Life: A celebration of the best things

Today is the first Sunday after Easter, and it is called Laetare or Gaudere Sunday meaning, "Rejoice and be glad therein!" And I begin with an appropriate Chinese quote that goes, "You can be content even if you are poor, but if you are not content, you will be unhappy even if you gain riches."

Through turbulent times, I’ve realized that the shortest road from the dumps to recovery is to be still and remember what I should be thankful for. It’s hard to keep still, isn’t it? So it’s a conscious effort. And to be thankful? Just look around. The best things in life are free.

For comfort, I look up, upward at the biggest, broadest sky which will never fall on our heads. Isn’t it humbling? That’s the idea, and Mother Earth wasn’t called that for nothing.

Let us rejoice that we have the gift of life. Celebrating life is a state of mind and a personal choice. An unhappy mind makes an unhappy person. Besides, life is too short not to be enjoyed every single day. By living one day at a time, one can start enjoying life right now. Celebrating life means enjoying family and friends, good health and work on unfortunately borrowed time.

I can say that happiness is a decision one makes and not an emotion one feels. Certainly bad things happen in our lives at times, but that is when we decide that we are going to be happy in spite of the circumstances.

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One’s living on wonderful memories makes us appreciate the joy of life. I remember fish jumping up and down on the waters amazingly racing against our speed boats on the vast Celebes Sea. The thought of fathoms deep is frightening but a spray of seawater on my face from a naughty wave is fun. I’ve seen birds standing on lonely folsom’s on that sea with a pair too tired from their flight resting for a breath.

I celebrate the greater aspects in the smallest things in life. Have you observed ants? It isn’t silly, they’re amusing. I hate those red ants, but red or black they can carry 10 times their weight. I also admire their laborious tasks. The job of the queen ant is to lay eggs, which the worker ants look after.

Worker ants are sterile, so they look for food, look after the young, and defend the nest from unwanted visitors. In fact at night, the worker ants move the eggs and larvae deep into the nest to protect them from the cold. During the daytime, the worker ants move the eggs and larvae of the colony to the top of the nest, so that they can be warmer. Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a rubbish dump! Aren’t they worthy of admiration?

Watch a spider. He weaves a net so fast. It’s astonishing. The combined length of thread in a spider’s web is about 20 to 60 meters, and it can take the spider up to three hours to make an orb of a web. On an equal weight basis, spider silk is twice as strong as steel. Simply put, it is the toughest material known, and is endeared by the Chinese for centuries. What a wonder.

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When was the last time we listened to the sound of laughter and appreciated it? The operational word is "listened" – not "heard." Isn’t laughter contagious? Doesn’t the genuine sound of happiness make you hopeful? When I’m in my office deep in work and I hear Rosemarie my executive assistant’s laughter, it makes me smile, even laugh, too! It offers a respite from the seriousness of our workload. Don’t get me wrong are our work, we always enjoy it.

I’ve heard my daughters giggling in their bedroom and I sit still, pause for a while, and savor the moment of my once youthful laughter in high school. No, not a half century ago, but, yes, still with Chingbee and Lyn on the subject of swollen lips from trying on lipstick. Ah, memories… I run to uncover the truth in my daughter’s room, their joy intoxicating me. "Yak!" And I find it’s a lick on a cheek from a rowdy dog. I realize, though there’s nothing like having happy children who get along well. Worried sick, I notice the tapping of Pablo my grandchild’s fat fingers on the table. It’s ever comforting knowing there’s a healthy child around me even if he’s unkissable with a mouthful and a chin covered with chocolate and the sweet scent of a baby’s drool.

Happiness – it’s around us if we let our eyes recognize the value of every human being in whom we can derive a sense of celebrating life.

I know that listening to my musically inclined grandson Robbie play the xylophone: "Wawa, it’s metal so it’s called metallophone…"; or seeing Martina execute a ballerina’s bow; or just a moment of star-gazing with China’s telescope; and especially singing with my dad Desi his favorite old tunes take away the fact that there are bills to pay (oh, my gosh!) and political intrigues to face.

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I find refuge in the saints. They have the power to turn things around. At times I carry on a conversation with them in my mind… mind you, not out loud! I even realize I’m frail in faith as I focus on the benefits we’ve gained from their sufferings. If you do, you, too, will smile and rejoice.

Surely, their example of strength from their great trust in the Lord is consoling enough to knock sense into us, if we allow them to speak, and us, to listen to them.

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Look, we can see with our eyes the colorful world. Our dreams we can make come true as we wish upon a star, and our ideals we can expound to perfection, if we just use our brains.

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Really, even the wisest sometimes tend to ignore the most precious God-given gifts when they are overwhelmed by their own troubles. Right? Even St. Peter did when he denied knowing Christ three times as the cocks crowed.

Above all, I think celebrating life means submission, laying our problems in surrender in God’s hands, as innocently as the way children do. Anyway, God said he would never let us go through something that is too difficult for us to handle. That makes me calm and cool, and so I happily get on to tomorrow, and make it through!

God has given us the grace to live today, and celebrate life. We can bravely say now, "I am going to stay full of the joy of the Lord, as I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to celebrate my life and be happy." Celebrate yours, too.