Living the way of the world : why it’s so darn difficult

I am typing this entry now as I await for my flight back home to Kuala Lumpur. I am currently at the departure lounge of the Hong Kong International Airport. My flight is not for another 4 hours – I deliberately chose the last flight out of HK back to KL just so that I have the whole day to tour the city in a satisfying way – and earlier today morning I was at the Big Buddha monument. I made it a point to make this a must-see-or-else visit this time around as I wanted to see the other side of HK – the calmer,more serene side if you may.

Anyway you might be thinking – what on earth does visiting a tranquil place got to do with the title of my post? Stay with me here – As I was heading back from the Tian Tan Buddha, as I took the MTR, I started to reflect on life – about living life loose, about getting a tattoo, about just deviating from the norm – and I wasn’t deviating to prove a point or to be a deliberate rebel – but somehow that life – the other side of the fence – that life offered a more exciting path – a path filled with action, excitement, a path filled with friends just drinking and having a good time, a path where if I worked out, got in shape, put on some weight, exercised, it would be filled with the accompaniment of beautiful people – who wouldn’t want to be around beautiful women? A path where if I focused on my career, and gave everything I had to my job, it would guarantee me success – material wealth – in essence, a life that just surrounded and revolved around me – the people I hung out with, the job that I had, the lifestyle that I could live.

I was entertaining that thought for quite a while as the train took from the Tung Chung train station all the way to Tsim Sha Tsui, my destination. I was just fantasizing that thought, and looking around at the beautiful men and women around me – the gorgeous confident guys that I have always admired and model myself after and the fine women they were with in their company – I too could give it all up, and live that life – a life that resolved around me

But then, something tugs at my heart – something quietly just whispers, after all that imaginary conversations and fantasizing that I am having in my head is over – do you think this is gonna last? 

I know where that question is leading to – I know it too well. I have offered advice to close friends on this particular topic. I know it too well, despite its tantalizing effects. I love God too much, to turn my back away from Him. Even though there are times I may not pray as diligent as I should, even though there are times I may not even concentrate during my prayers, even though there are times I fall so much to sin, something refuses to allow me to just walk away from God and life that me-centric life. Perhaps maybe I know that my heart will not rest until it rests in him (even though I can’t feel that tangible effect at times), but no matter how much I fall and try to live a me-centric life, somehow the soul keeps tugging at me. It reminds me so dearly of what Fr. Lucas (played by Anthony Hopkins) in the Rite mentions, when he was sharing with Michael Kovak (the seminarian in the movie) about his own doubts :

yet there is something that keeps digging and scraping inside me, feels like God’s fingernail …finally I can take no more of the pain, I get shoved out out of the darkness back into the light

Yes, sometimes I too feel God’s fingernail. There are times I too feel, why not just go into that darkness, maybe I will survive,afterall I have survived in the past, who knows I can probably thrive on my own. But as much as I so want to turn to turn away from the Light, (it’s not to say turning away from God is a bad thing, that I am going to get into drugs, or some shit like that), I know (too well in fact) that the heart can be deceiving – that beyond that life, it’s a scary scary world. The way of the world, as alluring and appealing as it can be, is like poison – it kills you slowly.

And the fact that I have been surviving and doing well for myself up until now – I know for a fact, it’s solely solely solely on the grace of God (which is why my prayer theses days and my time spent at adoration is not as rich as before – rather its usually spent with me repenting, and telling God what a big schmuck that I am and that I don’t deserve His grace).

And maybe that’s why its so difficult, no matter how difficult the circumstances are or how tempting it is on the other side of the fence – for me to turn my back against Him and to just say “to heck with it…I am gonna live my way” – not because I don’t want to (even though I have the choice), but I just can’t – I can’t turn my back against God. I can’t give God the cold-shoulder and walk out of His life. I just can’t.

I love what St. Paul reminds his young padawan, Tim:

“Even if we are faithless, He remains faithful..” – 2 Tim 2:13

Perhaps this is God’s fingernail, scratching at my own tender heart, to remind me about the relationship that we share