Want Some Intimacy? Create Your Own.

I just came from the overnight retreat - an out of town experience to rekindle one's relationship with God as well as to reaffirm our relationship with ourselves. It was much less than the usual retreats that I used to get when I was with my family - there were a number of major changes in the course in order to cater to athesiests, agnostics, etc.

Since the activity was meant to re-glue into our beings the appreciation of the Faith, we were brought to a retreat house somewhere beyond "civilization". Bukal ng Tipan was a peaceful and serene location and I am so glad to have been part of the group sent there (although I feel strongly against the fact that I was among the minority- meaning my little group felt the pressure of being left out).

My room mates (3 girls) were mostly the wild, non-conformist bunch who are the nice ones who cause all the last minute turmoils and "huhs"? And I guess we bonded well. One room mate in particular, exudes a similar aura as I do, (except that she's work-a-holic and well I'm.. not). She presented her views to me in such accuracy to my own feelings and thoughts that it was thrilling talking with her all through the night. It's been a while since I've been challenged to use my brain - in fact, her abilities proved to be beyond mine to a point that I prefer stopping once in a while and just listen to her expound on her viewpoints.

One topic of conversation that penetrated our conversation was the "intimacy of words". She mentioned how words lack intimacy for people just hear words and rarely give much notice to other factors which must be taken into account with the word. Being a believer of words (since I have more words to give than action.. haha), I answered that words are merely symbols, and the only manner in which these symbols could gain meaning is for people to create and pair them with one. Intimacy is when two people treat the word with the same respect and understanding... "like an inside joke".

Problem with words is that a language could only be considered living if it could continually sustain generating a fresh batch of new words as often as possible - therefore with the overload of words which we are expected to grasp, people tend to confuse one over the other thus we lose the intimacy of words, because we no longer recognize them for what they represent, but for what they just seem to say. Misuse of the word is one of the most rampant sins occuring almost everywhere to everyone - thus failure to use the accurate term to bridge a certain thought leads to misunderstanding and clashes.

Language is man's greatest invention, without which much of our progress could never have ever been ushered into creation. Words are jibberish upon birth, they hold no water unless we dare baptize them with a particular appreciation and comprehension, which people would, then, be able to call it by it's first name and thus it would respond willingly to serve it's purpose.

*Man, I hope to have more of this soon!... sigh..