A Moment That Time Skipped By

It’s almost over.

11:00 December 25, 2009.

All of the secrets are unwrapped, and displayed on the inside of the house. I am outside, wondering what has happened to time.

It seems like this year went by so fast. I remember how it started. It was my birthday, as it often is. We were packing boxes up and pretending not to be sad about losing each other. I got a call from someone I thought I was in love with. It is now nearly a year from that day.

I’m not.

And Christmas has come and is nearly gone again. Time does not march.

It races.

All my energy has been spent trying to catch up with it, and now I realize that things must change. Here I am outside the house where I grew up. Outside in the cold. I hope, if it is cold enough, time will stop, and let me catch my breath. Catch it, and watch it pass from me like a vapor. In this small stretch of time we have, I hope that I am seen any bit as clearly. That is all we dare hope for. I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

But it’s Christmas, and I think I have had plenty of time to ask for things for myself.

My God, the stars.

I know it makes no difference to think, but I wonder what they looked like on the night He was born. I wonder how black the sky, how dark the clouds. Was there a moon?

Of course, there’s always a moon. Even if you can't see it, it's there.

I wonder what those two eyes, so close, and yet so far removed from humanity looked at that night. Did the sky acknowledge him, and welcome, or was he human in that strange way that we all are, where despite being under a canopy of stars, knit together by love, we can see nothing in them but ourselves?

I don’t know, and I think it’s beautiful that I don’t know.

You’re still out there.

You’re holding needle and yarn to this great canopy, and I can only see myself. What parts of me I can find, that is. Just this time, just this once, before you go, before time passes through me at that speed I’ve become so accustomed to, I want to ask you one thing.

Don’t go. I can almost see you.

I know it’s not really the right day, but happy birthday.

Honey Mustard

I performed in a play at my church this last Sunday. I also helped write it, and had to get up early after getting a somewhat less than ideal 4 hours of sleep thanks to my friend Jina's awesome Christmas party, and a gentleman by the name of Jose Cuervo.

Anyway, this play was about Christians who complain too much. One of the characters complained about spending too much time serving at church.

I resonate with that.

Or, at least, I would, if I had time to.

Guys, I seriously spend Soooo much time at church. People are always asking me, "hey, man, when are you going to start dating?" or "when are you going to finally hammer out your career goals and start working on them?" Or even "didn't you tell me about that book you were writing? When Can I see a draft of that?"

"Oh. Um... now's not a good time. I'll get back to you after Easter."

That is how it has always been. I was talking to a good friend of mine last week who does a lot of the same stuff I do. We have some slight differences in what we do and how we feel about that, but one conclusion was reached by the both of us.

Something has to change.

So, lately I've been thinking a lot about what I can get rid of. It seems the natural thing to do, I just can't seem to do it. What should I get rid of? Programing/brainstorming for new series? That's kind of important. The youth group? I don't even know who would step into that role if I wasn't there. Then there's all these new initiatives with the homeless that we're doing. I don't want to quit those. Even the non-church stuff I do (Open Mic Night, film stuff, writing in this blog) seems so important to me. I just can't choose what to abandon.

I think that the problem is that my loves are to varied and specific. For example:

I LOVE Jr high students.

I LOVE the homeless.

I LOVE teaching little kids how to read.

I LOVE encouraging young artists to pursue their craft, and I love providing a platform for them.

I LOVE Teaching/learning from the Bible.

I LOVE making movies (even/especially if they're dumb)

I LOVE writing and performing my poetry.

I LOVE coming up with crazy, off the wall ideas to get my point across.

I LOVE honey mustard sauce.

That last one really is true.

Love it.

Honey mustard sauce got me thinking just now. Love it. The thing about honey mustard is that it is a combination of two things that don't seem like they go very well together.

Honey

sticky, sweet. Used on toast in combination with peanut butter to make an awesome sandwich.

Mustard

Abrasive, bitter. Used in combination with some stuff I don't understand to make a noxious gas.

Hmm.

But it's delicious.

It occurred to me that maybe simplicity is a lot like honey mustard. Maybe it's not about how do I choose what I'm not going to do, but how do I combine the bitter abrasive with the sticky sweet to make some awesome honey mustard?

Let me try one...

What if I have my Jr high students come out to hang with the homeless in the park, and then we could make a movie about what we learned?

How about...

I move to the inner city and start a creative writing program with some of the inner city kids so that they can learn to channel some of their energy into some type of positive thing? They could perform what they've created somewhere for their parents and other people too.

Or, even better...

Maybe I should move Open mic night to the park, where my homeless friends can come to it, then I could invite my Jr Highers to come and help, we could try to engage with the people that come with words from the Bible, as the students are learning to teach it. Somehow I'll have to fit teaching kids to read in there...

Seriously. It think I've got it. Life isn't about just abrasive or sticky sweet.

Life is Honey Mustard.

Throwing Stones, Skipping Stones, Stepping Stones

I had a revelation for Christmas this year.

Funny, that's what I always wanted.

It started during Easter. I was asked by my church to perform spoken word for Easter. I wrote something. I didn't really like it. To be honest, I'm not sure they really liked it either. I'm not sure anymore if my art belongs in a church. By the time I create it, censor it, and wrap it up in a neat little package that "goes with the theme," I hardly recognize it and everything just becomes a little flat. 

I wonder if Isaiah had to do "churchy" versions of his work...

Probably not.

Anyway, one way that we had decided to spice up my lacking spoken word piece was to add a vocalist. So, Carolyn (one of our vocalists at the time), Cindy (then director of creative arts ministries) and myself made a list of hymns that would be acceptable to sing snippets of in between my readings. One of the ones I liked was "Come, Thou FOunt of Every Blessing." I sent Cindy the lyrics and she sent me back a message.

Cindy: "Yeah, that's fine, just take the second verse out. You know, the one that talks about ebenezer. No one knows what that means."

Just take it out huh? NO one knows what that means? It kind of frustrates me when we have to dumb down literature or good music because the audience's literacy level has slipped below what it was at when the work was created. That's why we keep having to have new translations of the Bible. They don't make "more modern" versions of, say Moby Dick, or War and Peace. 

It seems like everyone wants church to be really easy. 

Insert Commodores reference here.

No, I'm not going to explain that to you. If you don't know, look it up.

Point being, I got all self righteous and huffy, talking about the decline of western civilization, and how we should all know what ebenezer means... blah blah blah, we ended up picking another song.

8 months later, I realize that I still don't know what ebenezer means. I think it has something to do with Christmas 

Insert Charles Dickens reference here (you had better know what that means)

So, I looked it up. Funny that no one in church knows what that means. It's actually a biblical reference.

btw, those of you that use wikipedia to look things up will note that Ebenezer may refer to an abandoned water park in DuPage County, Illinois. 

It doesn't.

You can find the reference to this in 1 Samuel 7:12. Basically, the Israelites had lost the Ark of the Covenant. Again. It seems like the Israelites treated the Ark of the Covenant like I treat my car keys. Everyone was in this big panic to get it back, and they actually did get it back, but there was no room in its normal place in Shiloh, because of all the monuments to other gods. At this time the army of the Philistines rose up against the Israelites. These guys were huge. I always imagine Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) up against Woody Allen (Jewish). Things were not looking good for Woody. Samuel, speaking on behalf of God, mentioned that some help could be had if the people of Israel would just get rid of all that extra stuff they had in storage for those other gods, and start worshiping their God, like the old times. They decided to try it, and the people of Israel had a spring cleaning day. wiped the floors clean of unholy sacrifices, ceased to burn grain to the wrong gods, and hauled some serious ass scooting false idols out of the temple. Right when they did this, God sent a huge thunderstorm, which scared Dwayne and all his friends out of their minds. I must have been one hell of a storm. Basically, Woody and crew went in there and cleaned up really fast, and that was the end of the war.

Simple, right? Ebenezer.

Okay, obviously, there's more.

Afterwards, Samuel erected a stone monument to God, and he called it "ebenezer," which means "stone of help." (If you had looked up the verse I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't have had to read anything up to this point. You see how research helps us?) It is a reminder that God will help us, if we would only ask, and obey what he tells us.

Stone of help! At long last. That is what it means. 

Christmas.

This revelation has changed my interpretation of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge's first name is Ebenezer. He is defined by help. That sounds soooo weird to me. He doesn't begin the story as someone helpful*. There are things that make him stone, like his demeanor, his heart, or the stubborn will he has to be so grouchy. I think maybe he has rocks in his head. But stone of help? Why would Dickens name him that?

I think he was trying to draw our attention to something.

The thing about the original ebenezer, from the book of Samuel, is that, before Samuel assigned that value to it, it really was just a rock. Rocks can be used for everything and anything. You can skip them across a lake. You can throw them (unless you live in a glass house, or are not without sin). You can even trip over them. They become something great when you assign a value to them. Even some of our greatest works of art were once just rocks. If you look at Michaelangelo's David in its original form, I doubt you would be impressed.

I think that's the way I look at Scrooge. It's probably even the way I look at myself.

So, anyway, that's what Dickens did. He assigned a value to Scrooge before anyone else could see it. He was just a regular stone. He could have been a stumbling block, a block head, another heart of stone, but he became a stone of help. That seems really deep to me. 

There are a lot a parallels to the scripture as well. The Israelites were worshiping false gods. Scrooge only cared about his money (the false god of choice in the western world). He (like the Israelites) had to be broken down. Faced with his eminent death, he realized that the things he cared about were absolutely meaningless, so he needed to find something that was meaningful. Scrooge found it in using his money to care for other people. By helping. By becoming a stone of help.

Dickens (like Someone Else I know) could see a person in his story as not who they were, but who they were becoming. And, I think, all the things that do not make sense about all people will one day be made clear. I wait for that day, and this Christmas, I celebrate one of the many ways that act of becoming is being made more clear to me

*If you don't know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, just watch TV a LOT for the next 2 weeks or so. You'll find it somewhere.

Empty Calories

A friend told me something about celery the other day that made me hate America.

My friend (who is a woman, and not the slightest bit overweight) told me that she makes sure to eat celery every day. "Celery," she informed me, "is negative calories." I had not heard of the concept of negative calories before, so I asked her to explain. Apparently, an average serving of celery has about 5 calories, and the act of chewing celery burns more than 5 calories, thus causing the act of eating it to consume more calories than ingested. 

She smiled when she said it, as though she had discovered something incredible.

What does the rest of the world think about negative calories, I wonder?

When did we miss the point of eating? Why do we try so hard to fill our bodies with emptiness, instead of eating what we need to survive, and then giving what is left over to someone else who might need it?

It's such a tragedy that this country suffers from obesity, given the global need for food.

How terrible is it that people die by the minute over something that is killing us by its excess in our lives? I'm frightened by what the popularity of celery means for America.  I think, in fact, that if a starving child in Africa heard about celery, and the whole negative calories thing, he would have a different reaction. I'll bet he would never want to eat celery ever in his life. It is a caloric parasite. Something we eat because we feel guilty about eating.

Maybe we should. Feel guilty that is, not eat celery.

I don't really have a graceful way to end this post. I just hope to think a little more in my life about the true purpose of things, so that I don't fall into a bad place because of their presence in my life: Eating is not something you do for recreation or to relieve boredom, dating is not something you do to reinforce your identity, the sabbath is not an observation to make you feel like a better christian, and charity is not about you either. 

The list goes on. 

As long as we are human, the list goes on.

The worst offense to a good thing is when it can be used to inflict evil on someone else.

Singing, Melting, Screaming.

I've decided that the healthy thing to do would be to move on.

I know that no one reading this really knows what I mean by the aforementioned statement, but bear with me. I feel the need to say it out loud, or write it somewhere permanent, just so that I can't say that I never said it. Now is the time to move on.

I want all of you out there to know how good it is to be in a relationship with God. I can't put into the proper words how much I am dependent on that confusing, frustrating, difficult thing we often refer to as Christianity. I've been healed from so much.

Be warned, this might sting a little.

I wish I could go back in time a little... like three weeks ago, and tell the past version of me what a waste of time it is to feel sorry for yourself. The future holds healing.

All we have to do is be brave enough to ask for it.

That is the key to it all, really. We have to ask. I think sometimes I like having scars. They make me feel important. They make me feel like an adult. I don't want to go crying to Daddy with every ache and pain.

Even though He aches and pains for us to do so.

He said that in this world we would have many troubles.

Take heart.

Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (note the capitalization).

I remember spraining my wrist when I was really little. And screaming. 

I kind of wish, as an adult, that I would still be able to scream as loudly as I wanted whenever I got hurt. When we grow up, we're supposed to pretend that nothing really hurts.

Anyway, my dad was there, and he came running up to me, and asked me to see my arm. I didn't want to do anything but cradle it close to my whimpering body. We always have our own version of healing, I guess. He kept asking, and would often try to grab at my arm when it was available, which only made me retreat further. It hurt when he touched it. How could he make it better when it hurt when he touched it?

It is a willful decision to show someone else our wounds. It's painful, it's embarrassing, its... just... 

We have to. Nothing will ever improve if you never pull your shaky arm out from behind your whimpering body and let your Father touch it. It's going to hurt a little more at first...

You may say it's impossible, but I'm telling you, He heals ALL wounds. He restores me daily. He makes me to lie down beside still waters. He put a new song in my mouth. A hymn of praise to our God.

He lifts his voice, the earth melts. I melt.

And then, I am just this pool, this useless thing, that can take no shape except to follow the contours of His hand, where I was when I lost my own shape. 

I shall not want.

I ask myself, and you, my loyal reader(s?), what wound are you afraid to show Him? 

He knows. He loves. He heals.

Scabies

I need some new clothes.

literally. 

Some people say they need new clothes like "oh, my God, I haven't been shopping in like, three months and I need new clothes!" I'm more like "I need a black shirt for my new job and all the pants I can wear for my old one are stained and/or with holes in them."

Not "new" clothes anyway. I don't buy new things.

I went into a Khols today. First time I've been in a legit clothing store in a long time. I forgot how good new clothes smell. Incredible. I kind of felt like it was Christmas, in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. Of course, I didn't buy anything there. As I mentioned before, I don't buy new clothes. Everything second-hand. I dream someday of buying brand new clothes without feeling like a failure. Someday, there will be new things that are not made by some misty eyed kid in Sri Lanka (but I bet they don't really cry anymore) . That's the goal. I can't wait for that day. In the meantime, I am resolute to not support the textile industry.

The cashier at Goodwill told me that someone she knows got scabies from clothes bought at the store I was at. 

Gross. I'm taking a shower.

It could be different. I could have dedicated myself to a career, gotten some full time work, spent A LOT less time volunteering at church stuff, and get paid to do all the stuff I do for free. Then I would have money, and a little power, perhaps a small amount of fame. Who knows, I might be pretty talented if I didn't have to do so many damn church slideshows...

but then...

...who would I be?

There's always two sides to the equation, two choices we can make for how we spend our lives. I chose to invest in other people. That's why I'm so poor I have to check my bank balance before I do my laundry. You can't have both. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was rich and had no compassion. Or, perhaps I could trade in a little of my compassion for a little more money. 

How much would I trade?

To quote the great Calvin and Hobbes, "As usual, goodness doesn't put up much of a fight."

On the one hand, we have a small, quiet life, filled with a reasonable amount of comfort (perhaps a wife and kids). On the other, stress, worry, poverty, and of course, scabies.

I choose scabies, and I refuse to feel anything about that decision except relief.

And perhaps a little itchiness.

Bleeder

Funny story.

I got mugged last week.

Then my apartment got broken into.

Haha.

My mom tells me I have a weird sense of humor.

Everything's weird these days though. It seems that the direction of my life has gotten really dramatic. No middle ground anymore. It's always something really awesome coupled with something that really sucks. I get mugged, Sean and Jon come and visit me. I get to meet Sasha's family in Chicago, My car battery dies and I get a parking ticket. I have so little money that I can't buy groceries, but my friend takes me out to dinner. I like it like this. It's more interesting.

It's like I tell HyounJun every time he gets into one of my crappy 3rd generation hand-me-down cars for a long road trip: It's going to be an adventure.

What adventure would be complete without a twisted plot and agonizing losses, coupled with the eventual victory of all that is good, the restoration of the hero to his rightful place, where everyone cheers as he destroys the enemy, reunites with his trusty side kick, and finally gets to kiss the girl? That's why I don't worry when things go wrong. I hope for a happy ending.

Is that my story? I really need to get a side kick.

...among other things...

I probably should get a new wallet too.

The point is- 

Actually, I don't think I have a point. 

Well, maybe I do, but I don't think it's my point to make. Can you imagine if I was the one in charge of my story?

I was once "in love" (quotations indicate sarcasm, not towards love, but towards myself) with this girl. She was all that I could think about. I spent every weekend with her, and talked about her all the time, and when I couldn't hang out with her, I wanted to die. Smitten for sure. My friends were happy for me. They liked that I liked somebody. This was one of the first times that I ever thought that someone could like me, too. She also hung out with someone else sometimes, but that wasn't a big deal. We had this indelible connection. Nothing could possibly separate us. It was time to rearrange the alphabet and put U and I together. It was like a movie. If I was in charge of this story, I would be with her now. Who knows? We might even be engaged.

But I'm not. So, I didn't. She's actually with "someone else" right now, and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. It wasn't really like a movie, now that I think about it. Well, maybe it was, but it was more like a made for TV movie. A Lifetime Original Movie, or one of those BBC movies starring the UGLIEST actors in the world, who somehow manage to not even have great personalities, despite their obvious physical shortcomings. Isn't it supposed to work like that?

Not that I'm calling her ugly.

Not that I'm not.

The story that is my life would be quite a small one if I were in charge of writing it. Right now it's a strange, often frightening, always complicated, rarely safe, never boring, completely wonderful and awe inspiring thing. It tugs and tickles. It draws tears and blood, and it makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

How wonderful. How marvelous. 

And my song shall ever be...

I hope my apartment gets broken into again. I hope every wallet I ever buy gets stolen. I hope that the woman I "love" leaves me for a ham and cheese sandwich on my wedding day. The pain grows our dreams. The crying, the waiting... they make men out of boys and warriors from cowards. We are cut in half and we bleed. We bleed and we grow. We see our bodies turn red, and that's how we know we are alive.

And the writer of our story just keeps on writing. Despite us.

Good. Maybe He can make something of me.