GOD OF REDEMPTION

My wife and I are currently in Japan until this coming Sunday. I will be speaking and interacting with Korean missionaries working in Japan on the topic of hospitality on two fronts: providing hospitable (free and safe) space to our individual selves and offering the space to others. Afterward, we hit the road to the Philippines. My wife and I will be speaking to a church celebrating their 18th anniversary during Palm Sunday weekend. We remain grateful for this season of service and vitality.

“God does not and would not seem to waste anything in our lives,” I commented as a way of encouragement to a couple last night after dinner. I did not share any evidence from my life but made a general sweeping statement of how God seems to work in our lives. This was not the first time I had made such a statement. While I have not come up with an exhaustive list from my life, I do have a few concrete life-based convictions that God is a faithful and redeeming God. I would even say comical enough for me to crack a smile.

The breath of God’s redemption covers from incidental or almost accidental detours of our lives to side trails that stem from curiosity to lessons from having pursued some things near and dear to our hearts’ desires to even missteps or sins in our lives. Sin can be a great teacher if we are broken and honest to repent, experience God’s unconditional grace, and learn why we did what we did. The dark side in us resides on the other light side of the same coin, I have come to understand. In other words, gift, the light in us, and sin, the dark in us, sides represent two sides of the same coin. God is in the business of turning our darkness to draw us to the Light and the light in us. When we puff up our gifts enough to disregard the Giver of all gifts, it can lead to sin. On the other hand, if we get too harsh of not embracing God’s unconditional grace, and beat ourselves up in sin for not being perfect or good, it can damage our gift. Gift and sin are forever intertwined because it simply is us. We are not one or the other. We are both. Additionally, while God unconditionally forgives and forgives, the lessons learned can be a source of encouragement and healing to people we come across in various stages of life. Thus, we are all capable of holding the space of solidarity and hospitality, and being “wounded healers.”

I have never considered myself as a writer. Ever. Not until recently. When I went to UCLA, in my freshman year, I had to take one English composition class which was the only requirement as an engineering major. I decided to take the English writing class (English 3) during the summer before my freshman year. Since I viewed the requirement as more of a nuisance, my thought was to check that off my list as fast as I could. To my surprise, I found myself enjoying the writing though I do not remember how many times and what I had to write about. Given the proportion of time I spent, I was happy to receive a pretty decent grade of B as an engineering student. What is surprising is that I have not thought of the English class until very recently. I had somehow erased the class experience out of my memory.

When my mom found out that I was about to publish a book in Korean, she told me a story I had completely forgotten. According to my mom, I came home one day with a prize I won from an ESL writing class. My recollection still fails me, but I do vaguely remember coming home one day with a Parker pen. What I do remember is that I did enjoy the ESL writing class enough to remember the pretty and petite white middle-aged lady teacher. One day, I was shocked to witness the teacher crying in front of the class the day John Lennon died.

What started as a passage requirement and even a nuisance became an integral tool in shaping today’s vision and direction of my life. What I unknowingly and conveniently erased from my memory since it was not even close to my major has seen the light and now the appropriate attention. No wonder I used to walk 15 minutes up to the North Campus to study (or at least pretended to study) where the English, Social Studies, and Arts major students hung out. All the math, computer, and engineering students were at the South Campus. Maybe I wanted to be different. Maybe I was drawn to a more relaxed vibe of the North Campus. Whatever it was, it offered a new perspective of why I did what I did.

Accidents, incidents, deliberations, and comics of our lives and downright rebellion against God can all serve as paths toward transformation if we let them. This requires embracing all of our life. Why wouldn’t we? God already and always has embraced all of us.

LET IT FLOW

A fluffy snow flurry greeted me at Choonchun retreat house in Korea. On March 1. Coming from Malaysia, someone made a wish on our behalf to see snow though the odds were against us. While my body was in a state of shock coming from year-round heat, my eyes feasted and instinctively gazed into the white sky above to be in wonder. “A gift from heaven,” my wife remarked. I felt loved and cared for by the Giver of all good gifts.

I am back in Seoul now, sitting in an ever-efficient and predictable Starbucks on the 2nd floor near the window engaged in people-watching. I don’t know how but I developed an odd habit of looking at people’s eyes, complete strangers, when I think and write. So sitting on the 2nd floor looking down helps me to avoid possible discomfort of people from a stranger soullessly peering and tracing the people waking by.

When not engaged in looking down at people, my eyes take in the wide view of the ten-lane major thoroughfare, counting more buses in two hours than all the buses I would see in one year back in Southern California. Looking above and beyond the immediate buildings, I see the trees bare in brown and exposed except for a handful of slender pine trees. Rather than the sky hanging above the tree line, I see the blue sky right through the trees. We are at the foot of Gwanak Mountain and near the university campus, so we are surrounded by young people as well as hikers, all decked out. It is 39 degrees outside, and I hear people walking by saying, “Spring is here.” For me, it is dead winter. . . Funny how we all see things differently based on our experiences.

Coming to Korea from Malaysia felt peculiar. Aside from the fact that the flight was around six hours which was a welcome change, my wife and I struggled to find words to describe how it was different. After a few silent minutes, my wife summarized, “I feel like I’m coming home.” As I sit with the statement and while I resonate with the sentiment, I also am beginning to feel like Malaysia is our home, for now. How I would feel returning to Malaysia from Korea would be telling.

As we continued probing, we both remembered Ruthie’s prophetic word a year ago about “having multiple addresses”. Before coming to Korea, I was trying to order something online in Malaysia, and for a split second, I wasn’t sure what address to put down. There was one other time I was required to write my home address, I hesitated enough to realize my hesitancy. If “multiple addresses” are to become a reality, then I’d better learn to be at home wherever it may be amid transiency and flow.

A few minutes ago, an army of five ahjummas (a term for older ladies in Korean) found their seats right next to us. I quickly resorted to my reliable AirPods Pro to drown their booming voices. When the group surpasses four people, my working theory is that it becomes very possible to have multiple conversations taking place at the same time, thus making the groups louder. And this group is not an exception this morning. 

“I feel like an eagle scanning the landscape below,” I replied to my wife in a group spiritual direction session a week after we arrived in Malaysia. As we were participating in a visio divina on Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Cypresses painting, I shared that I have been multiple things in my recent life: a blade of ripened wheat grass, a rock, a tall cypress tree, and a wildflower. Being feeble and helpless while being swayed by the wind of change is like being a blade. Keeping steady, focused, and insistent in the midst of changes and staying with our vision is like being a rock. Being visible and providing hospitality by hosting the birds of the air is like being a cypress tree. Pursuing my innate natural beauty, and strength, and embracing all colors of life is like being a wildflower. I have been all of these in recent years. Now, I see myself outside the painting, like an eagle riding the air,  scoping the earth below: to discern further and farther how to engage.

The ahjummas left within an hour. But my AirPods Pro is still on and playing Spotify. I find myself sometimes following the songs and sometimes following the song of my heart.

WHAT IS HOME?

When we came to Malaysia, we bought one-way tickets. That was the first time we (or I) have ever done that. That felt strange and so open-ended that it was unsettling at first even as a peregrine soul. As the safety net of the clear return date or ticket does not exist, it is as if I am suspended up in the air swinging from one bar to another performing a simple trapeze except as a clumsy trapeze artist would. Feeling like I let go of one bar, but I have not yet grasped another.

After going on a few rounds of shopping spree from IKEA to Nitori (Japanese version of a small IKEA) to Daiso which felt strangely familiar, we have done everything we could have done to make our place our new home. At least for one year. The sense of “home” was important to us as we yearned to settle down as swiftly as we could, so we could gain proper bearing and support enough to branch out and travel. What happened next surprised us. Both of us missed home in Pasadena, our children, and even the physical neighborhood of Pasadena. During our 8 months of Asia excursion last year, the thought of missing home rarely entered our mind. Missing our children, yes. But not the physical home and its environment. This time was different. My wife curtly told me the other day, “I miss my walks in Pasadena.” I responded by letting out a drawn-out “Yeah,” and nodded while looking in the same direction as my wife.

There are lots of things to like here in Malaysia. I should like a lot of things as I have told myself and others many times before. The fact that I “should” is catching my attention. It is certainly not that I don’t like being here. We are grateful to be here, and we know we belong here now. We like being here and while being thankful, we simply miss Pasadena “home.” Both are true and I am holding them together today. It does not have to be one or the other. And I cannot foretell what next week or even what tomorrow will bring.

During our ramping-up process of coming to Malaysia, we have used both “home” and “base” imagery interchangeably when communicating with our family and friends. On closer examination, I am realizing that base generally embodies the idea that this is our launching pad or platform to do our ministry. After such excursions, we would come back to the base to get recharged, resupplied, repack, and hit the road again. While this is not untrue, I have also used the tender notion of home, that we are moving our home from Pasadena to Kuala Lumpur. I think I want this to be true, but it is not quite yet. Therein lies the quagmire and tension. I stumbled to process some of this reflection with my spiritual director quite accidentally. At one point, as he was summarizing our time together, he used the word base that caught my attention enough to further process with him. At that time, I shared with him that home now is where my wife and I happen to be together.

A few days have gone by. After some more reflection and probe, at a more foundational and existential level, I have embraced the fact that home is where my heart is. A journey with all the external stimuli and circumstances, braving through swift and untamable changes and curveballs not to mention all the emotional rollercoasters associated with them, in the end, is about arriving at our inner wisdom of what we have always and already known. We need all the externalities of life and new journeys to tell us what we have always known to be true. Unless we leave familiarities and knowns of life, we do not and cannot arrive at our true selves. We need the new to discover the old. All, invariably, leave to arrive.

During one of our group spiritual directions a few days ago, I facilitated using David Whyte’s poem, The Journey, not fully realizing the simmering effect on me later. Below are the third and fourth stanzas.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Then the last stanza.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

One of my routines has been the workout regimen every day in addition to my brisk morning walks. I have had to drive somewhere to do weight training all my life. Since moving in, the coolest feature is that the gym rests on the 41st floor (top floor) with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Kuala Lumpur city skyline. Next to the gym is the vast infinity pool. One does not have to love water to want to get into the hypnotic-induced pool. Since the glass is the only thing that prevents anyone from toppling over (and it’d be a long way down), it is not for the faint-hearted. I have been meaning to but have not yet dipped myself in the water.

Almost every day between 3 and 4 pm, I see twin boys, 3 foot nothing and probably barely 3 years old. Given the potency of the sun here, it is no surprise that they are covered from head to ankle with only their tiny milky faces, hands, and feet exposed. With the striped sailor-themed floaties that are as big as their petite bodies tied to their chests and back, their twig-like legs are happily and helplessly dangling on the water. The other cloudy day when one of them took off the hat, I could not suppress my chuckle. The bowl haircut was one of the most cartoonish haircuts I’ve ever laid my eyes on. It still makes me smile when thinking about the kid and the haircut. The twins look like adorable aliens bobbing around and giggling the whole time. Aliens because I can’t decipher what they are saying half the time grunting and shouting while not losing their smiles.

With my smile persisting, it dawned on me that they were “home,” home to themselves and home to the present moment. Their faces do not seem to show regrets of the past as well as worries about the future. The only commonality is now between past, present, and future as the past is a former now and the future is an imagined now. Past and future are mind derivatives and plays of the present.

Witnessing heaven’s inscription happens in real-time and in the present time that can trigger finding the one line that is already written inside us is the lesson of our lifetime. We venture out to the external world only to discover what is already in us. Thus, all must leave to arrive. In the end, perhaps, lessons from our arrival become so significant that we forget we even left until we have to leave again.

In summing up, home is where my heart is in the present moment.

APARTMENT HUNTING

“Ah, the familiar smell,” I blurted out to my wife as we deplaned. After a total of grueling seventeen hours of flying, we landed well after midnight. The air was thick with dampness as the outside air seeped into the jetway tunnel when the jetway awkwardly slithered its way to dock into the side of the plane. The smell was unmistakably tropical-ly and coconut-ty with a hint of undefined spices, probably from my imagination than anything else. Before my mind pronounced that I was in Malaysia, my olfactory function beat my mind to the punch.

When I first came to the region back in 1986 during my short-term missions trip, I cannot, to this day, easily forget the unfamiliar scent freshly coming out of the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. Ever since then, I must have frequented the region probably close to 20 times. What was once unfamiliar was now genial. Funny that my olfactory sensory is probably ten times less functional than my wife’s. Whenever something goes bad in the fridge, my nose has failed me quite consistently to the point that I do not trust my sense of smell anymore. A few weeks ago, my wife asked me, “How did you eat that thing? That was so bad.” Dutifully, I would take something to my wife or one of my daughters to tell me whether something had gone bad. If there is ever a selective smell, I clearly seem to possess one.

We knew where we wanted to find an apartment. Yes, an apartment, not a house. We’ve heard from multiple sources that “land houses” might have bug and rat problems. Comparatively speaking, I would not mind the bugs as much, but the rats would pose a different challenge altogether. As I am far from being a handyman, I also did not want to do the work necessary to maintain or fix the place we were going to call home for one year. Thus, an apartment it was. Up until we left the US, I had looked at dozens of apartment units online to ascertain what to expect. Most of them come with amenities like pools, gym, outdoor tennis courts, and sometimes even indoor basketball court. I knew the last one could be a deciding factor but mostly kept inside of my head.

We had one other condition: we wanted to survive without a car as we anticipated traveling throughout Asia often. Additionally, the Grab (similar to Uber or Lyft) app works beautifully, accurately, and cheaply in most Southeast Asia countries. Carless living meant that we would choose to walk everywhere but not too much as heat, humidity, and rain (not to mention flashes of lightning) would be significant deterring factors, so location and access were another non-negotiable factor. Living without a car also meant that we could increase our housing budget.

At the end of our apartment hunting, we came down to two options. First was three bedrooms with two baths and came fully furnished, more than what we could have imagined since there was a family that was living there now. Most homes do not have ovens in Malaysia, but this one did with all kinds of antique-like furniture and endless kitchen items. The owner was very pleasant as she showed us around the house. She kindly told us that she could move anything out if we did not care for them. We smiled and nodded in appreciation but pretty much kept our thoughts to ourselves. Her son who is living in Australia is a huge fan of Kobe and had a Kobe memorabilia featured on the hallway shelf. Plus, my eyes broadened like a pirate citing some treasure chest when I also saw an indoor basketball half-court near the pool. “Could God be speaking to me?” I thought. Minus the basketball hoopla, I also knew my wife was drawn to the place.

When I did some online research back in the US, there were a couple of units in one apartment complex that would pose a serious threat to the one above. The appointments stacked up in such ways that the two units were our last viewings. The complex was a mixed development with shops, mostly cafés and restaurants, including Daiso and Jaya Grocer. From the previous year, Jaya Grocer was the one we liked the most and had the kind of things that would have us happily frequent. Thus, the ability to walk to Jaya Grocer was a must in choosing an apartment. The fact that we could do so in monsoon season, heat, and humidity in air-conditioned indoors would be a huge bonus.

One other important factor was our ability to move in as quickly as possible. We knew that the Lunar New Year was right around the corner and shops and offices would shut down or at least function at a crawling speed for a couple of weeks. One of the unfortunate drawbacks of the first apartment was that we could not move in until after two more weeks since they had to move out in the middle of the Lunar New Year. That meant that we would have to look for an Airbnb for two more weeks, living out of our suitcases. When we asked when we could move in regarding the second apartment, the agent told us, “Tomorrow.” That was music to our ears.

As there were some pros and cons though not the life-altering kind with each, we decided to go with the second unit within a few hours after viewing. The next day, we signed the contract, and the internet guy came and voila, we were open for business. Then the next day arrived with both my wife and I second guessing our decision mainly because of the size of the kitchen. We processed together over meals and during walks. Then we shared our raw process openly with our children including our son and daughters-in-law. Along with the affirmation of our process sharing, the text messages flowed with emojis abound soon after I sent them. Highlighting a few of them below. . .

I hope as time moves on you have no regrets and that God meets you in different ways in this place!!!

It sounds like you guys did the best you could in the situation! Hopefully in time, and as you guys settle in, the apartment you got will be exactly what you needed :) . . . But hey -- we cooked full-blown meals when we camped!! Maybe this is where you guys get tested on how to cook creatively.

As I’m reading your updates my sense is that you guys are exactly where you need to be. I feel like God is going to surprise you in the best ways! Thanks for sharing your process!

I came close to shedding tears of encouragement and my heart was magically flooded with hope and anticipation. Starting the next morning, all our second guesses were lifted, and our hearts were full of gratitude and excitement. A few nights ago, we cooked Kimchi jjigae, filling our entire unit with a fermented kimchi smell. Now there was the smell I was familiar with.

BELONGING & LONGING

“There is some strange sense in which distance and closeness are sisters, the two sides of the one experience. Distance awakens longing; closeness is belonging. Yet they are always in a dynamic interflow with each other.”
John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Longing and belonging are two of the most primal human desires. They define what it means to be human unceasingly searching and yearning for intimacy and community. The problems humanity, especially in this day and age, faces stem from the unparalleled lack of longing and belonging. Social media has become one of the major culprits in ushering loneliness at an epidemic proportion, ironically. Problems only worsen as we look for remedies in the wrong places. One can only reside proximately in one location which creates closeness in one sense and distance in the other. Having “moved” from Pasadena to Kuala Lumpur almost a week ago, distance and closeness traded places. As such, I feel the pang of definitive loss of belonging which in turn intensifies longing. The more intimate the belonging, the more intensifying the longing. The more intense the longing, the more intimate the belonging.

We could not have moved to Malaysia if we did not have a community here. A missionary family of five for over twenty years whom we have known intimately for a similar duration welcomed us. As we have longed for each other’s company, we finally get to experience belonging. Before we even landed here, they had made all the appointments necessary for us to hit the ground running the morning after we arrived. We walked more than 10,000 steps just to see close to 10 apartment units in a neighborhood called Mont Kiara. Mont Kiara, right adjacent to Kuala Lumpur city center, is an enclave for expats surrounding three international schools. I’ve heard that more than 50 nationalities live in this small section of the city. Coming from Los Angeles, this feels like home. Having wanted to function here without a car, location became paramount where we can walk everywhere. Among the “everywhere” had to include grocery stores, decent cafés, and eateries of all kinds. More on this later. . .

The circle of belonging here in this region of the world (Southeast Asia) will enlarge over time as we look to deepen both existing relationships as well as create new ones. We have friends in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand we want to walk a “freedom journey.” When we are not on the road, we envision creating a hospitable and free space and begin hosting people.

As a quintessential Southern California homeboy, I love the fact that I get to wear flip-flops every day with shorts and short sleeves. At a superficial and mundane level, the uber-casual wear makes me feel like I “belong” here. During torrential downpours, which is often the case, it is pointless to wear any other shoes. Right??? My mind transports to Korea in my early teens during the summer monsoon season. I remember walking to school one morning during one particular monsoon with an umbrella, trying helplessly to keep myself dry. After quickly realizing it was a futile attempt, I let the umbrella go and got promptly drenched, feeling strangely free and exhilarated. This vivid memory solidified as one of those early lessons of life—when I let go, freedom flows.

What divides longing and belonging is not only distance but also time. There is time to long for someone or something, and also time to belong. Time in this sense is both fleeting and grounding. As we as human beings are trapped in time, time coupled with locale dictates our experiences of longings and belongings. What can betray my “time-ly” sense is that my mind has the innate capacity to wander back to the past, thinking about what could have been resulting in second-guesses or regrets, or projects toward the future, worrying about what is not yet. Time is a wonderful gift if we can harness the present. Present demands time to be present and grounds us in any one physical location. Anything outside of being present is our mind’s play especially if resulting in regrets of the past and worries of the future. Not all mind play is harmful though; there is a benefit. There is beauty in remembering and learning from our past. There is hope in envisioning and shaping the future to be better. To be sure, belonging and longing are gifts of a confident experience-based recollection arising out of our hearts.

FREEDOM JOURNEY | PART 2

As significant as the inner journey has been the outward journey of naming, articulating, and dismantling of systems of power, be they societal, organizational, and/or religious. I have always been attracted to and apt to see the big pictures. Over the years, my prophetic and apostolic tendencies come from my dissatisfied sense of what is systemically deficient and sometimes diabolical. Why this matters more now is because it involves freedom journey not only for me but also for many others. These systemic encrusted systems, in the end, serve man and whatever man’s interests may be (sometimes in the name of God). What is more compelling is that it imprisons and shackles those who are on the freedom journey. The dominant powers act as significant blocks and detractors (often disguised as wisdom as man’s approval or simply as common sense) to put captives as captives and unfree as unfree. These “cages,” some provincial and some global, exist everywhere placing people under bondage. The diabolical aspect is that some of these cages are being legitimized and operated in the name of God.

Early in our sabbatical, I facilitated two separate book clubs over Zoom on the same book, The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann. I do not clearly remember why I was attracted to the book at the time and had the compulsion to facilitate book clubs. But the fact I did speaks of a volume of my discomfort and even anguish of what Brueggemann called, “dominant empire mentality.” The book gave me permission as well as language, firstly, to criticize the dominant systems of power that do not know the time of the day. Empires run by numbness and time is nonexistent not dissimilar to many casinos that do not have clocks or windows. In this vein, Jeremiah’s poetic and prophetic (which are the same, really) words of God are worth reflecting, “Cranes know when it’s time to move south for winter. And robins, warblers, and bluebirds know when it’s time to come back again. But my people? My people know nothing, not the first thing of God and his rule.” (Jeremiah 8:7, The Message)

The book also empowered me to join in creating newness, and formation of freedom movement of our souls and the world. To do this, Brueggemann speaks of using metaphors and symbols concretely and candidly but also not in rage or cheap grace—the reason why Brueggemann used the word imagination in the title. The mother of imagination is longing, an eternal longing to be free and to belong. Freedom and belonging are not opposites, but fulfillment of longing. Longing gives rise to belonging and ushers freedom to be.

As I have been drawn to poems, I do not think of poetry as merely placid and self-absorbed contemplation detached from the world. Rather, I think of a significant portion of poetry as present-day prophecies criticizing the current state of empire building and managing, coming from the land of anguish painting the future of hope and newness. This courage and imaginative act are a road to creating an alternative consciousness—a new way of seeing and living.

The same three requirements are needed: slow, honesty, and courage to dismantle empires and usher in the newness of hope. The same building blocks are needed to bring newness to my soul as well as to usher in the ancient newness of the God-reality on this earth. Slow forces new and alternative ways of seeing. Honesty reveals our attachments and calls for detachment. Courage translates into a freedom-based act of doing which stems from all humanity to simply be. Furthermore, according to Brueggemann, the person who is marginal, geographically, societally, and religiously, may “embody a poignant counter-reality—reality always to contrast and finally to destroy the dominant [empire] reality.” (The word empire is added for clarity.)

“Walk this labyrinth not just for yourself but for all those who cannot find their way.” Today’s blog explains how I interpret what I read four-plus years ago. I did not know the full meaning at the time but drew my heart enough to take a picture and notice. I tell myself today that I have got to walk my path and my freedom journey first. As I walk on my path, the invitation is to share my experiences using metaphors, symbols, and imagination to help others find their way.

FREEDOM JOURNEY | PART 1

As we are only days away from going to Malaysia, writing a new chapter of our life, it feels necessary and rather fitting to look back at where this chapter has started. After a tumultuous and challenging leadership years especially with an ending I did not foresee coming and with a sense of betrayal, I quickly scrambled out of a survival mode to request a yearlong sabbatical, to save and free myself. Months later, my sabbatical finally arrived. The date was November 18, 2019. I remember the day like yesterday. With the typically warm and sunny southern California weather in November, I knew what we wanted to do: drive along the Pacific Coast Highway and visit Serra Retreat overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu. My wife loves watching the waves tirelessly hugging the shore and gazing into endless shimmering water where the ocean and sky become one. Serra Retreat also happens to be where my wife’s spiritual direction Opening Residency took place two years prior.

I started journaling daily on that day which eventually turned into starting my blog. I “knew” I had to write. Below is a portion of my first paragraph from the November 18, 2019, entry.

The last activity we did today was to walk the labyrinth pictured above. During the walk, what captured my imagination and heart was the thought that this long-winded path with turns and twists is to be my path for discovering my true self and vocation for this coming year and beyond. And that it is directly tied to discerning and deciphering what God has for me and Grace in this next season of our life together. Furthermore, I sensed strongly that this path (both the journeying and the destination) would be of help to many others. The path that I will be walking will become the very path for many others. After the walk, I noticed a little memorial statue and, on the plaque, it read, “Walk this labyrinth not just for yourself but for all those who cannot find their way.” Hmmm.

The last four years’ chapter can be titled as freedom journey. It has been a journey of discovering my true inner self and identifying and articulating the systems and powers that deter and discourage the inner freedom journey. I realized that both had to be dealt with vigor and thoughtfulness unless I was called to live as a hermit in a cave. THAT was not going to happen.

The inner journey’s first requirement came with an unexpected gift of slowing down. Slow naturally came with a sabbatical but the unforeseeable pandemic forced unprecedented isolation and stretches of social lockdown as well as a seeming cosmic halt which translated into an extraordinary slow. During this time, I discovered nature as a fine teacher of my soul as life meets life. Decay and death were not decay and death but another beginning of life. The truth of the matter is that I would not have deemed nature as a teacher unless I slowed down. In slow, one sees and hears things that one has not seen or heard before. Slow creates a necessary space and distance to see things that never were visible. Slow creates a margin to linger and ask questions that I normally have not asked. To be sure, the margin can be terrifying because margin exposes isolation as desolation and thus can force us to fill the margin with busy and mind-numbing activities. When healthy, margin turns isolation and loneliness into a “garden of solitude” without needing to stuff our calendar with stuff.

The second requirement, looking back, is honesty with myself. Being honest with my emotions without ego boost or ego condemnation has required a discipline of naming the emotions I was holding. Naming and owning a season of death, deconstruction, and detachment in an honest appraisal of my life’s journey helped to embrace darkness as a friend. I would not have discovered darkness can be a friend and teacher and that darkness imbues a blinding radiance of grace.

The other requirement has been courage: courage to be, courage to do, and courage to become. We become what we love or behold. Becoming integrates the notion of being and doing. I have needed to commit to becoming me, which is an act of discovery, of how God has shaped me from the beginning. It is the primal and existential courage. Out of the courage to be, we act accordingly to do. It is the lifetime of doing based on primal courage, sometimes swimming against the stream, sometimes going with the flow, or sometimes sitting idly on the bank. We become how God created us to be which is God’s creative love in action: love begets love. This way, we become like God who created us—love, which is divine union.

BLISS

The afterglow was extraordinary—palpable and potent enough to make me bloom as I went to sleep last night. The unsubsiding joy from the night morphed into delicate sprinkles of sadness and doubt the next morning. “Am I crazy to leave all these to go to Asia?” entered my mind.

My immediate family celebrated our youngest Brad’s 26th birthday. All four of our adult children and their spouses plus Brad’s girlfriend, not to mention Elizabeth’s chihuahua, Remy, Hannah’s huskie, Luna, and Jeremiah’s huskie, Balto joined us for the festivities. A few days earlier, we all gave enthusiastic thumbs up to Brad as he requested sushi and sashimi dinner at home. In recent years, we found this unpretentious hole-in-the-wall Japanese seafood market in the nearby city, owned and operated by a 90-year-old petite Japanese man. In his usual Haines white undershirt, his arthritic hands contoured to hold different sushi knives for decades. He barely spoke English but mastered the art of sushi making. Looking like he could barely walk; one would only need to look at his eyes when he hunched over and worked. Not unlike any other “master” of craft, he was never in a hurry which made a deep impression on me. Inside, I found myself cheering for him as he refused to buckle down under pressure.

The first time we were there, years ago, we waited for more than an hour even though there were only 5 or 6 parties ahead of us in line. Though the price was not cheap, the sashimi and even premade sushi of all sorts were some of the best sushi we have ever had. I ate enough sushi in my life to know what is crappy, passable, or outstanding. Ever since then, the market has earned our top trust and become our go-to sushi provider. This time was no different. Since then, the 90-year-old man retired, and his family took over the business. The congenial vibe is still the same with tiny enough improvement to know that some things changed (better organized with a bit better lighting and more choice of freshly made rolls), but the line moves much faster with a quintupled workforce with no sacrifice to the quality of the fish. I was happy to get out faster but also strangely missed the sacred waiting that was required before.

Our average size of dining table had no space after we laid out different sashimi (toro, bluefin, and ahi tunas, hamachi [yellowtail), salmon [belly portion) as well as unagi, spicy tuna, and spicy shrimp sushi, and California rolls), fresh cut vegetables, and some Japanese beers. A six-person dining table with nine of us huddled around on cheap IKEA chairs including a piano bench for two, we ate like princes and princesses.

After collective satisfactory “Aah-s,” we played games as dessert and tangerines flowed. We laughed and high-fived as our dogs were content, calm, and secure. I am sure they knew viscerally they were part of the family as we experienced family on earth from heaven. At some point, my wife and I pulled back not only because we could not keep up with them but mainly to watch them in action. I captured many photographs in my head that night as I am sure my wife did too. On multiple occasions, it dawned on me what I would be missing when we go to Asia and my heart ached.

As I have witnessed them grow older, I can’t help but look back at myself at their age. Not to beat me down but rather in the spirit of praise, they are far more self-aware, emotionally healthy, and spiritually generous to pursue their freedom journey. They have a far better sense of what is real and what is illusion which to me is an irreplaceable requirement for the freedom journey. Whenever we talk about their childhood experiences, it is always interesting and revealing as to what they remember. It is how they experienced life and what they remember that have shaped them over the years. We may share the same experiences but what we take away and remember almost always would vary, and thus create a buffet of storytelling.

In retrospect, it has been the creation and existence of free space that allowed them to process their own experiences without us meddling or correcting that played a pivotal role in shaping them. As a person, I had wished all my life for such an elusive vast empty space of freedom. As an imperfect and proud parent, I am grateful to God for what they have learned to trust their inner guidance and allow grace as an ultimate safety net.

The saying that “God does not have grandchildren” has real traction now as we all are God’s children learning to relate to God and each other. For a time, we as parents have been given the role of “stewards” to guide and encourage them to relate with the Parent who is nothing but Love. The inversely proportional relationship of vertical stewardship as parents and children and horizontal sojourneying as fellow pilgrims (or as God’s children) is fully at work in our lives.

Dallas Willard rightly observes “The obviously well-kept secret of the ‘ordinary’ is that it is made to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows.” It is the ordinariness of my family we celebrate and will miss because that is where God is. This is a grace and love-filled incarnation at work in our own lives. God is so holy that God must invade all aspects of our earthly lives. The Kingdom of God reigns on earth as it is in heaven and our earthly life is the receptacle of the heavenly where God’s sphere of existence lies. Our ordinary but unique container which is called life, stranded in time in light of eternity, is given to us to access and encounter the divine.

Relatedly, in the second stanza of the poem, Song, by Wendell Berry, the last line jumps out at me which he calls bliss.

But I thought even there, among the straying
steps, of the dance that circles life around,
its shadows moving on the ground, in rhyme
of flesh with flesh, time with time, our bliss,
the earthly song that heavenly is. (italicized is mine)

As they cheer us on to Asia, I cheer them on to live and embody such a life of bliss, flow, and freedom. As God’s flow flows in and through us and as God’s bliss becomes our song, we reflect God’s original design of why and how God created us. That, to me, explains the direct pathway to union with God.

“CHEERS”

Angel is long gone. So is Fabiana. They were a few of my capable baristas at Peet’s Coffee located in Hastings Ranch in Pasadena. Peet’s has been my dependable café and my office. It used to be my second office but has become my first ever since COVID-19. What used to be more than 1,000 acres of ranch owned by the Hastings family long ago has turned into a haven for sprawling contiguous strip malls. I fondly consider this area a mildly boring bougie “backside” of Pasadena away from trendier Oldtown Pasadena. We frequent this area for multiple reasons: our favorite grocery is here, Trader Joe’s, and occasionally, Whole Foods Market. When oatmeal or muesli run out as my top choice for daily breakfast and I must find my substitute, I willingly either go for McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin with Egg or Einstein Bros Bagel’s farmhouse breakfast sandwiches. I also work out at LA Fitness which is also nearby. Whatever the reason, it is not unusual for us to come to the ranch at least once if not twice a day.

The Peet’s is where everybody knows my name. Now, it is Vanessa, Michael, Areli, or Jayleen who prepare my Americano. In the mornings when I am here about 5 or 6 times a week, there is a long list of familiar usual suspects. I am not the only one who frequents this place most mornings. Both in the form of recognition and hello, I would jerk my chin upwards and crack a faint smile to some of the usual suspects.

There is Ralph who must be in his mid-70s. He arrives almost always around 11 am. His strides are short and less confident but without a cane or walking stick. He still has full grey hair which I used to envy, years ago, but not anymore. When looking at him approaching Peet’s in his signature oversized black jacket with bold red stripe, his head is tilted in such a way it is always 5:55 am or pm. His hands shake as he sits down at the same table near the window and waits for his friends.

Usually, about half an hour later, Hank and his wife arrive. Hank is older than Ralph, walks with a cane, and less assuredly than Ralph. In his bad hair day every day, his pale face tells me he has been ill and thus in the recovery and feeling good enough to get out, I would imagine. His wife (just heard this morning addressing Hank, as “honeybun”) in her short stylish haircut has full makeup on always, and is sprightly and sharp. She speaks confidently and boomingly as Hank has a difficult time hearing. She doesn’t assist Hank while walking perhaps to help him be more independent and dignified. The threesome sits together for about an hour. Their conversation remains very ordinary and mundane, not that I was trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Then there is a man whose name I do not know. He usually is here before I do. He always sits looking out from the window to the patio seating and the ample parking lot. He looks like he may be a few years older than I, seemingly fit, and dons a baseball cap and a pair of shorts every single day, rain, or shine. His athletic shoes change frequently, enough for me to notice anyway, and he watches something on his iPad. Sometimes he would mingle with Ralph and company but most of the time he keeps to himself.

A middle-aged woman wears glasses, and her full thick blondish hair is pulled clipped back with a large hair clipper. She comes with a bag filled with a laptop, books, and notebooks, ready to work. While facing a wall in a darker corner, she pours herself into reading and writing. One morning, on her way to the restroom, she asked me to watch for her stuff which I happily consented. Apart from the little interaction, I have not talked with her. My mind wandered a few times as to what she may be doing. My best wild guess is that she is a mystery book writer.

I cannot leave out a group of older Armenian men, usually huddled around outside in the patio area. Though their ages may vary, my best guess is that they are all in their 80s from what I can piece together. They all look healthy enough to drive. Without failure, they are here every day for several hours at a time. They are talkative and gregarious. Their English is passable. I imagine them being kicked out, I mean sent out, from their wives’ dominion after breakfast. And they willingly oblige and spend jolly of a time with their buddies. Maybe they exchange some of their war stories or childhood memories back home either in Syria, Russia, or Turkey. Maybe they exchange the latest examples of whose wife is more loving and supportive and/or bragging about their children and grandchildren.

Apart from my immediate family, these are the people I see almost every day in my neighborhood. Strangely enough, I admit that I will miss seeing them. Invariably, there will be new characters as my usual suspects in Malaysia. Unintentional and bypassing relationships are like “fillers” to intentionally directed friendships in life. While the latter relationships shape and define us in a significant proportion, the former relationships still require civility, respect, and kindness albeit fleetingly. The “filler” relationships are not unimportant; they are opportunities for authentic living. As my neighbors did not know I was watching and even projecting my view on them, I too am being watched and projected by others around me. I just hope that I am a pebble of positive energy moving the universe in a more loving trajectory.

A 2024 REFLECTION

The last verse in Matthew 5 (verse 48) troubled me for a long time. It was troublesome because I knew I could never measure up to what Jesus seemingly commanded. After a moving and upsetting (at least to some) message covering the Beatitudes to being salt and light to Jesus reinterpreting (Jesus said “but to fulfill” or bring to realization) the Law to loving our enemies, Jesus ends the otherwise brilliant section of the “sermon” with the puzzling sentence below, at least how most of the English translations rendered it.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (NRSV)

What do I do with this verse? Jesus knew that “we” were not perfect according to earlier verses. Did he mean, to try harder, nonetheless? The surmising rhetorical point of the longest section which details the Law and some of the commandments concerns the pivotal truth that we cannot keep the Law by trying to keep the Law. While masterfully not downgrading the importance of the Law, Jesus alludes that the focus must be somewhere else, away from obeying the Law perfectly. Of course, the sermon continues for two more chapters in the Book of Matthew. I would like to think that verse 48 was there for the listeners and for us to mull over what Jesus may have intended to communicate.

The word, perfect, is unattainable by our effort especially if Jesus meant perfection by moral and ethical perfection. The root word, perfect, Jesus used in Greek is telos which is translated as goal, end, or purpose. I love Eugene Peterson’s translation. Peterson helpfully paraphrases which to me is closer to what Jesus may have meant.

In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” (The Message)

What is helpful in The Message translation is the living out part that is grounded in everyday life. How then do we live out? By accepting and understanding how God treats (or lives toward) us, we are then to practice generosity and grace toward others. Our purpose or goal is to be known and loved by God (or by being the children of our Father in heaven or the “kingdom subjects” [verse 45]), so we become a conduit of that grace toward others. Summing up, I think Jesus was highlighting the importance of the union with God as the end, goal, and purpose of our existence. Jesus commanded the generous and gracious life of union in the process as opposed to achieving moral perfection. Our perfection comes from union with God rather than by achievement. Along this vein, our focus should shift from merely keeping the Law itself to the pursuit of the union with the Giver of the Law.

To use Matthew’s language, righteousness (dikaiosune) is a keyword in the Sermon on the Mount as it appears 3 times in Chapter 5. What Jesus was trying to drive home was that righteousness could never come from keeping the Law but by adhering and living under the “new” Kingdom of God—by pursuing a union with God. And that Jesus exemplified the union living which would become the compelling basis why we must follow Jesus in our pursuit of union with God. Jesus lived and would eventually die while being united with God. In our pursuit of union with God, this sermon then is about Jesus laying the blueprint for us to follow him. It is not only what Jesus lived for but also how Jesus lived it, thus a creative blueprint of how we ought to live. To circle back to the word, righteousness, righteousness comes from Jesus alone as he was the fulfillment of the Law. To loosely quote Dallas Willard in his magnum opus, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, the Law is not the source of righteousness, but only the course to righteousness.

In other words, Jesus warns against keeping the Law for the sake of keeping the Law. He eloquently taught and went on a great length that it can never be done. Instead, Jesus as a master teacher laid out a revolutionary shift in perspective that we must become the kind of person (that takes righteousness, “true inner goodness,” seriously) who wants to keep the Law. This inner transformation can only come from pursuing a union with God through Jesus Christ in our everyday life.

The humanity side of Jesus appeals to me so profoundly and deeply that I am compelled to imitate following Jesus’ human journey. This revelation and vision of doing life inspires me to embrace my humanity and how to do life. I tell myself today and this year that I dare not lose sight of that. This incarnated Jesus understands my human journey with all its warp and woof of life. Jesus “stood-under” the unfailing love and grace of God as a human so he understands my human journey. My “humanness” is what I have and thus where I can begin. While firmly rooted in humanity, my humanity will be fully realized as I pursue union with the Divine. The divine spark that is in me comes to life when I am in touch with the Divine, unlocking further my humanity and deepening my spirituality to say, “Christ in me and I in Christ!”

FOR THE SAKE OF ASIA

Happy New Year! Welcome to my fifth season of blogging. Thank you for reading and engaging with my interior journey. This year’s first entry reads more like an update that will set the tone for the year ahead.

“For the sake of Asia” was the phrase that was repeated twice to me by a reputable leader in Asia. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to prayerfully consider joining a Spiritual Direction program and eventual partnership for the sake of Asia. He told me that he was led by the Spirit to ask me. Ever since then, the phrase, “for the sake of Asia,” has lingered with me. At the same time, when I look back on this year, the phrase does not come as a surprise at all. On my 60th birthday, one of the keywords that was given to me was “Asia.” The bookended theme this past year was Asia, with confirming divinely appointed details in the middle.

2023 was a whale of a year. 2023 can be surmised to be a welcoming culmination and forward movement after waiting and discernment for the last four years. As a result, 2024 is about to start with a bang after much waiting and seeking. My wife and I are to depart to Malaysia in early February for about a year eventually en route to Korea, hopefully in 2025.

Back in 2020 summer, in the middle of our sabbatical, there arose a glimmer of desire that God might be calling us to Korea. The only way to ascertain the calling was to go to Korea in the height of the pandemic which meant we had to undergo two-week mandatory quarantine upon arrival. Though our movements and activities were severely limited, we sensed without a shadow of a doubt that God was indeed calling us to Korea.

Concurrently, we also began to discern that God was not only calling us to Korea but to a wider Asia. This discernment led us to a venturesome six-month-long exploration in Southeast Asia and Korea earlier this year. The result was unmistakably affirmative. Korea remains our top desire and destination for ministry but with the whole of Asia in our purview.

For close to forty years of ministry, we stayed back in the US (or held back in the US for different reasons at different times) primarily in the areas of mobilization and leadership. About ten years into our ministry, I tried to convince my wife to pack up and go to Asia, but my wife was not convinced. Ten years later, my wife initiated a similar dialogue with me about going overseas. After some time, I told her that I did not sense the calling. Though these two incidents were short-lived, they spoke volumes of the latent desires of our hearts.

This time, we both have discerned God is on the move and we both are ready, ready to embrace what God may have for us. The last four years have trained us to “trust the river and the Giver.” What we, together, want to do is simple and clear: spiritual direction ministries (both individuals and groups), hospitality (creating a space of freedom for people to dance their own dances and sing their own songs), writing, and speaking. I hope to publish my first book in English and my second book in Korean next year, God willing. We have multiple trips lined up in 2024 (three trips to Korea, three trips to the Philippines, and multiple trips to Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam (the latter three probable).

All in all, we remain grateful to God for where we are in life and what we are about to do. Our doing has been long in the making and stemming right out of our life’s experiences and desires. Looking back, “Asia” makes great sense (not that everything in life has to make sense), and that we feel we are poised for this unique and daring season of life.

STORAGE

When I moved from one house to another
there were many things I had no room
for. What does one do? I rented a storage
space. And filled it. Years passed.
Occasionally I went there and looked in,
but nothing happened, not a single
twinge of the heart.
As I grew older the things I cared
about grew fewer, but were more
important. So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took
everything.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing–the reason they can fly.

Mary Oliver

I first read this poem on September 6 of this year, soon after we landed in Korea. I knew that we needed to move around this time since our hope of staying at Yangpyong fell through. Disappointment soon translated into a mild case of desolation. Appropriately, I wrote on the side of the title of the poem, “When desolation was a theme.” Upon arriving back from a six-month-long trip to Asia, we did what Oliver described. For a few weeks, both of our trash and recycle bins were full to the brim, and we donated even more to a local thrift shop. I wish I could say I was as decisive as Oliver, but I did accept the process as a spiritual exercise, intuitively sensing that it would allow us to “fly.”

It was during that time I was also meditating on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 about considering “the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.” In the passage (from verses 25 to 34), Jesus repeated this one word seven times which often is translated as worry in English. In Greek, it is a little more nuanced—it means to be anxious or to care for (or look out for) a thing. One could deduce that Jesus’ teaching was against being anxious or troubled with care for something else that takes our eyes off the main thing. Rather, the main thing or concern was to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Jesus did not consider “all these things” as completely rubbish (in fact, Jesus said these things would be given) but his main concern was where our primary focus and interest lie. Jesus equated worrying with having little faith.

In addition, my monkey mind jumped to G.K. Chesterton’s words I read a couple of years earlier, and has stayed with me. It is not a short paragraph and I thought of omitting a few middle sentences, but I would like to go ahead and share the whole paragraph. I would encourage you to read with a bit of imagination.

“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (from a chapter, The Eternal Revolution)

The idea that seriousness is a vice (which he modulated as a sensible heresy) allows me to pause with my mind swirling. The simple sentence “It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light” drives it home. The imaginative idea and why of angels flying and Satan falling lingers with me.

The birds can fly because they own nothing. “The angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” Owning nothing is an impossible task in this life. However, owning to attach our values, and identity, and to give elevated meanings falls short of poetic and imaginative exhortations and the very teaching of Jesus. We own to rightfully let go and let it flow right out of us. What we own does not define who we are. If anything, we are defined by what we are willing to let go. In the end, we are who we are only by how God created us to be, not by any additions, weights, or meanings.

The call, if I can use the word, for “more room in our heart for love” (it is not lost on me that Oliver adds “for the trees”) and seeking the Kingdom of God first and his righteousness sound perennial truth to me today. Letting go and creating more room in our hearts for love seem directly proportional to one another. I convince myself today that it is the only way I can fly.

IN BLACKWATER WOODS

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it:
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver

When my wife and I went to Korea this fall, one of the few books I decided to bring was Mary Oliver’s Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. I have now finished the 440 pages of Oliver’s poems organized reverse chronologically, from the latest (2015) to the earliest (1963). This explains why I am highlighting Oliver’s poems exclusively this December. I must have marked at least two dozen of her poems by the title which was my way of reminding me that these poems require future visits. Oliver was keenly in love and awe of nature. She deeply admired nature and paid attention as if her life depended on it.

This poem draws another set of lessons (from the previous week’s poem) of human experiences from trees and forests Oliver loved. Fire broke out in Blackwater Woods situated in Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts which she frequented. Oliver has first six stanzas devoted to the devastation and loss which she coins “whose other side is salvation.” This insight is an unexpected and stunning observation. I relish her humility when she wrote that the “meaning none of us will ever know.” I do not know how salvation (not as in “going to heaven” but as in how we live this life more fully) happens, but it can happen. If salvation is only restricted to going to heaven and we do not experience salvation in this life, then I do not know what is more futile and depressing than that.

At the risk of sounding slightly tangential, in recent weeks, I have been pouring into various podcasts and YouTube regarding N. T. Wright’s most recent book, Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive into Paul’s Greatest Letter. I have not read the book yet (I am contemplating whether to purchase one) but one of the main points of the book revolves around the misunderstanding of taking Romans 8 as a significant chapter on salvation (as in going to heaven). Wright argues that Paul is not addressing salvation as how we interpret salvation from our vantage point, but Paul is essentially addressing “vocation”—the fact that we are called to participate in being the image bearers of God in this life.

In Oliver’s mind, perhaps, salvation in this current life comprises three things: “To love what is mortal, to hold it as your own life depends on it, and to let it go when it is time.” I admire Oliver’s keen insight flowing out of her integrated life—her outer and inner life seamlessly connected. Living well on this earth stands as proof of our salvation, Oliver seems to be saying. To interlay Wright’s observation, living well–participating in being God’s image bearers in this life—is our vocation in this world which reflects our salvific life.

I think of my adult children, especially as my wife and I are about to “leave the nest.” Some have correctly observed that we are doing the exact opposite of what grown-up children usually do. As a parent, loving what is mortal effortlessly zeroes in on our children. In all of my life, I have tried to love them as unconditionally as I could as if my life depended on it, with many shortcomings and failures. While my desire and responsibility to love remain and perhaps even increased, in recent years, my wife and I have been learning to let them go, let them go as it is time. Letting go of what we love ultimately involves death (as in the poem), but it is also a proven mature spiritual practice to die before we die. We let go so that they can be free to be and become who they are meant to be as God’s unique image bearers, without our meddling and sprinkling even “good” pieces of advice. As I realize that I am not an extension of my parents’ lives and expectations, I, too, have to embody the realization toward my children.

While I was never a helicopter dad, I did have unspoken amorphous images, projections, and “prayers” for my children. It is not lost on me that letting them go is not even for my children’s benefit but for mine. By letting go, I am also free from my own “good” illusions and expectations. Freedom is experienced all around—we all get to live more freely, experiencing salvation on this earth.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
    but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, ”Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, ”It's simple,” they say,
”and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver

For most of my mornings, I walk a 3.25-mile loop toward the foothill of the San Gabriel Mountains and back. As Pasadena and Altadena are one of the oldest neighborhoods in Southern California, the area is dotted with magnificent oaks, pines, and sycamores, not to mention the sky-scraping and skinny palm trees. A few years ago, when a nasty 60-mile gusty wind swept the region, many tall trees fell and even decimated portions of numerous old and impressive homes.

A few springs ago, my wife and I along with a couple of friends visited a national park in the southern tip of Korea called Goheung. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by stately Cypress Forest, infusing a healthy dose of Phytoncide into our lungs. All of us got promptly spread out and situated comfortably on a lying down bench, contoured to our bodies to look up to the unmatched combination of trees, sky, and light. We must have stayed there for a good half an hour. (I took this photo above.) This image came to my mind when I read Oliver’s poem today.

Like Oliver, I, too, am “distant from the hope of myself,” often bemoaning the state of my inadequate and fallible being and from second-guessing my authentic self to toxic self-condemnation. If it is self-condemnation, that is one thing, but in my state of self-condemnation, I blame and “attack” others. That is how I roll and how we all roll if we take Rene Girard’s insight of scapegoating seriously—the ability to hate ourselves by attacking others.

What can save me is the imaginative calling of the trees which Oliver says it so simply and poignantly. While I am not an all-out ardent nature lover, I appreciate nature whenever I get out. I, without failure, quickly realize every single time what I have missed all along. My love for the trees is growing. I think I understand the lure of the trees calling, “Stay awhile.” Trees are all rooted and uplifting, growing downward, upward, and outward. As a “grounded” creation, the message of trees calling us to “go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine” is indeed light-filled and uplifting.

I do not know what Oliver meant by “go easy.” How I read today is to go with the flow, the natural flow of life. The message of “going easy” is far from the cry and the teachings of the world. The world teaches us to go hard, compete, and compare to the detriment of denying or falsifying who we truly are. Trees don’t fret or regret. They weather all kinds of natural and man-made elements. They just are, rooted and uplifted, both regardless of the surrounding external world and because of the surrounding environment.

Jesus’ opening teaching of the Sermon on the Mount of being the light of the world (Matthew 5:14) bears in mind that we are poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, merciful, mournful, etc. (Matthew 5:3-11). It is not that we should be all the above, but that we already are. It is precisely in the state of being poor, pure, mournful, merciful, hungering and thirsting for righteousness that we are the light of the world. In the end, I think Oliver is right—the light we shine is not our own, but the original and only Light that is filtered through our life.

THE JOURNEY

As it has been a tradition for the end of the year, I will again take the month of December to share a few of my favorite poems. I take the liberty to share my musing and reflection based on my life and my journey. I am not approaching the poems to analyze and pursue after the original intention of the poets. I have no such illusion. I am, in many ways, allowing the poems to “read” a particular junction of my life. As great art does, I am mostly allowing them to “mirror” me while I occasionally take a peak through the “window” into the poets and their lives. How do you read your life?

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

The last fourteen lines of the poem, which reads as one long breathless sentence, build like a crescendo, starting from “little” and “small” to resolute determination. One’s concerned action for the world eventually situates as a natural extension of saving one’s life. This juxtaposition of the world and oneself is often bifurcated and even portrayed as opposites. Deeper probing into the world to discern what one should be doing and saving one’s life are encouraged to be seen as two sides of the same coin. It is also the grace of God that does not waste anything, to redeem everything, to put it positively, in both saving the world and saving oneself.

There are “many” voices that Oliver refers to. Then there is a “new voice.” This “new” voice has in fact been the ancient voice of one’s own as it has been there all along, keeping close company and ever patient. It is the voice that is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The “new” but ancient voice will not be heard unless one has left other voices behind. The stars were there all along behind the wild night, the prying wind, and the sheets of clouds.

Furthermore, the slow-burning recognition and discovery of one’s “new” voice is accompanied by striding deep into the world. To me, therein lies the subtle and mind-bending and heart-stirring work of discernment—discerning what world voices to reject and to leave behind and what world voices and cries to accept and embrace.

In this sense, this poem strikes me today as an invitation to discern and discern well. The story of a man born blind being healed by Jesus (John 9) is a fascinating account of many voices vying for attention and dominance. The truth was that the man was once blind, but he could see through Jesus’ healing touch. John does not fail to capture many voices of the crowd including the neighbors. Then there were the divided voices of the Pharisees followed by the voices of the healed man’s parents. John starts the chapter by providing the account of healing and ends the chapter with the conversation between the healed blind man and Jesus, with all other voices fading into the background. Then there was the stinging saying of Jesus pointing to the Pharisees, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” (John 9:39) Whereas the healed man “discerned” and eventually saw, Pharisees thought they saw, and they remained blind. The Pharisees were bent on protecting and preserving their religious tradition. Any voice that wants to “save oneself,” using Oliver’s language, remains a prime candidate for rejection of the world’s voices.

Discernment posits itself as where prayer and action meet. Discernment integrates prayer and action: as action stands as the tangible beneficiary of prayer. In prayer, we discern to act and act to discern. While putting prayer into action, we continue to discern. Oliver’s poem captures a perennial truth of practicing freedom of detachment in discernment. There is awareness and recognition of the detachment (as in many voices, sometimes many “good” voices) followed by decisive action to leave the detachment behind, little by little, rather than being haunted by ankle-grabbing voices.

In recent years, I have had to leave many voices, with most of the voices being good and reasonable. These good voices, however, are not my voice. This gradual recognition while being true to my authentic voice required standing firm and risked possibly even upsetting a few along the way. I cannot see far but I see far enough to move (in action). As I act, I will need to continue to discern by striding deep into the world and deep into my soul to discover my authentic voice.

“IT WAS LIBERATING TO ME”

This morning, I was looking back to my time at the conference my wife and I attended in Jeju Island back in October. I did not write this piece back in October, but this morning, a month and a half later. I am surprised by the energy this memory grants me today. . .

The morning after the Halla Mountain hike (back in October), I gave a paper at the annual Asia Society for Frontier Mission (ASFM) conference, titled Human and Spiritual Journey as Subjective, Personal, and Experiential (which I featured in the previous posts). I knew my paper was not necessarily in line with the missiological tradition in nature. I did not want to. I wanted to be authentic with myself and my own journey and wanted to test the ground whether some aspect, some existential and some practical, of my human and spiritual journey would find resonance. I have been convinced that most of the missiology in the past failed to include and/or adequately address the existential nature of humanity. Before we are Americans, Koreans, Korean-Americans, or something else, we are all humans. Before we are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or something else, we are all humans. Before we think we are privileged, underprivileged, powerful, powerless, influential, or irrelevant, we are all humans.

I knew the participants would be from multiple cultures and religious traditions from Asia, all following Christ. ASFM over the years has stood firm and tall, carving out its bold stance outside the boundary of the Christendom. This idea of “beyond Christendom” is something I have embraced in its early formative years. The eventual acceptance was not without great struggle. After wrestling with many uneasy questions, my once sure foundation of Christianity crumbled and was replaced by the Kingdom of God foundation. I have come to appreciate and espouse the radical inclusivity and generosity of the nature of the Kingdom of God. I came to see that Christendom was and is far from the reality of the Kingdom of God.

While I was comfortable and felt at home with the participants, I was not sure whether my “message” would find its footing. Thus, I was prepared to treat this year’s ASFM as my last. Plus, this year’s theme was about the “next gen” leadership and the makeup of the participants reflected the theme. Compared to the previous years, this year’s average age decreased significantly. There were seven younger leaders, all in their 20s, from Southeast Asia, several of them were imams (religious leaders in Islam traditions, similar to the concept of pastor) in their own villages and towns. There were also several younger leaders from the US and fewer from Korea. As such, I was curious and looking forward to how “younger” leaders would respond to my talk.

I was given a generous amount of time, long enough to present my paper and have ample time for questions and answers. During our large group Q and A, a Hindu follower of Jesus who is also an influential leader said some glowing things about my paper and told me that he resonated deeply. He did have one question: Where does community come in the pursuit of our journey as subjective, personal, and experiential? I affirmed it was a great question and I simply said that personalism cannot be separated from community. One reason I did not use the word, individual (over personal), was precisely because it can be viewed as possessing an anti-community sentiment. The idea of personalism and community go hand in hand as none of us live on an “island.”

After a few more affirming responses, a short silence followed. A young imam from Southeast Asia broke the silence. Since his English was not his mother tongue, he said the following through a translator. “Your paper was liberating to me. The older and more seasoned imam in my surrounding village has also tried to “correct” my interpretation of the Quran.” He then went on to say that there are some Christian missionaries in his area who also have “policed” his interpretation of the Bible. Since he is a baptized follower of Jesus, some Christians in his area know the young imam and apparently tried to correct his theology. I do not know the context. Perhaps the missionaries were well-intentioned. However, the young imam’s choice of word was that he was being “policed.” One could hear a pin drop during his short response. He was exhibiting no visible emotions, but everyone felt his genuineness, candor, and vulnerability. I knew it took an act of great courage for him to say what he said.

After another short silence, I broke the silence this time and told the young imam (through a translator) that I apologized on behalf of Christians and asked for his forgiveness. I was perturbed and moved with compassion at the same time. After the short exchange, tears flowed. If there was one moment at the conference, that would be the still picture that elevated the entire conference for me.

After my presentation, I had fruitful interactions with multiple people throughout the conference. On one of our outings to a meal outside the hotel venue, I sat with the young imam and his translator and enjoyed hearing his story. I learned that he was only 20 years old. As we bid farewell toward the end of the conference, the young imam and I shook hands and while holding my hand, he placed my hand to his forehead as a gesture of honor and respect. I felt honored and glad that I remained true to my journey of learning. What I potentially thought to be my last ASFM turned out to be an affirmation and confirmation of my direction both now and in the future. And that I must speak. . .

DOUBLE PILGRIMAGE

For most of my life, I have known only one pilgrimage, the path of life that is given to me in relationship to the world. It is the world around me that happens to me, that hurls heartaches, headaches, opportunities, and wonders at me, and the world that is kind, kindred, harsh, and violent to me. The “Korea world” in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in Seoul was mostly my vast playground filled with wonder and mischief. The “America world” through the late 1970s into the early 1980s was rude and harsh, and I valuably gained independence and confidence in navigating life. To me, ironically, the world of my early Korea was plentiful while the world of my young America was scarce.

The “Christian world” from the early 1980s until probably about 10 years ago has been yet another world. The panoramic swing of emotions and lessons learned in Christian life (as in what and how to do and what and how not to do) created and forced an outlook of life and its meaning beyond Christianity as a religion. While all my “worlds” were significant bubbles, the evangelical world was a bigger illusionary and confined bubble, detached from the world. Recognizing the bubble as a bubble has freed me and “freed“ Jesus out of a parochial evangelical world. In all, I have needed to journey through life through my perception of these real “worlds.”

While my pilgrimage through these worlds is uniquely mine, I also know that it is not unique, and I am not alone. Over time, I have learned the finely tuned skills of survival and accumulated knowledge to navigate the world. The pilgrimage was generally prescribed to me as the world tried to dictate my reactive posture of the pilgrimage experience. I have always been irritated and thus protested the nature of the prescription of a “well-traveled road” and assumed and accepted boundaries. These protests—“going off the trail” to use the pilgrimage language—were not without cost and hardship.

As a young Christian, the foundational understanding and view of pilgrimage had not changed much. If at all, the so-called “heaven” was now the prescribed destination. I was taught to endure and persevere since the earth was not my home. And take as many people and peoples to heaven with me. The world was posited in my heart as inhospitable and profane.

As my wife and I are about to embark on the grandest journey of our life to Asia, I have discovered and paid attention to another pilgrimage in the last 5 years. It is the pilgrimage of my soul, inner self, true self, or the given self by God. If the former pilgrimage is about learning to relate to the external world, the latter is about discovering the interiority of my soul, inner terrains and landscapes, peaks, and valleys (and caverns), and treasures and traps. It is as much intricate and complex as the world, if not more.

Beyond the façade of my busy and sometimes frenetic pace of life, I have discovered the gift of slowing down, rest, and Sabbath. Whenever I visit Manhattan, New York, I tell myself I am alive and love this unparalleled city. It is also the same me that loves the slow countryside living, closer to nature, away from the pollution of all sorts. Since my wife would not watch action movies, I am alone when watching adrenaline-pumping action and adventure movies. At the same time, I can easily find myself in nature and get lost in observing and finding inspiration in nature. I have enjoyed Robert Ludlum and Bernard Cornwell’s fast-moving action-packed novels while at the same time, I have immensely been drawn to poetry. I enjoy extreme forms of exercise—sweat-it-all-out-kind of exercise. Yet, I am just as happy to meander through art exhibit rooms filled with exquisite collections. I remember being lost in the world-famous Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia years ago and could not have been happier. So full of contradictions and yet they are all me.

On another layer, while I am an extrovert, I have learned to find energy by being alone, especially in nature. I have learned to experience life at “3 miles an hour” (which is the unhurried walking speed) and began to see things I have not seen and simply missed. Learning to pay attention to what is real has revolutionized my spirituality and thus my outlook on my pilgrimage journey. I am discovering that compassion for my own fumbling and yet holy (both human and divine) pilgrimage has created sympathy and generosity for others’ pilgrimage. I have come to love the divine attention of life carefully stewarded and gifted by writers, artists, and poets. I have begun to read the Bible from this perspective, not as a manual or a rule book consisting of a collection of theological and missiological constructs.

I do think that in the end, the double pilgrimage is not two separate journeys but one. Each of our pilgrimages is both unique and universal. Because of its uniqueness, we must pay attention to our self, our life, and our “world.” Because it is universal, we share in the perennial human tradition of discovering our own pilgrimage and finding inspiration and instruction from others.

DON'T HESITATE

As I sit and sip my go-to medium Americano with extra room at Peet’s Coffee in Pasadena this morning, my mind effortlessly locks back to the sip of fine champagne with my friends over the weekend. Michael, a deadpan humorist in the group, who is also highly respected brought the choicest champagne. He proceeded to toast to the five of us who have turned 60 years old this year along with thirteen others. Michael raised his glass high and said, “You have served God, but God has also served you,” as all five of us have been in full-time ministry for decades. Our glasses clinked with Michael’s glass and with each other and happily shouted “Cheers” in unison. Earlier, my wife and I rode with Michael and his wife for a group hike. In the car, Michael said in a concerned tone, “I forgot to put champagne in the fridge!” and was about to turn around. His wife gently reminded him he did. That was when I suspected he wanted to create the toast moment. It is a good thing because the moment has now been etched into a fond memory.

The truth of the matter is that we are not just “others.” Most of us have been friends for more than four decades (and counting). The longevity of our friendship alone is enough to celebrate. Our friendship ultimately traces back to Young Nak Presbyterian Church of LA and we all are living witnesses of God’s unmerited revival in our midst. We were all swept up with our feet not touching the ground, figuratively speaking, and eventually got spread all over the world—carrying the DNA and memory that God met us powerfully. After raising young families and doing our due diligence on ministries and works set before us, in the last several years, we have begun reconnecting intentionally and regularly.

One thing I have observed is that we all have served faithfully in whatever the context. We all did what needed to be done. We did what we had to do. Now, we are transitioning to doing things that we want to do, what our hearts desire. On the surface, it sounds like a simple switch, but we know that there has been a long and lonely process of honest soul searching, letting go (the process of detachment and deconstruction), and paying close attention to what our soul truly desires and longs for. Finally, we are following through even if it means facing uncertainties, and unknowns, as well as a whole new world of open vistas and possibilities. The will to “follow through” stems from “courage to be, more precisely courage to be oneself” which would inevitably include crossing new frontiers of life. I see this existential courage in action, and it is a privilege to be part of it.

Additionally, if there was one dominant theme and emotion I felt during the weekend, it would be joy, the joy of being together and being connected. Joy gets tripled because of our shared rich past, abiding present, and hopeful future. Perhaps hundreds (if not thousands) of photos we took were a sign of treasuring the joy we experienced together. Perhaps extra lingering in between conversations, silence, and laughter especially when saying goodbyes was an intimation of ruminating on joy. Perhaps the hike represented a vivid reminder to us all that we are all, sometimes alone and sometimes together, on the journey. Perhaps all the meals we shared were a sliced reality of Jesus’ envisioning of saints’ communion.

On the last night, I almost read the poem, Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver with the group but held back. As I sit with the memory of the weekend this morning, the poem gently makes its way to me.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

There were plenty of seen and unseen (which are “quiet miracles that sought no attention”) instances of love happening in the midst of us. Love came to us in the shapes of care, listening, smiles, laughter, warm touches and hugs, soft gaze into each other’s eyes, service, and tears. This love translated into joy was an undeniable gift from heaven that showered us like the warm November ray of California coastal sunshine.

I love Oliver’s choice of tentative and wondering words, “possibility, perhaps, sometimes, something, could, anything, anyway, and whatever.” She is not forcing or demanding joy, she is simply highlighting and inviting us to joy’s abundance—if you look for it, you will find it.

All in all, I am glad that we all “did not hesitate and gave in to joy” when joy swooned and swept us up. Surely, joy was not made to be a crumb.

HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL JOURNEY AS SUBJECTIVE, PERSONAL, AND EXPERIENTIAL | PART 3

One of the greatest gifts of poetry to humanity is that poetry can hold contradictions as contradictions and mystery as a mystery without needing to unnecessarily divide and force things into binary thinking. Though the words tend to be dualistic in nature, poetry somehow can capture ironies, wonders, and mysteries and hold everything together without judgment. Poetry that holds this space of generosity and grace tends to span over many centuries and is well-loved across religious and cultural traditions. Poetry is the language of the human soul.

Poets with their keen ability to “caress the detail, the divine detail”[1] can make their experiences relate to 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 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 are 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”[2] as my guests. Anxiety and anger, the slow simmering kind, as well as the excitement of the unknowns and adventures risen 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”[3] 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 countless 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 lives. 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. The 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 in 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.

Conclusion

Both God and the Bible fully expect and celebrate life to be fully lived according to God’s original blessing and intention. All of us are on the journey of discovering who we are (how God created us to be). This journey is and should be unapologetically subjective, personal, and experiential. As we own our subjectivity and honor our life experiences, I believe we develop greater capacity and hospitable space for others to own their subjectivities without us meddling and vice versa. And that is a good and honorable thing because that is how God designed us!

[1] Vladimir Nabokov

[2] The Guest House by Jalaluddin Rumi

[3] “Poiema” is the word Apostle Paul uses only twice in the New Testament: Romans 1:20 and Ephesians 2:10. Romans 1:20 verse refers to the creation whereas the same word in Ephesians refers to humanity.

HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL JOURNEY AS SUBJECTIVE, PERSONAL, AND EXPERIENTIAL | PART 2

The Bible features breathing and alive words not because it contains a single “correct” meaning associated with the texts, but precisely because it allows multiple varying interpretations and meanings based on the readers’ contexts and times. In my limited and humble mind, I love the generosity and expansiveness of such God in and behind the Bible. God does not and would not waste time and energy to test if humanity would understand one single right meaning behind each text within the Bible. That would be an extremely petty and small-minded God. What confounds the matter is that humanity is never isolated from countless myriads of cultures and languages. Not to mention the different epochs of times humanity existed over many centuries. . . It seems that God allows the bible as a medium to dance between partners of divine meanings with human involvement. In fact, God expects peoples in different cultures and times to give their “best” meanings and allow the Scripture to speak and dialogue where peoples are. God expects us to earnestly engage, not find one “correct” meaning, as life in real time happens and moves across time and experiences.

In this sense, the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12), whoever we are, engaging in the multiplicity of interpretations and meanings. Christopher Smith uses “pervasive interpretative pluralism.”[1] (It is also this very idea of the multiplicity of interpretations that we as humanity need each other.[2]) The very life and action of the Word of God takes place in the actual lives of the readers, being invited to converse, and dialogue with how the authors’ experiences and description of God with ours. This way, we are engaging both the original authors and us, not overlooking one over the other. What is required is the transparency and authenticity of the readers. God seems content that we engage, not necessarily to find one right answer and arrive at one certain dictation for all humanity.

It is not about whether we read the Bible or not that is important. Rather it is how we read the Bible that is critical. We are to engage our life, more precisely our experiences of God in our life and the life and authors’ experiences as how they understood God in the events of their lives. However, this interpretative process is not neat but messy and complex and is what Christopher Smith describes the Bible as “exponentially multivocal, polysemic, and multivalent, [and] semantically indeterminate.” I love the Bible not because it is the most lucid instruction manual or the air-tight rule book that man has ever seen across all cultures and all times but because God seems to expect us to dialogue with the Bible from our personal experiences using our interpretative lens of life wherever and whenever we are. The very process of how the Bible came together (canonization) and how the Bible went through a series of edits (think 200,000 to 400,000 times according to Bart D. Ehrman) lend to the observation I am making above.

N.T. Wright imaginatively captures, “We are listening, not to a single voice, not even to a single choir in harmony, but to several choirs singing different songs with some protest groups jamming in the wings.”[3] The fact that there are differences alone does not and should not divide the people of God, regardless of religious and cultural background. It is the inability and stubbornness of insistence that there should not be differences that divide us. This inability and the refusal to recognize and celebrate the differences betrays the very reading and hermeneutical reflection of the Scripture.

Then what interpretative filter are we to use? My conviction is love. While it is true that love is both ethereal and substantial, for love to be love though, it must be grounded, contextual, and practical. Ramon Llull set the grand context of love, “We are born out of love.  We live in love.  We are destined for love.”[4] Llull speaks of where we come from, how we ought to live, and where we will go. This framework is parallel to God who is Love creating us in His image and the apostle John charging us to pursue being in union with God who is Love through Christ. We are already love, living in love, and pursuing perfect love. It is out of this context we interpret the Scriptures and have the Scriptures converse with our lives.

Religion and Poetry

Relatedly but in a slightly tangential line, Richard Rohr connects poetry and religion.

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.[5] (italicized mine)

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 I can make the statement that black and white. 

The fact 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 for all humanity. 

[1] Christopher Smith, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture.

[2] The existence of such a hermeneutical community needs to proliferate and multiply without the historically rooted pull toward standardization and propriety. To me, ASFM has been serving that purpose unflinchingly.

[3] N. Tom Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

[4] Ramon Llull, The Book of Lover and the Beloved

[5] Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality