To Know or Not to Know...that is the question

Yesterday, I thought I was doing a good thing. I have to finish grades by Sunday night and I am also in the midst of preparing for my wedding with Sinae which will happen in various phases. Yesterday, I was confronted with two questions I've struggled with before: (1) the relationship between church and government and (2) the relationship between knowledge and choices.

I read on the US Embassy site that the marriage takes place at the District Office. I didn't realize that disregarded any public profession of one's commitment to one's spouse. I thought that Sinae and I would go to the courthouse together and take the next step to getting married. I didn't realize that our marriage would be complete in that one step.

As we walked about of the courthouse, I learned that what I thought was just a signature for something I didn't understand was a signature to commit oneself to one's spouse.

Of course, once it was brought to my attention that I had acted out of oblivion, there was a question of how much accountability I would have. Would it matter how much I knew or didn't know? Obviously I was not looking to get out of the commitment I had made, just to receive a little understanding over my blunder. After all, we still have two ceremonies left, not to mention the wedding night.

In spite of all the debate about how much separation of Church and State there is or ought to be in America, I saw that some countries have more separation than the most liberal politician might dream of. There seems to be a paradox because in the eyes of the law Sinae and I are really married and yet we won't be spending the night together until after the second wedding ceremony in South Korea.

When I was in seminary, and pondering all the great ideas of the world, one point of thought that really stumped me was Agnosticism. One of my uncles convinced me that Agnosticism is an idealism contrary to reality because we have to make choices based on the limited knowledge that we have and to say we don't have to make choices simply because we don't know something can easily become a scapegoat. Now I look at it another way. And perhaps his explanation had this meaning as well, that we have to make choices based on the very fact that we don't know. And even after we make the choice, we have to own up to that choice and the knowledge that we didn't have at the time.

I couldn't possibly resolve either of those questions in this short blog. The way that separation takes place is different depending on one's geographical location as well as one's philosophical and theological convictions. That probably sounds pretty individualistic, doesn't it? I don't want to end there. As of yet, I don't have a good solution to this dilemma, a way to get around rugged individualism without denying the uniqueness of each person or group of people who carry with them a variety of experiences.

On the second question, I wonder if the focal point on "knowledge" is the wrong place to start and if we need to look instead at the choices we have to make. We have to turn right or turn left. We can spend money on ourselves and write it off on our taxes or we can give it to someone else and still write it off on our taxes. We don't give money to the beggar on the street because we don't know how the person is going to use our money. All the while, we are basing are decision on what we don't know rather than on what we do know. And we will probably have to answer to our Maker someday and give an account on why we did what we did without the proper knowledge.

I Just Don't Have Time

I've been falling into my same old habits of feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. I think I developed a habit in Bible school of laying in bed for eight hours with the intention of getting up after a "nap" late at night but never getting up. The result of that is waking up the next morning and feeling like I have been up all night as well as the feeling of being overwhelmed because I didn't do any work last night.

There seems to be a funny intentionality game here. It seems that whatever I intend to do I don't get everything done that I seem to want to do. So it would seem like I would be better off to simply listen to that voice that knows I can't do everything because that voice usually winds up winning anyway.

How can this effect my habits? When I have this feeling of being overwhelmed I try not to do anything but work. That means no exercise, no studying Korean, no cleaning my apartment and no reading.

So, tonight I'm starting over again. I recognizing again that I am a human being and that I can't do everything. And the most important thing is for me to intentionally get eight hours of sleep or as much as I can get before getting up early enough to drop off some coffee in a colleague's office and get on the train bound for Seoul at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. I hope this will be a time of preparing for a class coming up where I will be a student, that I can take some time to thank God for the eventful life I'm experiencing, and also ask God to take me out of the way of whatever things lie ahead of me.

I wonder if anyone else struggles with the same sort of thing.

When All You Can Do Is Laugh

Last week was a mixed bag of learning about how to use and how not to use my sense of humor, and probably in the opposite order. I went on a trip with colleagues and felt like I was misunderstood when I was trying to be sarcastic about something. That trail followed me when I apparently misused the expression, "So you all sat there like bumps on a log" to make my point that we always use a method in teaching. And of course I was less serious than Sinae needed me to be about something that was bothering her (Little did I know that the subject at hand was bothering her).

These circumstances brought to mind the counsel that one friend of mine gave me several years ago, to consider stop joking around since it can easily become a tool we use to hide from others or use it against others in some way.

Thankfully, there was one situation (and perhaps others that I overlooked at the time) where having a sense of humor got me through a situation (as I think is the case with a lot of situations throughout my life). It was in the middle of one of my classes when I would normally have gotten upset because students weren't participating in class. And I will be giving them less points for participation, but the experience itself may be the funniest I've seen in the three years I've been teaching in the classroom in South Korea.

There were five students who were about as detached from the classroom as they could be. Two students, one female and one male, were just sitting there saying nothing to each other. After much prodding, the male student told me the reason they weren't speaking was because of "cold war". Two male students who were supposed to be working together on drawing up a healthy lifestyle were making flowers out of some type of artistic material (i.e. foam) rather than talking to each other. The third scenario was with a female student who was sitting by herself, taking pictures of people with her cell phone.

The rest of the class seemed to be talking to each other (two students, one person talking to the other) about how to have a healthy lifestyle. But when I asked them what they came up with, they gave me one word answers. So here is what the class came up with altogether, with some revision on my part.

1. Life can be stressful to the point that we think we are in a cold war.
2. That's when we need to change our actions and start by making flowers out of paper.
3. And after making flowers, we would do well to enjoy them by taking pictures.
4. And after looking at the pictures we can take a minute just to smile.
5. Then we need a moment to do nothing...
6. At which time we can do some stretching...
7. and relieve the excess mental stress by going jogging.

A Tragic Ending

I just finished watching the 126th episode of "High Kick through the Roof". This series was my company while I ate meals at home alone. I watched this many times when I was depressed and it enabled me to express my frustrations through crying. My favorite male character was probably Ji-Hoon who had the affection of to women, though he only dated one of them. I like him because he is cool, a doctor and he is considerate of others. But actually his character changes for the better as the series progresses. My second favorite character is Jun-hyuk who is a high school student. At the beginning of the show he is a gangster but he also changes as he falls in love with Se-Kyung, my favorite female actress. Even though Jun-hyuk's family is rich, and his mom doesn't have compassion for Se-Kyung or Sin-Ae (incidentally a name similar to my fiancee), Jun-hyuk convinces his mom to take in these two sisters and he does things for them without announcing it to the whole family.

Se-Kyung is probably around Jun-hyuk's age and she is a housekeeper, and a good one at that. She starts out very mellow in the beginning and becomes more relaxed as the show progresses.

Although these are my favorite characters, I see myself the most in Jun-hyuk's dad, who is always making some kind of a mistake and can't seem to do things right, even if his life depends on it, until the series is nearly over.

The irony of this series is that Se-kyung and Sin-ae, who come with hardly any money to their names, and work in a rich family, are actually rich in terms of character. Sin-ae is usually happy except for the understandable disappointments of having to be the guest of someone else's house. Se-kyung is very pretty and has a lot of character which is often overlooked by Ji-hoon until nearly the end of the series. Jun-hyuk continually tries to win her heart and only comes close in the second-to-last or last episode.

This drama or sitcom, depending on what part of the world you live in or were born in, is good for its rich variety of conversation. With the various ages of people, one can learn how to address people in Korean using honorifics as well as the lower form without honorifics between friends or loved ones. This gets to be a little tricky because not everyone uses the honorific-less form just because they are the same age or even if they are dating.

I won't tell you how the story ends in case you are interested in viewing this series yourself, which you can easily find on the internet with English subtitles.

Oddly enough, as I finish this series, I myself am a little depressed. I suppose it could be that the series is over, though I'm planning on watching it again to improve my Korean. I suspect there are other issues at play such as job issues, wedding preparation, being engaged to a graduate student in South Korea, my future job and other related aspects. I've been wrestling with shame, which I see as a significant theme in "High Kick through the Roof". I see the two greatest "shame-carriers" being Bong-suk (I hope I have his name right) and Se-kyung, who simply endures a lot of heartache. It's bad enough that she and Sin-ae are separated from their dad for an uncertain amount of time but to not even be noticed by the man she has the most affection for is even worse.

As I watch the end of this episode, the question of the meaning of life comes to my mind. Many questions confront me, like, Why does a good thing have to come to an end? Why does a person have to give up a good relationship for the sake of supporting her family? What gives a grandpa the right to treat his son-in-law disrespectfully until the son-in-law proves himself?

But I don't think the producers of this sitcom want the show to only impress a person at that level. Instead, I see a different motive in mind. It is the things that seem the most routine, and the most annoying at the time, that develop our character and it is those things that we look back on both in laughter and in genuine sobriety that form us and make us into better people. And, if we are blessed, we find ourselves in the moment we dream of, even if it only happens in the last moment.

The Next Chapter

Next week starts the beginning of the next chapter of Mom's recovery. She has a few days to enjoy spending quality time with her friend (aka "the bag") before they part ways. Surprisingly enough, Mom seems to be looking more forward to saying goodbye to her long-time friend than she does to "going under", the process necessary in order to say goodbye to her friend.

The first step is to prepare for a colonoscopy on Monday morning and then if all goes well, to have her surgery at the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning, which is supposed to be a two-hour long process.

I'm feeling a little strange about this process myself. I guess you could say I feel helpless. For some unknown reason, I am really comfortable working around the hospital, perhaps because of my experience in medical transportation. And this environment seems to be more comfortable for me than the rest of my family. Unfortunately, because the semester has already started, I am not able to be around home in order to help out the family. I was hoping the surgery would be in February but things went a little longer than we expected.

But perhaps this is a good chance for my family to do the things that I did when I was able to. I am hoping to do whatever I can from far away, like sending flowers or writing cards and certainly, calling Mom as much as possible.

I will certainly miss spending the day at the hospital and writing long letters to Sinae, my fiancee, but I am also very glad that I don't have to be separated from her by the Pacific Ocean this time, too. If you are able to spend some time with my mom, I know she will appreciate the company. But if you, like me, have unalterable circumstances, will you join me in praying for my mom and encouraging her through other means? You will certainly be extending grace to her, whomever you are.

I Don't Want to be Perfect

I just finished reading, "Dare to Be Average!-Ways to Overcome Perfectionism", the 14th chapter in his book, "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy". Before I finished reading this chapter, I had a little squabble with Sinae, the cause of which was probably related to the same subject as this chapter.

I've been thinking about the counseling session we had yesterday and the things the counselor told us. I blindly followed everything he told us then and have been thinking about it today. The main things I remember are him telling Sinae to speak very easy Korean since I said that Korean would be our language of choice. I mistakenly assumed that Sinae was trying to speak even easier Korean after that and wound up criticizing her for speaking easy Korean to me. Of course, this aggravated her because here she was trying to speak simple Korean and I was still criticizing her.

The second thing he said was that we always have shame and that we can never get rid of it. We just have to know how to deal with it. As soon as I heard that, I start analyzing whether this was a Calvinistic ideal or simply a realistic approach. Either way, I didn't like that notion because it gave me a sense of defeat that I could never overcome my shame.

I'll let those thoughts hang for a while and see what you think. I've been struggling more with the concept of Sinae loving me and me loving her this week more than I did last week. I feel bad about our date yesterday because I didn't sleep very well and then I was tired after our counseling session. Since we weren't able to have a lot of deep conversation because of how tired I felt, I was a little sad when I got home. This was no problem to Sinae, of course. But I felt shame for not always being able to have deep conversation. I was so tired that I could hardly have conversation at all.

Back to Dr. Burns, he says some things about how glorious life can be when we are not trying to be perfect and the things we could miss out on if we were perfect. I think this gives me a better glimpse of what it means to love someone and perhaps this is why Sinae loves me, too. Read that last sentence correctly. I couldn't possibly doubt Sinae's love for me. I just find myself wondering why she loves me, sometimes.

"In fact, just think what it would be like if you were perfect. There'd be nothing to learn, no way to improve, and life would be completely void of challenge and the satisfaction that comes from mastering something that takes effort. It would be like going to kindergarten for the rest of your life. You'd know all the answers and win every game. Every project would be a guaranteed success because you would do everything correctly. People's conversations would offer you nothing because you'd already know it all. And most important, nobody could love or relate to you. It would be impossible to feel any love for someone who was flawless and knew it all. Doesn't that sound lonely, boring, and miserable? Are you sure you still want perfection?"