"What I Don't Want to Do...that I do..." Simply a pre-Christ reality?

Hello again.

It has been a long time. As usual, when things don't go as things ought or seem like they should go, I come back here, not knowing whether what I am thinking and feeling and the way I am acting should be recorded on public record. And yet there is a sort of accountability through this method.

I made a big mistake today by having dinner with a female colleague. That in and of itself isn't so bad, but the fact that I broke a long-standing promise with Sinae NOT to eat alone with one woman is what made it bad. I was in a difficult situation before and Sinae was probably more understanding than she needed to be but today I didn't get the same same slack.

I know I was wrong. I know what I could have done differently. I just have a knack for finding myself in these compromising types of situations. How? Today it started because I casually mentioned that I was going to lunch and the other person asked if she could join me. Stumbling over what I could say so as not to sound accusatory I find myself agreeing, knowing I would pay for the decision for the next few days or however long. I was hoping I'd get the same benefit of the doubt as before and when I read the message my heart sank even deeper and that is where I have been all afternoon. Of course I know that if I would have just slipped out quietly that there would have been no problem. It's just that I don't think a step ahead and then I find myself in compromising situations.

You know I struggle with shame. Shame has been my bedfellow for as long as I can remember. It's the one friend I've always had that understood my pain when nobody else did and it's also the friend that has kept me humble. It's also the friend that constantly impairs my judgment, the friend that tells me I should get angry with Sinae for asking me sensitive questions about how I relate to women when all I really have to do is show her that I love her.

And those words that I hear every now and again really sting me. Those words that I don't really love Sinae. I won't say where the source comes from. You can probably figure that out, yourself. The important thing here is that I am failing at loving Sinae in a way that she knows I really love her that isn't just lovey dovey, impractical emotional sentiment. And today, this very moment, I find myself rock bottom at the bottom of the barrel of what it means to love another human being feeling totally clueless as to how to love someone else as well as how to overcome my own inadequacies.

I find myself at the foot of the cross once more, where the ground is level, where nobody is adequate enough. I hear the Wesleyans saying we sin no more, which may be an oversimplification of that theological tradition. And I hear the Calvinists say that we are inclined to do this continually. My understanding of the Bible and theology says that's bogus and yet that is where I find myself experientially on July 25, 2011 at 6:14pm, Korean local time.

Another voice I hear is the voice of St. Paul, whose words have been twisted every which way to suit various peoples' theological interests. Perhaps the two most extreme views are one that says Paul himself sinned continuously for he himself said "what I don't want to do that I do and what I want to do that I don't do." Then on the other side are those who say that for Paul to have confessed to constant sin would undermine his whole argument that Christ makes us free from sin.

You can probably induce rather easily that I fall in line with the latter, but in my experience in this moment I sympathize with the latter. I wonder if it could be possible that when we forget who we are and whose we are, that is when we fall into the grip of sin but that when we find ourselves AGAIN at the foot of the cross, confessing, "Almighty God, I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed..." that the Triune God responds with "Of course you have. You forgot me."

I hope things will be okay, that I'll find ways to keep myself away from compromising situations. I think for the rest of this week, I'll be making sure I make it up in time to eat breakfast. And I'll skip lunch and take time to focus on my natural inclination to sin and try to find my way through the forest with my friend, Shame. I want to start with you, God. I confess that I have sinned against YOU in thought, word and deed, in what I have done and in what I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart and I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on me and forgive me of ALL my sins that I may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name, forever. Amen.

And then I turn to you Sinae, and then to all of my other neighbors whom I have let down in so many ways. I don't expect you to give me another chance. God knows I don't deserve that. Whatever happens, I'll do my best to learn from this situation and change my own behavior, with God's help. If you find it in your hearts to forgive me, then I will change, with God's help. But I really can't do it alone. Is there anybody out there who will help a friend of Shame to find his way?

Ice Cream and Gravesites

I heard a story today that touched my heart in the most mysterious way. Before I tell that story, I'd like to tell a story of my own about someone very dear to me who died without me even being able to say goodbye to her.

My favorite place to go when I was a child was to my mom's hometown, actually six miles or so outside of city limits. My friend was a person of few words and had a love that seemed to know no end. When it came time for my parents to want to leave, Grandma would always ask us if we would like to have some ice cream and cake before we leave. Eventually my brother and I learned this was a good way to delay our departure back home which took several hours. We learned to say, "Grandma, can I have some ice cream." Because she loved us more than her own self, she would always say yes. And we were usually able to buy another thirty minutes or so before we had to leave.

Unfortunately, Grandma is not here with us, at least not in visible site. And that is why the next story I want to tell is so touching. The story is quite simple. There was a person who ate ice cream at the graveside where his parents were buried. That's the story. And there is something that is literally bittersweet (no pun intended) about that kind of a scenario. I imagine myself doing that very thing, asking Grandma why she didn't call me while she was in the hospital or why she didn't do this or that to prevent her passing. And I know that as I eat that ice cream that Grandma is somehow with me just as the person who actually did this experienced her or his loved ones' presence as s/he ate that ice cream.

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.