ARISE AND COME WITH ME — free as the sky

It has been about a week since I turned 60. I wanted to let the time pass and settle before I wrote something coherent and authentic to my heart.

In the olden days in Korea, people celebrating their 60th was a big deal as it represented a significant milestone and as people generally did not live that long. Nowadays, it is no big deal. The over-the-top 60th birthday celebration bash is replaced with 70th or even 80th.

At my “ripe” age of 60, I am only now learning that my heart is tender, shy, and courageous. Dare I say that all hearts share these fundamental traits? Heart refuses to submit to the logical, practical, and protective mind always navigating and interpreting to save and elevate one’s ego. A heart can only submit and respond to authentic probing and deep dive into our longings which come from the Eternal Divine. Ego wants to elevate at all costs; the heart wants to be free from climbing and lofty elevation and be authentic even in the midst of a deep dive. Because our hearts are shy and tender, we cannot demand our hearts to show up at will but wait and wait patiently to catch a glimpse. Over time, the accumulated glimpses would require courage on one’s part to simply rise and be, as an authentic self, the God-created and given self, far from the ego-centric messages and the refined, rigid, and polished systems of the ego, including the societal and religious egos.

Even without the benefit of heart-catching glimpses, the heart does and will show its existential courage when (and especially, I may add) things fall apart in life and as one finds life against all odds. When ego tries to save one’s soul, heart is courageously and paradoxically willing to lose one’s soul to find it. Heart knows to lose to gain and find. Heart also receives and accepts what it originally meant to mean. It is as if heart knows it has found its opportune timing to show itself. When everything in the external world darkens, heart shows up as the true interior bright light, beaming and pointing where to go. Heart knows how to navigate the darkness without rejecting it. Here, the perennial invitation is to acknowledge and do a deep dive to discover what our hearts are standing up for and telling us.

I have done some deep dives in my life, but never into the kind of depth that I experienced for the last 4 years. The deep dives are dark and terrifying, surreal and yet ever so real, and where the utmost serenity exists. The most terrifying and sacred truth is that one exists alone and naked in that space. In that space, I have become better aware (and still learning) of the intricacies and complexities of egocentricity at work. Simultaneously, I have learned (and still learning) to listen to my heart which is fundamentally shy, tender, and resiliently courageous, and what my heart desires deep down (which is congruent to what God wants).

Completely unexpected, my 60th was a shocker of affirmations and confirmations of where I have been and where I am going. The last day of the Opening Residency of CQ Asia SSD was my 60th birthday. Someone whom I had not met before had a word of knowledge for me. There are a lot of details that screamed confirmation, one after another. The words were intimate and grand, personal and global, and exhilarating and scary. She shed tears as she shared (as well as rubbing her arms telling me she had goosebumps) and I shed tears while listening. My primary emotions had to do with awe and wonder, being known and loved by God who knows me from my early childhood (as she saw a vision of me when I was a child).

One particular vision she shared with me was the sound of bamboo trees rubbing against each other. Bamboo trees represented people who “bend” to the will of God around the world. She recalled that as they rustle with each other when the wind caresses through the bamboo forest, it creates multiple layered sounds that are soothing, harmonious, and beautiful. She saw me as one of the bamboo trees rubbing with other bamboo trees in the forest.

I have a vision of seeing alternative communities with alternative consciousness. Might I add communities who are willing to bend to the will of God without “empire-building and maintaining” urges and schemes? You can blame Walter Brueggemann for this vision as my heart leapt and embraced the “prophetic” and joyous calling when I read his book, The Prophetic Imagination, during my sabbatical in 2020.

Mentoring, training, and companioning young people and leaders of “multi-colored faces” was the main thrust of the vision the prophetic lady saw. And that contemplation and hospitality were to be significant building blocks of “seeing alternative communities” (my language added) with my wife right alongside me. What my wife and I heard landed as a huge confirmation from God that matches our current life’s trajectory and hearts’ deep desires.

To be given such a life-giving and affirming word on my 60th was beyond my wildest imagination and my only response to God was “Yes, yes, and yes. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The other day, my wife was listening to streaming Spotify, and Michael Card’s classic, Arise My Love (based on the Song of Solomon), came on. As she listened, she knew that it was a message from God to us. The song ends with these lines:

Arise, my love, my lovely one come.
The winter is past, and the rains are gone.
The flowers appear, it’s the season of song,
My beautiful one, arise and come with me.
I am my love’s, my beloved is mine.
Arise and come with me.