Catharsis:

Recently I've been pondering a lot about Catharsis. Catharsis is referred to as an emotional healing, purgatorial cleansing, release and closure about the past or past events by finally expressing a repressed emotion.

There are some events that we carry with us all our lives. Some good, some bad. These events are events in which we have not been able to receive any closure. Those specific events in which you have no closure may cause you to unconsciously replicate the same situation so that you find closure for the past through the present. For instance if you got out of an abusive relationship without any closure chances are that you will subconsciously seek out another abusive relationship and try to change the ending of this one to somehow get closure on the past.

Incomplete closure is always dangerous because you can get trapped in a vicious cycle of constantly replicating your past in an attempt to finally put an end to the stream of memories and the pain that accompanies it. As humans we always want a happy ending and it is perfectly natural to desire such a conclusion.

But to put an end to this vicious cycle you need something powerful. You need Catharsis. And how do you obtain it?

Let’s take a look at a story. Once upon time there were two best friends Jesus and Peter. For three years, they journeyed together, ate together, slept together, discussed random things together and were BFF’s in every way imaginable. Then disaster struck. Jesus was arrested. Peter’s friendship was tested by fire. He could either admit knowing this man and suffer a horrendous death with him or deny knowledge of him altogether. And Peter’s human side took over him. In his panic he renounced Jesus and all knowledge of him.

Imagine what Jesus felt at that moment. It was the lowest most desperate moment of his life and his best friend had just denied him. Not once, not twice but thrice. If it were me I would be so horribly crushed that I would have lost all faith in this traitorous friend. I would have judged him by what I saw and what I heard. And I saw him sitting among my enemies, I heard him deny me thrice. There would be no forgiveness for this betrayer.

But the reality of the situation was this. As soon as Peter denied Jesus, the enormity of what he had just done engulfed him. The horror of betraying his best friend crashed upon him and he went outside and wept bitterly. Jesus didn't get to see his friend’s remorse; He only saw the ugly side. But if it was me in His place and I had seen Peter’s regret I’m sure how I felt towards Peter would have changed. My heart would have softened, and I would have been able to forgive Peter much more easily.

You see the reality of the situation had not changed. The result and the outcome had not changed. I was still betrayed by my best friend. But how I felt towards that situation would change. I could rewrite the past in a better light, in a more complete way than my one sided viewpoint.

Over the past few days I've been able to see a lot of what happened behind the scenes. The events that happened way in the past which I saw only through my eyes, I was suddenly shown how the other person felt, what they went through. The reality of my past had not changed. But when my friends finally opened up, how I felt about the past changed. And as I pondered a beautiful feeling engulfed me.

A feeling of burdens being lifted, emotional release, purgatorial cleansing and closure. I had experienced Catharsis.

I encourage you to seek Catharsis. I encourage you to dig deeper into your past, to find out what happened behind the scenes, to look through the other person’s eyes. I encourage you to seek the truth and strive to arrive at the depth of the matter. I encourage you to forgo bias and prejudice and approach your past with a clear mind. I encourage you to stop repressing and finally start expressing.

I encourage you today to finally be free.

The power lies within you.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:32

Late have I loved You:

I've always been the kind of person to love intensely. There's never been a middle ground for me, either I love you to death or I wouldn't care if you left my life this very moment and walked away. Over the years my ability to express love has diminished but the love in my heart never did.

Saying I love you does not come easy to me. It's the hardest thing to admit to another, to make yourself vulnerable first, to give someone else the power of knowing that you care. It's hard to put yourself out there without getting any confirmation that they love you in return.

One night as I was lying in bed God asked me just as he asked Peter - Do you love me? I replied with my usual God you know that I can't say I love you easily but its there from my heart but He persisted. And I thought about it. Do I love Him?

People say that when you love someone you don't really need to think about it, that the response will leap to your lips the minute you've been asked because you are so sure, so confident, there remains no doubt that you care. But it took me a while as I pondered. Always a pessimist, I calculated the risks of admitting to someone that I love them.

And then I realized that there was no risk. That God had removed the risk by admitting that He loved me first, that He made himself vulnerable first, and He had already revealed just how desperately He wanted me.

And I was the one hesitating. Like oxygen God was always there, reliable, necessary to sustain life. And sometimes I forgot He was around but its only when you're without oxygen that you realize just how badly you need it to survive. Life without God was unimaginable, the world seemed to lose its color, He was always so dependably, so reliably perpetually there that I had started taking him for granted. And till He asked me I was unable to tell Him that I loved Him.

I realized in that moment just how much I needed Him, just how much I depended on Him, just how much I love Him. Late have I loved you Lord.

St Augustine puts this beautifully in his confessions. His words to God are like a love letter and perfectly describes the hunger for God.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved You. And see, You were within and I was in the external world and sought You there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which You made. You were with me, and I was not with You. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, You put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after You. I tasted You, and I feel but hunger and thirst for You. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is Yours."

I love you Lord.

Goodbye Friend:

I know you’ll never read this. Even if you did, you probably wouldn't figure out it was about you. You thought yourself perceptive but you were endearingly dumb that way.

I remember how we first met. That wow meeting that blew me away. The many times we spent together after that, the many emails, the billion phone calls. How we were never close inspite of that because I always kept you at a distance, waiting and watching to see if you’d come through.

I don’t know when I let you in – when I allowed you into my heart. It happened so gradually I never noticed but before I knew it myself you had become important to me.

I remembered that horrible day when it all unraveled. When the distance that had been building for some time came to fruition. I wish I could take that day back. Maybe we would still be friends.

I wish you saw me for who I really was, not whom you perceived me to be. I wish you looked at me as a human with feelings as acute as anybody else instead of the monster you painted me to be. We were so alike we could have been the best of friends but we ended up worse than enemies. I wish you didn't shield yourself due to fear because I had my shield up as well. How could we be friends if we both cannot be the first to take a step?

I wish I felt more sadness when you left.  I waited for the pain to come but it never did. You slipped out of my life as quickly as you slipped in. I wish in futility.

Finally I’m ready to let you go. I wish this moment was more poignant, more beautiful. But it’s neither of those things, it just is.

Goodbye Friend. I hope you live well wherever you are.

Let my words be few:

In response to my turmoil yesterday I finally got an answer. Galatians 6:9 – “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Finally Lord, You decided to give me a straightforward answer instead of riddles and vague statements. Thank You so much.

Writers are strange characters indeed. They are driven by emotions because emotions fuel their creativity. Emotions are what give their writing power. In their darkest times and greatest despair is when they can come up with the most magnificent works. Writers also have another quality – the ability to deliver words that cause the desired impact. They can cause intense joy or brew sorrow with mere words. And unlike physical wounds – wounds caused by words do not heal easily.

My biggest problem has always been my memory. Selective and manipulative. My mind is my worst enemy because I tend to remember bad memories and forget good ones.  With bad memories I remember clearly every word spoken, the time, the date, the place and not a single detail escapes my notice. In fact the negative memory is so strong that it casts a shadow on my good memories and causes me to rewrite the past in its light.

Clarity in thinking is really important for a writer. Even though we seldom understand others we are quite sure of ourselves. At any given moment we can pinpoint the source of our discomfort, we can isolate the emotion that is driving us, we can identify the person or the words that pain us. The mental cacophony in our heads might not make sense to others but we are quite sure of ourselves. Precision in thinking is what defines us and leads us to our next biggest problem.

Our creativity with words and our emotion driven nature can cause great harm when we don’t have pen and paper to release our feelings constructively. In a surge of emotion I can artistically pick and choose words deliberately that can hit the heart and wound terribly. I can select the phrases that can hurt a person the most and construct sentences that I cannot take back once delivered. My mind will remember and store past offences and repeat them at the opportune moment to boost my argument. Some say the pen is mightier than the sword. I’m afraid I disagree. The tongue is the mightiest of all.

Till date I have wielded the sword of my tongue heedlessly without thought. I have inflicted injuries far worse than physical injuries; I have cut the soul with my carelessness.

So Lord I ask of you - still the tongue that causes destruction and let my words be few. From my lips never let a word of discouragement pass but encouragement instead, never harsh barbs, but soothing words. Make me a channel of Your peace and through Your Grace alone let my words be like light in the darkness – bringing hope where there is despair.

Push and Pull:

The moon waxes and wanes and along with it rides the tides high and low. The moon gleams playfully in the night sky, pulling and pushing gently lulling the waves to its rhythm and the waves play along.

But I am not the wave that enjoys the unpredictable moon. Pushing and pulling my emotions is not funny in the least. I alternate between hope and despair. When I finally decided to let go and came to resigned acceptance why do you tease me this way?

I am not amused.

Pandora's Box:

There is an ancient Greek myth about a woman called Pandora who had a curiosity to be reckoned with. Her curiosity was so great that the gods decided to test her by giving her a pithos - a jar filled with a substance unknown and warned Pandora against opening the box. Naturally Pandora could not resist the temptation and opened the box and from it spewed grief, destruction, hatred, pain, sicknesses and many evils were loosed unto the earth. The only thing that remained in the box was Epiphus - Hope. Hope didn't leave on its own because hope never leaves until you decide to give it up.

Within ourselves I think we all have a Pandora's box just waiting to be opened. But unlike Pandora we have the opposite problem. Instead of opening it we keep it firmly shut. All emotions are compressed and are hidden behind a mask of serenity and indifference. And we collect and store away things till the box is filled to the brim and explodes with the slightest trigger. What's worse along with all the evils we let loose we also give up Hope - the one thing that would not leave on it's own.

If Pandora had not accepted the box in the first place she would not have been tempted to open it. If we had the honest habit of speaking our mind when perturbed in our souls there would be no pithos, no jar of destruction, no evil waiting to be released only Hope in the things to come.

Changing a habit that I've perfected over a lifetime is no easy feat. Indifference is my reality, the mask of serenity is my comfort zone to prevent myself from getting hurt. And like Pandora I'm tempted to slip into my old ways.

Stay close to me Epiphus - I won't give you up.

Heartstrings:

My heart is an instrument and on it You play a melody like no other. When You play, the music is heavenly and wonderful but some days I take it away from You and selfishly try to play it the way I want to. And then it is no melody, no symphony but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.

I want to let go of this rope but You tell me to hold on. I feel like a fool playing tug of war so ferociously when the other person has put down the rope and walked away. Still You tell me, hang on, wait, don't let go. I grow weary holding this rope and my heart is ever restless. Will I wait in vain forever or will my patience be rewarded?

I put down the rope and walk away. The music changes, jarring and disturbing all those who hear it. I run away from You but not for long. I want to hear that music again. I want to be another instrument in Your orchestra. And when my heart is once more in Your hands you create a Divine Symphony like never before.

I am impatient but for now I will hold the rope again and wait.

Purity, Chastity and Holiness:

I have a confession to make.  I love chastity. I really do. I know there are a lot of people out there who consider me crazy for my love for chastity. Some believe that I haven’t experienced life, that with my enforced celibacy until marriage I have somehow missed out on another dimension, a pivotal occurrence that will change my life. Some mutter shaking their heads that I’m a fanatic who hates sex and my forcefully repressed sexual urges might later lead to sociopathic tendencies. They think they have me figured out.

Well let me tell you something. They are wrong.

I didn’t always love chastity. On the other hand I hated it with a vengeance. It all started when a friend of mine got an obsession with chastity. He started reading some wonderful books like theology of the body and several other books of the like. Like an addict he jumped from hyperlink to hyperlink, resource to resource, striving to understand and absorb the truth about chastity. The books spoke to his heart, understood his struggles, the knowledge altered his perceptions and transformed him. In earnest he started applying these principles in his life and he was admirably enthusiastic. Maybe a little too much.

That’s where I came in. I was never very convinced about the concept of chastity. My thoughts and actions were largely influenced by social and cultural expectations and maybe a little holy fear that sex before marriage was a one way ticket to hell. I didn’t love chastity but I didn’t have a problem with it either. But when my well meaning friend accidently got overzealous with protecting his own body and chastity, I was pissed. I hated the hyperawareness it created when I was around him; I hated the fact that I couldn’t playfully pat him on the shoulder or casually shake his hand. I hated the fact that I had to tiptoe around him and I was so afraid that I would accidently touch his body and defile his chastity. I hated the fact that only his body was pure and sacred and I was unworthy, I was the sin that would make him impure. And I hated the culprit behind all this I hated chastity for making me feel repulsive.

You see my friend didn’t mean any harm. He didn’t even know that in his attempt for holiness and purity I was affected and felt averse to the concept. All the knowledge he got from the books was good and wonderful but it was also incomplete. Because chastity is not a one way street. It never was.

Chastity is not a selfish concept. Chastity is not about my body, my purity, my holiness. Chastity is love exemplified. It’s an unselfish love not just for myself but for you. You see because when someone approaches my body with a negative intent it’s not my body that gets defiled it’s their own, it’s not my immortal soul that gets affected but their immortal soul that takes one step away from the road to salvation.

Chastity is loving another’s soul so much that you want to assist them to heaven. That you would do anything to help them attain salvation. Chastity is love.

It was love that made St Maria Goretti cry out when her attacker tried to rape her. It wasn’t fear that she would be defiled, it was fear that his immortal soul would be irreparably damaged, it was dread that his ever enduring soul may not be able to go to heaven. She loved her attacker wholeheartedly, unselfishly and she wanted him to be able to experience eternal happiness.

And it is that love that made me embrace chastity. Not just my own soul is important but yours as well.  I love you just as I love myself. For it is in giving that you receive.