The love I lost

When I was fourteen, I remember falling in love.
I felt so alive that time, I was so in love with the God of the Bible.
I don’t know what happened to me after that… I just lost that love.
Wandering with no direction, just drifting.
Took me years to revert back to the faith;
I even joined the Marist Brothers.
It was like Saul’s encounter Jesus on his way to Damascus;
Have to see again with eyes anew what the Bible is all about.
Again, reading it once more, loving it book by book;
Now I fell in love again.
Once more, I get lost within the world of the Book;
There I find who I really am in losing myself.
Now I know I just got lost;
I never really lost that love.
It was there all along carved in my heart.

How to read a spiritual conversion story?

“Father, I want to become a Catholic”, said Thomas Merton to a priest.

It’s taking me a long time to finish the book The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. It’s an autobiographical account of a Trappist Monk on how he, from being a self-confessed “atheist”, became a Catholic and a monk. I just borrowed the book from our teacher since he mentioned it class and I asked for a copy. It is 500-plus pages long and I don’t mind taking a leisurely pace in reading this book. You might accuse me of being lazy since I really am. The book has been with me since June and I have been able to finish a number of books ahead of Merton’s book. Whenever I feel like reading the book, I pick it up and just read it until I get hooked then just stop and reflect. When I read a spiritual book, I change my reading habit. In this book, though I read slowly, my interest doesn’t wane easily and I reread some parts and just ponder. It’s unlike any other books where I read them like I’m just listening to a song. With The Seven Storey Mountain, it’s like I’m reading poetry. Merton mentioned a lot of poets but I would like to focus on Gerard Manley Hopkins, a convert to Catholicism who later on joined the Jesuits as a priest. I think Merton, a self-confessed “atheist”, was inspired by the poems and the life of Hopkins that it pushed him to finally become a Catholic. I have yet to read what happens next since I’m only halfway of the book. I’ll be writing again once I got “struck” again.

The interview

I don’t know why should you accept me
I’ll frustrate you, I’ll break your expectations
I’m not good enough

Can’t you see, I’m not worthy enough?
I’ll admit I’m not competent
And that’s why you should not

But if ever you say yes
There’s one thing I guarantee
I’ll strive and be a better man