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| I've been free for less than a week now, but I got to say...there was actually something really lovely about those several months of training for my mental marathon. The whole process ended up teaching me a lot more than just the in's and out's of a test, but it really taught me about unifying the mind for one purpose. Simple ideas like actually taking care of yourself, sleeping early and waking up early, eating well, moving around a little bit each day, savoring and absorbing optimism and doing away with the clutter of unnecessary worries and irrelevant concerns... More importantly, in terms of the exam itself, it wasn't about choking the answers out of the questions; if anything, it was about listening to what the questions had to say, to approach them in humility with the mindset that you're there to learn something from it, that it's there to teach you. In the beginning, I would almost feel this resentment toward each question, as if they were all purposely hiding the right answer from me. It wasn't until I recognized that I actually have all the right answers in front of me that I was able to breathe a little easier and keep my wits about me. The more I knew how to be nurtured and well rested, the waves of potential rose and overflowed as each day progressed.
All this to say, it got me thinking...a similar approach to life wouldn't hurt. I mean, the system we've got going has conditioned us to think that it's normal to be so obsessed with trying to figure out our future and what our matured selves will one day look like. I know if we could, we would strangle life's 8-ball for all the answers, coercing each triangular answer that swims to the forefront of this tiny window into the future to read, "Yes." Yet, I wonder how much good our efforts do in trying to figure life out before it happens. Such efforts forgo the need for any type of faith in anything. At my very best, I do believe that it's the other way around. I believe that life's the one that teaches us about itself, and the only way we can allow room for such a lesson is by realizing that life is actually bigger than we are. It sounds rather obvious, but at least for me, it really is humbling to remember that I am not the point...to know that all the right answers are indeed at hand and that if I'm open enough, clarity will not fail to keep its appointment.
In effort to give my eyes something new to look at, I went to the Fullerton Arboretum the other afternoon. As I walked around, encountering different flowers and trees from around the world, I could not help but think they all suggest that there is something else to living this life. There is no deadline these trees have to meet in which they have to be in a particular state at a particular time. You would not be able to ask them to grow faster even if you wanted to. They all have their own time, their own functions, and their own contributions - medicinal, nutritional, or simply beauty for beauty's sake. Spending some time there made me think that all these things - flowers, birds, water, light - they all have something to offer, some bigger story to communicate. All these things restore my belief that the One who orchestrated each design and layout has an incredible knack for expression and that by piecing nature together the way He did, He is letting us know that He pieced us together with the same beauty and purpose. Suddenly then, social labels and merits don't make sense anymore and the idea of not having the answers to life's mysteries no longer presents itself as a dilemma, but it becomes a mouth-watering invitation into a new perspective that is warmly accepted by our thirsty souls.
So during all those months of preparation, it's no wonder that He would tell me and tell me again, "I go before you. I made you and formed you. It is all in My hands." It is for this reason that I know none of this has been in vain. None of it.
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| I don't understand who You're asking me to be. When I find myself in the fetal position, breathing in the sheets to mute my cries, I don't understand who You're asking me to be. Be loved? Beloved? You're asking me to be the Be-loved? What is love? What does it look like?
There is a language You're asking me to learn, and while I'm intrigued by the Kingdom's dialect, the feelings of nonetheless being a foreigner to this Kingdom remain. Your reign is immersed in these notions of intimacy, relationship, and love, but I don't understand them. It feels more appropriate to continue to believe that I am the leper outside Your gates - deathly exposed, untouchable, and not to be familiarized with those three ideas... Your invitation for me to come inside, to be loved...again, I don't understand who You're asking me to be. Help me understand...
You return me to the end of this past June when one of my internship supervisors, who has become more like a mentor, father, or friend...or all of the above, kissed me farewell on the forehead. No one's ever done that before, and yet I realized after he did that, that was something that I'd always wanted, something I'd always been wired to want - not necessarily for that deed to be done, but...I'd always sought to be loved simply and without bullshit. It wasn't even a thing. It wasn't forced; it was casually done and freely given.
Something about that act breaks my heart, because it was a moment that openly acknowledged and let me be human, a real human being that could be touched, kissed, and shown an expression of love. I didn't have to desperately conjure it out of the other party; it came and found me and initiated.
If that's the case, I think faith does not truly belong to those inside those gates... The fight to believe and faith itself are the same thing. The fight of faith looks like one who is crippled, blind, unclean, who keeps drawing near...who keeps hanging around the Kingdom's entrance with the utterly ridiculous notion that she might one day receive a kiss on the forehead. What a miracle to think that the King might actually meet with me and do just that...that He might actually embrace me, and not mind doing so...maybe even want to.
Perhaps that's too far of a leap for my mind at the moment, but until I come to that place of hope-realized, I will continue to cry out, "Son of David, have mercy on me! I believe; help my unbelief!"
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| 1. Words – If you speak too many words, useless words will come out. Use your two ears to listen, and think three times before speaking. 2. Books – Devote 1% of your income to buying books. While clothes become old and get thrown away, books are worth keeping regardless of how much time passes by. 3. Street Peddlers – Do not seek a bargain from street peddlers. Though money cultivates dependence, if you pay him as much as he requests, you will be giving that peddler the gift of hope and health. 4. TV – Do not waste too much of your time watching television. While one loses self-control through drunkenness and one’s reason through drugs, watching too much television will paralyze and dull your mind. 5. Smile – Practice making smiling a part of your life. It is the cure to all diseases. It gives youth to the old and a child-likeness to youth. 6. Anger – A person’s anger will always make them lose in an argument. A person’s anger will murder them as well as the other person. Because no one will come near you, your anger will leave you stranded in depression and loneliness. 7. Prayer – Prayer can melt steel. It is like a single beam of light in a dark cave 1000 years long. Two hands folded in prayer are stronger than one clenched fist. It helps you find yourself and see the solution to your future. 8. Others – Never turn your back on others. Others are a mirror image of yourself. If you turn away from them or do not smile at them, there is something inside of you that must be reexamined. 9. Love – Love that is expressed with one’s head and mouth have no fragrance. True love consists of understanding, forbearance, tolerance, adaptability, and humility. “It took 70 years for the love from my head to reach my heart.” 10. Stop – Evaluate your life in solitude once in a while. Look into the eyes of your heart…the heart of your heart. See yourself as your life’s protagonist and investigate who you are, where you’re coming from, and where you’re going. Doing this will release you from the fear of death and create room for true life. -- the late senior cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and former Archbishop of Seoul, Su-Hwan Kim | | |
| "In my parents' generation, rebellion was pop culture. It's not anymore. You can see it in something as simple as where their music was at and where ours is now. If you look at our Billboard Top 100, a lot of those songs on there are from Christian country artists. A lot of rappers, too, are very Christian. The fact that [religion] is even still talked about is kind of wild to me. I think my generation understands it, but they are too selfish to let it matter." - Shia LaBeouf, comparing this generation to the last
This quote stopped me in my tracks. I cannot help but think that Shia has actually caught onto something pretty relevant and truthful to the contemporary condition. Essentially, what he seems to be saying is that, to some degree, our generation has accepted that there is Something or Someone beyond this world that points to value or meaning. Rebellion was more of a customary trend in the previous generation, because it was important for them to define the individual...not to generalize or anything, of course. Today, however, we've calmed down some; perhaps we're more boring for that reason, but nonetheless, we get that it's not just about the individual, as our aims to be "green" would like to suggest, but like Shia said, there is a selfishness, this stubbornness that coincides with our desire for comfort, that obstructs our trajectory toward applying our understanding of "religion." It's a very Zizekian idea - to know exactly what it is we do, i.e. choose to be complacent, and continue to do it anyway. Consequently, what gets elucidated in all of this is the undeniable fact that believing is not the same as following.
This might sound strange, but I recently had moments where I actually wondered if my belief system reflected Judaism more than Christianity. What I mean by that is, I think much of the way I've been living suggests that I'm still waiting for a Messiah, rather than taking in that He's already come and has transformed life as we know it. I'm still waiting to be reassured that everything will ultimately be okay. My absolute obsession with wanting clarity for my future's path is ultimately this thirst to know that my life will not end up in ruins or be labelled as expendable, unnecessary, useless...the like. And now that I think about it, the cries I have let out on behalf of brokenness, mine and others', point to a deep-seated anger and frustration, a hesitation to believe that healing will ever come...that atrocities as public as international affairs, as intimate as one's soul, will never have its meeting with Redemption.
So much of me has been demanding His Kingdom come already, and I wonder if I've just completely neglected to see that it already has, marking its entrance on a cross. So if the cross indicates the arrival of the Kingdom and all that it stands for, then His promises of favor...freedom for captives...adoption for the fatherless...are then already fulfilled.
Perhaps then, this means that I don't have to wait for the day when I'll "feel" healed, or wait for the day when the broken will be saved. Instead, maybe this means that I am healed and that they are saved - it's just a matter of giving Him the benefit of the doubt, trusting that He has beautifully satisfied the core of our human longing, and then...proving Shia wrong by finally letting our "religion" matter to the point of selflessness.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" then means...those who do not have it all together are fortunate, because Jesus makes available to you the hope and healing of Heaven.
So I'm not saying there shouldn't be a posture of waiting or seeking, but Victory implies a consciousness that the war has already been won; meaning, there is validity in Him constantly saying, "Don't worry," or "Don't be afraid," because when it comes down to it, there's nothing to be worried about or afraid of.
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| I was watching Almost Famous the other night. Not that that would surprise any of you, but what I mean to say is...I think you can tell when a story is rich and actually has something to say when you can learn something new from it every time you encounter it. I'd always thought I was William Miller because he's this uncool, endearing writer, but for the first time, I think I might actually be Penny Lane. When Penny barely exhales in tears, "Why doesn't he love me?", I couldn't help but resonate with how we believe our home, our sense of completion and belonging, ought to come from the one(s) we choose to love. Yet, it's funny how life works...this battle to make those we love to love us back, only to miss the fact that we are actually loved by those to whom we gave the least consideration. I know none of you can relate, but I know at least for me, I go through this a lot with God - this whole...wanting to make the world love you, only to find that it uses you to further love itself, and then when God says He loves you, you want to dismiss that, because that feels lame and unoriginal since He loves everyone anyway...
I've been thinking a lot about this relationship I'm part of, and the more I think about it, the more it's becoming clear to me that I've been drawn to two out of His three facets - the Counselor and the Friend who is great with people / who I want to be just like. A lot of the things we talk about are things like how we feel about ourselves, each other, the world, and why we are the way we are. These have always been good sessions, and the revelations are definitely...revelatory, that I'm not questioning. But, I wonder if I've been missing the bigger picture, that maybe He's got more to say to me than just stuff about me and my life...and that maybe this relationship has no other objective...than the very relationship itself.
I realize this sounds ludicrous, but I guess the price I've paid for over-thinking this is this drowning question of what defines a relationship - proximity? consistency? common interest? mutual initiative? vulnerability? See, it's just that...lately, that Third Facet known as Father has been raising His hand in the back corner of my mind. He's been trying to remind me about our relational dynamic, calling Himself "shepherd" and calling me "His own...treasured possession." When He puts it that way, it gets me thinking that using these "therapy sessions with my Counselor/Friend" just to ask my Penny Lane type questions skews the opportunity to cultivate a true relationship.
As someone who's been trying to learn to find flaws within logical reasoning [if you understood what I was referring to, I'm sorry], I came to realize that I've had flawed reasoning about all this for some time. I'd always resented God, because I felt that if He could loves others, too, then He must love me less. Just because He can love more than one person does not mean His love for me is lessened. I may not know much, but maybe a relationship can start by trusting that.
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