THE JOURNEY

One day you finally knew

What you had to do, and began,

Though the voices around you

Kept shouting

Their bad advice‚

Though the whole house

Began to tremble

And you felt the old tug

At your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

Each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

Though the wind pried

With its stiff fingers

At the very foundations‚

Though their melancholy

Was terrible.

It was already late

Enough, and a wild night,

And the road full of fallen

Branches and stones.

But little by little,

As you left their voices behind,

The stars began to burn

Through the sheets of clouds,

And there was a new voice,

Which you slowly

Recognized as your own,

That kept you company

As you strode deeper and deeper

Into the world,

Determined to do

The only thing you could do‚

Determined to save

The only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

WHAT MATTERS

Only the Divine matters,
And because the Divine matters,
Everything matters.

-Thomas Keating

REFLECTION ON BLOGGING

“Pilgrimage may be thought of as extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage.” ”

— Victor and Edith Turner

Congratulations and a HUGE THANK YOU for keeping up with my blog this year for however much or little you’ve engaged. No judgment from me at all. At a deeper level, thank you for journeying with my soul’s pilgrimage. What started out as a way to process my own “stuff” and share with my community during my sabbatical has now come to an end. I’ve learned to slowly bare my soul in written words and reach deeper into the intricacies of my interiority. As such, I did not have a master plan outline for the entire year. I could not. I simply followed the map of my soul for guidance and direction, and I learned over time to capture sometimes overt and sometimes subtle nuances of becoming fully Chong. It is one thing to blog on ideas and thoughts which I have done. It is another to blog on my interior journey. At times, I felt vulnerable and sacred. Even as a person prone to a laissez-faire attitude, I have tried to be precise with the choice of words and sentences. I’ve learned to appreciate the power and the privilege of the written word, probably more than ever before.

This week will be the last entry, so I will focus on what I learned by blogging. For the remainder of the year (December), I would like to share a few poems that touched me, with no additional comments from me.

In the meantime, I will be discerning whether to continue blogging next year. . . Originally, blogging was meant only for the duration of my sabbatical, but I am rethinking that now. The practice of blogging provided a consistent and grounding discipline that has surpassed my own expectation of self-benefit.

Additionally and most certainly…

I have deeply appreciated your reflections, encouragements, and cheers. Thank you!

If you will allow me, I would like to share a few more reflections from writing and blogging. 

What I write reflects the unique me. It is unique because there is no one like me. My experiences, life, thoughts, struggles, pain, intricacies, etc. all roll into who I am. Because my writing reflects who I am, it is sacred, as long as I authentically bare my soul without ego’s interruptions and distractions. This realization gave me a deeper appreciation for other similar writings I have come to ponder, for theirs is also sacred. Thus, each of our uniqueness mysteriously and yet seamlessly melds into something gloriously universal and the experience of simply being human. While my life’s experiences may be unique, there is enough humanness that ties all humanity. And vice versa. So, if we will, we can benefit from one another’s story and use that to spur each other on. This realization gave me vision and hope to write. 

Though I am not a writer, I have experienced plenty of the proverbial writer’s block syndrome. There were days and even weeks where I was just not moved to write. No creative juice flowing, no connections being made, meager inspiration, just blank. I have learned to be ok with just sitting (but still sitting) and not “producing” anything. There also were days and weeks that I was so drawn to ideas, thoughts, and reflections that I simply could not stop thinking about how to capture certain thoughts or to draw out something from my heart’s well. When thoughts came to me while driving, lying down to sleep, in the middle of talking to someone, while eating, and/or while watching something, I have learned to not allow those things to pass by. What has been most useful for me though was the daily morning routine of silence, solitude, reading, and reflection.

In the 2nd half of life I am in (or at least I would like to think I am), I have come to appreciate poetry. Poetry is one of those universal reflective pastimes that forces one to slow down and to suck the marrow of life’s meaning and lessons. Having been a hyperactive person most of my life, I never thought I would appreciate poetry. I have learned to take some deep breaths and meditate on each word and stanza while not trying to analyze but embrace my own sense of intuition and interior hints. Poems “tell it slant”, not unlike parables. I find myself moving away from the so-called propositional truths (or certain set of beliefs) that tend to be more binary minded or “this or that” thinking and more toward the nuanced subtleties of gradient truths or the truths that come in paradoxes, contradictions, and mysteries. I’ve learned to appreciate the coy subtleties of the moonlight over the blazing and bright sunlight, one might say.

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge a small 3-person team that has been responsible for producing this weekly blog. My wife, Grace, is my partner as she gives input and feedback to the content and asks poignant and tough questions. There are a number of blog entries that did not see the light of day because she told me to work on it some more. :) She often would ask me, can you think of any examples? Or can you flesh out this thought? Do you really want to say this? Etc. She would also often tell me this piece is good or really good, which I don’t take lightly. She also does all the content editing. Brittany, a soon to be spiritual director, helps with all the layout, production end of things, including scheduling. She has an uncanny ability to choose pictures that speak and resonate with my content. Her selection of photos often ministers to me. She also gives input and feedback on the content. Would you join me in thanking Grace and Brittany?!?

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

SABBATICAL REVIEW PART 3: DESIRE

Sometime in the middle of August (9 months into my sabbatical), my soul began to sense that the stubborn season of death and deconstruction was coming to a close, and I noticed new-found desires sprouting, much like beauty rising out of ashes--desolation to consolation, desert to garden, bleak dark winter to budding green spring. While receiving the desires as God’s gift to us in this season, I fully expect the “cycle” of death, deconstruction, and desire (or reconstruction) will continue throughout my life’s journey.

A few of my new desires include:

Partnership with Grace. It is true that my wife and I have been partnering throughout all these years of ministry, ever since we got married in 1990. I was already in the context of a full-time mission (since 1988), and my wife joined the cause with arms wide open. Generally speaking, the “partnership” for the last 30 years had me trailblazing and leading and my wife supporting. We both served under an organizational umbrella and accountability with different roles and responsibilities, so we were “partnering” together under an overarching cause we both believed in. Especially in the early years of marriage, Grace also gave much attention and energy to raising our four young children. The “new partnership” we are envisioning is discerning and doing ministry together side by side, no more me leading and her supporting. This time, truly functioning as one, recognizing each other’s gifts and passions not only to serve the same cause but walking the process and the road ahead together.

This leads to the next desire. Both of us want to invest the remainder of our lives to come alongside and help people discover their authentic and true selves, their God-given selves. We’ve already seen glimpses and early fruit of our labor, which we interpret as God’s affirmation and encouragement. To us, it translates into unspeakable joy of witnessing each person being fully alive. Being fully alive is nothing short of being in union with God. We’ve also witnessed our gifts complementing each other to which we are saying we want more. I am free-flowing while Grace provides security and familiarity through structure, for example. I tend to exaggerate with high energy while she is gentle, calm, and assuring. More specifically, a definitive call from God during this Sabbatical is the realization that “I must speak.” I am still in the middle of discerning how to “speak.” Speaking, communicating, writing, and training are also shared with Grace.

Desire for community. My wife and I do not want to be an island unto ourselves, as much as we love each other :).  We want to either belong to or create a community that embraces and pursues discovering true selves. This community in my mind must be marginal, shielded from the dominant power and control game and from the efficiency and effectiveness trap, while maintaining connection to the dominant power so we can speak into it. It needs to embrace a posture of being counter-cultural and even counter-religious. I sense in my gut that how we do kingdom life needs to be rethought, away from conventional and accepted wisdom, patterns, and systems.

For community to be a true community, it will invariably have both contemplation and action integrated. One cannot exist without the other. Contemplation that is geared toward discovering true selves in safe space away from wooden and performance-driven religiosity or structures is what we believe is needed. Action that is not merely defined by external needs or wants but action that is a natural outflow of one’s true self would be refreshingly grassroots and authentic. This way, contemplation and action are seamlessly integrated and deeply connected to our true energy source: our soul created in the triune God’s image. Richard Rohr says this well.

“The words action and contemplation aptly describe the two dancing polarities of our lives. In classic Christian philosophy, Thomas Aquinas and many others stated that the highest form of spiritual maturity is not action or contemplation, but the ability to integrate the two into one life stance—to be service-oriented contemplatives or contemplative activists. By temperament we all tend to come at it from one side or the other.”

Ultimately, cultivating such a community of pilgrims that lives out the Great Commandment of loving God, ourselves, and our neighbors is our deep desire. This to me is no different from the union Jesus prayed in Gethsemane and the Kingdom’s call in the Lord’s Prayer. 

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SABBATICAL REVIEW PART 2: DECONSTRUCTION

Two most fundamental deconstruction spheres have been about my experiential understanding of who God is and who I am. To be sure, there are secondary deconstruction spheres that flow out of the two major domains I mentioned above. How I view the Bible, the human history, the world as God’s creation (as in how I view humanity and physical creation) as well as the world as systemic “principalities of the air,” how I view my life, how I view my faith tradition, and how I view missions are the kinds of significant domains I wrestled with. In many ways, I realize my earnest struggle with deconstruction will not cease, and I find strange comfort by saying to myself it is as it should be.

You might have caught glimpses of my processes through my blog this year, as much of my blog posts dealt with my own sense of the deconstruction process. What I thought I knew for sure was not the entire or the right picture. This is humbling, unsettling, and even upsetting depending on the topic. Mark Twain supposedly has said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” So experientially true. It is especially challenging, since I’ve given more than 30 years of my life to what I thought was built on a perfectly solid and sure foundation. It is not to say that my life has been wasted. As I have alluded to in my previous blogpost, God doesn’t waste anything. God saves what we think we lost and tosses aside what we think we gained. Often, how God redeems and what God does after redemption just do not match what we imagined. Deconstruction is coming to grips with unlearning and releasing. Meister Eckhart has said that spiritual maturity is not about addition, but subtraction. It is the ability and the posture to unlearn and let go. Modern-day Christianity is obsessed with winning, adding, and attaining rather than subtracting, “losing,” and loving.

One thing I’ve been processing is the connection between my view of God and the Bible. We all are “theologians.” A notable preacher and theologian, Frederick Buechner said, “theology at its heart is autobiography.” His curt summary of theology is experientially based on each of our lives. In this sense, we all do theology, whether we admit it or not.

The late Dallas Willard in his book, Divine Conspiracy, talks about how to “test your theology.”

“The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and strength? If the thoughtful, honest answer is; “Not really,” then we need to look elsewhere or deeper. It does not really matter how sophisticated intellectually or doctrinally our approach is. If it fails to set a lovable God—a radiant, happy, friendly, accessible, and totally competent being—before ordinary people, we have gone wrong. We should not keep going in the same direction, but turn around and take another road.”

— Dallas Willard

Willard launches off the Great Commandment and asks whether the God we are imagining can be loved with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I find this probing question challenging and refreshing at the same time. Challenging because it forces me to reexamine my understanding of who God is if it doesn’t pass the acid test. Refreshing because it is ultimately about loving God with all our heart and soul rather than arriving at a “perfect” theology. Anything less than a “lovable God before ordinary people,” it is time to admit we have gone wrong. This is a strong and bold statement, but my soul knows it to be true. In a related vein, a few of the questions I have raised are: Does my God divide between people or play favoritism? What does my God require of me? Why the discrepancy between the Old Testament depiction of God and the New Testament? What and how does Jesus speak of his God? How did Jesus view Scripture (the Old Testament)? These are all pertinent questions that need wrestling.

During this sabbatical, which unexpectedly coincided with Covid-19, I experienced an ultra-extreme form of slowing down through silence and solitude. Being far removed from the constant and busy activism often associated with titles and/or roles, my understanding of who I am (St. Teresa of Avila called this self-knowledge) was accentuated like no other. I did not always like what I saw. It was at times like seeing myself naked and vulnerable with nowhere to hide. My thought was, “I might as well get used to it.” Occasionally, I “saw” and “heard” myself like I was watching an old YouTube footage of myself. Sometimes, I found myself cringe, at least question, and sometimes just laugh about it. While loving myself as God loves me is still an uphill climb, I find myself more at peace than before with who I am. What gives me hope more than anything is that I also caught the peripheral glimpses of my true self (what Richard Rohr calls “The immortal diamond”) and desperately want more of that.

 When I look back in life, genuine encounters I had with God boils down to love. The late Father Thomas Keating simply said, “love alone can change people.” It is God’s love landing, sometimes gently and sometimes overwhelmingly, on me as compassion, forgiveness, grace, kindness, admonishment, joy, etc. So experientially more and more, I know God as love. From this vantage point, I have asked disturbing and unsettling questions about the God in the Old Testament and began the deconstructing work of reinterpreting the God that is portrayed in the Old Testament. In this process, I am learning that the way is Jesus. I must embrace Jesus’ God as my God.

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SABBATICAL REVIEW PART 1: DEATH

A few days ago, Grace and I went on a no-frills picnic with a few of our dear friends to a nearby park. A tail end of a late warm summer day, we were welcomed by a surprisingly green and well-manicured park with scanty crowd. We found our perfect spot underneath a family of familiar-looking Chinese elm trees (we have one in our backyard). As we were settling down, I blurted out that the color green does something to my soul (In fact, some Enneagram teachers say green equates with Enneagram 7). Green represents optimism, playfulness (just want to run around), and growth. Processing this thought, I got myself in a pleasant mood, not to mention the good company of friends.

The purpose of our picnic was to review, with the help and support of our friends, our yearlong sabbatical as it is ending in less than a month now. We were grateful that they would take the time to listen and listen deeply. As it turned out, we decided we would do the review and reflection for all of us.

My wife prepared the grand examen exercise to guide our reflection and sharing. We were given a half an hour or so individually to reflect on the questions below and then came together and listened to each other with further questions and responses. Below are the questions. (You are welcome to use these questions to reflect on your own life for the last 6 months, a year, etc.)

1. A LOOKING BACK-Using the power of memory, one retrospectively reviews the past six months and deliberately exercises the discipline of seeing/noticing.

2. A LOOKING THROUGH-Dependent upon the mind of Christ, one discerns the apparent connections and deeper meaning within one’s experiences (themes and patterns).

3. A LOOKING FORWARD-Relying on sanctified imagination, one envisions future direction (what and where God’s calling/leading may be) for the upcoming months or year.

4. A LOOKING AROUND-Drawing on the resources of community (the gift of “one anothering”), one determines needed support and structure to press on toward the next year or so.

As our sabbatical is coming to end, I would like to share what I processed under A LOOKING BACK in this week’s blog (as well as 2 more in the next couple of weeks). 

Three words came to my awareness as a summary of A Looking Back: Death, Deconstruction, Desire. 

Death

My sabbatical started with the impending death of my father, and 4 months into my sabbatical, my father went to be with the Lord.  Kobe's death paled in comparison to my father’s passing, but it shook me nonetheless. Right on the heels of my father’s passing was COVID-19. The day of my father’s funeral was the day that the California state government declared emergency. Talk about literal deaths all around the world. Then George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other names, which represented more than physical deaths. These deaths came to me as a violent and inexcusable outcome of the death of human dignity. 

On a much less significant note, I also was reminded that there was a death of a dream; we had planned on going on a pilgrimage to Spain, a visit to Taize community, vacation at a farmhouse in Brittany, France, and a few other monasteries/communities in Europe, as well as a month-long swing to Korea, along with trips in the US. (I am hoping that this was a momentary death though and thus more of a postponement.) And death to watching live sports on TV. This was a tiny death, incomparable to deaths I mentioned above, of NBA being suspended over COVID-19 concerns. I thought the Lakers had a great chance to win it all. (Super happy they DID win it!) 

I felt one main theme especially earlier in my sabbatical was death. I didn’t like it at all. My early months of sabbatical were filled with rebellion against God, kicking and screaming, and asking “Why? Why? Why?” only to be met with silence from God. In fact, one day in my mind’s eye, I imagined God compassionately smiling at me. Still no words. I also noted that I don’t do death very well. When I was younger, death was inconceivable, only being reminded during occasional funerals. One emerging lesson is learning to embrace death with all its complexities, messiness, with no clear answers. Death teaches I have no control over life. The belief I have things under my control is an illusion. Even as I write this now, I know I will have to learn this yet again and again. As nature teaches us so well, death is never wasted but always leads to bursts of new life eventually. I remind myself that the deaths I’ve experienced will be used to bring new life.

All in all, in retrospect, my sense of powerlessness before death sets the right tone in surrendering and letting things go. The way to welcome spring is to embrace and live through the bleak and seemingly lifeless winter. A very big lesson in life. The glory of resurrection only makes sense after the brutality and pain of the cross.

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CHRIST IN ME

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

— Apostle Paul

In the US, when we meet people for the first time, after greeting and introducing our name, we invariably ask or talk about what we do. It is expected and given as a social courtesy. “My name is so and so. I am a store manager in downtown, LA,” for example. In the Christian ministry context, we play the “humble” card by saying something like “I serve as a director . . . ” I know, because I’ve done that and probably will continue to do that in some variation because it is too much to upset the apple cart. Deep down inside, we know we are more than what we do. We all do. But we also feel trapped. We all have to do something so what we do is really not a problem in itself. It becomes a problem when what we do becomes our identity, and we make the mistake of believing that what we do is our true self. If what we do is a natural flow out of our true self, then it has its rightful place.

The pinnacle of the true self is best captured by Apostle Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Christ is living in me and through me. . . It is the same and eternal Christ living in and through the unique me. When you have a collection of people experiencing this reality, what we witness is the same and unchanging Christ. And yet, the same Christ is shown through unique and individual me and others. In this way, the united Christ is visible through diverse and unique embodiments of Christ. The interchange among those Christ living in them then becomes Christ in me recognizing Christ in others and vice versa. This is what union and communion looks like both with Christ and with other Christ indwellers. Christ is the least common denominator.

One of the questions I have been asking myself during my sabbatical is, “What would I do that is flowing out of Christ living in me?” “What if I were to live my life according to the knowledge that Christ is living in me?” No more self-deception or compromise. In some ways, these questions and desires are freeing, and at the same time, it feels scary. Freeing because suddenly, I feel unencumbered and wide open. Free as the sky, baby. . . :) Scary because this can look like I am going counter-cultural and venturing out of the accepted norm and into marginality. . .

I’ve been repeatedly quoting Thomas Merton. Both for my wife and me, Merton has been our top spiritual guide and mentor during this season. I’ve shared the following quote from Merton before, but in this blog, it is pertinent again.

Again, that expression, le point vierge, (I cannot translate it) comes in here. At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. 

As we become more aware of our own “le point vierge,” true self (or Christ living in us), we begin to see others as “pure diamonds, blazing with the invisible light of heaven,” as in Christ living in them. Not only do we see them as pure diamonds, we want to help and come alongside them so that they can discover themselves as pure and immortal diamonds. This must be done without violating equality, dignity, and solidarity with humanity. Nobody is a stranger. We all are pilgrims, walking on the road to discover who we are. Invariably, what we all do in life flows out of who we are (true self). And what we do (because we are made in God’s image and likeness) does and will reflect God’s Kingdom coming on this earth as it is in heaven.

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SEEING AND JUDGING

“The basic sin, for Christianity, is rejecting others in order to choose oneself, deciding against others and deciding for oneself.”

— Thomas Merton

This statement from Thomas Merton jolts me today because it sounds so familiar to my own survival function. I reject others and decide against others in order to save me and put me on top of others both consciously and unconsciously. I do this subtly and masterfully, justifying my actions of rejection and decision against others. I don’t know what should bother me more, the conscious part or the unconscious.

In order to “save” and elevate myself (which is an ego function), I put others down. In this mindset, there simply is no room for choosing myself and others at the same time. There is also the notion of “the basic sin” applying to group dynamics (especially in religious communities and not just Christianity) trying to save themselves in place of others. Muslims accuse Christians of the Crusaders and the historical impact it has had on the Muslims, including modern-day colonialism, while Christians accuse Muslims of 9/11 and terrorism. We all have learned to compare our group’s best with the other group’s worst. We think that is the only way to survive.

In this vein, one of the hardest teachings of Jesus is found in Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV), not because it is difficult to understand but because it is so true (if we are honest).

Matthew 7:1-5

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”

Jesus, with his usual over-the-top forceful emphasis, challenges us in seeing the log in our eye before seeing the speck in our brother’s eye. The word judge is to condemn, pronouncing an opinion concerning right and wrong. Seeing “the speck” implies that it requires careful and focused work on our part to notice the tiny matter and make it seem big. We are straining and squinting our own eyes to see the speck. In other words, we are trying so hard to see the wrong in others based on our definition of “wrong.” “The log” is so big compared to the speck that everyone can readily see it, except us.

The word hypocrite in Greek can be translated as “stage performer” or “actor”, which states that it is not our authentic self, but fake self performing. I think one of the reasons why Jesus uses the word hypocrite is because we “act” as if we don’t see the log in our own eyes. It is like we are choosing not to see the log which means we are choosing for our benefit while rejecting or calling out the speck in others. A scary thing is if we act long enough, we begin to believe that is our true self. Seeing and taking the log out of our own eyes requires humility and courage. Our ego does not like it at all.

Until not too long ago, I used to judge people who were into taking care of God’s creation. My judgment was harsh in that I was convinced (and thought I was right) that they were wasting their time and effort. Furthermore, I used to think “what kind of gospel message do they even believe in?” I believed that it was far from what God wanted (notice how I was using God to justify my judgment). Whereas I, I was doing the most crucial work of getting the gospel to the ends of the earth. So forth and so on... I realized over time that my understanding of the gospel then was seriously truncated, and I was the one who was blinded and did not see the call and the Kingdom prayer of God’s Kingdom coming on this earth as it is in heaven. Talk about not seeing or choosing not to see and judging… I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I feel I must share.

Back to Matthew 7.

What immediately follows this passage is often a head-scratcher in verse 6: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” Often, we read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and normally think of it as an unrelated collection of pious Jesus sayings, but I credit Dallas Willard in his magnum opus book, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (this is a fabulous book exploring the Sermon on the Mount in such depth that we can no longer live the same), for making me appreciate the punchiness and germaneness of this verse. Willard writes, “It is not worthiness that is in question here at all, but helpfulness.” Later he sums up, “The point is not the waste of the ‘pearl’ but that the person given the pearl is not helped.” Even the so-called “good” and “precious” things we offer to others may in fact not help them or perhaps even damage them... “When charity destroys dignity...” What Willard captures as “pushy irrelevance” or “stubborn blindness” is a form of judgment, disguised as doing good. We “think” we have the solutions, so we offer them without patience or humility. I cannot agree with Willard more when he writes, “... we are always to respect other people as spiritual beings who are responsible before God alone for the course they choose to take of their own free will.”

Hear this language of letting others choose out of their own free will? Nobody is choosing for others. Choosing for ourselves for our sake and giving freedom for others to choose for themselves are at the heart of Jesus’ teaching here. 

Then the next section on asking, seeking, and knocking is mostly concerned with horizontal human relationships. Thus, rather than condemning and judging each other, instead ask, seek, and knock is what Jesus invites us to do. This is not to say that asking, seeking, and knocking is restricted to horizontal human relationships as it clearly spills over to our relationship with the heavenly Father. Leaning heavily on Willard again, he writes, “Asking is indeed the great law of the spiritual world through which things are accomplished in cooperation with God and yet in harmony with the freedom and worth of every individual.”

Then we finally come to Jesus’ succinct Golden Rule in verse 12: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Later, in the same journal entry, I think it is helpful to end this post with what Merton captures.

“All this (choosing yourself, approving yourself, and offering yourself as “chosen” and “approved”: my addition) implies the frenzied conviction that one can be his own light and his own justification, and that God is there for a purpose to issue the stamp of confirmation upon my own rightness. In such a religion the Cross becomes meaningless except as the (blasphemous) certification that because you suffer, because you are misunderstood, you are justified twice over—you are a martyr. Martyr means witness. You are then a witness? To what? To your own infallible light and your own justice, which you have chosen. This is the exact opposite of everything Jesus ever did or taught.”

— CGB, p. 172

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NEW BEGINNINGS

Life is a collection of new beginnings. It should be. Some are new radical beginnings; these are interspersed with small corrective beginnings. . . Without beginnings, our life becomes stagnant and predictable, guarded against the perpetual waves of change. Changes that come from without are neither helpful nor harmful in themselves. It is how we respond to changes that determine the outcomes. 

More important still is the inner growth and turmoil that beckon our response. Inner growth and turmoil are more intricately related than we give them credit. Inner turmoil often serves as great opportunities for growth. Inner turmoil happens because it triggers or disturbs something deep within. Beginnings in our life are intentional and thoughtful responses and adjustments (sometimes radical or gradual) to inner turmoil. 

God expects us to live our life with new beginnings. The freedom of God grants us humanly impossible-to-discern type of boundaries we often don’t know what to do with it. Often, we interpret the freedom of God as God being too distanced, unengaged, and uncaring. At the same time, life without freedom cannot truthfully be lived, as freedom fundamentally is freedom to be. How can one live life without freedom to be oneself? Freedom to be oneself is the ultimate ground on which we experience the freedom of God. It is within the parameter of such freedom that we perceive, discover, and forge new beginnings. (Beyond the freedom of God lies the yet another humanly-impossible-to-discern expansive love of God. So freedom rests upon the fail-proof safety net of God’s expansive love.) To say that God is the God of freedom means that God is a God of risks. At first glance, this sounds too risky and dangerous. However, God’s risks are ultimately couched and controlled under God’s goodness and protection while to us, risks seem out of control and just plain wild. Our out of control-ness of risks can never outweigh God’s controlled risks.

I am at a brink of a new beginning in my life. This phase feels weightier and categorically different from any other beginnings I have undertaken in my life. I feel more grounded and find myself approaching life more from a fundamental and lucid point of view than before. I’ve been part of the evangelical missions movement for well over 30 years. It is true that within those years, I’ve pivoted life and ministry with small (and perhaps predictable) beginnings but all within the evangelical missions boundaries. My evangelical faith has gifted me with countless blessings but also has produced serious flaws and blind spots that do not help me navigate this life. Both my wife and I realize that evangelicalism has been and is indeed part of our spiritual heritage and we are who we are because of its impact and blessings. At the same time, we see that the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus is not identical to evangelical faith. I sense what God is inviting us is to pursue the way (that is narrow and generous at the same time) of Jesus and to the Kingdom of God beyond rigid religiosity that is antithetical to the Kingdom.

More specifically, one of the ways of Jesus I am deeply captivated by is the dignity and respect for each human being that Jesus modeled and taught. To me, this is and should be fundamental to how we usher in God’s kingdom on this earth. Thus, the Kingdom is a collection of each human being fully alive and each human culture fully transformed, essentially to be themselves, neither a uniformed collection of same kinds of individuals and people nor a prescribed hierarchical structure of humanity. Without this premise and foundation, we force others to become like us, believe what we believe (as in a set of belief systems), and act according to a standard set of behavioral code that stifles rather than empowers.

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BOTH AND

Who I am is the mysterious mixture of good and evil; thus I am a contradictory being. I don’t have to theorize this truth or prove that this contradiction is real. I just know. It is in front of me every day. As Paul confessed, I don’t do what I ought to do and I do what I should not do (my loose paraphrase of Romans 7). At the same time, evidence of the goodness in my heart surprises me from time to time. When I witness the kind acts of other human beings done to others, my good and kind heart responds in earnest cheer and joy. Joy in one sense is where my goodness intersects with others’ goodness. This goodness was given to me even before I was born, having been knitted in my mother’s womb. I am and do good because goodness has been given to me. I am also born in separation which we call sin. The evil in me is also enculturated by the very air I breathe and the systems of the powerful “princes and principalities of the air” that hold all humanity under bondage, masterminded by the devil himself.

In order to live my life well, I need to embrace both the saint and the sinner that are within me. It must be a constant reminder that I am both. When I swing from one extreme to another, I am off-kilter and lose sight of the subtle balancing that is required for true transformation. Perhaps the greatest gift of embracing both the good and the evil is the creation of the capacity to receive God’s unconditional love coming to us as grace. If I am all good and if I believe that to be true, then there is no room for God’s love to enter into my life. The good in me would naturally reject and betray my need for something absolutely and divinely good. If I am all evil and have my life as proof, I instinctively know no love and cannot accept anything perfectly good.

The trajectory of a transformed life is the internal maturity and external expansion of our goodness while learning from our sin to keep us humble and create capacity for empathy with humanity. The contradiction we all are under (if we are aware) serves as a welcome space of collegial and collective transformation of humanity. And if we are honest, we can experience deeper sympathy toward each other as fellow humanity and less judgmentalism because we know we all are contradictions. We can truly live out Jesus’ golden rule, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

If we succumb to the game of comparison and judging which is really to say that we compare our best with somebody else’s worst, then we fall to the great scheme of the Devil. I like Richard Rohr’s paraphrase of French philosopher and historian René Girard’s definition of the scapegoat. Rohr says that scapegoating is the ability (and capacity) to hate ourselves by attacking others.

This past week, my wife and I drove our youngest, Brad, to Santa Cruz for his final year of college. Though his school is still not open for in-class learning due to COVID-19, he wanted to experience college life with his buddies in an off-campus apartment. The drive was supposed to be 5 hours and a half. I was enjoying the drive and the view since I have not driven far out of Pasadena much during COVID-19. I realize afresh that my soul needs vast open space. Lazy rolling golden hills (since it’s been dry, and I wondered maybe this was why people say “Golden” California) with occasional majestic oak trees dotted landscape particularly soothes me. (For those of you who care, I was traveling Interstate 5 north, cutting across on scenic Highway 46 through Paso Robles, a legitimate California wine country, to Highway 101 to Pacific Coast Highway 1 to get to Santa Cruz. Or at least that was my plan.) I missed a turn to take PCH 1 to the peninsula, as Santa Cruz sits on a coast, which cost us an extra 30 minutes. Only 30 minutes. But I was mildly fuming inside because I could not forgive my mistake. Then once we arrived at the address given to me, I noticed my engine was exhaling smoke as I parked as if my old car was gasping for air. I subsequently opened the hood to investigate (not that I would know what to do because I am not a handyman) and saw nothing to be suspicious about. But it remained a concern in the back of my mind. When I regained awareness that we arrived at the destination, I found out it was the wrong address. So I lashed out at Brad, making him feel doubly bad. After we arrived at the right address and unloaded, I gave Brad an apology. Minutes later, my wife (who has the superpower to see through me before I do) pulled me aside and told me plainly my apology was not good enough. I started to ponder but by this time, we were already driving back to our hotel in a farm town called Salinas, since I had a 6 pm zoom call with someone in Korea. I came to my senses and promptly called Brad, this time offering a real and right apology from my heart. Brad graciously extended his forgiveness, followed by heartfelt mutual exchange of love yous. I noticed my soul at rest after the phone call. So there it is. My latest humbling scape-goating experience. . . 

Understanding and appreciating how the scapegoating system works, living my life well is accepting the very contradiction I am as a human being. Living my life well is also far from a selfish pursuit of happiness. Thomas Merton writes, “To live well myself is my first and essential contribution to the well-being of all mankind and to the fulfillment of man’s collective destiny.” I resonate with this statement. In fact, this is the only way we are invited to live our life, to live our life. That is the most essential and the only contribution to all mankind.

A few sentences later, Merton speaks of the mysterious and contradictory nature of humanity, “To live well myself means for me to know and appreciate something of the secret, the mystery in myself: that which is incommunicable, which is at once myself and not myself, at once in me and above me.”

It seems to, me, the key at least according to Merton, is awareness and appreciation without needing to understand everything.

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GIFT OF SOLITUDE

“One’s solitude belongs to the world and to God. Are these just words? Solitude has its own special work: a deepening of awareness that the world needs. A struggle against alienation. True solitude is deeply aware of the world’s needs. It does not hold the world at arm’s length”

— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 12

Solitude is what my wife and I have been enjoying the most during this sabbatical. Due to COVID-19, we have been enjoying an additional level of forced or induced solitude, one might say. From an initial disappointment to frustration to now a cautious optimism of seeing fruit in our awareness, we’ve experienced multiple stages in our sabbatical. One constant theme, whether forced or not, has been solitude. Plentiful and luxurious time to dig deep, see ourselves naked without many oughts, pulls, and distractions, in all the complex proneness of our being, simply to be aware. I am not sure whether I can say there has been “a deepening of awareness of the world’s needs.” What I can say clearly is the crystallization of awareness of ourselves and our needs. I was zooming with a friend who I haven’t connected in a while and basically uttered to him that sabbatical is not for the faint-hearted. Because sabbatical asks some of the life’s most foundational questions: from What have I done? to How I have done what I have done? to Why I have done what I have done? to Who am I? to How then should I live my life?. . . It is amazing how well you get to know yourself in solitude when you are stripped of exterior noises and distractions. Just when I think turning off external noises and input is a significant feat, there awaits a gargantuan task of facing the dark and shifty interior battles. Compared to my complex interiority, exterior challenges seem like a child’s game. Over time, who I think I am or who I think I should be just melts like wax, and I find myself weary of playing the game of falsities and unrealistic expectations both from within and without. Dare I say from the growing awareness of ourselves, we can begin to project awareness of the world’s needs and see the world in pain and in need of mending through our own naked but true selves.

True solitude is an ability to turn off the noises from outside while not rejecting the world. Perhaps a final (or at least a penultimate) destination of true solitude is finding freedom within. Inner freedom then has the capacity to interact, see the freedom outside of us or lack thereof, and appropriately engage the world. In other words, pursuing and finding inner freedom builds capacity for each of us to do our part in breaking chains of bondage on societal levels.

Could it be that true solitude connects the dots between our needs and the world’s needs through rigorous and persistent work of awareness of ourselves? To put it differently, could it be that our inner freedom functions as the key that can unlock certain aspects of the world (based on our unique experiences of freedom) that are still under the bondage?

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

-Howard Thurman, an influential civil rights leader, theologian, author, and philosopher

Thurman’s words narrow the field of awareness to aliveness. Nonetheless, he helpfully bridges our aliveness and the world’s needs. Frederick Buechner, a prolific author and theologian, echoes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The business of knowing our deep gladness is a deep and hard soul work of awareness and cannot be gleaned without paying the dues of solitude.

Even if we think we’ve arrived at certain awareness of ourselves, for the most part, our attempt to contribute to the world will be more of misses than hits. Continuing despite the misses and disappointments, and rediscover and gain better clarity of our awareness awaits us all. Then, we begin to see glimpses and hints of our impact to the world, ever encouraging us to take further and deeper steps. There comes a time when we just know when our soul’s deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.

Thomas Merton knew that he was called to solitude, an extreme kind even among the monks' standard, let alone average folks like me. He also knew that he possessed the uncanny gift of writing, though he experienced an often testy and roller coast relationship with his writing. The world would not know or would not have received the gift of Merton without his written books, journals, teachings, prayers, and poems. But it wasn’t his gift of writing as incredible as that was that ultimately impacted and satiated the world. His call and unwavering devotion to solitude allowed him to discover himself and discover the world’s needs. His writing was merely a tool in which he contributed to the world. 

There is a saying from the Desert Fathers tradition. In Scetis, a brother went to see Abba Moses and begged him for a word. The old man said, "Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything." The Desert Fathers’ tradition is too ascetic and radical for my taste and liking, but the truth remains as a timeless exhortation. We must “go and sit in our cell” often and long enough to discover ourselves and our contribution to the world. There simply is no other way. Wilderness experiences that many biblical heroes have gone through are forced solitude with nowhere to run or turn. Think of Moses, Joseph, David, Paul, and even Jesus, to name just a few. Moses’ story in particular is poignant. When Moses was a prince, he, not being aware of himself and had not yet found inner freedom, saw the “world’s hunger” and took the matters into his own hands and killed an Egyptian. Got into deep trouble and had to flee for his life. It was after 40 years of tending sheep in the wilderness, he was able to discern and obeyed God’s call to satiate the “world’s hunger.” Henri Nouwen’s exhortation is apt here. He wrote in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, that the first movement is a movement from a desert of loneliness to a garden of solitude. None of us can avoid loneliness. The question is, what do we do with loneliness? Or how do we embrace loneliness as an invitation from God?

We all have gifts, different and unique to us. God wants us to use and steward these gifts for our sake, for the body of Christ, and for the world. However, without solitude, these gifts can become noisy gongs or clanging cymbals. Solitude then serves as a critical process of interior discernment where and how we can utilize our gifts, talents, passions, and skills.

One of our aspirations in the future, going forward, is to protect and nurture solitude beyond the sabbatical. This desire will have practical ramifications. We know we have to count the cost. The rhythm of solitude is not something we want to sacrifice. Having tasted and thus appreciated this incredible gift and duty of solitude, we realize that this is worth stewarding, preciously at this stage of our lives.

 How do you or will you guard and steward solitude?

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TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, AND WISDOM

The last two days were the hottest days in my memory in Pasadena, California, where we have resided since 1990.  My iPhone weather app “screamed” with a reading of 115 and 111 Fahrenheit degrees, respectively on the two days. On top of the mind-numbing heat, we were willing victims of Pasadena’s rolling blackout on one of the evenings. Embracing that as an opportunity to walk Luna, our Husky, who has our maximum empathy in this unbearable weather (I empathize by imagining wearing a down jacket in this heat!), the streets are eerily quiet and pitch dark with stubborn heat rising off the pavement. We run into one of our neighbors whose block was saved from the blackouts. I blurt out, “I guess it (this hot weather) is good for my sanctification.” With a twinkle in his eyes and a faint smile, he tells me, “Yeah, you need it more than I do.” Without denying it, we laugh a good laugh and walk back home. Instinctively, I decided to wet my shirt to cool down, still feeling sorry for Luna.

A balmy 84 degrees this morning. During my silence this morning, I had the thought of cleaning the filter of our only window AC unit. Was that God who reminded me to clean it? Or was that my busy mind-chatter to survive? I don’t know. When I did take out the filter, I was appalled by how filthy it was, and after cleaning it the AC is working better than ever in years! I thanked (?) God for reminding me. J My wife thanks me for cleaning the AC filter, and it promptly makes my day. It is a good day.

Then, I read the story of the daring nun who hid and saved 83 Jewish children during World War 2. You can check it out here if interested (https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54033792). My heart moves to compassion, and I momentarily find myself thinking about the afflicted and the disenfranchised in our day. No action now, but I tuck that aside as a possible building block into something later. I say to myself, “We'll see.”

I then read a few pages of Thomas Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. In the book, I come to the quote by Gandhi, “How can he who thinks he possesses absolute truth be fraternal?” I read it several times. . .

Merton responds to the quote above.

“ Let us be frank about it: the history of Christianity raises this question again and again. 

The Problem: God has revealed himself to men in Christ, but He has revealed Himself first of all as love. Absolute truth is then grasped as love: therefore not in such a way that it excludes love in certain limited situations. Only he who loves can be sure that he is still in contact with the truth, which is in fact too absolute to be grasped by his mind. Hence, he who holds to the gospel truth is afraid that he may lose the truth by a failure of love, not by a failure of knowledge…Knowledge expands a man like a balloon, and gives him a precarious wholeness in which he thinks that he holds in himself all the dimensions of a truth the totality of which is denied to others. It then becomes his duty, he thinks, by virtue of his superior knowledge, to punish those who do not share this truth. How can he ‘love’ others, he thinks, except by imposing on them the truth which they would otherwise insult and neglect? This is the temptation. (Merton, CJB p. 37-38)”

I was stuck after reading this section and could not read anymore. . . What Gandhi asked in earnest is the age-old question that has been repeated for centuries upon centuries by those who were repulsed by Christendom but were attracted to Jesus Christ as Gandhi was. History is unfortunately littered with the blind efforts of Christendom to level others to conformity. This was done in the name of Jesus but certainly not by the Spirit of Jesus. The truth is often attacked in the name of truth. The truth can only be revealed as the truth when embraced in love.

Knowledge is bondage, more than we care to admit. I grew up hearing and embracing that knowledge is power. If there is ever a modern worldview, this is the most prominent of them all. I would ask now: what of power then? Power for what? Power for whom? So what? What do we gain? What do we lose? I tell myself that my focus is not to accumulate knowledge and to make sense out of reality and dish out such knowledge, but to live out of wisdom. Alas, this is a hard lesson to live by.

To be sure, knowledge is not same as truth. The absolute truth can only be understood by love as in loving and following Jesus. This truth becomes absolute only in its embodiment of Jesus. This truth is gentle, kind, patient, and full of grace. Above all, this truth is love. Consequently, this truth acted out in love, ultimately on the cross. Without love, this truth morphs into a set of wooden beliefs that forces all others to follow. Without love, this truth becomes a mere knowledge that is onerous and worse, creates warped barriers to Jesus. In short, we proclaim and live like Jesus. We do not proclaim what we think is the absolute truth, apart from love. We “preach” Jesus, not Christianity.

Knowledge can be service if it is channeled out of love and to love. Wisdom is “knowledge deepened by love,” Ilia Delio writes. Wisdom teaches us how to live out of love for God, myself, and others.

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KNOWING GOD

For some time now, I have been engaging the Scripture through an ancient practice called lectio divina (sacred or divine reading). There are various methods to this sacred reading, but one unifying approach is engaging my senses and imagination more than my logic or rational mind when reading the Scripture. I try to immerse myself as part of the story, engaging the imagination to hear, see, speak, smell, taste, touch, and/or feel. I don’t approach Scripture with a focus of an objective minded study but a subjective “reading” of my life. (I actually do not think that there is pure objectivity when reading the Scripture. No one is excluded in bringing our “stuff” into the text).

In this vein, my questions are not “What is God really trying to say?” or “What does this text mean?”

Lection Divina allows for a reading of my life subjectively while trying to steer away from finding the objective answers for all time for all places. My questions are like “What are some words, phrases, and sentences that grab my heart today?” and “What is God inviting me to reflect and to do?” and “What is my response to God?”

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“Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” ”

— Mark 7:31-37, ESV

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I meditated on the above passage multiple times over the course of one week a few weeks ago, immersing myself in the story twice with two separate groups and twice privately. Each time, different words/phrases and invitations ensued. First time, what got me was the word they. I asked myself, who are “they” in my life and who is my community? I was duly reminded of multiple loving and caring communities my wife and I are part of, prompting me to thank God. Second time, the phrase “taking him aside from the crowd privately” grabbed my heart. I sensed that that was what Jesus was doing with me during this sabbatical and thus deeply affirmed my heart. I am experiencing an elongated intimate and uninterrupted time with Jesus. Third time, the phrase “be opened” captured my current groaning and complaint to God. I asked, “God, open the doors of my future and what I should do.” I asked, “Can’t you just say ‘Ephphatha’ again?” The final time, I imagined the man now able to speak plainly after being healed by Jesus. This healed man was now me. I then embraced God’s invitation for me to “speak”—that I must speak based on what God has shown me and what Jesus has done in my life. I realized afterwards, the invitation to “speak” was an answer to my questioning cry of “be opened” after my community carried me to Jesus and Jesus subsequently met and healed me privately. The invitation was not to ask Jesus to open doors for my future but for me to “open doors” of unaware souls through my “speaking.”

LECTIO DIVINA

is an exercise of engaging the Scripture with an honest reflection of my life using my imagination and senses. The Bible is a collection of sacred writings written by those whose lives’ trajectory merged with God’s story. For the Bible to be Bible, it must interact with authentic experiences of our lives and impact our lives’ trajectory to sync with God’s purpose. Only in this way does the Bible make its full intended impact on humanity. It is meant to be read subjectively, authentically, and truthfully engaging each of our lives. It should not be that we read the Bible, but that the Bible is reading us! If we believe that God is going somewhere (and we do) and that God has a trajectory, our calling then is to align our lives’ trajectory with God’s.

The root meaning of ‘orthodox’ refers to “straight, true, or right praise or opinion.” “Straight, true, or right” based on what?

I propose such a posture only comes from the authenticity and truthfulness of our heart. We can only stay straight, true, or right based on who we are. We do not represent objectively the so-called pure and right opinion. God remains hidden from any dogmatic and concrete opinions about who God is. God refuses to be known by any intellectual pursuit of humans. God is known and unknown. Known because we have experienced God in authentic and real ways. Knowing God is a personal and intimate act. We know God because we experienced God.

I reject the notion that we can know God by deducing God into a set of truths and a belief system. (Mozart rejected Protestantism by saying that “Protestantism was all in the head.”) Also, we leave the unknown-ness of God unknown and as mystery. We dare not turn “mysteries” of God into some formulaic “truths.”

Thomas Acquinas said, “The extreme of human knowledge of God is to know that we do not know God.”

Orthodox truths flow right out of our heart. Our heart recognizes songs, poems, movies, paintings, nature, “hints, and guesses” as transparent mediums of our orthodoxy. Do not search orthodoxy outside of your heart. Orthodoxy rests in our authentic hearts. Our duty is to stay on the straight, true, and right path according to our heart and pay attention to “hints and guesses” and mediums God supplies us with.

I close this blog with a poem by T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages (from stanza V)

Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation

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A PILGRIM SPIRITUALITY

“Follow your heart.” -John Bunyon

Korean people, including my parents, who have lived through the Korean war and its aftermath and its recovery based on a collective conscientious sacrificial effort know what it means to be poor and hungry. One general characteristic among many positives of that generation (the so-called “the greatest generation” according to Tom Brokaw) is that they often hoard and have difficult time letting their stuff go. It is an understandable trait. Had I lived through those times, I would have easily acquired the same trait. I know. Compared to my wife and my children, I am by far the biggest hoarder in my family. A few months ago, our entire family was “spring cleaning” our garage, trying to organize it after years of accumulation of stuff of who knows what. We decided to take EVERYTHING out of the garage first and then make the decisions on whether to keep or to toss. At the end of a few hours’ work, I could not believe how empty our garage looked. I realized quickly that I was the most sentimental hoarder. I kept asking, "Why would we throw that stuff away?" I was met with stares that said, "Are you kidding me?"

I have not gone on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain yet. Hopefully in the near future. . .  That was our grand plan during our sabbatical this year but alas COVID-19 hit, and the rest is history. I read several books and watched numerous movies/documentaries and clips on the pilgrimage. One of the inevitable lessons I will have learned is the carrying load, deciding how much stuff to take on the journey (The French Way is about 769 km long). Hearing from those who have gone on the trip, all shared the same lesson of lessening the load they carried. I often heard and read that every ounce (not even pound) counts. They would carry the guide-book (there is only one reputable one that is recommended) and it is not a light book. So what they would do out of survival mode is to simply rip off the pages they did not need. I have not gone on the trip so I can’t say too much about it.

However, I can venture to draw the parallel of how much stuff we carry between the Camino pilgrimage and our life—as pilgrims not as refugee-mentality-driven hoarders.

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This practice of letting go and unburdening is at the core of pilgrim spirituality. You learn to travel lightly. More generally, as I ponder about the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, I cannot help but to draw parallel between the French Way and my own life’s journey as a pilgrim. Below are some of the hard but precious lessons learned (and still learning and deepening) from my own life’s journey.

A Pilgrim Spirituality is . . .

. . . finding joy and grace through releasing and unleashing.

. . . discovering contentment through little, plenty, and surprises.

. . . finding answers through questions, hints, and guesses.

. . . giving myself grace for getting lost.

. . . saying “I don’t know” often.

. . . knowing when to rest, slow down, or speed up.

. . . realizing my actions are contextual and immediate wherever I happen to be.

. . . seeing what is real to me is not necessarily what is Real.

. . . making friends with doubts, curiosities, sufferings, and darkness.

. . . placing love over certainties and convictions.

. . . listening to the wildness of my body and nature around me.

. . . widening my parochialism and prejudices.

. . . recognizing The World is bigger than my world.

. . . discerning my inner prompts, inner cries and disillusionments.

. . . welcoming disillusionment with arms wide open because through disillusionment I wake up from my illusions.

. . . feeling and naming all feelings I feel.

. . . embracing both mundane and sacred. In fact, it is about learning that mundane is sacred and sacred is mundane.

. . . owning nothing but gaining everything.

. . . receiving every day as a pure gift and not under compulsion to control.

. . . making no distinction between what is human and spiritual.

. . . waking up to being fully alive, seamlessly integrating my humanity and spirituality.

. . . thanking God for my existence, others’ existence and everything around me.

. . . living as a willing and grateful citizen of the cosmic divine welfare system that is governed by the generous love of God.

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CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION

What is the link between contemplation and action?

Our actions stem from our perception of “what is real.” Actions must find their firm footing based on our rationale and convictions of what we perceive to be real. We don’t just act and do something. We act based on our understanding of reality. We are always governed by inner guidance that justifies our actions based on our interpretation of reality. I do the act of flossing because of my perception of reality that flossing is good for my dental care. I do the act of listening because my interpretation of what is real needs me to listen and care. I do the act of going somewhere because my understanding of what reality dictates at the time.

I have shared Parker Palmer’s definition of contemplation, “any way one has of penetrating illusions and touching reality.”

“A long, loving look at the Real” is another definition of contemplation that is widely accepted and used.

Parker’s definition names illusions explicitly where the second definition implies it. Both definition focus on the quality of touching and seeing reality as is. 

If our actions stem from our perception of what is real, then discerning and seeing what is real is absolutely crucial because it drives our actions. Furthermore, separating illusions from reality or sifting reality from swarming illusions is clearly the most important contemplative practice. Illusions disguise as being real. That’s why they are illusions, false, fake, or pseudo reality. Illusions compete for my attention to pretend to be real over what is positively real. I know that my illusions are dense and thickly crusted, making the work of penetration grinding and challenging. I have illusions about my abilities, my importance, my influence, my accomplishments, my motives, etc.

ILLUSIONS

As “real” as my illusions are, all societies and cultures possess illusions. Societal illusions pose a greater challenge of penetration than individual illusions.Illusions such as what peace looks like, what racial inequality looks like, what social justice looks like, what genuine spirituality looks like, what democracy (or other political systems) looks like, etc.

The illusions are thick and dense, and they comprise a long list. Whether at the individual level or the societal level, we have seen that illusions beget other illusions that create inexorable and vicious cycles of nonsense. I have illusions about how good a father I am, and those illusions get embraced and perhaps even replicated by others who I think I have some influence which may also be an illusion. Not only that, internally, my illusions as a father cause my self-worth illusions to grow unbeknownst to me.

We are all familiar with the saying “Don’t just stand there, do something.” There is time and place for that, but in the context of illusions clouding out what is real, perhaps we need to reverse the saying: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” This is where the admonition and exhortation of taking a “long, loving look at the Real” is persuasive. I ask myself, when was the last time I just stood and watched something for long enough to appreciate the complexities and intricacies of reality? I am not talking about material things made by human hands necessarily, I am talking about the things in nature, whether it is a single leaf, a coy wild flower by a hiking trail, a tiny ant busily searching for something, a blue sky filled with cumulus clouds (my fav) stretching as far as eyes can see, a dog napping, etc. I believe when our actions become derivative of a long, loving look at the Real, then our actions speak louder and become much more meaningful and impactful. From my own experience, too much of our action is re-action, based on external provocation of what is not real. This further betrays who we are interiorly or what we want to do based on our free and creative spirit and thus our actions lose the meaning and impact they deserve.

All our beginning point is the same in that each of us is created to bear the image of God with no exceptions. All our end is and should be to become the likeness of God, as we read in the creation account that we are made in the image and likeness of the triune God. So then, I propose that all of us are created to become. The word become ties contemplation and action, or if you prefer, being and doing, seamlessly. The key quest of becoming is aimed at become like what or more precisely who. The idea of becoming assumes that there is a destination, and that destination is to become the likeness of God. Jesus puts it this way, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Furthermore, the way to become is to follow Jesus with the perfect and creative help of the Holy Spirit. This is what our human and spiritual journey is about.

But following Jesus on our way to become the likeness of God does not mean all our journeys are exactly the same.  At the root, our becoming is to be fully alive, as each life is uniquely and unrepeatably different. This is where the fun and craziness start. All our journeys as pilgrims of becoming is different as we are to figure out and map out our own paths. At the same time, there is also a universality in our journeys that we can learn from each other as fellow pilgrims. There is both peculiarity and universality in our pilgrim journeys.

To be fully alive is to become, a combination of both to be (contemplate) and to do (act). As each of us do our part in becoming, we can see the world becoming as God intended. 

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WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO FOR YOU?

“What do you want me to do for you?”

The question Jesus asked Bartimaeus the blind (Mark 10:46-52) comes to me as if Jesus is asking the same question to me today…

Last week, I hiked with 3 of my friends at the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park trail in California. We have been friends since our college days. Though we were relatively close to the ocean, the typical cool ocean breeze was scarce or maybe even non-existent. Definitely warmer than we had hoped for hiking temperature, however, we were just delighted to be together. All of us are nearing the big 60 mark. Our conversation included usual family updates especially during the COVID-19 season, our work, as well as somewhat obligatory health updates as in what’s not functioning well in our bodies and how we need to better care for ourselves. One friend is a missionary and a counselor. He and his wife served in Taiwan for multiple years. His recent studies and training led him to now counsel people, and I have seen him immensely enjoying his job (really his ministry), which brings me joy. He is a safe harbor for many restless and needy ships. Another is a trained pharmacist but has developed his own pharmacy business and has done quite well over the years. An avid reader, he is also a wine connoisseur and knows his stuff on other “fancy” drinks. He has a knack for being at the right place at the right time with the right people. Very good people and resource connector he is! Last but not least is a CPA who co-owns a productive CPA firm. A self-acknowledged workaholic, but now he is ready to retire (in five years he says), slow down, and focus on “sucking out all the marrow of life.” A sympathetic person at his core, he is meticulously caring and a defender of the needy. During our outdoor brunch after the hike, he boasted rightfully how his son in NYC texted him saying he was praying for our friends’ time to be meaningful.

One of our conversations revolved around pursuing after our passions, especially as we near our retirement mark. How there are so many other passions that our current work does not sufficiently capture or contain. . . from simple and mundane things as serving at a church, exercise, travel, taking classes at a city college, and spending time with adult children, to a deeper groanings of our passions including establishing a non-profit to help young underprivileged children in Asia to help people to better manage and steward their finances and thus better position themselves to help others to deep listening to people’s pains, grievances, and problems and offer practical and sustainable solutions.

Next day I am confronted and reminded by the question Jesus asked Bartimaeus. “What do you want me to do for you?” The “me” here is Jesus! Jesus who is fully trusted and trustable. I picture Jesus standing in front of me and asking the question and warmly inviting me to respond with his eyes locked on mine. Everything else blurs out of focus in the background. As is the case with Bartimaeus, I believe Jesus already knows what my response is even before I start to piece some meaningful words together. I am forever catching up with Jesus as it should be because Jesus is always ahead of me. He is the way.

And then I blurt this out to Jesus.

I want to live a simple, unhurried, and meaningful life in a quiet and uncrowded place. This whole statement would normally be shocking even to myself because I would not have written this statement 10 years ago.

I want to find joy in small things in life. I want to slow down long enough to smell the lavender, trace butterflies with my eyes, find meanings in poems and paintings and songs and other creative works, recognize people as God’s gifts, etc. The list goes on…

I want to read, write, and speak. This summarizes my desire to grow, understand, perceive, and to communicate. Communication toward communion with God, ourselves, and others. I uttered an inner cry a week ago that “I must speak” during one of the group spiritual direction where I volunteered to share. During the session, my wife shared that it sounded like a lion roaring coming from my soul.

I want to engage in group spiritual direction with my wife. We have been immensely enjoying facilitating several groups in this season. There is deep joy welling up in how we complement and supplement one another.

I want to guide and develop people to discover God’s divine blueprint in them as God’s image-bearers. I say “I” but it is really being an active assistant to the Holy Spirit that is already working.

Then I imagine Jesus saying, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

How would YOU respond to Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Remember, Jesus already knows our response. We are always in a catch-up mode. 

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ILLUSIONS AND INVISIBILITY

My life is governed by illusions and invisibility more than I care to know and admit. I think I have my life under control and have the capacity to direct and live my life as I will. Truth to be told, this is a grand illusion. This illusion works like a mirage, creating false projections and worth of myself and my life. Like a poorly constructed tower, illusion can tumble down quickly, giving me a real dose of how harsh and “unrealistic” reality can be. But this harshness is an invisible gift from God if I accept the felled nature of the tower, which is my ego.

Being a general director of Frontier Ventures (formerly known as the U. S. Center for World Mission) was one of my towers. Enamored with Dr. Ralph Winter who was the visionary founder of the storied missionary organization, I decided to remain at “home” to mobilize rather than go overseas to serve. How I started my directorship was an act of obedience, albeit a reluctant one. Over time, however, my ego got fed and fed again and went “to my head.” I knew it was lurking in the back of my mind. At the same time, I reasoned, truthfully, that all my efforts were not necessarily to benefit my ego. Therein lay the hidden fact of how carefully the illusion was constructed. When time came for me to step down from my role, the tower I built came crashing down. My ego took a hit and I found myself desperately trying to salvage my ego. Then I heard God whisper to me in a still small voice but resoundingly clear, “Son, you have no idea how good this decision is for you (my true self).”

SEEING…

My interpretation of what is and the reality of what is will never synchronize perfectly. There will always be a gap between the two. I suppose one of life’s goals is to narrow this gap. Often, I see what I see or worse—I see what I want to see. I don’t see what is seen.

Illusion is the warp and woof of my interpretation of reality stemming from my ego. It is illusion because I turn and twist to fit and boost my ego. (To be fair to myself, some interpretation of mine do not originate from my ego.) Parker Palmer’s definition of contemplation is fabulous. He says that contemplation is “any way one has of penetrating illusions and touching reality.” Illusions are not illusions if they are easily recognized. Illusions are illusions because they are carefully and densely encrusted, making it slow to expose and difficult to penetrate. It is almost impossible to see what just is without the honest and vulnerable work of penetrating illusions that surround it. The work of penetration starts with simple honest awareness and acknowledgement. And to do it with self-compassion. . .

“First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God!”

— Lady Julian of Norwich

Falling is the mercy of God, waking me up from illusions. Greater the illusion, the harder the fall. Recovery is God’s invisible work of grace and mercy. I don’t see the recovery coming and yet when it arrives, I know it is totally God’s mercy. Harder the fall, the greater the mercy of God. This process of recovery overflowing with mercy is a divine orchestration by God, invisible from my line of sight and perspective.

Illusions from Reality and invisibility of God’s grace and mercy function as perfect match made in heaven. Both are unseen initially. Recognizing illusions require lifelong commitment of dogged pursuit of how our ego works. Experiencing God’s invisible mercy, however, is all grace. There is no effort on ours. There can’t be effort on ours, otherwise it is not grace. 

Meister Eckhart said, “For God to be is to give being. For us, to be is to receive being.”

The ancient and eternal nature of our being is to receive from God whose name means to give.

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TELL IT SLANT

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Emily Dickinson

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Occasionally, I read what I wrote earlier in papers, blogs, or even email exchanges (sometimes forced to read as people respond to my writings), and I must admit, it often feels too cerebral, detached, and jumpy, lacking detailed fillers.

I am an impatient writer, not willing to take time and space to carefully explain things. I am a jumpy writer, leaping from one thing to another with little or no explanations in between. Some have asked how did you go from here to there? I must confess, I have a monkey-mind, not uncharacteristic of type 7 on Enneagram… Another confession. I am a terrible instruction reader or follower. In fact, I can’t. It drives me nuts. My wife and my children know. I messed up more than I care to remember when assembling IKEA furniture because I just would not follow the detailed and tedious (my language) but sometimes helpful instructions. In a related vein, as I write each blog post, I can almost hear my wife advising me to give examples from my life, which I have done from time to time. The credit goes to my wife if those examples made sense and enhanced the content…

It is true that my writing has helped me immensely (especially during the sabbatical) as it forced me to process retrospectively as well as prospectively. I am aware that what I process is not necessarily the objective truths (and will never be), but subjectively interpreted and couched truths. It is how I make sense out of who I am and how I perceive the past, present, and future. I suppose it is my way of telling myself truths and telling them slant. In many ways, I realize afresh that I can’t handle the direct truths, for I am prone to pollute the truths with my narrow and limited filtering efforts. “Coming to me slant” grants me uneasy and yet valuable time to reorient my life according to the truth. (As an Asian, I can appreciate this idea of telling it slant, as it is one of the virtues of indirect communication. I guess one minor distinction may be that telling it slant in the Asian context is about saving each other from shame more than the possibility of truth blinding us.) I would like to think this idea of coming to us slant is like experiencing God’s tangible grace in discovering our own life paths filled with questions and self-discovered answers. Thus, “the truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.”  

I tell myself that the only thing that really matters is Jesus and him crucified, as Paul succinctly summarized (1 Corinthians 2:2). Everything else is secondary and tertiary and so forth. Thus, we filter everything that happens in life through the lens of Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ is his birth, his childhood, his occupation, his relationship with God and the Holy Spirit, his teachings, his questions, his healings, signs, and wonders he performed, his relationship with family, disciples, and sinners, his confrontations with religious and political leaders, his extraordinary and mundane actions, etc., mostly taking place in the obscure and backward country in Galilee interspersed with his presence in the Gentile regions and Jerusalem. It is what Kosuke Koyama aptly calls, “Three miles an hour God,” as the average person walks 3 miles an hour. While Jesus had a clear focus in life and why he came to the earth, he was in no hurry—he wasn’t zipping around performing incredible feats of multi-tasking. It is a miracle of divine restraint in the human form. The way Jesus lived his life makes it possible for us to follow and imitate him! Additionally, observing what Jesus did on this earth and how Jesus lived his life, Jesus was a master par excellence of telling it slant. And then there is his cross and resurrection which is his ultimate culminating work on this earth and his ascension.

I write not because I am an expert but as a seeker. it is my way of grabbling toward the Truth. I am exhorting myself that my writing is ultimately to reflect the reality of Jesus Christ in my life and provide meaning to myself and perhaps to others who resonate with my content and style. Then what I ought to be doing is to declutter and detach anything that stands in the way of Jesus… In the end, it needs to become a deep realization and actualization of Jesus Christ being the perpetual way, the eternal truth, and the never-ending life. Nothing more and nothing less.

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RIVER AND WIND

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

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Above is one of my favorite poems by John O’Donohue called fluent. “Would” captures my heart today. It’s a hopeful word that speaks to my deep intuitive desire that can easily be drowned in fear and anxiety of “surprises” of the river. I also want to “flow”, not manufacture or perform for approval and affirmation.

“You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, as surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function.

How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.”

— W. H. Auden

“Forgetting themselves in a function” is to flow. There is something terribly attractive about letting ourselves just be in innateness and noncoercion. I ask myself when does my eyes reveal the rapt expression? 

I would like to lay one more layer to this line of reflection. Adrian Van Kaam was a writer I turned to during my soul’s darkest days, a few years ago. The Dutch Catholic priest writes in his book, Living Creatively, that originality “is like a unique mark each man receives at birth. It is his latent ability to be himself in his own way.” One question is how do we turn our latent unique potentiality into operational unique reality? Van Kaam presents an interesting insight, “His originality shines through not in what he does but in the way he does it, not in the customs he has but in the way he lives them.” Speaking for myself, when I think of being in flow and being fluent, I immediately think of what I do, not how I do what I do. What Van Kaam is saying, I would like to think, is that our originality flows out of being and that our created nature dictates and discerns how we live our life, uniquely and unrepeatably. After Jesus healed a deaf man, “And they (the crowd) were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak‘” (Mark 7:37). Mark made sure to capture the word well that can be translated as beautifully, finely, or excellently. It is about acting rightly. It is different from merely doing the right things but doing the right things rightly.

A couple of practical insights from Van Kaam are helpful to consider. He advises that giving specific directions to our spontaneous inclinations is a first step. This is no failure proof step. This first step is riddled with risks, and requires courage. Even then, what matters is that we listen long enough to discern our soul’s spontaneous inclinations to lay out actionable steps. Van Kaam goes on to say that courage is one value (especially in our day) that is lacking for us to live our own lives in the seas of doubt and anxiety. Courage does not mean fear-less, doubt-less, or anxiety-less, but shows up into translated action in spite of fear, doubt, and anxiety. Courage to be and to do. . .

CONNECTION

Finding or creating a community that imbues courage and freedom seems to be a must for all of us. Discovering our originality and flow can never be an isolated journey.

I am a huge fan of Sohyang, Korean singer, with a God-given angelic voice. Talk about being in the flow or forgetting oneself in a function. She embodies being fluent. She recently sang in Begin Again Korea (Korean TV show) a song called A Song of Wind. I would like to share the link and my translation of the lyrics below. Be blessed as I was blessed.

When will I be able to hear
the song of the wind?
As time passes, will I ever realize
the reason why flowers wither?

People who leave me and
People who I meet
All the passing relationships and longing
Where do they all go?

I cannot know with my tiny wisdom
What I do know is how to live now

Many times of failure and anguish
We have realized they can’t be avoided
If now love is the answer
I will love everything in this world

People who leave me
People who I meet
All the passing relationships and longing
Where do they all go?

I cannot know with my tiny wisdom
What I do know is how to live now

Many times of failure and anguish
We have realized they can’t be avoided
If now love is the answer
I will love everything in this world

Many times of failure and anguish
We have realized they can’t be avoided
If now love is the answer
I will love everything in this world

I will love everything in this world

I will love everything in this world

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RECLAIMING THE IMAGO DEI THROUGH THE TURBULENT SEAS OF COVID-19 AND WHITE PRIVILEGE | PART 4

BANGKOK FORUM PAPER | ENTRY 4 OF 4

What would our participation in the missio dei look like (or change) if we embrace wholeheartedly the concept of inherent dignity and respect for each human being?

This assertion is miles away from simple rejection of modernity in favor of post-modernity’s (or post post-modernity's) dismantling of anything centric or specifically western-led systems. As I alluded earlier, pursuing union with God is not an individualistic journey. We were created by the “community” of (the triune) God. In other words, we are created not only to belong to ourselves as individuals but to one another. That is ontologically embedded in our creation account. 

There is a big difference between personalism and individualism. Personalism recognizes the inherent dignity of the person and not the individual self. Borrowing words from Thomas Merton, this recognition of inherent dignity requires respecting “the unique and inalienable value of the other person, as well as one’s own, for a respect that is centered only on one’s individual self to the exclusion of others proves itself to be fraudulent.” Personalism allows oneself to see oneself as well as others with compassionate and generous eyes. This posture of compassion toward oneself and others is a crucial foundation for all our missio dei efforts.

 So how do we move forward in our participation in missio dei? In short, a new missio dei model would have to have as its origin imago dei. It would certainly not start from the Great Commission, which is to highlight the several selected verses in the New Testament. It would not even start with the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12). We must go all the way back to the creation account. Additionally, the fact that we are created in God’s image and likeness means that we are created by Love (which is the curt conclusion of Apostle John). No wonder Jesus summarized the Old Testament into the commandment of loving God, loving oneself, and loving our neighbors. Jesus’ “neighbor” would even include our enemies. Thus we are created by Love, for Love, and to Love. Love is an ontological concept. Love is a culmination of why God exists and why we exist and why the entire creation exists. Love is both our identity and the final vision of our human and cosmic destination.

Love integrates who God is, who we are (and who we are becoming), and what this world needs to become. God’s kingdom coming on this earth articulates that vision of love immersing into every single fabric of reality. To be sure, for love to be love, it has to show itself in action. When we say God “touched” us or we experienced God, what we are saying is that we have experienced unconditional love, grace, and mercy. As such, we can begin to envision this circle of unconditional love touching, impacting, and ultimately transforming all (every human soul, all peoples and societies and structures, as well as all of God’s creation) on this earth.

Personally speaking, I’ve noticed that my motivation for missions has progressed from obedience to pursuing the glory of God to love in the last 36 years. It is certainly not wrong to serve God out of obedience or pursuit of the glory of God. However, love unites God, myself, and others. Who I am and who I am becoming is excluded when I operate out of obedience and the glory of God motives. What we are told is that we must “die” to ourselves and surrender in order to serve God, which is not wrong, but incomplete. Love explains and answers my life’s trajectory from its origin to final destination. From this perspective and motive of love, our participation in missio dei has to be subservient to the Great Commandment. Love is the final and ultimate barometer for why and how we engage in missions.

Love trumps strategy and effectiveness. Love rejects any effort that is stemming out of our need to control and to preserve our elitism. Love truthfully creates a fair field of collaborative play among all (churches, other spiritual communities, agencies, and nationalities) who are involved in missio dei as we each are faithfully pursuing to become Love (that is unconditional). True collaboration is possible as fellow pilgrims on this journey of becoming Love and a deep and profound sense of solidarity finally would find its place of belonging. Who we are and who we are all becoming dictates what and how we do. In other words, our human doings are natural by products of our human beings. Naturally, I hope how we mobilize, recruit, train, and deploy our workers reflects this new missio dei model.

Finally, I dream of a new “order” (community of people beyond any one religious stream) where people’s recovery and discovery of inherent dignity of their soul is taken with utter importance. Naturally, discovering one’s unrepeatable unique inherent dignity and identity is never an isolated individual journey. It can only be done in an intentional community where safety, generosity, and freedom are viscerally and continually experienced. The cultivation of our beings experienced in intentional communities are a true testament of God’s Kingdom coming on this earth and a good gift (good news) to this world where people(s) do not have to become like me (or us) to be accepted and to flourish.

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