Korea Might Kill You

Korea might kill you.

What will do it?

The food—of course. It’s dangerously abundant and cheap.

The spice. Sliced jalapeno hidden in hot miso soup already spicy and steaming; wasabi camouflaged with salad greens; deceptively cold kimchi that sets fire to your tongue. The more kimchi jigae you eat the hotter you get till your eyes are streaming to match your nose and it’s hard to see the way to the bottom of the bowl.

Whether it’s too spicy or not you’re warned by the wait staff and the chef. They know foreigners can’t handle spicy food. Only Koreans have the elusive capacity for the hot stuff. When you reassure them their faces take on that classically impressed expression: eyebrows lifted, eyes widened and mouth rounded. “Wah,” they say in that seemingly patronizing manner (the same expression occurs when you use the most basic of Korean phrases.)

The salt. All your favorites are soiled with it. Sam-gyup-sal is one of the most popular foods: three-layered fatty pork self-grilled with your choice of garlic, onions, kimchi, bean sprouts, topped with sauce and wrapped up in a lettuce leaf to pop into your mouth.

Ramyeon is a staple—and we all know the egregiously high sodium content in those flavor packets.

Meat buffets, sushi buffets, buffets of all kinds are abundant and inexpensive, so you can overindulge yourself economically.

Noodles, rice, meat and sauce-soused vegetables follow you. And they taste great.

The sugar. Oh, how we live for the salt and sugar of our lives! Koreans perhaps recently discovered baked goods, and now are saturated with sweets. Proper coffee shops are often also “dessert cafes” with a tantalizing glass case display of cake slices, muffins and cookie decadence. The big names of Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours dominate the city blocks with their vast array of oven-made goodness. The supermarkets boast impressive bakeries, too, so you can too easily procure your muffin, doughnut, sweet red-bean filled bread fix while grocery shopping for vegetables.

Bing-su is the signature Korean dessert. Made with shaved ice, more recently ice of condensed milk, it’s a cold bowlful topped and littered with anything from the traditional soy-bean powder and red-bean sauce to chocolate and oreos, frozen fruit and cheesecake chunks. Typically its served in large black bowls suitable to share among at least three persons. (Because in Korea, and most of Asia, everything is shared, from food to the non-existent “personal space.”)

Ice cream is also cheap and ubiquitous. Convenience stores always boast those sliding door freezers loaded with individually wrapped treats from familiar frozen cones of vanilla, chocolate, and nuts, to the distinctly Korean fish-shaped cones stuffed with red-bean. How can you say no to 500 or 1,000 won ice cream?

The caffeine. Cafes are on every corner. Often side by side, stacked up and tucked away in every building. Vending machines with hot-cup coffee or little metal cans of it fill in the spaces too small for a proper shop or stand. And convenience stores and supermarkets of course provide innumerable coffee influenced beverages. Oh, and the pharmacy, the phone shop, the hair salon, your hagwon, your church and every place in between so graciously offer cheap machines or hot water and instant packets. Because everyone’s got to have their coffee fix. How else could we maintain the schedules we do?

The alcohol. It’s cheap and ubiquitous as ice cream. One 3,000 won bottle of Soju mysteriously multiplies into six. Frothing pints of beer come easy at the innumerable hole in the wall chicken shops. Here you get the double heart-attack factor of beer and greasy fried chicken, served with appetizers of popcorn, silk worm pupae, or another salty finger-snack, but accompanied with a pile of “grass” to slightly balance the meal.

If you teach adults you’ll most likely encounter them hung-over more than once. You have to admire their stamina when they attend that early morning class after returning home a few hours previous following a night of carousing. Probably they’ve been drinking under unspoken obligation with colleagues or customers. Refusing to drink what your boss has poured is the equivalent of slapping his face, so I’ve heard.

“My boss expects me to drink.” I’ve heard that before, too.

“Alcohol is my best friend.” And heard that, too.

So they drink because they’re expected to. They certainly drink to forget also. Grinding away the same draining routine, paying bills for a family you see less and less, straining to keep up with a dwindling job market and ever more competitive applicants—that takes its toll. One more bottle of Soju blurs those unpleasant realities.

That brings us to the work schedule.

As an English teacher your hagwon hours are awkward and make your distant friends and current students wince on your behalf. But those students you teach at egregiously early 6 AM, well before sunrise in winter’s drear, their faithful attendance is the commencement of an endless day. After class some may return home for refreshment: breakfast and grooming. The women rouse their children from bed and prepare the family for their routine. The men enjoy their only quiet moments before the grind. Others commute directly to work where they spend their day and the beginning of their night. Forbidden to nap they doze at their desks, “uncontrollable,” as one student said, laughing in our 7 AM class. The previous night she’d worked until ten, her duties and wishes disregarded by her boss.

Some may not see their families at all during the week. One dear man who glows when speaking of his daughter shares time with her on weekends only. His departure for our 6 AM class was before his wife and daughter’s arousal, and his nightly arrival after his daughter’s return to bed. She is seven years old.

When I ask my junior (children) students if they often eat with their families, the affirmatives are sparse. Not usually. Perhaps on weekends the family goes out to a restaurant and shares a delicious meal. During the week the kids sit on stools at the convenience store and chow down on Ramen heated in the store’s microwave. They bring their disposable cups of tokppokki from the shop behind the institute to class. The older ones show up late to grab a rapid “dinner” before committing to their two-hour English class.

They’ve got to get ahead somehow.

The competition.

The workers have it bad. The students have it bad, also. Perhaps they’ve got more freedom in what hours are spent on the grind, perhaps they can sleep until noon, but then it’s study until you collapse, drink to revive until you collapse again.

Entering university requires a year or two of hard study, of preparation for applications that may reject you because you’re just not good enough to grace that campus. You’d better have attended the right hagwons, the best academies and institutes, better have practiced and memorized until your high school days were just solitary confinement behind books.

The education system.

Rote and memorization.

“School is like a prison for them,” a recent high school graduate said to me. “They just go and sit and listen. Students should participate more.”

They should, I agree. But they don’t.

I told her that rote is the old fashioned style. That at one time most schools adhered to this dreary routine. But that now we have learned it’s not the most effective, pleasant or interesting method. Many schools have progressed to interactive programs with group work, projects, presentations, experiments, field trips, and encouragement.

Not Korea.

Students should be seen and not heard.

Teachers should be rigid.

Questions are rhetorical.

The blank walls.

It’s a transitory place, Korea. Most foreigners come here for a year or two, wishing to experience foreign life, taste new culture and post enviable pictures. Few people stay.

Even the Koreans are always trying to leave. “Hell Korea,” some say, and try to “GTFO.” (You can look that one up.)

Apartments are done in wallpaper and frames are uncommon.

At institutes the walls are often bare. Blue and white and beige walls enclose some uniform desks and chairs and students.

There are no bold alphabets, number charts or posters to learn shapes, colors, or fruit. There are no maps to point out where you come from, to wonder at the size of the world or the places you can roam. There is a white board on which you shouldn’t write their names in red, and a Smart TV, a screen they love to doodle on.

What you really want is for them to doodle on the walls. To get paint on their hands and clothes and cover those bland, claustrophobic walls with the scribbles and masterpieces they hide with their embarrassed hands.

I’d love to showcase their unique styles and prove to them art is not taught by a book.

The shame.

Not every child deserves a medal just for showing up. Not every losing contestant should be awarded a prize. We must accept that sometimes there are clear winners and clear losers. Try again next time.

But let’s also remember always to encourage. Everyone has something to offer and effort should be recognized, if only with brief words of praise.

Recently in a higher level adult class we discussed beauty standards, the merit of physical appearance and first impressions, the preferential treatment of attractive people, and the impact of childhood conditioning of confidence and compliments.

My students didn’t seem to see the importance in assuring children they are beautiful or handsome. I hope they will do so with their own, however, to prevent the epidemic of shame and the monstrosity of the cosmetic industry.

In the States the most common commercials I recall were for cars, car insurance, credit cards and department stores. In Korea, the majority of advertisements are for alcohol and cosmetics and coffee. Well, doesn’t that sum up the culture most tidily?

Like most females, I appreciate the emphasis of mascara, the brightening of shadow and liner about the eyes, lip tint and the occasional foundation to ease blemishes. Every morning I applied at least a smidge to my face before standing in front of my students.

But makeup is not necessary for beauty. It should accentuate the natural features, not alter them.

That’s not the Korean thinking.

Moon-pale faces often contrast with darker-tinted necks. Girls await surgery because without the coveted Western double-eyelids they’ll never be beautiful. Small faces are treasured. And masks of more products than I can name are applied daily before she leaves the house. I don’t know what some of the women’s faces really look like. I’ve only ever seen the mask.

Their hair also must be dark. Although many Koreans go gray early on, perhaps the stress?, you rarely see a silver-crown. They faithfully dye their hair every month to prevent the world from seeing what they know.

It also ought to be properly styled. Perms are common enough, although not usually effective. A student may come to class with hair slightly crimped, proudly announcing they’ve just had a perm. Men wax their short hair into soft spikes or their long hair in the suave miniature pompadour, and present smoothly shaven chins.

They look good. Oh, Koreans are beautiful.

Naturally so. They needn’t make such an effort to appear so perfect. But when the beauty standard is one obtained through genetics, cosmetics, hard dieting and plastic surgery, what choice is there but to try so hard? Especially when there are ever more attractive applicants at your job, or fetching candidates for blind dates?

The relationships.

Korean dramas are ludicrous. In the West we call them “soap operas”: rife with betrayals, affairs, love triangles, copious tears, reunions and heartache. The actors are gorgeous and the stories ridiculous. The general population loves them.

Perhaps they are not as absurd as they seem. Somewhere, a writer was inspired by reality. Later, someone was inspired by the writer’s script. Now, the line between reality and drama is blurred.

Going out with someone of the opposite gender one on one means you are dating. Dating means you are in a relationship. That guy you were casually interested in is now your boyfriend. Going to the movies with him committed you. He expects to hold your hand and show you off as his special possession. He also will treat you in a most queenly manner, paying for meals and bringing you presents and demonstrating his willingness to give you the moon.

Good luck shaking him off.

A frightening number of times now I’ve heard the same story.

“I wasn’t really interested in my husband, but he kept chasing me, so we got married.”

Women are pursued most aggressively and persistently, and whether the attraction is mutual, the couple more often than not ends up married. He chases, and she settles.

After the marriage, she’s no longer queen. She’s housewife, and she ought to take care of the home and the on-coming babies. He works, she manages.

“Affection is stronger than romance. She is like my sister,” said one male student who’s been married ten years to a woman he’s never been in love with.

“Affections is stronger than romance.”

They’re comfortable, these couples. They lead good lives together. They are good partners and give their best to their children. They are amicable roommates.

But those late morning ajumma housewife students, they tell you with misty eyes about their first love, the boys who still make their eyes light up. The ones for whom they didn’t settle and of whom they still daydream.

You have to admire the tenacity of those persistent men. Their efforts are admirable, perhaps begrudgingly so. When a Korean man cares for you, he will continuously demonstrate that affection.

But that seemingly besotted boy lacing his fingers with his girlfriend in matching cap, shirt and sneakers, coordinating couple-wear is hugely popular, that same charming boy may very well be spending his nights with his arm around another girl.

That man who splits his time between cities, one for home and one for work, he may be one of the visitors to the clandestine hotels set up for meetings between unmarried husbands and wives.

Diligence is a Korean trait, certainly. But faithfulness—that definition may have been lost in translation.

All these tragedies might kill you.

Depression and suicide are astoundingly common in Korea.

But there are many wonderful aspects to slay you just as acutely.

Devastating beauty.

Breath-taking cherry blossoms. They are really more spectacular than people say. Springtime in Korea is magical in its abundance. There are the usual welcome purple and gold forsythia, violets, hyacinth and daffodils. But the splendor is in the cherry blossoms: those avenues of winter wonderland in warm sunshine when you walk down a sidewalk lined with trees. Petals loosened by breezes dance in the air like snowflakes, and the gentlest walls of celestial white and pale pink enclose you. Earthbound petals gather at your feet, the most gracious kind of litter, and everyone and their mother is taking selfies. If you’re like me you cannot stop repeating “Wow,” with a silly smile on your face, taking too many photographs to try to capture some sense of this heavenly display for folks far away.

But all those adjectives you once thought powerful fall short. Korea is worth visiting if only for a few days under the cherry blossoms.

They grow everywhere, those sakurah, the Japanese cherry trees. Korea is a land of mountains, and if you get close in the springtime you can see the patchwork of uniquely spring greens and pinks. The mountainsides are checkered with the budding foliage and the thriving blossoms. And just when the cherry trees expunge themselves, finally shedding all their glory, the peach trees sweep in with their remarkable blush to continue this parade of pink and green that provides balm to the eyes well into Spring.

At the onset of summer the roses burst out. They reach past their walls to dangle tantalizing before your nose as you walk, inviting you to take literally that famed adage to stop and smell. Wild they abound, clambering over walls and up trellises, but pruned they show-off; a visit to a local park boasts all the shades and all the scents, from the velvety soft blackened crimson to the lemony-scented brassily orange to the stately lavender melding with the twilight to the heart-warming coral with blooms as big as your head.

After summer’s green glory, autumn enflames the world. Maple trees aggressively flash yellow and scarlet, intermittent with the perfect orange persimmons weighing down branches at every step.

As in Spring, walks in Autumn involve forays down tunnels of solidarity, enclosed by gold foliage and dancing errant leaves gallivanting about on the breeze.

When the snow falls it’s likely to land on some remnant maple leaves, and you can admire the stark contrast of pristine wintry whiteness with those brilliant primary hues.

Some things are constantly glorious through all the seasons.

Those mountain vistas. Blue beyond blue they layer the horizon, eventually merging sky and peak into one mysterious yonder.

High up the crags are steep, and vertical rocks jut out from the green mountainside, impassable and unforgiving like arrowheads sunk into the earth.

Out of breath you can stand with feet apart on a rocky top and see the world just a little like God must see it when He leans in close.

In the city there’s beauty, too. Down by the river growth and birds abound. Herons glide overhead to arc down smoothly into the water, where they tread stately on their long thin legs.

At sunset the sun teases the mountains, slowly bleeding red before ducking out of sight behind the mountains, spreading salmon and gold into the sky, shining off the river.

The turquoise waters around Jeju Island where foaming green meets deeper blue and washes against queerly porous charcoal rocks, rocks fraught with shells, sea glass and remnants of visitors.

Like the morning mist that blurs the mountains at sunrise, melding gold and blue in an ever admirable vista.

The people are beautiful, as I’ve said.

They are naturally blessed with fine, thick hair, delicate noses, finely sculpted hands and cheeks. And they are slim and easy in their movements. They dress well: Korean women can manage short skirts and high heels without a missed step or nervous pull-down.

The children smile so wide their eyes crease up into the delightful “eye-smile,” that makes you warm and fuzzy inside no matter how impish they might be.

And the cheeks. I can’t say enough about Korean baby cheeks. They’re round, they’re chunky, and they’re utterly squeezable. The temptation to touch strangers’ babies is powerful.

They’re hospitable, Koreans, and polite.

You greet with a bow and don’t let the other person pay. (But forget about lines—you must use your elbows or lose your place.)

There are a lot of problems in Korea. It’s a country with innumerable complications, a lengthy, sad history of occupation, internment, abuse, war and unfulfilled justice.

Alcoholism and depression are rampant and not often discussed. Pressure to be successful, to get a good job, marry well and make babies is still high.

Despite the female president, women’s rights are still not up to par, and in some neighborhoods you’d best not wander alone, ladies.

But overall, the country is incredibly safe, clean and convenient. The public transportation will certainly not kill you, but impress you with its inexpensive efficiency. The facilities will impress, too, clean and well-maintained, as are the public parks.

You’ll be impressed by the people: their intelligence, diligence, and seemingly boundless energy. You’ll wonder how they maintain such impossible schedules and still worry about you and your “dark circles.”

You’ll cry from laughing, at the unique ESL conversations, at the strange “Konglish” phrases. In some you see the logic: “sports dance” = Zumba, “skin-ship” = physical touch in a relationship, “camping car” = an RV or attachable camper. At others you raise your eyebrows: “one-piece” = dress.

You’ll double over at the ludicrous printing on t-shirts, hats and bags. “Pervert” is a popular hat slogan. “Swagalicious,” too. On one memorable canvas tote was the phrase “I watch you creepily in the dark with my mustache.” And t-shirts provide all manner of educational reading.

 My purchased tee reads: “Creamy Butter. Keep it in the icebox.”

My favorites I saw included: “I am a white color,” “Black America,” “American Black,” “I got involved in my neighbor’s personal life.”

The Koreans wonder why you’re laughing but attempts to explain fall short.

You’ll be bemused, confused and indignant over certain things. You’ll shake your heads at the ads for alcohol and ageism where two years makes you inferior.

You’ll applaud the healthcare system and hospital treatment and lack of tipping.

You’ll either love or hate kimchi, removing your shoes at the door, and K-dramas. (I appreciate the first two and cannot understand the third.)

Korea might kill you with its myriad tragedies and triumphs. You might die of alcohol poisoning or be hit by a mad driver while crossing the street. (The driving test is notoriously easy and traffic violations are not often noted.) Your Korean friends or students tell you drinking the tap water at your apartment will do you in, as will sleeping with the fan on and not wearing a mask during Yellow Dust season.

Or you could overindulge on sushi, savory beef, sweet bread, Baskin Robbins, or tokkpokki. Or be devastated by the scenery, the cuteness, the unfailing traditions.

You could be amazed by how comfortable you feel in a place so far from your origins. How welcome you are made and how easily you can settle in.

You can impress the locals by using chopsticks or introducing yourself in Korean.

There are so many things to kill you, slay you physically or intellectually, obliterate your preconceived notions and introduce you to wonders unprecedented.

I have left Korea and may never return (although I hope this is not the case.) I survived, through the hazardous traffic, tap water, spices, sweets, and salt, depression and unexpected.

I certainly ate well.

I loved and was loved on.

I lost my breath every time I saw that avenue of cherry trees.

Korea might kill you. Or it might make you stronger, wiser, and humbler as you recognize the similarity of humanity everywhere, and your own minuteness in the world.

And you might find a new haven that will ever feel like home. 

For My Cousin, Kendra, On Her Wedding Day

For Kendra, on Your Wedding Day

21 May 2016

In years past

So many times I envied you

For far more than that pristine innocence            

That prompted you to cover your eyes before the world’s brutality.

You were surrounded by forest and playmates

Owner of horses, homeschooled on a hilltop with mountain vistas,

An epic playroom in your basement filled with desirable toys.

Even your appearance was cause for longing,

Your abundant golden hair was streaked with natural highlights to glimmer in the sun like a true princess.

But I loved you too much to be bitter.

You were too good to dislike

Instead you were a role model to emulate.

You set the bar so high one has to jump to catch and lift

A pull-up to success

There you stand like in the tree-climbing of years past

Barefoot in the summer woods

When you had pulled yourself onto that risky upper limb to a better view

A place where some of us, where I, feared to go.

And so, dauntless you grew and departed your childhood home for college far away

To study anatomy and physiology and uncover your eyes at the world’s brutality.

Intrepid you trained and conquered marathons around the country.

Bold you joined a team in Ecuador to traipse volcanoes and heal strangers.

Tireless you aided in nursing homes patients bedridden by mind and body.

With that unceasing kindness and iron runner’s strength you cared for the lost, the weak, and the lesser.

Two years ago our grandfather died.

In the last days you helped care for him as only a nurse can.

While most of us stood helpless, staring at the insignificant rise of his chest and wondering if our words permeated his fading consciousness,

You lifted him, put balm on his sores, read poetry, and sang hymns with your siblings.

At the Memorial Service you stood up before the crowd to read a letter you’d written.

Through your tears we heard you

Your wish to do him proud, to deserve the title of Granddaughter

Progeny of a small-town hero.

I doubt anyone doubted you’d done him proud already.

Many times you’ve cited your imperfections

Cautioned [me] against placing you on a pedestal,

While you’re only blundering through life like all of us.

But my dear Kendra, you’ve never appeared a blunderer.

All I’ve seen is grace

Grace under pressure

Grace under sweat, disappointment, restriction.

You’ve had your heart broken and dreams crushed, like us all.

But your response has been as high as that bar, that out-of-reach limb on the climbing tree.

Most of us are too timid to leap,

To trust that spurious limb to hold us.

We miss viewing the world from a higher place,

But we see you there, standing with easy grace.

All these years I’ve seen Jesus walking with you, lending that seeming easy grace

Inspiring you to inspire others with the effulgent light of your ridiculously dimpled smile and full-bodied laugh.

Your sky blue eyes twinkle with the warm-hearted mirth that mocks self before others.

Just like Grampie.

You said in that half-choked letter that you’d always hoped Grampie would be at your wedding

That there would be a pair of beaming grandparents watching one of their great legacy start new life.

Well, perhaps he won’t be visible beside Grammie, slightly uncomfortable in jacket and tie, eyes still twinkling with delight,

But I have no doubt he’ll be there

Beaming with joy at this first granddaughter’s wedding.

You wanted to do him proud

Oh my dear Kendra, you do him proud every day.

And his Father, too.

They watch from a distance

(So will I)

Seeing you begin your new life with easy grace, princess hair, and ridiculously dimpled smile.

Thank you for setting the bar so high, for reaching that risky limb,

So we might never settle for less than what makes our Hero proud

In years to come. 

Renewed

Spring has come.

The earliest blossoms I saw are minute blue flowers. Pale and soft baby blue, perfectly formed, every one. Gradating in the same pattern: three blue petals and a singular white-spotted one. Beside the river from among the winter yellow grasses they spring, so every trek beside shallow water rife with Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, and ducks large and brown, mallards with brilliant blue heads and tiny wood ducks, every step with downcast eyes finds the evidence of rebirth. These blue babes birth in the New Season.

The first fragrance I smelled came on a warm breeze. Sweet, welcome and surprising as chocolate chips in oatmeal. Magnolias, brilliantly pure and spread like dancer’s skirts. Their thick, hardy petals scented somewhere close to vanilla. Most lovely at night when their moonbeam hue opposes the sapphire dusk.

Forsythia spreads yellow sunshine along river and streets. Cheery, bold, and brass against the monotonous winter brambles. The famous cherry blossoms uphold their reputation as the Glory of the Season. Bursting forth in snowy cascades, softening the queerly spiny branches of their sooty stems. They now adorn the streets as pearls and quartz, ever decreasing the dreary winter palette.

And in park and forest, where russet and charcoal crowd in the austere dark green of conifers, magenta Rhododendron flashes: a color not to be ignored.

Friday I retreated to the forest, unintentionally. My plan was to complete a trail only ever begun. So commenced under impressive April sun, quickly sweating off my first layer, feet faithfully setting onto the intended trail, and promptly setting off again to a curious ascent winding out of sight. There brown and green enclosed me and the city faded blue behind. But those cheeky  magenta rhododendron met me every few feet, waving as genial neighbors calling salutations from their front yards.

It was quiet. City sounds were replaced by shifting breezes and gentle birdsong--food for my weary soul.

Then there came an audacious rustling of leaves as I crested an arduous rise. Expecting perhaps a squirrel or a particularly raucous jay, instead my roving eyes found the deer.

Little, with diamond-ears and so short I thought of a rabbit, tawny brown as the leaves around her. She picked her dainty way onto the trail ahead of me, the breeze acting in my favor, blowing away my trace. So I watched her with a smile, our distance respectful.

But after a moment the overwhelming influence of my generation made me reach for my phone and align her in the camera’s frame. She promptly stepped off the path and was lost to sight among the brambles. A lady always knows when to leave.

I haven’t been much of a lady lately.

These past months I’ve acted on whims and given little thought to consequence. I’ve been brash, callous and selfish and embarrassingly responsible for a lot of heartbreak and stress. These months have shined light on the shadows of doubt of my maturity; I’m not nearly as wise and discerning as I thought.

Those who love me with the loyal love of ages offer comfort, urging me not to blame myself. They say we should spread the fault among other parties. Perhaps there is fault to be shared, and blame is not often accurately placed—but I know that I did wrong. Whether others should share in my penance is not for me to say: I can only admit my own selfishness and bow my head with shame, repeating steady as the tears: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

So these past weeks have been a show of Grace.

Grace as lovely and as unexpected as the dainty steps of that deer. As rounding another brown corner of the trail to see an orchard open before me: a distant greening hill lit with snowy cherry blossoms.

Grace as powerful and comforting as the afternoon sunshine shot with ruffling breezes. I’ve been as overwhelmed by grace as I have by the sudden onset of spring.

My life has been a stream of sins and disappointing actions that let down peers, teachers, friends, family, and especially my Father. I’ve done some good things to bring comfort or joy, and maybe there have been enough good deeds to cancel out most of the mistakes.

At least, that was my thinking.

We are taught from Sunday School single digits that salvation cannot be earned, that we are sinners black as coal that need washing red with blood to be made white as snow (what is black and white and red all over?), and we church-goers profess understanding that good deeds are the product of faith but not our measure of worth. So often we repeat this adage—but do we believe it?

Perhaps not.

Because we live in a world where love must be earned.

We earn love through performance and deliberation, through gifts and compliments. We expend every effort we can to earn that love. Love fulfills us.

When love is not earned we are perplexed, depressed and defeated.

Despite everything, sometimes we cannot earn love. Unrequited we quit. Even one unreturned affection is devastating. Our failure is complete.

Many Christians strive to earn God’s love.

We perform acts of service, attend events, arrive early and stay late to set up and clean up, cook extra, sing loudly and pay our tithes. We give our time and our money and our talents.

Yet we still worry. We still pray with tears and trembling hands. We still sing the words “wretch like me” with emphasis. We know we are still not good enough.

Then we make a mistake. We blunder, create problems too big to handle, watch our decision spread like venomous ripples to harm others, even those we care for.

That’s when we know we’ve failed utterly. We’ve definitely lost God’s love.

How can we ever earn it back?

Several weeks ago I listened to a sermon called “Stupid Love.”

The title made us all chuckle, and most of us agreed that love is nonsensical and unpredictable. Can’t control who you love. Love makes you do silly things.

But the accompanying story wasn’t about romance. It didn’t tell the foibles of some smitten boy or some desperate woman. Rather, it told of a man’s hindered pursuit of God.

Attending a pastoral training, he set about to grow closer to God.

He planned time for prayer, Scripture reading, and worship through song.

While praying one day, he heard God speak clearly.

“Stop praying.”

Bewildered but convicted, he ceased his prayer.

A few days later he was reading the Bible, faithfully abstaining from prayer.

While reading he heard God speak clearly.

“Stop reading.”

Bewildered, disappointed, but convicted, he ceased his reading.

A few days later he was singing praise, faithfully abstaining from prayer and Scripture reading, grateful that he had this one outlet left to God. He especially loved singing.

While singing he heard God speak clearly.

“Stop singing.”

Agonized but convicted he ceased singing.

A few days later he was in a prayer room surrounded by cheerful peers, other believers who had experienced break-through, special communion with God that pushed them deeper into their faith. There was joy and progress.

He was miserable.

Wrestling with the bizarre and confining commands he’d heard, his temper rose and he threw his Bible across the room. He stormed out.

A few days later he was still in anguish.

While fuming and trying to hold in his misery and confusion, he heard God speak clearly.

“Now do you understand?”

He listened.

“Do you understand why I had you stop praying, stop reading the Bible, and stop singing?”

He kept listening.

“Even if you don’t do any of those things, I still love you.”

He kept listening, astonishment replacing the misery.

“No matter what you do, I will love you.”

He was speechless, astounded and perhaps still anguished, but anguished over his previous anger. Anguished over his past mistakes and his own lack of merit.

I know I was, I am.

Stupid love.

Love undeserved, unwarranted, even often unwanted.

God’s love pours out for us constantly. We ignore it or even run from it. We turn to anything, everything, for comfort, but reject the only true solution to our lonely brokenness.

We just cannot fathom a love that is not earned.

This Sunday I listened to another sermon about love.

This one was called “Love is Verb,” and cited Romans 12, verses 9 through 21, where Paul outlines actions of love, and actions not of love. The verses are impossible. We are ordered to bless our enemies, to bless our persecutors: to sincerely pray for God’s favor on those intentionally hurting us. This is beyond tolerance or even forgiveness: this is affirmative action on our enemies’ behalf. Enemies who hate and harm us without just cause.

We are called to love like Jesus.

But Jesus was perfect.

With God’s power he loved and loves us. He asked pardon for his torturers and demanded no apology from his friends who abandoned him, denied him in his time of desperate need.

He took the thief, the prostitute, the life-long sinner, the pinnacle of mistakes and selfishness, he took them in and loved them as he loved the righteous, those who spent their lives serving others.

Jesus told the famed story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Here we see a breath-taking example of God’s love for his errant children, running to meet them when they look for Him, and serving up the best of His house for their undeserved comfort.

Lesser discussed is the elder brother of the wayward son. He stays at home, obedient and hard-working. He labors in his father’s fields and makes no demands. He is angry at the injustice done to his father, and understandably bewildered when his ill-behaved little brother is treated so well upon his return.

This elder brother stews in his wrath outside while in the house there is a celebratory feast for the brother previously lost to the world.

The father begs his elder son to join the party, to understand his joy at regaining his son—they should celebrate together. But the elder son is obstinate.

Why should he not have been so well-treated all this time he was obedient. Why should we not have preferential treatment for our good works? Why should God bestow such generosity upon the bad people of the world, those who murder, who rape, who steal, who worship in cults, who do drugs, who drink, who sleep around, who pirate music, who go over the speed limit, who don’t tithe every month, who have wine at dinner, who talk badly of their neighbor, who don’t spend hours in fasting and prayer….

Of course we are all sinners. We are all bad people in need of grace. Even Jesus said no one is good but God. Despite the impressive number of good works we may do, we still accumulate a disastrous, maleficent impressive number of sins: selfish impulses, unkindnesses, rude comments, lies, thefts, betrayals and all their dirty kin.

Fortunately for us, God keeps no record of our sin (Psalm 130:3). He graces us every day with new mercy and a fresh chance to make better choices (Lamentations 3:22-23). He uses our every blunder to demonstrate His glory (. And no matter that tally of black marks, He never loves us less.

Stupid love. Stupid love without explanation or rationale. Stupid love as overwhelming as the beauty of spring, as invigorating, revitalizing and breathtaking.

The same Artist who designed each minute blue petal of those perfectly gradated riverside flowers, who added purple sheen to the magpie’s feathers, who sculpted the heron’s neck to that graceful S-curve, who tinted the cherry blossoms bashful pink and who daily paints the sky for sheer delight—this same magnificent Artist paints our souls fresh.

Despair is impossible under the boughs of a cherry tree dropping blossoms to the breeze like snow, outlining the blue sky above and scenting the air with sweetness.

Rather the encompassing beauty of this renewed world is further reminder of God’s grace.

I have made mistakes, I’ve acted badly, unladylike and graceless, but for no reason I have been forgiven.

For the ashes of my culpability, I’ve been given beauty.

For my mourning, I’ve been given joy (Isaiah 61:3).

Stupid love.

So now there is nothing left to say but Thank You. To sing out my praises of gratitude and look forward to the future sunshine.

There is rain today, typical of spring time; many delicate blossoms have been knocked down from their limbs and now lie crushed on the sidewalk.

Thank God we are not cherry blossoms.

When we are knocked down and trodden on, we may feel crushed, but we are not destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Our lives are not so brief or so simple. They are complex and heartrending and anguished with torrential rains, tornadoes and hailstorms. They are also rife with balmy sunshine, fragrance, and insurmountable love: stupid love.

So I, with the graceful, generous aid of loving hands around me, have picked myself up off the concrete and will start my trek anew.

Thank you, God. I will do better next time.

“You take our failure, you take our weakness, you put your treasure in jars of clay. So take this heart, LORD, I’ll be your vessel: the world to see your light in me.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see. I can see You now, I can see the love in your eyes. Laying yourself down, raising up the broken to life.”~  “Broken Vessels” Hillsong United

Significant Events

I haven’t written in a long time.

Like most, my intentions were good and ambitions strong.

Before the New Year I was going to reflect upon 2015 in its trials and surprises, woes and joys. However, with the commencement of 2016 there was heartache and shame, and the urge to share diminished. With the progression of the year, and the dependable passage of time, heartache and shame themselves diminish and the urge to share again grows. As the past month and a half have been particularly emotionally active for me, I considered posting about these forays—delightful and heartbreaking.

However last night I was working on applications for internships after my year-long stint in Korea is finished (possibly for good), and was writing of “experiences which have significantly impacted” my life.

This topic is maddeningly broad without any pale by which to measure length or depth, but I did my best, attempting to write briefly (is this possible?) of some of the most poignant moments in Haiti, both because the internship is in Haiti, and because the majority of my most memorable, impactful experiences have indeed occurred in Haiti.

From among those painful joys there came another experience far from Haiti and not really about me at all. I was merely a witness.

It was my brother Peter’s baptism. Many people were there to witness him and a number of other believers be lowered into the water and raised again, proclaiming boldly their repentance and commitment to Christ. However, of the many raised from the water to cheers and amens, few shared their testimony before the rather daunting audience (the large Durham Evangelical Church was packed, with standing room only). Peter was one who shared.

Up there in that tank he spoke out in his booming voice, baring his soul. He told of his descent into addiction, the miserable mess of lies and deceit that brought him to despair. But there at the bottom he finally accepted help. Pete said he started attending a group with other strugglers, began hanging around good-timing people who didn’t need substances to party, whose joy was constant because of Christ. He began to change.

Months later here he was, on stage before a crowded body, proclaiming he was finished with that old life and old self and ready to live for God. “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free,” he agreed. He was lowered into the tank and pulled up again, shaking water from his hair like a dog.

In the audience of witnesses, many cried. I did, too.

Actually I sobbed.

I had to exit the sanctuary and sit on the stairwell for a few minutes before I could breathe well enough to reenter the crowd.  

The miracle of Pete’s redemption was made all the more potent because of his contrast to another young man I’d heard of. This was also a military man. A good older brother who loved and harassed his sister, hung out with some questionable folks but was universally liked, popular and able to draw a crowd wherever he went. He was also an addict. Not a serious one, perhaps, not wasted away or always shut up. But he used and it was risky.

One night he used too much.

The friends he was with were too high to comprehend how serious the situation, too scared to risk calling an ambulance for their unresponsive buddy when they would all get busted.

By the time they dared make the call it was too late.

He died.

His parents and sister and crowd of friends, classmates and buddies were left behind, wondering why someone so young, so loved, so full of life and good humor had to die.

When my friend told me this story, the story of her older brother, I wondered too.

I cried, looking at her across the table from me with tears in her eyes.

“I don’t understand why my brother got to live when yours didn’t,” I said.

I still don’t.

Life isn’t fair. Death isn’t either.

I don’t know why God saved Peter. But I can thank Him every day that he did.

Recently I saw one of those posts: “Stop thinking about how stressed you are and start thinking about how blessed you are.”

I don’t care for these kinds of cutesy sayings because they are flippant and shallow. Often people have very valid reasons for stress and in fact remain impressively positive, positive inspirations of tranquility in the midst of strife, and they need the chance to vent as much as anyone. We all need to express our stress sometimes, whether it be through conversation or meditation or exercise. Repressing stress results only in implosion.

So I mentally snorted at the post and continued the habitual facebook scroll.

Yet I’ve been subconsciously considering that adage these past few days, reassessing my own formidable woes.

I suffer from depression. I have depression. I am depressed. Depression is real and it sucks.

It is like your skin. You don’t always feel it, aren’t always conscious of its presence. But then it gets irritated, and suddenly you can’t stop the itch. The rash spreads and infects your entire body. Nothing matters but ridding yourself of that terrible itch. Eventually you can soothe it, lend some balm to calm the irritation, and slowly your skin becomes livable again. But it’s there. It will always be there. So will depression, whether dormant or raging.

For the past few weeks I was depressed. I lost interest in everything and only wanted to curl up in bed, safe from everyone’s eyes and even from consciousness. Intense Netflix drama and sleep were the only solace from the misery of existence. I didn’t have the heart to draw, write, read, research future options, study Korean, or even reach out to anyone.

Wednesday I was jarred awake from that wretched stupor through a vicious stomach flu attack. I was awoken by pain in my stomach and spent the remainder of the night alternately dozing and retching. To spare you the lurid details I was extremely sick. I was so sick I was scared. Living alone can be truly disenchanting when you are sick.

Blessedly, I do have friends. Blessedly, someone who cares for me more than I deserve took me to the hospital and stayed with me through hours of waiting, testing, and translating, then brought me home again.

Blessedly, my co-workers absorbed my schedule and did not complain of my absence.

Blessedly, the flu shook me up. As my body began to recover so did my mentality.

The next day I was cleaning, drawing, and writing answers to applications. I was reading the Bible, studying, praying, writing and thinking.

I was recognizing again how blessed I am.

Life is ceaselessly difficult. It is wrought with loneliness and disappointment. There is so much heartache, so many choices we must make and then wonder if we made them rightly. As Christians endeavoring to follow God’s will, there are many choices we make that seem unfair, that seem to leave us behind while others frolic carefree.

However, as Christians, we experience peace, blessed assurance, that non-believers do not. They pray sometimes to a God they’re not certain they believe in, seeking guidance and aid in desperation, overwhelmed by the impossibility of life.

We pray to God who we know holds the future, although we’re not often certain we like the future He’s planned.

We try to make our own way; we rush in, cut corners, and stumble like fools. Then we fall, get caught in a hole, plummet into addiction or doomed romances, face consequences far more serious than we’d considered.

Blessedly, God calls after us. Blessedly, He maintains His promises.

One of the songs our music team at church will sing tomorrow is called “Your Promises” by Elevation Worship. The Bridge says: “Nothing’s gonna stop the plans you’ve made. Nothing’s gonna take your love away.”

Praise God, His plans are in motion and if we let Him carry them to fruition, if we stand before the crowds and praise His name, declare our old lives forfeit and our new selves ready to begin, we will see how blessed we can be.

“What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ or Lord…through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death…the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”

~Romans 7:24-25, 8:1-2,6

Serendipity

Serendipitous—surprising, unexpected, strangely coincidentally pleasurable—a word to describe some marvelously unprecedented occurrence. A perfect word to describe life's incongruities.

Teaching ESL is consistently awkward, ever rife with miscommunications, silences when there ought to be laughter, words in the wrong places and inflection in the wrong spaces, and the insertion of foot into mouth.

But teaching ESL is also consistently humorous; comedy leaking in between the frustrations, and mixing with the affection for students which together cement the beloved structure of teaching.

Add to this the exigent adventure of living abroad, and your life evolves into a most delightfully incongruous yet harmonious dwelling.

On Fridays I finish teaching at 9 AM, and am typically home by 10, after wrapping up some prep work or helping clean the staff room.

Last Friday I went home in light snow, attempting to shelter my nose from the frosty air, changed into several layers of walking attire and then ventured back outside for an untimed excursion.

Always my feet take me to the riverside where the city noises can be almost drowned by the river’s rush and chorus of bird calls, from the heron’s squawk to the invisible song bird chimes. This time I harbored the notion of heading upriver and perusing the department store for more fleece-lined attire, but the gorgeous snow-coated vistas reminded me of the many weeks since I’d toured the Hanbat Arboreteum. Thus downriver I went, setting a brisk pace to combat the rather more than brisk wintry air.

Snow is a great equalizer. Everything becomes a masterpiece when adorned with snow. Keeping my eyes fixed to the opposite bank and its backdrop of mountains laid with snowy trees was breathtaking. How snow converts us all to children, eyes wide with wonder at this revitalized world!

By the time I closed in on the Arboreteum, the sun had begun to permeate the iron clouds and was making the already stick snow increasingly wet and clumpy.

But the beauty remained for the next forty minutes while I wandered without aim or complaint or concern through the maze of trails of this gorgeous, immense park.

The Hanbat Arboreteum is split in two—each half sporting immaculately maintained grounds of various botanical beauties. Each side rambles on for several acres, tens of acres, but one side is much larger.

This time I strayed through the smaller side, as I’d yet to probe all its corners.

I smiled at the bushes of hanging red berries, crimson clusters capped magnificently with virgin snow, surrounding the chill gray waters of a small canal. I laboriously attempted to decipher a signpost describing the various conifers growing nearby, and peered upwards at long green needles, interrupted by the occasional short round cone. (I wondered if these were Scotch Pines.)

In rejection of the wide, gravel walk I found myself down by the Lotus Pond, usually brimming with coi fish (some of admirable size) and lilies, now boasting seasonally red lily pads and sand-colored winter grasses.

There to greet me, growing up from a circular snowy bench were two squat figures: miniature snow-folk of impressively round bodies with miniature round heads, twig arms stuck in their sides and pebbles pressed in for eyes and noses.

Oh, how precious they were!

They wrangled from me a most satisfied smile, and inspired me to complement their jolly presence with a snow-figure of my own. It was not so smoothly round or charming, perhaps, but a cheerful little person with pebbles for eyes and stubby arms of snow. I hoped another would find these three and add to the group.

Grinning like a fool, a blissfully thoughtless fool, I continued my trek through the steadily dampening grounds. (How much joy we get from the simplest and most childlike endeavors!) The sun was doing its best to melt away the lovely winter wonderland, but so far it was succeeding only in increasing the stickiness of the snow and reflecting off the crystals to rend the air sparkling.

On my final lap around the park I stuck my earbuds in and trotted on, planning to cross the Expo Bridge under its sweeping red and blue arches, and make my way homeward in time for lunch. Christmas carols ringing I picked my way around puddles and onto the bridge. Halfway across were two figures, bent over rolling snowballs. On opposite sides they called to each other, stopping a moment to breathe and shake the cold from their bare fingers. They wore large black parkas with furry hoods, but were also bareheaded and had sneakers on their feet, which were surely being permeated and dampening their socks. They were not, in short, properly prepared to be playing in the snow—but playing they were, despite their age (perhaps eighteen or nineteen.)

I passed by one in his labor, smiling at him in general friendliness and droll amusement. But my steps slowed as I neared the edge of the bridge and looked back. Then I shrugged and turned around, picked my snowy way back to the young gloveless chap, and held out my second pair to him.

He was surprised of course.

“Use them, they’ll help,” I said, with no idea whether he could understand me or not.

“Oh,” he said, looking at them, “really? Are they yours?” He spoke English!

“Yeah, use them, it’s cold. You don’t have to keep them. I’ll wait.” I didn’t care to give this boy my gloves and walk away never to see them again. I did not mind awaiting their return.

“Oh, thank you,” he said, slow to take my offer.

But as he attempted to put them on, his hands proved too large.

“Ah, too big,” he said.

“Oh, sorry, I have tiny hands!” I said regretfully, taking them back.

We looked down at the awkward lump of snow he’d been rolling.
“Are you making a snowman?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Body,” he pointed at his lump. “Head,” he pointed across the bridge to his comrade, who was looking at us, his own awkward lump temporarily forgotten.

“It’s not round,” the boy said, “looks like triangle.”

It did—both lumps were stubbornly un-round. The snow was steadily stickier and compacted tightly, hard and cold, so that once packed there was no re-shaping it. And the attempts at smooth, round balls for body and head had resulted in oddly-shaped lumps with various points. The other boy’s looked vaguely like a pyramid.

“Oh, it’s okay, it’s hard to make it round,” I said, thinking of my own (failed) sleek spherical efforts with the tiny snow figure in the park. We looked down at the lumps, me tapping a clump of snow with my toe.

“Can I help?” I asked.

He agreed.

Thus commenced a delightful twenty minutes or so of labor, stooping and squatting in the snow to pack on, scrape off and shape the ugliest snowman I’ve ever seen.

Occasionally we spoke, but mostly we just worked and laughed.

The first boy spoke some English but the second did not, at least he chose to abstain. But we laughed a lot, me both at the absurd appearance of the snowman and the sheer oddity of the situation.

When did my life become randomly building a snowman with strangers on the middle of a bridge in South Korea?

A few passersby passed us by, individuals on foot or bicycles. Some looked amused at our antics, some barely glanced. How precious to belong to a company instead of receiving odd looks because of my odd looks!

The first boy mentioned Olaf, so I was naturally inspired to mold a carrot nose. But my sculpting skills have always been lacking, and the awkward cone I shaped was much more beaky than root-like. The second boy wanted him to have feet, so we tried to shape protruding bipeds, with the result of one foot vastly dwarfing the other. The snowman also had rather a pregnant belly and unfortunate bulges that might have been tumors.

After the majority of bodywork was finished, the first boy then gouged eyes and smile with his fingernail to form a bland, unthreatening face. Attempting to add personality I stroked in eyebrows, and made the snowman most threatening. With his beaky nose, menacing eyebrows and tiny ears that resembled devil-horns, in addition to the lumpy squat body, the snowman was truly an egregious, corpulent imp.

He would doubtlessly amuse and frighten passersby in equal measure.

How proud we were!

The boys were concerned for the snowman’s longevity beneath the sun’s debilitating rays, so the second boy stood behind him, holding his coat like a screen between the snowman’s back and the deadly sun. They wanted to move him to a safer location, but I believed him stuck fast, rooted firmly in the sticky snow from whence he’d been planted.

Unable to garner a photographer, the boys took turns taking their picture with the snowman, and then said I was next.

Thus somewhere in the city is a young man with a picture of me, a stranger whose name he doesn’t know, smiling behind our gargoyle snowman.

After that, I determined to leave.

“I will go now,” I said, stomping snow from my sneakers, very glad for my thick double-layered socks, “Thank you for letting me help!”

We smiled at each other and waved goodbye, and I turned again, continuing to laugh.

When I had exited the bridge and reached the riverside again, down the bank below the bridge, I looked back to see the boys’ progress.

They succeeded somehow in uprooting the snow gargoyle and were indeed moving him, one on each side, shuffling off to a new location in hopes of finding shade.

I wished to see reactions to that squat figure with his beak nose and sweeping eyebrows; I’ve no doubt he wrought smiles.

Thank God that we can all smile and laugh in the same language!

Living abroad is challenging and sometimes discouraging. My Korean language skills are incredibly lacking, such that I cannot successfully maintain a conversation or understand the majority of what is said to me.

But I can understand much because we are all people, and people are the same around the world.

We experience the same pains and pleasures, joys and hurts and fears and doubts and anticipations and loves. We are ceaselessly awed by mountains and waterfalls, discouraged by dismal weather, appreciative of hot food and delighted by games and art. We all love to play and to create, and in these we find common ground.

If we cannot speak each other’s languages we use gestures, expressions and pictures. We mime and we laugh and we speak with exaggerated emphasis. We have more fun, really, in this attempt to make ourselves understood. We let go our pride to make fools of ourselves, gesticulating and gaping in turn.

When you teach ESL you become very good at interpreting the unspoken. You convey your message and translate those of others—it’s necessary.

Once upon a time we all spoke the same language. After the Towel of Babel we scattered around the globe with our tongues suddenly discordant. But our nature remained constant.

Today we retain that nature God created in us, and if we look beyond the obvious, and cease complaining that we can’t understand due to accent or language, we can still find harmony.

Perhaps I cannot have an intellectual or highly intimate discussion with someone with whom I cannot speak, but we can enjoy each other’s company and make at least simple exchanges.

I once spent an hour alone with a Haitian woman who spoke no English, at a time when I’d forgotten all the Creole I knew. We shared laughter and love simply by being together, her cooking something delicious she wanted me to taste every few minutes, and me making appreciative signals.

My friend’s mother was convinced I knew Korean when I visited their home, impressed that I anticipated her intentions. Repeatedly I assured her words weren’t necessary.  

Every meeting with my Korean tutor is a Konglish adventure, while she attempts English explanation only to diverge into Korean, and I stumble through Korean phrases before slipping back to English.

Our host, her photographer friend in whose studio we meet and study, speaks almost no English whatsoever, and is one of the best pantomimers I’ve yet to meet. He signs almost everything, using ridiculous motions and dramatic expressions and making completely understandable sounds. I almost always know what he is saying, although he almost never says it with words.

Of course I want to increase my Korean capacity, but in the meantime I am so gratefully blessed with Korean folk who love me despite my incapacity, and with comprehension that needs no words.

Every day God gives me more understanding, and I always pray for wisdom not my own.

Being unable to rely on language, ever surrounded by strangers and foreign tongues can be intimidating, sometimes exhausting and overwhelming. But let us always remember we are people, formed in God’s image and made of the same emotions and incomprehensible complications.

Always let us keep our eyes open for common ground, and stop in our commutes to appreciate these commonalities.

I did not look that Friday for playtime in the snow with two strangers.

Usually I look ahead, think about what’s behind, and consider my own selfish intentions.

But God loves to surprise us.

Some people believe in coincidence. Some believe in fate. Some people believe that every small occurrence happens for a reason. Everything has purpose and significance.

I believe that serendipity is one of God’s delights. Sometimes the best occurrences are the unplanned, the spontaneous and wonderful, with persons previously unknown.

Life is not meant to be lived alone or according to plan. Life is meant to be serendipitous.

What other snow-gargoyles await in the future? I have no idea. But I am happy to find out. 

Entitled

I’ve been having a severe sense of entitlement lately.

Perhaps this unfortunate sentiment is exacerbated by the materialistic society in which I’m dwelling—a culture focused on appearance and fashion and accumulation of possession and accolades—but a large portion of the problem stems from myself.

I am naturally an incredibly selfish person. I think of myself before I consider anyone else, and the majority of my sentences yearn to begin with “I” and end with “me.”

Walking down the street or navigating the aisles of the supermarket or turning a corner or commencing a stairway, always I object to another’s presence. He or she or they are in my way. Their person is blocking my path and hindering my progress. My schedule is frustrated along with my nerves.

How dare another person be so audacious as to invade the same sidewalk, aisle, pathway or stairway as me! How dare she push her cart onto the moving ramp at e-mart and thus force me to stand idly behind her for the agonizingly slow 30-second ascent between floors?

How dare this pair of men shuffle up the path with their hands folded behind their backs while I vainly attempt to circumnavigate them and continue at my much brisker pace?

How dare this driver turn the corner without stopping so I might cross the road without stopping?

How dare anyone make me wait! How dare anyone hinder my plans! How dare the world not cater to my every whim and caprice!

These egregious offenses to my person are only the unspoken rages, a small part of the entitled attitude that often make me grind my teeth and clench my fingernails into my palms.

These are just the selfish thoughts that occur nearly every time I venture outside my apartment.

In the apartment I also experience such struggles: occasion when the water heater does not quickly enough provide steaming water for a shower; when the washing machine beeps the “tangle” alert, so I must pull apart my sopping knotted clothes and restart the machine to finish its spin-cycle; when the electric kettle takes a longer 60-seconds than usual; when drawers won’t close or boxes topple, when I clumsily drop something and spill liquid or rice grains all over the floor; when the wifi requires restarting or when Netflix stops streaming.

Any of these infinitesimal inconveniences at the wrong time can trigger a Hulk-Out moment, when I stomp my foot or slap my palm against some surface in agitation, grumbling against the immense struggles of my life.

First-world problems.

The other first-world problems plaguing me are even more shallow, of the severe materialistic nature.

Always I am looking for the gaps in my wardrobe, the barrenness of my floor, and the empty spaces in my passport.

When next I’m in a department store, or a dinky dollar-store, or worse, one of the innumerable corner convenience stores, I see things to add, to amend the gaps and spaces.

I see the mortar to fill those cracks, to further crowd my cozy apartment and bring me long-pursued happiness.

I want this and I want that. I want what certainly I do not need.

I want and I want and I want.

I will never have enough.

Like everyone, I suffer from the vacuum in my soul, forgetting at frightening frequency the only Satisfaction to be had is from Christ.

And this natural disgusting tendency of entitlement is heightened by my status as hagwon (private institute) teacher.

Last term was my first 6 AM schedule, and rife with challenges. Beyond the less than ideal necessity of rising before the sun and getting to work before 6, three of my four classes tested my patience with their poor attendance.

6 AM, most surprisingly and impressively, was the class with the best attendance. Consistently there were students present and ready before 6:00, seated with their books open before them before I even entered the classroom.

Although some arrived tardily, there were always students there to greet me and be greeted, every day.

At 7, 10 and 11, however, this was not always the case.

7:00 proved to be the most poorly attended class, and often had me tapping my foot as the minutes ticked by, postponing the start of the lesson in hopes that students would arrive.

Often class began, with the eventual arrival of a few students, at 7:15.

11:00 was the same way. After one student dropped the class, two ladies remained, and were always late.

Just like the wonderful woman who serves as my English-pupil and Korean-teacher, and my faithful friend, the two ladies seemed simply incapable of coming on time.

Having always been a severely punctual person, this tardiness offended me.

I could understand being late a few times, or perhaps in the beginning of term when adjusting to a new schedule.

But to be late every day, well after becoming accustomed to the commute and routine, such behavior was an affront.

How dare these students mar my timeliness!

Just like my dear Korean teacher, however, at these students I could not retain irritation.

For one, both were extremely eager to learn, and extremely impressive in their English capacity.

With them I could easily hold a conversation about any topic, and I would forget English was not their mother tongue.

More than once we diverged from the textbook to simply discuss: religion, politics, women’s rights, discrimination, social activism, men, marriage, art, history…

Although we did not agree on all things, particularly as one was a Buddhist and one uncommitted to any religion, teetering on Christianity, we certainly had good rapport, and they were always attentive to what I had to say.

More than once they complimented me on explanations of grammar and the Bible, saying that I was the best Biblical explicator they had yet heard, and our grammar lessons were thorough. (Praise God!)

They were very good tardy students, in short.

Also in their favor was the generosity.  I lost count of the number of occasions that one of these ladies brought in treats in place of timely arrival.

She brought chocolate, lollipops or caramels, cookies and doughnuts.

After a day-trip to a historical village, she presented me with a beautiful pin and bracelet of silver and pearl.

One day after ensuring that second-hand clothes did not offend me she gave me a well-packed canvas bag of clothes she deemed too tight or too “young” for her, none of which showed the least evidence of wear.

And she ceaselessly complimented me on my dress, accessories and general appearance.

In my other classes, I was gifted with treats occasionally as well.

Usually these were in the form of snacks, but I’ve received some pretty knickknacks as well, always unexpectedly and without particular occasion that I could tell.

On our final day of term, which is often referred to as “Party Day” and involves socializing over snacks rather than studying the textbook, I brought in muffins and tangerines, uncertain whether any students had intended on contributing to the communal grazing.

At 6 AM my ever-dependable three gentlemen were present, and after I’d directed us into a circle around the central desk of muffins and tangerines, my most diligent K brought forth a bag packed with pastries and sweet macchiato coffee-pouches.

(This is the student who had perfect attendance and was ever first in the class, despite a forty-minute commute to school. After class he went to work. Despite not scoring well-enough to pass to the next level, he retains remarkable good-humor, and studies incessantly.)

At 7 AM on Party Day after the usual ten or so minutes of delay, three students arrived, as promised. The first shared a bag of warm drinks, because it was cold outside, he said, and the second left us gaping as she pulled forth sweet treat after sweet pastry: expensive candies, a signature Korean treat (essentially donuts in small, square candy-form); two Bundt-style cakes made with rice flour and raisins, cheesy star-shaped cookies and brownie-like chocolate-filled cookies. This abundance was added to the previous class’ pastries.

Later that morning at 10 AM two ladies arrived to the classroom, both with contributions. One had packages of Pepperidge Farm cookies and one cartons of little walnut-bread. These are minute pastries with the texture of a pancake, moist and chewy, filled with sweet red-bean paste and a walnut. They are molded after a walnut shell.

One carton was to share. The other she presented to me. “This is for you,” she said, “Just for you.”

By the end of the morning my desk looked like a bakery—positively filled with left-over treats and sweets that would be impossible to consume alone.

The day before one of my 6 AM students, a dear and adorable older man, D, who should not have passed to the Level 3 class of which he was part, had requested we have lunch together.

He said he wanted to take me and the two teachers he knew taught at that time—I agreed.

That night, the night before the last day, I was miffed to learn from a co-teacher that my Level 5 students, the always tardy ladies, had invited her to lunch with them, along with some other students and another teacher.

“They didn’t invite me to lunch,” I said in surprise.

Afterwards I found the news annoying—how dare they not extend me, their teacher!, an invitation!

The fact that we hadn’t discussed plans for the following day at all did not really forefront in my mind, nor the fact that most likely I was invited regardless—my focus was only on, shockingly, myself.

(The next day we all grouped together, four teachers and six students, and my Level 3 student D paid for lunch for all of us.)

Entitlement.

I felt it.

I feel it.

Constantly.

In this materially minded world, I value my possessions far too much.

I worry excessively over the state of my bank account and begrudge every won spent, or rather every bit of won spent on something not my immediate gratification.

Entitlement.

It is as though I expect some beneficent person or being or perhaps my employer to pay for everything, to compensate every moment of my time and every minute expense.

And therein lies the problem: my time.

Time is not mine.

Nothing in this world is mine—not even my body.

All I’ve been give in a gift with which I have opportunity to use for good purpose.

At the commencement of this latest term we received two new teachers. Most new teachers face the struggle of stretching their funds until that triumphant first paycheck. We arrive, spend ten to twelve days in Orientation in Seoul, then are sent to our assigned schools and work for approximately three weeks before being paid. That accumulates to five weeks with no income, and three weeks living expenses of meals, possible furnishings or toiletries for a possibly barren apartment.

Money can become extremely tight.

To assist in this challenging transition, common practice among teachers is to cover a meal or two without thought of repayment, perhaps buy some odds and ends of necessities, school supplies or small amenities—this is the cycle. Most likely someone aided us in our uncertain beginning, and so we aid the incoming in turn.

These past few weeks we have all contributed to Zak and Bien. Zak, the returning teacher, was assigned role of coordinator, without his foreknowledge. Thus he has additional duties beyond teaching: he also has a daily religion class, overseeing and approving paperwork, and is representative between foreign teachers and Korean teachers, the Main Office, and the director. He is also responsible for Mission Day once a term and Reading Club on Saturday mornings.

Some of these duties are usually shared between other Missionary Teachers, teachers who are Seventh Day Adventist, but our branch hosts no others—Zak is the only SDA. This is clearly unjust.

Since my arrival in July I have been helping with Reading Club. I attended every Saturday whether I was leading that day or not, helping to explain or prompt discussion among students. Last term there were three of us to share the responsibility of procuring an appropriate article and leading the group. Now there are just us two.  

Recently I was feeling burdened under this bother, this accumulation of entitlement and bitterness. Always I seemed to be giving, always giving time, effort and money, and resentment began to flourish. Envy at the seeming lack of responsibility of my co-workers plagued me, and instead of serving from love, I felt I was serving my time and effort out of (grudging) obligation.

Certainly Christians have a duty to serve additionally, above and beyond what the world requires or expects, but we ought not to be serving with such resentment or sense of self-righteous martyrdom. But I felt these wretched things.

One morning I cried out to God to save me, because the bitterness was eating me from the inside-out. I was horrified at my own selfishness, and the idea that I was utterly bankrupt of love.

I was a miserable clanging cymbal.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.”

~1 Corinthians 13:1-3

How fortunate that God answers prayer, and blessed me with participation in a small group Bible study on discipleship. One lesson of following Jesus is understanding the cost; that cost may be physical wear or financial bankruptcy. It definitely entails occasional humiliation and rejection by the world, and continuing to give when all seems exhausted.

Because with this continuation of giving comes faith: growth of our own and proof to the world of its existence.

James reminds us practically that faith without works is dead, of no use to anyone. We cannot merely wish someone well, promise prayer, and take no action. “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food. If one says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well-fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” ~James 2:15-16

Similarly, we ought not solely give physically but pray earnestly and share the Good News, telling the reason we give. Perhaps a person can be generous on her own, perhaps some persons are move giving than others, naturally, but with Christ, we can overcome the fear of giving “too much,” and give with abandon.

Yesterday I was late to service at SDA, and missed the beginning of the sermon. But the part I did attend was of Mary, sister of Lazarus, pouring oil over the feet of Jesus as he dined. The surrounding party judged her, dismissed her as a sinful woman unworthy of the Teacher’s attention, but Jesus considered her action beautiful, and an excellent use of her money and emotional expense.

“When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” ~Luke 7:37-38

Some claimed that she ought to have donated the money she spent on such expensive perfume, providing for the poor. Some deemed her display unfit for the public: she ought not to make a scene before strangers.

Jesus dismissed all of these condemnations as petty. “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” ~Matthew 26:10

He said she had done right, and given a better gift than his host in her intimate washing of his feet: using her tears and hair and this exquisite perfume.

Pastor said that we ought to break our alabaster jars, to pour out our perfume on the feet of Jesus.

We’ve been given a variety of gifts. We all have time, talents and finances with which to be generous. Let us not hoard them, he said, not hold them close, but give with abandon.

Giving is not often easy. Sometimes we feel there is nothing left to give, everything has been expunged and we are empty.

But God always restores joy. He is there to fill our hearts with joy and love just as He filled water jars with the choicest wine.

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” ~Luke 6:38

Entitlement will ever be a struggle, particularly in this egregiously materialistic world where we are ever convinced we need the next fulfillment, the next assurance of our completion and happiness. But we will never be sated by products, technology, clothes, adorable shoes, spectacular meals, even magnificent vistas, adrenaline-pumping excursions, and the dearest relationships. Not by others’ praise or admiration will we find lasting comfort.

However, there is hope in giving. Giving beyond what the world expects or perhaps others consider healthy.

These past five months in Korea I have witnessed God’s provision again and again, and have always been treated with generosity, expected or unprecedented. How dare I not do all I can to pay forward the generosity and selflessness I have known, and in turn feel God restore joy to my heart.

And there, instead of entitlement, we are blessed with contentment.