Motherhood Blessings

 

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Traveling Light

"Travel light.. and go where the wind blows you..."

I first heard the line above in a mass homily, and it has stayed with me since. I am drawn to the feeling of freedom it alludes to.

Traveling light, without the usual years-worn baggages, with mind and heart fully focused on the road ahead... and with the gentle wind of His Spirit blowing behind my back and moving me forward towards new territories yet unexplored... towards new ways of living more free and easy and light.

Midlifing?  :=)


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Solitude

It's hard to capture in words the beauty of silence and solitude, as this is something best experienced than talked about. 

 

A walk along narrow pathways surrounded by greens,

sounds of crickets and birds as if singing in unison,

alternating light and shadows playing on the ground,

 

the smell of burning leaves intermingled with scented bushes, while wind whispers through the trees and blows on one's cheeks and arms..

 

Sitting still, with mind empty

 

but heart open..

as silence becomes prayer,

and prayer becomes rest

in His cradle of unhurried time and quiet space.

 

 

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