living in the binary

it's difficult for me to be gray about the way i feel for people. i either care a lot about them and want them in my life or i could care less about what they do. i wish i could find some kind of balance in the middle, especially when it hurts so much like this to be apart from the person i care about. because for me, to not be so effected by his absence means to stop caring and even though i'm trying to find a balance, my heart is not letting me do so. i don't know what to do

Finding hope again

Living Water retreat 2008. It was held in the surreal calmness and beauty of Lake Junaluska, a Methodist community in the heart of the mountains of North Carolina, just over the rolling hills and winding roads of Tennessee.

It was here that I began grasping for God with every tender longing in my body and it is here that I was found again in my brokenness. It was here, in the midst of my brothers and sisters--some of whom I had known since my more innocent days in middle school--that I began breaking down the wall that had separated me from God for so long. It was a wall made of pride, self-sufficiency, men, lust, and perhaps most importantly, fear. I was afraid to be Christian, because for me, that meant being radical, going against everything that society had taught me, and living a born again life that I couldn't control. But today, there was a short demonstration of what it was like to take a leap of faith in which a young boy jumped into the pastor's arms without any fear. God will never let you fall when you make that jump, the pastor said. That's what makes life exciting. If God had just picked you up from the edge and placed you down on safe ground, your life would be so boring! Those words resonated in my mind and were ringing, echoing in the back of my head. I imagined myself stepping up to the ledge, scared, timid, closing my eyes and taking a leap into the darkness of uncertainty. I thought I would fall straight to the ground, but I flew--through the cold and empty feeling of loneliness into the awesome presence of God.

Another pastor said last night that the biggest problem with our generation of Christians is not drugs, or alcohol, or the media. It is boredom. We have somehow became bored of Christianity and are no longer awed by the astonishment of God's love. God's love, the awesome power that lives inside each and every one of us that promises us to never leave our side.

I remember when I wrote in my New Year's resolution for 2008. "To be fearless in my pursuit of God." But I have been everything but fearless. I have shriveled at the face of society's expectations, my parents' expectations, my pride, my education, my lack of confidence in myself as God's child. No, I don't want to live hiding anymore from what I believe God is calling me to do. To reach out to those who are in pain, to share in their suffering, and to spread the good--no, awesome--news of LIFE to those whose souls are dying. And to reach out to my sisters, who I know have felt so much pain and have nowhere and noone to share their stories with. I lay my life out for you Jesus. Help me to become fearless in following you and what you have commissioned our generation to do.

O Lord, since Thou hast died
To give Thyself for me,
No sacrifice could be too great
For me to make for Thee.

Refrain:
Lord, send me anywhere, Only go with me;
Lay any burden on me, Only sustain me.
Sever any tie, Save the tie that binds me to Thy heart—
Lord Jesus, my King, I consecrate my life, Lord, to Thee.

I only have one life,
And that will soon be past;
I want my life to count for Christ,
What's done for Him will last.

I follow Thee, my Lord,
And glory in Thy cross;
I gladly leave the world behind
And count all gain as loss.

Philippians 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Introverting myself?

In these last several days, I have been forced to face inward toward myself for the energy I usually get from interacting externally with the people around me. Multiple times have I picked up my phone to dial someone to talk to or plan dinner with, only to realize that everyone is so busy with their own lives that they only reluctantly give me the time of day.

Contrary to what I would have liked, not having someone or something to constantly distract my attention has forced me to confront the dreadful questions that have been lingering in the back of my mind. Today, in the midst of my massive migraine and drained body, I finally said a prayer to the God that I have neglected for so long. Until now, I had constantly been able to rely on those precious few people who have, for better or worse, kept me from sinking in loneliness and pondering about my fears. But now I'm submerged deeply in this thing called uncertainty, and nobody is there to sweep me away from the discomforts of truth.

It's been so long since I have genuinely prayed to God that I have almost forgotten how to do it. The unfamiliar feeling of reaching out to God is combined with the overly repeated and seemingly meaningless phrases of Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and forgive me of my sins.

I remember in high school when I had felt the same sense of loneliness and confrontation with reality, and that in my humble tears and pain, I had reached out to Christ with all sincerity and brokenness. That moment had been so pure, so untainted, and so real for me. Why it's so hard to relive that moment as the time passes by, I don't know. Perhaps it is because I have come to rely too much on the people around me for my sense of purpose and supporting energy. I haven't spent enough time thinking to myself and relying on the promise that God had given me from the beginning. It's so hard to trust something that has become so unfamiliar to me.

Is there hope? They say there is. They say that God is always knocking on the door of your heart and you only have to open it to let Him in. But even that notion is foreign to me. What does it mean to open the door to my heart? I like dealing with the abstract, but this is too literary for me. I am almost at a point of desperate need. I need Him and I don't know how to reach Him.

Missing

It's been a while since I have felt the cold tingle of an empty space, a dull yet overwhelming sense of reaching out to grab hold of something--his warm hand, his soft shirt, the remains of a reassuring smile--and grasping nothing but thin air. I blame myself partly for allowing myself to feel this way, but at the same time, when I remember back to the the days when that space inside my heart was filled with the arousing warmth of this pulse and his constantly beating heart, I cannot help but smile. It's not over. Just a pause. A painfully slow one.

Last night, I couldn't stop the tears that fell from my tired eyes. I just wanted to hear his voice and feel safe within his sound. It took a while but he got back to me and calmed my nervous heart again, after which I could finally put myself to sleep. I woke up with my eyes swollen but my mind rested, and the first person I thought about was him.

I don't like feeling so vulnerable. At the same time I cannot picture any other scenario. If only for him. As he said yesterday, there's no wall between us. Whenever I find myself retracting and building up a that invisible wall, I stop and remember the countless hours we spent together when he brought that childish joy to my jaded heart.

This is only the beginning. It's only going to get harder, I know. But despite the weary scars on my prudent disposition, I only see myself moving forward in this fight. To him who shows me the sun after the rain and keeps me wanting more...

El libro extraordinario

I have always wanted to write a book about something extraordinary that would stop people dead in their tracks of whatever the hell they were doing and want to fulfill their wildest dreams. It hasn't happened yet. I'm trying to figure out why.

I will sometimes get these bizarre ideas or think of those one-liner quotes fit to be published in "the 100 best sayings of all times" in the middle of a normal day, so I rush to write them down on whatever scrap of paper I can find, including torn napkins, used printer paper, and the backs of old books. Unforunately, my brilliant ideas suffer one of two fates: (a) I forget what I was thinking before I get to write it down, or (b) I lose the sheet of paper I have written my life-changing idea on because it was mistaken for a napkin to clean up the messy table spill. Whenever B happens, I think to myself that someone somewhere in this world will one day discover my precious piece of writing and think, what a pity that this idea wasn't developed into some amazing masterpiece. Then they will steal my idea and became billionaires overnight because it has inspired them to invent the next great human accomplishment. Yeah.

I have one particular folder that is filled with ideas I have somehow managed to retain or remember not to throw away. And why haven't these been used to make my marvelous book, you ask. The only problem with this folder is that I'm too scared to go back and look at my ideas, perhaps in fear that they aren't as special as I thought they actually were when I wrote them down. I actually ventured through them around 4 am one random night in which I had abosolutely nothing else to do, and I discovered that half of the scraps of paper said exactly the same thing. Was it my bad memory or refusal to accept the harsh truth of my uncreativity that kept eliciting the same spectacular yet not so original idea, over and over again?

And what did my conscience repeatedly throw up onto those poor scraps of paper over and over again? They were thoughts about my mother, which seems to be a recurring theme in my writing. And a recurring theme in my dream that I cannot seem to get rid of. So perhaps this extraordinare book I want to write has nothing really to do with changing the world and everything to do with just understanding myself.

My chats with Grandma

There I was, indecisively fidgeting over which journal to write in and thinking about what content to fill them with when my 75 year old grandmother, wearing a layered orange long-sleeve polo shirt and brown spandex pants came huffing and puffing into my room. She was carrying a plate full of bright organge tangerines on which little drops of water had formed from the condensation. Her hair was as crazy as ever, a brown mess of artificial curls she had paid $20 to a local Korean salonist to do.

As she handed me the plate of tangerines, she looked at my messy coffee desk and smirked, "books again?" In fact, there were no books except for my lattered brown journal, held shut by a red and white rubber band. She fingered the brown sheets of paper I had recently torn out from my bound journal and asked, " Is this English?" I nodded as I started peeling the juicy tangerines. The sweet smell penetrated my stuffy nose and my mouth began to water as I brought the tender crescent-shaped pieces to my lips. "If only I had learned to write like you," she said, still staring at the brown sheet of paper filled with my messy cursive notes. "You're good in English and Korean and Spanish and Chinese and Japanese!" she exclaimed. "No grandma, I don't speak Chinese and Japanese," I replied, smiling at her excitement. "Not even a little?" she asked. I shook my head.

"But you know, Grandma, my teachers in my Korean program make fun of me sometimes because I use satooli (a rural Korean accent with a tangy drawl)," I noted. She burst out in laughter, slapping her thighs. "Well, you should tell you professors that your grandma uses satooli, and be proud of it!" she replied. As the echo of her laughter died down, I saw my grandmother staring out into the spaceless time of her past. She sighed. "You know, your mother was born in Seoul, but we moved back to Daegu for 2 years because, well, we had to. But when we came back to Seoul, your mother had such a little Daegu twang that the whole neighborhood came by to hear her speak. She was a spunky little kid," my grandma narrated. I imagined my mother returning to her playful 6 year old state, entertaining the neighborhood and especially the elderly with her cute smile and impossibly adult-like sayings. It contrasted deeply with the mother I knew now, who was always tired after a long day of work and tended to channel her frustrations onto our family.

"Back in the day, I used to have a small cigarette stand," my grandmother continued. By this time, I had already peeled and eaten four sweet tangerines and my senses were alive to absorb the story my grandma was about to tell me. "Whenever I would have to go in the house to answer the phone or take care of some business, your mother would stand out in front to take the customers. They would ask for different types of cigarettes and hand your mother a big bill. Your mother would calculate the cost of the purchase in her head and give them back the exact amount of change. Now, most of the fellas that bought the cigarettes were old men, and they just about fainted when they saw how smart your mother was." A broad smile creeped upon my grandmother's wrinkly face.

"Your mom's older sister, your aunt, on the other hand, was quite another story," she laughed. "At the store, we had a batch of gourmet candies that nobody bought. Then one day, a whole bunch of them disappeared. I thought someone had come bought them, so I filled up the space with more candy. They kept disappearing, so I assumed they were being sold to some well to do stranger buying treats for their kids. Then, as I was washing your aunt's backpack, a whole string of candy wrappers and boxes came out from the bottom of her bag. She had been taking them to eat all by herself." My grandmother shook her head and giggled to herself. Her eyes twinkled while she told her stories of the past.

"If I had a chance to study, I would be able to read and write myself. But those Japanese imperialists made us learn Japanese until I was in 5th grade. It was only after liberation that I learned the Korean alphabet. But then my father died when I was just finishing grade school and I had four younger siblings to look after, so my Korean is all improper. By the time our family settled down and recovered from my father's death, I was already ready to get married." But Grandma, your Korean is perfect, I told her. "These words are not really words," she replied sadly. The everyday language she had learned had only gotten her so far, she continued, and put up a impassable wall between her and the high society she had for so long yearned to be a part of.

"But you know it, your mother was that smart, I tell you," she kept repeating. She patted my hand and got up from the bed. She straightened out the slightly wrinkled orange bedsheet where she had sat and slowly walked downstairs. "Your mother was that smart."

Later that night, I nonchalantly questioned my mother about her experience working at the family cigarette stand. "I heard you were quite the calculator," I said, giving her a playful nudge. My mother laughed and replied in a childlike voice that I hadn't heard since we went on vacation to Europe, where she was able to see her favorite painters' classic masterpieces, "Now, you know your grandmother always exaggerates things two times as much as the real thing. It was only once or twice that I calculated the cost of those cigarettes in my head."

Without giving me a chance to respond, she moved onto the next topic: her apprehension about me not being able to find a good spouse. "It's time for you to get married, you know," she said, as if our previous conversation never existed, leaving me only to imagine the childhood life of the woman I should know most about.