Meditation on Fidelity

November 5,2010
5:33a.m.

Arghhhh…I woke up so early again.
I kept hugging and hugging my pillow hoping to feel it breathe and for it to hug me back.
I miss my human pillow. I long to bury my head under his arms while he cradles me.
I miss my daily dose of 100 hugs.
Tossing and turning was not helping so I reached for the reading lamp and got my book.
A long walk to forever.
Hmmm…very romantic and quite disturbing.Next.
A Meditation on Fidelity.
Ok…this is more like my cup of tea this morning.
I see the dark heavy grey clouds outside my window. White patches tell me the golden rays are coming out soon…hoping to get sunny kissess from the heavens.
Why am I so alive from 3am to 8am and the rest of the day…I want to puke or just bury my head among the pillows?
Someone just gave me a glowing compliment on my penned thoughts. I want to say likewise and I think you should do more of it as well.
Page 32-36 of The Chain of Love, Essays for Daily Living by Joseph Galdon SJ.

The problem with commitments, as we all know so well, is not making them., but keeping them. We make a hundred commitments, but how many of them do we really keep? It’s fidelity that causes all the problems and all the heartaches in life. Carmen Caltagirone ( Friendship as Sacrament) says that we live in an “era of broken promises, forgotten commitments and failed relationships.” I don’t know what the statistics are on broken marriages in the Philippines. We don’t keep those statistics. I guess, because we are afraid to admit that there are so many broken marriages ( or at least separated or polygamous couples) in our country. I see so much evidence of those broken marriages in the young people I meet in school, on retreats and in counselling situations. Their stories can break your heart sometimes. There is nothing more tragic than a young teenager who is trying to convince himself ( and others) that it really doesn’t matter if his father ( or his mother) has another family and has half brothers and sisters whom he has never met.

Well, I guess, since this book was printed 1993 statistics then would be prettier than now. With the OFW demand…maybe it has more than quadrupled.

Broken marriages are the most obvious debris of infidelity in our society. But there is also much infidelity in friendship as well. I was very sad the other day when a young teenager told me that she didn’t have any friends at all. “ you can’t trust them.” She said. “ Friends are always going to betray you and hurt you.” No wonder Simon and Garfunkel sing about being a rock and an island. “ if I had never loved, I never would have cried.” That’s a sad commentary about friendship in our modern world. It’s almost as sad as Simon and Garfunkel’s other son about the “ Sounds of Silence” “ Take my hand that I might reach you. Hear my words that I might teach you. But my words, like silent raindrops, fell and echoed in the well of silence.” Shattered friendships are almost as sad as broken marriages in a world that doesn’t put much value on fidelity.

Tsk tsk…for the Divorce proponents in the halls of our Congress…maybe this can easily be translated into freedom. But…if you look at the ole big book…the top 10 rules does not say explicitly. But the last few laws tell you not to lust too much in flesh and with the eyes.
There are 10 more short and very insightful paragraphs..I wanna skip them and zero in the line” When you are having trouble with fidelity that means you are having trouble with a person.”It continues” Fidelity, therefore is essentially a response to the commitment of the other to me.”

The other…sounds very familiar. Someone just mentioned that term to me and never got to clear my confusion.

It continues:” It must be provoked by the love of the other for me.”

Him or you?

Furthermore: “ Only then do I respond with fidelity to the other love for that I have seen in the other person.”

Him or you? Hahaha, my thoughts are getting more convoluted. With intent or not, only God knows.

This last part is really quite funny: “ I laughed because it was pretty hard to conceive of a commitment that was a response to a love that had shown itself in a few days. It was attraction, perhaps, infatuation, maybe, or indigestion that accounted for the butterflies in her stomach, but certainly not a commitment that could support fidelity.”

I found this part really hilarious.
Infanticipation has symptoms so similar to butterflies and indigestion. Frequent passing gas is a relief and a blessing. I wonder why it happens, when I do not eat much food.
Hmmmm….
I see the light outside much brighter now…But the light grey overcast cloud do not permit the wonderful sun rays to reach me today. That is alright. I accept that some things have to be this way.
But I remain restless and desirous in my state of utter undesirablity.
And look at 6:21 am the horizon outside my window is bursting with a spectacular shade of gold, basking my working area with a golden calm while I get kissed a million times that it makes me warm and tingle inside and out.
Just maybe like if I got my first real one from my childhood crush. (wink!wink!)