My path to the light

“Why did you leave your country?” My mother often heard this question from me.

"For you and your brother," my mother answered repeatedly, and then told the dramatic story of how she and we emigrated from her homeland of Vietnam. It was the winter of 1993.

I wondered how Nathanael could know that: "You are the Son of God, the King of Israel." Not because I don't believe the content of the statement - hopefully we've settled that once and for all since Egypt. No, I doubted that Nathanael actually said that.

It was a hard time, but without this part of the story there would be no story. In my imperfection God's perfect goodness and greatness should be revealed. He does everything out of love: hard graces.

The path to the desert is quick and gradual. I would first have to tell you how I ended up in the desert in the first place. A place with no life, no water, no prospect of growth. Drought and emptiness. Yes, how did I end up there? The year is 2023. Freshly converted two years ago, baptized one year ago. I thought I had the hang of it.

Hell too. Oh my Jesus, if only we could see that both heaven and hell begin here on earth. Holiness and paradise are not a promise of tomorrow, but a reality of today.

We humans are like the two-year-old twins Henriette and Henry who scream “PomPom!”. Her dad – from Germany – hears it and opens the red bag of chips with the crispy bears. Henriette and Henry continue to scream “PomPom!” and throw the bag off the table. Dad looks at mom perplexed.

Does anything last forever these days? The jeans look more than “stonewashed” after a few times in the washing machine. After at least two years, the smartphone is old and worth a ton. ... “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Lukas 21,33

Life is a journey of discovery. As Einstein rightly recognized: Discovery does not lie in searching. But in reflection. Not on the outside, but on the inside. Discover. Discover. Yes, which covers? What covers lie within us?

What does it mean to hope for something? For by hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For how can we hope for what we see? But if we hope for what we do not see, we endure with patience.

Reconciled yesterday, today in the Holy Land, Thursday, February 9, 2023 - It was the third day after the first session with you, Jesus, on Golgotha on the cross. The sun shone now and then through the clouds, which had discharged abundantly in the form of rain over the last few days...

Peace is not the absence of war. Rather, it is the state when everything rests completely in God. When we realize that we have everything we need. That it is already within us and wants to be discovered...

For mom. Beloved, I know you are sad. Things will turn out well after they have gone bad. You have not lost me to Him. But I have found you in Him. You have not lost them beyond return. They are yours in Him, you can stop grieving.

It had to be really quiet, completely quiet, for her to hear him. What Edith Stein meant by being empty of everything worldly and silent is exactly that. Only in silence does she hear his voice. Only when she is silent inside and gives him space can she hear what he says...

Do you see the scar on my chest? When I was 4 years old, my heart had a hole in it. And I don't mean that metaphorically - a real hole. They opened my chest and closed the hole. My heart was repaired, physically...

Have you ever felt alone in the world? Like no one understood you? Like no one saw you? How do you feel when you think of the word alone? For me, the word alone used to trigger the feeling of not being seen, not being understood, not being loved, abandoned, forsaken.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stop and stare or run away. Magnificent and terrifying at the same time. This photo from the Dolomites expresses very well the emotions I felt when I was confronting what was inside me when I wrote the poem...

Always the same crap...Do you know that? No matter how beautiful and good or how painful a situation was, after a while everything becomes relative in your mind and in the end only a hint of how it really was remains...

Who or what do you know best? Yourself? Your mother or your brother? Russian novels of the 19th century? To know means to know something true and lasting about X. “I know you” means more than just knowing what your favorite food is...