Birthday reflection.

I had spent my last 3 birthdays with friends, and this year, I wanted it to be different. So this year, where did I go? I checked in at a hotel to give time for myself and reflect. It kind of helped that it was raining like crazy during the night of my birthday salubong, so I just stayed in.

This year had been so different compared to the last two years. Before this year, I was so busy with our dance fitness company. This year, when I chose to prioritize my work at a BPO company and juggled a bit of freelancing in theater and events on the side, I found more time to breathe. Not that I didn't like being busy before. I enjoyed all the work, I loved being productive, and I had learned so many things, especially about myself.

This past Sunday at the Feast, Brother Bo gave a talk called "Stop, Look, and Listen." He told us that at a certain point, we have to stop, as it's a rhythm of work and trust. You have to stop to calm your mind, and to "sharpen your ax," and God will take over.

I never got to stop much before this year. I was always working. I woke up during the wee hours of morning and spent 4 hours at a call center. Then I dash to the studio and spend the rest of the day with our dance fitness company and come home in the evening after the last class. I slept for only 2 hours a day. I guess that's why I was sometimes a space case when it came to certain things at work. I never stopped.

We also have to listen. We have to create space and time so God can speak to you. It was so spot on to hear that last Sunday. So it was pretty appropriate to choose my birthday salubong for this time. It felt nice just being there alone in the hotel room, just with a book and my journal, being in the company of my thoughts. I felt so relaxed.

The best part of it was that the first people I was talking/chatting with on my birthday were my two best friends, Rosa and Iam. And then for my birthday, Iam gave me a few questions to reflect on. (Will blog about that another time.) Could it be that God spoke to me through Iam when she asked me those questions?

It's nearing the end of the year. Only months had passed, but it feels like such a long time because so many changes had happened. I took another leap. And after that leap, so many paths opened up and I bravely traveled down those paths. I picked up so many things along the way, I learned so much more than I had expected to learn, and I met so many new and interesting people that I now consider my dearest friends. They are friends who had seen me grow in this short span of time. They are friends who had helped and encouraged me to explore and deliver my core gift. True, there were certain challenges and hurdles that crossed my paths, but I learned to accept and deal with them, because we can never grow without facing them, especially those that may return for a repeat performance. I learned to welcome those recurring challenges with a more open mind, and I faced them again to learn from the mistakes that I had made during my first encounter with them. And I'm glad I did.

Finally stepping out of my personal limbo.

This past Tuesday evening, I decided to flip through my blog's old entries. I guess I just wanted to see what I could work with for my annual year-in-review blog post at the end of the year.

Because I was so busy with work last year, I never found the time to blog until this summer. I noticed that my earliest blog posts this year only began in April, when another crux had happened in my life. In the second entry of the month, I had quoted Bro. Bo Sanchez's message in the Feast bulletin.

"When a person doesn't know his core gift, it's like he's living in limbo. Note that limbo is not a bad place. But it should just be a stopover. Not knowing your core gift means it's a place of waiting, wondering, searching, and seeking.

But sooner or later, you stumble upon your place in the world, your spot under the sun, your platform in the universe. You discover what special gift you're supposed to give to the world.

At that point, you step out of limbo. And you step into a little bit of heaven on earth. By that, I don't mean that your problems will disappear. (That's why it's just a "little bit of heaven on earth".) Actually, the opposite happens--your problems multiply. Because now, you develop and deliver your gift to the world.

But knowing your core gift is an amazing experience."

This April was the time I was in limbo. I had left a full-time job, and I somehow felt like I was going back to square one. I had already stopped dancing, and decided to see if I can still act, even just for a workshop.

Getting back on the metaphorical bicycle, I was quite anxious at first, because I had learned to act a different way for a time, so I had to get back to that bigger box where I had to let myself loose again, to channel the sanguine in me again. My phlegmatic self that had been in control for a while had to take a backseat. I had to re-learn certain things again. But this time, I was ready, unlike my old self that had so many inhibitions.

Little by little, I was getting out of my own limbo, and I had just realized that lately. I started finding my own light. I was finally discovering (or maybe just rediscovering) my core gift.

As I started taking that risk, that leap again, the avenues of opportunities started to open up to me. Tanghalang Pilipino's workshop, a staged reading for the Virgin Labfest, storytelling and hosting for Make Believe Productions, Ampalaya Monologues with TAP, and even simply serving as an actor during talks at the Feast. Realizing all these blessings amazed me. It was so overwhelming. To all those who had helped me pave the way to all these avenues, thank you so much. As I had mentioned to my friend Lara, you tend to lose some things, and well, maybe even some people, yet you gain so much more than what you had lost.

Then I suddenly remembered what Bro. Migs had quoted during last Sunday's SYNC session at the Feast.

"I shovel out, and God shovels in, but He has a bigger shovel than I do."

He was right.

I personally experienced it myself.

Amazing.

A retrospective on enlightenment and empowerment after the Kerygma Conference.

Over a week had already passed since the Kerygma Conference 2015, and I'm still on a KCON high. The entire experience, although shorter than expected, was really enlightening and very empowering, as this entry's title suggests. And I do believe that I was there at the right time for a reason.

My mind is filled with so many thoughts about this right now, so I'll try my best to make sense of it for this blog and for you.

Before I first attended a session of Bo Sanchez's The Feast, I honestly have to admit that I wasn't really a good Catholic. While my parents thought I was going to church on Sunday afternoons, I was actually going to coffee shops, just spending my time there, reading or writing.

Then last year, my mentor, whom I call Mommy Val, invited us to attend Brother Bo's Holy Week retreat, and a bunch of us willingly went with her and her family. Two days of meaningful talks, plus a Grand Easter Feast left us with so many powerful messages, some of which struck a personal chord in each of us. That experience inspired me to keep going to church regularly at the Feast. I usually went with some of my fellow dance scholars and sometimes even with our mentor and her family.

At the end of this year's first quarter, I had resigned from our group (I worked as a communications specialist for our dance fitness company), and then I became busy with freelance work, even on Sundays. At first, I could still manage to attend the Feast regularly, but then there were some days that I couldn't due to an event that day. I have to admit, I got kind of lazy to wake up early to attend a morning session before heading to my events.

Then came the call for servants at the Feast. Noticing that there was an actors arm in the performing arts ministry under the events and programs cluster, it appealed to me so much that I signed up for it almost immediately. I first got to meet only a small bunch of servant actors during one general assembly. It was a pretty candid affair, as we were just sitting around on the floor on the 3rd floor of the PICC.

There wasn't that much need for actors for the talks during those times, and when there was, I wasn't available. Whenever I managed to attend a Sunday Feast then, I started going alone, as I had somewhat detached from a few people.

The first time I ever got to serve was at the beginning of last month (November 1st). It was only the second time I got to see a couple of people I had first met in the general assembly, including our head, Tony. The rest were all new faces to me. We had to perform this particular skit for 3 Feast sessions, and as the day progressed, I started warming up to them.

Then Brother George asked which of us were going to attend the Kerygma Conference, and he explained that they needed a big group of actors for the event's opening production number, but they needed people who were actually attending the conference as a priority. Now, I had been very curious about the Kerygma Conference since last year, but I never got to attend then due to my very busy schedule. I knew that this year, I would finally get my chance to do so.

I was so persistent. I quickly filed my leaves on the days when the conference would conflict with my work schedule, then used part of my meager savings to pay for my ticket. As I was registering online, I got so excited for the breakout classes that I had signed up for.

We were called in for a technical rehearsal on Monday evening on the week of the Kerygma Conference. It was also the same week of the APEC event, but despite all the horrendous traffic jams everywhere, a big bunch of us still managed to make it to the SMX Convention Center for rehearsal. I got to meet more servant actors, plus other people involved in the event, and not only from Feast Bay Area, but also from other Feasts all over the metro.

Let's backtrack a bit. The theme of this year's Kerygma Conference was "Coming Home," somewhat in relation to the parable of the Prodigal Son. So the concept of the opening number was different ways/versions of coming home. Some of us played "travelers," while the rest for respective "greeters" to each type of traveler. I got cast as one of the travelers, as a new Feast attendee, and my two greeters were Meg and Joyce.

Photo courtesy of Meg Bueno.

We rehearsed a few times, beginning with Brother Paolo's spoken word piece about coming home, to all the travelers' entrances to the stage from different spots behind the audience, to the opening worship. While I knew it was just a rehearsal, the energy during those opening worship songs was electrifying. It wasn't just a rehearsal anymore. We were singing and praising for real. Even after our high spirits and energy, for some reason I didn't feel all that tired when we ended rehearsal a little past midnight. And to think that I had to walk all the way from SMX to the Edsa Pasay rotunda with a few others due to the traffic jam.

The Kerygma Conference was supposed to be from November 19-22 (Thursday to Sunday), but because of certain inconveniences due to the APEC event, everything had to be pushed back. All the breakout classes had to be crammed during the entire weekend, concluding with the Grand Feast on Sunday afternoon (there was a separate Grand Feast on Sunday morning for non-attendees of the conference). I didn't really mind one it, as long as the conference would still push through.

As much as I would like to elaborate more about the conference itself, I now would just like to focus on a certain realization. It happened when I found a bit of quiet time last Thursday afternoon and started reading Brother Bo's book, Life Manual 101: How to Make Your Dreams Come True. All Kerygma Conference attendees were lucky (well, blessed, really) enough to get free copies of that book. (Thank you so much, Brother Bo!)

So anyway, another backtrack, when I first attended the Feast last year, I was given a Novena to God's Love, the usual token given to first-time Feast attendees. We were supposed to write our dreams in it. OK, I honestly have to admit that I never wrote any of my dreams in that novena. I was hesitant to even pencil anything in. Back then, I was still a marketing and communications specialist, and even though things were going so well in terms of my growth in that business, I was still kind of uncertain whether my path really belonged there or not.

So at the opening number, there I was onstage, playing a first-time attendee. As my greeters made their entrance, Meg handed me a brand new novena as a prop. I had put it in my back pocket and forgot that it was there until the end of the day. I may be rationalizing at this point, but maybe this may also be some kind of realization. Now that I had left that former line of work and had returned to theater, to performing freelance, was the new novena a sign that I could finally write down the dreams that I am now sure about? The dreams that had developed this year that I am truly meant to do for God's glory? Was I cast to play this part for a reason, to receive that novena at that moment, for that simple realization?

I'm not exaggerating when I say that this realization was so overwhelming that my eyes filled up with tears when all these thoughts came to mind.

This year, during this quarter, I had come home in more ways than one. From attending Feast sessions sporadically to regularly again, from being just a mere attendee to using my core gift of the performing arts to be a servant, and being part of a glorious event such as the Kerygma Conference, and more importantly, from being detached to finding another home in new friends I now consider part of my big family in the Feast. Yes, this quarter is full of enlightenment and empowerment for me, and that is one big blessing I am very grateful for. And to think that the year isn't even over yet.

Photos courtesy of The Feast Bay Area's Facebook page.

Here's to December, a new month after a very fulfilling November. It may be the last month of the year, but it's never too late for things to happen. More importantly, it's never too late for more blessings to come.