From "The Notebook" to "Forest Gump"

I've been thinking a lot about the past lately...perhaps too much. Watching "The Notebook" stirred up some raw emotions in me. It reminded me of my own past and things I've been struggling with lately. It seems to make one think a lot about choice, though the gist of the movie seems to be about loyalty to the person one loves. Then I watched "Forest Gump", a movie about a guy who seems to be doing his own thing but then winds up making a significant difference. Of course the movie deals with destiny from time to time. And I found myself at the altar of a Sovereign God this morning. My life has taken some interesting turns lately. I met a woman whom I expected to simply learn Korean from while she learned English, though I probably expected a little bit more. We fell in love and now we've been married for almost seven months. We didn't believe it at the time but things just fell together between us and our families accepting each other and now we are focusing on developing a healthy relationship with each other before we have children. Sometimes I really feel like I am my own worst enemy. If Satan is real, I could pretty easily convince myself that I am my own Satan. I find myself thinking back to the friends I had before I got married. Even though I didn't date them, I now see the emotional bond I had with them and why it was so important to my wife to cut those ties in order to be faithful to her. I wish that someone I could tell all of them thanks for all the things they taught me and that I'm sorry we couldn't be friends forever. I thought we could. But that we carry those memories with us. Some of those friends I didn't even bid goodbye to because I thought it would be rude to say, "I can't talk to you anymore because I'm getting married." And there is still a part of me that hopes that in God's sovereignty that those friends can somehow naturally become friends with my wife someday. Sounds impossible? With God, all things are possible, are they not? But lest I set myself up for disappointment, for now, I'm content entrusting those friends in God's loving care. After all, God can do more for them than I ever could.

A Shameless Time?

I haven't done cognitive therapy for a while. Does that mean I'm cured? This tends to happen until I have more stress or feel stupid for doing something wrong and then it is back to the Cognitive Therapy. I went to a meeting tonight about curriculum-development where I teach. I went with the mindset that I was going to learn but that I wasn't going to listen passively. I was certainly not passive but I don't know that I asked the questions in a comfortable way. However, I think asking those questions helped me to learn more. That seems a little odd since I am an INTJ. The time is currently 1:28 Korean Standard Time and I am debating whether to stay awake while I try to translate some surveys or if I should just go to bed. I'm trying to get a head-start so that I can spend some time with Sinae tomorrow. She's got cabin fever from hanging out in the apartment all the time. Sinae and I have been watching "Ghost Whisperers" which starts out family-friendly and then it gets more and more scary all the time. I'm also not sure whether showing a woman getting dressed is family-friendly. Speaking of family-friendly, I showed Sinae clips from "I Love Lucy" and "Home Improvement" and I told her how America was at one time family-oriented in terms of the way TV shows were presented. I wrote a paper on this when I was in high school from a more condescending perspective but I tried to tell Sinae in a more matter-of-fact way. This is a little more random than what I usually write about. I just wanted to put something fresh on here. I am being encouraged by people who leave comments and by those who don't. One of my friends reminded me of another perspective on facial gestures which I will post on that blog sometime in the near future.

Off With My Head...or at least my face

Sinae and I are learning that the greatest barrier in my relationship is my face. When we were dating, and even now that we have gotten married, she told me how handsome my face is. But now that we are meeting people and I can't hide my emotions, it is keeping her from enjoying company. So here I sit, wondering what on earth to do. I don't recall being told this reality by any American women but I suppose it happened. I tend to think this is not a bad thing. What human being is actually able to control her/his emotions all of the time to the point that s/he doesn't show what s/he is thinking. I believe I will become a hermit or at the most, interact with animals. I am trying not to protest this new revelation, though I find it difficult to fathom. At best, this is just cultural differences and I am afraid of what it might be at worst. Before I got married, I wanted to marry someone from a different culture, such as a black American, a Latina or a Korean. I thought the Bible talked about people coming together from different nations. Now I have to wonder if that notion is a downright lie because cultural norms seem to be laws by which we judge a person's morale. And it's amazing just how different our morale can be from one country to another. I'd invite you to join me in being a hermit, but somehow I guess that would defeat the purpose and you too might be offended by my facial expressions.

Still Trying to Grow

I continued my quest to grow through Cognitive Therapy by making files via the computer to use for sorting through my numerous negative thoughts. I'm hoping this will help me not just think about myself more positively but that it will also improve my quality of life by changing my behavior. I think today may have been a good start. I was with my wife all day today and we both seemed to enjoy each others' company. We were also doing different things though we were in each others' presence all day. Cognitive therapy is the beginning. I hope that during this vacation, and in the New Year, that I will find a renewed experience with God and that God will find me and renew me in a way I haven't known for a long time. However, regardless of what happens, I aim to continue my pursuit of truth in all facets, and I hope you'll join me whoever you are and wherever you are. I'll also try to be honest about what I am experiencing. Perhaps we can start the year fresh, together, as one people seeking for truth and finding it in the numerous ways that God reveals Godself to us.

Back to the basics...again

It's 12:50am and I am starting again at Ground Zero. No, there are no disasters. I'm still employed. I'm happily married, though my wife and I have hit a bump in the road with what language to communicate in. But I think my struggles with shame were the predecessor. I would like to trace my Christian experience from the time I got married. You may recall that I was thinking pretty seriously about Calvinism for a while. That was because I couldn't believe that there was a beautiful woman in this world who could love me for who I am and say to me, "No matter what, I will be here." I learned differently when I got married, that such a thing is true. I think we can call this the Honeymoon. And since my wife seemed to accept me unconditionally, I thought that God would have to accept me that way. I still believe my wife accepts me unconditionally, but I don't think that means she is indifferent to the way I act (aka the way I treat or her fellow Koreans). I'm learning that it is the unconditional love that has such high expectations and it is that unconditional love that confronts me to be different. It says something like, "You're stuck with me forever, Buddy. Are you gonna change or do you wanna make us miserable for the rest of your life?" So I'm learning that marriage doesn't make me perfect and it doesn't remove the many weaknesses that I have. I now think that it doesn't even cover up those weaknesses, whether they be minor or major. I would've thought that my weakness in cooking would be pretty minor but now I am finding myself dreading meals because I'm afraid of making a mistake. I really hate the feeling of not knowing what to do. Of course I can cook for myself, but cooking for someone else is another story. When I first got married, I found myself being more conservative and less cynical about God. Now I suspect I was replacing my relationship with God with my relationship with my wife. In other words, if things are good with my wife, and if we pray together then things with God must be good. Yet I hear God calling me back to God in a way I haven't heard in a long time. It seems to be as much God calling me back as it is a thirst in my heart to find God NO MATTER WHAT! So here I am. I suppose I'm making progress and successes (Something I will share more about when it becomes official) but that big capital S (Shame) is still hanging over me and it haunts me everywhere I go. You know where it has plagued me the most? In the classes I have taught. It seems that I extended the shame I feel to my students. And now I've extended it to my wife as well. So what am I going to do? I've been reading, "The Feeling Good Handbook" by David D. Burns. This is the same writer of "Feeling Good" which I highly recommended about a year or so ago. In his second book he recommends doing Cognitive Therapy fifteen minutes every day. So I'm finally going to start that tonight. So here is to yet another beginning back to the basics. That means pushing aside that constant nagging that I'm not being a good enough Christian unless I'm helping the poor (I might mention that voice still hangs around even when I am teaching English to children who can't afford to go to an academy, though I'm suspicious now that I see them with smartphones). I'm also going to cool it with the voice that tells me I need to move to another country or just go back home. I'm going to follow my favorite pastor's advice and stay where I am until God moves me. And I'm going to read the Bible, pray and look for ways to love my neighbor. That's my wife, the people who live on both sides of my apartment, the professors next to my office, the people I work with and the students I teach. Will you keep me accountable to this and call me on the carpet, so to speak, when I get all idealistic and poor-hungry? You can join me, too...if you want.

Living with Flaws

Why is it that when I tell my wife on a daily basis that I'm not perfect she seems to be okay with that but then when it comes to an issue that is more sensitive that issue seems to be enough to damn our relationship? The key word is "seems". We've been going on for several hours without saying more than necessary. I suppose it will end tomorrow but this being the big deal it seems to be, it may take longer. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get as much work done as possible so that I have room to negotiate tomorrow. Lest the reader think I'm arrogant, I know I have flaws. That's why I've become interested in Calvinism in recent weeks. This gives me a sense of freedom and acceptance. But in moments of not feeling accepted it makes me wonder if Calvinism can be true. And yet in those moments, such as these, where I don't understand why things are such a big deal, I find great peace in the idea that God might accept me in spite of my many flaws. However, that doesn't mean that God is really okay with my flaws. Could God be seen through the perspective of my wife, who although I think she will leave me if she has any sense, she probably won't and instead she will sweat drops of blood in order to make sure I'm a million times better. It's just that the idea of a loving God whom I can't see are get into an argument with seems much more romantic, no pun intended.

Taking the Reformers for Granted

I started reading the intro. to Calvin's Institutes. It's amazing how oblivious I am to the Reformers' suffering after all the theology I've studied. I think I've focused more on what they believed than who they were as people. And I'm grateful that John Calvin took the risk and wrote his Institutes. I'm not sure if I'll get them read before I have to return the book. If not, hopefully it will make good vacation reading. But then again, hopefully I'll begin to get started. I'm still trying to look at the eyes through the world of Calvinism to see whether this is a plausible perspective. I experienced two things today that made me think of this perspective. The first was in the church service I participated in today. It was in English, which was a nice change. We sang a sang that spoke of submitting to the Lordship of Christ. This struck me as odd in a way. If God is sovereign then why are we submitting ourselves to the Lordship of Christ? Doesn't Christ already have us? But then I wondered if there could be a paradox in that and if that is part of the futility of being human, that we don't really have a right to choose. The other was in an e-mail from a student who spoke of "losing" the Holy Spirit. I began to wonder what it might be like to not be able to lose the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is a downpayment which is to serve as a guarantee of what is to come, how could we lose the Holy Spirit. I hope s/he only meant that s/he felt like s/he had lost the Holy Spirit, but I suppose both are plausible in Wesleyan or Arminian thought.