Underneath the Surface

“You have learned to thank Me for hard times and difficult journeys, trusting that through them I accomplish My best work. You have realized that needing Me is the key to knowing Me intimately, which is the gift above all gifts.” 

Sarah Young, November 29th Meditation from “Jesus Calling”

“What has been the worst year in your life?” When asked this question, the year that immediately comes to my mind is 2009. That was the year when our lives were turned upside down. It was the year when being awake in the middle of the night became the norm rather than the exception. It was the year when we had to cancel the three trips that we had planned: Maryland to attend our cousin’s graduation from the US Naval Academy, a wedding in New York, and our 25th wedding anniversary trip to Turks and Caicos. That was also the year where we spent many days meeting with doctors, and visiting a hospital with restricted visits. And that was the year where our son was not able to finish his school year. It sounds very familiar. Our 2009 is what 2020 has turned out to be for most people. 

Yes, 2020 has been the year when everyone’s lives have been turned upside down. It’s the year when sleep evades us because we are filled with anxiety. Most people have had to cancel their travel plans this year. We also had plans: a trip to Germany and Austria in the spring, and a trip to Argentina in the fall. Both have been cancelled. 2020 has been the year where many people have had to visit a doctor, or where many have had loved ones in the hospital without being able to visit them. It’s also been the year where all students were not able to finish their school year in a classroom.

But for me, as bad as 2020 has turned out to be, 2009 was still ten times worst. That was the year when our son was diagnosed with a mental disorder. We had to withdraw him from school less than one month before he could complete his sophomore year in the university. He spent one week in a hospital in New Jersey that specialized in mental disorders. My husband had to jump on a plane to go be with him, only to find out that he was only able to visit him two hours per day. After one week, we were able to bring him to Miami. He had doctor visits three times a week for the next six months. And I went with him to most of those visits.

There were days when I lost all hope. I did not know if we would be able to save him. I felt that I was losing my son. And it was the first time that I recall being so angry at God. I kept asking Him, “Why? Why? Why?” And I could not hear Him answer me. I felt like He had turned His back on us.

But even though I could not see it, God was working underneath the surface. He had a special plan for my son, and He also had a plan for me. As He was putting us through the fire, He was preparing us to help out in an area where He needed a lot of help.

Today, my son is not afraid to speak up about his mental illness. He has participated in national conferences where he has spoken in front of hundreds of people about what happened to him. He has been part of panels where he has spoken about mental illness, and where he has brought hope to others that are going through what he went through. He is not cured, but he has learned to manage his illness, and in the process, he is helping others by bringing them hope through his testimony.

I also learned a lot about mental illness on that fateful 2009. I read every book that I could get my hands on. I did a lot of research about bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. And I got involved with an organization in Miami that was just starting out. At first, I joined them because I needed support. Now, eleven years later, I’m still involved because I have realized that there are so many parents that need support. Little did I know that my worst year would turn into such a blessing because both my son and I would be able to help so many others that had lost hope. I am currently reading a book titled “Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness” by Pete Earley. The more I read, the more I realize how blessed we were in 2009. That entire year, God was working underneath the surface. When I thought that He had turned His back on us, He was carrying us.

That is why, as I traverse through this 2020, and I hear people say, “Where is God in all this? Why would He allow this pandemic?” I tell them: “Don’t despair. God has a plan. He has not abandoned us. He is very much present in our lives. We can only see the surface, but He is working underneath the surface. And He is carrying us.”

Copyright © 2020 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

The Butterfly Effect

“You have been created in order that you might make a difference. You have within you the power to change the world.” Andy Andrews, “The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters”

When I found out yesterday that Ortanique, one of my favorite restaurants, would be closing its doors because they could not survive the economic crisis created by Covid-19, I was very affected. “Who will be next?”I asked myself. “Caffe Abbracci? Joe’s Stone Crab?”

Today, the priest mentioned in his homily “the butterfly effect” which in summary is the idea that small things can have an impact on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and causing a tornado in Texas. Of course, a single act like the butterfly flapping its wings cannot cause a tornado. Small events can, however, serve as catalysts that act on causing catastrophic conditions.

Benjamin Franklin offered a poetic perspective, long before the identification of the butterfly effect:

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For want of a horse the rider was lost,

For want of a rider the battle was lost,

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

The lack of one horseshoe nail could be inconsequential, or it could indirectly cause the loss of a war. There is no way to predict which outcome will occur.

We don’t really know how the Covid-19 virus began. There are lots of theories out there. My favorite is that it started in a lab in China, and a cleaning worker who had no food to offer his family stole a bat from the lab that had been infected with the virus. He took it home, fed his family, and sold the remains in the village market. And thus, the virus was spread first to their neighborhood, then to their city, then to their country, and eventually, to the entire world. And like the butterfly effect, a bat from China had a catastrophic effect on the entire world.

But just like one bad action can cause destruction, one good action can have a ripple effect that can repair the damage. Yes, we have a virus from China that has caused much destruction, but this has also caused an opposite reaction. Many people have come forward to help our community. Camillus House has a program called “Casserole Out of Kindness” in which individuals, religious groups and other organizations are invited to provide nutritious meals to the hungry and/or homeless in our community. Recently, a student from Belen was shown on Instagram making a meal from his home to donate to this program. The Key Clubhouse of Miami had to close its doors during the pandemic, which meant that many of its members would not be able to have access to a daily meal or to transportation to be able to go buy what they needed from a grocery store. Many came forward to donate food to its members, including my Belen Emmaus sisters. All I had to do was send a text to a few, and this caused such a ripple effect that we filled up their entire van with groceries.

The boycott to the Goya products caused the opposite reaction for many and they started a buycott. Many people started buying Goya products to donate to Food Banks around the country. One of these generous persons is Jack Fleming, a 14-year-old who has autism. He wrote on his Facebook page: “I used my money and my parents gave me money to buy lots of Goya stuff and donate it to food pantries. Because I am an American and I love Americans and guess what, I don't care if this food feeds democrats or republicans. We are all American and that is what should matter.” Yes, just like there’s destruction, there is also reparation and restoration.

Next weekend, we celebrate the feast of St. Anne, our Lady’s mother. I am praying a novena to her asking her to intercede for our country and our world. Today’s prayer went like this:

“O St. Anne, you are my spiritual grandmother. Please pray for me! 

I come to you today asking that you pray for me to see God’s goodness in my life, just the way that it is. 

It is easy for me to forget about the blessings that do exist in my life while I pray for another one. 

It is easy for me to forget about the beauty that does exist in my life while I focus on what is lacking.

Instead, I ask you to please pray for me today that I may be present in each moment, and that I may be open to seeing God’s goodness, beauty, and loving hand in my day -- just as it is.

Please pray that I may be able to live in the present, and not to dwell on the past or the future.”

Yes, in the midst of these difficult times, I may be more inclined to focus on the negative rather than the positive. It may be easier to cry about what I have lost instead of concentrating on the blessings that I receive from God each and every day. I may want to cry over those restaurants that are closing without thinking that there were many before them that I used to love too and they closed for different reasons, like Crepe St. Michel, Le Festival, Rogers on the Green, Whiffenpoof or Chef Allen. And from their ashes, many good new restaurants emerged. So yes, we are losing some very good restaurants like Ortanique, but there will be others that will emerge out of their ashes. When one door closes, another one opens, so we must keep life moving forward spreading kindness everywhere we go. One little action today may make our world a much better place tomorrow. 

Copyright © 2020 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

Point of View

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” —1 Samuel 16:7

Ever since we moved to our new apartment, we walk most mornings around the golf course. The south side of the golf course has less shade, and we were always walking that side towards the sun. It’s gotten so hot that last week we decided to walk in the opposite direction, that way the sun would hit us on the back. It was not going to diminish the heat, but at least we would not have the sun hitting us directly on our face.

Even though we are walking around the same golf course, just the fact that we changed directions has made us discover things that we had never noticed before. Our point of view totally shifted. I noticed a house with beautiful orchids that I had not seen before, a fountain with a statue of dolphins that before was hidden from my sight, another with angels that looked totally different when seen from the front and not the back, and today, my husband noticed how beautiful some trees looked in a corner house. It had always looked like a dense forest when seen from the other side, but from our new point of view, the trees look spectacular. There is also a lighthouse that I absolutely love to photograph. It’s not really a lighthouse, it’s a water tower, but since it looks more like a beautiful lighthouse, I still like to refer to it as the “lighthouse.” When we started walking towards it from the south side of the golf course instead of the north side like we were used to, I took this beautiful picture from a completely different angle. Looking at it from this point of view makes the “lighthouse” seem so much more majestic.

I was born in a communist country, and I left when I was seven years-old. I have a very clear memory of being in my second grade classroom on the first week of school when the teacher said aloud: “I have a surprise in this envelope for one of you. Who wants to get a surprise?” Of course, the entire group of 7-year-olds raised their hands. I was the lucky winner. She gave me the envelope and she told me to give it to my mom since I had to share the surprise with her. Imagine my excitement. I could not wait to get home to open the envelope with my mom to find out what was inside. When I got home and I gave her the envelope, I watched in horror as my mother began to cry after she read the note that was inside. The “so-called” surprise was that I was being transferred to a different school. I had been deceived by my teacher. She tricked the entire classroom into making us think that what she had was a good thing, “a surprise.” All the other kids had been jealous of me because I received the surprise, and yet, the surprise turned out to be a punishment. I was being punished because my parents had decided to leave the country. I had to switch to a strange school where I did not know anyone, in a neighborhood that was far away from my house, and leave behind all my friends. And no matter how much my mom cried and begged the school principal to allow me to stay there, they were reluctant because we were “worms” and “worms” did not deserve to be heard. I remember crying my heart out for having raised my hand on that fateful day, but little did I know that whether I had raised my hand or not, that envelope already had my name written on it and the dice had already been cast.

As you can imagine, that experience plus many others that I lived in my birth country, have steered my point of view in many decisions that I’ve had to take throughout my life. I grew up listening to stories from my parents and grandparents of how they were deceived by Castro and his cohorts, who came into the country in 1959 surrounded by falsehood and lies. He did not formally declare Cuba a socialist state until May 1, 1961, but all along, he was a communist who tried to hide his own intentions to gain the support of the people to overthrow the previous president from government. Many saw right through him, but many others were deceived and sixty years later, they are still paying the price.

We left the country in 1969, first to Spain, and five years later, we moved to the United States of America. I have spent more years in this country than in the other two countries combined. Even though I was not born here, I consider this land my own. I received my education here. I was married here. My children were born here. This country is made up of immigrants. It gave us opportunities that we might not have had anywhere else. I learned very early that in this country, if you work hard, you can accomplish anything you want.

One of the things that I most value about my adopted country is the freedom to express my own opinion. It may be different from the opinion of my neighbors, but just like I respect their opinion, I expect that they in turn respect mine. It is in the First Amendment of our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

It is impossible that all the American people think the same way. Our points of view are going to be colored by our backgrounds and life experiences. Someone that grew up in Nazi Germany and lost their whole family in a concentration camp is going to have a very different point of view about the freedom of religion than someone that has never experienced hardship because of their religious values. A person whose ancestors were slaves is going to have a different point of view than someone who has always lived in freedom. As someone who experienced first hand communism and its deceptive practices, my point of view will be completely different than someone who has always lived in a democracy. But just because our points of view are different, it doesn’t mean that they are wrong or that we cannot respect each other. We are each going to make our choices and decisions through the lens of our own values.

It is very scary when I look at the news and I see so much hatred. I can’t help but think back to the time of Jesus and how much hatred He also experienced. He was hated because He spent time with the prostitutes. He was hated because He ate with the tax collectors. He was hated because He loved. The Pharisees were more interested in keeping their laws than in caring for the people. A person could not be cured on the Sabbath simply because their law did not allow anyone to work on the Sabbath, and taking care of a sick person was considered work. Their point of view was distorted because they were placing more emphasis on their laws than on their hearts. But Jesus defied them all, and in the process, He taught us not to judge: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged... ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye’.” Luke 6: 37, 41-42. He also told us that we had to love all our neighbors, whether we agreed with them or not: “Love your neighbor as yourself... To love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:31, 33. Even our own Declaration of Independence tells us “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Therefore, we should not judge anyone simply because they look different or their point of view is different than ours.

It saddens me when I see so much division in this country that I love so much. It hurts to see so much violence to attempt to inflict someone’s point of view upon another. I remember when I voted for the first time the year I turned 18, not everyone agreed but we were able to listen to each other’s point of view and we were able to respect each other. Today, expressing my point of view aloud could result in death. And that scares me because it reminds me of why my parents and grandparents decided to leave Cuba. They did not have the freedom to express their point of view. Anyone who did not agree with the Communist government could be executed or placed in jail.

When the coronavirus pandemic began, as bad as it was, my hope was that the silver lining of such a deadly virus would be to unite us as a nation. And yet, that did not happen. On the contrary, we are more divided than ever. We only want to consider one point of view, and we are not taking the time to change directions and consider that maybe our neighbor’s point of view may be worth looking at from a different angle. Maybe it’s time to change directions, or else, we may need to start calling our country the Divided States of America.

Copyright © 2020 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

The Masked Generation

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle." — St. Francis of Assisi ---

It’s official. We are going to be wearing masks for a very long time. We will be known in the future history books as the masked generation. I already have separated a drawer for masks. I have an assortment: the disposable ones, the solid color ones, the flower masks, the masks with messages, the ones with filters... and I dislike them all. The minute I get into the car, I take it off. As soon as I walk into the house, I hang it in the closet to air out or I throw it in the shower to wash it, depending on where I have been. 

I have tried to create a good relationship with the mask by trying to find some positive features. When I’m wearing a mask, I don’t have to worry about bad breath or make-up. It also protects me from bad odors. But that’s all I can think of. However, I can think of one hundred things against the mask. My phone doesn’t recognize me when I wear a mask so face recognition is pointless. I cannot wear lipstick because it gets all over the mask. My face gets all sweaty and sticky. And I could go on and on and on. But my favorite reason for hating my mask is that I feel that unless I wear sunscreen all the time in the upper part of my face, soon I will look like this:

But the bottom line is that when I wear the mask, I am not wearing it for my comfort, I am wearing it out of consideration for myself and for others. When I wear the mask, I am trying to be part of the solution. When I walk my dog out on the street and I run unto other people that are wearing their masks, I feel grateful and safe. But when I am in the elevator and someone walks in without a mask, I jump out and I tell them: “You should be wearing a mask.” This is not about being controlled by the government or by my management association. In a recent building board meeting, someone actually threatened to sue the association because they were infringing on his rights by making him wear a mask in the common areas. Seriously? It’s a good thing everyone told him that he was selfish and inconsiderate.

If we only learn one thing from this pandemic it should be that we are not in this world alone. We are all in this together. And it’s going to take the whole world to realize this so we can beat this virus. Maybe there is a reason why this virus has come to visit us. We had to stop spinning out of control and we had to realize that we are one world. We had to humble ourselves and realize that we need each other to win this battle. We have been living in this world without care, thinking that no matter what we did, the earth would be here forever. But maybe this virus came to purify our world and to open our eyes so that we could see that the earth is not going to last forever if we continue being so careless.

This virus may have also come to remind us that there is someone much more powerful that we have forgotten about. Yes, I am talking about God. Our world had to get very dark for us to get on our knees. It took a tiny virus to get us to pray for a cure. It reminded us that our world without God is very lonely and very scary. When we were quarantined, we realized that we did not need so many material things. We realized that all we needed was the one thing that had been taken away. And that was the company of others. When we were isolated, we missed our loved ones. If we had to choose between buying a new outfit or receiving the hug of a loved one, I am pretty sure we all would have asked for the hug. But it was in this isolation that we found our way back to God. It was in the darkness that we searched for His Light. Many that had not uttered a prayer in a very long time, found themselves praying for mercy and for a miracle.

Yes, we will go down in the history books as the masked generation, but I also hope that when we are able to remove our masks, we will be able to look at our brothers and sisters around the world without shame in our eyes that we did our part to make this whole world a much better place.

In the meantime, let’s all be uncomfortable together for a little while longer while uniting our hands in prayer: “Father, we are sorry for the selfish ways that we have treated Your World. We have forgotten that all our graces come from You. We apologize for turning our backs on You and forgetting that You are God. If You have sent us this virus to cleanse us and purify us so we can find our way back to You, please heal our souls and our hearts so that together we can send this virus away. Please, Lord, we ask You for forgiveness so that your Mercy can begin to cover our world. We know that only your Healing Presence will help us to beat this virus. We come to You today with humble hearts asking for your protection from this virus. And we ask for your guidance and wisdom so we can find a cure for this disease. But may Your Will be done, not ours. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”