I had a good weekend with Sinae. We decided to draw a conservative physical boundary to ensure that we would have many deep conversations over the next few months. Sometimes it is more comfortable just to get physical because of our cultural and language barriers. So we both felt really good after keeping that boundary and having many deep conversations. I learned a lot about her family which explained why they have the concerns they have about us. I also told her some of the reasons why I think we have different understandings on the importance of family which she greeted with welcome arms so we seemed to have some mutual understanding without wholly understanding the other person’s thinking. Unfortunately, we had another qualm today which I will say more about in a minute.
Last night I set my alarm for the wrong time which resulted in me getting up an hour later than I should’ve. I didn’t realize this until I got out of bed. Had I skipped breakfast, I would’ve only been a few minutes late but I didn’t want to skip breakfast so I wound up choosing to eat breakfast rather than going to church. I thought I would just go late but with the distraction of reading some blogs I wasn’t ready until 11:30 or so. By that time it was too late to go to the service which usually ends at 12:00. So I decided to stay home and prepare for the English class I had to teach at the same church this afternoon. Incidentally, I saw a man at the park who is known as “Chaplain” by the International Church where he attends. I haven’t seen him in quite a while so it was nice to cross paths with him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t talk to him long because I had to teach the class at church. It was funny how he greeted me: “Hey, American Guy!” For some reason I wasn’t offended when I realized who it was. I went to the International Church and really enjoyed talking to him because he was blunt.
I taught the class at Grace Church (천안 은혜교회) and it seemed to go fairly well. I wrote out questions from an ESL website that involved scrambled sentences and trivia questions about Europe and the USA. I divided the class into two teams and had a competition back and forth. Because one student was better at English than the other students I had to be careful that he didn’t get all the glory.
After the class, I went with Yeon Sook (연숙씨), a good church friend to have lunch, since I skipped lunch in order to prepare for the English class. After that we went to an inauguration service at another church. While I was there, I was surprised to see the president of KNU (나사렛대학교), the university where I work, join the others on the platform. Then I remembered what a close relationship the university has with churches of the same denomination.
After the service, I headed home, thinking I would have some time to prepare for this week or rest for a while. Then I read a text message from my friend So-Hee (소희) who graduated from the university where I work and we wound up having sam-gyup-sal (삼겹살) with a student and one of her other friends. I was surprised how little they dominated the conversation. It turned out to be a pretty good conversation, though I was tired by the end.
I sent Sinae a text message in response to her message to me and somewhere around that time everything went south. It seems that the fact that I didn’t go to church was a really big deal to her. I wondered if it might be but since this happened once before I didn’t think it would be a big deal to her now. I was wrong. Perhaps that explains why she didn’t respond for a while. I sent her the message at 1pm telling her I didn’t go to church and she asked me about it this evening. She usually takes a nap in the afternoon so this may have had something to do with it.
The worst part about this is that when something starts to bother her she likes to have time to herself to think about this. This is hard for me to understand because if I am alone my molehills become mountains. But for her, it seems to be the opposite. I was afraid she might want alone time, which means we may not talk on the phone again until Thursday night.
Her concern is that she wants to be with someone who is a good spiritual leader. I expressed my concern about whether it is important for me to go to church when I can’t understand the Korean sermon and I am not needed in that service. Of course I believe I should go to church, but I also need to see the practical reason for it, especially because of my INTJ personality. Before I started dating her, I dreamed of talking with my girlfriend and, eventually, wife, about the many questions in my head. Of course I was just dreaming of my own conception of the perfect woman. But now I’m beginning to wonder if this is possible. I’m not sure what I could’ve done differently except to say much less about why I didn’t go to church. Since Sinae asked me, “You didn’t listen to the service?” in Korean which I understand to mean, “You didn’t go to church?” I thought she wanted to know why I didn’t go to church. Then I figured that because she has struggled with a lot of questions herself, that she would understand my situation, particularly because I don’t speak or understand Korean well. But this time my suspicions were dead wrong.
I suspect her disconcerted feelings are related to the problem we had last Sunday (exactly a week ago). I was frustrated in the church service because I couldn’t understand what the pastor was saying, again because he preached in Korean. Apparently I am in the valley of culture shock, tired of not being able to understand Korean spoken at the speed of fluency, feeling stupid, as if I will never learn to speak Korean fluently. I expressed that concern to Sinae in some passive-aggressive ways (see previous blogs for further details) which led to having a disagreement. That issue was related to cultural understandings and a bad tone on my part. But this time it was about my own personal struggle which apparently also hits home with Sinae.
I thought there might be someone else who has talked about this struggle online (http://www.musicademy.com/2009/03/why-men-hate-going-to-church/). I couldn’t find much on the search, “What is the point of going to church when you can’t understand a sermon which is in another language?” but I did stumble across an article about David Murrow’s book, “Why Men Hate Going to Church.” I found this article quite stimulating, affirming and reassuring that I am not the only one who struggles to go to church.
While I could pass this off as simply being about culture or language, I think that is only part of the puzzle. I do think there is a very real inner struggle in me about going to church. I’m not sure where this comes from, since I loved going to church when I was a child. Perhaps it happened when I started to think about the implications or because I struggled with my faith or was involved in a church whose numbers dwindled down from nearly 40 people to somewhere around 10 people. I’m not sure about the numbers but there was no argument that the church lost people as a result of a pastoral change or perhaps because of the behavior of some of the people in the church at that time.
Well, I have yet to receive a reply to my text message, and perhaps I have found another issue that I have to sort through in order to be healthy so that I can be a better person and so that I can be the boyfriend that Sinae needs. Hold on...I just received a response. I’m a little nervous but I better check it out.
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