of them for your sake and the sake of others around you. Amen!

The power of words

Many things have been said about the power of words in our decisions, in our feelings, in our lives... "If you believe you can live a life of victory, declare it with your mouth!", for example. It is possible, considering that our mouth and our acts show what we have inside, and Jesus himself recogized that.

Some years ago, after two experiences referred about love that honestly I don't want to remember, I promised myself not to say "I love you" to a man before he had taken the initiative. I almost can hear many cries of protest saying that we are not longer in the Middle Age, we are in XXI Century and we have to live according to that. Concerning this matter, I highly recommend Elisabeth Eliott's fabulous book "Passion and Purity", about how important is to submit our love life under God's authority.

And now I want to explain why I took this decision. I said "I love you" to two men in my life, and both experiences were a disaster. There isn't a better way to describe it. But the worst part wasn't the men's reactions, the final results, but how I felt inside after that. Even if we are told everyday to do what it feels good to us, at last, it didn't work for me. It's not good for self-esteem to acknowledge that, if I didn't make any movement, I wouldn't have the men by my side, and at last this horrible thought shows up: "I am not worth the pursue, the dedication of a man".

So with that decision, I have to admit that I haven't regretted it. Not for a single minute. We are flesh, and we have feelings, and it's normal to show signs of enthusiasm, anger, despair, joy, depending of the situation; it's not only normal, but good. But trying to have a control over them. Even if this can be extremely difficult concerning love, I think that one of the best ways of submitting those feelings is to watch our words. Keep our mouth shut. Saying "I love you" is not something nice to say in certain circumstances, or we just want something from other person. When we use those words with no caution, the comsequences can be terrible.

Recently, one of my friends and I put things on the table, or more precisely, our feelings about each other. He said that I showed some feelings for him beyond friendship, and at some moments I felt that he wanted me to "be honest" to him saying how I really feel about him. I didn't. I remembered that promise, and even now I still have not said anything in those terms, less to him. And I don't regret what I did. It wasn't the right time, and I knew that for sure. So I will keep my mouth shut until that time comes, maybe with him, maybe with another man, the one God has prepared for me since eternity.

That converstation was very enlightening, and of course I appreciate his honesty, not every man do that. He reminded me -I always have known- why we couldn't consider anything beyond friendship, and I understand. Another reason to keep the mouth shut. And the heart quiet. And even with that, I appreaciate his friendship, it has impacted my life in ways I never considered possible. That's what we have, and that's what I am thankful for. I don't know if I ever will tell him all this, but now things have to stay the way they are.

After more than four years, I have kept my promise, not only to keep my heart, but also because God wants to protect me and guard my heart for my future husband. I will say "I love you" only to a man that, apart of those meaningful three words, tells me and demostrates me that he won't let me go. It's a way to honor that man even before I met him, and I know he'll appreciate it in the right time.

The truth of El Mozote

Now I want to share a report written by Mark Danner, who has covered, apart of the civil war in El Salvador, wars at The Balcanes -Bosnia- and Haiti. In this link that now I share with all of you, is the complete report about the massacre in El Mozote, one of the worst during the civil war in my country, which lasted 12 years.

I hope it helps to see the truth and how many people has suffered because of the selfishness of others. I can't say more, because it isn't something supposed to like, it's supossed to be known.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Danner/1993/truthelmoz01.html

A castle in Bretagne

I don't know much about Bretagne, except that it is a french province located in the Northwest, in normand territory. Different from porvenzal landscapes, maybe with a little more sun, normand landscapes tend to be simple, with not-so-many elements in them. Even if it's summer and sunlight is intense, always I can perceive some "coldness" -sorry I couldn't find a better word- in the pictures I see, like a distance between the place and the spectator, as if that landscape belonged to a dream or any other memory already lost in the past, in a different time.

That was the impression a picture with a little castle in Bretagne, next to the sea, left in me. Priceless. Not just because of the picture itself, but the images that it suggests to anyone who looks at it. When I see it, I feel like I was in 1200, or earlier, and I imagine a sunset that tries to reflects its colors in the waters of the sea, overwhelmingly blue. From that castle I look at the beautiful landscape, and at that moment the only thing I listen is the wind coming from the sea. The only thing I smell is a "mixing" of grass and salt, and then just the sky, the sea, the castle and me give life to that little piece of time that has been lended to us.

A friend that lives in France says that for him Bretagne is the "real France". Far away from the metro, countless advertisements and piles of tourists. Maybe. I should have to go personally, get that moment out of my imagination and give it life, and enlighten it and make it breath, because reality has a special way to overcome fiction -even if sometimes it just can't.

About blogging

This is my first blog in english. Honestly, I never thought I would have a blog in english, because it's much easier to express ourselves in our first language. Also, given that english is so different from spanish, any idea that may come in spanish could lose something at the moment of translation; of course, with this I am not saying which language is better, nobody could, but is widely known that it's better to read an author in his/her original language. This is a topic for another blog.

A lot is being said lately about why people like, want or even need a blog to make their lives "public". It may be very similar to having a journal, but the difference is that a journal is only read by us, and a blog can be read by the millions and millions of people that every minute, every hour, every day is conected to the Internet. But I don't think blogs can be clasified as "public": how high is the probability to one, two, three or one hundred people find and read your blog, if there are millions of people and millions of blogs? Today's world have different kind of solitude, one that is based in many people at the same place and the same time, but nobody want to look at each other and have a real conversation, a real encounter. Like Cortazar said: "El colmo de la soledad es el colmo del gregarismo".

Maybe a blog fulfills that need of contact with the world, but with a different approach. Our lives aren't just what actually happens to us everyday, but also what we say about them, how we see it and if it doesn't satisfy us -this is more common than we are willing to admit openly-, how we would like it to be. Writing what happens to us, what we think about a topic in particular, what we want or whatever is in our mind is a way to put all that in a mirror and look at and even judge it from a different angle.