The HR Vocation

Within HR, there is a lot of opportunity to contribute to the growth and development of the human person. We guide the line managers in deciding what profiles they need and whom to bring into the organization. We orient new hires and guide their adjustment to a new culture and environment. We equip supervisors with tools and skills needed to shape behavior and provide useful performance feedback. We remind supervisors to listen to their staff's career aspirations, and teach them how to identify and address their development needs. We help ensure that a healthy leadership succession pipeline is in place, and that the leaders learn how to lead with a balanced combination of IQ & EQ. Aside from focusing on high potential talents, we also assist supervisors in turning around the behavior of staff who need more support for their lagging performance or lapses in character or work ethic.

When employees have personal problems that affect their ability to work effectively, many come to HR to seek help. Numerous trust relationships are built, and many a confidential word are brought out and shared within the privacy of the consultation rooms. Staff know that a good HR professional will be able to sensitively balance the actions needed to address their needs with the needs of the business.

Looking back on many years of being with HR colleagues, I have witnessed a lot of the group's genuine generosity in offering so much time, attention and focus in the service of others. Practically 90% of what is done is about serving others. In fact, oftentimes, HR folks end up putting everyone else's needs before their own. Now this may not really be the best thing to do, because one also has to be filled herself or himself, to be able to sustain work which is very others-centered.

If there are unsung heroes within the org, I think our HR colleagues can qualify to be called such - heroes and true carers for people, and for the organization.

If the CCO/CEO is like the father and head of the family, then HR is like the mother, the heart, looking after her children, our employees, making sure that their stay in the company is not just about going after profit goals, but is also very much about growing up and maturing into the persons they were all meant to be.

Yes, being in HR can be a genuine and meaningful way to live out a vocation of service to others. This is "the pearl of great price" that people in HR have discovered :=)

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Wise Nature's Way

Everyday several of us at home eagerly check the state of the plants and flowers around our simple garden. Each and every plant is lovingly inspected. And each and every flower bud that starts to bloom is looked at with high anticipation and excitement. I make it a point to take their "ID picture". Macro lens and ISO setting so that even the fine, little lines of their petals, and the shifts and variations in color, shade and lighting are captured. There is only a short window of time to take the photos while the bud flowers into its fullness, before it reverses and starts to dry up and shrivel, eventually making way for the next bud to appear.

Nature is very wise. It shows us something for our own life. When checking out the garden each day, I often get reminded about how each person possesses a beauty of his or her own, which when given the right care, can flower into fullness. When we pause to capture the essence of another's life and soul, the fine lines and colors in their life that can be captured like an "ID picture" make themselves known to us. Some whom we come to know stay with us for quite a time, while others are with us only briefly, before moving on in separate ways, making room for others to come in and out of our life.

When I take a photo of the flower, its beauty is captured and is here for me to keep. Just like with people in our life, once we have come to experience who they really are, they continue to remain a part of us even as we move along on separate journeys.

Wise nature's way.

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Lenten Love

Last Saturday at mass, it dawned on me how apt it was for Valentines Day and Ash Wednesday to fall on the same week this year. And that what both occassions have in common is LOVE. Valentines is a day of remembering people we love, and Ash Wednesday is the start of the church season where we commemorate the most beautiful act of love that has ever been done for us by God: His act of allowing His Beloved Son to suffer and die on the cross for our sake.



It seems odd - love? Lent? And yet it seems so right. Yes, how He loved us! Just like the song goes: "We remember how You loved us to your death, and still we celebrate, for You are with us here..." And, "What greater love is there than for a man to lay down his life for another..."

Next year, Valentines and Ash Wednesday will most likely fall on different weeks. So this year, I choose to consider the closeness of these two dates as special. I will think of it as a special signal for us to keep in mind the wonderful-ness of His great love, even as we reflect on the weight of His cross during the coming forty days.

Dakilang pag-ibig!

Soul within Soul

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The colors of the Advent candles
remind me of what I pray
we will truly come
to believe and experience
about
our soul within His,
each and every moment of our existence...

sculpture: "Grip of Grace" by Alex Tee


pink = our soul
purple = God's

Faith Like His Love

"My love for you is taller than the tallest mountain

deeper than the deepest ocean

wider than the widest horizon.

May your faith in me
be as tall
and as deep
and as wide
as my love for you..."


- Jesus

Therese and the Garden

.....In honor of St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

“...I understand how all the flowers God has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understand that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. So it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He has created smaller ones and those must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.” - St. Therese



"Yes, my Beloved, it is thus that my life's brief day shall be spent before Thee. No other means have I of proving my love than to strew flowers; that is, to let no little sacrifice escape me, not a look, not a word, to avail of the very least actions and do them for Love. I wish to suffer for Love's sake and for Love's sake even to rejoice; thus shall I strew flowers. Not one shall I find without shedding its petals for Thee...and then I will sing, I will always sing, even if I must gather my roses in the very midst of thorns - and the longer and sharper the thorns the sweeter shall be my song." - Story of a Soul, Chapter XI




"In times of aridity when I am incapable of praying, of practicing virtue, I seek little opportunities, mere trifles, to give pleasure to Jesus; for instance a smile, a pleasant word when inclined to be silent and to show weariness. If I find no opportunities, I at least tell Him again and again that I love Him; that is not difficult and it keeps alive the fire in my heart. Even though this fire of love might seem extinct I would still throw little straws upon the embers and I am certain it would rekindle." - XVI letter to her sister Celine





"Without love, deeds even the most briliant, count as nothings." - Story of a Soul, Chapter VIII.




"I have not the courage to force myself to seek beautiful prayers in books; not knowing which to choose I act as children do who cannot read; I say quite simply to the good God what I want to tell Him, and He always understands me." - Story of A Soul, Chapter X

"But on whom shall our poor heart lavish its love? Who shall be found that is great enough to be the recipient of its treasures? Will a human being know how to comprehend them, and above all will he be able to repay? There exists but one Being capable of comprehending love; it is Jesus; He alone can give us back infinitely more than we shall ever give to him." - Letter to her cousin, Marie Guerin

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Relics of St. Therese

"There is no artist who does not like his work praised, and the Divine Artist of souls is pleased when we do not stop at the exterior, but penetrating even to the inmost sanctuary which He has chosen for His dwelling, we admire its beauty." - Story of A Soul, Chapter IX (photo by H. Sy)

"The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity..." - VI letter to her sister Celine

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Relics of St. Therese

"Love attracts love, mine rushes forth unto Thee, it would fain fill up the abyss which attracts it; but alas! it is not even as one drop of dew lost in the Ocean. To love Thee as Thou lovest me I must borrow Thy very Love - then only, can I find rest." - Story of A Soul, Chapter XI

Thank you God, for the beauty of her soul!

Relic of St. Therese

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Song for the Journey

...a beautiful song for the journey...

I WALK THE KING'S HIGHWAY

I know not where the road will lead

I follow day by day

Or where it ends, I only know

I walk the King's highway. 
 

I know not if the way is long

And no one else can say

But rough or smooth, up hill or down

I walk the King’s highway.

And some I love have reached the end

But some with me may stay

Their faith and hope still guiding me

I walk the King’s highway.

The way is truth, the way is love,

For light and strength I pray,

And through the years of life, to God,

I walk the King’s highway.

The countless hosts lead on before

I must not fear nor stray

With them, the pilgrims of the faith

I walk the King’s highway.
 

Through light and dark the road leads on

Till dawns the endless day

When I shall know why in this life

I walk the King’s highway.

- E.A. Cummins, 1922