Monday, July 28, 2014

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.