RIVER, OCEAN, AND WIND

In recent years, I’ve probably dealt with more sadness than any other emotion. As we downsized most of our belongings into four large suitcases to move to Korea, we had to shed most of our stuff, not to mention leaving our four adult children behind in the US. There is the letting go of material belongings and the familiar, close network of relationships for 50 years. No other sadness, however, comes remotely close to leaving our children. Then, the biggest sadness came from the death of a dream, a dream of living in proximity with our children and grandchildren.

The biggest work of sadness came from letting go of dreams rather than the realities of saying goodbyes. Sadness involves the release of what is, tied and amplified by the extension of what could be. Thus, what I projected or envisioned my future-to-be died: the dream of being near our children and growing grandchildren, the dream of growing old with friends, and even the small dream of hiking all the national parks in the US with a lifetime senior national park pass, etc. It is the letting go of the future “fields of gold,” poetically sung by Sting.

A few days ago, my wife and I finished watching the K-drama, When Life Gives You Tangerines. There is a scene in which the father walks his daughter down the aisle. As it unfolded, I knew what was coming and promptly cried, joining the father in the drama. More than 30 years ago, when my first daughter was about two years old, I was in Chicago, parked in front of Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant. (The fact that I remember the scene so clearly tells me it was a big deal.) As I was about to leave, the song Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle came on the radio. It was my first time hearing it. I quickly became a wreck, unable to drive, crying my eyeballs out, envisioning the day I would walk my daughter down the aisle. I was not prepared for my own tears at the time.

A few years ago, when my second daughter got married, I only cried three times. :) The second time I cried at the wedding was when I was beaming in happiness and crying in sadness at the same time, walking my daughter down the aisle. It was a time of release for her to live her life with her husband and children by her side, not my projection of her future.

“Sadness isn’t just about loss and letting go. It’s also about restoring your flow and your ease so that you can reset yourself,” Karla McLaren writes. The idea of resetting resonates with me. Looking back, there was definitely a restoration of flow and ease. And I have no illusion that it is a one-time release either. Acknowledged sadness, as I experienced at the recent Closing Residency during the ritual of leaving, is beauty itself. It opens the circuit of my entire being, allowing me to flow. As we empty, God fills and renews.

With this feeling of awakened-ness and flow, the new dreams began to emerge: the dream of being healthy and happy with my wife right by my side, the dream of witnessing wonders in Asia, the dream of deep communion with communities in Asia, and the dream of companioning people to fully come alive.

After the release, rejuvenation arrives, according to Karla McLaren. I am like a house host who lets the old, welcomed guest named “sadness” honorably leave, then the same guest returns with the gift of “rejuvenation and renewal.”

In recent years, the imagery of the river spoke to me deeply. For an inordinate amount of time, I told myself, “Chong, trust the river you are on. Trust the flow.” As of last fall, the river imagery transformed into a vast, wide-open ocean. At least while on the river, whether moving fast or slow, you see where you are going, the bends, the banks, the villages, the trees, and occasionally the sky. As I am on the vast ocean, scared and excited, sometimes with no bearings on where I am, the imagery of wind recently grabbed hold of me.

Wind is more unpredictable, unplanned (so it seems), and breathtaking outworkings of the Spirit of God. Someone in my Group Spiritual Guidance companioned me, “wind is the invisible impacting the visibles.” When one is on the ocean, one is dependent on the wind, being carried and impacted. I know full well that there is nothing I can do or can’t do to prepare for welcoming wind in my life. So, I am willing to tell myself today, “trust the wind, son.”