And I’m following

Satisfy me. Satisfy me. Make my desert bloom like spring. Won’t you satisfy me?

I got accepted to Harvest School 16 seven days ago. Four nights in a row I slept like a baby. I fall asleep within 10 minutes and stay asleep until morning. It’s amazing.

Is this what it feels like to be secure in the center of God’s will? I’m loving it. In the future, I want to live with this kind of peace even when my path is not visible. You know, faith is belief in things unseen, a four letter word spelled r-i-s-k.

Jesus, make my heart soft and touchable. I completely will let You hug it.

Magenta cyclamen are winning! White is a far off second place.

A Tiny Message

Yesterday, I was so busy listening to a love song for Jesus in the car that I missed the El Monte/Moody exit off of 280, forcing me to drive all the way to Stanford for the next exit and come back around, a detour of 20 minutes. As I was driving, I had the distinct feeling that God was trying to steal a moment with me. To hold me near. And I was late to meet a student by 10 minutes, which annoyed me greatly. The question is “Does God ever make us late to things?” Because He himself is never late. And He is never distracted.

Like the cinnamon stick curled so delicately at the edges to send me a tiny message, there are so many little coincidences in the world that make me feel like someone in control of everything loves me. If I didn’t believe in God, or if I believed in God but not that He influences us, or if I believed in God and his influence but not by direct communication or miracles, I might think that a pleasant surprise in my hot apple cider or an unexpected detour might just be arbitrary incidences that don’t mean a thing.

But this girl right here believes in the resurrection of the dead. So her believing in tiny messages isn’t the least of it. Oh if you only knew of all the crazy delightful nonsense…

Prayer: I want to believe with all my heart and my soul that you love me all of the time.

A Right Jerusalem Blade

‘She is in God’s hand.’ That gains a new energy when I think of her as a sword. Perhaps the earthly life I shared with her was only part of the tempering. Now perhaps He grasps the hilt; weighs the new weapon; makes lightnings with it in the air. ‘A right Jerusalem blade.’ 75, A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis

I am a moron when I have to explain my religious beliefs (not that so many people ask anymore); my stance is strong but they can’t be well communicated with words, not so much because it’s undefined but I feel very many things are useless in the course of a lifetime and the thought of spending myself on it exhausts me. Inevitably, we’ll have to discuss the charismatic expression, prophecy, Christian celebrity, house church movements, the prayer house movement, mission – and do I really know much about those things at all? The longer I dwell in these circles and ways of thinking, the less I know. I distinguish that kind of “talk” with reflection, which I believe is a much more meaningful way to consider the things of heaven.

I read A Grief Observed last week, and as with any book that succeeds in changing us, I can’t get it out of my mind. Lewis is one of those rare Christian writers who are eternally patient, not pushy, and honest, without an agenda. Some things he writes: (Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’ 1) could have been taken out of my own mouth but much less eloquently.

A quick search on google could tell you that people love that: “a right Jerusalem blade.”  Many many people have quoted him just as I am doing right now. The power of poetry outclasses the power of rhetoric. He opened my mind. I want to be a right Jerusalem blade.

———–

My sister commented the other day that I shouldn’t write about wanting eonang trees in my backyard “to remind you of Korea as if you’ve actually lived there.” I gave her a sour look and pointed out, “I have lived there.” As a nod to family common knowledge that I have the worst memory known to mankind she said, “Truly. Tell me, can you really remember anything about it then?” “I can. I may not remember much, but I remember jinju halmuni’s funeral, the fire ants and prayer beads, and the eonang trees.”

But I know, because I’ve been there twice since leaving the first time, that Korea has changed. I am so frightened when I am there because everything and everyone seems so burlesque and self-confident and evolved. So the place I call Korea in my thoughts is not at all the Korea that exists right now. Maybe I’m looking for a memory that reminds me of another memory. Maybe I have no love for Korea, only just love for childhood.

———–

Prayer -
Lord, not my idea of God but God himself. Not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor.  Not my idea of love but love proper. Not his or her idea of Your ways, but You. I will love you.

Some squeaky music for you.

Make-believe

In the past week I’ve had two nice conversations with ex-passion church kin. The ones who were there nearer to the beginning (I wasn’t quite there) there’s a feeling about them that I like. It makes me feel like I reached into a deep threadbare carpet bag and found a brick of gold. Or heroin. Of pure quality. Depending on what your imagination tells you is more valuable. I can’t decide; I’ve never done drugs. (but my curiosity just made me find out how much a brick of heroin is worth and I found that they can go up to $50,000/brick. t/f?)

There is a family who lives on the other side of this street called Bollinger that marks the dividing line between “Cupertino” and “West San Jose.” The south side of Bollinger where I live falls in the Lynbrook High School attendance boundaries. The north of Bollinger is within the Cupertino High School boundaries. Why should you know this? There really is no reason. I suppose I write about terribly boring things sometimes.

Three families I tutor for reside in that area. I grew to be especially fond of one of them quite quickly. I don’t know how to speak on such emotions. I am not sure anymore if I know how to describe “fondness.” When I was young I was quite certain what that feeling was, but the older I get, the less important it feels to be able to describe such things, and more important just to feel and experience them. For if you’re fond of someone, you ought to show care for them, and hopefully that’s enough to please the real heart in you that craves life. Even if you don’t have the poetry for it or a sense of derision for those who don’t know fondness, or even self-satisfaction that you pinpointed what the best of humanity is. Fondness is just a thing, just like eating and breathing and sleeping. Fondness you can resist contemplating and instead relegate it to the basic automatic functions of unconscious neurological rhythmic processes. Don’t think about it. Just let it.

I love Karen. Single mother of two. Husband passed away a long while ago… I’m not sure when. But her general cheerfulness has always made me feel like there’s quite a lot of happiness in life if you know where to look. She works at the VA pharmacy and always tells me to look into government jobs because for women, that’s the best. A lot of security, ample paid personal and vacation days, etc. If there’s one thing I love about tutoring, it’s that I can meet and talk to so many grown-up women and listen to their stories of women lives. It gives me a high like no other.

On Wednesday, when I tutor her kids and niece, she seemed a little more forlorn than usual and asked about that. She said two of her co-workers at the VA have breast cancer and another just had a baby, so all of them are on leave. And it’s a long process to pass the VA background check so no temps have been picking up the slack. I wonder what it’s like to love your children that much, so that you’re working 40 hours a week then come home at 5 to take your kids everywhere to make sure they have a musical/abacus/swim/dance education and cook and clean and take them away for holidays. Sometimes the thought of love like that scares me and makes me feel wholly inadequate to be a woman. How will I ever have that kind of regard for little humans? I understand that perhaps the miracle is you feel inadequate and then the child is in your arms and you suddenly realize that looking into that baby face causes a love to swell up inside you that you never realized your heart was capable of. You think you may have just turned into a whole ‘nother person. I understand that could be.

I know it’s quite in-vogue to hate your parents. It’s in the list of top things white people like. Along with hating your children. I know all about it (my neighbor JC talked a lot about his relationship with his son and I found the whole story so intriguing). And then us Asian American women, we’ve inherited some crazy stuff. Self-suppression, self-objectification, manipulation, critical spirits…. But over the course of a lifetime, what does it matter? (Walk Two Moons allusion here). Probably as I lay dying, I’ll realize how strong my mother’s love was, in spite of all its ugliness sometimes. And I’ll realize that our Asian mothers don’t speak to us Asian American daughters about everything that passes through their minds, and that secret stuff is what would have revealed how noble they are at heart. And how noble their barrenness is.

I must know how to love harder now. I must know now before it’s too late.

I must learn how not to embrace a life of loneliness just cuz that means I can please myself in all I do. I must learn how to think upon a lonely death and decide, “Ugh that’s not for me.” I must know how to love my mothers and to let God love me. And I must not deny God’s love now, because surely later I’ll just realize how foolish I was and I’ll feel so embarrassed.

Sophie, full of faith, you, Woman, have fallen low but God will raise you up.

Cyclamen

I potted six miniature cyclamens that I bought at the farmer’s market on Saturday. It took me a long while to choose the colors and the man selling them was so friendly and helpful.

I bought two violet, two gleaming white, and two bright reds. As I was potting them, I felt like the white stood for forgiveness, the reds for revitalized passion, and the violet for “self.” I was a little offended with the last one and tried to persuade myself that the violets actually represents creativity, which I am asking the Lord for more of. But I just knew they represented self, and the Lord told me to take special care of them.

I guess I was offended because I don’t want to have any of my flowers remind me of my selfishness. I don’t want to pray over and water cyclamens that will make me think of how much lack I have in my soul and all that I am seeking after that I haven’t been strong enough to attain. The violet cyclamens represent seeking after the wholeness of the self, the self of heavenly design, stripped free of the extras I pasted over myself as I grew up and learned about survival. Of course, God wants us to do more than survive. He wants to emancipate us from earthly thinking and catapult us into the best of life. The violet ones are so beautiful, it feels like they’re doing good for my eyes when I look at them, yet they make me so sad because I’m afraid they will be the first to die, and it will pierce me that I may never reach full bloom. I know this is not right, it’s not the reason why the Lord says to pray for myself. And I know I don’t have to feel selfish in that, because it was also clear to me that the Violet Ones mean the discovery and understanding of true self for everybody I know. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m not actually really sad about thing but the tears flow so much only because I have a seratonin/ prolactin imbalance or just crazy hormones in general. There’s really nothing much to be sad about.

I don’t know, Lord, I don’t know! Is what I always want to say to Him, even when he’s not asking me a question. I still feel like a neophyte at what you do, but do what you do.