THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry from The Peace of Wild Things And Other Poems (Penguin, 2018)

Despair is deafening all around us and it deadens our souls like dry branches that can easily be crushed into pieces. There is universal despair that humanity faces and then there is local despair that is unique and thus restricted to local cultures. We only need to watch the latest news, be it local or global. Despair can drown us into further despair like a downward spiral movement. Korean culture likes to rank things, first in class, second in art competitions, third in book sales, so forth, and so on. It does not take long for me to hear news about some dubious ranking Korea finds itself in. Number one in fastest aging OECD nation in the world, number one in senior poverty, number one in lowest childbirth rate in the world, etc. It is depressing and thus has ample reasons to be drowning in the pool of despair. Then there is despair that is closer to home. Despair in the form of fear of the unknown and uncertainty or what Berry later calls “forethought of grief” whether it pertains to my life or my children or loved ones.

While I do not have the luxury to “lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,” I am fortunate enough to have spent the last two plus months here at Yangpyeong where I have witnessed wood drakes and great elegant herons feeding and flying above me almost daily. I have also witnessed an incredulous change of season from early spring to early summer, from the cherry blossoms to yellow cosmos (or “Cosmic Yellow”) that are dotted against the backdrop of vibrant greens everywhere. The half-flooded rice paddy fields are now covered with new shoots sprouting from the mirror-like calm shallow lake, faithfully reflecting the surrounding green hills and mountains. The rice paddy fields are like a boundless container that holds them all, from lake to mountain to even the sky.

Seemingly, there is a parade of wild living things: insects and animals that come out ready to see the world and play. Butterflies, dragonflies, mosquitos, spiders (big ones), not to mention ants are all major small players. Why is it that swallowtail (or spotted) butterflies are so attracted to Cosmic Yellows? I hear the frogs cry when the sun goes down from the rice paddy fields. Why do they croak and cry? I was told male frogs are the ones calling, trying to attract female frogs. Not so subtly, they are holding dance parties every night on rice paddy fields. The sound of frogs in particular reminds me of my young summer innocent days when I used to visit the countryside where my mom was born and grew up. Just last night, as we were driving to our place, my wife and I saw a shiny frog hopping and crossing the street right in front of us. I caught the sight and asked my wife, “Did you see that?” “Yeah,” she said, and we both chuckled in disbelief. It was a real live frog playing the “Frogger” arcade game. I am happy to report that the frog won the game and made it to the other side of the road, safe and sound.

Then there is water whether it is rain, creek, or river. Water does not and cannot defy gravity and always obey the law of gravity. It always seeks and flows to the lowest point. Even when spring gushes out from the ground, it is because there is a body of water that pushes to the lowest point to force water out somewhere else. Water that is living and that gives life to everything around it is humble and does not seek attention. The other day, after rain, the speed of water picked up showing its force and power. The “power” of water is such because it always obeys the natural law. The power comes from the law of nature, not apart from it. Water embodies the presence of humility in its purest form. The hypnotic sound of water flowing from creeks and rivers soothes and heals the depths of all souls.

Last fall, my wife and I brought some flower seeds from the US to gift our host since she loves growing flowers. I often hear her talking to the flowers in the mornings. We carefully selected the ones that we thought could do well in Korea. It turned out that she planted those seeds this spring. Soon after we arrived, she made a point to show us several flowers growing all charming and dainty, showcasing their demure beauty. When neighbors and others walk outside in front of our place, I could overhear some of them muttering, “Wow, those flowers are so pretty.” One of the seeds we brought was none other than California Poppy. It is a piece of “home” blossoming right in front of our yard.

“The wild things” possess the gift and lesson of presence and they do not tax their lives worrying about what is next. Jesus was so right. It makes my heart so glad and full to know that Jesus was not a “classroom” teacher. The grace-filled divine lessons are all around us if we take the time to pay attention to the natural world. “For a time I rest in the grace of the world, am free” is my confession as well.

TO DARE OR NOT TO DARE

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Soren Kierkegaard

During our first Yangpyeong one-month stay last spring, we serendipitously ran into an artist who was holding her exhibit at our favorite Kwak Jiwon Bakery’s art space. My first meeting with her made such a warm impression that it found its way into a portion of my journal freshly that day (see below). Just as providentially, we ran into her again yesterday. Another chance meeting. . . Kyunghwa Lee, a chef, was holding yet another art exhibit but this time it featured her own “art book” she worked on during the last 3 months every week with a group of novice and seasoned artists. Chef Lee had invited us to come and see the exhibit. We told her we would be happy to.

After picking up a guest from a train station nearby who was going to stay overnight with us, we swung by Kwak Jiwon bakery to pick up our preordered baguette for today’s breakfast. Our guest did not know we were going to spend some time visiting the exhibit at the bakery. The exhibit featured not only Kyunghwa Lee’s work but also a dozen others in the group. The art book consisted of each of their “life diary” expressed in writing, poetry, photos, and small art pieces, all bound up in an imperfect but exquisitely intimate handmade book. I felt like someone was going to slap my hand for flipping through their personal diaries. What surprised me was how honest and vulnerable each of the entries was.

After spending a good hour, someone who was sitting down saw me walking from one room to another and bowed with a faint smile. Trying to be courteous, I also bowed not knowing who she was. She bowed again to my wife who was trailing me. She said, “An-nyeong haseyo” (hello) to my wife and followed with “Do you remember me?” My wife quickly brightened up and said, “Oh, an-nyeong haseyo!” I then realized it was the artist we met a year ago. We exchanged cordial pleasantries initially but eventually, we found our chairs and held deep spiritual conversations surrounding her art which is coterminous with her life. I profusely apologized to her that I did not recognize her. While it is true that she was wearing a knitted purple hat this time and dressed in less formal wear than last time, I should have recognized her. Just as quickly, we segued our conversation into art making. She has experienced the artist’s pain and disappointment while trying to earn her living. She also has taken in a few students over the years. Her philosophy lingered with me. She said she would take in a disciple or two for a year at a time not to teach them her style of art making much less her art techniques. Rather she would train them in such ways that they would discover their own styles.

Our guest who was carefully listening to her the whole time showed increasing interest and connection with the artist. The guest shared her own journey of wanting to embrace her artist’s way. She has been lacking courage since she had not studied art in college or had not spent an inordinate amount of money and time studying art abroad. The guest and the artist eventually exchanged their phone numbers. Our guest later told us that she had been searching for “signs” of whether to continue to pursue her dream of being an artist or not. This encounter turned out to be a “God moment” that she would not give up.

On another thread of our conversation, she asked me what I was up to. I shared with her that my book had just come out being less sure with what kind of vibe I should say about the book. With a curious look on her face, she asked what my book was about, and I said it is about being pilgrims in this life. She nodded, took note, and told me she would like to buy and read. I smiled in return. Chef Lee then chimed in and said, “We will hold a small book concert with author Chong Kim as our guest speaker.” The artist and another student who was listening closely both said, “We would like to be there.”

I too am on a journey I have not passed before. I have lost my footing multiple times to know that while those moments may be painful with blue-colored swollen ankles, the hurting simply does not compare with potentially losing myself and not being true to who I am and who I am becoming. This grand six-month-long Asia swing is a great dare for me. We are making plans to do another round of six-month trip next year. I am at a point where I would rather try and fail than fail to try. I have been a fan of Brené Brown for quite some time and read multiple of her books. In her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, she pens it this way, “To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.” I cannot fail to be me. There is too much at stake. Daring is not synonymous with gritting our teeth and plowing forward with a “faith-filled” adventuresome spirit, instead daring embraces vulnerability like a friend. Genuine faith is a friend to vulnerability. Brown lauds vulnerability this way, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.”

May 9, 2022

Today’s story began unfolding at Kwak Jiwon Bakery as we had a rare day of rest and catch-up. We decided to venture out for a quick bite of lunch and then we went over to the bakery. At the bakery, we were informed that a new art exhibit opened today. On top of that, the artist was going to come in person and interact with people. I intuitively knew this was a God-given opportunity.

Eun Kyung Lee is a modern artist. As a trained school teacher, she taught for many years until about 9 years ago. At such time, she listened to her inner desire deep enough to pursue her dream of being an artist. Being a teacher in Korea is a secure and envious job considered by many. Yet, in her own words, she had to pursue and go all in even if she were to fail and fail miserably. It would be a happy ending if I were to say she has made it. While she tasted initial celebrity-like status, she herself knows that she has not arrived, and I frankly don’t think she even cares she has made it. She knows this is a process being unfolded and that she is paving her own path that she has not traveled before. I know this journey of inner discovery requires a herculean effort and courage to switch in midlife. We told her to be encouraged and she got teary-eyed.

As a craft painter (she coined the term herself), she is attracted to organic and inorganic discards and wastes and incorporates them into her art. Most of her craft paintings are understandably three-dimensional and they often portray the existential matter of one’s being. Her vision has been to use the discards and rejects to rebirth them into a newborn story. She does this because as a teacher she was always attracted to troubled and isolated kids. Though her career went through a transition, her heart for the neglected and underappreciated remained the same.

She asked us what we do and why we were in Yangpyeong. We told her that we are missionaries interested in developing people and that we were “running” a healing stay. We talked about our spirituality and told her that we resonated with what we see in her story and art. She nodded in agreement about our spirituality as she went on the explain the background of one piece she created (see above). The painting features a three-dimensional fallen black bamboo branch with a few leaves she picked up in Kangwon Province which sits in the easternmost part of Korea. She turned the bamboo branch into an imaginary pen of her heart which it wrote, “love” (picture above). I would say she was neither religious nor unreligious, but it did not matter to me. She said afterward, “Love is the common language of our heart.” Whether knowingly or unknowingly, she is proclaiming the existential message of love to all who see her craft painting. I was glad to have bumped into her and was blessed to see the painting.

EACH OF OUR STORY AS ART

One of the functions of art is for people to bring their own life to engage with the art in such ways that they go beyond what the creators intended. Art is alive and breathing to touch lives beyond the original creator and its intention. The original created art creates ripples of interaction and rumination almost as if the art has a life of its own. Art has been an ancient and timeless gift to humanity that keeps on giving.

I find it fascinating that we all first “feel” art, utilizing our five senses. Whether we listen, see, or read, touch, or even smell or taste, our initial engagement happens through our visceral physical senses which is what it exactly means to be a human. Thinking or analyzing is not the first reaction, contrary to what we think (no pun intended). As modern mankind, we are taught to trust less of our feelings and more our thought. More interestingly and quite fittingly, we listen and see based on how we hear and see. Our listening and seeing are uniquely colored based on our experiences and cultures and art expects us to bring all that we are. We are invited to bring our lives interacting with the art that once “spoke” to the creators which now speaks to us. Art encapsulates and accentuates “the eye of the beholder” to its unmatched effect. Certain timeless art embodies perennial wisdom caught by mankind throughout history.

When I encountered Van Gogh’s painting, A Pair of Two Lovers (which I highlighted a week ago), I could not help but bring my interpretative conjectures into Van Gogh’s painting which may or may not draw parallels to Van Gogh’s original intent at all. I then naturally went on to equate the painting and give meaning to my life now. I read into and “conversed” with Van Gogh and his painting having juxtaposed my life. While it is always helpful to note the intent and the context out of which art is originally created, I would like to think that we are not bound by one “right” interpretation and force fit into the right way to interact with the art. I love the freedom and space that art creates for humanity to interact across timelines and cultural lines.

I once heard from a prominent leader that while science is the study of God’s work, art is the study of man’s work. The statement was a discreet way of undermining art while lifting the importance of science. I understood the statement well enough to stick with me for all these years. In some ways, I have bought into that thinking. There was clearly a bias and presumption that science is a worthier field of study than art. Back in my college days which feels like another life, I supposedly majored in Civil Engineering. My real major was church activity having found Jesus quite dramatically during my first year of college. I spent most of my college life concerned with my faith growth and when there was leftover time which was not much, I studied engineering. Even then, I had thought that I was more scientifically inclined (thanks to my minor engineering degree) and that I had no or very little artsy bent in me. It was not until many years later, I began to embrace my own unique art creativity.

Art is a desperate and unending effort to release and express creativity DNA that is in humanity. As ones created by the ultimate and infinite creative Creator, we cannot not help but showcase aspects of the creativity of our Creator. The limitation is that we are trying to capture creativity in a very constrained fashion from the infinite pool of creativity that God is. However, this limitation is not with pain but with blessing and responsibility. Creativity is the common denominator between science and art: science is the study of God’s creative work while art is the study of man’s creative work. Wonder and mystery are all ways to describe God’s as well as man’s creativity. Even in science, the more foundational the questions are, the more befuddlement and mystery. One caveat is that what and how we create varies according to our unrepeatable unique being. If we as humans have to express and we do, then art happens as a natural by-product. Art connects, speaks, and brings people as creative beings in and around the world. Art also connects with ourselves and our Creator. Thomas Merton wisely observed, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

Like many, I am a fascinated bystander of the K wave around the world. It continues to amaze me the reach and impact of K-content and K-goods and especially how they bring and connect people around the world. What many Koreans initially thought as Korean culture content only for Koreans and perhaps for a few other Asian countries, it has broken through due to its universal appeal at unique a time as this. While the K-content is uniquely Korean, the very uniqueness has found universal appeal. Therein lies the calling and lesson for us. That we must pay attention to our unique stories and not merely be driven by the universal attraction and lure. The truth of the matter is that none of us can be universally broad and embracing. We can and must be us, faithful to our stories though.

As God’s people, one requirement in this creative energy is love. What and how we create must pass the test of selfless and unpossessive love. Creativity must be subsumed under love otherwise it does not reflect the Creator’s good creativity. The personal calling and stewardship to pay attention to our own stories translate into making art in its broadest sense, whatever the art may be. Whatever we create is my working definition of art, reflecting our good Creator’s image and likeness. In many ways, life happens and comes to us looking for opportunities to unleash such creativity into the world, declaring God’s creativity through us. I lean on Thomas Merton for his penetrating insight again. “Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains.” I would like to think that God is honored in the process and the world benefits through our unique creative energy and outcomes.

A PAIR OF TWO LOVERS

A couple of months ago in Malaysia, when I first saw this painting (which made news because this small painting was auctioned at Sotheby’s London for an estimate of £7m-£10m in early March), I was immediately captivated by the painting. I sat with it for a few weeks and now I realize why I was initially so drawn to it. Precisely because it depicted Grace and me in our “ripe” years, walking toward an unknown destination, supporting, and leaning on each other. In the original sketch, the unusually large sinking sun is right in front of them. However, the small painting leaves the viewers imagining where they are headed.

I imagine them

holding their unseen wrinkled and well-worn right hands together, man’s palmed up hand below his wife’s hand as if to dance their way,

conversing wordless as if not to plunder wonder and to degrade depth of intimacy,

unhurried while being content as if the world moves according to their beat,

walking between the soothing green pasture and steady living stream as if to reveal a secret of abundant feat,

traveling along the path that is familiar and yet unknown, as if to embrace unknowns in familiarity and familiarities in unknowns and unknowing,

looking into the same horizon, as if hope and faith are trustworthy, ever fulfilling,

being in union where they have been and where they are headed, as if their dis-unions have made them wiser and more loving.

I imagine us

growing old and walking together on a path called life because our given life is what we only and must know.

holding hands, leaning, and dancing because we can go longer and in greater knowing,

grappling the secret of being content and happy because ultimately God’s kindness is never floundering,

being in silent and standing in solidarity with each other and with the world because untimely words can be shallow and damaging and pain and joy too astonishing,

walking on a vast open rolling grass field with lots of unexplored side trails to ascertain because we have learned to trust our intuition and desires to determine,

drawing life from the Source of life, flanked by green nourishing rest and white flourishing water while facing the unmistakably large Sun because there would be no life of ours apart from the generous giving community of God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son,

being in deeper union with ourselves, with each other, with otherness, and with God because there is no other worthy union and we have seen and tasted enough and ever-luring goodness in union to pursue still more of God.

FOLLOWING AN UNEXPECTED TRAIL

I gave away one of my signed book copies to a bakery chef named Lee in Yangpyeong the other day. The story of how I got to know the chef and the master chef (Jiwon Kwak) goes back almost exactly a year ago. Chef Lee has known I was working on my book since last year. When we visited a week ago, I told her that one of my small dreams was to hold a book concert at her bakery. As soon as I shared, she said, “Of course” with her eyes twinkling. Without skipping a beat, she went on to add that she would like to promote and do all that is necessary to pull off an event. My expectation which I did not verbalize the first time was that I would simply rent her bakery space and hold my book event without her involvement. She went above and beyond what I asked for. I am letting her take the lead as I am very curious as to how this event will enfold. . . 

She now has my book and supposedly is reading it while I am waiting for her initial instruction. She sheepishly commented the other day that she attends church once in a while and the reason she attends is that the church has a beautiful cross architecture. While I appreciated her transparency inwardly, I assured her that I did not write my book only for churchgoers but for all spiritual seekers. 

To backtrack my story of how I first got to know Chef Kwak and Chef Lee, I am pulling my origin journal entry of this encounter from April 29, 2022 (almost exactly a year ago). After the initial encounter, we did visit Chef Kwak and his wife (Chef Choi, who is also a renowned chef) a couple of times at his house and the training facility and received their warm hospitality and held meaningful conversations. 

April 29, 2022

I met a humble celebrity bakery chef tonight. His name is Jiwon Kwak and has a stellar pedigree as a chef and was featured on multiple TV programs over the years. He could have gained more fame and wealth, but he has decided to “let it all go.” Rather, he spends his time “discipling” younger aspiring bakery chefs in Korea through his academy. His method is that of an apprenticeship model, training only a few at a time.  

Soon after we arrived in Yangpyeong, our Airbnb host suggested Kwak Jiwon Bakery after she found out that we liked bread. Her simple words to us were, “It is special. You will like it.” As we anticipate hosting a few guests about a week later, we decided to drive out to the bakery and try a few ourselves. It is a peculiar and inviting standout of a 3-story building with Parisian flair in dark turquoise color contrasted with white trim windows compared to the dull ordinary medium-sized apartment buildings surrounding the bakery. They use no milk, sugar, eggs, or butter. Rather, they make bread through a natural fermentation process. I absolutely have no idea how this kind of bread-making works so this is where I stop in terms of how they actually make bread.

After we walked into the store, we were greeted by a lady who asked if this was our first time probably because she intuitively has caught our first-time vibe. She kindly took the time to explain how they make bread. All the while, I could see her smile behind the mask. I was nodding my head politely as if I was following her process of making bread while my restless eyes were scanning different kinds of bread on the shelves. We picked a couple of loaves of bread, strawberry (locally produced strawberry as Yangpyeong is known for organic strawberries) bread and what they call rustic bread, along with an apple strudel and Americanos which we enjoyed immensely, still wondering in my head how they make their bread without milk, sugar, eggs, and butter. After spending some time reading and writing in the bakery, as we were walking out, the lady came up to us again and asked in a curious tone where we were from. I thought of telling her we are from Yangpyeong, which would not be a complete lie or truth. However, my mouth beat my mind as I blurted that we were from the US, experimenting with living in Yangpyeong for a month. That was when she promptly invited us to a premiere movie night at the bakery with a few of her friends for a simple dinner. She handed us a brochure and after coming home, we learned that she was a partner bakery chef and a top protégé of Jiwon Kwak. We politely said, “What gracious invitation” and that we would consider and said goodbye. 

We were back at the bakery a few days later and bought some more loaves of bread for our other guests. Since we were masked up and I had a different hat on, I did not think she would notice us. That is when she came up to us and told us to come again for the movie night which was later that day. We did make it out there. We were tired since we hosted a couple for a night, and they left only a few hours earlier. My wife being an introvert was not necessarily thrilled about going but she knew that I was interested. We ended up arriving right on time maybe a minute or two late, but the door was locked. After debating what to do for a few short minutes, I decided to knock on the door. The door was swung open by the chef and she welcomed us in a hushed voice. The movie had already started and the only seats available were at the front of the room where the screen was while everyone was watching us come in and sit down. As we forced ourselves to be comfortable, the chef then went into the kitchen and got a small plate of cheese, bread, and ham with mugs of warm tea. We felt bad and embarrassed because we arrived late, and the host had to go back and forth to serve us. It was too late for us to bail out, so we stuck it out. Later, we found out that the host did not think that we were coming so she started the movie. 

The movie was Driving Miss Daisy. It was a bit surreal watching the movie in Yangpyeong with a bunch of strangers (less than 10 including us) whom we met only a few days earlier. After the movie, she wanted to introduce one another. That was when we found out that we were the only “outsiders” with four of her friends and Jiwon Kwak and his wife. When I asked why and how she invited us, total strangers, she plainly told us in front of the group, we carried a certain presence and that she felt compelled to invite us. Little did we know that we would meet Mr. Kwak, someone we read about in a magazine article, get his autographed book, and take a picture with both Mr. Kwak, his wife, and Kyunghwa Lee (the chef who invited us). 

They were just as curious as we were, so they rightfully asked us how we came to Yangpyeong. I shared our story of a healing stay and that we were Korean American missionaries wanting to focus on and develop younger people in Korea.

We are intrigued to read Mr. Kwak’s book which is about his story. From a short article we read, we were drawn to his philosophy of making bread but also his way of business. His vision is to develop and train bakers, only a handful at a time. His approach is to empower his disciples in their creativity to do their own business, not to franchise and grow his empire. The bakery we visited used to be his bakery but gave it away to Lee Kyunghwa. Mr. Kwak and his wife warmly invited us to their home and the academy where they train bakers which is close to where we are. We are planning to sit with them sometime next week. 

This is a chance encounter that may fizzle out like a dead-end alley. Even then, I learned that although we serve in two very different fields, there was attraction and even admiration as to how he went about his business, how he is semi-retired in training and mentoring, and how he wants to live the rest of his life (he just turned 70). He told us that he is planning to do Camino de San Tiago next year. This is a chance encounter that may also lead somewhere I have not expected us to go, not that I would be baking bread but gleaning and learning from how he is serving the next generations and transitioning in life. 

GAMACHE

My wife is in love with a man named Gamache. She has been for a while. One-sided love, that is.

Armand Gamache is a fictional character of the series (18 volumes so far) as Chief Inspector Gamache created by Louise Penny. This unusually lazy morning while in bed, my wife and I were talking about this and that. In passing but congruent to our conversation, she mentioned four things that lead to wisdom spoken by Chief Inspector Gamache written by Penny.

“There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?'
She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.
"They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. "I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.”

Louise Penny, Still Life

It is midday now and the wisdom statement has not left me. When I first heard the statement, I immediately and viscerally knew them to be true wisdom in my life. During the course of my life, I have said all four statements from time to time. There were times that were more difficult to admit and verbalize than the others. Sometimes I was pushed to a corner where I was essentially forced to wave a white flag and uttered any one of the four statements. There were also times when I fully owned my desperate and helpless state and said them in complete transparency and honesty.

While all four statements are challenging to admit and verbalize, my most challenging statement has been the first one, “I don’t know.” While it is one thing to say “I don’t know” regarding rocket science or home improvement, for example, (because I really don’t know) it is another thing to say “I don’t know” regarding my supposed expert areas including missions and some of my vested and interested fields of knowledge. Occasionally, I see myself disguising “I don’t know” in silence. While it may communicate the vibe that I don’t know but it still functions as a passive act of saving my face. Or I have carefully changed the topic ever so slightly to an area where I can give “my answer” so as to disguise my lack of knowledge in some other areas.

I know the fact of the matter is that I cannot know everything. That need to know is an ego’s way of protecting oneself. To what end? I ask my ego.  The end is a recognition and protection against shame, my ego confesses. The greatest and most heightened arenas for the four statements above take place in the immediate family including the couple's relationship setting as well as in the leadership setting.

I lost count of how many times I have said “I am sorry” to my children. I was a first-time father for infants, toddlers, pre-teenagers, teenagers, and now adults, so forth and so on. I can never graduate being a first-time father through various stages of life, both my life stage as well as my children’s life stages. I am still a first-time father at this stage of my life. Without failure, every time I said I am sorry, their love for me and my love for them grew exponentially, experiencing grace, freedom, and God’s unconditional love.

As a leader, we live in an environment where it is exceptionally tough to say I am sorry and I don’t know. There is an unfounded assumption that you are a leader because you are supposed to know and not make mistakes. I discovered the assumption to be ludicrous and damaging for the leader as well as for the organization, entity, community, and even the nation that the leader represents. I have pretty much ignored the assumption and broken all the rules. To be sure, there were times when I tried to defend myself by articulating my intent to be innocent. Invariably, what I often heard was that my unintended intent had a damaging and unhelpful impact on others. I have learned sometimes painfully that a leader must own both the intent and the impact. While my intent may be innocent and pure, the impact of my decisions may have a life of its own. While I can control my intent, the impact is something I have no control over.

When one has very little to protect or to lose, then the four sayings above flow more freely. Not only do these four statements do the say-ers good, but they also create and give permission to others to embrace the wisdom that emanates from owning and saying, “I don’t know. I need help. I am sorry. I was wrong.” If wisdom is “knowledge deepened by love,” then this wisdom is an act of accepting and loving oneself. Wisdom boasts of transparency inside and out whereas mere knowledge can function as a smokescreen to hide and puff up one’s ego. One loving oneself prepares the ground to be fertile for others to embrace the wisdom and acts as an empowering and graceful agent for the world to see. It is grace because divine kindness rules the day, not human perfection.

I ask the world today including myself, what if the world or our respective small worlds would embrace these four wisdom practices? What if fathers, mothers, elders, and leaders would embrace such practices today?

Now, that would be revolutionary. . . because the grace of God would permeate and flow freely and be everywhere.

I think I am in love with Gamache, too.

HOLY GROUND

One of the most sacred, breathtaking, and awe-inspiring “cathedral” moments happen every week for me outside the physical confines of “the cathedral” or church. At least once or twice a week, my wife and I facilitate group spiritual direction sessions over Zoom with people all over the world. These are some of our dear communities of faith, sharing life and doing life together, through deep listening and companioning. My body is at rest, slower in breathing, and my soul is at home, with myself and others as faithful and authentic companions of the pilgrim journey. I can sense my “seven” -ness (Enneagram) of monkey-mindedness, jumping from one tree to another, calming down as I do not want to miss out on God’s presence and promises. It is apt that during Zoom I am sitting without shoes for I know that I am standing on holy ground. Every time. . . 

Beauty can be seen, felt, and shared when souls meet and connect. It is Christ in me seeing, meeting, and encountering the Christ in others. Thomas Merton, a great teacher of mine, says it better than anybody I know or read in his journal book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. If there was ever a “conversion” experience for Merton, this was it at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in the center of a shopping district (God is indeed full of surprises with a sense of humor because that would be the last place Merton would choose to go) in Louisville, Kentucky. In a spiritual gem of a three-page journal entry, the quote below can be found toward the end. (At some point, I would like to share my own reflection journal I wrote a few years ago based on Merton’s journal entry.)

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. (Italicized are his)

This pure diamond is what Richard Rohr calls “Immortal diamond.” At first, our God-breathed souls can be shy, timid, and struggles to express themselves. With patience and waiting, the soul starts blooming and peaking into the full display of divine imagination and enrapturement. The key here is the preservation of such a safe and sacred space with enough tentativeness of patience and waiting. This waiting opens, paves, and preserves the very space where God can be God in nudging and speaking ever so softly in tentative and unassumed language. Often, it is so “conjectural” and shy that it is hard to capture and notice such small and seemingly faint voices of God. 

The small voices over time mount up and stand as faithful witness of God’s visitations. The small voices become conversational and as a matter-of-fact whispering language between deep friends or lovers. The whispers of God become thunderous and the gentle presence of God becomes supreme in our life. Looking back, the truth of the matter is that God has been whispering repeatedly and faithfully and yet never with judgment for all my life which speaks to the very nature of God, patiently waiting for us and standing at the door and knocking for us to open the door. Since we can only view and live our life from our life’s perspective, God does not ignore that reality. Instead, God as the Reality enters our reality. Merton earlier in the same journal entry, captures it this way, “I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.”

Immanuel and incarnation are inseparable. Christ keeps incarnating himself into our lives so we can have union with God through Christ. It is Christ in us that pursues after us by becoming like us and coming to us faithfully as our life that propels us toward union with God as Jesus pursued union with God. Life, then, is a doorway, being “birthed” by God, of meeting God and pursuing union with God. The process of being in union with God allows and gifts us toward union with everything God created. 

Contrary to what we may think, what opens the way of experiencing God is often through our senses, not necessarily our thoughts. We do not think our way to heaven. We live our earth life to heaven. Parallelly, I resonate with Henri Nouwen, “You don’t think your way into a new kind of living but live your way into a new kind of thinking.” We do not think to live, rather we live to think. Our senses are what grounds us and are in touch with ourselves, NOW. Thus, paying attention and giving language to our experiences of our senses invariably opens the door to the realization of God’s presence. Then as we give language, tentatively and unassumingly, we organize and express our senses into thinking. 

I “think” one of the reasons why our thinking cannot lead is because it is extremely hard to separate ego from our thinking as our thought is the favorite hiding place for our egos. Our thinking must come into submission of our experiential senses and be processed through community, both perennial and ancient as well as contemporary. Which is to say our thinking must be vetted and humbled over time. Thinking rightfully functions as a subservient servant rather than being a detached master from reality.

I find it ironic to use words to express the beauty and wonder when our souls know the truth, or the Truth as Person, so much more profoundly and mysteriously. . . At the same time, we, as a human race must continue to try to capture in words for us and for people in the next generations as saints and mystics, did in the past for us. The interplay between invitation and irony remains a constant struggle and elusive tension for me. . . 

BORN AGAIN

The idea of being born again (not referring to a religious term) or living my life all over again is something my monkey mind has entertained from time to time. What and how would I live my life differently if I know what I know now--wisdom knowing and not knowledge knowing? With all my contexts and relationships intact, the ludicrous idea becomes really a matter of how—ultimately how I would love God, love myself, love my neighbors more fully, and live my life to the fullest as God intended. 

I came across the poem below by David Whyte, titled Born Again. Below are a couple of stanzas (italicized mine). Quickly, the poem served not as a rearview mirror exercise of what my life would have been but as a forward-looking invitation to how to live out the remainder of my life. 

I want to be born again, 
in exactly the self-same life,
but fully aware this time, 
from the inside out, 
of my life to come

and to stand this time 
as a beautiful un-worrying witness, 
living beyond the need 
for this or that; 
looking with anticipation
to meeting everyone again,

Excerpt from Born Again by David Whyte

Being “fully aware” means groundedness, listening to one’s body and emotions. As life happens, I am invited to be fully engaged, not escaping, ignoring, or replacing it with a better-envisioned future “now” that does not exist in reality. “This time” is a willful decision based on a hint of regret, perhaps out of pain, and hard lessons learned of not having been fully aware. Being fully aware must be “from the inside out,” or it is not true as it requires listening to our interiority while rejecting the distracting voices from the external world.

The phrase “as a beautiful un-worrying witness” stood out when I first read it. I felt the visceral rush of the phrase, the thought of it glaring at me without judgment of the past but as an invitation to the future. Beauty stands not as an absence of pain, suffering, and difficulties or as a direct opposite of inelegance, but in the midst of them. It is not worry-free but un-worrying, a resoluteness of choosing not to worry. And as a first-person front-seat witness to my own life, not as a bystander, fully engaging and fully owning. . .

It seems that in order to live as a beautiful un-worrying witness, one needs to “live beyond the need for this or that.” Needs are everywhere and never-ending. External needs can and will dictate and often consume how we live our life, shriveling away from the full awareness of one’s internal witness.

I too have lived, driven by the need to be acknowledged and liked and to earn popularity votes.
I too have lived, driven by the need to be approved by the religious, societal, and organizational systems.
I too have lived, driven by the need to climb and boost my ego, approved by the world.

I know now that it is time to live beyond the need. . . To be more precise, one is invited to find the meeting point between external needs and interior duty which stems from being fully aware. Only in such a stance, do external needs become neither a burden nor the ego’s crown of achievement, but a true and authentic reflection of who we are inside. Finally, meeting the world’s external needs would be synchronous with my interior world.

“Anticipation to meeting everyone again” lands on me as a beckoning wish to do the relationships over. This time, fully aware and not being driven by the need to be liked or to be approved. The word anticipation connotes a future longing that can reset my expectation and stance of meeting and getting to know people from this time forward. Anticipation coming from the fully aware space would look categorically different. 

This poem is not a mere looking back poem to naively wishing to live one’s life again but as an invitation to adjust and live differently from this day forward. And that is a fine and apt reminder for me as I face my 60s. . . As Mary Oliver said language as “the serviceable clay of one’s thoughts,” my “clay” is shaped like this today. 

SPIRITUALITY AND POETRY

In most of human history, poetry and religion were almost the same thing. Poetry was the only language worthy of religion. Good poetry doesn’t try to define an experience as much as it tries to give us the experience itself, just as good liturgy should do. It seeks to awaken our own seeing, hearing, and knowing. It does not give us the conclusion as much as teach us a process whereby we can know for ourselves. It does not overexplain and destroy astonishment. (italicized mine)

Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

No human being is simple. Every person is riddled with complexity and resides in a land full of contradictions, conflict, and irony. On top of every human being, add cultural, geopolitical, and generational layers of human societies at every conceivable level, then what we have is profound complexity in the most unimaginable immense proportion. No wonder life is and feels complex! No one can force such an intricate web of complexity into a simple and predictable prescribed grid of knowing and understanding. There simply is no way, if I can make the statement that black and white. 

The truth of the matter is that I do not have to see far beyond myself to know how complex, weird, contradictory, and ironic the world is, as well as how amazingly beauty-ful, wonder-ful, and grace-ful the world is and I am. This is where poetry enters in to save, uplift, and tell me I am not alone in this human endeavor. I can choose to listen to poets of the past and now to draw parallels and sit at their feet. I can draw parallels because “what is most personal is what is most universal.” That is precisely what good poetry does, making the connection between what is personal experiential truth for me and what is universal perennial collective wisdom. 

Poets with their keen ability to “caress the divine details” can make their experiences equate with people outside their world. While doing so, they struggle with the very existence and purpose of language, trying to be as precise as they can muster up and at the same time realizing the limits and even failure of language. Such profundity of language keeps the poets continuing to express themselves as unerringly as they can. This intolerable liminal space is where poets live and spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to be as truthful and faithful to each experience and expression. I increasingly appreciate the process that went into the nicety of language with the backdrop of language limitation. More and more I am being invited to dwell in such judicious words and phrases to drink deeply from their life in relationship with my life. Rohr is right in that experientially for me, good poetry seems quite worthy of high religion and not for self-defined and self-interested “black and white” morality-driven low religion.

I love the “poetry” portions of Scripture, especially the Psalms (including other wisdom books in the Old Testament. I would also even consider Old Testament prophets as poets) for their brutal honesty, willingness to hold tensions and ironies of life, and the audacity to call life as is, not necessarily as it should be. While we know that “God is good,” the Psalmists would pause and honestly say, “I know God is good, but not today.” Today, I am angry, in lament, upset, in pain, under duress, being pursued by enemies, etc. The greater attraction and freedom is that one does not have to end with praise or a declaration that God is good. The Psalms invite us to be aware, be real, and be honest and okay with the fact that God does not seem good today. God’s goodness ultimately prevails someday for sure, but we do not have to force it upon us today before we are ready. It invites us to hold the tensions and the liminal space without a clear resolution. The Psalmists or the poets tell us it is okay. I find this generosity freeing. I find this God magnanimous and full of grace. 

While traveling throughout Southeast Asia and now Korea, because I am in a new environment, I am more cognizant of what is happening around me. With heightened awareness, I can engage better my life’s interior orientation such as emotions, thoughts, and senses. My usual tendency is to deny negative emotions and thoughts and try to coast along but I am learning to “greet and host them all” as my guests. Anxiety and anger, the slow simmering kind, as well as the excitement of the unknowns and adventures rise to the top in recent weeks. The “all” aspects of my life become a doorway to connect with the poetry of all aspects of life. I find myself conversing poetry with the “poem” of my life and vice versa.

The Psalmists also seemed to struggle with language as we do. Never mind the fact that the Bible has been edited multiple times and reorganized by later scribes and priests with certain religious, national, and political agendas, not even mention the translation effort into many different languages for many centuries, adding more complexity. On a grand stroke, I would like to think that the Bible is giving us permission to struggle with our own words honestly, stemming from our experiences and engagement in our life. There is the invitation to process by entering and owning our life as well as by learning from the writers (poets if you like) and editors. Bible engages us in the very process of life, not necessarily giving us answers in life. 

The parables Jesus taught and “other-worldly” eloquent teachings Jesus said are like good poetry. The teachings reveal what’s often underneath beyond a simple yes or no and engage a process by which answers arise from within. Jesus is the master of saying just enough, causing those who are willing to listen and see to hear and see, not overexplaining and destroying astonishment. Jesus possesses an unparalleled way of asking questions, deep and existential questions, that we cannot and had better not avoid. Poetry, dare I say, plays a similar role in raising questions in my life without destroying astonishment or curiosity. In fact, poetry creates an expansive and generous space for shared astonishment, wonder, and curiosity. 

Both engage the very process of life. Without the process, life is not life—no one blinks on life and blinks off life. As we live or process life with awareness, we experience life as it happens, in real-time, discover grace as synonyms for power and wisdom to know how to live and find a connection between what is personal and universal, thus connecting with the world God created and ultimately with God.

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Bonus

As it became a habit of mine after sending my laptop to a shop in Malaysia, I scribble almost every day following where my mind and heart take me. I do not filter, judge, or know where I am headed in my writing each day. I have written anything from my sense of the future of global Christianity to something very mundane as it is below and everything in between.

I do not know when it happened, but I drank my lukewarm cappuccino with a fly, making eye contact with me, in my cup. By the time the cappuccino was in my mouth, I was too late. I let out an unrehearsed wry chuckle. That is a first. I must have sipped a few times before I realized the fly was a fly, not unmixed cinnamon powder floating around. My mind wonders about an idea I have been resisting, “I should get my eyes checked.” Funnier, as if on a cue, the good old Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” is being played in the café. I do not know who is trying to stay alive, the fly or me. I can see the fly hopelessly stuck but desperately wiggling around to stay alive. My thought extends, “Where was the fly before it decided to plunge into my cappuccino?” Ok, I’d better not think that through because I had already drunk at least a couple of sips. Then, “What was it thinking?” I guess I will never know. The least it is doing is that it is entertaining and sadly funny, at my expense. Oh well, at least I did not drink the fly. 

All of a sudden, I am super aware of my surroundings, scanning for more flies or other flying insects. I see or hear none except for bugs and flies outside the floor-to-ceiling window near a flower bed. Then it all clicked for me. The café has magnetic insect screens for bug-repellent purposes inside all the doors. When I first entered, I accidentally tore the top Velcro section of the section, and the lady barista promptly told me, “It’s ok, I was about to take it down.” I was thankful for her kind word except later I found a fly swimming in my cappuccino. I had no one to blame except me. Now, I am thinking about what to say when returning my cup to the one-person run café. I do not want her to feel bad that it was her mistake. I certainly do not want her to imagine somehow, I have managed to drink most of the cup while avoiding the fly and tilting my cup while making eye contact with the desperate fly or blowing the fly away from my mouth while drinking. 

Toward the end of this writing, I almost drank the darn cup again mindlessly. . . 

MIDNIGHT DANCE

Grace and I were welcomed by the peak bloom of cherry blossoms in Korea, thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures at this time of the year. However, when we first landed in Korea a few days ago, it was not as welcoming. You can read more below. In the meantime, we will be in Yangpyeong roughly for the next three months.

After a huge ordeal last night, I found myself smiling in a very familiar café in Euljiro, Seoul, Coffee Han Yak Bang (literally translated as “oriental herbal medicine”). Familiarity bred contentment in this case. My wife and I have frequented this café in recent years, soaking in the childhood memory-induced ambiance and people-watching while reading and writing. Its worn and creaky but strangely familiar floor with antiquated lacquered furniture with inlaid mother-of-pearl as one of the main features of the structural designs of the café is remarkably enticing. The columns of the building look original (think ancient), with dents and scrapes while the wall matches the bygone era touch and feel, exposing inner bricks—who knows how old the bricks are. The jutting rebar skeletons proudly showcase their strengths on the ceiling as if to say they do all the hard work of supporting the building from collapsing. The baristas all wear soothing-to-the-eye white linen shirts with beige pants, with white handkerchiefs hanging down from their waists. One of the men dons a long curly ponytail, and I am thinking he must be the pro of the pros. Right behind where I was sitting, the pony-tailed man squats down on a stool to hand roast the beans in a tiny section of the room right under the staircase. I am not minding the smell of the roasting of the beans or the sound of the beans crackling.

After clearing immigration, customs, and baggage claim in Incheon Airport around 10:30 pm the night before, we missed by five minutes what would have been the last shuttle bus ride directly to our hotel. When I approached the information booth about what bus to take, the young man with a “trainee” badge gave me a piece of indecisive and ultimately wrong information regarding the bus number. In trying to figure out additional information, I scrambled and as a result, lost several precious few minutes. I knew that there was another information booth toward the other end of the arrival terminal, so I motioned Grace to wait and walked only to find out the booth was closed. In scrambling around to come up with a plan b or c, it certainly was not out of the excitement of coming up with more options but desperation. The worst possible scenario was turning into some sort of reality show or someone playing “hidden camera” in which I was the main unassuming character. After finding out I had missed the last bus of the night that would have taken us right in front of our hotel, I tried hard at the time to extend grace to the trainee whose name I do not remember (probably better that I don’t) because he gave his earnest effort. The fact that I can write about it with a smirk on my face tells me I am over the incident.

The best plan B was to take a bus to Namdaemun (outdoor market) near our hotel as there were fewer buses to ride into Seoul, being late in the night. My plan was to flag a taxi down after the bus ride and get dropped off at our hotel. Voila. We were successful in getting a bus to Namdaemun and got dropped off past midnight. In the back of my mind, if I could hail a taxi down, then we would be good to go. It never occurred to me it would be impossible. The reality was that it was as if all the taxis conspired against me and gave me hardship. While I saw many taxis zipping around, none had the “available” sign on top.

After waiting around for about ten minutes, I came to my senses that we could be standing on a random street near Namdaemun all night. I told Grace that we needed to walk, and I was playing right into the worst-case scenario. The thought did occur in my mind during the bus ride, but I shot it down and convinced myself, “No way possible.” To further compound the ordeal, my reliable T-Mobile global plan simply failed to function as I had no access to data. I was thinking, “What perfect timing.” Google Maps was not loading so I dug into my memory bank and relied on my direction instinct to guide us. It was like the second version of “The Most Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” of our Asia trip. My wife spoke nothing not because she was nervous or upset but because she maintained her sangfroid. I also knew she was praying. She told me after getting to the hotel that she prayed for a big taxi to come and rescue us. Oh well . . . She also did tell me that she trusted my instinct and ability to get to the hotel safely. That I did. It felt very good to be trusted. . . Trust is the unmitigated gift of faith that builds over time. I suppose I have proven enough of direction savvy and instinct and my protection over her over the years.

The truth was that I would not have minded the walk, but we had seven bags total including two of our laptop backpacks, two small carry-on bags, two large suitcases, and one big duffel. Two large suitcases and one big duffel were packed with both hot summer and still chilly early spring weather clothes as well as a few goodies and gift items we accumulated traveling through Southeast Asia. After deciding to put the unwieldy 20 kg duffel bag on my shoulders, essentially treating it like a backpack, I rolled two large suitcases, each weighing about 20 kg. I had slid my backpack into the handle of one of the small carry-on bags so my wife could roll two small carry-on bags with her own backpack. 

The duffel was wonky with its half-torn strap which forced me to adjust frequently, I managed to walk a little over a mile through the eerie midnight streets of Seoul. The day after, I discovered that the oatmeal box we brought from the US got busted and the oatmeal went into every nook and cranny within the duffel. The cobblestone roads may evoke all kinds of sentimentalism and may appease the eye, but terrible to roll suitcases! How smooth the roads and ramps are all the things I took for granted and had not paid much attention to before. It is interesting how perspectives change or how one clearly sees things when one is forced to pay attention. 

With my shoulders on fire and sweat coursing down my back and my wife right alongside me (I told her later she was such a trooper, and that I was very proud of her), we got to our hotel in one piece around 1 am. After taking a hot shower and blackening the room with curtains, we slept like babies. 

EXPLORATION AND STILLNESS

In case you are following our travels: In a few days (on March 31), we will be ending our time in Malaysia (and Southeast Asia) and land in Korea. For the first two months and a half, we will be in Yangpyeong at the same place where we stayed twice before. We look forward to ending our “itinerant” lifestyle and settling down to create a hospitable space to welcome people.

Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

 John O'Donohue, Anam Cara (italicized mine)

The above words by John O’Donohue showed up in my recent social media feed. It was not the first time reading it, but I have a few more years under my belt to reflect on when I first encountered it. When I first read O’Donohue’s book, Anam Cara, years ago, it was as if I had found a “soul friend” (that’s what Anam Cara means in Irish) in him. Faced with suffering and “dark night of the soul” times, he accentuated taking a long loving look at what is real to another level of depth and perception. Thus, making the real more real and accessible to fellow pilgrims such as I. As I began reading his other works, I regretted his untimely death as he was only a few years older than me. 

The goal of my life, and for all humanity, is union with God through Christ. Union with God necessitates an up-and-down lifelong endeavor, patience, and courage. Though no one can say that one has achieved the perfect union during one's lifetime, one can experience intermittent union with God as a luring foretaste of what is ultimately to come. To use a biblical expression, the utter complete union with God is what we are saved for, circling all the way back to how God created mankind to be. 

Then, what are we saved from? We are saved from being in dis-union or separation with God. From the hopeless and unaware dis-union-ness with God, we awake from the illusion as separated individuals from God to an awakened realization that we are not rejected and forgotten orphans but God’s beloved children. We awake from a realization that we do not belong to anything or to somethings that replaced God to willing submission and belonging to God and God’s original and creative design. The initial submission is the first sign that we have taken the step toward being saved. We are then saved from the illusion of an orphan spirit to awareness of belonging as God’s children. 

The God language—from being in dis-union to union with God—can be vague and ethereal and simply has too much room for all kinds of unhelpful interpretations and wild fillers. How do you bring the language down to earth, to our lives? One way to touch the ground is to replace God with ourselves. In other words, we are saved from being in dis-union, compartmentalized, broken, and with multi-layered shadows with ourselves to being in union, integrated, whole, healed, with ourselves. 

This is where O’Donohue’s words are authoritatively inviting and promising, “You will be able to return to yourself.” In O’Donohue’s mind, stillness is a non-negotiable discipline especially as we age to be able to return to ourselves, explaining the phrase “able to,”—to our original selves, what God meant, before the sin and ego entered. 

One can never achieve the union with God without the union with oneself. We are saved from ourselves to being ourselves, from made-up to original, from our false selves to true selves, if you will. The quest of our life then centers around discerning how we came into dis-union with ourselves and how dis-union displays itself through our lives. Honesty and vulnerability to ourselves are added requirements as we cannot sleepwalk through this process. “Believing,” as in cognitive assent to “right doctrines,” cannot save us, while ignoring the existential struggle of being our true original selves, contrary to what we have been programmed to think.

The notion and process of our salvation, from to to, extend beyond ourselves, though it is the essential and practical starting point. Otherness has to come into our view as we pursue being in union with ourselves and God. And it will and it must. The enlarging circle and impact of the union do not end with us, but with God’s entire creation—the world God so loved to send God’s son, Jesus—others and otherness, others as in other people and peoples, otherness as in everything that was created by God. Here, we begin to understand God’s magnanimous purpose of drawing everything back to God, including us and especially us. Reconciliation is the word Apostle Paul used repeatedly. We can only live our lives, which is one reason why we must own and steward our lives. At the same time, we keep our eyes open and see the bigger reality of what God is doing and what God can do through people who are committed to the union journey.

Both O’Donohue and T.S. Eliot use the language that is intuitively familiar to our soul, “return” and “arrive where we started” evoke the sense of homecoming, a hero or heroine’s coming home to ourselves. So, we ultimately will return after years and often a lifetime of “exploring,” and with the divine help of “stillness,” we can finally come home. 

Even as I am currently far from my physical home, I feel closer to coming home. Not to harp too much on turning 60 this year, but I am at a crossroads of having done tons of exploring in my life and being in stillness. I do not think my exploring is done but it is slowing down for sure. There has definitely been more stillness that allows me to face and meet myself, in celebration and shame, in guilt and victory, and in brokenness and wholeness, all with honesty and grace, with smile and tears. It is out of this stillness that I think I can help others to become still and learn from my fumbling and explorations as well as theirs.

That is decisively my latest and perhaps my last exploration. 

SUPERNATURAL, NATURAL, AND INTENTIONAL

“It feels like we are living the ‘Acts of the Apostles, not unlike Apostle Paul’s itinerant missionary journeys,’” my wife shared with one woman we met in Singapore. The woman questioned Grace, knowing that I love living like a river flows (I wondered how she got that vibe from me) she was curious how Grace, a homebody type, would respond. This was the second time I heard my wife articulate her response in the same way. The first time I heard her, I resonated resoundingly. Ever since, the thought lingered, and I have been mulling over the transient imagery of yore off and on. As imagery is “the representation of one thing by another thing,” as described by Mary Oliver, both The Book of Acts and “the river flowing, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding” imageries are helpful representations of what this Asian trip has been about. Along with the Acts of the Apostles’ vivid verbiage, my wife also used “surprised by joy” multiple times with me and others along the trip. Since joy is a primal relational emotion based on “someone is glad to be with you,” I concur completely. 

The phrases in the 13th Chapter of The Book of Acts “so, being sent out by the Holy Spirit,” (v. 4) “continue in the grace of God,” (v. 42), and “the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (v. 52) all detail our acute awareness of how God is moving in the midst of us. Though ultimately sent out by the Holy Spirit, we were also sent out by our church (communities of our dear family, friends, and supporters) and sustained by the grace of God and the support of the people and being filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit along the travel. One has to wonder why Luke used both joy and the Holy Spirit. Our elemental joy comes from God being glad to be with us every step of the way and so joy portrays the pinnacle of human emotion that comes closest to being in union with God. Just perhaps. . .

My big picture mind organizes and describes the expanding movement of the Acts of the Apostles in three interdependent ways: supernatural, natural, and intentional. Supernatural is the arena where God is not hindered in any way. The Holy Spirit is compared to wind, in both Hebrew and Greek translations, unhindered and free as well as invisible but undeniable. God gets to be God in doing God’s work, unhindered and untethered. We as humans witness them as miracles, wonders, and even mysteries. Our rightful and only response is awe and inspiration resulting in deepened trust in God’s goodness and unconditional love. Supernatural is also the arena where reasons and explanations fall short. Thus, it cannot be fully known and understood. During a morning walk in historic Georgetown, Penang (Malaysia), I felt a deep sense of God’s presence and peace. Spotify played a random song, Angel, by Forestella (a group I never heard before), I was captivated by the song and thought of all the “angels” in my life. The ones I know and the ones I do not. My natural world intersected with the supernatural world of God, inexplicably and unexplainably. Lastly, the supernatural keeps the mortals humble, in a good poverty mindset, and in the grey (seeing the reality dimly at best), groping for words for clarity, and thus our words are almost always approximations. Which invariably is one reason why we need one another to shed light, listen, and learn. 

Natural is the arena where God invades our lives and makes them plain. God is so much at home in the natural that God remains hidden and unimagined in our day-to-day lives. God comes to us and thus becomes accessible in the natural through all five physical senses. Humanity’s five senses become the meeting point between the supernatural and the natural. One of the most critical spiritual disciplines is related to discernment and awareness of God in the natural. It seems that God stoops down too much to a point where God is not being seen. Natural is also where ordinaries of life rule the day or the extraordinary incarnates into the ordinary. We break breads, share, listen, laugh, cry, and be together. We work, rest, play, get sick, and get well. God does not ignore the naturals as infantile, immature, or inferior. Instead, God fully expects us to live as full humans, full natural humans if you will, experiencing all emotions, trials, sufferings, joy, and love. Natural is where the rubber meets the road and makes our spiritual life relevant and grounded and thus serves as a sweet aroma of Christ incarnated in humanity.

Intentional is a practical way for me to focus and keep the main thing, main thing, which is to live out Christ in me and I in Christ. I remain engaged intentionally, planning, moving forward, assured that God is with me. This is where I don’t sit still or wait, I move, in faith, being confident I travel the same road with God. In planning for this trip, there is a rhythm of waiting, but also there is a time to act, decide where to go, who to meet, and what to do. Paul and Barnabas had their own method to their madness which was to visit synagogues upon entering towns wherever there were synagogues. A couple of times when there was no synagogue, think Philippi, Paul went to the river to pray, looking for the spiritually aware and the awake, and there he met Lydia. And the rest is history. Intentional is what we must do to manage walking our path and build rhythm and routine to act, an act to experience God and to share with the world what God is doing. 

The dance between supernatural, natural, and intentional requires being in step with the Holy Spirit, my soul, and others. As such, I am learning to listen and discern and move. 

Though we don’t come anywhere near to what Apostle Paul and his traveling companions endured, being flocked, ridiculed, ship-wrecked, bitten by a poisonous snake, hungry, sleep deprived, misunderstood, betrayed, etc, we still experienced our privileged modern problems and hassles of dizzying travels. We were cheated, denied entry, suffered stomach issues and colds (tested twice for COVID but came out negative), almost a broken toe, blister, or simply stared at for looking different. We have way more stuff than Paul and his companions, but far less than what we used to have had we stayed at home. And discovering we don’t need much to live life, one suitcase per person. We have slept in 17 different beds (and still counting) in more than 10 cities. We received generous hospitality and gifts from people everywhere. We offered hospitality, created space, listened, and shared. We served as a courier of monetary gifts and care packages, as a broker of joy and prayers linking multiple communities, together solved some problems and raised new ones. We gave courage and received courage to be and do. We laughed until we shed tears of joy and cried until we laughed. 

The biggest gift of them all has been the discovery that my personal pilgrim journey matters and intersects well with people in Asia. My story can be a source of gift and encouragement to Asian people, and I can draw parallels from others’ stories with little or no effort. A few distinctives of my spiritual journey have been that of freedom, expansiveness, and generosity that rest on God’s amazing love. As an evangelist and apostle of such freedom, I now have a broader embrace and focus on Asia, with Korea at the forefront. I do not know how I know, but I know. And I would not have known that had we not traveled the way we did, like the river and wind. 

PAUSE

Being in new environments, there is a plethora of fresh external stimuli that keeps me on high alert and my senses engaged. Since they are new and fresh, I can’t coast along like a pro, and understandably, while the stimuli are not overly exciting, they are neither pallid nor boring. One stimulus that begs my full attention is the movement and flow of traffic. (We are currently in Bandung, Indonesia as I write.) Due to the army of scooters not unlike busy bees buzzing around a flower garden from one flower to another, in addition to cars and buses of all sizes, in an already crammed and narrow streets often with no signal lights, one must be on full alert, especially for someone who is on foot. I heard that only foreigners walk around everywhere in town and that is us. As it is hard to walk side by side with my wife next to me, we often walk in a single file with me in front. As such, it adds an extra dimension of mindfulness on my part assuring my wife is okay behind me. I wish I had eyes on the back of my head. And no, I do not want you to imagine . . . 

While the external stimuli work overtime whenever we step out, my internal orientation is in deep peace and my soul serene. It is like watching lightning and thunderstorms and the whole works followed by a torrential downpour while sipping coffee indoors with a good book in my hand. This repeated scene has been etched in my mind in our Southeast Asia swing. Peace is not an absence of troubles or concerns. It is the peace and contentment of being in the right places at the right time, in step with the Giver of Peace. The inner peace allows us to lay a spacious foundation of listening to people we meet with. During our Asian trekking so far, our ministry is that of deep loving listening. We lean in to listen and create a safe and sacred space. Often, there is no fixing, providing solutions, or advising on our part. A few times we have offered “next steps,” we speak tenderly, using tentative and wondering language. And we couch our offerings based on our unique and personal journeys. Thus, they are invited to accept, mull over, or simply pass on. 

The people we have listened to range from younger to older, from singles to couples, from Protestants to Catholics, and from destitute to grateful, and from confused to clear. We have listened to people in cars, buses, in their homes, cafes, restaurants, while walking, and over zoom. Our ears are bigger and our hearts more capacious. The joy of listening blossoms as God encourages us when we share the joy of people discovering their answers to their own questions and finding their next steps, both big and small. Most of the time, I do not have answers. Even on the few occasions when I thought I had some clever advice, I pulled back largely because of my experiences of how I have grown and learned through self-discovery.

Looking back, I have grown the most at times through raising questions, and seldom through answers. Finding answers is one-layered learning whereas questioning forces multiple-layered learning and often burrows into deeper probing beyond the original question. Pursuing questions with questions allows me to dig deep and deeper. There has been a progression of learning in my life: from answering questions to questioning the answers to questioning the questions. (Tangentially, this trajectory of learning congrueres a great deal with the life stages of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. In the reconstruction phase of our life, we end up in a very different place from where we started, but it needed all our construction and deconstruction phases to get there. Nothing is wasted in that sense.)

While in Singapore, I realized that there is one more necessary element toward growth and maturity. In fact, it stands shoulder to shoulder with questioning; it is pause. Or Selah as the psalmists called it. While framed as punctuated insertions in poetic lines or songs, I think much of the Psalms is trying to grope with the reality of who God is and how God “walks” on the earth. The groping is questioning, questioning to understand what can be understood and what cannot be. Mystery is not mystery because it is unknowable. Rather, mystery is mystery because it is endlessly knowable, like endless-layered seeing, perceiving, and understanding. (I owe this insight to Richard Rohr.) In this vein, we see and grow in what can be known and understood in a series of depth in selah. Letting go or unknowing what we think are the knowns, we are positioned to know the unknowable layer after layer. Naturally, the deeper and more profound the questions, the longer the pause. The word selah in the Psalms, which appears 74 times, means “stop and listen.” While we can listen on the fly, deep listening to God, ourselves, and others is not possible without stopping. We stop to listen, and we listen to stop. 

Pause or selah is entering God’s domain, inviting us to relinquish our control or our need for control. Pause is the sacred space where God is God, and we are reminded we are mere mortals. Pause embraces confusion and feeling distraught without needing to fix or seeking untimely solutions. Pause creates the space where primal hope and faith reside. Pause necessitates our letting go of control. Pause is not pause when still holding onto control and our sense of clarity. Pause is because clarity isn’t. As long as one tries to maintain control and clarity, one cannot properly enter pause. Selah is an act of faith, the highest and the purest kind, that transfers our ownership of control to God and God’s timing. (The thought that we actually own anything is an illusion to begin with.) As God’s time is not our time, waiting for God’s time (which is waiting for God) stands as a repetitive theme of the entire Psalms. The repeated interplay of question and the selah provide the most perfect breeding ground for deep transformation. It is the holy ground where we are invited to “take off our shoes,” enter God’s domain (Kingdom), and properly align with God’s grace-filled sovereignty and mystery. 

GROUNDED

Encouraged by my wife, I picked up a good old-fashioned notebook (spiral kind) and a 0.3 mm black Muji pen and began writing with my initially reluctant but ultimately submissive hand for the last two weeks. Due to the fact that my laptop has been in the shop (though I finally got it back a few days ago), I was constrained to resort to writing in a notebook. Understandably, when my laptop went away, I was mentally lost, not knowing how to navigate life without one. Shocked may be too strong a word, but it lands close enough. This pattern of writing, trying to express the stream of my consciousness, (I can’t remember the last time I wrote this much with a pen) generates a differentiated energy, one that is surprisingly simple but rich and ancient but new, compared to using a keyboard. I am not dictating what I would write before I start writing. I start out by listening to my heart and mind, and my hand follows. It is not that I was not free before, but it certainly feels freer. For good reasons, using a pen to write and actually tracing my hand moving and the pages being filled with my own scrawl feels earthy and far more natural. For reasons hard to put into words, there is more creative energy and flow, and feels less burdensome. It is akin to a river flowing rather than swimming in a placid reservoir, not knowing what’s coming after each river bend.

We arrived in Singapore early yesterday morning. Though during my heydays I must have been to Singapore close to 20 times, I cannot remember the most recent time I was here. Like Singapore of years past, Singapore is still a uber-clean and extremely well-organized country. I feel safe here and in the sea of black-haired Asian people, I feel right at home. Then there is the sticker shock freshly coming from Malaysia. On a cursory level, almost everything is triple the cost. Once we landed, someone texted us that the sun came out to greet our arrival as it rained all week last week. Having felt welcomed, we are ready to meet and interact with our “old and new” acquaintances that feel more like friends and fellow pilgrims along the journey. 

As we are about 7 weeks into our grand trip, I counted 13 different beds so far in 9 different cities in 3 countries, not counting Vietnam. We are living our nomadic life full to the hilt. What I always imagined and desired living as digital nomads is happening in real-time. There is not much deviation or surprises from what I had envisioned before the trip except for the typical mundane challenges of living out of suitcases, doing laundry, and wanting fresh vegetables (for my wife) and a big thick ribeye steak (for me). The longest stretch in one location lasted about 3 weeks toward the very beginning of our time in Malaysia. That stretch served us well as it helped us be anchored and find rhythm in a new region. 

One of the challenges I noticed just yesterday is regarding my future fixations related to our itinerant travel schedule. The fixations have robbed (and may continue to rob) my ability to focus on the present. Anxiety, excitement, and curiosities all play dutiful roles in pulling me out of the present. The constant packing and moving and the pace of our movement trigger all the emotional qualities related to anxiety, excitement, and curiosity. Ever since my spectacular Vietnam trip failure, I have become more cognizant of travel-related details leading to a heightened sense of anxiety. Furthermore, I have learned to pay attention to my wife’s energy as her energy level drains faster than mine. Once, I dragged her around the streets of Paris trying to look for the most perfect restaurant and she ran out of steam. Paying attention to my wife’s energy level creates a healthy awareness of putting her first over my Energizer Bunny energy. (I was born in the Year of the Rabbit!) Excitement and curiosities envelope qualities of my boundless adventuresome and risk-filled spirit. I know I think ahead and anticipate what’s in the future too much to a point that I am far from being grounded in the present. At a very mundane but real level, when my wife and I were in Penang, Malaysia just last week where all the great culinary food seemingly originated, we would be eating something delicious, but I am already thinking ahead as to what I can eat at the next meal and tomorrow’s meals. On one afternoon, I took my wife along the culinary journey of consuming Char Kuey Teow, Curry Laksa, Cendol, Prawn Mee, and Oyster Omelet. All after 5 pm! I finished most of these dishes by myself with very little help from my wife. It was a good thing the portions were small. But I was full until 11 pm. . . 

What can be tricky is establishing a rhythm that works on the fly. Losing my laptop forced me to create a rhythm that I did not expect or am accustomed to. Writing in a notebook with a pen where I can see my hand moving and my own handwriting dictates my mind to travel at the speed of my handwriting. I let my mind wander and let my pen lead to capture what my heart wants to express. It is a new discipline and a rhythm where I begin to see the benefits of being grounded and connecting to the present moment. 

On the one hand, my mind slows down to match the speed of my handwriting. On the other hand, there are times when my pen cannot keep up with my mind’s speed. But I am learning that my pen is the master, and my mind is the servant, contrary to the expected. In this way, the present is the master that impels my futuristic mind to engage in the present, pulling me down to the earth to join the body and touch the ground. I know I need this as the ground bears constant and faithful witness to my earthly steps. In order for me to access “free as the sky,” I need to learn the lesson of touching the ground. 

“THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY”

It was an “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Though it is the day after, the reverberated pang and sting has not left me completely. I “know” God’s tender and loving mercies are new every morning, but I have not fully embraced God’s mercies due to my ego refusing to accept the failure from yesterday. The fact that I can smile like “man-cub” Mowgli (in The Jungle Book) with his signature smile with one side of his lip tilted upward today is perhaps enough of consolation. I tried to laugh it off yesterday, but it was the unnatural, weird, and sulky kind. And I knew it.

We (missionary friends, their two girls, and us) had planned to go to Danang, Vietnam for a short get away over the weekend. Vietnam was on my radar for quite some time, mostly for gastronomic reasons, thanks to numerous travels shows. We would also celebrate our friend’s birthday in Vietnam. I had reserved the hotel and they booked the air tickets. They carry Korean passports and have been working in Malaysia for more than two decades.

We cleared out of our Airbnb with ease, having packed our luggage the night before. As my wife never wants to do anything last minute, we have been ready to finally go to Vietnam. There was one hurdle, my laptop. I had to drop my laptop off at a repair shop for it was not charging. Flustered, I grumbled why today. I also knew without my laptop; it would break my rhythm of writing.

After my laptop was dropped off, we hurriedly went to the airport. At the departure counter, I was told that I needed to get visa to enter Vietnam. My eyes got widened firstly out of disbelief. I googled to find out that one can either get the visa prior or apply for visa on arrival in country. I showed the agent what I found. She took a picture of it and called her supervisor. In the meantime, I am scrambling to apply for a visa online and experiencing all kinds of problems with WIFI and technicalities of different versions of explanations. Shortly after, we were told that visa on arrival was no more in effect and that we could not fly without having received a visa. As we were getting closer to the boarding time, we told the other couple that they should go without us. We would stay back to secure our visa and possibly join them later in the night or tomorrow.

I discovered the Embassy of Vietnam open at 2 pm (They open only 2 days out of the week) so naturally one more reason to remain positive. Since the embassy is near the KL center, we had to back track to go into the downtown, using express train, subway, and Grab taxi, which is more than an hour ordeal. By the time we got to the embassy, it was past 2 pm, thinking and assuming all along we could still get the visa and join the other couple. I mean we were going to Vietnam to spend money and do R & R and promote how wonderful Vietnam was. What country would not accept tourists!

After dutifully filling out the visa application and paying outrageous amount for passport-sized photos from an opportunistic vendor just outside the embassy, we were told that the earliest turnaround time would be about 5 days (3 working days). The embassy worker’s answer was so plain and simple and even kind that a five-year-old could understand. But somehow, I could not process their policy through my crumbling frame of mind. Looking back, it must have taken half an hour to finally sink in. . .

Now, I was faced with a brand-new problem. We were homeless. We needed a place to stay for the next four nights. After communicating with the couple who had just landed in Danang about how sorry, disappointed, and disheartened we were. I was finally able to shift my focus from going to Vietnam at all costs to now deciding on where we would stay. We decided to use our hotel points to stay at KL Chinatown and do our own short city getaway.

During the travel to the embassy while there was still raging hope in my mind, I thought and muttered unkind words to myself, blaming me for the whole fiasco, and with very good reasons. This was one perfect opportunity to blast myself. Since I fanned the flame in going to Vietnam in the first place to the other couple, I naturally felt responsible. (They were extremely gracious the whole time.) What drove me more than anything else was not to disappoint them. I was willing to pay an arm and a leg to show up in Vietnam. My wife later kindly pointed out that I was cutting in front of others while walking to the embassy and simply inconsiderate almost like a madman or a very focused man. I accepted her correction because I knew that was what I was doing. My “love” for the couple somehow became worthy enough reason to justify my inconsiderate and childish behaviors to strangers. I had failed to love strangers in trying to love my friends.

When love is love, love is to all and for all. No one is excluded. No one person or group of people is a means to loving a few in the end. Love must include all the means and all the ends. Love cannot be an isolated love only to a few while ignoring or making the rest irrelevant or obsolete, and thus failing to love. Deeper still, God cannot be the end or the object of our love by hating or loving less of some people. That love for God would be blasphemous and hypocritical because we have not loved as God would love along the way. On yet another layer, I cannot love God by hating or loving less of myself. That would be a rejection of God’s unconditional love for my soul. Loving God, loving myself, and loving others are all interconnected and interdependent, needing all three loves toward union with God.

Though it was one of the most terrible, horrible, no good very bad day, I had learned an unforgettable lesson, making yesterday an unforgettable day.

“LIVING POETRY” AND RHYTHM

“Rhythm underlies everything” in poetry, writes Mary Oliver. As “Living Poetry” in motion, we all are, we subscribe to, and embody certain flow and rhythms that “underlie everything” in life. Rhythms in poetry are dictated by carefully chosen words (diction), sounds of words, lines, how the lines begin and end, and how the lines are constructed whether they are long or brief (among others). Rhythms are created in poetry through words and non-words (margins, my word). In poetry that has meaningful rhythms, we are drawn and invited to enter poetry. With rhythms that are unnatural and idle, we are dissuaded to enter and engage. As such, rhythms in life cannot be associated with mere routines, as routines tend to be perfunctory and rigid, whereas rhythms are natural and organic, or I would also say, alive and breathing, and thus full of life.

Establishing new rhythms in new places takes time. When traveling, as one is outside of the known comfort zones and surroundings, it requires inner patience to build a rhythm that is invigorating and meaningful. As my wife and I are currently outside of our normal surroundings in Southern California, both of us are quite mindful of establishing new rhythms, separately as individuals and together as a couple. Working to build these rhythms as a couple is like dancing as partners, sometimes dancing alone and sometimes holding each other and moving in such ways to create our own unique dance. With clumsiness and childishness hopefully behind us, having stepped on each other’s foot for many years, I would hope we have learned how to break out and do solo breakout moves and how to move together as seasoned partners. All for building rhythm that is unforced and grace-filled. . .

Physically and schedule-wise, Grace usually is packed with zoom meetings engaging with her spiritual direction sessions mostly in the morning hours. A few times during the week, I join in to facilitate and participate in group spiritual direction sessions with various groups we have been sharing our life with. She starts at 8 am most mornings. Silence, books, candles, yoga, and eating yogurt (among other things) are important building blocks of her daily rhythm. Sitting in a café, exercising, walking, writing, etc (among others) are important ingredients to my daily rhythm.

Since our current Airbnb is a small studio, I need to vacate the room and create space for her private sessions that start at 8 am. Fortunately, within walking distance is a Starbucks attached to a relatively outdated mall that opens right at 8. Usually, it is Aisyah, a big-eyed Malay girl with a black hijab and mask that match her black outfit with Starbucks’ signature green apron, that opens the store and greets me. I order my go-to Grande Americano with extra room. As customer number one almost every day, she knows my order now but spells my name, Cheong, with a smile on the cup. I tried to correct her but decided to remain as “Cheong.” She told me the first morning if I order a donut, then I could save 1 ringgit (about 20 cents) as part of the breakfast set menu. I told her “No thanks,” but she still gave me the discount. Now, I just take the donut and get a few bites in.

With no one else around until 10 am or so and even with sparsely populated Malays (our place is in the Muslim neighborhood) in the mornings, I am mostly by “myself” with no words spoken with others. This is my office and has become part of my daily rhythm accompanied by non-verbal words. These days, I write more words than I speak. When my wife and I reunite for lunch, neither of us is verbose or chatty and there is ample room for silence. As I was planning this trip back in the US, when I saw photos of the fitness room in the building (not to mention the outdoor basketball court), I must have clicked “reserve” without thinking carefully when reserving the Airbnb. When I or we are working out in the gym mostly in the afternoons, we are silent and without words. A few times during the week, we spend time with a missionary couple who reside less than half a mile away from our place, and that also has become a part of our rhythm. Silence, exercise (and walking), books, journaling (for Grace), and writing for me are some of our bedrock rhythms as a couple while in Malaysia.

As described above, words and “non-words” play pivotal roles in creating certain rhythms in life. Non-words are like margins on how the poetry is constructed, leaving plenty of room for introspection and reflection. This rhythm in Malaysia has become more about listening than speaking. And I do not mind listening over speaking. At the same time, I am fully aware that this is a particular season, and that rhythm can and will change depending on contexts.

The few spoken and/or written words, contrastingly, carry weight and gravity, especially with the background of silence and margin. I would like to think that I am “learning the unforced rhythms of grace” that Jesus taught (Matthew 11:29, The Message). My current natural rhythms consist of more listening and non-words than speaking and words. Otherwise, it would not feel natural and thus forced. By letting the context and the Author of context dictate the creation of rhythms, with nothing “heavy or ill-fitting on me,” I find myself in a good place. The unforced rhythms of grace naturally are about “keeping company with Jesus and learning to live freely and lightly” according to verse 30 (The Message).

As has been part of the rhythm, in a few days, I will miss Aisyah serving me a cup of Americano and being all alone for at least a good couple of hours. (We will hit the road in a few days traveling throughout Southeast Asia until late March.) I would not even correct her spelling of my name as that has also been part of the rhythm. :)

ARISE AND COME WITH ME

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“MR. BEAN” IN ACTION

As if to say, “Welcome to Malaysia,” we got caught in torrential rain with the full display of thunder and lightning under a canopy near the mall where we went for a first grocery run. We had just shopped and had three bags of food, helpless.

To start our long-term (2 months) stay in KL, my friend in KL had graciously loaned us his brand-new black Toyota Hilux, extended double cab (which is equivalent to Tacoma in the US) which was one of the cars I was eyeing to get for many years in the US. With one minor problem. Drivers are on the right side of the car. I have driven in Indonesia and the UK, so I was somewhat used to the idea, but it had been a while.

Our first task was to shop for food, mostly for breakfast items including tropical fruits (papayas, mangos, etc) and vegetables, and my wife’s favorite, sweet potatoes. Our missionary friend’s wife told us the day before Malaysia has some delicious sweet potatoes and my wife was eager to try them. We knew that Jaya Grocer was the one as it features food we are used to, like oat milk, sugar-free plain yogurt, oatmeal, etc. Jaya also has all kinds of Korean food which impressed us. Promptly, we input Jaya Grocer into our GPS (we were also told to use WAZE app for our driving) to our nearest location. The first Jaya Grocer the WAZE took us was a small strip mall neighborhood market where parking was a big problem. We were hoping to go to Jaya which is attached to a mall as we needed a few other household items for our survival. After scratching the first one, the second Jaya was also a dud. By this time, we have been driving for close to an hour, passing through half a dozen expressway tolls and getting used to KL’s traffic and highway system. The third time was the charm. Where WAZE led us was a vast outdoor parking lot, packed with cars in such ways I could not believe this would be normal. (For those back in the US, just think of the Black Friday parking scene.) Finally, I found my victim (I mean, a young family) and stalked them until they got in the car and pulled out of the space. I parked in their spot, but even then, it was a good walk to the market and the mall.

After a successful grocery run, we started walking back to our car. That was when the sky darkened and opened, and rain greeted us like an open faucet engulfing everything in sight. Without an umbrella, as the day had been partly cloudy all day until then, we became pitiful casualties. Even then, we did not want to be seen as outsiders, so we chose not to run as if to tell the world we were used to the passing thunderstorm. We walked as far as we could being drenched but found a dry place under a canopy and got stuck under a now heavier downpour. With one minor obstacle yet to overcome. . .

I still had to pay for parking before I headed out. I located the pay machine right outside another mall entrance and somehow made my way there with my wife waiting some 100 ft away. The parking fee was 5 ringgits (a little over a dollar) and they only accept cash. I only had 50-ringgit bills with me as I did not have time to break the large bills. Since I was eager to get out of the wet mess and get into the car, I slotted in a 50-ringgit bill not knowing it would return the change, but the machine started spitting bills out, ONE AT A TIME with about 5 seconds in between! The first two bills were 10-ringgit bills and then it ran out of both 10 and 5 ringgits. So, it started sending one ringgit bill at a time with 5 seconds pause after each. And if I am not bending to catch the bills, they fly every which way as if I am playing cash grabbing game inside some tube. As bending becomes more strenuous as I get older, I had to bend and twist my body unnaturally for what felt like an eternity to catch all 25 one-ringgit bills. I knew I had to pose a very awkward and peculiar stance, but I decided that was more dignified than chasing after winged bills. Later, my wife told me what she saw was so comical that she thought she was watching one of the Mr. Bean episodes. I laughed at myself, picturing what that scene must have looked like. . .

With my one pocket all bloated thanks to 1-ringgit bills, I found what looked like a security guard driving around with a golf cart draped with plastic covers on all sides and asked if he can take us to our car. I wasn’t sure if he understood, but I got in anyway, picked up my wife along the way, and finally made it back to our car after numerous finger-pointings, right and left, to our car. That was a hilarious and humbling outing. I only wished that I had a camera following us, capturing the whole thing. So I can watch it on down-and-out rainy days. . .

“OPENING RESIDENCY”

I was wrong.

I expected I would have ample free time to subject myself to reading, reflection, and writing while my wife embodying a calming but beaming presence would be immersed in CenterQuest (CQ) Asia School of Spiritual Direction (CQ Asia-SSD) inaugural cohort’s Opening Residency. After a day, I am glad my initial expectation was off kilter.

The setting is a beautiful (did I say beautiful) Mirador Jesuit Villa Retreat House, looking down the entire impressive mountain city of Baguio. At one point during our first afternoon, we were looking down at the white cumulous cloud. During sunset, it seemed that even the crimson sun stood below us as if bowed to retire. Reminiscent of the So. Cal weather we left behind, Baguio boasts cooler and relatively dry weather all year round (70s high and 50s low) and thus is known for resorts, especially during summer, and filled with university and younger students. The city is young and clean in addition to being a safer city. One of our traveling companions observed right away that people here seem to be happier and more relaxed than the already laid-back Filipinos.

Upon our arrival, we were promptly led to our room on the top second floor and I immediately gasped at the most perfect room (see below) I could have imagined spending the next several days. I fell in love with the room as it features 8 wide contiguous windows, facing the east and south. The bright happy sun greets me every morning and warms up the room to start the day. Essentially, we get a 180-degree view of the valley below as well as the labyrinth on the retreat ground right below us. The corner room is adorned with simple, clean, and yet tasteful and thoughtful furniture with two desks overlooking the valley and the labyrinth, a love sofa, and two twin beds side by side. I learned later through my wife, CQ Asia had given us the best room in the entire retreat house. I uttered my thankfulness to God and channeled my heart to receive the room as God’s opening gift to us in Asia. With or without the room that was assigned to us, my soul knew right away that we are at the right place at the right time, assuring me of God’s faithful guidance. My soul cannot think of anything that is more comforting and assuring than the sense of being at the right place at the right time—the Kairos moment. Kairos happens when God’s divine time and human’s earthly time meet in perfect synchronicity. Often Kairos can be better understood in retrospect, but rarely as it happens. This was one of those rare moments.  

There are 34 CQ Asia-SSD participants with mentors, instructors, and other administrative staff to 67 total. I was introduced as Grace’s husband, Chong, which I proudly and immensely enjoyed. When I come across puzzled looks on some people’s faces looking at me, I tell them I am Grace’s husband. The puzzled looks are quickly replaced with warm acknowledgment. I met people my wife had shared with me and I finally put faces to names. Among them was Wil Hernandez, founder, and director of CQ Asia. He thanked me for coming and I thanked him for letting me come. As a mature Enneagram 1, no detail escapes his attention, being perfect but has learned to hold it lightly. As such, he thoughtfully highlighted certain sections in the schedule where I could attend. Basically, it includes all the morning sessions which revolve around Henri Nouwen’s teachings centered around what Wil calls, “Communion Trilogy: solitude, identity, and presence” which I have found deep resonance with. Four daily prayer services were also encouraged including the evening programs. My vision of doing my own retreat quickly went out the door and I pivoted and was extremely glad that I could attend the sessions. Clearly, God had a different agenda than what I anticipated.

Then there are the meal hours. As one who has attended too many conferences to name and count, I know experientially the meal hours often are the most meaningful times in the entire program. Opening Residency is no exception. The participants are roughly divided into half Catholic, comprised of lay, nuns including superior general, fathers, and a Friar, and half Protestants from various streams and traditions which was intentional on CQ Asia’s part. As an ecumenical community, its common language is contemplation, solitude, true self, companioning, etc to name just a few. Participants mostly are from Southeast Asian nations including one Chinese and two Koreans. (The story of how the Chinese lady came to CQ Asia’s Opening Residency is a miraculous testimony in itself.) During the opening night’s introduction and expectation sharing times, some of the phrases I heard were: “I want to fall in love with God in me and God in others.” “I’m learning to let God love me.” “I want to be seen by God and I want to see God.” “I am chosen by God, and I choose God.” “My heart and God’s heart are one.” “I want to capture the carpe diem of my heart.” “I want to discover my God.” Moved by the genuineness of sharing, my heart knows this is my tribe, further cementing Grace’s involvement with CQ Asia and that we are moving in the same direction.

All are involved in some sort of activism and action-driven “ministries.” I don’t think there is anybody in this group who would be considered a “hermit” as all have distinctive ministry outlets and services. I was not prepared to meet anybody from the Protestant missions world. I should not have been surprised but I met several missionaries from evangelical mission organizations and held deep and honest conversations. During the first evening, one Filipino worker came up to me and told me he had met me at Asia Society for Frontier Mission meetings in the past. Sure enough, I recognized him right away. He had been serving among the Muslims in southern Thailand for many years and moved back to the Philippines to do the work of mobilization. His story as well as other workers’ stories are similar in that they are convinced about the critical importance of formation and the current missions is woefully lacking in depth and breadth of spiritual formation. They have been deeply concerned enough that they had to risk and forge their own path and now finding themselves trying to help others along the way. In my heart, I found myself saluting and encouraging them.

Meet Inigo, his pseudonym. He stood out because he is a tall younger Portuguese among the shorter majority Asians. He is in touch with his soul and knows how to articulate exceptionally well. Even his English accent was enthralling music to my ears. Having pursued more than 10 years of “cross-cultural work” in Asia including China with the Order of Society of Jesus (Jesuit) and close to being a priest, he found himself at a crossroads a few years ago, he shared with me. He saw a vision (my choice of word) of the Trinity members standing at a door, saying to each other, “You first, you first, and you first” out of reverence for one another to enter. Then he saw himself right in front of the door and, as a good Jesuit, asked God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, “What do you want me to do? What can I do for you?” Their response in unison? “Inigo, what do you want to do?” “What can we do for you?” After the initial befuddlement settled, he received the response as a deeper way to discover himself which led to searching his heart’s deepest desires. He further realized that God does not have one correct way for us to follow (and to see if we get it right) but many “open doors.” “God wants us to choose based on our desire and freedom. God loves us freely and wants us to follow God with freedom,” he followed. “Love requires freedom,” after a brief silence adding to the weightiness of the statement. As a result, Inigo decided to go back to his country (Portugal) and engage in “smaller” and seemingly less significant work among Europe’s spiritual desolates. He chose CQ Asia because he is married to a Filipino wife (not to mention his years in Asia) and God gifted him and his wife a two-year-old daughter. He and his family now reside in a small, picturesque town called Évora, east of Lisbon known for wheatfield, olive, and cork trees in addition to some of the best preserved Roman, Gothic, and Baroque architecture. He told me with a big smile I and my wife now have a friend to visit in Portugal. I told him, “Don’t be surprised to see us!” I would love to break bread, taste olives, drink wine, and have fellowship.

SECOND FIDDLE

It is noisy outside, fleetingly drowned by Starbucks’ choice of music in Makati in Metro Manila. The street noise of cars and motorcycles serves as dull bass to the music inside. I love watching the busyness and frenetic of life passing by me, full of life and vigor. As an extrovert, I get energized by the surrounding energy. The city features unparalleled smog and mugginess though it has been the bearable kind so far. I remember Manila being much hotter and more humid from previous visits. 1986 was the year I came to Manila where I bounced around in outskirt villages during my short-term missions trip. The ubiquitous fumes-vomiting Jeepneys, unique to the Philippines street scene showcasing various deco and colors, some drab and some elaborate, seem exactly what I remembered from back then. My lungs were not used to the smog and during our outing on our first day, my irritated throat rang an alarm bell and gave me a sore throat as the air was subpar.

The first morning in Manila, as is the custom for me, I hit the road to explore and walk about 3 miles. The exploration and walking satiate my two needs: curiosity and exercise, a combination that has been working well in new environments. I started walking a little after 6 am and people were already out and about. What I could guess as a lower-middle-class neighborhood was my choice of route as I wanted to check out the bus station in the adjacent town. To my surprise, there was a fully garbed marching band walking through a small neighborhood street. At 6:15 in the morning! On my loop back to our Airbnb, I found out by asking one of the spectators that the parade was celebrating the Feast Day of Patron San Ildefonso. Astounded by the time of the parade and the size of the crowd all before 7 am, I arrived back in the Airbnb having soaked in much of Manila all before 8 am.

This morning, my wife and I, along with two Korean brothers from Korea and Malaysia, with who we have been closely associated and thus recruited for this school, took a 5 hour bus from Manila to Baguio where we will spend the coming week of Opening Residency of CenterQuest Asia. CenterQuest founder and director, Will Hernandez, long dreamt of starting a school of spiritual direction in Asia. His dream is finally coming to fruition and my wife, a graduate of Cohort 3, will participate as a mentor and an instructor in the next 15 months. My wife is dialed in as she considers this role as her “dream job.”

Probably for the first time in our married life, I am happy and content to play second fiddle to my wife as I am mainly here to support and encourage her involvement. As she has been generously and sacrificially supporting “my” ministry for more than 30 years, it is with great joy I am reciprocating my appreciation and excitement for her this time. Joy and hope fill my heart as I watch her getting excited and nervous at the same time. I know what that feels like. . .

One of the brothers said to me, “this is the first time I have seen you not having any role.” I told him he was probably right and agreed with him as I did not remember the last time. It feels so right to not have any role and just be here as a cheerleader and encourager, not only for my wife but for the brothers as well. I have known these brothers for well over 12 years. Both came to Pasadena in 2010 for a 6-month long training where most of their deconstruction of faith and Christianity took place. Ever since then, we have been journeying together as fellow sojourners of faith.

During the Opening Residency at a Jesuit retreat house, I am hoping to engage in my own retreat of reflection, reading, and writing. I am also sure that exploration and walking will call my name every day during the week.