keep talking, i am listening!

i am no saint but i pray often. most times i am selfish and ask God for things (although, in my defense, the majority of the times i ask God to do things for others, and not for me), instead of thanking him for what he's given me. i do this too, but not very frequently. i think the main reason is this kind of prayer is usually monotonous. thank you, God, because i was able to do this trip or thank you, God, because i did well in that presentation or thank you, God, because my friend recovered from his illness... (actually, now i'm thinking i usually don't thank God for things he's done for others... maybe i should do that too).

i talked to father bob last semester about it. you don't know how to pray. as a child, you learned to pray the way your parents taught you, reciting an Our Father and a Hail Mary, then thanking God for whatever you received that day and that's it. as you grow up, you have to grow in your prayer too. you have to find your own personal way of talking to Him. this was definitely true. since i was a kid, every night i say some of these pre-made prayers, then ask for things, pray for people, give thanks. i do this at night while i'm in bed and often i fall asleep before i even finish my prayers.

father bob told me one way to discover your personal prayer is by means of this psychological test, the myers-briggs personality test. it's a profiling test based on jung, a very famous swiss psychologist, that tells you if you are introverted/extroverted, intuitive/judgmental, etc. (i don't recall all the categories)... and then, based on your type, there are some prayer books specially designed for that kind of people.

then given your type, you can see what kind of relationship you would have with each different type of people. i did the test last semester and found out i'm an entj, i think. then i asked a couple of my friends to do it too and the descriptions of each of our personalities and the way we interact was pretty accurate. i was very impressed. however, i still haven't moved on and looked for books that help me suit my prayer to my type. that's my homework after i go back to new haven.

in the meantime, however, i feel i have been closely in contact with myself and with God. i think it's the long silences that i endure every day. after all my friends left germany on 27. june, i traveled to salzburg, vienna, bratislava, and now steyr, alone. it's been 10 days now--my conference starts tomorrow and tonight i met quite a few people from all over the world, so i guess my vote of silence is over. i have traveled alone before for a few days, but never for 10 long days.

it's been fun. i discovered that i like myself too much. i laughed at myself very often and even talk to myself way too often, jajaja... but don't call me crazy if you've never been alone for this long. being used to a regular exchange of ideas, i think talking to one's self is quite normal... i must say i was a bit worried at the beginning when i realized it, jajaja... i read in different places on the net that a lot of people who are alone for a while, talk to themselves at least to blame themselves, for example, for going in the wrong direction.

being by yourself helps you pay more attention to your needs. it also helps you listen to yourself more carefully.

and then there's God.

i think that's what those silence retreats are for. when we are away from the rush and the bustle of our daily lives, we simply listen more attentively to everything what happens around us. some people may call it different things. i like to call it God, first because i'm a believer, and second because it's just too good to be a mere coincidence.

here is my other little secret that God told me just a couple of days ago.

in my last day in bratislava, i went shopping. randomly, i had come across a store where i saw very cheap clothes. from here i am, i said, given that i needed formal clothes for my conference in a few days. it hadn't occurred to me that slovakia is way cheaper than any country in western europe. then i had lunch, then went to a park to read a bit of my new book, el año de la muerte de ricardo reis by saramago, then decided it was time to leave for vienna. i didn't know if i was going to stay in vienna overnight and go to steyr the next day or go straight to linz instead and then leave for steyr the following day, etc... but then i thought of how great it was to have such flexible plans and be free to do whatever you want. just three days earlier i thought i could just take the train to croatia instead and meet lorena over there, but then decided not to. i got to the train station, bought my ticket to vienna, then bought a half-kilo of cherries, then went to the platform (i like the word andén soooo much better!) to wait for my train.

then it struck me. i had been traveling for almost 6 weeks without remorse. while most of my friends were working in mexico or in the states or even in all the cities that i visited, i was just taking trains, buying cherries or ice cream or a cappuccino or a glass of wine whenever i felt like it. true, i have a conference in a few days, but i hadn't read any of the papers for the conference, even though i promised myself i would before it started. one part of me said, it's ok, you will go back in a week very refreshed and then you can catch up with all your work again... you deserve this vacation, then another part of me said, but who takes a month-and-a-half vacation and postpones all work like that? it's immature and irresponsible on your part when you have work to do and study for exams...

the atmosphere rendered my mental fracas a bit surreal. the dilapidated train station, the undecipherable signs in slovak, the big analog clock... it all transported me to the set of an 80s eastern european movie. i stopped struggling with myself and decided to end my journey in bratislava on a lighter note. i ate another cherry. wien (vienna) südbahnhof... 9 minutes. i sat down. i put on my headphones and turned on my ipod and then, randomly, this came on:

slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
but then if you're so smart, tell me
why are you still so afraid?

where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
you'd better cool it off before you burn it out
you've got so much to do and
only so many hours in a day

but you know that when the truth is told..
that you can get what you want or you get old
you're gonna kick off before you even
get halfway through
when will you realize, vienna waits for you?

slow down, you're doing fine
you can't be everything you want to be
before your time
although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
though you can see when you're wrong, you know
you can't always see when you're right. you're right

you've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
when will you realize, vienna waits for you?

slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
when will you realize, vienna waits for you?

and you know that when the truth is told
that you can get what you want or you can just get old
you're gonna kick off before you even get half through
why don't you realize... vienna waits for you?
when will you realize...? vienna waits for you

it wasn't billy joel singing to me. it was God. i'm serious. i heard Him. i played this song another time. i got on the train. and as the train left bratislava, i glanced outside one last time, impressed those images of the run-down station on my memory, and listened to God once more. vienna waits for me.

after the 4th time, i put away my ipod and took out my book instead. and on the very first page, there He was again, not saramago, no:

son plácidas todas las horas que perdemos, si en el perderlas, como en una jarra, ponemos flores...