Also published on our LAC blog, The Pond

Rediscovering Durian - Julia Arenas

It was a hectic, hot visit to Bukidnon with my uncle during Holy Week. I was a bit weary on Tuesday when we arrived. I’d been cramming a script and rushing an edit the night before. Oops, a confession?

The heat that almost baked me was trapped between a metal roof and the concrete floor of a basketball gym. Around a thousand highschool graduates sweating in togas were herded into rows. If I had graduations my way that day, the guys would be in board shorts, the girls in swimsuits, and everyone would still have their hats. I imagined it that way instead. I’d begun shooting their guest speaker, then I suddenly blinked and realized I’d been shooting the podium with my eyes closed for around three minutes. The sun fiercely beat down on that roof. I began to have doubts that I’d get to enjoy any remaining part of that day. That was until my uncle had a photo op promoting a local fruit that was his favorite.

He presented the packaged and peeled durian fruit to me quite candidly and asked for an extra plastic spoon. I pursed my lips thinking. I had tasted durian years before and didn’t enjoy it, maybe because it was a different kind and wasn’t fresh. I was urged to try it again. I held onto the words my uncle said to convince my aunt who’d become a durian devotee, “It’s like custard.” I took a spoonful and paused. It was smelly, creamy, but yummy. I took another, he gladly left me the rest. The next morning, a number of resort guests shot irritated glances my way when I had it again for breakfast. I didn’t care. They didn’t know what they were missing, or smelling maybe. My uncle offered words of comfort “You will learn that it is a lonely man’s fruit.”

I sent an SMS message to two friends: “Smelly, creamy, yummy durian.” One replied “Eeewww.Yuck” and the other replied saying she was envious.

I remembered a line from a poem I wrote, which wasn’t about durian, but it did describe my new moment with the uncanny fruit quite well: “It would shut eyelids and widen the creases of our smiles.” And that it did.

I've been looking at my old online journal in blogspot.  I was going through a lot when I started that site roughly 3 years ago.  It's amazing how sure I sounded about God or at the very least how sure I was trying to sound because I was up to my neck in Spiritual testing.  In a strange way, though I would never say I'd want to be tested again, I long for the white hot intimacy I had with God that time.  It was really just Him and me for those years with all that was going on around me.  I pray it doesn't take something bad to remind me of the intimacy He and I share to this day.

Looking back, the right way...

Tuesday, May 25, 2004
4:05 PM
I accompanied my cousin to his co-ed Bible study today somewhere in Katipunan, as soon as I got home from work. Unlike most Bible studies, I found this one was quite different. First off, the location was a house that's been turned into a place of ministry, particularly for teens and young adults seeking the Lord. We were led up to the second floor and were prompted to remove our footwear at the top of the stairs. I entered the small "upper room" which was carpeted, to find a small group of around 20 young men and women, college students mostly, seated randomly in a circle on the floor. At the head of the circle was a caucasian man, who later I would learn was Bro. Phillip.

The subject for tonight was the different soils of growth for people exposed to God's Word. It began with the parable of the farmer sowing seeds which starts in Luke 8:4. What especially affected me tonight was a comparison that Phillip asked us to make between "infatuation" and "true love", two topics commonly spoken about among people my age.

The answers were obvious. Infatuation is a highly conditional state of mind which consists of the forming of and admiration of an image or picture represented by someone that we have encountered. True love involves enjoying or delighting in someone for the complete person that they are beyond the picture they first project, complete meaning inclusive of traits that may even shatter the ideal images we have formed based on them and expectations of them. An infatuation is shifty and cannot last, because it floats on altering inner desires and circumstances. As we grow, learn, and change, infatuations change too. True love chooses to love, commits to love, and does not shift, no matter what the circumstances are.

Suddenly, the two points were taken into a different perspective. Each was aligned to our relationship with God. The problem that most Christians who do not grow have is that...they are merely "infatuated" with God. The idea of being holy, the idea of being loved, the idea of being saved, and even the idea of being awed for our Christlike reputation lures us into an infatuation with God...an expectation of what a relationship with Him can do for us, can make people see in us. Then, our so called "love" stops more or less exactly when we realize He wants us to go deeper for Him regardless of circumstance. When His desire for us leads us out of our "pretty picture", we get turned off or burned out, then once more, we lose the fire, and become complacent.

What would it take in my life to kill this infatuation I have with my Savior and turn it into real love? It would have to begin with my finding out what He wants for me, and what He wants me to do. It would have to begin with an intimate exploration of Who He is and what His unshakeable principles are. It would have to begin with more time for just me and Him, time alone with nothing between us except the conversation of two beings who delight in one another's company and would not want to be anywhere else. It would have to begin with my recognizing His voice so that when He calls, I'll come running without a doubt that it's Him. What are the other steps you suddenly take, as you unconsciously fall in love with someone? Well, ho ho, look over there...to those people who've been scorched by the flames of love, remember how you first fell? What did it take, what did you give, and how did you fan the flame?

How would it feel if you were to know the fire of love burned within you so hot for someone, yet that one who said she/he loves you back is obviously lukewarm and unsure? For others, how did it feel to be loved back lukewarmly, didn't you realize it might be better if they didn't pretend they loved you back the same way? God feels the same way about me:
Revelation 3:15-17"15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. "
I want to fall in love all over again, with Him. I want this crush to turn into a reality. Jesus is in love with me, who He made me to be, whether or not His love is unrequited. I am not yet in love. I'm still dating Him again.

So in your Spiritual love life, are you infatuated, or in love?