The Holy Days: A Time for Renewal?

december will soon be ending. The world didn’t end last Friday 21. The pain in the ligament of my right leg haunts me still after two weeks. Apart from that, life continues as it had before. There is change, of course, but the process of life follows the same cycle most of the time.

 

As I look ahead at the new year of 2013, I can’t help but look back at where I was this time in 2012 and where I am here today - a few days before the new year. I know that there were successes and moments during the ending year that had an ending I didn’t expect. These one may call “failures” and, in a sense, they are failures. And, perhaps I feel my greatest failure has been my attempt to live independently at the Akwarell. Especially since, as readers of this blog know, I had high hopes for this step in securing my future independence.

 

Unfortunately, there are many reasons why I felt that this wasn’t working out. Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate to talk here about why I have decided, after considering everything, that I wasn’t ready to live the way I was living at Akwarell.  I know and regret that I have failed and disappointed the many people who have helped me to go through this experience. And yet, as the days passed, I grew painfully aware that I was living a lie. That I was unhappy and that this wasn’t the way I wanted to live my future if I had the choice. And, thankfully, I had the choice.

Right now, I still feel bad about this decision. A decision which was announced in the local news and will probably continue haunting me some time after the new year. This makes me feel like a failure. And as I struggle with the pain in my leg, I do feel rather alone because there’s so much that I’m going through on an inner level that I admit that I don’t always understand myself. I feel like crying during meditation as I uncover thoughts that appear to be ever present in my mind. Childhood thoughts, when I was more active and physically independent, where I would dream of the time I would be an adult and live my life as I wanted. The time, perhaps, I was less cynical about the world and when I still saw hope in others and in the world. A time when I still believed in myself.

 

Adulthood revealed a different reality. A reality where people do their best to get what they want at the cost of exploiting or ruining the lives of others. Adults who seek for themselves and only for themselves or those thy said they “loved”. Adults who go on through life without values or ethics while pretending to be self-righteous, if not holy, people. Adults intoxicated by their desires, consumed by their hate and comfortable in an ignorance that fails to see beyond prejudice and discrimination. This is a painful reality but I refuse to become more of the same for the sake of fitting in and “being nice” at the expense of others.. Just to conform.

And we are often forced to conform. This is the way we are socialised in order to survive in society. People who refuse or somehow challenge the “system” risk to be put aside in one way or another. I realise that I have gone through most of my life trying to conform and trying to be liked. Perhaps it’s time to act in a way grounded in the value of compassion which not always conforms to social norms. 

However, this is NOT my new year’s resolution. This is a lifelong commitment to be authentic to myself and open to the contribution of others in my life. A choice that goes beyond faith and is based on reason and the fact of humanity. A humanity prone to the wasting of time. A humanity that is impermanent, not immortal and vulnerable to the forces of matter and energy. A humanity that is permanently dependent on the world and other human beings living on this world.

Some critics may conclude that this message I share on this holiday or even “Holy Day” is rather secular and inappropriate given the feeling associated with this season - love, peace and compassion.

However, a close reading might reveal otherwise. For why is this time the West has long associated with the birth of Christ, the only time during the year when we are urged to give to those society considers “less fortunate”? When, in truth, society itself tends to create the conditions of social injustice leading to the wrong distribution of wealth, abuse or exploitation? As if the state of fortune is an inevitable, even inalterable, fact of nature?

Renewal, I firmly believe, doesn’t require us to make any radical changes in our life and may co-exist with existing belief systems or philosophies. This time when we celebrate holidays should become more of Holy Days. Not in any religious sense of the phrase. But, rather, as times when we awake to the reality that surrounds us. To our own limits and inescapable vulnerability as animals endowed with the potential to think.

This renewal can be painful because it forces us to face that, in reality, we own nothing and that, at the end of it all, we are nothing - if it wasn’t for the people in the world, the life that surrounds us and the elements that have been here before us and who have played a part in who we are today.

Genuine renewal requires us to to be authentic to ourselves.

To recognise that our whole is more simply than a sum of our individual characteristics. And, yes, renewal requires us to strip away any delusions we might have about who we are and our place in the world. It might mean accepting our vulnerability as persons. It may require that we stop and admit to ourselves and to the world that we have failed. And, perhaps, it is then when we can hope to gain real growth. When we can look beyond the pretensions that cloud our judgment. However well intentioned and sincere we may be. For no one is in our same situation, our life remains often misunderstood or even rejected.

 

I confess that it was difficult putting this entry together. It may be unclear at times. However, before I can speak of renewal I thought I should first look at my life. While I see faults in the world around me, I also see faults in who I  am and what I have gone through as a person. As long as I remain a human being, I can’t separate from the world as I remain dependent on the world. It feels bad to feel a failure. But it’s sometimes necessary to look back and realise your mistakes. Mistakes we do and do. And even when you try to do the right thing, it is sometimes the case when you’re excluded and rejected because you’ve got a different account to share. You are dehumanised and robbed of your sense of humanity just because you’re different. I’m afraid to face the future at times.

 

I  come to some kind of end. An end to a stream of thoughts about my life and my hopes for the future. This will be the last entry of 2012. I hope next year will bring about better days and bright futures. Yet, I do not know. The future being an unknown shaped by every decision I take today. I know already that it will be hard as I have to deal with health problems. Again, I am scared but also hopeful that I’ll be able to live my life day by day. Building my strength and continue in my practice of self-growth.

 

To you, the reader, I wish all the best for 2013 and for every day of your life. May you find the peace, health and happiness to live your life to the fullest. For, whatever we have, the present moment remains the only thing we have for a while. Everything comes and goes and we must be prepared to give meaning to our lives for no one will do this for us. And we shouldn’t expect that either.. 

 

I thank you for reading through this entry. I hope that you have found parts that are useful to your life. I may have not succeeded. But, in either case, accept my gratitude for supporting this blog over these past months.

 

I wish you all the happiness for new year’s day. More importantly, I wish you that in 2013 you continue to grow in happiness and compassion.

 

I hope that 2013 will be an occasion when we may all may find authentic happiness and be true to our shared humanity.

 

Enjoy!

The Akwarell Speech: A Message on Independence, Hope and Thanksgiving

Opening Statements

Welcome your excellencies, members of parliament, distinguished guests, family and friends and all those of you who came to celebrate this occasion.

An occasion so important in my life and in the life of my other friends who will be joining me in this new experience...

Today, we are here to celebrate the official opening of our new home, Akwarell*.

To mark this occasion, I wish to share some of my thoughts about what this means to me.

About Community...

At present, Akwarell is just a building. But, I hope, together with my friends, we will turn this building into a home, in the best senses of the word. I think that the name we have chosen for this house: 'Akwarell', expresses how we want this home to be a place to express who we are both as individuals and as a community.

Indeed, in the same way an artist would paint the akwarel, we hope this building will serve us to express our best colours but, at the same time, create something that we could only create with one another. A community of friends.

About independence

However, what Akwarell means goes even beyond that. Akwarell is a place where we can be more independent. Here, it's important to explain what I mean by independence.

Independence does NOT mean we will do everything on our own. Independence does NOT mean we don't need anybody any longer. Independence means being able to make our own choices. Independence means having the necessary help and support to fulfil our full potential. And, in truth, no one in society can live on his/her own. We all need each other in life.

Concluding Remarks

There are many people whom we must thank for making all this possible, each in our different way.

For my part I must thank my parents and all my family, my friends and my work-mates at KNPD. If it hadn't been for all of you, I would not be here today.

However, today was only possible because of the work carried out by pioneers such as Mons Azzopardi who wanted to give us, disabled people, back our life and dignity. Mons Azzopardi who also helped change the Church's approach to disability from a question of false charity to one of social responsibility. I must also thank those who followed in his footsteps at Id-Dar tal-Providenza, Mons. Gatt and Fr Martin Micallef.

I think that my friends who will be moving in Akwarell in the coming days will agree with me when I say that we are indebted to all those of you who continue to help and support us to achieve the best possible quality of life.
I trust in your continued support.

Thank you all!

Have a good day...

Footnotes

As explained in my last entry Meditations in Watercolor, last Thursday, I participated in an activity to inaugurate the official opening of our new home at Qawra. I explained how I was asked to be one of the speakers for the occasion - especially since I‚ll be one of the ones who will be living there for the forthcoming future. Since some have expressed the wish to get an idea of what my speech was about, I have decided to share the text I used as a guide in document for my speech. Incidentally, I would later discover that November 22 was also Thanksgiving in the US, so it‚Äôs a speech appropriate to mark such a day - which was, in a sense, an occasion of expressing my thanks and gratitude for the opportunity to live more independently.

*The word "Akwarell" is the Maltese word meaning "water-colour painting".

Meditations in Watercolour...

It’s official. I will be moving soon to my new house at Qawra. This house, made possible thanks to the funding and support of, mainly, the local Church and the state, was officially opened. Given that, behind this project, there were important stakeholders, it was inevitable that this event was covered by local media.

I was asked to be one of the speakers. As one of the three residents who are going to live there, I was chosen to write a short speech and deliver it during the official opening. I am not a stranger to public speaking but I always get a little bit anxious before speaking. Especially since I was asked to talk about an event which will radically change my life and the lives of two other mates who I will be sharing my house with.

In my speech, I wanted to convey two main ideas as I reflect ed on what this move would mean to me as a disabled person. I remember how I often thought about the prospect of living on my own but, recent occasions when my health and general condition regressed, I feared that this dream would remain just that. A dream. So, when I was asked whether I would want to live in my own place, I grabbed the opportunity. I had my doubts, of course and I still do.But, sometimes, you must take a leap into the unknown.

In my speech, I also wanted to express my deepest thoughts about this important moment in my life. I expressed my hopes that, together with my mates, this building will not remain a construction made of stones but, I hope will become a community of friends. We chose to call our new home “Akwarell”, which is the Maltese word for “water colour painting” and I explained how our individual differences as disabled people could be compared to the colours found on an artists’ palette. We all have our distinct qualities. We all have our unique beauty. Yet, like the blend of colours found in a water colour painting, together we can create a thing far greater than who we are as individuals.

Another reflection I shared concerned the question of independence. I tried to explain what I meant to me to live independently. That is wasn’t about doing everything on my own. That it wasn’t about denying the support of others. I tried to explain how independence meant to me, as a disabled person, the opportunity to make choices over my life. And even if I may need the support and assistance of others to realise my choices, as long as it’s my decision, then I’m independent. I also reflected on the fact that nobody in real life is truly completely independent from another as we all, disabled or not, depend on one another to live in this world (1).

Finally, I talked about how all the people in my life have contributed to making this moment possible. How, if it wasn’t for the people who sustained me throughout my life - my parents, family, friends, work mates and many others I knew and others I didn’t know - I might have been a different person. I also talked about how if it hadn’t been for visionaries like Mons Azzopardi, a charismatic priest, who worked to promote the idea that we, disabled people, had a right to an equal human dignity which challenged the false idea of charity which belittled us to inferior examples of human beings. I expressed my gratitude because thanks to people like Mons Azzopardi and those who followed in his footsteps, Mons Gatt and Fr Micallef (today), that we have a culture shift also in the Church (2).

Even if I am committed to Buddhist practice, I cannot deny that if it hadn’t been for the good works carried out by the Church in ensuring social justice, I wouldn’t have the opportunity today to live my life to its full potential. I’m also grateful for this and for being able to have a choice in how I live my life and in how to express my authentic being. I remain indebted to the many people who have helped me every step of the way. That, I may never be able to repay. I decided to spend this weekend at home where I have lived most of my life. I’m sure I’ll have moments of doubt on whether I was really ready to make this transition.

However, I feel that, as with any change, there will always be a degree of uncertainty. It’s part of the process of life and refusing to accept the cycle of change leads to decay and death. I will be probably doing a lot of meditation over the coming weekend. However, I trust that this change will bring me new experiences and a fresh insight into who I am and on my relation to others and the world.

For now, I can just say thank you to all those who helped me get to where I am today. To who I am today. Thank you!



Footnotes:
(1) This idea was inspired by the idea of co-dependence found in Buddhist teachings, or the idea that everything depends on another to exist.
(2) Another idea borrowed from dharma, or the idea that we create and are created simultaneously by other objects in the world (whether material or abstract).