Seminari St. Yoh. Berkhmans
On the last day of 2024, a question emerged strongly in my mind: “What was the greatest gift that I enjoyed during 2024?” For me, the answer was clear. I am not on this road alone.
I am not alone because friends accompany me. They are ordinary people I meet in everyday life. Ordinary people I meet in virtual communities.
They are ordinary people who became extraordinary because their presence made me love who I really am, accept my reality, live with my true colors, and encourage me to enjoy my freedom.
And I am not alone because I am accompanied by Someone who fills my deepest inner space; who dwells in my inner sanctuary, whose presence feels intimate but goes beyond me. He, who invited me to be myself, and by being me, I was simultaneously elevated beyond myself. I felt a transcendent force and became fully aware of being a channel of His grace that enriches humanity.
From my experience, I named Him The Invisible Hand. His invitation to me to live every day from the reality of myself makes me feel like it is my life mission: a life mission that is challenging but makes my life more meaningful and deeper.
There were several big decisions in 2024 related to this life mission that I am grateful for, including the decision to continue to know the essential parts of my core being, decisions that make me heal, grow, and develop through PRH.
Since the beginning of the year, I have been persistent in completing the second year of FPM. To complete the second year of FPM, I took part in The Meaning of My Life session with a small group of friends, under the guidance of Mbak Nana as a PRH educator.
These PRH sessions were a game changer for my healing and growth. With honesty and humility to be open to my reality, I was able to trace my entire life from the beginning until now. I took inventory of the personal capacities that were granted to me. I saw the essentials of who I am. I described my topography.
In that topography, I see my essential things as three large channels in the shape of an inverted cone coming from “Above” and flowing into me. I was given the gift of undeniable gratuitous love; I was given a fire, a flame, and an educational soul that was so blazing, I felt it was who I am. I was given the gift of inner wisdom in the form of pure intuition in making big decisions with great immediacy (almost spontaneously), but with great accuracy, which I have never regretted.
For the first time in my life, through enormous struggles and with the gift of humility given to me, I accepted those three dominant traits as part of myself. I felt that these three treasures overflowed; as if too big to be present in a fragile clay vessel like mine.
These treasures were buried for such a long time because I felt I had to live with targets imposed upon me, targets that were tiring. Those targets were like black holes, because every time I fell into them, I felt empty, not myself.
When I humbly accepted my dominant traits, I experienced a form of liberation. I felt it as a sign of life, a clear basic road map for my life. I had strayed many times, failing to follow that direction, but that basic lighthouse allowed me to return to who I truly am.
It is interesting that in this topography, the three dominant traits are depicted as large vertical channels: gratuitous love on the left, educational spirit in the middle, and purity of intuition as inner wisdom on the right.
The three vertical channels ‘from above’ taper downwards, entering a horizontal channel. In that horizontal channel, I found the motto of my devotional life, “May the life of Him be made visible”. So that His life with all the abundance of His love becomes real through my daily life, shared and enjoyed by many people.
In the past, when the octopus of targets loomed over me, I pursued great works; as if only in great works could I express who I was. I took my daily life for granted. Now, when I realize and feel the essential parts of myself as my true colors, I feel how meaningful my daily life is; how in the simplicity of my daily life I flow, experiencing the fullness of my life calmly.
With this note, I close 2024 with great gratitude.
Though I know I have crooked lines in life, it is in these crooked lines He was and is pleased to paint Himself. And the canvas is my everyday life.
I’m not alone. I’m accompanied. Thank you, Lord. Thank you to all of you.
Nani Songkares – Indonesia
