Master Of My Fate; Captain Of My Soul

It is said that your mess is your message. Once upon a time, not too long ago, I had a mess in my life or, you could even say, my life was a mess. I was suffocating in noxious clouds of doubt and despair; I was drowning in heavy waves of worry and anxiety; and wallowing in meaningless and purposeless psycho-emotional mud-holes of fear-anger-blame-resentment. I suspected but refused to admit that clinical depression held me in its clutches, what with many self-obliterating thoughts running rampant in my head. Meditation was near impossible; medication was seen as added complication; reading was out of focus, though Bible texts, Catholic and Protestant versions, were gone through page by page, without really understanding; gardening gave some respite, making friendship with plants somewhat natural.

Groping in that gloomy state of mere existence, although appearing normal, as in ‘average’, ‘ordinary’, ‘nondescript’ and ‘whatever’ as the youngsters would say, and sustained by the unflagging love of my wife Betty, our two sons and few true friends who simply were there, not wanting to pry into one’s inner turmoil, I recalled some lines of a poem learned in high school. I looked it up in the web and recited it to myself over and over again, without letting others know.

With other inspiring and spiritual ideas, the poem helped me to snap out of the self-induced tunnel of hopelessness into the realization that my true SELF prints out in capitals, in the upper case; that after all I am not the small-letter, lower case self, so dominated by the illusion of ego or edging God out, with its constricting compulsions and deleterious delusions of pride, concupiscence and covetousness.

It became clear to me that I AM neither my thoughts nor my emotions nor my body. I AM SPIRIT, a spark divine: the thinker, the feeler. I have the power to choose. I AM FREE.

I also realized my true SELF (like all of ours) is vastly much greater than what I thought it to be: capable of being at-one-ment with the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, and being in unity with His Infinity. I am (as each one is) lovingly invited and empowered to live, to move and to walk in the charmed circle of God’s love and light. In that sense, and with God’s grace, I expect (as each one of us here can expect) to be an instrument or be a channel of the Lord’s promise of good, of a future and a hope.

I came to embrace the idea that I am (as all of us are) salt and light: 1/ salt - to mix with and be invisible in the dish to be seasoned yet can be readily savored; and light – to stay in the place to be illumined and burn to the limits of endowed lumen-power. As such salt and light: I hope (and each one can so hope) - as the Lord, in His Grace, may allow - to sanctify self, family, people, country, even all humanity, but again, only in, with and through God’s unmerited favors.

And, humbly abiding in the Holy Spirit, Whose action transforms lives, I hope to be (and all of us, in Him, can also hope to be), in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, counted among “small pieces in the great mosaic of holiness that the Lord continues to create in history”.2/  

Friends: that’s my message. It’s not really new, for in youth as a student of the Catholic St. Vincent’s College in Dipolog City, Philippines, I was introduced to its ever-present substance but perhaps my attention was riveted somewhere else, and did not really understand nor appreciate it at that time.

The poem, in conjunction with and comprehended through Biblical Principles, helped - against the backdrop of depressive doom - to distill and reveal this message to me once more, with clarity, and thus aided and facilitated my resolve to step back into the realm of light, hope, optimism and infinite possibilities.

Made of four stanzas with four lines, and each line consisting of eight syllables, this poem could be viewed on surface as agnostic; but a deeper consideration could bring one’s soul to a crossroad and a threshold of true faith. It depends on your interpretation, particularly, on how you understand “gods” - whether as The Triune Divinity or simply as many and varied; and how you read out “I am” - whether united with The-One-True-Source-of-All or separate and isolated. The poem goes like this:

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winched nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance,

My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears,

Looms but the horror of the shade.

And yet the menace of the years,

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.”

Yes, it is the “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. Mr. Henley, wherever you are - as our respective beliefs in after-life may lead us to perceive or not - thank you for writing this free will-respecting yet choice-compelling and, depending on our view: life-saving, life-unleashing and life-enriching poem.

In line with this life-altering interpretation and insofar as literary integrity would allow, I would render the third line as: “I thank The Lord who made me be”. For, in every case, “nothing has meaning except the meaning we give it”. 3/

This poem, understood through the Word of God (or the Sword of the Spirit), helped me to overcome depression and to say: enough of you, horde of dark impressions! The Lord hearkens to my plea: “My soul is depressed; lift me up acccording to your word. 4/

As Opus Dei Founder, St. Josemaria Escriva, wrote: “Gloominess, depression. I am not surprised: it is the cloud of dust raised by your fall. But... that's enough! Can't you see that the cloud has been borne far away by the breath of grace?” 5/

Yes, by grace or God’s unmerited favor. And when we live worshipping God in Spirit and in truth, 6/ declaring our “I am” in union with the Holy Spirit, Who indwells us 7/, we can say:  

“You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go. You can never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go. You can never be alone because the Source of all life goes with you wherever you go. Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go.” 8/

But we cannot say so, if we insist on: (a) being separate from the Father, (b) forgetting that the Holy Mighty One tabernacles in us, and (c) living out our lives in search of fleeting gratifications from physical pleasures and material possessions. For like the Prodigal Son 9/, we shall, inevitably and inexorably, find ourselves alone, hungry, suffering or without peace of mind.

In the end, awakening, coming to our senses, and finding ourselves in the embrace of “the Divine Absolute Who includes all the Dark and all the Light” 10/, we rejoice over what we perceive as gloomy experiences for being wonderful background materials for the choice of appreciating and staying in the bright and the radiant. After all, in everything, we are told to rejoice and give thanks, with prayer and petitions. 11/

Staying or not staying in that choice is a continuing decision point that determines what being the master of our own destiny means, in the everyday unfolding of every little opportunity to learn to be One with God or, if we so choose, to be separate and apart from Him.

For indeed, the tenet of “freedom of consciences” (plural) does not mean licentious, lawless and irresponsible actuations but rather the respect for every person’s right to freely seek and know God, expressed through the responsibility of not imposing one’s faith on others and the corollary restraint of not harming others of different faiths. Asserting “freedom of conscience” (singular), connotes that it may be morally right for someone to reject God, which indeed is part of the range of our knowledge of good and evil, and what the lord of this realm wants us to think and focus on, as it is – without doubt - in our power to choose to oppose God’s plans for salvation. That it is in our power, however, does not and ought not necessarily mean we should do it. This is just a litmus test of how truly free our will is, in our understanding. Because if someone adopts this attitude deliberately, he or she would break the first and most important command: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart’ and thus would be sinning. 12/

We need not follow Eve’s heart-mind folly - adopted, confirmed and ratified yet vainly sought to be escaped from by Adam who tried to blame her before God - which conjugal act condemned us all to eat only by the sweat of our brows. 13/ For in the new covenant, by our faith in the Lord’s grace and mercy, in, through and with the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus, we are enabled in the power of the Holy Spirit, to obey the law and do the works of love. 14/

To be “master of my fate and captain of my soul” then, to me, means believing in and acting on the basis of, my At-One-Ment (AOM) with The One True God, The Almighty One, The-All-In-All, The Alpha and The Omega, as a child of the Father and co-heir of the Son of Man by force of The Lord’s boundless love and mercy, conveyed through the enabling sacrifice and grace of Jesus the Christ, Savior of All, and the indwelling everlasting power of the Holy Spirit, Giver of Life. So it is, in the name of Jesus!

________________________

1/   Matthew 5:13-16

2/   General Audience Address of April 12, 2011

3/   T. Harve Eker, The Millionaire Mind

4/   Psalms 119:28

5/   “The Way”, # 260

6/   John 4:24

7/   2 Timothy 1:14

8/   A Course In Miracles, # 41

9/   see Luke 15:11-32

10/ Guy Finley, http://www.guyfinley.org/free-content

11/ cf 1 Thessalonians 5:18; also Philippians 4:4

12/ cf “I Shout About My Love For Personal Freedom”,

      Opus Dei Daily Message, http://www.opusdei.us/sec.php?s=310

13/ cf Genesis Story of Adam and Eve; see Genesis 3:1-13

14/ cf texts of St. Paul and of St. James, on faith and on works;

      See Galatians 2:15-3:14; Romans 3:21-4:25; James 2:14-16