I am thankful for (in pictures)

For the serious and silly moments of life. I do feel that sometimes the challenging part is to just enjoy life. life! it! is! to! be! enjoyed! Anyway, hope everyone is having a happy Turkey day!

autumnal @Yuldong Park

heart theology

“Salvation comes from the Lord.”--Jonah prayed.

Restore unto me the joy of salvation.

I recently picked up Per Petterson's novel, I Curse the River of Time, a book about memory and rueful regret, as well as confronting the idea that we will all die. In it, Petterson writes of the moment when you realize that you are dying, the moment before you simply cease to be, and your brain is able to register that fact: "I was scared. Not of being dead, that I could not comprehend, to be nothing was impossible to grasp and therefore nothing really to be scared of. But the dying itself I could comprehend, the very instant when you know that now comes what you have always feared, and you suddenly realise that every chance of being the person you really wanted to be, is gone for ever, and the one you were, is the one those around you will remember."

I bring this up because at service yesterday night, the guest speaker spoke extensively about Jonah in the moment he thought he was to die. Jonah had been thrown overboard, abandoned in the water and in the fish. He was going down, down, down....But then his faith rises with his heart in it. He turned and ran to God. He called out to God in prayer--a humble, honest, cry of need.

If I honestly describe my present feelings and situation, my private prayer life has been suffering for awhile. Recent, big decisions about the future were solely my own. I didn't consult family or friends or God. Also, it's been hard to make meaningful connections with people here yet I feel such weak resolve to take the initiative to get to know others. I realize if I'm to have any public ministry, I need revival in my prayer life. As long as I'm alive, I can and should and will cry out to the Lord! But I'm so forgetful and weak. Please pray that my heart and prayers are honest, repenting, thankful, and committed.

An email from my student

I COULDN'T RESIST:

Hi, Esther.

I am sending you a mail because I couldn't do my grammer homework. The first reason was because the printer was not working. So I decided to write it online and send you mail. However, it failed because my computer was knocked out and erased all my writings about chapter 8. I was so angry at my computer and regretted if I did my homework in weekends....

That was the second reason.

The third reason was that I went to the school trip to Everland today.

Sorry for the excuse and sending you late.

I could have finished that homework earlier, but forgive me.

Next time, there won't be any excuse.

Sincerely,

Simon

Just going to think out loud here. All this internal conflict for a working and true worldview has given me much to think through, and then a notion occurs to me. I don't think that looking at what is right or wrong or trying to nail down what is black or white or gray will help me find a way forward in life. There is much of what goes on in this world that we cannot understand and react to properly. We're not always in control of what happens around us, and even when we are in control, we don't do what is right.

So after all that, what, in the end, have I learned? It seems like I know something but still know nothing.

gray

Now, if there's something wrong with the fundamentalist view in practice, what does the culture around us say? Everything is gray. There is no ultimate wrong or right. It's all relative. Every individual can (and must) construct his or her own worldview as long as you don't impose it on anyone else.

Sort of like the nation of Israel as described in Judges 17:6: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. Moral relativism then, moral relativism now. Oh, it definitely has an attractive feel! And to fit in this world, gray is the way to go. This is a world that acknowledges no king, no sovereign, no absolute that arches over all.

Yet, ultimately, it's not really that attractive. For it does not propose a worldview based on love. Rather it sets forth a worldview of being satisfied with mere tolerance. Bland tolerance. Foggy gray tolerance.

So what am I to do? My experience tells me that there are a lot of things that I can't really judge. My faith tells me that there are absolute rights and wrongs. Perhaps instead, life can be illustrated as a gradiant from black to white. We do have black and we do have white but we also have many areas of uncertainty, levels of gray.

Or, is this all merely another attempt to straddle two opposing viewpoints and wind up standing nowhere? Perhaps even more wishy washy than Gray! Yet again, something is out of whack here. There must be a better way.

black and white

I'm just lying in my bed...it's such a subtle yet significant difference: eyes open/eyes closed. It is 3am and I was hoping to be asleep before it got here, but during these late nights, I think most clearly.

While my grandmother was here, I attended a Korean presbyterian church with her, and one worldview I noticed in Christian circles is to see everything in black and white. Every activity, viewpoint, attitude, thought, opinion is either right or wrong. I suppose that from God's point of view this must be true. Perhaps that is the inference of Jesus' words in Luke 11:23: He who is not with me is against me.

But there is something disturbing about this worldview in practice. It seems that the stronger someone holds to this view, and I'm thinking of practicing fundamentalists in particular, the farther they are from exemplifying the love of Christ, to extending grace and mercy in His name. More modern day Pharisees. More law. More hate. Something is out of whack here. There must be a better way.

She is a fine woman, but you have to learn to feel your way with her. My grandmomma just left to return to the states after a month long visit. I learned a lot while she was here, and I wouldn't disagree that it has been good for me. But I'm really glad to be off her fish diet (she abhors red meat), haha :)

Running in the fall is best. I love those evenings when it would be just a bit cool to eat dinner on the patio without a light jacket, but running is perfectly comfortable. Yesterday was one of those days--the high was 70 and it had cooled into the 60s by the time I went for my run. The sun was moving toward the horizon, casting long shadows. I had to laugh at my shadow at one point. The shadow of my legs stretched out for about five feet on the pavement while the shadow of my torso was only a foot or so. I did a 30 minute run to the nearest train station and shared the road with a motley crew of bikers. Sometimes, I still don't believe I'm living in Korea. The run itself was invigorating, fun, and I'm so thankful for these fall days, enjoyable to the last drop of sunlight.

again and again

My last class ended a couple hours ago, and I've been inputting the last batch of grades at a cafe near work. Just got an email from one of my students, and all it said was, 'Don't go!' Kind of made me want to stay longer. Almost.

During my exit interview, the final question asked me to describe the best and worst aspects of the job. The worst was the commute. Absolutely. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (if I had enemies). The best...

Faithful readers would note that I don't really update or talk about life here as much as one might expect. Well here is an update, I gave my formal resignation last week and I'm leaving my job at the end of the month. I've accepted another teaching position in Seoul that is closer to home.

I suppose the main source of my ire was the commute. It took two hours just to get to work, or a sum of four hours each day. I was getting beat, the perks were not justifying the work, and it was all kind of depressing. I was doing the thing that I promised myself I would not do--losing grip on time management, silently absorbing my stress, then my rage, and the resulting unhappiness of making things harder than they had to be.

Leaving was probably one of the biggest, scariest decisions I've had to make in life so far. I'm excited to have made it, to realize that the decisions I make are ultimately mine, and I'll have to deal with the consequences. I wouldn't say I know for sure what's next, but this is what I've done. This is what it's come to. Oh the drama! I'll be okay.

Capo 6  

Am                            E 

Welcomed in to the courts of the King          

         Cmaj7                     D2 

I am ushered in to your presence 

Am                              E 

Lord, I stand on your merciful ground              

              Cmaj7                         D2 

Yet with every step tread with reverence   

              C           F 

And I'll fall facedown                

               Am     G        F 

As Your glory shines around              

              C    F 

Yes, I'll fall facedown                

                Am   G        F 

As Your glory shines around   

Am                          E 

Who is there in the heavens like you?            

            Cmaj7                              D2 

And upon the earth, who's your equal?             

              Am                             E 

You are far above, You're the highest of heights             

             Cmaj7                 D2 

We are bowing down to exalt you

bearing witness

Let go of what you know and honor what exists.

gleefully optimistic meteorologist

happy Father's day

to appa from esther h. lee on Vimeo.

Read here one guy's interview with Sufjan stevens

but if you don't feel like reading the entire thing, pretty much what dominates this article is when the guy starts asking Sufjan about the tenets of Christian faith. The interviewer tries to be balanced, but overall, in his view, the negatives of the Church outweigh the positives. And what's most interesting is that Sufjan agrees:

The church is an institution and it’s incredibly corrupt obviously, but that’s because it’s full of dysfunctional people and people who are hurt and battered and abused. It’s very normal in any institution to have that kind of level of dysfunction. That’s unfortunate. I find it very difficult, I find church culture very difficult you know; I think a lot of churches now are just fundamentally flawed. But that’s true for any institution you know, that’s true for education, universities and it’s definitely true for corporations because of greed, and I think part of faith is having to be reconciled with a flawed community. But the principles, I don’t think the principles have changed. They can get skewed and they can get abused and dogma can reign supreme, but I think the fundamentals, it’s really just about love. Loving God and loving your neighbour and giving up everything for God. The principles of that, the basis of that is very pure and life changing.

I can see myself growing just as or even more disillusioned by church culture. Don't be mistaken. I deeply love the community I got to be a part of during college--learned so much. But to me, christians generally hold a dogmatic adherence to strict interpretations of scripture and underestimate how dismissive they've become to alternate points of view. Now that I'm older, I can see how those tendencies leave this world a mess.

If you read the whole interview, you may have noticed both the interviewer and Sufjan respond to each other very candidly, revealing enough to understand where each is coming from. Say what you will about their theology, but conversations like this probably aren't happening enough.

retired pedro the lion

I could hear the church bells ringing

They pealed aloud your praise

The member's faces were smiling

With their hands outstretched to shake

It's true they did not move me

My heart was hard and tired

Their perfect fire annoyed me

I could not find you anywhere

Could someone please tell me the story

Of sinners ransomed from the fall

I still have never seen you, and somedays

I don't love you at all

The devoted were wearing bracelets

To remind them of why they came

Some concrete motivation

When the abstract could not do the same

But if all that's left is duty

I'm falling on my sword

At least then I would not serve

An unseen, distant Lord

Could someone please tell me the story

Of sinners ransomed from the fall

I still have never seen you, and somedays

I don't love you at all

If this is only a test

I hope that I'm passing

Because I'm losing steam

And I still want to trust you

Peace, be still

Peace, be still

Peace, be still

Peace, be still

Sometimes i ask myself what the heck am i doing here during the two hour bus ride home from work :/ then i see my baby cousin's face and it all makes it worthwhile :)

everything sunny all the time always

shower power

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth,

'You owe Me.'

Look what happens

With a love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

power of the flower

Pretty sure i've reached my weekly intake of eggs. I was so hungry after church i ate four hardboiled eggs and immediately regretted it for fear of my unpredictable bowels. Any more and i'll be taking in too much cholesterol, and too much of that is never good.

Moving on...happy easter everyone! This last week was fulfilling. First of all, I've been able to read a lot more and reading usually inspires me to think pretty hard. Giving up leisure media was good for one thing at least. I only brought five books to Korea--tbk by dostoevsky, two dave eggers books and the bible. I did just buy Dune by frank herbert. I heard it's one of those books where the reader has to do all the work the first hundred pages but you're rewarded with a huge payoff after. Secondly, two classes got canceled so with my evenings free, I met up with old and new friends for dinners and caught a Good friday service. It was nice. Thirdly, i've gone on longer runs and it feels pretty euphoric when i finish since i start and end my route at the top of a hill.

Now, it is Monday. I arrived to work straight from the dentist and I'm a little woozy from all the anesthesia. Think i hear voices of my students flowing up the stairs. Most of them get to class early only to sit and concentrate very hard on their cellphone games. And I don't know what it is, but lately, i catch myself muttering, they are so cute. Like when a girl sneaked in a pet hamster inside her jacket pocket and tried to play with it during class or when a boy wiggled his baby tooth free and interrupted class to announce what happened or when another boy entered class with a venti starbucks americano and when i asked him why he said he just really loves coffee. Oh i think they're here

Entries have the tendency to be distant and vague when one posts too-long-didn't-read excerpts...., please bear with it for a little while longer.

I've been re-reading The Brothers Karamazov (tbk) by fyodor dostoevsky. It tackles one of the fundamental questions of human existence--how best to live one's life--in a truly engaging way. It coincides with a sermon i recently heard by tim keller. The sermon was on spiritual dryness and how you will never get out of it unless you start listening to your heart, or in other words, being honest with yourself. In tbk, dostoevsky, created 3 brothers who evolve and deal with their struggles based on their differing world views. Each brother epitomizes how human beings really are--full of walking contradictions. Perhaps all of our struggles in life boil down to the reality that we desire contradictory things.

I feel like some christians, including myself, despair the dichotomy between their current spiritual state vs. who/where they would like to be. Even if and when we care enough to profoundly examine our hearts, often we don't like what we see, and sometimes we get stuck, or trapped, in despondency. But the last 2 minutes of keller's sermon pretty much sums up how to treat that despondency: "[We must] at some point turn around and preach the grace of god to ourselves. Preach the gospel to your heart with vividness and effectiveness. Who really was dying of thirst/whose enemies taunted him/whose god really forsook him? Jesus was truly forgotten by god, truly experienced the thirst of god. God will never give up on you. God treated, punished, and gave Jesus the things we deserve so we could recieve his committment and love unconditionally. If we preach christ to ourselves, we will get out of it."

Any meaningful relationship is going to be raw, beautiful, messy, intimate, occasionally thrilling, and just as often, categorically mundane. My relationship with christ is probably the most influential relationship i've been in, but that isn't what makes it different. "Find me. When you seek me, with all your heart, I will be found by you." Jeremiah 29. The truth is, he's always there and that is the difference and it is amazing love.

With that i will say goodbye for now. I completely lost track of time. My bowl of cereal is ruined and my coffee is cold. The next you will hear from me is on easter sunday. Adieu!

from Mother teresa, "Suffering, if it is accepted together borne together, is joy. Remember that the passion of Christ ends always in the joy of the resurrection of Christ, so when you feel in your own heart the suffering of Christ, remember the resurrection has yet to come--the joy of Easter has yet to dawn."

Lord Jesus, make us realize that it is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully; for it is only by dying with you that we can rise with you.

more of tbk

I feel completely crushed! This very second I realize that, just as you say, I was expecting you to praise me for my sincerity when I told you that i would not be able to bear ingratitude. You have brought out what was within me. You saw it and you have shown it to me!

Do you really mean what you say now? If so, after what you have admitted, I am sure that you are sincere and that you have a good heart. Even if it is not given to you to achieve happiness, you must always remember that you are on the right path and you must not try to stray from it. Above all, avoid lying, especially to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and for yourself: whatever strikes you disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it. Avoid fear too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love, and don't be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion. I'm sorry I cannot tell you anythg more reassuring. A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding. Imaginary love yearns for an immediate heroic act that is achieved quickly and seen by everyone. People may actually reach a point where they are willing to sacrifice their lives, as long as the ordeal doesn't last too long, is quickly over--just like on the stage, with the public watching and admiring. A true act of love, on the other hand, requires hard work and patience, and for some, it is a whole way of life. But i predict that at the very moment when you see despairingly that, despite all your efforts, you have not only failed to come closer to your goal, but indeed, seem even farther from it than ever--at that very moment, you will have achieved your goal and will recognize the miraculous power of our Lord, who has always loved you and has secretly guided you all along.

qt with tbk

I want to be praised and paid for love with love. Otherwise, i'm quite incapable of loving anyone...

I love mankind, but i find to my amazement that the more i love mankind as a whole, the less i love individual people. In my thoughts, I often visualize ecstatically the sacrifices i could make for mankind, and indeed, i might even accept martyrdom for my fellow men if circumstance suddenly demanded it of me. In actual fact, however, I cannot bear to spend two days in the same room with another person. And this i know from personal experience. Whenever someone is too close to me, i feel my personal dignity and freedom are being infringed upon. Within twenty fours hours, i can come to hate the best of men, perhaps because he eats too slowly or because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become a man's enemy the minute he touches me. But to make up for it, the more i hate individual people, the more ardent is my general love for mankind.

...what is the answer then? Is it completely hopeless?

No, because the very fact that it worries you is enough in itself. Do the best you can and it will stand you in good stead. As it is, you have done a great deal, for you have come to know yourself deeply and sincerely. However, if you have spoken to me so frankly only to make me praise you for your sincerity, then of course, you will fail to accomplish true acts of love; all your good intentions will remain mere daydreams, and your whole life will slip by like a shadow. In that case, you will certainly forget all about the future life as well, and in the end you will somehow or other stop worrying altogether.

A bunch of us drove to the city limit and saw this sky. Deep thanks for all the bussday love. I will re: post-haste. Ah miss yew, elee

tldr;

It's friday night and I should be out with the rest of my friends--fixing my hair, checking my teeth, spilling beer, laughing with and at people. I could be out, enjoying this freedom, my youth, exulting in the richness of my time and place.

But no. I'm at home. This week is all about recovery.

Earlier this week, I went to the dentist to finally get some work done on a tooth I broke awhile back. Lost a lot of blood then caught the flu the day after. >:| I'm medicated, but still don't feel rested. There is so much to do. I try not to think yet about everything coming soon, all the things I need to do, but one thing--that I need to pay my student loan bill--breaks through and now my head floods--I have to remember to write people back, and how many emails can I send in the next two hours. For how long can I continue the commute to work? Will I be able to pull my weight living with my relatives, will I be too busy, will we fight? How much should I/can I/will I burden them? Should I lighten my hair? Does whitening tooth paste really work? I need health insurance. I'm already sick. I must get started. Maybe I should work out. I could go to the gym. At least 30 minutes, a few dumbbell workouts. I haven't talked to my parents in awhile. I should call. I wonder what they're doing right now.....

These kind of thoughts usually emerge during the course of my commute and act as a web of constraints my responsibilities impose on me, or maybe I just put it on myself. Example, each class this term kicked the shit out of me emotionally during the first week. I told another teacher, dude..it feels like i'm herding pidgeons. But some useful advice I got from a fellow teacher was 1) have fun and 2) take it slow. Teaching at a hagwon/language academy is about perception vs. reality--in particular, what hagwons can, in reality, teach and what they can't. These academy classes are fundamentally not equipped to teach content. Instead, we focus on skills. Do the students know how to identify the topic and main idea of the paragraph? Find the major details? That is our job. Students learn when they are actively figuring things out, trying to teach themselves, not passively drifting through a class, expecting to be taught. It is implausible to actually teach them about the U.S. civil war or abstract art or seagulls (real topics). I want to design my classes not around what I will do, but what the students will do, to let them take command of their own learning, and to encourage using English as a way of thinking, learning about the world around us. Epiphany sounds too transcendent, but this was quite a realization for me. It probably won't make teaching any easier, but worthwhile, maybe.

Like these students, from one of my favorite classes. They're presenting a yoga pose and one of them wore his aikido uniform to class, so of course I made him go up, then took a photo. heh heh.

Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.” -Thomas merton

#4 THINGS I NEED TO REMIND MYSELF:

-this is only temporary

-nothing lasts forever

-be positive

-everything takes time

it won't be long until morning comes

I woke up late again this morning. You snooze, you lose. what? I missed my bus + had to wait 25 minutes for the next one. sigh!

Today, on the bus, i remembered to eat the snack my aunt packed for me. The strawberries were sweet and satisfying. More snacks should be like that, which leads me to,

#3 Strawberries in korea are the best i ever had!

Anyway, for a few weeks now i've been making a 70 minute commute to work. Each way. That's about 3 hours of travel per day. Yikes. At least the time passes comfortably. The ride is monotonous, but also soothing and meditative, the utter lack of thinking unnecessary, no worry possible in this bus with its heated seats and quiet aisles. It is bliss.

Yet soon, i imagine, it will all become too boring to continue because continuing would be a sort of death and show a terrible lack of respect for my valuable time. So i'd like to move from Bundang, closer, within reach of my school, over the river, all that water, the bridge, all those miles away....to Ilsan, where i will live....alone?

No. No, i wouldn't. Not now. I live too far from my work but i am sure at this point that i should stay here, this is where i will be. More and more my uncle, aunt, their kids are truly becoming family. They constitute the only ties i still have to home and their presence is immeasurably comforting. My progress adjusting here is being followed and checked up on by family and friends abroad as well (this very blog is a testament to that!) and i'm grateful for all the extensions of support. Hopefully it is mutual!

surviving in korea #2

My friend remarked to me on the phone, "There's a line in the movie 'Juno' that i really liked...

Juno: I think i'm in love with you.

Paulie Bleeker: You mean as friends?

Juno: No, i mean, for real. Cause you're, like, the coolest person i've ever met, and you don't even have to try.

Paulie Bleeker: I try really hard, actually."

We talked about how lots of things...like getting your errands done, buying bread, flossing your teeth and basically keeping your life from degenerating into a state of entropy requires extraordinary effort. And when life actually functions, it looks effortless. Isn't that ironic? Like a sculpture that looks effortlessly crafted or a one handed backhand that looks so carefree...things that take enormous amounts of effort, energy, training, thought to be distilled into one object or moment that looks as though it took no effort at all. What paradox!

During the grueling orientation + training week for CDI, i felt nothing like a teacher--not loud, not powerful, not affecting much at all. But something happened once i met the students--i felt prepared and did not panic. I only thought: Weird, this is exactly what i expected.

Although moving to Korea was a meditated decision, i am sitting here in a room much too big, already bored of devising lessons plans and feeling unsure of what the rest of the year will bring. But! I am here and i want to celebrate it, like d.eggers wrote, "revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its echoes...the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha! being that much more layered, the depth luxurious, not soul-sucking or numbing but edifying, ramifying." so there is first the experience: me, moving here. then there are the echoes from these things having been done before (i guess moving in/out of atlanta/chicago) and the awareness of what i learned then, accepting and embracing those lessons as enrichment. and above all recognizing its value in the present. so,

#2 Harder, better, faster, stronger. finally finally finally.

surviving in korea

It's been 2 weeks but i am learning to survive in korea. it has been impossible to ignore so i have to write it out. this will be a little serious, mostly boring, but i promise, you won't be wasting your time.

#1 Koreans are aggressive shoppers!

My uncle and aunt asked if i wanted to join them on a food run to E-mart(a massive grocery store that also sells clothes/accessories). I was willing but not ready. There, i saw what was wrong with Korea, the glaring flaws of it, aghast, amazed. Look how things are! LOOK, at how, for instance, there are all these people pushing, climbing over each other to get on the elevator! Look at how their legs are working and strong enough to use the stairs! Look at how people charge past, and in their hurriedness, literally, move you aside because you are in their way! Have you heard about this? How if this happens, you just have to take it? It's completely ridiculous.

But soon it will be okay. Of course it will take time. A part of surviving here, i realize, is getting through the long day, fighting the weather and the crowds and then still holding a door open for someone.