JOY ECSTASY
October 13, 2024
Just barely two hours ago, three of our children, including our son-in-law, left for the US. Hours later, my wife and I will travel to Korea with our son and our daughter-in-law to spend the next few days. They will eventually fly back to the US, and we will remain in Korea until early December.
Before our redeye flight tonight, I am carving out time now to process the last nine glorious days and write something meaningful and coherent, mainly for my keepsake. I have been sitting at a café, unable to find and stitch words to summarize my experience of our family time together. I realize that I am still walking on clouds and have not touched the ground of reality.
After sitting idle for long minutes, the word gift comes to me. It was the gift of time (Chronos, Kairos, and synchronous all roll into one), God’s provision, one another/family, and most of all, the gift of joy and ecstasy, the purest kind. We knew aligning our calendar and committing to making our family time happen would not be a small feat. Normally, it would be parents visiting their children who have flown the coop for work, school, or whatever. Our case was the reverse. Our children came to see us. And they came willingly and excitedly.
Since there were eight nights together and since we missed many of this year’s birthday celebrations as one complete unit, we decided to celebrate one birthday each night. Predictably, I ate more sweets in the last week than all year combined. Additionally, we celebrated Christmas in October and exchanged Secret Santa and white elephant gifts. The daily highlight was our night capping family activity: offering words of life and encouragement to the birthday person and “God-hunt” exercise. We showered each person with words of life and encouragement using words, phrases, and images of the Christ we see in him/her. It was the time of Christ in each of us encountering Christ in each other. On a major side note, I was overwhelmed with God’s grace and redemption. “What have I done to deserve such sweetness, joy, and love!” coursed through my being multiple times, thanking God a thousand times.
Unashamedly, we are a family of foodies. We ate from morning till night. Entrusting Mark Wiens, we drove up to Penang only to eat our way through the two days we were there. Being goofy, giddy, silly, and childlike was expected, and playing children’s and lateral thinking puzzle games while traveling in the van. Back in KL, as one team, we played Pico Park 2 on Nintendo Switch (even my wife joined for one level), bowled, and lifted weights. While playing in the pool, we made up impromptu variations of Marco Polo games, oblivious to the watchful eyes around us. For three hours, we sang our hearts out and danced the night away as if we owned the night in a karaoke room. The boys swung baseball bats after watching the Dodgers clinch the series over the Padres. The girls made hand-knotted bracelets and received the full oil massage, beaming afterward. We watched the sunset, walked in the rain, mall-hopped, and walked through the natural butterfly habitat (in Penang), and were promptly wowed, cementing the butterfly as our family’s emblem. Butterfly translates into God’s protection, provision, and faithfulness over our family.
My wife facilitated group silence, and a “God-hunt” exercise each night, focusing on different topics including joy, freedom, nature, most alive, etc moments to trace our day to discover how God has been present with us as individuals and in our family. We nodded, smiled, and laughed out loud in agreement, allowing all to relive and savor God’s footprints of the day. During our last night together, as my wife opened the sharing time, I was urged to do the Ritual of Leaving exercise. (If you want to learn more about the ritual, read my earlier post on April 23 of this year). I told my family I had an idea of what to do as our last family ritual. Without me spelling out, my wife already knew what I had in mind. Having bolstered by synchronicity, I led the exercise of looking into each person’s eyes and bowing in silence with our arms across our hearts. In my short introduction to the exercise, I told my family we are doing this as fellow human beings, not as parents and children, but essentially as fellow pilgrims. Tears flowed and the sniffling soon became louder as a sacred hush enveloped us and heaven’s joy filled our room. My wish and prayers have been answered!
Japan and Korea, here we come in the spring of 2026!
THEY ARE FINALLY HERE!