FROM A PILGRIM TO A PILGRIM

I have been eager and curious for this meeting, so I circled it on my calendar. The meeting was arranged for me and someone who read my book by a friend who is a Suji Enneagram workshop instructor. That someone is a man named Bruce (pseudonym), in his mid 40s, married, with no children yet. Our friend was leading a workshop, which Bruce attended without any prior relationship between them. Bruce has been on a quest to discover his true self. During the workshop, out of the blue, they started a conversation that led to Bruce sharing the impact my book had on him, unaware of my friend’s relationship with me. My friend then revealed that she knew me well. And that was it at the time.

After the workshop, my friend shared the story of meeting Bruce and asked if I would be interested in meeting him. Encouraged and intrigued by the story, I replied, “Sure, I’d be delighted.” Bruce did not know that my friend was arranging a meeting between him and me until we all agreed to meet.

Four of us, including my wife, met at a café in Seoul as we had another appointment later in the city. By the time we all got up from our seats, three hours had passed. A month or two ago, a random person recommended my book to Bruce in a book club, and Bruce packed it for a walking trip to Jeju Island. Bruce and his wife had completed Jeju Olle Trail, an impressive 437 km (271 miles) circumnavigating trail that hugs the coastline of Jeju Island in bits and pieces over the years. But this time, Bruce was alone for a four-day trip, accompanied by my book.

Inspired and envisioned by the history-rich Camino San Tiago trails, the founder, Myung Suk Suh, a native of Jeju and a former journalist, “birthed” the Jeju Olle Trail to Korea, a country that was obsessed with speed (Ppali Ppali). At the same time, for a country that already knew the gift of “slowness” in its culinary mastery, the slow and contemplative spirit behind the Jeju Olle Trail attracted many trail lovers who wanted to experience Jeju more intimately, including Bruce. Honoring the spirit of slow, Bruce relayed to me that he is never in a hurry when he (and his wife) walks the trail. He would walk as much or as little as his heart desires, slip into a café or local eatery off the beaten path, and take a cab ride back to his lodging. And pick up the trail where he left off the next day, and repeat.

Impacted by Parker Palmer’s writings, Bruce had been active in facilitating a couple of rounds of “Circle of Trust” life groups modeled after Palmer’s teachings on holding safe and trusting space where no “fixing, saving, advising, or correcting” is offered. In a world and church where safe and non-judgmental spaces are hard to find, it is a welcome space for true self seekers, according to Bruce. I nodded, smiled in agreement, and encouraged him to continue.

Then our conversation took an unexpected turn when he asked me about my love for basketball, as one essay in the book highlights one of my poignant basketball experiences. After finding his love for basketball, our conversation suddenly became more energetic and lively, as if to balance the contemplative and thoughtful space. After our meeting, Bruce provided me with a few basketball clubs that meet and play on a regular basis near me. That made me very happy and alive.

Our conversation took another turn as I was asked about my spiritual direction ministry. Naturally, I shared my journey about how I got to where I am today: How it is my way of becoming who I am, who I am meant to be, and for the sake of the world. The discovery of the true self is never a detached and isolated interior journey, but always bears witness and contributes to the external hungers of the world. That my “becoming” is a continuous integration or reintegration of my being and doing.

We ended our meeting with my words of how thankful I was for him for picking up my book (for which I could never take for granted), reading it carefully and slowly, and actually getting something out of it. He re-relayed his gratitude to me for writing. This meeting served as priming the pump, as I have been readying myself for a crack at my second book this year.

SPRING SMILE

The song, Here Comes the Sun, has been on a loop in my head lately. With its melodious acoustic guitar twang and treble-heavy drums, it’s a cheerful spring tune. And spring has finally arrived. After suffering through the cold winter, the first in many years, even as an amateur winter-ian, I can now see how welcoming spring is. A long sick bed is kind of what winter felt like for me, all while trying not to sound too dramatic. If our house plants are any clue, after surviving the gloom and chill, you can almost hear the collective sighs of relief from our house friends as they grow new leaves.

Our house didn’t get much sun during winter since we face north, plus the sun flies low. It was almost as if the sun too was avoiding the frigid. A few weeks ago, I noticed we started getting morning sun rays coming through the south-facing windows. Like a cat basking in sunlit warmth, it’s enough to lift my mood and boost my spirits. My breakfast moved from my usual spot at the kitchen dining nook to the dining room, where we get the most sun in the mornings. The arrival of the sun makes me merry—I realize that all over again.

My town is coming alive, too. More people are out and about. Farmers, who know a thing or two about changing seasons, started tilling the ground at their own secret pace, and, as if taking a cue from them, our neighbors began the yardwork, one by one. The land that was laid bare and seemed wasted is turned over, showing its healthy dark brown color, ready for some action. Even my wife and I, who are not green thumbs, talked about possibly planting some spring flowers in our flower patch garden, joining the spring movement. In the daily café scene, people seem to be more jovial and wear less black.

Conversely, the colors began to sprout, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. It is a wondrous sight to behold. In our town, we started to see white and pink plum blossoms by the Bukhan River, bright yellow forsythia dotting the roadside, and cornelian cherry trees in foggy yellow. Along the rivers, willows are freshly draping themselves in fluorescent green to cover their winter bareness. In about a week or so, there will be an explosion of vibrant colors led by the main attraction of early spring, the cherry blossoms.

We were first lured to Yangpyeong by the majesty and fleeting beauty and the “flower haze” of the cherry blossom trees back in 2021. The flower haze creates a vision of misty white clouds from afar, floating in the air. Then there is the snowstorm of cherry blossoms, signaling the end of its evanescent early spring. I remember driving in such a snowstorm, hypnotized by its ephemeral beauty. The word saku in Japanese means bloom (Sakura aptly refers to cherry blossom trees in Japanese) and is related to the word smile.

“Colors are the smiles of nature,” wrote a poet, Leigh Hunt. During the festive week, we were invited by our friend Chef Lee to picnic at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon. Delighted, we cleared our schedule and enjoyed the company and the exceptional museum, as it was our first visit. We were wowed as we discovered a few Korean artists who showed the kind of flair and vision we resonate with. Oh Chiho was one of my discoveries. He wrote, “Color is light itself, and light is the source of life. Therefore, color is nothing short of a joy to living things.” In Korean, “색채는 곧 빛이요, 빛은 곧 생명의 원천이다. 그렇다면 색채는 생명체에 대하여 '기쁨'이 아닐 수 없다.” What remarkable discovery and insight!

The image of nature smiling and signaling that spring is finally here warms my heart, not to mention my body. After the hard laborious work of the summer, farmers hope that the early spring smile will lead to big, hearty laughter as they harvest in the fall.

In our world today, it is hard to find reasons to smile.
However, nature does not budge from smiling and is trying to remind us of all that
Spring is finally here.

INTEGRATION

The idea of integration, specifically in the context of spiritual formation, captured my imagination in the last week or so. As I was trying to find words to describe, my reflection is fluid and still being formed. I decided to share my forming thoughts in this post, inviting you to reflect along with me. Drop me a note or two if you want to share your own thoughts.

The life of love is the life of integration. Conversely, the life of integration is the life of love. The life of love means that integration becomes the lens through which we see all and everything in life. As the opposite of fragmentation, integration is concerned with wholeness, as the Latin root word suggests, and is not pitting parts against others. Biases and prejudices are known barriers to integration. More precisely, it is the unknown and unrecognized biases and prejudices that remain detrimental to an integrative outlook in life, as it is impossible not to have biases and prejudices.

Integration is broad and accepting, recognizing everything without waste, even our sins, failures, and imperfections. Perhaps it is better to say that it is because of imperfections that we develop an integrative perspective. Therefore, integration does not mean perfection. Instead, it acknowledges shortcomings, failures, and sins as parts of the whole, while still maintaining the ability to see the entire picture. We begin to realize that everything is connected and interdependent. None of us is entirely good or entirely bad; we are both. A non-dualistic approach leads to greater awareness that God is present in everything and everywhere. In contrast, the world offers a divided, narrow, and controlled view that tends to fragment and shrink things.

Integration is not to be confused with convergence. In short, convergence occurs when our being merges with our doing in the context of needy external realities, creating a dynamic synergy between who we are and what we do. Experiencing convergence is a rare feat in life as it carves out a specific calling and purpose in the world. Convergence is the “coming together” of our internal and external realities, resulting in our unique, fruitful contribution.

Integration allows us to step outside of ourselves since we are a part of the bigger reality and see the bigger picture. In other words, we are far more concerned with the whole, and our integrative outlook may lead to action or perhaps non-action. Our output or productivity no longer defines us. Integration radically bears and connects all as one and whole.

It is not hard to accept that integration involves my whole being, intrapersonal, my unique history of family, cultures, and my decisions and choices. Integration also embraces interpersonal elements in our lives, including family, friends, the many communities we belong to, and even one-off, serendipitous chance encounters. Additionally, there are “interpersonal” dimensions of past mystics and saints with whom we have been conversing and learning from. Integration assumes that we see ourselves with compassion for our sinnerhood and humility for our sainthood. None of us is an island. And yet we all are distinct and unique. Then there is the God element, God’s pursuit of us, just as we are. God is the willing, constant invader of love, wooing us and leading us to love God and love the creation. Our God is the very definition of the perfect Integer.

God has been tirelessly showing each and every one of us that the goal of the integrative perspective is love. God as Love invites us to love God and love everything God created, as best as we can, including ourselves, others, and otherness. This wholistic perspective is both revelatory and revolutionary. And that is how God and God’s Kingdom come to us, perpetually.

Apostle Paul’s commanding words of “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” speak of God as Love. God “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” As God’s image bearers, the word “all” is the very focus and goal of integration.

BROTHERS OVERNIGHTER

After a comprehensive physical exam in Korea, with a fairly clean bill of health and feeling grateful, I invited the FAN (Fully Alive Network) brothers for a weekend getaway. With the thawing weather, I was eager to get out, explore, and indulge my appetite as a reward. The School of Spiritual Direction is now essentially wrapped up, with all coursework completed. I also knew my wife would be a happy camper to have the house entirely to herself without my large presence. Five of the six brothers decided to join the trip. I took on the role of driver and asked others to help organize it. We bought a six-seater SUV specifically for occasions like this. I knew that our trip would be far from being bougie. What I desired simply was nature, good food, and brotherhood.

Buoyed by many reasons to celebrate, we chose Icheon as our destination. It’s less than an hour’s drive from our house, but I had never been south, as we had explored some parts of the north and east from Yangpyeong. (Seoul is west of us.) It turned out that we discovered a goldmine of eateries, bakeries, and stunning nature and forest gardens. Leading up to our trip, my wife and I have been watching the show called Bake Your Dream on Netflix. Our nightly torture of watching others consume all kinds of bread and pastries was about to be lifted big time. Soon, I would be mimicking oohs and aahs.

As Icheon is known for premium rice fit for Joseon dynasty royalty, its stone pot rice is nationally renowned, as many of their breads and pastries are made with rice with no flour added. Icheon is also known as the nation’s center for traditional ceramics and pottery making. We thought about signing up for a pottery class. However, we could not overcome the optics of five middle-aged men doing pottery. But after picking up a small, unadorned, charming plate for my wife, we ended up going to natural hot springs, as Icheon’s hot springs maintain their fair share of attractions. In short, it was my kind of town. As we went from warm to hot to cold, back to hot water baths, in a room filled with naked men, I was reminded of how I came to this world and how I will go. And that I must travel light, unencumbered.

I know a thing or two about joy, and we all do as we have deposits made in our joy bank. In recent years, thanks to Suji Enneagram, I discovered that one of my main heavenly invitations in life is to spread joy wherever I am. Joy cannot be manufactured and is not a solitary emotion. Joy is a relational and shared emotion. Thus, when it is shared, joy explodes exponentially and provides healing and restoration where the shalom is needed the most. The outworkings of joy are a culmination of the five senses, effortlessly working, combined with brotherly interactions of small, kind, warm gestures, smiles, laughter, and pain. In the life of love, joy is a heavenly gift of longing and belonging in the earthly. Joy cannot be bought; its priceless beauty comes only from relationships forged in the lives of love.

With the joy-filled and cheating weekend behind me, I will resume hitting the gym today with my wife while still savoring the shared gift.

GRAND EXAMEN

I just finished my final Zoom session at the CenterQuest’s School of Spiritual Direction. What's left is the closing residency in mid-April in Baguio City, Philippines. As part of my last integration essay, I was asked to reflect on the Grand Examen. I thought it would be meaningful to share this reflection with you since I’ve been an open book through my blog entries. 

A LOOKING BACK
Identify 3-4 major highlights, turning points, and landmarks in your journey.

The biggest highlight, the most significant turning point and landmark in the last several months, has been the relocation to Korea last fall from the US. This has been six plus years in the making, after much discernment. There has been an embracing of the new and a letting go of the old. These six years include hitting the wall, rediscovering God as nothing but love, and my true self. I have experienced death, deconstruction, and newfound desire during that span. Certainties and uncertainties coexisted. Fear and excitement, pain and joy were all part of my regular vocabulary. Mystery and miracles were held together.

The other major highlight has been the gift of journeying with my wife together. We have relied on each other more than any other time in the past. Seeking and discerning God happened constantly in union.

We cherish the gift of friendship throughout the US and Asia. God has gifted us and surrounded us with many communities and friends who are journeying similar paths. We are also humbly aware that our recent discerning journey has inspired and encouraged many.

A LOOKING THROUGH
Surface certain common threads that you can pinpoint out of the highlights you identified.

I no longer approach the meaning of life by “doing work or ministry,” but by living my life to the fullest. I desire to extend such perspective and conviction in encouraging and companioning others to be and do the same. My identity is no longer wrapped in what I do or what others think of me (which is a big one for Asians). I view life more generously and expansively. A non-dualistic posture is another way of expressing generosity, compassion, and mystery.

Relationships with God, myself, and others (as well as creation), viewed as one and becoming one, remain paramount. The evolution and transformation of these relationships, as one, are summarized as God as Love claiming and drawing everything to Love. And I want to be part of the divine love undertaking.

A LOOKING FORWARD
Based upon your observed patterns or trends, do a general projection of what you are envisioning for the future.

For years, the image of the river spoke to me. John O’Donohue’s Fluent (below) and “trust the river” and “be the river” became part of my inner mantra.

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding

Looking ahead, I sense the invitation from God is to become the ocean. Khalil Gibran’s Fear (see Oct. 14 entry) spoke to me as we transitioned from the US to Korea last fall.

The image of the ocean is vast, generous, daring, fearful, and mysterious. It can be calming and raging, obeying the natural law of creation. The ocean embraces and engulfs all. At the end of the horizon, ocean meets the sky, blurring as one, reminding us that everything is one and will become one. Naturally, my mind goes to equate the ocean with the love of God. Be and do love so others and otherness (as if I could do this) can be and do love themselves, joining and expanding the divine transformational work.

A LOOKING AROUND
Determine accountability and support structures necessary to sustain your spiritual vision for the future

As I mentioned above, we remain grateful to have numerous friends and communities, including our children and spouses, who have been journeying with us. Our souls found courage through companionship and friendship. The beautiful irony is that this journey is deeply solitary and at the same time, deeply communal. The CQ Asia community has been especially life-giving and nourishing to me. It is no small thing to surround myself with like-minded people who are on a similar path, sharing similar values and DNAs. I suspect that my life will somehow be intertwined with CQ Asia moving forward.

SMALL MIRACLES | PART TWO

“While I am looking for something large, bright, and unmistakably holy, God slips something small, dark, and apparently negligible in my pocket. How many other treasures have I walked right by because they did not meet my standards? I'm learning to let go of my bright ideas about God so that my eyes are open to the God who is.”
Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

I will stay on the topic of “small miracles” for this week, as it continues to draw energy for me. Last week, I mentioned my obsession with “fast.” What was implied was also an illusion of chasing after “large, bright, and unmistakably holy.” The small miracles (I would not have used the word "miracle" in the same sentence with "small") would have been too frivolous and not worth my time and focus.

I texted my son, Michael, to wish him a happy 32nd birthday, his first as a father, with many more to come. His reply made me pause with tears in my eyes: “I think about you every time I watch the Lakers with Jaelen.” That was and is a small miracle. We had Michael when I was 31. Even as a toddler, he was always more interested in balls than any other toys. As he grew up, I wished we could watch and follow the Lakers together. That wish came true as Michael became a passionate Lakers fan, thanks to Kobe. Over the years, we celebrated all major victories and championships together and endured the heartbreaks.

Just this morning, while still in bed, I was texting with my oldest, Elizabeth. She asked whether we would subscribe to the MLB TV package so we could watch the reigning champs, the Dodgers. Her last message was, “Miss watching games with you!” That brought a tender smile to my face and reminded me of a time when our family bonded over the Dodgers. When our children, along with my son-in-law and daughter-in-law, visited us in Malaysia in the fall of 2024, our mornings often started with watching the Dodgers in the postseason. We shouted, groaned, and high-fived our way to the championship over the Yankees.

Then there is the “big” miracle about to happen. Our third, Hannah, is pregnant with a baby girl. The baby is due in the middle of July. Hannah and the baby are healthy. My boy just had a baby boy, and now my girl is about to have a baby girl. Words fail to capture all my emotions and thoughts. We have circled the date and just booked our tickets, as we would not want to miss the arrival of our second grandchild.

Our youngest, Brad, has just moved out on his own for the first time since his college days. He was merely six months old when we moved into our current house in Pasadena. Understandably, it was a big deal for him and a small miracle. Using my words, he is thriving. “I feel like I'm finding a good rhythm, and I think I'm taking care of myself decently well. It's been fun figuring it out.“

As I mull over small miracles in the context of my family and adult children, particularly, as our family is unapologetically a foodie family, I think of preparing and sharing meals led by the renowned in-house chef, Brad. I cannot fail to mention playing Mario Kart on Nintendo Switch 2. For a fleeting while, I enjoyed blowing them by when they were little; now I am being left in the dust by everyone. I miss the midnight In-N-Out Burger run on the weekends. My miracle-seeking heart also traces back to a time when we did the “ritual of leaving,” right before our children left for the US. In recounting some of the small miracles surrounding my memory of our children, there is an unmistakable, tender aching in my heart, both because I miss them and I want more. I can sense and concur, “My eyes are open to the God who is.”

SMALL MIRACLES

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.

John O’Donohue

My life was fast. My ministry was fast. I believed that being apostolic and slow did not go well together. I knew I had and wanted to “make stuff” happen, fast. In this current module, I am reminded of my own past journey. As I have time, a friendly space, and awareness on my side, I can look back with candor without losing self-compassion. I was true to what I knew at the time, which means authentic. At the same time, O’Donohue’s poem above probably would have all been gibberish in my fast life.

The invitations O’Donohue outlines above— “take refuge, open up, become inclined to watch, imitate the habit, take time, draw alongside the silence”—resonate deeply within me. They are action, non-action verbs. O’Donohue’s experience and mine, while both unique and different, create a sense of universality of truth, the truth of interconnectedness with everything, including one’s true self. Taking time in solitude, in this sense, is not to shift focus away from engaging the needs of the world, but to add depth and awareness of seeing what is being seen (as opposed to seeing what we want to see), to contribute to the deepest needs of the world.

I experienced many miracles of faith and provisions. However, since my mind is almost always preoccupied with the future, I have not “sucked out all the marrow” of all God’s miracles. I know I have to slow down to remain in the present to count all the blessings. Otherwise, I will always chase after more and bigger, even in terms of God’s prevalent and plentiful miracles. Small miracles, from a smile from a friend to witnessing the rain, the twilight, or the stone, remain elusive when they are, in fact, big miracles God is generously sending our way. God is so big that God comes to us in small, intimate ways.

One of my favorite things to do while in Malaysia was to watch and linger in the slow and free way of the rain. When talking about slow and free, witnessing the first snowflake in Korea last December was a mesmerizing spectacle. I remember the sparkling twilight on the vast horizon over the California and the Bali coast, reminiscing about the colors of the day.

The silent stone exists not for our sake. If it does exist for our sake, it would be for our calmness, as O’Donohue put it. The entire creation simply exists, just as it is, whether we recognize it or not. They are not bothered by our inattentiveness or even humanity’s willful harm and destruction. They are that calm and grounded. I do not and cannot fully know and appreciate where all this musing is headed. What I do know is that I have experientially discerned that slowness, watching, lingering, and calming have helped me in claiming myself and my relationship with God, for the sake of the world.

A ROAD TRIP

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” Thomas Merton

Living or traveling in Asia has its unique blessings and challenges. Of course, Asia is not one conglomerate, uniform reality. It is as diverse as the world. There is no other continent like Asia. Even then, the lure of materialism and consumerism has taken hold and been amplified in the underlying context of honor and shame cultures. “I am what I have” or “I am what I do” with an Asian stereotypical dominant worldview of “I am what others think of me” has clouded the pursuit of one’s true identity. The “I am” without the attachment of “what” is a rarity, particularly in Asia. At its worst, the “I am” does not even exist. So, the question and pursuit of “I am” is viewed as an unnecessary, unrealistic luxury.

A few days ago, we joined a couple that we have known for quite some time on a road trip from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Koh Samui Island, Thailand. They are a younger couple whom we have mentored over the years, and now we are simply friends and sojourners in life. With the lunar new year landing this week, they invited us to join the road trip. I was ready for an adventure, but I was more eager to spend time with the couple.

Thailand is a proud country, “the land of the free,” meaning it was the only Southeast Asian nation never colonized by the Western powers. Whether it was due to Thailand serving as a buffer zone between the British and French, the clever diplomacy employed by Thai leaders to survive, or a combination of both, it still maintains the title 'the land of the free.' This is reflected in their confident, easygoing smiles, with aplomb toward life. When crossing the border, even though the landscape, climate, and roads are similar, the atmosphere of Thailand feels different.

We spent a night in Hat Yai and met with another couple who have been serving as missionaries in southern Thailand for more than two decades. Isolation and loneliness have been ongoing challenges for them, but they valiantly established themselves well within the region. As we shared dinner, our conversations naturally revolved around the stages of life, how we are supposed to live authentically, above and beyond our duties and responsibilities.

Coincidentally, I am now going through a module called “Critical Life-Stages of our Faith Journey.” There are many models and layers of faith and life stages. However, it broadly falls into two major categories: the first half of life and the second half. The first half of life is usually defined and shaped by external authorities, rules, and regulations. They function as dualistic rails for people to run on, and conformity is the name of the game. The self within the first half of life is often the projected self. We “project” ourselves to fit in and comply, so our true self remains hidden. Learning, belonging, and certainty are determining words.

In the second half of life, the authority shifts from external to internal. While still gaining wisdom from external sources, they are no longer ultimate. Faith becomes more subjective, experiential, and personal. There is also a shift from dualistic to non-dualistic postures of life, where mysteries, paradoxes, wonder, and contradictions can coexist. This stage requires unlearning and relearning. The dominant self in the second half of life is the focus on the “given” self, the self that is created by God from the beginning. We begin to take ourselves seriously because God does. Belonging takes a different shape, not for the sake of accountability or conformity, but for traveling together in the same direction.

What falls in between the first half and the second is hitting a big wall, or a series of big walls. The ticket to the second half of life lies in the ability and willingness to let go of what we once held dearly. After hitting a wall, our faith proceeds from perceived and prescribed faith to searching and owned faith.

Back to the Merton quote above, nobody is going to ask me how I comb my hair. ☺ I suppose that is one less thing for people to wonder about. . . I do get passionate about what I like to eat, although my standards are not high. I am easily impressed, but my short attention span quickly shifts to what my next meal or food will be. While I live for the “next meals,” what I am truly living for is pursuing wholeheartedly what I love, as I realize more and more that “I am what I love.” I have to trust that my given self knows what and how to love since I was created by Love and for love.

Bernard of Clairvaux’s four stages of ascending love provide a helpful way to reflect. In these, the last stage is “love of self for God’s sake,” with earlier stages of “love of self for self’s sake,” progressing to “love of God for self’s sake,” and ultimately to “love of God for God’s sake.” While on this earth, I oscillate between stages one to three and three to one. What I “love” must pass the test of “for whose sake.” While I seriously doubt I can stay in the ultimate stage, I do aspire to it, nonetheless. The last stage embodies the union of myself with God. It is a heavenly union that I believe can be experienced on earth, which is God’s Kingdom coming to earth. “I” no longer exist to the extent that loving myself equals loving God and loving my neighbors.

A REST STOP

Malaysia was like a resting stop on our long pilgrimage journey. It has been about ten months since we were here last. The last time we were here, we did not know what our future held. We knew God was calling us to settle in Korea, but with no details in place, we discerned that Malaysia was the “rest stop” we needed to go through.

Being here this time, I am freshly reminded of the feelings of uncertainties and unknowns, layered with hope and anticipation for what was to come in 2024. Considering how little we knew about the future, I would still say that Malaysia was not a land of confusion, but a land of kindness. I caught myself saying to a group a few days ago, “Malaysia was kind to us.”  We experienced the unrehearsed word kindness as God’s patient unfolding plan. What could easily have been mounting frustration and hopelessness turned into affirmation and confirmation of God’s faithful guidance, step by step. Being here in the same neighborhood we stayed before, we are reliving the emotions and prayers we prayed, closely followed by deep gratitude to God.

Speaking of prayers, I lost count in praying “a prayer of unknowing” by Thomas Merton.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.

I remember the emotions and increasing clarity of my desire. The line “But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You” is packed with full of hope, which emboldened my faith. Fear was a dominant emotion, not because of fear of getting lost, but because of the fear of irrelevance. I could rationalize that fear did not exist, but I learned to hold it tenderly. That was the peril I faced. I still struggle with that fear; at the same time, my desire to please God and to do my part in ushering God’s kingdom to this earth is real and palpable. In this sense, fear is a gift that keeps forcing me to turn to God’s intimacy.

Malaysia's kindness also showed in my growing love for poetry writing. The kind and supportive space gave me the courage to finally try my hand at poetry. I remember exactly where and when I wrote my first poem. In fact, I know, down to the intricacy of feelings, when and where I wrote each of my poems. A member of the group I mentioned earlier told me that I used to talk passionately about war or battle imagery, often referencing movies like Braveheart, The Band of Brothers, and The Lord of the Rings. And how they are replaced with poetry. I laughed out loud in agreement. I still like epic war movies. I also love poetry. The kind and the liminal space that Malaysia was, I am glad to be at this rest stop, once again, reminding me of the journey I have been on.

A friend of mine wrote to me that last week’s blog was also about “letting the food come to me,” referring to a picture of Bak Kuh Teh and other food adventures. Well, here is another version of letting the food come to me: Hainanese Chicken Rice

“LETTING THE GAME COME TO ME”

It is not uncommon that I begin writing not knowing where my reflection will go. I simply start with what has energy for me. I follow my conscious and unconscious streams of thoughts and often end up discovering what is in store for me. Today’s entry is a good example.

I am still in the middle of celebrating my 63rd birthday, though my actual birthday has come and gone. I was told that this year’s birthday is a once-in-a-lifetime birthday known as a platinum or diamond birthday, where the last two digits of my birth year, 1963, match my age, 63. So I decided to milk my birthday celebration beyond my actual birthday with the help of dear friends in Singapore and Malaysia. For one, it has been a non-stop feast, from Hong Kong dim sum to Peking duck, from Japanese ramen to Hokkien Prawn Mee noodle soup, to Bak Kuh Teh, and home-cooked Korean meals, over the last week. Much more than the delectable foods, I am pinching myself with the grateful realization of precious, like-minded, and similar-path-journeying friends, both in Southeast Asia and far away. I count my blessings often to know that I have such fine fellow peregrini. As I age, I consider my adult children and their spouses more as friends or fellow pilgrims than children.

Somehow, without planning, I’ve done things this week that I haven’t done in a long time. Maybe this pattern of trying new things will define this year? I wondered. Our Singaporean friend and host invited me to join his weekly yoga class. He warned me that most participants would be middle-aged Chinese Singaporean women, and he and one other man would be the only token men there. He tried to relax me and encourage me at the same time by saying it’s a “gentle” class, meaning there’s no crazy twisting or ungodly contorting. Thanks to the pandemic, I did do yoga for about a year with my wife, and I remember being quickly humbled as my stiff body experienced near torture. The profusion of sweat was my proof. The woman instructor was so quick-witted and friendly that I felt at home right away. Upon entering the class, my friend introduced my wife and me as his friends. She took the cue and asked me where we were from. I said, “Korea.” After a brief moment with a disapproving look, she refused to believe that we were from Korea and asked, “Where are you really from?” I said with a feeling of being caught, “We’re from America, living in Korea.” She said I looked like an American Chinese. I laughed out loud and wondered inside how she would come to deduce.

The same friend took me on a bike ride along the river on another day. Since I had not ridden a bike for a very long time, I was ready to feel the air on my face, which was a luxury of skipping Korea’s harsh winter. Though I immensely enjoyed the pleasant cool morning with a breeze on my face, signifying freedom, my untrained buttocks screamed at me. A long time ago, I did consider cycling as my next sport after basketball. But over time, I realized that I could not trust myself and that I would be too daring and not have enough respect for speed and safety. As much as I enjoy the wind on my face, I still don’t think it is a wise choice as my next sport.

On my actual birthday in Malaysia, my friends took me to the driving range. This outing was not as new as the others, as I joined my children at the driving range and at Top Golf in the US. While I enjoyed hitting the ball when I did make contact, I knew what my problems were: my left arm needed to maintain a straight line when swinging, and I was exerting too much of my own power rather than letting the club do the work. My blistered right thumb was proof that I was holding the club too tightly.

The day after, my friends in Kuala Lumpur invited me to their weekly badminton. Badminton is very popular in Southeast Asia, as indoor badminton courts are everywhere. Other than my stint at playground badminton during elementary school days in Korea, I could not remember the last time I played with intention. Again, I was properly humbled as my body was so tight and rigid that I did not have the kind of agility that is needed to play badminton well. I blamed myself for not stretching enough, and that it was early in the morning. After one hour of chasing the shuttlecock, my friend casually remarked that I was exerting too much power.

There was an unexpected theme of letting go, emptying, and “letting the game come to you.” As with yoga, driving ranges, badminton, and even cycling, loosening up and being in the flow is a counterintuitive art to learn and relearn. This realization naturally prompted me to reflect on areas of my life where I hold too tightly, try to control obsessively, or exert too much “power” and effort. What would it look like to let the game come to me? As soon as I ask myself this, I remember the mantra prayer, “Trust the river I am on,” which I have relied on for many years. This wasn’t a new lesson but a prudent one I needed to be reminded of.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

As we walk the streets of Singapore, my body is in shock, having shifted from the tundra to the tropics. My eyes are feasting on perennial lush greens, exotic flowers, and plants everywhere. Most notably, my toes are grateful for their freedom. I told someone just yesterday that my first time in Singapore was back in 1986. That person promptly said to me that it was well before he was born. Since 1986, I have probably visited Singapore more than thirty times, easily. So, Singapore and I go back a long way, and I feel a certain bond with Singapore as if it were a close friend. Building on this sense of coming full circle, my “mission” has shifted to helping and companioning people to discover the God-given gifts that they are, so they can live out their fullest potential as intended by God’s original and enduring design.

A great Jesuit philosopher and teacher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, once said, “My self is given to me far more than it is formed by me.” He also wrote elsewhere, “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” Discovering the given self requires hard and intentional work on our part and the slow work of God. Peeling away the layers of false or carefully “formed” self is the hard and courageous work and is met by the gracious, patient, and slow work of God.

My spiritual direction training is coming to an end, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. With one more module to go, I see the finish line. From Malaysia to the US and to Korea, the school was one constant discipline over the span of about fifteen months. The finish line will be the Closing Residency in Baguio City, Philippines, during the second week of April. As I look ahead, I want to offer spiritual direction to people who may desire the hard and slow work. With a fair amount of confidence in the spiritual direction tradition to which I belong, I am shamelessly promoting my individual spiritual direction ministry in my blog space.

The word “direction” is a misnomer because there is no directing in spiritual direction. It is more of companionship, as we simply offer a safe, hospitable space for people to discover their own answers to their questions and ultimately their own God-given selves. We do this by contemplative listening and evocative responding. If there is directing, it is a more gentle, tentative invitation as opposed to direct advising. Spiritual direction is neither about problem-solving nor acquiring skills but discerning the ever-present Presence of Christ in daily life.

If you know someone who might benefit from such a space, please let me know. I understand that spiritual direction isn't for everyone. I have no preference regarding the potential directees’ religious or spiritual backgrounds. I might be more sympathetic to those with a missions background, but since it’s not about me or my background, it really does not matter. I am eager to place myself beyond my familiar religious tradition and learn. Because dual relationships are discouraged, having a spiritual director who only plays one role in the directee’s life is ideal. Once my training is complete, I plan to take on a few more directees starting in May or June.

The posture and philosophy behind spiritual direction are an essential part of how my wife and I want to live our life forward. I am grateful and excited to be at a place in my journey where I can offer this space to those who desire.

IMAGINATION AND DESIRE

We cannot desire what we cannot imagine. Imagination does not require comprehensive knowledge; a brief, luring understanding will suffice. In fact, imagination thrives when knowledge reaches its limit. Conversely, mastery of knowledge does little to invoke imagination; instead, a certain hunger and curiosity to see and experience more foster fuller imagination. Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 5:6 this way, “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God.”

A hunger or a good appetite for God creates humility of unknowing, a poverty of heart and mind. This humility becomes a fertile ground for imagination to thrive. Life continuously cultivates hunger and an “appetite” for God, which sparks a more intense and healthy imagination of intimacy and union with God. The grace of God allows us to taste and see that God is good and to grow that hunger. Recognizing this hunger and actually tasting God’s goodness are one and the same. This is also the idea behind seeing God dimly. Because we see God dimly, we desire more of God. Furthermore, the ability to see God dimly is itself a grace at work.

The moments in life that grant us access to God, through seeing (dimly) and tasting, are, more often than not, not over-the-top or earth-shattering events, but rather through soft, shy whispers of life. During the previous week, I gifted my books to two different individuals. The introductions and connections happened through mutual friends and acquaintances. Both were grateful to receive my book, which humbled me. One is a young cancer patient, who is also a father of 9-year-old and 7-year-old daughters and a husband. As an aspiring actor and radio host, he has been fighting cancer for close to ten years. His long curly hair, down to his shoulder, looks natural and fitting. His vocal cord was significantly damaged due to radiation treatments, and he lost his voice for about three years. Now, there is a slight hope of regaining his voice. He whispers as he talks and is one of the most grateful people I have ever met.

I found out he is our neighbor, almost within walking distance, in fair weather. What grounded him during those years of forced silence was building his own house with his two able hands, step by step and day by day. He imagined a perfect home for his family, and the imagination fed his desire, you might say. He proudly showed a picture of his beautiful home. Every time I pass by his house, I offer a quick prayer. I have joined others in praying for him and his family that God would intervene. We will know in two months whether his vocal cord can be healed or not . .

A close family member of his has been telling him, like the modern-day Job’s friends, that God would heal him if he went to seminary and did God’s work, as his wife joined us a bit later and chimed in. Their togetherness warmed my heart because I could sense that they were one in the Spirit and learning how to live their life forward. Still, such a comment breaks my heart for him and makes me angry to no end. The anger and frustration also carry a layer of compassion, as I know I could have been one of those zealous family members in the past. Over the years, one of my revelations about God has been the shift from viewing God as a small-minded God demanding our absolute obedience to seeing Him as a generous, big-hearted, compassionate God who loves nothing more and nothing less than our love — even if it is incomplete and conditional — and returning that love to God.

Thankfully, he refuses to be imprisoned by such talk of a sure God. I imagine my God who loves to “set the burdened and battered free” and who loves each of us to discover how God created us to be. I desire to experience more of this kind of God and share far and wide how wonderful our God is.

SILENCE

My wife is not particularly a chatty person or a busybody. In the silent mornings she adores, she thoughtfully structures her day, moving through it with intention and purpose. Being in a large house, isolated up on a hill with no human beings nearby, and with my wife the way she is and functions, I, too, experience ample silence throughout the day. After breakfast on our own, which has been the pattern for many years, I clear out of the house in seeking a more “extroverted” silence by going to a neighborhood café. Occasionally, my wife joins me on a café outing, as is the case today.

Since it is too cold for outdoor exercises for my Southern California-acclimated body, we opt for a gym in the late afternoon, three or four times a week. We are part of an online group that does a weekly health challenge here in Korea. Fourteen of us chose an exercise regimen that we set for a period of three months. If we miss the weekly goal we set, we pay a small penalty, which goes to a Christmas gathering fund. Last year, though, we only collected a little over 20,000 won (equivalent of $15). That showed how well we met our goals. Exercising in a gym is another kind of extroverted silence. I draw energy by being in a surrounding like this. I find it helpful that one of the signs the gym has is no phone engagement while sitting down on the exercise equipment. Being in touch with my body helps me feel more present and alive.

Afterwards, we would often swing by Hanaro Market and buy a few items for dinner or the next morning’s breakfast. I find that it is, oddly but not surprisingly, grounding to go to a market every day. My wife began to make her own yogurt after purchasing a home yogurt maker. As is the case with homemade yogurt, we are happy that Korea is known for a wide selection of slow foods. Silence and slow pair up well. After a few people gave us some prized Kimchi, which stands at the pinnacle of slow food, one section of our refrigerator is stocked full of Kimchi. I feel rich and happy. We often make dinner, with my specialty being soups and stews, and do the dishes together, followed by watching singing programs or dramas on Netflix in the evenings.

Routines keep us grounded and anchored. Now that we have Korean phone numbers and a bank account, which took dizzying, complicated effort, we are happy to stick with the mundane routines of the day. I told some friends in Korea that I could create an entire YouTube episode based on my experience. I discovered that, for long-term residents, even in an advanced and sophisticated country like Korea, one cannot function well without Korean phone numbers. Even I, as an ultra-spontaneous person, know that routines are necessary and helpful, like building blocks of life.

There is power and wisdom in silence and from silence. Silence creates and expands the capacity to listen, see, and notice things as they are, not as I am. While it is natural to see and listen through the filters of how we are wired and positioned, which means we are constantly filtering, there is profound wisdom in observing and listening to what truly is. Silence serves as the anchoring space when I meet with my directees, both one-on-one and in groups. I am continually amazed at how clearly God speaks and manifests during silence.

Perhaps there is little difference between the interspersed silence of daily life and the intentional silence we carve out for God and with God... Silence is God’s space. Every time we enter silence, we step into God’s presence. The dormancy of life and the monochrome of winter create a sense of deafening silence, even as I look at the frozen vast Bukhan River, amazed. The vibrancy of spring, the flourishing of summer, and the abundance of autumn give way to winter, marked by silence, and reminding us that silence is God’s way of working and speaking.

A CRADLE

Our recent trip to the Philippines reminded us, not that we had forgotten, that we are right where God wants us to be: in Asia, with Korea as our base. It was a trip of confirmation and affirmation. After we landed in Incheon airport, driving home, I felt like I was home. After years of being in liminal space, this was a welcome emotion. Feeling grateful and grounded, we hosted friends in Korea at our house for the Christmas holidays, which was the first Christmas since 1976.

Now that we have most of our furniture and essential household needs in place, we feel settled. My wife feels at home, so I am wise enough to follow her lead.  During our time in the Philippines, I shared the name of our home—a place to behold and be held—with Ruthie and Joey. After listening contemplatively, Ruthie saw an image of a rocking cradle where the infant’s eye and the parents’ eye meet. The gentle image of rocking evoked and added to the playful note of a warm and tender gaze.

A day ago, as we were zooming with our faithful intercessor for over a decade, I shared that our desire is to carry with us the image and embodiment of “cradle” wherever we go. One might say, there is the physical cradle in Yangpyeong, and the portable cradle when we travel. The mystical and unitive experience of being seen by God and seeing God, albeit dimly, and the reality of Christ in the world are undoubtedly the first steps toward living and living rightly.

So how do we experience such a union? Thomas Merton offers his wisdom, “The answer is, by faith, and this means not simply by an intellectual assent to certain authoritative dogmatic propositions, but, more than that, by the commitment of our whole self and of our whole life to the reality of the presence of Christ in the world.“ I am glad that Merton does not undermine dogmas and certain authoritative belief propositions, but it is decisively more in Merton’s fertile mind. Pursuing and aligning with the reality of the presence of Christ in this world is experiential and maturing faith at work. To pursue and align, we are first invited to see Christ and Christ at work in this world.

It is clear in my mind that in order for us to take “cradle” wherever we go, we first have to experience a cradle in our lives. Must I say that I love the image of a rocking cradle, so whimsical and exciting? And yet so helpless, dependent, and needy? It is not unlike being poor in spirit, which has been a learning theme in the Philippines. My soul finds solace because God does and will not require strength, perfection, and resolve. Only the admission that I am helpless and needy. ..That is where God is. That is who God is.

Thus, the image of a cradle is not about fantasized tenderness or ignorance of one’s desperation. What if I could offer that space as a gift to those we meet and interact with? I see the finish line of my study at the School of Spiritual Direction. Even months ago, I wasn’t quite sure whether I wanted to avail myself of one-on-one spiritual direction sessions, but as I meet regularly with three directees each month, I know I want to extend that space to those God has prepared. As I am being cradled, I desire to offer that cradle space to others.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Oliver reminds us that nature is a tireless, patient teacher. “The soft animal” of our bodies’ loving what it loves is an instinctual, visceral pursuit—meaning what cannot not pursue what we love, albeit partially and imperfectly. If we learn to lean into that, there is animal-like instinctual wisdom and imagination.

Loving what we love is like going home, a home to our true selves. This love, in the end, reflects all-encompassing, unconditional love of God. As we are and meant to be what we love, going home means discerning what we love, which was already given. Additionally, loving what we love offers clues and pieces of the puzzle that help us understand how to live our lives, unrepeatably unique to ourselves. Love is our destination and the only rite of passage toward home. Because we pursue what we love, we experience a range of emotions, including despair, loneliness, harshness, and excitement, all wrapped up in one. Loving what we love announces our place in the family of things, according to Oliver. That is how we belong in the world.

The sun, the rain, the prairies, the trees, and the wild geese all embody and understand “despair, lonely, harsh, and exciting” facets of our lives. It is almost as if nature is whispering or sometimes loudly declaring to us that everything is normal, everything belongs. The word “meanwhile” is a subtle yet stark reminder that the world is happening all around us, serving as an invitation to pay attention.

After returning home from our recent trip to the Philippines, my heart kept returning to the tender shared moments at Coffee Keeper. As the Christ in me witnessed Christ in others in poverty of heart and mind, I marveled at the different shades of God’s goodness and mercy. There were all these emotions: joy, excitement, despair, loneliness, harshness, and hope. We were all on the same yet different journeys of going home, like wild geese.

The poverty of heart and mind is a gift from God. As it is the recognition of our desperate void, the emptiness that can only be filled by God, the poverty is God’s way of wooing us back to God, like a mother hen ready to embrace.

A MORNING WALK

I wrote the poem below on March 10, a week before we left for the US. As our one-year stay in Malaysia was coming to a close, I took walks around our neighborhood, savoring the time we had left. I think I can remember what I felt when I wrote this. That’s what poetry does, like a song lodged in memory, frozen in time. Partly to visit our friends and partly to escape the cold in Korea, we will swing by Malaysia (and Singapore) for a month in January and February. We will be conducting a few rounds of Suji Enneagram workshops in Singapore and Malaysia. And simply to connect and cherish our time with dear friends in those lands.

My heart ached as we left the Philippines after a recent ten-day visit. We were quite busy with speaking engagements and meetings, and spent an inordinate amount of time sitting in cars due to traffic. When indoors, we relied on air conditioners all the time, even though they said it was cooler this time of year. On the contrary, I was cold most of the time indoors and looked to buy a jacket, but came up empty-handed. After swatting away and slapping a few mosquitoes, we then flew down to Davao City in Mindanao (for the first time). Then there were durian parties, I mean feasts, twice. The second time was one in the morning when a friend of our hosts brought durians from her farm. After traveling back to our small inn, since the inn wouldn't allow durians on the property, we huddled outside by the parking lot and devoured durians (speaking for myself) and went to bed full of durian in my stomach.

While in Davao City, specifically in Tagum, we visited a local cafe, Coffee Keeper, owned and run by a pastor's brother, and held a short retreat. My wife led a time of reflection and sharing. My tears flowed freely as I listened to a small group of people share what they heard from God. They represented those who were poor in spirit and pure in heart. I sensed God’s heavy, happy presence, delighting in each of us. Our hosts, Pastors Ruthie and Joey, envision training at the grassroots level to foster a spirituality that combines contemplation and action. As they expressed a desire for partnership, we shared with them that we are ready to help and assist.

The owner invited me behind the counter and gave me a privilege to handbrew coffee for our friends

Time in Malaysia is coming to an end, for now,
what was once strange became familiar, mundane
lazy morning with motorbikes making the loudest sound
with unmistakably dull whizzing city sound in the background
but the undisturbed sky majestically boasts its signature blue with cotton cumulus clouds
reminding the city dwellers to look up occasionally
never without demands, if in need of courage, inspiration, and imagination.

It must be time for school
while I hear no birds calling
I hear children whistling and chirping from near and far
joyful and excited notes
replacing the morning birds of all kinds
moms busy saying goodbyes and sending them off to school
and the world so they can learn to fly on their own.

I too was once a chirper, eager to test my wings
fell flat many times
simple-minded, forgetful enough to keep trying
because I knew I could fly
with sky as a friend.

WHAT IFS

We are currently in Davao City in the southern Philippines (Mindanao), visiting Ruthie and Joey’s church and their family. We have been asked to facilitate a few workshops and attend some of the family and church’s milestone celebrations. When we told some of our friends in Manila that we would be visiting Davao City, the first thing they told us to do was to eat durians. We are happy to escape the cold in Korea and wear flip flops and shorts all the time. We will fly back this Friday and spend Christmas for the first time since 1976 in Korea.

I wrote the above poem on August 14. I do not recall the specific context, except that our grandson was born on August 11. What I vaguely remember is rumination on light and darkness, life and death. So, I started with the last stanza and worked my way back, expanding it as I went.

What if colors have sounds
what if wind has facial expressions
what if dogs can speak
what if four seasons become one monotonous season?

What if there is only one kind of everything, including us
what if there is no history, the story of everything, both hidden and revealed
what if there is no word for the future
what if there is no access to the present?

What if change never happens
what if we could not travel
what if we are stuck where we were born
what if when we feel like we are flying, we are actually being carried?

What if sadness is beauty, and beauty exists because of terror
what if anger is wisdom, and wisdom to discern a way forward
what if pain is glory, and the crown of glory can be worn through death
what if joy is a clue and key to our true being?

What if tears are windows to our souls
what if smiles can melt away fears and hatreds
what if laughter is the sacred act of letting go and letting in
what if the combination of smile and tears forms the rare ecstasy, a doorway into heaven?

What if life is not light
what if death is not darkness
what if life and death are the same
what if we are already one with the One and with all?

HUMOUR

HUMOUR
is a disguised form of spiritual discipline: an art form dedicated to the never-ending multi-contextual and multivalent nature of reality. A sense of humour tells us that whatever context we might have arranged for ourselves, there is always another context that makes our particular context absurd. Absurdity is the subversion of my present too-narrow belief and my too-narrow sense of my self: my appreciation of a suddenly revealed absurdity tells me, even in the midst of laughter, that I am willing to learn. Humour is my saviour. Shared humour equally appreciated, helps to save us both, shared humour tells us we are on the edge of discovering or seeing something new again, together.

…….

Humour at its best is the passing on of happiness, the natural overflow of felt joy, the ability to lift another’s spirits: one person laughing contagiously, or when we are lonely or alone, a sudden jolly arrival of companionable travellers, sweeping us up and on in the joy of communal bandinage.

Humour can be both a personal and a communal gift: a lifting of the spirits that allows us to look down on our previous commitment to a necessary glumness and see just how much of that shadowed, narrow melancholy was of our own making, how much we refused to get over ourselves, how much we refused to be humiliated in instructive ways; to see or hear things new and surprising about the world and about ourselves - how much we refused to come out and meet the merciful, subversive, humiliating richness of our multi-contextual world that refuses and always has refused, our every, sober, puritanical no-nonsense attempt to pin it down.

David Whyte

This week, I decided to feature David Whyte’s short essay on humour. (Out of six paragraphs, I am highlighting three above: the first and the last two.) It is packed with insights and reflections that are worth pondering in this season. Somehow, we are taught to embrace seriousness (what Whyte calls “narrow melancholy or puritanical” as a virtue in most spiritual traditions. Serious learning can happen through play, humour, or happiness.

I concur with Whyte that humour reveals one’s penchant for learning. Humour is a merciful, humiliating teacher that exposes one’s shallow, narrow, and absurdities of perceived reality. It is merciful because it hits us when we are least guarded, hopelessly trying to defend our myopia and parochialism. If contemplation is “any way one has of penetrating illusions and touching reality,” according to Parker Palmer, then humour cracks open one’s illusions and uncovers new and surprising reality, which always has been.

And to share humour in communities and/or with family and friends is one of life’s richest treasures. Since learning is a lifelong process, we should all make generous room for humour. “The passing on of happiness, the natural overflow of felt joy,” as fellow pilgrims nourish and uplift our human souls like no other.

Humour is endowed with a gift from above to open up all the portals of learning, exposing and addressing all our excuses and refusals to see and know. I can honestly say that I cannot do this serious work alone, but only with communities that are willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn.

INVITATION

Invitation

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

Mary Oliver

This tender but serious invitation could change our lives. It has changed my life. This was one precise reason why we decided to settle in Yangpyeong, closer to nature’s spectacle and wonder, not that nature showcases for my sake. Nature simply does what nature is, and the only way we can participate is to linger and pay attention. The reality is that it is happening around us all the time and everywhere, out of “sheer delight and gratitude,” not to lose sight of the fact that we live in a broken world.

Over the weekend, we drove into the city to enjoy the mild late autumn weather and spend time outdoors. After meandering ten thousand steps in the historic part of the city, we found a tiny, independent bookstore tucked away from the main street. As my wife’s twinkling eyes met mine, full of curiosity, we decided to step inside. The bookstore was converted from a more than a hundred-year-old Hanok (Korean traditional house), which was approximately 50 square meters in size. As we were leaving, the owner approached us and asked, “Are you here for the exhibit?” “No,” we replied. The truth was that we did not see the exhibit sign outside. He then sheepishly wondered whether we would be interested in meeting the artist. Curious, we both said, “Yes.” The artist, Park, recently spent two years on a remote island called Udo, desperately trying to find her own artistic flow. She had us enter the makeshift dark room and listen to an audio recording that mimicked the Udo storm that changed her life. After ten minutes, she joined us in the tiny dark room and explained the painting right in front of us. I knew my wife was deeply moved, as was I, as her sharing reflected some of our most profound spiritual discoveries as well.

She “lingered” and accepted the gift of nature and discovered herself in the making. She recalled a storm that stopped all the ferries and boats for days, and how she found herself in isolation. She began to see how she was, trying to fit in and paint what others wanted from her rather than painting what flowed out of her. She learned the hard lesson of letting go during two years of isolation, which required a great deal of courage. She was humble enough to share with us that she is still on the journey. She thanked us for our attentive listening. She asked at one point, smiling, “How are you listening to me so deeply?” We thanked her and congratulated her for her courage and dedication. One of her signature paintings from the isolation period is featured above, titled Freedom of Isolation.

Her life has changed ever since she accepted the invitation, an invitation to linger in isolation, among birds, ocean, wind, and even storms. Interweaving Oliver’s poem and the artist Park, I wonder if “sheer delight and gratitude” in us has something to do with the invitation to change our lives. Lastly, I salute Oliver, quoting Rilke as if to accentuate that perennial spiritual tradition continues from one generation to the next…

THANK YOU

December crept up on us this year, with major moves from Malaysia to the US and Korea. I realize I will be spending Christmas in Korea for the first time since 1976… Here in Korea, December is obvious everywhere. The lushness of summer greens and vibrant fall hues is fading quickly, giving way to shades of grey, soon to be monochromatic wonder or dread (depending on one’s mood). The tall, blue autumn skies are gradually being replaced by duller colors, seeming closer, as if even the skies are huddling together to stay warm and keep us warm. The evergreen pine trees don’t look as green as they used to. Even in Yangpyeong, the red and green of holiday lights and familiar music fill the air, though less commercialized.

This morning, as I walked over to the kitchen and rolled up the screen shade to greet the day, I saw an elegant and fearless white heron far away, gliding at my eye level, and eventually perched on the top of a tree. I stopped rolling the screen and watched. I thought to myself, the effortless wonder is why we are here. As I was driving down our steep hill on route to a café, I saw a family of cats and kittens, all six of them. Once house pets and now wild, they looked like they had not seen any humans and were in guardian mode until I drove by. I remember the cautious and curious eyes on one of them this morning.

By the end of this year, I will have kept this blog alive for six years. What I thought would be a one-year sabbatical practice has turned into a weekly rhythm and discipline of sharing my reflections, musings, and questions. It is a rhythm and discipline that has benefitted me immensely, and I would like to continue. Thank you for reading and interacting with me. It gives me life that someone is reading and resonating with what I am writing. It is also here that I began to discover my passion and desire to write, in line with my whole being.

As is an annual tradition, I will set aside the month of December to highlight some of my favorite poems and a few poems I have written this year. Poetry, to me, serves as a living spring for sapiential seeing and living. As a bastion of human spiritual wisdom, poetry offers yet another layer of wisdom—“to tell all the truth, but tell it slant,” to borrow the words of Emily Dickinson. Mystery can be violated if communicated clearly and directly. As I grow older, I find myself journeying from certainties or the need for certainties to beholding wonder, mystery, contradictions, and even absurdities. Poetry has a knack for preserving mystery, wonder, and contradictions as they are without needing to clarify, categorize, and force certainty. In this vein, nature is poetry in motion, possessing an unmatched capacity to hold contradictions, mystery, and wonder. Let’s lean on Thomas Merton, “The language of mystics, in short, is always poetic and claims plenty of license for paradox in dealing freely with symbols, sweeping them far outside the limits of their own capacity to convey a meaning.”

As roughly one-third of the Bible is poetry, poetry connects our story with the stories of our faith fathers and mothers, without demanding answers. As “conversations” take place between their stories and ours, we feel that we are not alone, affirmed, and inspired. In fact, our lives, too, are living poetry in motion, expressing each of our unique lives in ways that we only can and should. As we celebrate the birth of Christ in our midst, let us also celebrate each of our births, which are given to us to find God and to be in union with God.