Disappointed With God

I have decided that in an attempt to observe Christmas in a correct and reverent manner this year (as I am far removed from my usual range of distractions), I will only post on issues relating to the Advent season until the end of the month. I don't really want to talk about Christmas, with all the jingle in bells, decking of halls and ho's in triplicate. I really want to talk about the historical period of Advent, and its effect on both the broad global culture and the narrow lens through which I see it, commonly known as the Church.

However, on a completely hypocritical note, allow me to introduce...

My Ginger bread 집 한국. my 김gerbread 하우스.

I've just realized that the above comments will only be entertaining to people who speak exactly as much Korean as I do. If they speak less, they won't be able to read what I wrote, and if they speak more, they will probably think (perhaps know) that I'm an idiot.

Oh well, that's probably still a much wider audience than most of the other things I've written.

Though my "I'm-so-sad-that-I'm-still-single-even-though-I'm-really-nice-and-smart-and-might-be-attractive-since-there-aren't-any-pictures-of-my-face-on-this-site" posts are quite popular with the "20-something-and-I-live-with-my-mom" crowd.

Don't worry ladies. I've got plenty more where that came from.

Today, I want to talk about disappointment. There have been a lot of things in my life that have been disappointing.

My film "career."

The end result of the nearly 10 years I have been playing the guitar.

the six week "relationship" I had at the age of 24, as the result of the first time I ever asked a girl out (You see ladies? Your pity is always welcome here).

My New Years resolution to "always do my laundry on time."

Let's not forget the many many disappointments that come with the Christmas season. I'm not talking about presents I wanted but never got when I was 5. It's this whole Christmas season thing, whatever it's become. Every year, you're promised magic, and togetherness, and miracles even. At the end, All I see is more stress, empty pockets, and a world that's just about broken even. No one is any better off, save a few people who own toy stores.

I myself have never owned a toy store. Hence disappointment.

I have always longed to live in a simpler time. Before the industrial age, or before the digital age. Hell, I'll even take before Youtube. I'll bet my work week would have been a lot more productive.

I hope no one from my work is reading this...

Anyway, of all the times I wished I could have lived in, at Christmas time I always think of the Middle East, right smack in the middle of that whole BC - AD mess. What would it have been like?

I probably wouldn't like it.

I never realized before how disappointing the Christmas story really was. It seems like the grandeur and spectacle I see in canvases, greeting cards, and the occasional cathedral window is a tragic misinterpretation of the details.

Think about it.

I can just see the Jewish priests putting together their letters to Santa...

Send me a messiah this year. I've been very good. Make him big and strong so that he can set us free. Make his birth known throughout the world, so that the most important people can rush to serve him. Equip him with the ability to establish a kingdom here on Earth. And make sure he doesn't hang out with hookers and IRS agents.

Sincerely,

J. Pharasee

This is what they were waiting for since, I don't know... forever? How would they even recognize him?

Here comes Jesus. Born in a poor family. Born to a teenage mother, out of wedlock, who CLAIMED that the spirit of God impregnated her (couldn't God have come up with something more believable than that?) which I'm sure was a popular excuse at the time. There wasn't much of a birth announcement, save to some dirty shepherds (who, let's face it, could have been drunk), and a couple of Asian stargazers who weren't even Jewish. Not exactly the most reliable sources. The only person who really made a big deal of it was that Herod guy, who ordered the slaughter of every child under the age of 2. The first Christmas present, before all the Gold Frankincense and myrrh (which is an embalming fluid, btw) was an empty cradle. Sounds like an episode of Maury Pouvich meets the Holocaust.

I can't help but think that He could have chosen another way to do it. He could have done whatever he wanted.

Jesus grew up to achieve no major political office. In fact, he never even became a priest. He just went from town to town, hanging out with the wrong sorts of people, talking disrespectfully to the other sorts of people until finally... they just killed him. Even with the high mortality rate of the times, 33 is a pretty young age to go. I imagine that the Jews left his burial site just in time to begin drafting this year's letter to Santa. They had thought of some new things that they wanted their messiah to be.

I guess they didn't recognize Him, did they?

Can't blame them.

I have some trouble spotting Him from time to time.

Of course, as most of you know, I am neglecting to mention the part that gets everyone excited. The fact that something fantastic really did happen that night. The fact that God came to the Earth in the form of a man, and was such a picture of meekness and strength under control that he could do so without being known to the very people who had been looking so hard for him. In fact that the very nature of his descent into human form shows what the dirty, the unfortunate, and the unreliable had suspected all along, that he had come for them. Of course, you might say that I am neglecting that.

Perhaps, but it is still a kind of disappointing story. It's a perfect story, but a disappointing one.

I have come to the astounding realization that we are able to be disappointed with something that is perfect. The divine could come to Earth, and we would turn up our nose at Him if we were looking for something else.

Can you really blame the Pharasees? If I told you that God was alive here on this Earth, could you tell me where to find him?

I confess that I can not.

I must be looking for something else. Something that He is not.

It's a thing that gives me hope, actually. The fact that I am disappointed with perfection, because I can't see what it really is. Perhaps we will see miracles, and healing, and love like we've never had before. The kind that goes with you. That wraps you up like a warm winter coat, and kisses the tip of the tongue like a winter carol about a time more fantastic than this one, because He really did come, and it really was perfect.

I want Him to teach me how to not be disappointed.

Culture Shock: A Haiku

Lunchtime chicken piece,

sorry that I did not eat.

I thought you were fish.

Bear Speaks to the Moon

It should come as no surprise to you that I like bears. I haven't worked with watercolor since the 3rd grade. I hope my technique has improved at least a little. It feels really good to be creating again though.

The text reads like so:

By what means do you hang

like quotations within quotations

marking feet and inches

up against this violet curtain

sheltering daybreak before

all hungry eyes will feed again?

The opening scene.

Shall we dance, just you and I?

a dress rehearsal before the curtain's rise

and if I say I only know a world

of glowing things that wear their bones

on the outside, would you think

I am so small?

Some who play behind your other face

have torn this world to pieces.

Final act called over thinking.

Expect the moon's response sometime in the near future:)

It Isn't Any Trouble Just To S-P-E-A-K

My school has a special education program. I have heard that special Ed is kind of a taboo subject in Korea, so I feel fortunate that the good people of 해서 Elementary have put together such an impressive program. There are two classes, each with their own teacher, classroom, and there are 10 students in the special needs category.

There's one student in general that captures my attention. I don't know his name. In fact, I don't know many people's names (I have almost 600 students), but I feel sorry that I don't know his name in particular.

He's a very joyful person, while I, in full posession of my body, and with a fully developed brain, am not. Not all of the time. Not even most of the time. I barely fit into the "some of the time" category. He's got a big smile, and he always squinches his face together when he's concentrating on something. They let him come to my 5th grade class. Even if he can't really learn much English, I think no one should be deprived of the opportunity to stare at the weird looking foriegner, especially not one so disadvantaged.

He did learn some English though. He learned how to say "hello," and he usually interrupts my teaching about 3 times a lesson to smile at me, wave and say hello. He is so proud of himself when I wave and say it back. It's as if he has unlocked some magic code that allows him to do something with me that his teachers can barely do...

Communicate.

Today, he was crying at the end of my class. We were learning about the past tense today. Every way we had of saying that something was done was now wrong. He tries so hard. I think that sometimes we don't get that. We see someone like him and we imagine that if we were in his place, we might not want to learn anything, because it would be so much harder. I noticed how wrong that assumption was about him today. Everything is so hard. He tries so hard.

Something struck me about him today. It was a tough day. Everything was wrong again. The magic code was broken. Communication was in jeopardy. When the bell rang, he brushed his eyes, stood up, collected his book like everyone else, and headed out the door. He stopped in front of me as I was waving to the other students exiting the classroom. He shook his hands urgently.

"Teacher! Hello!"

Hello. Goodbye.

"Goodbye."

I think his smile is a reflex. I think that instead of taking it out like fine china, using it only for special occasions, he lives there. That's the plate he eats off of every day. It was back, before it was even long enough to say it was ever gone.

Goodbye.

It's a revolutionary concept. He now speaks English twice as well as he could before. What I wouldn't give for that kind of progress in my own life.

His smile shames me. That I could be up against so much less than that, and yet...

I can't smile like he does.

I call myself a teacher. What do I have to teach but hello and goodbye? I think he can teach me how to smile.

The Birth of Uncool

I just started swimming laps at the local pool. I say local because it's in the city, but it's really really far from where I live. Perhaps it would not be so far if I didn't have to take public transportation, but it takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to get there by way of two busses and the subway. I think it's pretty lame of me that I want to travel that far just to goo swimming.

I have a beautiful body, in a sort of... untrue kind of way. I was never in the best of shapes. I mean, everyone is in some sort of shape, right? Mine is just less of a sculptural ideal and more of a ...muffin.

You know that part of the muffin that hangs over the side of those muffin papers that they put them in? Yeah, like that.

There are some overweight people who are actually pretty good athletes. I am not. I'm actually not even that coordinated. I can't walk in a straight line for very long without concentrating really hard. If I'm in a group talking to someone I kind of tend to pinball around a bit. It's okay, that's just kind of who I am. But I do want to change that. That's why I'm going swimming at the pool.

Words cannot describe how incredibly lame I look in my swimsuit, with my goggles that leave scrape marks on my nose because they are made especially for the shallow Korean bridge, combined with my swimcap (which the lifeguards make me wear, as though that will keep all the hair out of their pool) and my particular swimming style, perfected from years of never trying.

The pool is crowded when I get in. I feel (as I often do) that everyone is staring at me. I felt that way in America, when it wasn't true, but I feel it now all the more. I realized later it was because I was swimming in the wrong lane (apparently there are specific lanes for people wearing fins). I have to share this lane with 5 other people. I can feel their hands scraping my feet while they pass me. Everyone passes me. I really feel like this is not a place I should be. It has been a long time. Middle aged women are passing me, but I don't stop swimming until I have swum the amount I came for. Someday they won't pass me.

On the way back home, I pull out my flash cards on the bus. My flash cards are also extremely uncool. I have become known for my flash cards. I use them at work, on the bus, when I go home, and all throughout the weekends. I use them to learn to speak Korean. It is going very very slow. I have already learned enough Korean to thoroughly impress everyone back home, because I'm white, so I shouldn't know any Korean. I really don't want to impress people anymore.

Well... I wouldn't go that far, actually.

Let's just say that I don't want to want to impress people anymore.

I've noticed an interesting connection between coolness and success. Most successful people don't seem all that cool at first.

I'm not saying that successful people are uncool. In fact it is a very cool thing just to be successful. In fact I think that everyone in the world should always try to be as cool as they possibly can. Wear clean clothes, trim your nails, don't pick your nose, etc. There is nothing wrong with looking good.

Except when that was the entire goal.

Being cool means that you don't go places where you won't fit in. Being cool means that you don't try something when you know you will fail miserably at first. Being cool means always, always, always being in a situation you can handle, so that you always look good.

Again, I'm not saying that successful people are not cool, or even that they don't try to be cool, but when being cool itself is not the goal, a successful person can sacrifice his coolness in order to pursue success. I want to be like that.

So go ahead and pass me, Ajuma swimmers of Korea, I'm going to get faster, and I won't always look like a muffin. And go ahead and laugh at my flash cards, my so-called friends who spend their weekends getting drunk and the majority of their workweek on Facebook. I will speak someday.

I want to sacrifice for something better than cool.

Call and Response

Friday night. Oh, blessed relief. The weekend is finally upon us. Those of you in America will be jealous to know that I now live in the future, and as such, I get to enjoy the weekend sooner than you do. It's like eating ice cream before it melts. Can't beat it.

Had a tough week at the office though (I've always wanted to say that). It seems like I was working and sweating all the way until time to leave. I remember when I used to twiddle my thumbs all day and surf the internet. It's a beautiful thing, to be committed to something that takes all (or at least most) of your energy. It makes you worry less, to know that you did the best you were able. Even the worst days (there have been a few) aren't so bad.

I've been listening to old school Rogue Wave a bit lately (pre Zune commercial madness). I've noticed that a lot of their music involves call and response. I like that collaboration. I used to be impressed by guitar solos, but now I like duets. I like call and response, for some reason. For those of you who can't see me as I'm writing this, you'll have to take note that I have a huge, cocky grin on my face. Perhaps at one point I will explain this reason to you, but for now, is is enough to know that I have a cocky grin and I like call and response.

I've never been a rhythmic person. I don't mean musically (though I'm sure it could be argued), but in a sense of life patterns. I've never really been able to depend on what I would be doing from one day to the next. My life didn't really follow a pattern. I used to think that made me cool, like that somehow doing the same thing over and over was boring, regardless of what that thing was. It's like if I could have a conversation with Robert Johnson, I might ask him why all he ever does is play the guitar. Perhaps he should play the piano, just so people don't think that's all he knows how to do...

I'm getting distracted.

I love getting distracted.

My life follows a pattern now because I found something that I really want to do over and over again. It's not cool doing random things, hoping one of them is going to pay off sooner or later. I've done that for far too long. Now it's time to stop trying to be everything in the world and be something I'm often afraid to be.

Myself.

And no one else.

I know that sounds cheesy, but I'm a bit in the mood for cheese, despite my occasional lactose intolerance. No more whine, but cheese is nice from time to time.

Last thought: it's November soon, and I just realized that I accomplished almost all of the goals I had for this year. I have two months two finish writing my novel and find a girlfriend. Pretty good year, all in all.

Maybe I should cut my losses...

... Maybe I should start learning some new phrases in Korean.

... for the book, of course...

After All

I've decided to start writing again. I think it might be unhealthy for me to prefer writing my personal thoughts down on some website that I made public and posted a link to on my Facebook page rather than talking to a good friend about how I feel.

I'm a bit far from a good friend right now though. All attempts to be anything to anyone right now have been thwarted, and here I am again. Some sort of socially challenged forrest creature who somehow knows how to type. I wonder, in fact, if I really am alone here. If it's quiet for real now, even for the few who read this... whatever it is. Are you out there? I think you might be. I'm waiting on a voice from somewhere, something to assure me that I am facing the right direction before I start moving again.

Life is full of good things though. There are so many reasons why it's worth it to be alive, to try, to let something real in. I have seen and heard wonderful things, and if I have no one to call at the end of my day to tell these things to, I will have to write them down, with the hope that somehow they will be heard. At least one day I will come back and hear them.

My prayer is that somehow it will be enough to justify my existence. I feel like somehow it needs to balance out. Something bigger than the sociological, ecological, temporal footprint pushed into the Earth by the verb "to be." "To be or not" was never the question. We will be. To not be was not our choice. We must trust that with all the not be that never were, we were made to be, and our being was for the right reasons. It has weight. It is the only thing that really carries any importance.

Humanity.

The mess we moved into. The mess we made. The more we pretend that it isn't ours, the less our being pulls us to the earth.

There are oceans, you know? I've seen them. They cripple buildings from their foundations, and they grind the mountains into grains of sand. We're just calcium, plasma, and water. I've seen the ocean.

It's terrifying.

It's beautiful.

The most beautiful things in life are terrifying. The Ocean. Death. Truth. That voice you hear at night before falling asleep, only before falling asleep. You are too focused the rest of the day to allow it to speak. Too busy staring at the sand spread across this vast beach saying "not me, not me," over and over again as if that is going to make it true.

Yes. You.

but it's allright.

It's okay to let the ocean take you, to spin you around and dance with you. If you fight these tides, they will fight you back, but if you let them carry you...

...my God...

You can't imagine where you end up.

It's okay. It's okay because after it all, the pain, the suffering, the loneliness, the rejection, the sheer weight of the sand in your pockets, there is some thing bigger:

This world was made by love.

That's what he said his name was.