TREND AND TRADITION

Seoul is one of the trendiest cities in the world. Coming from laissez-faire Los Angeles where flip-flops rule most days of the year, at least for me, I must admit it is rather foreign to me. At the same time, I am more cognizant of how I am dressed before I head outside. I realize there are certain expectations based on age and it feels somewhat suppressive to me. Admittedly, I don’t dress like the age group of men who are close to 60. For younger men, I notice that a trend is a mix of oversized shirts, shorter pants almost Capri-like with no-show socks. To my untrained eyes, it is an uneven look of top-heavy. With my head already big, I can never follow this particular trend even if I am younger. 

Seoul is also one of the oldest and tradition-rich cities in the world. A few weeks ago, my wife and I joined a well-respected retired missionary couple to hike the old Seoul city wall. With the weather perfectly cooperating on the day of the hike, we started on the eastern gate and ended our hike on the northwest side of the city wall. All in all, we walked 22,000 steps going up and down along the city wall. The oldest part of the wall was built in the late 14th century. It was a glorious day and a hike filled with meaningful conversations enough to regurgitate for days. It was also a day of being soaked in the rich tradition of my motherland I don’t get to enjoy back in Pasadena, where we celebrate a meager 120-year “tradition” of the Rose Parade. 

Walking in Seoul is like a visual-gymnastics of going back and forth between old and young and a tenable juxtaposition of trend and tradition. Long-lasting and surviving trends become traditions over time, while most of the trends are just trends, evaporating like dew on the grass in the morning. Traditions are neither good nor bad. Some are simply neutral. Some reflect the dim images of the ways of Jesus and the Kingdom. Tradition represents a collection of accepted and standardized beliefs and behaviors withstanding the time.

Korea is FAST. I mean blazing fast. It is old news that Korea boasts one of the fastest internet speed in the world. Korea delivers food and other shipments fast. Seeing doctors and dentists are fast. I got my first ever set of prescribed reading glasses in 25 minutes from walking into the store to saying hello to “I am not sure if I need one” to “ok, let’s get it” to getting my eyes examined to picking my glasses to putting them on me to walking out of the store! I was told that its country code 82 means ppal li (빨리) which means to hurry fast. The hurry fast culture has become a norm that has obvious benefits as well as unfortunate downsides. One of the downsides is that it has become a culture that generally does not know how to slow down and rest. In Korea, progress is not a progress if it does not happen fast. Bearing fruits of church growth and membership until two decades ago seemed easy and fast. The Church in Korea exploded in the 1980s, which led to an unprecedented explosion of missionary expansion in the 1990s. Korea set the bar for the worldwide church in modern history. In retrospect, the Church and missions developed an unmatched appetite that could not be sustained. Yesterday’s glory was too enticing to ignore, and the church somehow needed to figure out how to reclaim the lost glory. 

I am an outsider, not a complete outsider but one that is somewhat familiar with Korea. I am not an expert on Korea and the Korean Church. At the same time, because I am an outsider, I see things that Korean may not see readily. Certainly, I do not assume what I see is right. It is guesswork based on my intuition. The mix of hurry fast culture with the explosive growth and expansion of church raised an expectation we somehow must “up” our game, trying harder and more to reclaim or to surpass the former glory. I tentatively but resolutely propose that we pause, slow down, and reexamine our foundations of faith, church, gospel, and the Kingdom of God. In the end, we must wrestle with what matters foundationally, not hurriedly going from one program or methodology to another. How would Jesus do life in 2021 in Korea? What would Jesus say, teach, and do? 

What may matter in the end is the earnest grapple with dominant trends and willing submission to the Perennial Tradition that has withstood the tests of times and cultures. The truths of God reside as disguised as the perennial tradition and have served as guiding light throughout history. In this vein, the courage and creativity to rise above passing trends and man-made traditions that do not stand the ways of the Kingdom are required to live in Korea and elsewhere.

THE STARRY NIGHT AND GOD'S FOOL

Back to the Van Gogh’s Upper Room scene. Brother Ha shared Van Gogh’s most famous work, The Starry Night (1889), which was painted one year before he died. Unlike his other paintings, Van Gogh painted the scene out of his own imagination. The painting represents a poignant reflection and longing of his soul. There are many different interpretations of Van Gogh’s masterpiece. According to Chulsoo Park, who wrote the book, Vincent Van Gogh: A Wounded Healer (title translated from Korean as only the Korean version exists), the first thing that jumps out is the contrast between the glowing golden circling stars (imagined only by Van Gogh) and the town beneath it. The golden stars represent the immense love of God, according to Van Gogh. The golden bright-lit stars overshadow and dominate over the darkened town but with homes displaying golden lights out of their windows. In the center of the town is the church and its prominent steeple, which features no light emanating from the church. Just as the stars, what also is featured is the gigantic cypress tree dwarfing the church steeple. According to Park, the cypress tree is drawn to touch the heavens in worshipping and praising God, whereas the stars are declaring the love of God uninhibited from the concern and the reach of the wooden institutional Church. In 1888, Van Gogh wrote a personal letter, which gives us an insight into his orientation; “a great starlit vault of heaven… one can only call God”. Van Gogh’s God could not be contained within the Church. His God was as bright as the stars and as free as the sky, it seems.

The term “wounded healer” was coined by Henri Nouwen in remembrance of Vincent van Gogh. Nouwen credits Van Gogh for his spiritual awakening and discovery of his gifts. Van Gogh’s vision, life, arts, and legacy still heal, not out of mastery or perfection but precisely because of his wounds. His otherworldly creativity flowing right out of his wounds still proclaims, “a great starlit vault of heaven.” 

The world would not and could not contain Van Gogh. The Church would not and could not contain him either. His vision of sanity, which ironically the world and the Church called insane, was and is still salvific, and offers hope, it seems. Perhaps the world, including the Church, was insane while Van Gogh was sane all along. . . 

I still do not know exactly what moved me in my core. More discerning is needed on my part. I am listening. . . 

A day later, I listened to Vincent by Don McLean. Although it was my umpteenth time, this time it hits me different and afresh. 

Vincent by Don McLean

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in the ragged clothes
The silver thorn, a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

AFTERWORDS

My wife tells me that this blog entry reminds her of Michael Card’s song, God’s Own Fool, which we used to listen to and sing out loud almost to a point of shouting. “Come be a fool” and starting and joining the fool’s parade is the invitation of our life. 

It seems I've imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God's Holy wisdom is foolish to man
He must have seemed out of His mind
For even His family said He was mad
And the priest said a demon's to blame
But, God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

When we in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God's own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

So come lose your life for a carpenter's son
For a madman who died for a dream
And You'll have the faith His first followers had
And you'll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

When we in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God's own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

VAN GOGH'S UPPER ROOM

This entry is the first of two series from the same event. Next week’s entry will be titled The Starry Night and God’s Fool.

Yesterday, I shed my first tears while in Korea. In fact, I broke down. A moment later, I uttered a statement to my wife and Brother Ha that I know now why God sent us to Korea. Even as I write this sentence in a café on the following morning, I am shedding tears.

On our visit to Brother Ha, he took us to a room in a dilapidated Itaewon neighborhood. Live wires 10 feet above the ground crisscross like some complex spider web. This area is scheduled to be bulldozed in 2 years to make way for uber-expensive high-rise buildings that will crowd the sky. As soon as I walked into the room, something moved me. I didn’t know why. I was told by Brother Ha that this upper room used to be a tattoo parlor, which I suspect could only be found through word of mouth, as satellite navigation would simply fail. 

I told Brother Ha as soon as we walked into the room that I loved the ambiance and the spirit of the room. As if he was waiting to hear the comment, his excitement level noticeably notched up as he invited us to sit down. My eyes were still scanning the room and its eclectic mixture of furniture and knick-knacks when he said, “I named this room, Gogh’s Upper Room.” I was puzzled and thus snapped out of my Bourne-esque scanning mode and locked my eyes with his. He went on to share the story of Van Gogh, yes the Van Gogh. Vincent Van Gogh was raised by fervent Protestant parents (Van Gogh’s father and his grandfather were pastors and his uncle was a theologian) and the receptive and the seeking Van Gogh decided to follow his parents’ wishes by going to a seminary but failed entry. This led to his becoming a missionary to a rejected and dejected mining town in southern Belgium, the lowest of the low at the time. Van Gogh hit a wall because the mining folk would not accept him as one of them, as Van Gogh was from an educated and well-to-do family. Van Gogh decided to go “all-in” by living with them and living like them. Van Gogh’s earliest drawings were all about the mining town and its folk. Needless to say, none of the paintings got sold. Not that he was trying to sell his paintings, since no artist in his or her right mind would draw such scenes at the time. Artists were drawn to paint Christian themes, as they were more likely to be bought by wealthy clients to be hung in their homes. 

Two years into his service among the mining folk, his denomination supervisor paid a visit to see how well Van Gogh was carrying out his mission. The supervisor was disturbed by Van Gogh’s approach and told Van Gogh that he was defaming Christianity and that he was “fired.” Van Gogh was deemed too radical by his incarnational approach. He didn’t preach and teach enough of Christian doctrine according to the supervisor. Shocked and shaken to his core, Van Gogh decided to leave the Church and Christianity. What follows is the better-known story of Van Gogh’s launching into becoming an artist (which he already was) of flowers, landscapes, portraits (including himself), etc. He made an intentional decision not to draw religiously themed paintings except for a few “spiritual” paintings, which took great courage and resolve.

Brother Ha and his wife are serving the “mining folk” of their context, which are the Muslim refugees from Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc, who have settled in Korea. Each of their journeys with its twists and turns I would not be able to fathom would be worth a book, I thought fleetingly. Husbands move from job to job and are often gone for a week or two at a time outside of Seoul, while wives tend to young children, barely making ends meet. Brother Ha stepped into the Muslim community in Itaewon by first establishing a “community center” for the Muslims. “Mr. Ha” is known as the go-to person who would help take care of many challenges facing these desperate families. We visited Brother Ha on a Friday afternoon right after the Friday prayer at the biggest mosque here in Korea. While sitting down to chat, a Muslim in full traditional garb came to speak to Mr. Ha. His eyes reflected trust and warmth toward Mr. Ha. He told me he had just attended the Friday prayer. 

3 years after opening the community center, Mr. Ha and his wife established Barocha Library, tutoring the school-age Muslim children right across from an elementary school. The elementary school with a student body of 300 features 120 refugee Muslim children from all over the world. We met vibrant Wajid with an infectious smile visible even behind the mask, who must have been 5 years old or so. Wajid was born in Korea and spoke Korean fluently, as any other 5-year-old Korean boy. A year after opening Barocha Library, Brother Ha and his wife established Boaz Center, specifically to equip the women with skills of sewing and making small decorative plants for online sale. A year later, they started a business of making and selling Korean rice cakes by employing Muslim women. We were served by a few Moroccan women who prepared their traditional Couscous dish along with the Korean rice cakes. Never have I thought that I would eat Couscous and Korean spicey rice cakes in the same meal. As we thanked them for a great meal, it felt right to be given, rather than to give. I hoped that it would grant them a small dose of dignity by being the hosts in a foreign country. Had we visited them in their homes in Morocco, they would have been just as hospitable.

Time is ticking for these families, including Brother Ha’s labor of love since the area will be bulldozed in 2 years or so. After we said goodbye, I simply asked God to provide a better future. 

UNFORCED RHYTHM OF GRACE

You have a special treat this week as I have asked my wife, Grace, to share her reflection. She graciously agreed to write an entry. I am sure you will appreciate her thoughtful process while in Korea with me. Her writing flows effortlessly and warmly invites us all to examine unforced rhythm of grace in our own life. Someone has wisely said that in life, direction is more important than speed. My wife seems to have discovered her natural rhythm while keeping the direction in view.

I was riding in the backseat of the car with a precocious 8 year old on our way to the airport, ready to depart from our time in Jeju Island. I told her, “I can’t do anything fast. I am slow in everything.” She countered, “How about sneezing? How about hiccups?” Okay, maybe I can sneeze fast and hiccup fast, but my natural pace is invariably slooowww.

Korea is fast. Everything is fast here. Koreans walk fast. Wifi speed is lightning fast. Meal delivery motorcycles are ubiquitous here, and they are fast. To our surprise, Chong was able to get prescription reading glasses in under 15 minutes, from eye exam to having the glasses in his hands. Chong is constantly reminding me that if I hesitate, Koreans will quickly take that empty seat I’ve been eyeing. Cars do not make way for pedestrians here. They are on the move and getting somewhere fast.

There is a saying that God moves at 3 miles per hour. This is the speed at which humans walk. Today, for the first time ever in my life, I took the subway by myself in Korea. Chong is away at a men’s retreat, and I took it upon myself as a personal challenge to venture out alone. I am terrible with direction and easily get lost, so this seemingly mundane event is momentous for me. I went to a bookstore just four subway stops away and took my time meandering among the shelves, picking up this book and that, browsing to my heart’s content. I slowly walked the subway path, making sure that I am entering the correct tunnel and exiting the right stairway. I observed the people along the way. My heart is at peace when I move at my own slow speed. 

Slow living is one way I am learning to “live my life as me.” It has taken me time to learn how to do this. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28, “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (Message). Living my life as me is aligning myself with the design that God has put in me when I was knitted together in my mother’s womb. For some time now, I have been on a journey of self-awareness and self-discovery. It has been a seeking of how Christ desires to live His life through my life, as me, in my particular context.

Chong recently spoke at a seminar, and what he said about slowing down caught my attention. He said that in order for us to really and seriously examine our interior space, we need to slow down. However, he also said that we need to be able to discern when to stop, when to slow down, but also when to speed it up, moving quickly.  For example, when we sense that God is on the move, sensing a rising momentum, we may need to move fast. This makes me think of the difference or the relationship between fast and hurry. Perhaps fast describes the action and hurry describes the inner orientation.

Dallas Willard famously said, “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Hurry is the sense that I have when I feel driven to get to the next place or the next thing. Hurry robs me of fully appreciating the gifts of the present moment. I observe myself when I am in a hurry; I can check off all the items on my to-do list, trying to buy time by getting quickly from one thing to the next, and when my day is done, I still cannot relax, because I have carried the sense of hurry within me. Dallas Willard also supposedly was asked to describe Jesus’ character in one word. He said, “Relaxed.” Jesus had full days of ministry, sometimes beginning in the early morning in darkness to be alone with the Father, then ministering to the multitudes who sought Him out. He never seemed to be in a hurry, though. He was present to the one(s) with Him in the moment, fully seeing them, fully knowing them, fully communing with them, and they were healed and transformed.

Our year-long sabbatical taught Chong and me to slow down. Even though I don’t move quickly, I think I was often in a hurry. Sometimes a mom’s life is so full of responsibilities, it is understandable. For years, I felt driven by time, and I always felt I lacked time. I even said, “Time is my enemy.” Once we entered our sabbatical, I was suddenly gifted with days that were not filled with schedules and responsibilities. It is during this period that I discovered that I need great stretches of time to sit in silence, to read, reflect deeply, and journal to feel like I am me. Getting to have that time day after day for a year, especially due to COVID, was truly a gift for me. I discovered my natural rhythm. I discovered how to live my life as me.

GLIMPSES AND GIFTS

Upon returning from Jeju Island, my wife and I participated in a zoom group spiritual direction with two others. This is the first spiritual direction group, aptly called Mustard Seed, which my wife has been facilitating for several years now and I was grafted in only a year or so ago. This morning, my wife facilitated using the poem, You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford, which I posted on my blog a few weeks ago. I thought I had marinated enough on the poem, but I was surprised by what God relayed to me through the poem yet again. My wife gently coaxed me to present and share, which I gladly accepted. 

We usually start our gathering by asking each other, “How are you coming (to the gathering) today?” This “check-in” time is often a valuable gem of our time together. This being a safe space, we almost always cut through the normal and perfunctory hellos and dive deep into the landscape of each of our souls. This morning was no exception. As I heard from the others, I caught a glimpse of our independently branching out into different seasons of our lives. We had been part of the same “branch” for many years, but we are at the cusp of embarking on diversified journeys. 

Then this line of the poem struck a chord in me, “lift this new glimpse that you found.” The poem talks about not only finding a new glimpse but carrying it, as well as keeping it for life. Glimpses are glimpses in that they are subjectively experienced, sometimes non-rational, and are gentle and dim. Its original old Middle English means “shine faintly.” Finding a glimpse means one has to pay attention, notice, and recognize a glimpse as a glimpse. A glimpse often lands on us like a season’s first soft snow. 

I had an “avalanche” of glimpses while in Jeju Island the week prior. While on the island, we were greeted by hundreds of butterflies going from one place to another. The theme of walking that started after the quarantine continued as we walked to various restaurants (I loved walking to neighborhood restaurants, as I am so used to driving everywhere back in the US), along the nearby harbor, and on some portions of the famous Jeju “Ollegil”, which is the walking trail that envelopes the entire island. The unadorned intoxicating beauty of nature and the island captivated my soul and the butterflies pretty much topped off the experience. To us, butterfly means the imminence of God’s presence and provision. Over time, we learned to pay attention to the hope that butterflies spoke to our souls.

The Airbnb we stayed at proudly showcased a natural and simple outdoor garden and my favorite, an indoor garden “café” room. Getting to the place was an adventure, as the worn-out road was so narrow (which was originally built for hand-pulled carts of the bygone era), you just would hope that there is no car coming from the other side. When that happens, you will engage in a stare-down contest to see who blinks first. The declared “loser” will have to back up to create room for the other car to pass. 

Back to glimpses. I realized as I reflected some more that I am able to catch a glimpse when I as a subject recognize the other (or otherness) as a subject. It is an encounter between two subjects. When I caught a glimpse of us branching out, it was a temporary union between my soul and others. As I recognized and shared, it was almost as if my soul was born for these “small and temporary” unions as a prelude to the perfect union with God in eternity and felt that my and others’ souls were nourished. When I saw the butterflies, it was I as a subject recognizing the butterfly as another subject, culminating into a mysterious, non-rational, illogical union of two of God’s created beings. The sense of unexplainable tranquility flooded me. The invitation is that I slow down enough to see and become aware. These experiential, temporal, and less-than-perfect unions do something to our souls, allowing us to taste and witness a glimpse of the heavenly union. What it is now and what it could be later. . . 

The glimpses are gifts to one another and to the world in constituting a better world, more than we realize. The invitation of glimpse--finding, carrying, and keeping it for life--then is a lifelong spiritual exercise. What we glimpse is a gift to the world. The benefit for us is to experience the fore union of heaven.

THE WHOLE COSMOS AS A THEOPHANY

Creation is humanity’s first and primary sacred cathedral. Franciscans developed what we know as “nature mysticism.” Francis even developed his “Canticle of the Creatures” which included inanimate creation such as water, wind, etc. He is famous for phrases like “Brother Sun and Sister Moon.” What is sacred is not confined to churches, cathedrals, temples, or mosques, but it is of the whole wide created universe and the nature we see with our naked eyes that God declared, “It is good.” What is good in God’s eyes must be sacred. Father Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan friar, wrote, “Franciscans at their best attempted to live inside the universal mystery of ‘church’ and from there we went out to serve the world. Most Christians got it backward by living in the ‘world’ and occasionally ‘going to church.’” (italicized are his.) I am not a Franciscan, but I would like to be a Franciscan in spirit.

In our journey toward embracing nature as sacred, we must begin by engaging our physical faculties. We experience nature through seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting. No real connection is possible by merely thinking about nature. When we take time to focus and see something in nature, whether diminutive or capacious, we soon find ourselves dumbfounded by the complexity and creativity of the mysterious beauty and bliss. Jesus embodied a deep connection with nature and drew countless examples from nature with utter ease and saliency. 

My wife and I made our way down to Jeju Island, a top destination spot in Korea, especially during COVID. We will facilitate a retreat with a few families we have been spiritually guiding and creating a space for mutual learning. A gigantic volcanic rock sitting on the entrance to a small and seemingly old section of a harbor town we are currently staying at features a poem inscribed into it.  Basically, the poem poignantly captures deep appreciation and timeless bond with nature (namely water and mountain) even in the midst of the onslaught of modernity. The town is not too far from the only airport in Jeju, so one would be reminded constantly of the pollution of noise, to say the least. I silently cheered the elegiac defiance and moved on with my day, while the irony remained since we had to fly to get to the island.

That same afternoon, while walking along the shore, we were greeted by a host of Haenyeos (I have seen one or two haenyeos in the past, but not these many in one time), female divers who are famous for their ability, without any technical gears, to harvest ocean’s gifts to humanity. Haenyeos are deemed as Korean national living “treasures,” though they have been reduced in numbers. It is fascinating to watch them dive underwater, hold their breath for incredibly long stretches of time, collect all kinds of shellfish, sea urchins (my fav), sea cucumbers, etc., only with wetsuits, diving masks, gloves, picks, flotation device, and net. Though they are harvesting for their livelihood, I appreciate their respect for nature, their slow method (you harvest what and how nature gives you), and non or less commercialization of the haenyeo profession.

Bodily connection with nature is a direct result of our soul’s desire for union with nature as God’s creation. At the same time, the connection provides our soul with deeper craving for more. When we restrict “the world” God loves to humanity alone, we rob God’s generous and infinite wisdom pertaining to the “cosmos” (which is the Greek word) God loves. We truncate God’s full original scope of the Gospel and thus short circuit the full impact of the Gospel. When the Bible addresses “the world,” it has two major foci, and the two are diametrically opposed to one another. First, there is the world God created and died for, and still loves, which is nature. Then there are the world as intricate and clever systems of power that have been carefully devised and manipulated by the devil to put us under slavery and bondage. As such, we are to love the cosmos as God loves and reject and fight against the evil systems of the world.

Apostle Paul used the Greek word poiema twice in all his letters (In fact, the word only appears twice in NT), once reserved for humanity (Galatians 2:10) and the other for the cosmos (Romans 1:20). The word poiema is the root of our modern word poem or poetry, which in Greek can be translated simply as “masterpiece.” Psalms are filled with imagery of the cosmos singing praises to God; the psalmists clearly incorporate nature as part of worship and life. We are also to “sing” to God by recognizing the ubiquitous nature that is around us. This was Jesus’ spirituality and the spirituality of the Bible. Unfortunately, the consumer-minded modern people (including me) have become too desensitized and dualistic minded, leading us to separate and ignore the natural from the supernatural.

How then are we to love the cosmos and to sing and worship? While there are many expressions, caring and stewarding are on the top of the list for me. Years ago, I saw an ad that was trying to raise money (in millions of dollars) to free some whales somewhere. I could not understand and even remember speaking to others about what wasteful effort that was. I was steeped in so-called mission work of mobilization and training and was convinced that was a waste in the overall scope of God’s kingdom work. While it is true that I will probably not give toward such a cause (being honest here), my perspective has changed enough to mentally support those who are called to save whales. That just may be their way of caring for God’s creation.

What we have done in our house, since a few years back, is to reduce our use of plastic household materials. It is inconvenient for sure. Boy, do I miss using those plastic zip lock bags! At least until the pandemic, we carried our own reusable cups to coffee shops. Very small steps but steps, nonetheless. I become more cognizant about how much waste I or we as a family create. I cringed every time a meal was dropped in front of my quarantine room door, due to all the plastic they used to deliver my food. While being thankful for the food, I wished that they would be vigilant about recycling the plastic. This also makes me question my own tendencies of the consumer mentality. My wife and I began talking about embracing more of a minimalist living. My wife has done far more in trimming her stuff, whereas I get very sentimental about letting things go. I finally got rid of the t-shirt where one of my boys’ name was inscribed as an all-star player in his little league baseball, obviously many moons ago.

Our sensitivity and commitment to the cosmos God loves gives back something precious and beneficial to our souls. Nature slows us down. Nature properly places us. Nature reminds us about change. Nature teaches us about order, disorder, and reorder. Nature instructs us about independence, dependence, and interdependence. I end this post with a quote from Ilia Delio in her eye-opening and mind-expanding book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being.

Creation is not merely gift of God; it is being-in-love with God. . . God is not the supernatural being above but the supranatural center of everything that exists. . . That is, we are not rescued from the world by divine grace; rather, we are saved or made whole in and through the world by cooperating with divine love. . . Because divine love is totally other-oriented, the whole cosmos is a theophany, a revelation of God’s glory (italicized are hers, 69)

INNER AND OUTER JOURNEY

After getting released from my “cell,” my wife and I have been walking everywhere. We have not yet taken any public transportation. On our second day of release, I clocked more than 10 miles on my pedometer. Though my feet were tired, I was ecstatic enjoying the freedom of movement. One of my favorite things to do in Korea is to aimlessly walk around outdoor markets that always features irresistibly sumptuous street foods. I imagine that the dumplings, tteokbokki (spicey Korean rice cakes), fish cakes, soondae (Korean blood sausage), and countless other foods are calling my name. Funny, they don’t call my wife’s name. The outdoor markets are often tucked away in between modern high-rise buildings, and the food stalls proudly show their wear almost as if to showcase their timeless wisdom. The reason I am drawn to the outdoor markets is that it reminds me of my carefree childhood, and in addition, it simply and utterly leaks humanity. Comfort and familiarity of the bygone era are what my soul yearns for. I don’t yet fully know what this means to me in my inner journey, so it remains an elusive question mark. In 2012, I walked the streets of Damascus, Syria, and I vividly remember feeling a sense of strange familiarity even though that was my first visit to Syria. It totally reminded me of my childhood back in Korea in the 1970s. I intuitively “know” there is something there that I need to pay attention to. 

When we are younger (that is beyond childhood years all the way into our 30s and perhaps even spilling into our 40s), the outer journey tends to dominate, downplaying and even suppressing our inner journey. The outer journey bestows us certain identities, sometimes disguised as our true self and sometimes represented as our surfacy true self. By surfacy, I mean we don’t yet know what we truly desire and we haven’t discovered our true self, and thus it is in the outskirt of true self. In this state, we often don’t have the language to describe what we are experiencing in our inner journey. Instead, our outer journey unilaterally dictates that that is our inner journey. Or our inner journey is subservient to the outer journey and thus not all that important to us. As the outer journey is more concerned with doings and actions and more fixated on how we want others to “see” us, it can rob and choke any serious pursuit of the inner journey. We move toward pursuing the inner journey from the outer journey largely out of desperation, disruptions, and deeper desires.

Our inner journey initially begins by saying yes to the “cards that were dealt” to us, meaning we are merely the recipient of the designs and decisions by God and our parents. When and where we were born, who our parents were, and the personhood that I am are all given to us. It seems that for us to move forward, we must “go back” and embrace our past. Faithfulness and stewardship of these givens are an essential part of our inner journey. Additionally, we also must steward the decisions and choices we make in life. The problem is that we are guaranteed to make mistakes, wrong choices, and decisions. The initial “problem” can turn into steps of growth and thus blessings. God doesn’t waste anything in life if we let God reign and use our faulty missteps and failures, it seems to me.  

As I am getting older, I have begun to pay attention to my own inner journey with far more gusto and courage. One discernable truth is that our outer journey must be a natural outflow or by-product of our inner journey. Thus, the outer journey becomes the response of doings based on the inner journey. Courage to be must proceed courage to do.

My wife and I stand at the crossroads of this courage to be leading to courage to do. During our sabbatical, digging deep into our inner journey certainly gained momentum and granted us permission and space to pursue without usual distractions and responsibilities. Excavating and mining nuggets of precious jewels from my soul were the main outcome of our sabbatical. As I have shared though, in my previous blog, I did have to pass through death and deconstruction to get to unearthing desire. Remember the scene in The Return of the King where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli had to pass through the Paths of the Dead which was the only way to get to Gondor to join the rest against the mighty Sauron? When entering the Paths of the Dead, Aragorn murmured resolutely, “I do not fear death.” It seems prudent that all of us practice that resolute murmur to ourselves to embrace death and deconstruction. What awaits after death and deconstruction are life and reconstruction. 

Second to the last day during the 2-week mandatory quarantine, I “heard” from God that my sabbatical is now over. (Though our sabbatical officially ended last November, due to COVID, life wasn’t back to normal and thus we felt like our sabbatical somehow got extended.) I don’t yet know the full implications of the strong sense of my sabbatical ending. But I am now prepared to engage and to do. 

The integration journey of our inner and outer journeys is nothing less or more than our journey toward union with God. Our integrated journey and God journey become the same journey. Because as soon as we operate out of being someone else than our true self, we stand falsely against or even betray the Creator who created us.

There are two major categories of obstacles that stand in the way of pursuing the union of inner and outer journeys. At the outer or macroscopic level, it is the national, cultural, institutional, and/or familial systems resulting in complex and massive proprieties of behaviors and expectations. In other words, they prescribe what and how we need to behave and live our life, almost always fixated on outer journey elements. Recognizing and swimming against such powerful current of cultural and religious proprieties that are not aligned with the Kingdom values requires a great deal of courage and wisdom. Invariably, there is a steep price to pay for such freedom. 

At the inner or microscopic level, there are ample and enough interior distractions that sway us away from what is truly important. These are what John described as “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.” (ESV, 1 John 2: 16) Recognizing and admitting such interior tendencies and traps is even more difficult than the outer challenges since we can easily hide and justify our interior distractions. Furthermore, if we disguise them well, we tell ourselves that nobody can see them. Over time, though, we begin to leak and leave a trail of shady interior pursuits.

Freedom from both outer and inner distractions, attachments, and fixations is the very key that allows us to take the journey toward integration. To me, “free as the sky” means saying multiple nos to both outer and inner demands and controls and saying multiple yeses to the immediacy of unfolding life that is simple and untethered. 

CELL | SANCTUARY AND PRISON

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

By William Stafford

My wife and I made our way to Korea on May 7. As is the case for all incoming foreign nationals with a short term stay (less than 3 months), we were herded (in some cases literally) through the entire customs and the COVID protocol and ultimately landed in a hotel room for a 2 week mandatory quarantine until May 21. The unexpected? My wife and I are separated into two separate rooms! This possibility never entered my mind. What ungodly and unjust system is this! Nevertheless, it has become a reality in the last 10 days. Thus I am in my own small hotel room, I mean “cell.” True, this is a very “luxurious cell” with all the technology, perks, and comforts. It is no cave, to be sure. This is undoubtedly a newfangled and fascinating experience I have not experienced before. So this blog post is about what I have processed and reflected in the last 10 days or so. 

“Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Abba Moses, one of the great Desert Fathers in the 4th century, advised one of his followers. I suppose there are multiple different ways to define what cell refers to. In early Christianity, cell was an actual cave, place, or a rudimentary room for radical ascetic hermits. Most of these cells were self-sustaining; they could survive days and even years, provided someone from the outside supplied them with food. 

Centuries later, Saint Francis developed a compelling application of this “cell.” “Wherever we are, wherever we go, we bring our cell with us. Our brother body is our cell and our soul is the hermit living in the cell. If our soul does not live in peace and solitude within this cell, of what avail is it to live in a man-made cell?” What a profound application!

For me, this “cell” has felt like sanctuary and prison. Sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a prison. . . Sanctuary means safety and protection. It also connotes temporal reprieve, as life cannot be lived only in a sanctuary. Prison means strict restrictions and loss of freedom, which is identical to my situation. Interestingly, it felt more like a prison initially, and I find myself moving toward this cell becoming more of a sanctuary. I still have my bursts of restlessness and bouts of head-spinning craziness, but so far, no full-on hyper-ventilating episode. Maybe it will come. . . but I am not holding my breath!

Here are a couple of musings so far. 

“Time is life itself,” Richard Rohr said. Time moves slower in this “cell.” I noticed myself becoming far more restless when I began thinking about the number of days to go. My mind would check out of this cell while my body was still here. The discrepancy of my mind’s activity and my body’s awareness created restlessness and angst, especially on the 2nd and the 3rd days. Over time, I learned to focus on the life that was unfolding right in front of me and right in this cell, rather than to be fixated on the day of freedom. I salivate just imagining all the Korean food I can eat! With supreme irony, the freedom I was desiring was imprisoning me. A few days ago, in my cell, I discovered (through Parker Palmer’s Facebook post) the poem above by Stafford, and the invitation was lucid. Stafford’s question, “What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?” jolted me out of the funk and sealed the lesson for me, catapulting me toward greater fidelity to the present moment.

Then it occurred to me that a slowed-down life doesn’t mean I am not living an unproductive or unfruitful life. It could be that the complete opposite may be true. Time, or I should say, the present moment, is elusive for me (as I sketched above). I am always fixated on future matters, concerns, and visions. I realized that I was not helping myself by thinking about what to do after I get out of this hole. To maintain minimal sanity and perhaps even enjoyment and full aliveness, I must be fully present in my hole, I mean my cell, one day at a time. 

Practically, this process necessitated developing a daily routine and rhythm. Thankfully, I experienced very little jetlag. My day starts out with a shower, silence, Pray As You Go reflection, and breakfast that is delivered to my door. Only then can I open the door. One time, I opened the door during non-meal hours, and the alarm went off. (Did I tell you this felt more like a prison? I thought the prison guard was going to come and pound me. :) ) Then the highlight of the day: making my own cup of coffee using the hand grinder and the Aeropress I brought from home and enjoying the pure bliss. I murmur to myself, "I am alive." Reading and writing fill the rest of the morning, followed by a lukewarm lunch. By the way, since my wife and I are separated, we decided to zoom and eat meals together and have conversations. In one of the conversations, she told me you should write a blog about what you are learning. So here it is. 

Afternoons consist of further reading and writing and keeping up with emails and text messages as well as workouts. Ever since my children got me an Apple Watch last Christmas, I am somewhat obsessed with closing the 3 exercise/activity rings daily, while my wife would tell you I am very obsessed. Closing the rings means I have to be creative as to how I exercise in a confined hotel room. I am exercising in ways I didn’t think were possible. I am not only doing this for closing the rings but also to pass time and to maintain my sanity. It gives me something productive to do. Occasionally, I would watch the Lakers or the Dodgers, which easily becomes another highlight of the day, especially when they win. After dinner, it is time to get caught up with the news, watch some Korean TV, and/or movies. Fortunately, I have at least one or two zoom calls per day, which move the day forward. 

As reality (or a day) unfolds, I need to let the Big Reality (God) simply take over by turning off or at least recognize my own interior noises, interpretations, and commentaries of reality, which are basically designed to save ego, reputation, and worth. Reality, often, is not the same as my interpretation of reality.

One other lesson: Paying attention to small and immediate things. I sense that this is an overarching invitation from God during this trip. Pay attention to “small” or seemingly less significant conversations, encounters, or people. Even getting to a certain destination, I remind myself that the goal is not the final destination, but that in the process of getting there, I need to “sober up” and pay attention. I notice the muffled noise of the cars whizzing by outside. I am grateful to smell and listen to the spring rain the last two days, almost mimicking the rain lullaby I had forgotten but stored in my childhood memory bank in Korea. The other morning, a bird flew up and thumped the window as if to greet me. Grinding, smelling, and drinking coffee in the mornings has become an important daily ritual. Following my afternoon workout, enjoying the very few pieces of fruit, like one tiny slice of orange, 3 grape tomatoes, and 3 grapes given to us during breakfast (no exaggeration here) has gifted me a small dose of happiness. 3 times a day zoom with my wife and eating meals together and other daily zoom calls have become precious connection to the outside world. 

A series of probing questions Stafford raises provokes me to start right here, right in this room, and right in this moment. I can only live my life in the present moment, neither in the past nor in the future. Only now. . . I also remind myself to be aware of “sunlight, scent, and sound” wherever I may be at that moment in this cell and beyond.

PARADOX AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Have you ever thought about . . . what if there are no paradoxes and contradictions in life but only clarity and certainties? 

According to a dictionary, the term paradox is from the Greek word paradoxon, which means “contrary to expectations, existing belief, or perceived opinion.” Another one defines a paradox as “a statement that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality, expresses a possible truth.” I like what Neils Bohr who received the Nobel Prize in Physics said, “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may be another profound truth.” The possibility of “both-and” truth befuddles the simplistic mind tendencies of "either-or" truth. 

What if Jesus hadn't spoken to us in parables? Here I would propose that most of Jesus’ parables are paradoxical in nature because the Kingdom of God Jesus taught is decisively “contrary to expectations, existing belief, or perceived opinion.” One would have to wonder: what if Jesus hadn't spoken to us in indistinct paradoxical sayings? Or why did Jesus communicate in paradoxes and contradictions? What and how do we make sense of Jesus’ approach?

As mentioned above, the Kingdom of God Jesus portrayed is replete with paradoxes. One of the most difficult and profound paradoxical sayings of Jesus is, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). This counterintuitive gem of wisdom is one of those rare sayings that is repeated in all four Gospels (Matthew 10:39, 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, and John 12:25). Jesus actualized the message of losing himself by living out “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). 

In the Kingdom of God, we can only “go up” by going down, which is another way of saying we can only find life by losing it. Meister Eckhart, a 13th and 14th-century Dominican mystic and theologian, famously explained that we mature spiritually by subtraction, not by addition. We learn by unlearning and gain by letting go. Richard Rohr wisely said that there are two things that can profoundly change us: great love and great suffering. Going down, losing one’s life, and letting go all point to suffering. The voluntary humble road to suffering was the way of Jesus and Jesus invites us now to follow Him. The people who embrace suffering can understand others who are suffering, thus creating a community of healers and transformers. This paradoxical way of humility is how the Kingdom of God reigns and will continue to reign. The world will never comprehend this truth. The Kingdom comes not by power but in humility. Even the religiosity of modern Christianity may have missed the mark. Could it be that our (Christian) obsessive tendency to operate out of a belief-based system, which is a closed system of “right” and “wrong”, an either-or approach, has done significant harm to the counterintuitive integrity of the Kingdom that Jesus taught and embodied?

Why would God allow paradoxes? Why would God speak truths in paradoxes? Why would God not speak to us in deafening clarity and certainty? 

Here are a few of my observations to the questions above.

• Espousing paradox means that wisdom and discernment of life come from God, not from us. It forces the ultimate dependency of the finite calculating mind on God’s infinite wisdom. The burden of figuring things out is not ours to carry. It helpfully shifts our focus to God as the source of all wisdom, which is faith in action. William Johnston’s insight is brilliant, “Faith is the breakthrough into that deep realm of the soul which accepts paradox with humility.” 

• The above observation leads to this point. Paradox speaks of God’s mercy to save us from harsh and perhaps even deadly judgment and unspeakable harm to one another. It is God’s gracious act of saving us and humanity from trying to settle things on our own terms. 

• Paradox also addresses God’s desire for freedom to reign and guide our lives in the pursuit of “both-ands truths”, as immature and infantile as we may be. One can conclude that God considers God’s gift of freedom to humanity that seriously.

• Additionally, paradox puts all of us in a quandary of disorder and in disarray, placing all of us on equal footing (that is if we accept paradox as paradox). The good news is that it creates natural hunger and desire for reorder and integration to take place in life. Without disorder, there cannot be reorder. To put it differently, as we learn to wrestle with real paradox in life, we often see a bigger or more foundational truth that was initially hidden in the “original” paradox. We become more generous, tender, and grace-filled toward ourselves and others. Richard Rohr who speaks of the importance of order, disorder, and reorder as life’s necessary stages, writes, “When you go to one side or the other too much, you find yourself either overly righteous or overly skeptical and cynical. There must be a healthy middle, and I hope that is what we are looking for here, as we try to hold both the needed light and the necessary darkness.”

• Parker Palmer said that paradox is contradiction integrated and transformed (my paraphrase). Healthy and mature spirituality is more both-and than either-or. In this vein, paradox often teaches us to reflect on the seemingly contradictory nature of the both-ands and to discover truth in the both-ands.

• Paradox trains us to see the invisible. Embracing paradox opens spiritual eyes to see the deep and wide permeation of God’s Kingdom on this earth. This key of seeing the invisible unlocks how we can correctly see the visible.

Finally, the upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God is paradoxical in nature. Teachings like “unless you become like this little child, you will not enter the Kingdom” and loving your enemy were clearly a completely different way of seeing and living. Thus, the contrarian stance of the Kingdom compared to the world and even to the religious Christian world must stand on the ground of paradoxes. There simply is no other way.

SAFE SPACE AND LONGING

"What do you want?” Jesus of Nazareth

“Longing is the heart’s treasury.” Augustine

Safe space allows us to take risks so we can discover our soul’s longings. Safe space also curates the collection of gifts of those longings and further develops the gifts so others can benefit from them, ever enlarging the impact. To me, this is one application of God’s Kingdom coming on this earth, through actualizing our longings.

Before we dive deeper into safe space and its relationship with longings, let’s consider our soul’s individual pursuit of our longings.

I start out with Gerald May from his book, The Awakened Heart.

There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart. We were born with it, it is never completely satisfied, and it never dies. We are often unaware of it, but it is always awake. . . Our true identity, our reason for being, is to be found in this desire.

When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments. (italicized are mine)

Listen also to the Passion translation of Proverbs 4:23, “So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.”

The subtle nuanced chasm of our hearts being always awake yet often being unaware of it is what separates the aware souls from unaware souls. Being awake to our hearts is identical to the very pursuit of God who intimately created each of us. In other words, pursuing awakened hearts and pursuing God is one united journey.  During my one-year-long sabbatical which ended late last year, I sense that this was ultimately what I was processing. Somewhere during the sabbatical, it dawned on me that no one can or should steward my life and my innermost being. I am the steward of my heart, affection, and desire.

Bible tells us that God is always with us. We are assured that God is near. Jesus and the Holy Spirit echo the same message. Sometimes we sense God’s nearness and sometimes not. It is not whether God is near or not, rather it is our awareness or lack thereof that tells us whether God is near or not. One of the most difficult spiritual quests is this: to cultivate awareness of God’s nearness through all the life’s ups and downs.

“Discipleship is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love,“ James K. A. Smith writes in his fine book, You Are What You Love. I like the choice of the word curate. To curate is to be creatively delicate with attention to fine details, and to be intentional and methodical about the process. The word is often used in the context of arts, museums, and performances, though not exclusively. It is a creative process and as such the process cannot be forced or manufactured. One has to look for inspiration and movements. Thus the curation of our heart requires creative attention and intentionality. Moreover, what we love ought to be the focus of the curation of our heart.

This is refreshingly welcoming to me because for so long evangelicals have had a parochial and truncated definition of what discipleship is. We have focused unevenly on mind, head, knowledge, or certain belief systems, making sure what we think we know are the truths. 

Discovering what we love invariably translates into what we do. To me, this is discipleship at its core that coincides with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We first have to become people that want to do the right thing. Right heart leads to right action. Desire dictates action as spring precedes stream. And both are the direct and tangible result of love. We love, both with intent and action.

Pursuing our heart’s desire and what we love is an intimate individual journey. At the same time, it is an intricately communal one. Discovering and gifting each other through our heart’s desire can only be shared and enjoyed in communal settings. No person is an island. To be human is to have desire. We discover fully what we love only in community.

The process of curation involves paying attention to glimpses, hints, curiosities, and unguarded moments. The communal curation effort would ensure the space that is safe to undergo such half-baked and even vulnerable pursuits. Communal safe space would also create and safeguard slowing downs and pauses as “frenzied thoughts and activities” can easily flood our days. Frenzied thoughts and activities will continue to run our days unless we learn to slow down our souls. We need to pursue the spring, what is beneath. In the end, I believe we become what we love.

SAFE SPACE

As part of the continuing series on the marks of new monasticism, I would like for us to reflect on a concept that is not featured on the list, namely safe space. To be more precise, why creating and pursuing safe space is vital to healthy and vibrant communities.

Our souls emerge and show their God-given grandeur and wonder when they are perceived to be safe, ever shyly and with slight hesitation. Thomas Merton described our souls as wild but shy animals in a deep forest, which only appear when safe. I have experienced this repeatedly in two areas. First, when I am safe to my own soul, translated as I am not in a self-condemning mode and am exercising self-compassion, I realize I am able to honestly express my interior reflection and processing. There have been plenty of times where I was neither safe nor hospitable to my soul and thus robbed myself of the full array of hope and restoration. Exercising self-compassion undoubtedly is one of the most courageous acts one can do to oneself. It is the very embodiment and living out the truth of “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, ESV) The process of providing safe space to one’s own soul can also be described as experiencing God’s mercy in one’s whole self, not divided or compartmentalized.

The second experience involves the communal embodiment of the practice of safe space. When a majority of people in the community have practiced safe space to their own souls, they invariably create safe space in groups or communities they belong to. When I am safe to my soul, I am safe to others. The opposite is true as well.

Safe space means safety and freedom for vulnerable and wounded souls. Vulnerability flows freely when we own our failures and mistakes. Maintaining an airtight defensive posture can be an extremely arduous and burdensome way of life. When we come to accept and own our failures, which is to say that our inflated egos are welcomingly punctured, we are ready for God’s redemptive work and thus the transformation of our souls. In this sense, accepting our failures is to be recognized with compliments and should be warmly embraced, because our egos are properly deflated due to cracks from within. I’ve come to realize that this recognition is difficult to get to because our ego would not want to accept it. Ego is a master at shifting blame to someone else or something else. However, with this recognition in a rightful place, we are primed for healing and restoration.

A transformative discipline is to create a safe space for our own souls, which essentially means that we are not condemning ourselves toward a downward spiral of destruction and even death. Yet, the transformative power erupts when we belong to a community that creates a safe space for vulnerable and wounded souls. Henri Nouwen, in his book, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom, beautifully expresses the responsibility of individual stewardship.

Your pain is deep, and it won’t just go away. . . Your call is to bring that pain home. As long as your wounded part remains foreign to your adult self, your pain will injure you as well as others. Yes, you have to incorporate your pain into yourself and let it bear fruit in your heart and in the hearts of others. This is what Jesus means when he asks you to take up your cross.

He encourages you to recognize and embrace your unique suffering and to trust that your way to salvation lies therein. Taking up your cross means, first of all, befriending your wounds and letting them reveal to you your own truth.

A significant component of our unique wound and its relationship to community is what Nouwen calls “the wounded healer.” We become healers out of our own unique wounds that have been healed. Brennan Manning describes this well, “In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.” I love what Thornton Wilder writes in one of his short plays, “Without your wounds where would your power be? . . . In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.” Thus, in healthy communities, we receive and give healing and restoration to one another. This generous reciprocity, not the quid pro quo or the contractual kind, is a true mark of God’s practical economy of grace at work through healed broken lives. Jesus is the safe cornerstone and the ultimate model of such magnanimous generosity as he never rejected or turned away people who owned their brokenness.

I am a living testimony of such God’s unconditional grace at work in multiple communities. As I reflect, what got me to this place is first, courage to own my illusions and broken self, and second, acceptance of my brokenness in communities through safe space. How grateful I am to have experienced such communities in desperate times. Little did I realize that this desperation ushered into a renaissance of my soul. . .

Next week, I will share the relationship between safe space and discovering our soul’s deepest longings. 

LAMENT

4. Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation

(In continuation of 12 marks of the new monasticism series, I would like for us to turn our attention to the topic of lament for racial divisions.)

Lament is an old middle English word that comes from old French and Latin word as weeping and wailing. When I was 10 or 11 years old in Korea, both my great grandmother and grandmother passed away within a span of one month. My memory is elusive but what I remember is there were intermittent wailing for days with people coming in and out of the house constantly. Lamenting has been the ebb and flow of life of humanity for as long as humanity existed. Lamenting is so vital and significant that there are even professional lamenters in some societies.

I’d submit that a biblical meaning of lament involves two facets of movements: full awareness of utter helplessness and complete trust in God alone. One may not be weeping and wailing but the experiences of hitting the rock bottom with no rescue in sight and thus crying out for help are what lament is like.

According to Matthew, Jesus’ last words captures the very essence of lament, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, cf Psalm 22:1, ESV) The rest of Psalm 22:1 fills out with David crying out, “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? As the Psalms are replete with lament, consider David and other psalmists lament, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1, ESV) “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!” (Psalm 130:1-2, ESV) “Why” and “how long” are visceral and emotionally charged expressions. When we are in the middle of such a state, hope is a distant memory and a forgotten reality. With all things that are on the news and the social media and the things that are not, it feels like we are in the middle of an extended painful and distressing “how long” and “why” with no end in sight. Those that are lamenting are ones that have joined the long successive line of lamenters in the Bible. 

From the Psalms, there arises a sense of permission and even invitation to enter into lament for us all. Later, Jesus highlights lament as one of the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4, ESV) No one can fake mourning, thus the verse is not saying “try to mourn” or mourn when you can, rather when you mourn, you will be comforted.

According to M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, lament is a spiritual practice and discipline modeled for us by Jesus. She proposes that “lament is a spiritual discipline that assists the sufferer to reconstruct meaning after the disorienting effects of the suffering.” Lament functions as a one-way bridge from disorientation toward new orientation, thus it produces reorientation, providing a necessary movement from deep distress to God’s redemptive perspective. Lament is far from complaint against, not that complaint against is wrong. Lament, rather, is a living exercise of trust.

Lamenting for racial divisions is a specific invitation that is unique to our day. Racial division has existed for most of humanity after one people became many (The Tower of Babel incident), but it is also true that what we are facing is unique to our time. Before we lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities, I believe we need to lament racial divisions in humanity. No one is excluded from racism. I have been a racist whether through clever underhanded jokes I share or participate in or overt dislike of some people or groups of people. Racism flows out of the foundational function of collective ego, endlessly comparing and competing and placing who are different from us below us, further justifying our position. Thus, Jesus’ exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount about not judging or condemning others and seeing the log in our own eye before we see the speck in others (Matthew 7: 1-6, ESV) is timeless and timely. This exhortation obviously applies to person-to-person relationships. At the same time, I believe Jesus was more focused on group to group, community to community, and people to people relationships as Jesus was addressing the plural “you” of which singular “you” is a part. Our individuality is a subset of group or people we belong to. Thus, if we enlarge this teaching from group to group or people to people, then the applicability of this teaching explodes in all directions.

BLM (especially with fresh incidents and Chauvin’s trial and impending verdict) and Asian hate (which has gone greatly underreported) to name just a few are palpable symptoms of racial divisions in humanity in the US. The Atlanta shooting shook my wife and me, which led to questions about our identity and belonging. China also has had its own colorful history of overwhelming other peoples who are different and thus viewed as threats from those in main power. Even now, what is happening among the Uighers in western China is just one example. Even my home country, Korea, has had to face their own racism issues as migrant workers have flooded in from other mostly Asian countries. And the list goes on and on. . .

So what do we do? I believe an invitation is to lament. Walter Brueggemann in his book, The Prophetic Imagination, captures grief as a way to criticize the dominant and the royal consciousness of which racial divisions is one. Brueggemann writes, “empires live by numbness.” Later, he captures, “The language of grief is against the numbness.” This language whether through songs, poems, or silence (and other expressions) of grief is lament. Lament stands against numbness and the real criticism against the dominant consciousness begins in the capacity to grieve. He further flushes, “I believe that grief and mourning, that crying in pathos, is the ultimate form of criticism, for it announces the sure end of the whole royal arrangement.” Wow, that is worth reading one more time. . . Later, he sums up, “The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings.” Brueggemann is careful in reminding us that grieving’s characteristic idioms are “anguish and not anger” and “hope and not optimism.”

Just as David and other biblical saints have experienced the depths of despair followed by God’s rescues and replaced with the hope in God as well as Jesus’ last cry of forsakenness of the cross which led to resurrection, we are invited to lament in this season and embrace God promises that we would experience joy and life. Furthermore, while we are invited to lament as individuals, we are also invited to join communities that lament together to stand as a humble force in criticizing the dominant consciousness of our day as well as in ushering in the upside Kingdom of God. Further still, we are invited to join a long line of ancient and universal communal movement of lamenters that exposes the egoic infatuation of comparison game and accepts and celebrates one another as God’s masterful creations.

COMMUNITY: DOORWAY TO BECOMING HUMAN

7. Nurturing common life among members of an intentional community

8. Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children

9. Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life

The above marks all deal with the ontological importance of community and the various aspects and postures of community that new monasticism embraces. Consider Frederick Buechner’s words, “You can survive on your own; you can grow strong on your own; you can prevail on your own; but you cannot become human on your own.” Not sure if there is a better way to offer this curt summary of becoming human. We just simply cannot become human on our own! “My” human journey cannot be fully completed without being part of the larger “our” collective human journey.

Therein lies one of the most fundamental paradoxes in life: that all of us are utterly individualistic independent human beings and yet we cannot become fully human beings on our own. This is where the paradox of independent and interdependent nature of humanity intersect. It has been said that “what is most personal is most universal.” Henri Nouwen expressed his insight well in this quote:

“. . . anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people. That is why our inner lives are lives for others. That is why our solitude is a gift to our community, and that is why our most secret thoughts affect our common life.

Jesus says, “No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house” (Matthew 5:14-15). The most inner light is a light for the world. Let’s not have “double lives”; let us allow what we live in private to be known in public.”

Two key words stand out in the above marks: common and intent. First of all, there is not a single intentional community without common something or somethings. The prefix “com” (both in community and common) emphasizes togetherness, with-ness, and belonging-ness. Thus, the more important aspect of com is to consider com for what. What are we together about? What do we stand for together? How do we belong to each other? What makes us different from other communities? These are all pertinent questions that beckon thoughtful responses.

The so-called thoughtful responses differ greatly from one community to another. There is no one right response. Some resort and prescribe to rules and regulations or some kind of covenants based on shared values. And even the rules or covenants vary from uber specificities to interpretable general postures. Some communities congregate primarily around mission and vision. They are naturally predisposed to be a mission/vision driven community. Thus, while it is a community, it is mission first with a common task and community second in a supportive role. And then there are some communities that form and nurture based on ethnicities, age, beliefs, or even hobbies. Thus, they all share something(s).

A full disclosure: I am not a rule or regulation person. I am one who thinks that rules and regulations are there to be broken or at least to be revised. I am naturally bent in one direction toward greater latitude and flexibility. The kind of common I resonate with has to do with my sense of calling to live “on the edge of the inside,” or to reside on the margins or peripheries (which incidentally is one of the twelve marks) of dominant communities. To use biblical language, it bears the image of a combination of prophetic and apostolic community. It is a community that is more concerned with why nots than whys, or why the Kingdom isn’t than merely maintaining systems. This is not to say everyone in this particular community has to be either prophets or apostles, but that the community as a whole chooses to stand on the edge of the inside. 

While at the same time, this community is not obsessed with orthodoxy and trying to “convert” everyone in its path to the right way of believing. Rather, it is a community that is concerned with orthopraxy, living out the life of the Kingdom. In this sense, the ultimate orientation as well as postures and practices arise directly out of Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom of God, more specifically, the Sermon on the Mount, and more specifically, the Lord’s Prayer fused with the Great Commandment. In other words, the “com” of community and common is based on the Kingdom of God. As such, we belong to the greater Kingdom community while maintaining the unique and particular callings of our smaller community.

This leads to the word intent. The word intent has its origin as purpose in Latin. We all should aim to be part of a community which speaks of the original meaning of purpose, for we cannot become human without it. Based on my experiences of being part of multiple communities, communities are both a means and an end. Communities that view themselves as a means to achieve or do something greater than themselves can rob themselves of the tangible fruits of immediacy, intimacy, and blessings of being part of communities. Worse still, the trap of thinking that how we relate to or treat one another is secondary as long as we accomplish what we set out to do can be destructive.

On the other hand, communities that view themselves as an end can become insular and fall short of providing fruitful service to the “outside” world. This ultimate tension of both means and an end is what communities have to keep in mind. It becomes an art of living purposefully, integrating living out the Kingdom in immediate communities while providing Kingdom service to the world, thus enlarging the Kingdom communities around the world. In short, it is Kingdom living, nothing short of how Jesus lived and walked on this earth! Another way of saying this is to say that how we do communities is as important as what we do as communities and through communities. Thus in this way, the intention commits to keep the purview of both how and what, sometimes in tension and sometimes in unison. 

HOSPITALITY | PART 2

As much as hospitality is about sharing food, time, and home, it is also about opening the heart and connecting at that level.  This is evident in the Japanese tea ceremony:

The practice of sharing tea with others is the essence of the Japanese tea ceremony, chanoyu. The ceremony is an enactment of "right relationship" to another in a social setting. In the role of the host or hostess, we learn a way of being that celebrates care, precision, and regard toward the well-being of others, the particular situation, and the environment. We bring mindful attention to every person, place, and thing we encounter. As we consider another's needs, our attitude shifts from self to other. As we whisk the tea and present the bowl, our body follows suit, and the peacefulness of serving tea to others infuses our being.

Sen Soshitsu, fifteenth Grand Master of the Urasenke School of Tea, knew that it was "the free and magnanimous heart that counts" in the serving and drinking of tea. It is this caring and considerate, yet tempered and moderated way of being that constitutes the demeanor of the host or hostess at a tea gathering. We serve others without servicing; we offer, without artifice; and we regulate, without controlling.

 When we as hosts intentionally shift our focus from self to other with no pretense, control, and hidden agenda, our guests see “the free and magnanimous heart” of the host and, as a result, hearts open up and connect in ways that are well beyond superficiality. When hearts open and connect this deeply, hospitality brings out restoration on both the hosts as well as the guests.

That leads to an observation that hospitality creates freedom. One expression and application of this freedom in hospitality is letting our guests to discover and to remain as who they are. They don’t have to be like us. In light of this, modern missions movement generally has not fared well, from overt expectation on others to be like us to subtle pressures to accept our ways of believing and doing things. To help us unpack this idea, here is Nouwen again:

The German word of hospitality is Gastfreundschaft which means, friendship for the guest. The Dutch use the word gastvrijheid which means, the freedom of the guest. Although this might reflect that the Dutch people find freedom more important than friendship, it definitively shows that hospitality wants to offer friendship without binding the guest and freedom without leaving him alone. 

Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer the space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. . . .  It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God and their way. The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own. [Italicized mine] (1975:72–73)

Nouwen’s observation above drips with missiological insights. For one, listen to him when he says, “it is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God and their way.” This resembles what Jesus said as in the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.” We all have tried to force, either subtly or overtly, our God and our way to others, thinking and believing that our way is the right way. If we can realize that “hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own” whoever the “host” may be, I believe we can go a long way in developing and maintaining a biblical expression of what global cooperation may look like as it relates to hospitality. Hospitality is not to change people or to woo them to our “camp.” It is simply to offer space and room where change may take place. Furthermore, it may be that we may not like the change, if that takes place at all. Will we be patient enough to allow our guests to discover their own?

Let me stretch a bit further. I believe hospitality is a strong basis for creating and cultivating unity in community and in global cooperation. Nouwen says, 

When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests revealing to their hosts the promise they are carrying with them. Then, in fact, the distinction between host and guest proves to be artificial and evaporates in the recognition of the new found unity. . . Maybe the concept of hospitality can offer a new dimension to our understanding of a healing relationship and the formation of a re-creative community in a world so visibly suffering from alienation and estrangement. (1975:67)

Realizing the fact that we are all hosts and guests is a good place to start as we all seek “the formation of a re-creative community.” One is not host all the time. And one is not guest all the time. Hospitality is an antidote for “a world so visibly suffering for alienation and estrangement.” We all need to embrace the fact that God welcomed us first and it is our duty to welcome others and provide hospitality that imitates and honors Jesus.

HOSPITALITY | PART 1

When I first read Henri Nouwen’s concept of hospitality in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, I was blown away by its simplicity and depth. My soul simply knew it to be true. I then decided to incorporate Nouwen’s concept of hospitality into a paper presentation on the topic of global cooperation of missions. This was back in 2010 for an audience of Asian mission leaders. In retrospect, I was trying to do two things: one, to provide a gentle and subversive critique on how missions had been operating and two, to integrate what my soul knew to be true in my developing contemplative heart with the global stage of missiological engagement and partnership. If it works at a localized relational level, it should work at a global level of relationships, I thought. If it is true “here,” it must also be true “there.” Years later, I am further convinced hospitality is a lost art in spirituality, especially true in our day. We must recover and reclaim the lost art into a living practice. The opposite of hospitality is judgment and control. It is robbing of the foundational freedom, the freedom to be oneself.

Thus, though I wrote the paper for the audience of missions leaders, I think you will find its far reaching applications to all levels of relationships. Wherever people and community are, there should be hospitality at work.

It was a relatively short paper. So I will share it in two parts.

Global Cooperation as Hospitality: Drawing from Henry Nouwen’s concept of hospitality

In the 15th century, Christopher Columbus brought a strange-looking fruit back to Europe from the island of Guadeloupe. The new fruit looked like an armored pinecone that covered a firm pulp, similar to an apple. The English appropriately named this new fruit, pineapple.  In the Caribbean islands, the pineapple was a symbol of hospitality. The Spanish explorers knew if a pineapple was placed at the entrance of a village, it meant they were welcomed. Today the symbol of pineapple is a global expression of welcome and hospitality. In front of our house back in the U.S., we used to have a welcome mat that had a big imprint of a pineapple!

What is the relationship between hospitality and global cooperation of which we should be mindful? I would like to propose that we approach global cooperation as hospitality--primarily in spirit and in its implied practice.[1] I believe there are some significant connections between hospitality and how we can advance further in global cooperation.

Previous as well as most of current practices in approaching “strategic” missions partnerships or cooperation have mainly been business-like, imported from the business world. While there is much we can learn from such an approach, I propose that we look at global cooperation from the angle of hospitality, which is more organic and natural.  It is organic and natural in that the spirit of hospitality is not only about what we do when we get together in meetings but also attempts to address how we live day to day in interaction with others and other cultures. In short, it is about the lost art of genuine spirituality that is hospitality. Henry Nouwen captures this well, “The term hospitality, therefore, should not be limited to its literal sense of receiving a stranger in our house—although it is important never to forget or neglect that!—but as a fundamental attitude toward our fellow human being, which can be expressed in a great variety of ways” (1975:67). In the long run, what is organic and natural may prove to be more strategic.

Hospitality is nothing new. It is a supra-cultural practice that is universal in nature.[2] The ability to practice hospitality makes a human being a human being.  Hospitality allows us to connect with people and to find our dignity and worth as human beings. Ample biblical stories and examples of hospitality are found in the Old Testament to the New Testament. Again, here is Nouwen, “It is one of the richest biblical terms that can deepen and broaden our insight in our relationships to our fellow human beings.” (1975:66)

The word hospitality derives from the Latin hospes, which is formed from hostis, which originally meant, “to have power”. The word, hospital, comes from the same root word which means a place of shelter and rest for travelers. The practice of sharing tea, humble yet rich, is an expression of providing hospitality to weary travelers and sharing a piece of home. From the ancient Chinese to Indian to Classical to Celtic to the Middle Ages to the less civilized to the modern to “southern hospitality” (that is in the U.S.), hospitality brings decency and dignity of being human beings. Hospitality is more than the combination of words like soft, warm, sweet, kind, cozy, and perhaps even boring. It is a forgotten spirituality, and it is a critical basis for global cooperation and partnership.

In the end, hospitality is an expression of love toward our neighbors. We can express love because God first loved us and welcomed us. The Message translation of the Romans 15:7 reads, “So reach out and welcome one another to God's glory. Jesus did it; now you do it!” Thus, the idea of providing and receiving hospitality is simply an act of obedience to the Great Commandment.

Hospitality is connecting with others. I am tempted to use a phrase like “true hospitality” simply because we have seen “bad”, manipulative, or distorted kinds of hospitality. But I will stick to the simple usage of hospitality, trusting that this is the “true” kind. At the most foundational level, connecting with other human beings is what makes hospitality hospitality. This can happen through sharing food, time, and home. Table fellowship is something we take for granted in the west, generally speaking. However, it is such an intimate act of fellowship elsewhere. All cultures represented in the Bible took this table fellowship very seriously. The early church described in the Book of Acts centered around table fellowships in real-life contexts. Communion was sharing real meals. And this was important enough that Apostle Paul made a fair share of warnings and exhortations as to what not to do and what to do in sharing real meals.

[1] At the end of my presentation, I would like to receive input and feedback as to what some practical applications might be or whether the concept of hospitality in the context of global cooperation is worth pursuing.

[2] Various cultures may have different motivating factors, from honor, shame, reciprocity, and even guilt. Whatever the motivation might be, the practice of hospitality is ubiquitous and generally considered very important.

THE ABANDONED PLACES AND THE MARGINS

Relocation to the "abandoned places of Empire" [at the margins of society]

Above is the first “mark” of new monasticism. On this week’s blog, I will try to unpack and give my commentary on the mark. Right off the bat, what catches our attention is the call to action, which is relocation. The heart of the matter is about going and being among people in the "abandoned places of Empire." We are to go how Jesus came to us, incarnationally in a self-emptying act. The self-emptying act is not for just one time, but signifies many deaths and letting go. But more on this later.

I would like to give some musing to the “abandoned places of Empire” and tie my thoughts later. This is the question of place as well as audience. Where and to whom are we to go? Of course, we must go to the entire world, but this invitation has a more focused emphasis, and I find this emphasis helpful and challenging. The places we go to are where equity, justice, and/or freedom cannot easily be accessed. It is the place of systemic marginalization and bureaucratic neglect. The people we go to are the ones who have been marginalized and those who sit on the outside of dominant powers and control.

 “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” penned Frederick Buechner. The world’s deep hunger because that is what those at the margins of society experience. I agree with Richard Rohr when he said being a follower of Jesus is to identify and be in solidarity with the pain of the world, precisely because that is how Jesus walked on this earth. How we identify and practice solidarity with the pain of the world is for each individual and group to discern. I do think there is freedom and creativity in living this out. There simply is not one right approach. Rohr, a Franciscan monk himself, further observes, “Franciscanism was considered to be a sidewalk spirituality for the streets of the world,” Furthering the Franciscan tradition, Pope Francis recently emphasized, “smelling like the sheep” as our stance of being in the world. We are encouraged to do in our day what Jesus did. That is at the heart of being one with the incarnated Jesus.

There exists a sense of systemic and inherent blindness at the top and at the center of power, for those at the top or at the center have to protect and preserve the state of being in perpetual power. Those who are at the margins of society did not choose or volunteer to be at the margins. It was largely done to them. In Jesus’ day, those at the margins were people who were poor, sinners (labeled thus according to those who were at the center of power), children, women (particularly widows), and gentiles. However, ironically but not surprisingly, those at the margins of society are the ones who see reality clearly and discern authenticity due to the pain and suffering they must endure. They traverse the land of innocent delight and abundance through simplicity. The resulting intimacy with God is raw and unfeigned. The Beatitudes is a great reminder that those who are poor, meek, mournful, pure, and persecuted will inherit the spiritual blessings.

Going back to the idea of relocation, I find the verb, relocate, challenging. Not that I am unwilling to relocate, this simply has not been my life experience. My life’s work has mostly been “behind-the-scenes," involved in mobilizing, training, and educating the Church for mission work “out there.” What is more, while I am not rich, I am not poor either. While I have experienced pain and suffering, I don’t know suffering and pain leading to unbearable shame or unjust loss. While I know voluntary hunger from fasting, I don’t know sustained hopeless hunger. While I have mourned, I have not mourned like the families who have just lost their moms, sisters, daughters, and friends from the recent senseless shootings in Atlanta.

As I write, I am reminded of a Muslim follower of Jesus who I’ve fellowshipped with for more than 15 years and counting. When I traveled every year to Asia, we saw each other often in a group setting. As we were riding in the back of a van one time, I remember hearing his story of being thrown into prison for roughly 2 years by Muslim leaders in the area. His crime? He had extravagant joy in Jesus and loved Jesus too much. And even in prison, he was the light and the salt. We would walk the streets in Asia, and he literally could not hold his joy in Jesus and had to share with people he came in contact with. Jesus in me recognized Jesus in him.

Not to downgrade the seriousness and importance of physical relocation, there are other ways to engage with the margins of society. If we can broaden the idea of relocation to beyond physical relocation, then there is more room for creative engagement. Not being quiet and complicit about “the abandoned places” of our societies but actively sharing and standing up for those who have no voice is one clear example. Learning and educating the world regarding the abandoned places of Empire is another. We all can do something. . .

At the same time, physical relocation is a specific call to action. It is about going how Jesus came and choosing to be among them, serving as the tangible hands and feet of Jesus. In thinking of Catholic in relationship with Protestant “workers,” It seems reasonable to think that those who are called to celibacy have more freedom in movement than those with families. While it is obviously not impossible for families to go, things get complex very fast. Supporting and getting involved with those who go are other ways of joining a call to action, it seems to me.

In conclusion, I can’t help but to consider one benefit of being with the margins of society—we find God more readily because we are surrounded by people who are not pretenders but simply and authentically poor, poor in spirit, meek, mournful, and hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Oftentimes, those who engage at the margins experience the unfiltered and more cogent grace of God at work. In the end, we are the ones who get ministered and receive incalculable outpouring love of God. Thus, we dare not go to minister, give, and serve, instead we go to receive and experience the full brunt of God’s indwelling presence. “There” truly is the Kingdom of God. 

ALTERNATIVES | PART 2

Then there is Rohr’s contribution through his book, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.  As a starting point, Rohr emphasizes embracing our own unique personal spiritual experiences seriously but humbly. This idea of self-knowledge then becomes a cornerstone of laying the groundwork of “living on the edge of the inside.” Inside is where the mainstream resides, where the power lies, and where the “giant hairball”[1] looms. It is also the land of comfort, familiarity, and conformity. Rohr proposes that the genius of Francis was his ability and capacity to not simply be on the edge, but on the edge of the inside. Prophets and apostles, more than others, are well aware of this tension. As such, they would not be content to remain inside. They would go stir crazy. They are the ones who do not merely ask the whys but focus more on the why nots. The pulling power from the inside is more tremendous than anybody realizes. Being on the edge is not for the faint-hearted. But being on the edge of the inside requires, I would say, both being courageous and humble, or if you like, being prophetic and incarnational. Francis had learned to maneuver how to be on the edge without severing ties with the inside. Thus he positioned himself and the Franciscan order to absorb many from the inside to join in radical alternative communities of his day.

When you begin to integrate and synthesize the contributions from Palmer, Brueggemann, and Rohr, there are multiple common threads we can pull out into bite-sized nuggets. (These are the nuggets I found. You may or may not agree.) A few nuggets I would like to highlight are below in no significant order:

·      The importance of self-knowledge. What drives and reforms anything on the outside has to come from our interiority. Otherwise, it is disingenuous or even fake, which leads to damaging illusion for many. This also puts heavier emphasis, and I would add rightfully so, on being honest with oneself no matter how uncomfortable or even painful it may be.

·      Dominant systems in place are not inherently bad or evil in its inception. Due to a breeding environment of justifying calcification of egos over time combined with clever evil at work, rather than serving humanity and creation for good and love, they create and preserve class systems and hierarchy. They flat out create a bondage system. If any system does not promote equality and justice for all, then it has become a dominant system for only a chosen few.

·      Dismantling dominant systems initially often requires a singular voice followed by a small group of supporters and reformers. When we take notice of all the fairy tales and myths (which really are not fairy tales or myths but a reflection of true reality), we almost always see a lonely but courageous hero or a heroine’s journey often from an obscure origin to take on impossible “systems.”

·      Momentum begins to build when a small group or community of followers gather, support, dream, and act. This is the most exciting phase of creating any alternative movements. No one can do it alone. Just think of any epic movie where a small band of people is trying to topple near-insurmountable dominant systems.

·      Fruitful alternative consciousness movements in the past often embrace creative ways to criticize and dismantle dominant consciousness. These movements have found ways to woo some from the dominant crowd by articulating or even reminding them through alternative orthodoxy which can be dubbed as perennial orthodoxy from the past. Also, the dismantling of dominant systems cannot be done by the spirit of condemnation by alternative movements. Otherwise, an endless cycle of condemnation persists and will not help any. How to criticize and dismantle without condemnation and do so slantly and creatively is at the heart of any reformer.

·      Lifestyle wins the day, not another set of belief system. Jesus reminds us that it is always orthopraxy over orthodoxy. In order for alternative communities to flourish, one discernible pattern has been the translation of how we ought to live in whatever contexts we may find ourselves in. It is not about what we think or believe, but how we live. Love by all and for all must govern how we live. The work of both dismantling the dominant and creating the alternative work has to be done out of love.

If Brueggemann provides a biblical blueprint for standing up against the dominant consciousness and birthing alternative communities, Rohr paints a compelling historical case study of an alternative way to live out our faith from the lives of Francis and Clare and their followers. Palmer provides a laser focus on the discipline of education in modern times, utilizing similar principles. Their contributions grant us permission and extend stern challenges to seek alternative ways of seeing, thinking, and living in whatever our contexts may be. 

The Kingdom of God isn’t anywhere near to what and where it should be, yet. What this means is that there more than ample opportunities to criticize and dismantle the dominant systems and consciousness of our time and create alternative consciousness that would spin out new creative ways of welcoming God’s Kingdom on this earth now.

[1] Here, I am referring to the book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon McKenzie.

ALTERNATIVES | PART 1

Before I dive into the “12 marks,” I’ve decided to share something I wrote to further lay the ground for the topic of new old monasticism. And I will do this in a 2 part series. This again reads more like a paper but this is not a mere exercise of my mind, detached from our life. Instead, it is a life reflection of where we are in our Kingdom journey. Bon voyage!

Divided No More: A Movement Approach to Educational Reform[1] , written by Parker J. Palmer in 1992, is a timeless thought-provoking article that reaches beyond the discipline of education. I find this article extremely relevant for creation of movements of alternative communities with alternative consciousness. I am indebted to Walter Brueggemann’s classic, The Prophetic Imagination, for the phrase and vision of alternative communities with alternative consciousness. Additionally, Richard Rohr’s Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi adds layers and depth to the alternative way of seeing, living, and organizing new communities as in the case of the Franciscans. Notice the word alternative in all three works (it is the last of 4 stages in Palmer’s thinking).

First, let’s consider Palmer. Palmer proposes four stages of movements. Palmer gives the overview:

“What is the logic of a movement? How does a movement unfold and progress? I see four definable stages in the movements I have studied-stages that do not unfold as neatly as this list suggests, but often overlap and circle back on each other:

·       Isolated individuals decide to stop leading “divided lives.”

·       These people discover each other and form groups for mutual support.

·       Empowered by community, they learn to translate “private problems” into public issues.

·       Alternative rewards emerge to sustain the movement’s vision, which may force the conventional reward system to change.

Palmer coins the first stage simply as “choosing integrity” where isolated individuals “make an inner choice to stop leading ‘divided lives.’” Palmer quotes Rosa Parks who refused to sit in the back, but rather sat in front of the bus. Years later Rosa Parks spoke of her decision, “I sat down because my feet were tired.” Palmer argues that Rosa Parks’ decision was more than mere physical tiredness, rather the action was taken out of inner integrity and wholeness as a human being. Palmer’s closing remark is deft and on point. “These people have seized the personal insight from which all movements begin: No punishment can possibly be more severe than the punishment that comes from conspiring in the denial of one’s own integrity.”

The second stage is titled “corporate support” where it is no longer a few random individuals but a group of people who come out of the woodwork, discover each other and support each other. It is no longer a “lone nut” anymore but an emerging group of crazy misfits who have stayed true to their integrity and inner wholeness. My soul echoes with Palmer. “Perhaps they have heard and heeded the admonition of Margaret Mead: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’”

The third stage is called “going public” which is a natural segue from the second stage. People start to discover that their problems are no longer private but “have been occasioned by public conditions and therefore require public remedies.” This is a transition from private pain to articulation of public pain. Palmer is wise when he writes, “Instead, to ‘go public’ is to enter one’s convictions into the mix of communal discourse. It is to project one’s ideas so that others can hear them, respond to them, and be influenced by them and so that one’s ideas can be tested and refined in the public crucible.” Palmer concludes this stage, “When the language of change becomes available in the common culture, people are better able to name their yearnings for change, to explore them with others, to claim membership in a great movement and to overcome the disabling effects of feeling isolated and half-mad.”

Finally, “alternative rewards” is the last stage. While Palmer acknowledges that there are tangible rewards in all previous stages, the last stage’s rewards are more systematically prevalent and that “it comes with the capacity to challenge the dominance of existing organizations.” Ultimately, the alternative rewards are used as incentives to create alternative norms, systems, and organizations.

You might say I am trying to further set the stage for “new old monasticism”[2] by weaving why alternative communities are needed, to use Brueggemann, Rohr, and Palmer’s language. It is yet another way of saying why new old monasticism is needed.

Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination is an extremely helpful construct because he describes the biblical pattern of creation of alternative communities with alternative consciousness from the story of Exodus to the Old Testament prophets, especially Jeremiah and Isaiah, to finally Jesus. The creation of such alternative communities assumes that there is disintegration and the end of what Brueggemann calls the “dominant or royal communities.” This biblical pattern is repeated throughout human history, ever inviting Christ’s followers to not succumb to the encrustations of dominant consciousness of our days but to criticize and dismantle the old and dominant and create alternative consciousness. Brueggemann expounds on criticism, “I believe that grief and mourning, that crying in pathos, is the ultimate form of criticism, for it announces the sure end of the whole royal arrangement.” Toward the end of his book, Brueggemann writes, “The purpose of the alternative community is to enable a new human beginning to be made. . . . with the religion of God’s freedom and the politics of justice and compassion.” The above statement sounds strikingly similar to Jesus’ first sermon recorded in Luke 4: 18-19 (which is a direct quotation from Isaiah 61:1-2).

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

To the hearers, what must have been shocking was that Jesus left out the very next phrase of Isaiah 61:2 where it read, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Devout religious leaders would not have missed that!

Brueggemann goes on, “Rather, prophetic ministry consists of offering an alternative perception of reality and in letting people see their own history in the light of God’s freedom and his will for justice.” Prophetic ministry starts with seeing, a certain kind of seeing which is seeing the invisible or seeing what is Real. Then moves onto finding internal congruency (or to use Palmer’s language, choosing integrity) to discern what to say and how to say it. Then the prophets declare against what is not real, enslaving, and blasphemous.

[1] Change Magazine, Vol. 24, Issue #2, pp. 10-17, Mar/Apr 1992. Reprinted with Permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation. Published by Heldref Publications, 1319 18th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036-1802, 1-800-365-9753, Copyright 1992. http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/divided-no-more/

[2] While the contexts and expressions may be new, there is a long perennial tradition of monasticism that is good, honorable, and helpful.

NEW OLD MONASTICISM

This blog entry reads more like a short paper. The idea of “new monasticism” is something I’ve been thinking much about in recent years. Though I am not drawing as much from my life, this undoubtedly captures the essence of where my wife and I are headed in the next chapter of our life. We are not bent on starting a new monastic order, but we are serious about building a community. Obviously, the attempt to create (recreate to be more precise) a community is nothing new (to me, this is both an invitation and challenge for every single generation!) and we certainly are not saying we know exactly what needs to happen. However, I do have certain sets of convictions (albeit held loosely.) This is an attempt to capture some of my latest ponderings and musings.

One other comment. You might have noticed that I began to write more on communities (how we relate and love one another) for the last few weeks. My intention is to probe further on what it means to “love our neighbors as ourselves” in the months to come.

Historically, monasticism began as a stern refusal to propagate and continue the vain pursuit of societies that have gone awry. Monasticism stood its ground as a quiet and passive rejection and a recalibrating force of humanity’s divine calling. Thomas Merton wrote sometime in the early 1960s, “The monk does not build his monastic city ‘on the margin’ of the world, but instead of it. This is important. The monastic consciousness of today in America is simply a marginal worldly consciousness. It won’t do.” (Italicized are his, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 341) This instead of-ness is true for the ascetic Desert Fathers and Mothers who became hermits to monks who fearlessly converted the “barbarians” during the early middle ages to mendicant and wandering monks who traversed the world to seek converts. This firm refusal has also been a creative force, not merely opposition to something destructive or unhelpful. Jesus’ teachings that are recorded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-42) are subversive but radical teachings of how we would need creative retaliation and criticism of the dominant society. This was true in Jesus’ day as well as in our day. 

Additionally, monasticism, by and large, not only stood outside the societies but also stood outside the established Church as a significant criticizing force of the dominant religious paradigm and consciousness. They deliberately chose to stand on the edge of the inside of the Church, maintaining the relationship with the Church but reforming and revolutionizing the Church from the edges. This second position allowed the monastic orders to be traditional and revolutionary at the same time. Richard Rohr’s book, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, poignantly describes the tension of being on the edge of the inside—on the edge but on the edge of the inside. Rohr’s handling of Francis of Assisi and Clare (and the subsequent Franciscan Order as well as the Order of Poor Ladies) and their impact drips with superb applications for our time. Rohr notes in the preface.

It is ironic that you must go to the edge to find the center. But that is what the prophets, hermits, and mystics invariably know. Only there were they able to live at the edges of their own lives too, not grasping at the superficial or protecting the surfaces of things, but falling into the core and center of their own souls and their own experiences.

Jesus’ examples of stern criticism of the dominant religious paradigm of his day are ample. In the end, Jesus was “led” to the cross by both the co-opting political and the religious leaders of his day.

In broad strokes, monasticism often served both as a criticizing and renewing surge both within the decaying societies as well as the institutional and encrusted churches and religious traditions. Monasticism has been a counter-cultural community/structure that has tried to renew the consciousness of its day toward a closer reality of the Kingdom of God.

I believe the emergence of similar fresh expressions of monasticism in our generation is desperately needed. Globally. Since the turn of a new millennium, we’ve witnessed some of these fresh expressions emerge combined with the upside and blessings of the postmodern outlook (I am certainly not saying that post-modernity is all good. It does have serious limitations as well.). Not to mention multiple volumes of books[1] on this topic in recent years. . .

Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw the need for a new type of monasticism that was captured in his letter to his brother in 1935.

The restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this.

Notice the year 1935. It’s the same year Hitler mobilized to rearm Germany against the treaty with other European nations. Notice also the subversive and radical counter-cultural ways of Jesus working through Bonhoeffer in stark contrast with Hitler. The exhortation above is worth our attention and focused energy.

I have found the “12 marks” of new monasticism helpful (see below). In 2004, a group of diverse new monastic communities came together to articulate a working version of the “rule of life” and 12 of the common threads of principles and practices. Every single point below requires a deeper look and explanation (which I won’t do here). I will attempt to highlight and unpack in-depth one or two “marks” at a time. In addition, I will expound, tweak, add, or subtract certain phrases and words. One brief comment I will make has to do with mark 5, where it said, “humble submission to Christ’s body, the Church.” Notice it says the Church (capital letter C) which means it is referring to Christ’s body that is much bigger than the institutionalized churches. Additionally, I would interpret the mark as humble submission to the Perennial Tradition (as Richard Rohr would say), meaning it is the Tradition that is repeated throughout history thus proving its validity as truths.

The Twelve Marks of New Monasticism[2] express the common thread of many new monastic communities. These "marks" are:

1. Relocation to the "abandoned places of Empire" [at the margins of society]

2. Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us

3. Hospitality to the stranger

4. Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation

5. Humble submission to Christ’s body, the Church

6. Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate

7. Nurturing common life among members of an intentional community

8. Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children

9. Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life

10. Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies

11. Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18, 25

12. Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life

[1] A few I’d mention are Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing by Andy Freeman, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher, The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World’s Poor by Scott A. Bessenecker.

[2] Values and “Twelve Marks” cited from the New Monasticism website (http://www.newmonasticism.org/12marks.php)

STORIES MAKE US WHO WE ARE

We are who we are because of the unrepeatable unique stories we all possess. Stories make us who we are. All stories have the good, the bad, and the ugly. Good in that our stories contributed to the overall good. Bad in that our stories participated in the negation of the good and perhaps even contributed to the destructive. Ugly in that our stories exhibited complicity or passivity in the face of injustice, wrongs, and hatred. Our stories are known and unknown, seen and unseen, and accepted and unaccepted, both by us and by others. Our stories also include jubilant ups, perilous downs, as well as monotonous consistency and equanimity. When we come to tell our stories without defending and with honest awareness and acceptance, we can then truly become owners of our stories.

Surely, my story is a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly. My story is defined by my heritage, which I had no control over, such as the Gyeong Ju Kim family clan I was born into in 1963 in Seoul, Korea, heroes who shaped, impacted, and guided me, high points of mountain top experiences as well as a profound awareness of ordinary moments, hard times of walking in the valley of the shadow of death, and the hand of God experiences that have awakened and guided me toward love and salvation. There is also a healthy dose of shame and guilt which made my journey of owning my story a challenging one. I come to God not because I am alright or even upright, but precisely because I am broken and needy. I am utilizing maximum usage out of God’s grace.

Which brings me to God’s story. . . God has a story too. God’s story is bigger, more expansive, more inclusive, more radical, more gracious, and more mysterious than I care to admit. I used to think of God’s story as one straight line, never veering right or left, or up or down, starting from before the creation of the world to the end of human history and beyond. But because God’s story is so much bigger and wider than anyone can imagine, even in “ups and downs” and “rights or lefts,” it still is a straight line. God’s story is bigger and wider because I would like to think, it encompasses all of creation's story. In some mysterious ways, we are already part of God’s story. We can’t ever get out or opt-out. In some other ways, we are constantly invited and wooed to join God’s story. Joy and fulfillment abound in saying multiple yes-es to the invitation, precisely because it answers our ancient longing to belong. 

Justifiably, because our stories define us, we all naturally have a reference point in seeing and perceiving reality. It is neither right nor wrong to have such a reference point. My story can never be someone else’s. I have to live out my story, not someone else’s. However, I dare not force my reference point and impose the values and convictions that arose from my story on others. Rather, accepting and valuing my reference point because it is mine while also embracing others’ reference points as valuable as mine is the beginning step of creating a safe and authentic community.

Because we all have reference points and because God weaves all our reference points into God’s story, no one can claim one’s reference point as the reference point for all. If we are honest, egoic infatuation for domination has existed all throughout history under the banner of unhealthy individualism (I am better than you), distorted ethnicity (We are better than you), parochial nationalism (My country is better than yours), and “justified” religiosity (My religion or denomination is better than yours). Note that there is a healthy side of individualism, ethnicity, nationalism, and certainly religiosity. However, our ego always wants to win by comparison and competition. History is littered with such bleak and unfortunate mishaps. Just think of the empires that rose and fell by the wayside, the “isms” that were sure to replace all other "isms" as irrelevant, the wars (political, cultural, and religious), the colonizations, the so-called “clash of civilizations,” and the list goes on. My own history is no exception in that I admit my culpability in believing I was better than others, my people were better than such and such, and my country (Korea and/or USA) was better than other countries. However, the worst of them of all was the thought that my faith or religiosity was more orthodox and genuine than others.

The admission and awareness for humbly accepting our tireless egoic function of placing others below us is a starting place for humans to live as humans. There can be true dignity, equality, and solidarity as human beings. One of the hardest teachings of Jesus is found in Matthew 7 where Jesus told his followers not to judge and condemn others. Later in the chapter (7:12), Jesus sums up his teaching by saying, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” What stern warning followed by poignant wisdom! The so-called Golden Rule is none other than love in action. In my own field of missions involvement, I am reminding myself that this awareness has got to be the undergirding belief and the outflowing practice of my missional engagement. In due process, we can faithfully aid and cheer for one another in pursuing the discovery process of our stories and God’s story.