YANGPYEONG JOURNAL | WEEK 2

April 15 Entry

My day opened with a zoom session with my spiritual director this morning, which is afternoon back in Southern California. I have been sitting with him monthly since I started my sabbatical. Before the pandemic, we used to meet face to face at Sierra Madre Passionist Father’s Retreat ground. During my direction time, I mostly do the talking. He would listen and spray thoughtful questions. In my earlier sessions, he heard all my rants, anger, and disillusionments, and helped me process my faith deconstructive journey.

Now, my sessions with him revolve around discerning what God is currently doing in my life and how to move with God step by step into the next phase of my life. I feel generally hopeful about where I am in life. I have trekked through dark and lonely valleys and endured the scarcity and barrenness of the desert. Even then, I have experienced life-giving and thirst-quenching stream and provident cool shade on the green pasture. Using Richard Rohr’s language, I have entered the second half of life and have retired “the loyal soldier” of my first half of life.

Today, I shared with him about Yangpyeong one month stay and the healing stay. Additionally, I spoke to him about keeping a daily journal for the next 30 days. I also laid out my plan to be in Asia this fall and how my wife and I could plan to be in Korea for another one-month stay somewhere outside of Seoul. I noticed my energy rising with excitement about keeping a daily journal in addition to the healing stay idea. The interior energy was a surprise. My spiritual director caught my energy too. He told me that a few of Henri Nouwen’s earliest writings were of travel and retreat journals: The Genesee Diary and Gracias: A Latin America Journal. This is my fourth-day journal entry, and I am eager and delighted to sit, reminisce, and simply let it flow out of me. The act of remembering and savoring by capturing what my mind, body, and soul remember has been an exercise of awareness that I am somewhat foreign to. Normally, days blitz by making it difficult to remember what really went on during the day. And thus, what really mattered most to my soul blows by without clear awareness. . . If “God does come to me disguised as my life” as mundanely and ordinarily but also as extravagantly and brightly, the responsibility is mine and mine alone to discern, recognize God’s disguise, and be in union with God every day.

Right after my time with my spiritual director, I migrated to a group spiritual direction zoom that my wife first started a few years back with two others. I was grafted into the group as a latecomer and have been immensely enjoying the fellowship that meets every other week. They were initially drawn to my wife’s learning journey of spiritual direction. Now, we meet as a peer-to-peer spiritual direction group.

Since this is the passion week, this morning, as part of our prompt before reflective sharing, we meditated on Henri Nouwen’s reflection on Holy Saturday titled, “The Day of God’s Solitude.”

The following comes from a series of devotional reflections on the Stations of the Cross by Henri Nouwen.  This is excerpted from the meditation for Station 14:  Jesus is laid in the Grave – from Walk With Jesus

There was deep rest around the grave of Jesus.  On the seventh day, when the work of creation was completed, God rested.  “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he rested after all his work of creating,” (Genesis 2:3).  On the seventh day of the week of our redemption, when Jesus had fulfilled all he was sent by his Father to do, he rested in the tomb, and the women whose hearts were broken with grief rested with him.  Of all the days in history, Holy Saturday – the Saturday during which the body of Jesus lay in the tomb in silence and darkness behind the large stone that was rolled against its entrance, (Mark 15:46) – is the day of God’s solitude.  It is the day on which the whole creation waits in deep inner rest. (Italicized is mine)

My evangelical tradition fast-forwarded too quickly from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday. The so-called Holy Saturday was non-existent or of non-importance as in “Sunday is coming.” Sunday could not come soon enough. We went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, forgetting the Saturday in between. The paradoxical idea of Jesus resting in the tomb after fulfilling all he was sent by God to do and the women resting in brokenness and grief is remarkably profound. Nouwen designates Saturday as the day of God’s solitude. Rather than bypassing or skipping too quickly to Sunday, we are invited to the deep inner rest of Saturday. In death and darkness, there is rest. Death and darkness are thus not to be avoided but to be embraced and learned to live in. The linkage from Nouwen’s meditation on Holy Saturday to Resurrection Sunday is the very notion of waiting, as Nouwen writes, “the whole creation waits in deep inner rest.” This waiting is resting. And resting is waiting, with hope for life that is the Easter Sunday.

Coincidentally, one of the books I have brought with me to Korea is Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor. In it, she writes as if she had pondered Nouwen’s meditation above.

“As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

Easter Sunday coupled with celebratory spring greens and vibrant colors of life everywhere around me like a majestic choir after a long dreary “dead” winter stands as a vivid testament of life and resurrection.

Perhaps the deeper we rest in the tomb of and with Jesus, in silence and solitude, in darkness and death, in our union with him in solitude, the more profound experiences we will have in witnessing new life.

Dumeuro (Bonus)

(This portion is from April 18 entry. Grace encouraged me to include this as a bonus feature.)

Sensory overload was a theme today. One of the first tips our host gave us upon arrival was about Yangpyeong’s traditional outdoor market that opens every 5 days. The dates that end with either 3 or 8 are the days they open. The only equivalent example would be weekend farmer’s market back in the states. Today was April 18 so we circled the date a few days ago to check it out. In addition to no guests visiting us today, it was also Monday which normally translates into being less busy. It was a pleasant 40-minute drive along the river to the biggest city, Yangpyeong. Yangpyeong is a city as well as a name of the county.

I found a parking spot which could have been extremely stressful to find, but a parking angel visited me at the right time and gifted me a spot with a pretty bow on top. Backing into a parking spot makes so much sense in Korea because the space is tight, and I am like a pro now. All the cars feature side mirrors that fold with a push of a button, unlike the manual ones. As soon as we entered the traditional outdoor market scene with colorful umbrellas and tents covering the warm sun with tons more people than we anticipated, I was transported back in time to my childhood. We were shoulder to shoulder in some crowded sections of the market. My body reflected my age, but my senses were that of a 7-year-old wanting to try every food in sight. My eyes widened, my nose opened (too bad we were all masked up), and my saliva gland began to work overtime. As we were hungry and it was close to noon, we decided to eat first. The first thing that caught my attention was deep-fried fish cake enveloping a long rice cake, like a corn dog but with completely different ingredients. As has been a recent pattern, my wife took one bite, and the rest was mine. Like a good American when eating a corn dog, I only asked for mustard and not ketchup.

We walked less than 20 feet and found an empty plastic table that was just clearing from earlier guests at another outdoor restaurant. My parking angel must have been following me, this time clearing people out. . . such a selfish thought but it was entertaining to think about. Less than 2 seconds later, one lady came over and asked us what we would like to order. After quickly glancing at other tables, I ordered mushroom soup over rice and assorted Jeon (pan-fried, flour coated, and egg battered slices of fish, minced meat, and/or vegetables). All for less than 10 dollars. We took one sip of the soup and our eyes opened even more wide because it was everything we imagined and more. The table right next to us had 2 middle aged men who seemed to be friends by the way they were talking to each other, not using honorifics. I overheard one of them saying to the other, “I like this scene. This feels like we are back to normal, smelling and being able to touch the ‘aroma of humanity.’” I agreed with him in spirit, paid, and cleared out for the next awaiting guests.

Even after a hearty lunch, my appetite showed no slowing down with my eyes and nose jerking side to side to soak in all the sights and smells. After purchasing a few candles to use for our guests, we stood in a long line for Mandu, steamed meat and vegetable dumplings for dinner tonight. We also bought a small portion of freshly made Tteok, Korean rice cakes. I saw an old lady selling half a dozen kinds of Kimchi. She could be as old as my mom and her stall looked like Kimchi made right. The one that caught my eyes was Pa-Kimchi, green onion Kimchi that is crispy and aromatic. I loved eating them growing up. My wife wanted to buy some Naengi, a fresh spring green that appears at the end of winter. As we purchased one bag, the merchant grabbed some extra from her other pile and gave us extra. Noticing her action, I quickly blurted, “Thank you for your kindness, you are giving us extra.” She plainly said, “this is what we do in traditional market.” “Thank you, I hope you sell much” (direct translation from Korean), I replied in earnest. This is what the sweet aroma of beautiful humanity is like, I thought leaving her and the market.