Vampire Homilies 03 - 17th Sunday (The Hidden Treasure – Yourself: Protect it, Guard it)

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which someone discovers, and he hides and guards it so that they cannot steal it. Then he sells all he has and buys the field just to get that treasure.”(Mt. 13.44)  Our life is like a treasure hunt.  Before you can find the most precious treasure in life, you must first discover the first treasure which you usually take for granted… that most precious treasure which has been given to you to find the most precious treasure in the world. And that treasure is you… yourself.

This brings us to the continuation of last week…. How to tame, train, transform your vampires. How to tame those really difficult people around you? To do this the first rule is: Protect yourself from them at all times. You must not let those vampires take over you and control you and suck the life out of you. If you do this, then you’ve lost the most essential treasure to find the most important treasure in life. 

How do we do this? For any technique in self-defense, you first need to understand your opponent. You have to first understand those different vampires I told you about last week.

Imagine you are biking up the hills of Squamish. The view is wonderful and breathtaking up there. Then you decide to go higher up the steep beautiful forest. So you park your bike, take your backpack, and continue on foot. But then you get lost… you try to walk back to where you think your bike was parked but then you seem to go on circles. You feel tired, frustrated, and hungry. Then you chanced upon a small cabin. You run to it and knock on the door. An old man opens it, and lets you in. He seats you in front of the dining table with a large piece of bread on it. You grab the bread, but before you could bite you hear the man saying: “If you eat that bread, I will beat you with this stick. If you don’t eat that bred, I will beat you with this stick.” Then you look up and you see a stick over your head.  What will you do?

That’s how a vampire operates. That’s how really difficult people treat you.  When you deal with them, remember, you can never please them no matter what you do.  So do not even try.

When the criticising vampires judge you, it’s not about you. You could be Mother Theresa and he will still find something wrong with you. (I admire your love for the poor, but you’re not defending the First Nations, nor are you doing something for global warming, you don’t seem to care about the extinction of endangered species, and with that sari you wear as your habit, you have no fashion sense at all.) It’s not about you. Protect yourself. It’s about his insecurities. He wants to make you inferior, so he can feel superior.

When the spoiled brat vampire is trying to manipulate you through anger or intimidation, and you don’t follow him, he makes a tantrum. He’ll shout.  He’ll threaten you. But it is not about you. So protect yourself. It is about his immaturity. His tantrums come from his deep fear of losing control, which in his mind is connected to losing his own worth.

When the sensitive vampire tries to lure you into self-pity, into that dark dungeon of loneliness and misery, remember it’s not about you.  There is no amount of help that you could give that would heal the hurts she feels or lessen the suffering she bears. Don’t try to fall into the trap that you could heal her sorrow, because only she can do that. So it’s not about you. It is about her woundedness. And that wound will fester and grow if she is not able to forgive herself first.

When the clinging vampire holds on to you, it is not because she loves you truly. She just could not stand being alone. It’s not about you, so don’t fall into the trap that she really needs you and that she’ll die without you. No protect yourself. It is all about her fear of isolation. She was probably left alone as a child by her parents. And yet come to think of it, at the end of it all we all die alone… we’ll all have to face God alone. So you better get used to it. But she is does not.

When the plastic vampire charms you and flatters you, don’t fall for him right away. Protect yourself and don’t easily believe. All those lies he tells, it’s not about you. It’s about him. He fears to remove his mask, because as long as he wears that plastic mask, people love him and see a beautiful and powerful him (ex. Batman, captain America). He is afraid to remove the mask because he fears the person behind the mask that people will not love that him when he is exposed. Thus he masks his true personality with lies so that we could not see the real him.

So now I hope you discover that the first treasure God has given you is yourself. The kingdom begins with you. Do not let the vampires or the really difficult people steal that treasure from you. When you don’t protect yourself from really difficult people, it is you who get punished:

• Psychologically- imagine the stress vampires make you feel everyday, the sleepless nights, the daily worry, the acid in your stomach, the tightness in your chest.
• Physically- dealing with vampires gives you headaches, ulcers, body pains, and might even lead to brain tumors as you worry about them.
• Spiritually- These vampires could make you lose your very identity and purpose if you allow them to control your life.  If you lose that vision of seeing yourself as a treasure you could end up seeing yourself as trash. So protect that treasure. Guard that treasure from the vampires.

How do we do that? Like in the earlier story… how do we get to eat the bread if there’s a stick upon our head? How do we protect ourselves from getting hurt? There are two ways. We’ll tackle that next week when you come for Holy Mass.

Reference: 

Sanchez, Bo. How to deal with difficult people. Shepherd's Voice Publication, Inc. 2014.

Vampire homilies 02 - 16th Sunday (Types of Vampires)

Types of Vampires or Really Difficult Persons

1 -Criticising Vampire- his divine mission is to correct the wrongs of this world.  It’s not really about you. It’s about him. He has a need to make others small so he can become big.  The real problem about these persons is that they really don’t like themselves… so they have to hide that fact behind their outward show of arrogance and anger.

2 -Spoiled Brat Vampire – He has to get what he wants. He has to have control of the situation. Everything has to be according to his plan. He is a controlling vampire. If he doesn’t get it, he throws tantrums. If the criticising vampire is offended or hurt, he’ll be like a grenade and blow his top – leaving a lot of collateral damage- all those poor people around him who gets hurt in the process. If he makes demands and they are not met, he’ll threaten to leave the relationship or the group that he works with.

3 -Sensitive Vampire – the vampire who for any simple reason cries. People who are overly sensitive…  too onion skinned. They always see the hurt and the pain in anything you do or say to them. It’s like: Anything you say or do will be used against you.  If you raise your voice probably because of excitement or happiness, she asks: why are you shouting at me? She feels that the whole world is out to get her and hurt her.  She is a victim vampire. She just wants to feel sorry for herself. You know why? if she doesn’t she will lose her core identity as a victim of life’s never ending catastrophes.

4 -Clinging Vampires – they are needy vampires, needy persons. They cling to you, holding on to you for dear life.. they will make you feel that their entire life is totally dependent on you. Their entire self-esteem is almost based on your presence in their life. And you will feel smothered, annoyed, pestered… can’t breathe in that relationship.  And if you request for some space, get ready for a huge drama to erupt….  They will fight tooth and nail to get you back, the way someone fights for oxygen.  But here’s the thing. Once they get tired of you they'll leave you, and very soon you’ll find them sinking their teeth onto their next victim. Clinging vampires can’t be alone. They will always have to be in a co-dependent relationship.

5 -Plastic Vampires – you love these vampires just like you wow at an eye-candy.  This vampire is the most charming yet the most dangerous. Single ladies beware. He will sweep you off your feet with sweet and loving words. He’ll go out of his way, giving you gifts, calling you just to ask how you are, opening his heart until you fall in love with him…. And then… you catch him lying about something small… but he has an excuse, and when the excuse does not hold, he has an elaborate story to back it up until you unwittingly believe.  Later you discover that he has a mountain of unpaid debts and a long tale of indiscretions. Then you realize he is a pathological liar. He is a fake – a plastic vampire.  This vampire is so good at lying, he actually believes in his own lies. It all starts with one lie, but to be consistent he will have to support that one lie with nine other lies. Soon his stories will be an intricate messy web of deception that will one day come crashing down on him. 

Can you now see these types of vampires around you…. So why do you think I told you about them. So that we can avoid them, right? Wrong.  So that we can change them, right? Wrong. The goal of this is not to change other people. The goal is to change you.  But I’m not a vampire! yet… Check out the gospel of today.

One day the master sowed good seeds in his field, but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. (Just like everyone of us, we were all created good in God’s image. But then seeds of evil trickled in – the effects of sin, the evil influences around us – people, society, places, circumstances) Later on when the slaves saw the weeds among the wheat, the slaves asked the master: Would you like us to gather the weeds and destroy them? The master said No. for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.  The weeds and the wheat when young are indistinguishable… just like the good and the bad seeds in each of us. Thus they grow together. But when the time comes that you can distinguish each, only then can you start the task of uprooting.

You might not find yourself in the types of vampires I mentioned. But certainly seeds of one of those vampires might be there in you already- you might have been bitten by one of them. That is why it is important this early to see what are your tendencies… which vampire seed is there in you…so that the sooner you realize the weeds of these vampires in you, you can learn to uproot them because now you could distinguish the wheat from the weeds… the good  from the bad.

So how can we uproot these weeds of vampirism in us? 

My favorite movie in 2010 was “How to train your dragon” – In a Viking village where dragons and the people were trying to kill each other, there was this young lad named Hiccup. He believed that the dragons no matter how fearful did not really want to harm them. Instead he believes that these dragons can be tamed and trained to be partners with humans in their way of life because they were their alter egos. And he turned out to be right.

It’s the same with us…. We must not kill the vampires around us and in us (yet)… rather we must tame them and train them…. How do we do this?

 “How to train your vampires” – next week.


References: 
Bernstein, Albert. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People who Drain you Dry, McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Sanchez Jr, Eugenio. How to deal with Difficult People, Shepherd's Voice Publication, 2014.

Vampire Homilies 01 - 14th Sunday (How to spot vampires)

"Come to me all you who are tired and I will give you rest." What does this mean? Will God give us rest by solving all our problems, by removing all those people who hurt us or those who are thorns in our lives?  The answer is simple. No. But then he will help us carry our burden. He will help us cope with the problems we face and deal with those people who are difficult and irritating.

I chanced upon a sitcom rerun of "Hot in Cleveland" the other night while trying to break my jetlag. Elka and her writing partner Mamie have to come up with a radio play- “Gone with the Wind.”  Elka suggests:”Let’s make Scarlet O Hara and Rhet Butler vampires….”  Mamie replies: ”But there are no vampires in Georgia or Atlanta.They’re not real. “  Elka:”I know, but nowadays, everything goes better with vampires.”

Real vampires may not exist. But in our everyday life there exists bloodsuckers too - really difficult people who are like vampires… creatures that the suck the joy and life out of us. They affect our emotions negatively.  When we are around them we feel ourselves weakening…. Losing life… losing strength. And sometimes how we pray that these persons were not in our lives. These are the persons a famous psychologist Albert Bernstein talked about in his book Emotional Vampires. They’re not real vampires, but they are RDP’s - really difficult people. But just be careful- vampires are hard to tell, who knows we could be one too without knowing. 

How to spot vampires or the really difficult persons in our life?

1) Vampires suck blood of their victims. Really difficult people suck your joy, your energy, your peace, your time, and attention.

2) Vampires cannot see their own reflection in the mirror.  Really difficult people don’t know they are that way. They think they’re right and everyone is wrong. They think they’re an angel surrounded by us demons.. Why? Because they cannot see their own weaknesses… they cannot see their blind spots. They think it’s alright to irritate us because they have the right to do so.

3) Vampires bite victims and turn them into vampires.  If you allow a really difficult person to control you, you could become a difficult person yourself. Psychologically, we know that an adult victim who was abused or victimised as a child will be inclined to perpetuate the same abuse with their own children. This is because of a principle known as "identification with the aggressor or victim-victimizer" To protect himself, the abused individual unconsciously identifies with his victimizer and so seeks to overcome the feeling of being abused. So you must not get into the vampire cycle of the really difficult person.

4) Vampires are burned by sunlight.  Really Difficult persons are burned by the sunlight of truth.They cringe in the presence of accountability because they know that if they allow truth to enter their lives, the vampire in them will die.

Now in the movies, you would want to destroy these vampires, but in real life, there’s another way – we could transform these vampires or these really difficult persons into beautiful godly creatures….  

Here’s how. First step, the gospel of today. 

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus was referring to a double yoke.  This yoke is used to harness a pair of animals like an oxen so that they can drag a load together as efficiently as possible. The secret is the weaker animal gains the strength of the stronger one with which it is yoked with. Russell M. Nelson says:

“You come unto Christ to be yoked with Him and with His power, so that you’re not pulling life’s load alone. You’re pulling life’s load yoked with the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and suddenly your problems, no matter how serious they are, become lighter.”

When we take the yoke, we pair with Jesus. With him, the burden, the problems, the vampires, the work of ploughing the field called life do not disappear… but with him, the load, the problems, the vampires become easier to face.

Now for the next and more important step. Let’s leave that for next week.  

References:

Bernstein, Albert. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition, McGraw Hill, 2012.

Sanchez, Bo. How to deal with Difficult People, Quezon City, 2014.

albernstein.com - Psychology that works

Vampire Homilies- adapted from "How To Spot A Vampire" (Bo Sanchez)