Surprising Grace

A week ago I dropped (with some difficulty) all my work and other preoccupations, and took a bus an hour and a half out of the city to a Jesuit retreat house, where some of us are now taking a course on spiritual accompaniment. The retreat house is a peaceful place, surrounded by fields and bordered by towering, shade-giving balate trees. There is even a flock of (cute but admittedly dirty) sheep that comes by to graze at certain times of the day! I didn't quite expect how relieved and light I felt at being here, away from all the usual pressures and things cluttering up my mind. As I breathed in the atmosphere of the place I also came in touch with the deep longing for God in my heart that had been obscured by all these other things. I had felt for some time now in the grind of daily life like I was trying to draw water from an empty well, but was not quite aware of the strength of my desire to hear and talk about God and - perhaps most importantly - to experience God's lo...

As someone living and working in another country and culture, I have become quite familiar with the experience of “difference”. Some days I hardly notice it, having lived, breathed and moved in its shadow for so long. But at other times it still impinges, unwelcome, upon my consciousness: when I walk into the lunchroom and don’t understand the conversation with its jokes and innuendoes; when I try to make awkward conversation in Tagalog with the lady I buy vegetables from; or when my opinions on how we should live together as community seem to conflict with those of others. The first few months of working in the place where I have my ministry now was an especially interesting experience. As a Singaporean with a background in law, newly venturing into research and advocacy on social issues in the Philippines with colleagues who were sociologists, I felt quite often like a fish out of water and unsure of myself. One day as I was relating this to a companion, she asked, “Well, what d...