banana pancakes

i'm dreaming every night. sometimes i live through my dreams. sometimes i think it's all i need.

i fear loneliness. i also fear falling more in love with my independent tendencies. i am alone here.

i long for God and i'm frustrated.

i want love, passion and happiness. i preach sacrifice, brokenness and pain.

i want to fly away. i want to be back a prov. learning, growing, soaking up the intelligence from my brilliant professors. contemplating in vast quiet fields and waking up to Anne and banana pancakes. i could weap with mourning for these things. this is such a different season for me. it's hard.

i want to cry. i know i will dream of different realities... and i'll continue to find new excitments. and maybe someday i'll be crying about missing Korea and the people here. Oh, what a torture to move all the time; and Oh, what a love and appreciation it brings for the things you struggled through and took for granted.

traffic and stars

In humid heat I sit.
dusk
warm breeze
and everywhere traffic
of souls and automobiles
high heels and dresses,
suits and cigarettes,
honking horns and racing scooters,
men holding hands,
curious stares
foreign and familiar
fight for my senses
In humid heat I sit.
watch
and glimpse
your freckle in the sky.

jewels on the streets

No one
Knows his name-
A man who lives on the streets
And walks around in rags.

Once I saw that man in a dream.
He and God were constructing
An extraordinary
Temple.

-St. Francis of Assisi


It should not be surprising that the Seoul streets also home those that are homeless. I probably see one such person every day on my way to work; sitting on the subway stairs with a hat in front containing a few tossed coins. I see one person crawling up the street just opposite the one i work at. This person has no legs. I saw another kneeling on the ground with his head bowed down on his outstretched arms; his hands making a cup to receive any type of mercy. What do we do?

I had a vision the other day, as i past another such woman, of me coming to this woman with Kimbab (a korean sort of sushi roll)... I took it in my hands and knelt before her with my head bowed down on my arms (like the man i saw earlier) and extended my hands containing the food. She wept; for bowing is a huge sign of respect here, done to those of a higher status than you.. So this action of mine would be an extreme statement.
I don't know where this vision came from. I can only say it was from God. A challenge.. Maybe God was speaking to me further on how he sees us. His people.. Those that are homeless are his precious jewels that we quickly rush past.

Church today this is what was preached. I was overwhelmed. This message is so counter-culture, it slaps our societal values in the face.. my values, and dare i say Christian values.. to love those who are rich, beautiful, talented, "successful;" and all of the meaning we've attached to these words.

Matt. 25:42-45
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them, saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

I need to learn how to love.

joy

Somehow the conundrum of the privacy of my thoughts was answered by an explicit response of appreciation... which turns my problem to pure consciousness of existing observations. This can be frightening to me; but obviously overcome as i continue to write my thoughts... scared as i am to make claims of knowing anything right now... I know nothing but to love.
But i must speak right now of joy. I love those moments... so ineffable.. and yet, here i try.
C.S. Lewis describes joy as "the sublime experience of the transcendent, the glimpse of the eternal that is only fleetingly available..." I often don't know where it comes from, but i can name times in my life where this feeling has overtaken me.. And in the most random of places... Today i was on the bus and had to write. These are my words as i flew:
"I feel as though i'm flying in open skies; limitless, boundless and all beauty encompassing infinite space. I feel JOY. My heart has wings; God has kissed my cheek and i'm sitting on this Seoul bus grinning wildly on the inside. I sense his freedom, the freedom that breaks our standards, our scripts, our understanding. The freedom to love beyond the lovely, to value those that by worldly standards have none; YES, this is it! To see gifts in those where they are invisible. To tell them! To see them GROW and CHANGE. To see them break the boxes society has gently placed them in; slowly rocking them to sleep. By God's strength, love, grace and mercy may I be a part of those gift openers; rip them open like presents on Christmas morning and see the ugly's beauty, see the nerd's coolness, the weakling's strength, the shy's audaciousness, the ditz's brilliance (I am speaking in worldly terms). And may they open more presents, and loose the elevated from the thrones we've bound them to. And as the least of these, the last, the sinners, the lowly and oppressed (as God so kindly spoke in our own terms) are lifted, and the exalted lowered; may we all speak, see, understand, live and love on the same plane - AKA, The Kingdom; started in a stable."
Oh, my idealism runs wild.. But was not Jesus an idealist with a perfect realistic understanding? Did he not exist in our world and show us another?
These thoughts have been my joy today. They are my wantings, my striving fors...
"All joy...emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings." - C.S. Lewis
And so i journey...

Only as a child am I awake
and able to trust
that after every fear and every night
I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
time trembling around you.

To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.
I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly
in ways I can't make out.
The day's labor grows simple now,
like a holy face
held in my dark hands.

a beautiful poem bethany sent me by Rilke.

brought to memories of mom

My father came into the room and began to try to convey to my terrified mind things it had never conceived before. It was in fact cancer and followed the usual course; an operation, an apparent convalescence, a return of the disease, increasing pain, and death. My father never fully recovered from this loss.
Children suffer not (I think) less than their elders, but differently. For us the real bereavement had happened before our mother died. We lost her gradually as she was gradually withdrawn from our life into the hands of nurses and delirium and morphia, and as our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing, as the house became full of strange smells and midnight noises and sinister whispered conversations. If I may trust to my own experience, the sight of adult misery and adult terror has an effect on children which is merely paralysing and alienating. Everything that had made the house a home had failed us; everything except one another. We drew daily closer together (that was the good result) - frightened urchins huddled for warmth in a bleak world.
Grief in childhood is complicated with many other miseries. I was taken into the bedroom where my mother lay dead; as they said, 'to see her', in reality, as I at once knew, 'to see it'. There was nothing that a grown-up would call disfigurement - except for that total disfigurement which is death itself. Grief was overwhelmed in terror. To this day I do not know what they mean when they call dead bodies beautiful. The ugliest man alive is an angel of beauty compared with the loveliest of the dead. Against all the subsequent paraphernalia of coffin, flowers, hearse, and funeral I reacted with horror. To my hatred for what I already felt to be all the fuss and flummery of the funeral I may perhaps trace something in me which I now recognise as a defect but which I have never fully overcome - a distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to the collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality.
When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been taught; that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I accordingly set myself to produce by will-power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle.
With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.

These are the words of C.S. Lewis in this book Surprised by Joy. It seems to be a habit of mine of late to record what I am reading from others... their thoughts, their experiences. Reading this, however, was like reading my own journal. I cannot believe how similar our circumstances were and how extensive our thoughts correlate.
I can definitely relate to Lewis' observation that with the death of his mother came "a distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to the collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality;" and I can see this as true in my friends who have also lost.
Death is never something one gets over. Maybe that's why I write about it now. I need some sort of outlet, a way to continue to express the grief I still feel. Somehow communicating reminds me... and others that this story does exist; and many are living silently with their heartbreaking memories. Like Lewis, I also feel that amidst much fun, pleasure and joy, the reliable, peaceful security that my mother embodied is forever gone. And I will grieve for the rest of my life.

nails

it can be very strange for me to participate in what our society calls "womanly." today was one of those days... shopping, hair, make-up, getting nails done. i don't know when these activities became so foreign to me, or if i have always felt a little strange to focus so much attention on frivilous, "beautifying" persuits. (oh gosh! i just chipped one of my freshly painted nails typing!) haha... so much time and energy someone put into making my nails look beautiful... ruined in 25 minutes! what is the point?
one of the girls mentioned how after getting things like this done you don't feel like doing anything active incase it ruins your nails, hair, whatever. so we value this "beauty" while limiting our movements and other (more beneficial) activities. no. women, we must sit beautiful; that is what society tells us. and this is what so many accept and consider normal without question.
i sat down with the other women to let my nails dry and our conversation turned into a gossip session about the latest celebrities and their love lives.
i cannot help but feel like i'm getting lost in world with shallow focus. the thing is, i know each of these women i've spend time with "gossiping" is brilliant and has great potential in this world. why do they put on the face of the pretty woman? the act of the needy woman? material woman? incapable woman? ditsy woman? have i always been so different? probably not. but things look so different to me now. and i wish we could all see, and be set free to live without these pressures to be simply beautiful and needy (in order to get a man, which seems to be the goal of so many women's lives) but to live freely and love... knowing each one is uniquely beautiful and capable of spreading love and beauty in the world.
may we all experience such a feat in this adventure.

An understanding with Dietrich

"I detect that a rebellion against all things 'religious' is growing in me. Often it amounts to an instinctive horror - which is certainly not good. I'm not religious by nature. But I have to think continually of God and Christ; authenticity, life, freedom, and mercy mean a great deal to me. It is just their religious manifestations which are so unattractive. Do you undestand?"

Some personal thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer... a rebellion I seem to share.

St. Thomas Aquinas On Behalf of Love

Every truth without exception - no matter

who makes it - is from God.

If a bird got accused of singing too early

in the morning,

if a lute began to magically play on its own

in the square

and the enchanting sounds it made drove a pair of young lovers

into a wild, public display of

passion,

if this lute and bird then got called before the inquisition

and their lives were literally at stake,

could not God walk up and say before the court,

"All acts of beauty are mine; all happen on the behalf of love?"

And while God was there, testifying for our heart's desires,

hopefully the judge would be astute enough

to brave a question,

that could go,

"Dear God, you say all acts of beauty are yours;

surely we can believe that. But what of all actions

we see in this world,

for is there any force in existence greater than the power

of your omnipresent hand?"

And God might have responded, "I like that question,"

adding, "May I ask you one as well?"

And then God would say,

"Have you ever been in a conversation when children entered

the room, and you then ceased speaking because your

wisdom knew they were not old enough

to benefit - to understand?

As exquisite is your world, most everyone in it

is spiritually young.

Spirituality is love, and love never wars with the minute, the day,

one's self and others. Love would rather die

than maim a limb,

a wing.

Dear, anything that divides man from man,

earth from sky, light and dark, one religion from another...

O, I best keep silent, I see a child

just entered the

room."

how dare i look upon a creature with contempt
how dare i judge
through eyes blinded by my own
limited understanding
but again, Look!
and see an image
of One most lofty
and again
do I not see Him in your eyes,
see myself in your pain
and wonder at my stupidity