A lot has happened since my last post.  I celebrated Christmas, New Year, did my Thirty Day retreat, celebrated Lunar New Year (many times over), and now am resettling back to my normal life at the Novitiate once again.  But I wonder for how long until another exciting passage in my life will take place, and I’ll be knocked out of the normal rhythm of things.  So much has happened, I don’t really know where to begin.  Many would likely want to know about my Thirty Day retreat, but that would be too long of a story to tell, so I’ll save that for another day!  Rather, I will tell you about how I spent the last few holidays and celebrations away from home!

This year is the second time in my life to spend Christmas away from my family.  The first time, I spent Christmas and the whole New Year package in Japan.  I don’t remember missing home too much, nor did I feel dreadful reminiscing all the past Christmas memories.  Rather, I simply accepted the fact that I was thousands of miles away from my family, and that they were thinking of me, and that was enough.  And I learned to enjoy Christmas and New Year in a whole new culture, with different customs and traditions.

However, the feelings I experienced this year around Christmas and New Year, were very different.  Being in the novitiate, I am canonically obligated to stay for the whole year.  Even though the experience of being away from home for the holidays should not be new to me anymore, I still felt emptiness and missed home quite a bit.  Unlike Japan, I am about nine hours drive away from home, two hours by flight; both are relatively closer compared to Japan.  So the idea of being so close, yet so far, was tough to digest for me.

But it passed by, not as painfully as I had thought!  I realized that by not being with my family, I was opened up to many opportunities to celebrate with others.  I didn’t see it was being ministerial at all, but it turned out so.  I ended up sharing my Christmas and New Year celebrations with many groups of people: in my own novitiate community, in the larger SVD community at Techny, with the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters’ community, with Vietnamese families and friends, and as I traveled to Bay St. Louis, again with other small SVD communities.  In all these celebrations, I shared myself, and received from others, and we joined together to celebrate Christ, and Christian fellowship with one another.  All this would not have happened if I was home with my family.

I realized that God works in our lives in mysterious ways, ways which seems at first difficult and hard to comprehend.  Yet if we open ourselves and allow ourselves to move with the flow of God, we can end up experiencing a whole new dimension to life which we may be accustomed to, yet it is so beautiful at the same time.  I cannot fathom the warmth and generosity shown to me during the last few months as I joined others in their celebrations.  I was a mere stranger in many of these celebrations, yet I always felt warmly welcomed and treated no less than family member!  What a great gift God has bestowed on me, even when I didn’t ask for it, or realized it at the moment, and I grumbled at the experience.

But now that a few months have passed, and I look back on my experience, I can’t believe how wonderful it has all been.  God has been loving and generous to me, especially in times where I felt homesick.  God has reached out his hands through others, to warmly hug me, greeted me, and created a home for me wherever I go.  I now further trust that God will continue to care for me in all my endeavors.

I hope you too, in whatever difficulties you’re in, especially in times when you feel you have no control over the situations, that you come to realize that God is always there for you.  God is reaching out to you in many ways, through the touch of others, through the smiling faces of people walking by, through a simple yet sincere greeting!  God is always there for you, as I have seen him being there for me.  Just when you begin to think you’re all alone in this dark dark world, you should turn around, look closely at all the ways God is reaching out to you, and realize, you’re are NEVER alone!

- Nathaniel Nguyen-

As I think back in the last five years of studying with the SVDs, I have encountered many women who have made life meaningful for me.  While discerning a religious life, the primary living environment is with a group of men, ranging from all ages and backgrounds.  The men’s communities that I have interacted with and lived in, have always been very welcoming and show true fraternal love.  Yet there is still something missing, an effeminate touch to life.  It’s not that men are not caring and affectionate, nor only are women maternal and affectionate, but there is a certain quality to the presence of women that one can absolutely not live without.

Call it whatever you may.  Maybe it’s some psychological complexes, or my young self still yearning to be close to my mother, not so ready to be on my own.  I don’t know!  But what I do know is how thankful I am to have encountered and interacted with many women from many walks of life, who have made life “complete” for me.  Their guiding smiles, their gentle comfort, their demands for me to better myself, all have shaped my life one way or another.

When the going got tough at Epworth, it was the women there who gave me a sense of balance in life.  I enjoyed walking by the front desk to see the warm smiles of the receptionists.  I enjoyed the friendly and chatty sounds passing by the kitchen.  I enjoyed strong professionalism of the women faculties and staffs, many whom I worked with directly, learning from them and being inspired by them.  I enjoyed the special care each of them gave in their work capacities.  I even enjoyed “the gossips” the women passed around, sometimes in private, sometimes publically, all for a good laugh!  Without the women presence at Epworth, my life there would have been bland and uninspiring.

When I studied in Japan, it was primarily the Vietnamese women who I came in contact with that made life easy to live and understand for me.  On an interpersonal level, Japan is a cold place where to have true interpersonal intimacy with people requires an investment of long period of time, to build trust and common understanding.  Time was not something I had in abundance of.  I was living at the seminary, which demanded a lot of my time, then there was school, and I was only there for nine months to study anyway!  So I found it hard to really get to know Japanese and build good friendship with them.  I did make some very good friends, but a more intimate relationship was something that I was missing.  But all that changed thanks to the Vietnamese women I came into contact there.  Some were immigrants, other migrant workers, other students, most of them mothers.  And there was also my Japanese host mother, who I lived with for two months.

These women were special in that they immediately showed care and warmth, something I did not find in the general Japanese population.  These women welcomed me into their home, and helped me to understand and come to accept the impersonal lifestyle in Japan.  My life there became a lot easier upon encountering these women.  And they continued to be a support me during my entire time there.  Many of them still keep in contact with me, showing the same care and concern.

Religious life for me is not easy.  It has its ups and downs, imbalances, challenges, and joy.  I am grateful for men in the communities that I have lived in, who showed me fraternal love.  And I am thankful for all the women who I have worked with, studied with, and encounter on my journey of discernment.  They have been, and continue to be amazing source of support and encouragement, love and care, and an undeniably important “balancer” in my life!  For all of them, I give thanks.

-Nathaniel Nguyen-

Last week, most of us in North America celebrated Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is a time when we celebrate with friends and family, while enjoying own recipe of basting and roasting the turkey, our own twist on the stuffing and dressings, and a plentiful table of food unique to our own experience.  It truly is a wonderful time of year.   The celebration itself is something to be thankful for.  And right after Thanksgiving, there is the tradition of Black Friday, in which we scrimmage at the mall for the best deals and discounts.

At the novitiate, our Thanksgiving mass reminded us to be thankful for the many things which we often take for granted.  But how can we be thankful when we feel like we don’t have enough.  Our hunger for more, as shown by our vicious trampling over one another during Black Friday, prevents us from feeling thankful.  I am usually thankful when I think that I have enough, but when I want more and more, I don’t feel so thankful for what I already have.  Living in our consumerist world, it is hard to be thankful, because we always want more!  And when out of a blue moon, when we do feel thankful, we usually give thanks only for the material things we have. 

Of course, I am very thankful for the material environment that I live in.  I am provided for: I have a roof over my head, food on my table, clean water in my faucet, and clothes in my closet.  I am thankful for the friends and family who support me and give life to my existence.  But there is one more thing I am thankful for: my vocation.

We all have our own vocational calling, and mine right now is the calling to religious life.  I am thankful that I have had the encouragement to discern this calling.  I am thankful for having the courage to answer this call.  And I am thankful for the ability to continually hear the call, though sometimes it may be as faint as the whispering of the wind.  And I am thankful for the companions who travel the same journey of self-discovery to the religious life. 

I am happy with where I am today.  And I know that many of you, my readers, are also happy with your own vocational calling.  I hope that you don’t simply see your vocations as employments that “bring home the bacon.”  If you are truly happy with your vocational calling as a teacher, someone in service works, office works, being a student, or any other vocations, I hope you see what you do as a special gift and call from God.  Our vocations are callings and gifts from God, who God wants us to be happy as we work in service of others.  And if we have found the work that really bring us happiness, work that we look forward to everyday, work that brings us closer to other people and to God, then is that not our calling, our gift, something to be thankful for?

I encourage all the young people who may read this, to take the time to discern what is it that God calls you to do?  What is it that will bring you happiness, in your work, in your relation with others, and your relation with God?  When you do, it will be like having found an everlasting treasure.  For you will wake up every morning, thankful for the having answered your calling, and you will look forward to each day,  to the work you do, the people you meet, and to the God who accompanies you in your vocational journey always!

As the season of Advent is just right around the corner, we once again go into a period of waiting, waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ.  So we once again sing songs of waiting and longing.  It truly is a wonderful time of the year.  Most people take Advent lightly, because Christmas is celebrated in such a grand way that Advent seems small and become unappreciated.  But like a child waiting for his birthday to come around, it is through the anticipation and the anxiety that we really experience joy of what is to come.  It is our anticipation of Christmas and our anxieties of getting ourselves and our family ready for the big celebration that make the experience of Christmas meaningful.

So this period of waiting is not so bad, or so it seems.  Reflecting on my discernment to the religious life, I am in a continuous stage of waiting.  And there are a lot of anxieties that accompany the waiting.  Discernment to the religious life is like discerning many other things in life, like marriage, career changes, and other important family decisions.  We’re never sure if our decision is right.  Right now, I’m waiting for the sky to open up, with a commanding voice that says, “yes!” or “keep up the good work,” something, anything, to give me a slight confirmation that this is the right path for me.  But, instead I hear voices from within me challenging me, tempting me, and luring me away from the path I’m on now.  Then there are other voices from the outside, friends, family, formators, and other religious who provide both confirmations and doubts. 

Then, there’s also the discernment of further education after vows (assuming I will take vows).  To me, this is still far off still, but there is a time restriction for brother candidates to discern their educational goals.  Just another problem for me to ponder about and more reasons for me to look for divine affirmation. 

If there is an easy way out, I would have taken it.  But discernment, and wanting to know if we’re on the right path of life, doing the right thing, is never a for-sure thing.  I can only take small steps, take in the anxiety and tension, and “enjoy” this waiting period.  The more I wait, the more anxious I become (taken in good light), but all that will one day produce the joy of personal confirmation. 

Though we can never be sure where our current path will take us, we can find assurance and joy out of where we stand on the path today.  Imagine walking a forest path, not knowing exactly where it will take you.  Though we might be very fearful, especially when the night is about to fall.  But it doesn’t take much to stop, and look at our surrounding, at the verdant path, the tall evergreens reaching to the heavens, the many life forces singing around us, and we can say to ourselves “what a wonderful world!”  And we can at least for a few seconds, enjoy where we are, amidst our feelings of lost and insecurity.  This is our personal confirmation, and it can bring great joy!  And this is where I am now.  I’m not sure where this path will take me. I feel anxious, and I worry constantly for what is to come.  But at times, I am able to forget all that (even if for just a few minutes) and simply enjoy the current moment of my life in the Novitiate.  Along the path, I have learned to enjoy the verdant friendships, the high spiritual life directing me to the heavens, and the many zealous people singing for joy around me.  And I’m able to say to myself, “what a wonderful world!”

The writer and activist Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”  Discernment is very important and we must look to the future, but it never hurts to stop for a few moments to let ourselves be touched by the present.  So I invite you all, to take few moments out of your day to appreciate the life around you, and say, “what a wonderful world!”

-Nathaniel Nguyen-

It’s been almost three months since I entered the Novitiate.  Though this is not an academic year, it is still filled with a lot of informative conferences, in which I learn more about spirituality, religious life and its vows, and many other topics.  One of the major topics that the novitiate has covered in the last few months has been personality types. I have had workshops on the Myers Briggs and the Enneagram, conferences on discernment and the Ignatius examen.  As skeptical as I was, I didn’t think that it was right “type” people into different categories.  But upon reflecting the historical efforts of the world to understand itself, I also find these discoveries to be of help and useful.

Those who know me well will most likely be able to quickly categorize me into the right typologies.  I am often the stereotypical face of these types.  So why then is it important for me, as well as for others to spend great amount of energy to discover our own types?  When we carefully look into the process of typology, our personality types are divided into various categories, whether that is introvert/extrovert, thinking/feeling, intuitive/sensing, or perceiving/judging in the Myer-Briggs; or as in the Enneagram, our various personality types are categorized into a complex system of 9 types, with wings and arrow theories etc.  I don’t claim to know too much about any of these typologies, but my experience tells me that the typologies fundamentally point out both our strengths and weaknesses.

As stereotypical as they maybe, these types tell us a bit more about who we are.  The positive qualities of these types are nice and flattering indeed, but it is the negative qualities that we ought to focus on.  Not that we want to be pessimistic, but we want to be aware of our inner weaknesses.  Why we behave or react negatively in certain situations.  Knowing ourselves, who we are, has been a quest our ancestors have started long ago, and we as descendants are still trying to accomplish.  The task of understanding the human person begins with us.  We must be open to search deep within our hearts and say, this is who I am.  I have sinned, and am a weak person, I am human.  We don’t necessarily have to proclaim this to the world, but when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we ought to be able to honestly see ourselves and see the incompleteness of ourselves.

I’m not asking us to become emotionally depressing people.  We should have already acknowledged our strength and gifts, and cherish them as an important part of our personal identity.  But unless we’re also able to accept our weaknesses and failures, we can never grow to become a psychological and spiritually mature person.

Having gone through the different typology workshops, and having examined myself, I see that I am not perfect, and I have a lot of room for improvement.  And I want to continue to struggle with myself and challenge myself.  And this is the scariest thing.  It is so much easier to challenge and criticize others, but to challenge and criticize ourselves, which in itself is a challenge.  I know that I too often rationalize my failure and make excuses to comfort myself.  But if I continue on this path, my maturation will be stunt and I will never surpass who I am today.  Therefore, pray for the grace of humility to accept myself: both my strength and weaknesses.  I want to be able to say thank you God for all the gifts that I have.  And I want to be able to humbly ask God for the strength to face my failures and weaknesses, and continually stepping forward to improve myself.

These, to me are the values of typology.  It is to know yourself better, in order to improve yourself.  For if we don’t grow and mature, then we’re already dead and decaying.  In the end, I want to be like an oak tree, slowly but surely growing every day, never stopping, never doubting, always facing toward the light.  Through the seasons, I hope that my dead branches will fall off, to make room for new life.  This way, I will one day become that deeply-rooted, majestic oak tree shimmering in the light.  A tree that can withstand all the storms that life throws at me.  Then, I will truly become the symbol of life for others, as God is the life source for me.