Love, Pray, Eat!

Have you ever been on a fast train racing through the verdant countryside, or a speedboat surging past graceful rock formations on emerald waters?

You miss the resplendence of nature and you have to look back to see what you may never behold again. The longer you look, the tinier the objects you’ve left behind.

 Most of us are on that fast train or speedboat, racing towards our destination. Having a destination is good, but it shouldn’t be at the price of a blurred view of the present, of the grandeur passing us by — a riot of flowers, your child’s proud first steps or his graduation, a rare family reunion. There is a salad of everyday experiences that must be savored, not gulped down.

One Wednesday in the more than 15,000 days of our lives, my batchmates from the Assumption Convent (Makati) got off our fast trains and speedboats and smelled the flowers, the cut grass and the aroma of steaming sukiyaki.

As our batchmate Nina Huab-Cruz noted before we left Manila, we were going to “Love, Pray and Eat.”

Love

Twelve of us (we christened our flexible group the “Divine Tarts”) trooped into two “school buses” on our way to the sanctuary of oncologist Gary Lorenzo (Lisa Lorenzo-Uy’s brother) overlooking Taal Lake. It was a riot inside each vehicle as we turned into high schoolers anew, joking, laughing, sharing secrets, turning our drivers crazy with our directions (“Follow that car.”, “Where’s the nearest restroom?”, “We have to meet Arlene in the next exit.”,  “Where’s the Star Tollway?”, “Haay, mag-hazard lights na lang tayo so we don’t lose each other.”, etc. etc.). We ate junk food and washed them down with tsismis. It was pure love — of each other, no matter how much we have changed (or not changed) since graduation. I think we were sometimes as unruly as our children!

Finally, we beheld the glass sanctuary of Doc Gary in Mataas na Kahoy in Batangas. We were rendered speechless by the sight of it. It was a virtual viewing deck to one of Nature’s best performances — a placid lake framed by coconut and mango trees, tiny volcanoes strewn over its still waters. We listened to the Word of God, we listened to the leaves rustling from the trees, we listened to our heartbeats, we listened to the deepest prayers of our friends and echoed them. And all this as we communed with God, nature and each other on a glass house overlooking Taal Lake. At that point, love was like a woolen pashmina on bare shoulders on a cold night. It enveloped all of us. Negative vibes were thrown out to the winds of Taal.

Pray

“Being here today is a prayer in itself,” said our moderator, our own batchmate Michelle Dayrit-Soliven. It was a prayer of thanksgiving and praise.

Michelle is an uttered prayer as well as an answered prayer. “A year ago, you all looked so sad in my lanai when you found out I had cancer,” she told us.  She is more than just a cancer survivor because she more than just survives. She thrives. And she is offering her second lease on life as a platform so that others who are straining, tiptoeing to see the kindness and mercy of God can see Him more clearly.

Doc Gary says that whenever he sees Michelle, his patient, he is “humbled.” A gifted doctor, he says he may have given the same treatment, the same medicine to several patients, but not everybody is blooming like Michelle. In short, he says it is not entirely up to him and ultimately, credit goes to a Divine Healer.

Our half-day retreat was anchored on “Jesus: Person of Communion.” It is a reflection written by our former Religion teacher Cory Villafania. “No matter how busy He was, Jesus made time to BE with His Father to enjoy His presence and to consult Him about many decisions He had to make …

“Flowing from this communion with His Father, He related with people with love and mercy, and much COMPASSION. He ‘entered into the chaos’ and pain or sickness of His neighbor and brought them healing of body and spirit: the poor, the sick, the lonely, the sinner, the ostracized, the women, the discriminated against, the possessed, the lost…”

Michelle deftly moderated our retreat and made sure each of us was a balm to those who had lost a loved one, to those who were suffering erosions in their family life, to those who were at a crossroads. We also shared in each other’s blessings and made sure we prayed for those who were not there. Most of us actually prayed for those who were miles away — one of them a classmate in the US who had just found out her husband had stage 4 cancer.

Someone prayed for the people “who packed our chutes.” Family members and colleagues who made sure they took care of our work so that we could get off the fast train for a day and be still.

In the middle of our prayer and sharing, we just stopped, awestruck. The sun, like a giant egg yolk, was setting magnificently behind the clouds. We stepped out, stood on the balcony and gazed at another of Nature’s most applauded performances.

Our expressions were a silent prayer of praise. Words were superfluous.

Eat

We crowned our day with a sumptuous dinner at Irori, a Japanese restaurant in Banay-Banay, Lipa City, about 15 minutes away from Doc Gary’s sanctuary. Irori is owned and managed by three batchmates — Ichu Mojares-Cadiz, Katharina “Tolen” Tolentino and Dola Arguelles. (Call 043-706-1927 for reservations.)

Irori means “hearth,” the heart of a Japanese home, especially in winter. The restaurant was truly our Irori that night. Over sushi, sukiyaki and sake, grilled mushrooms and chicken skewers and gyoza, we gathered to weave together the beautiful memories of the day.

We had gotten off the fast trains and the speedboats of our lives. It was a good time to burp. (You may e-mail me at [email protected].)