America is unique worldwide: it is amazingly diverse in terms of people, landscape, and food, it is wretchedly over airconditioned, it is the height of convinence and accessibility, it boasts an enormity of television programs as well as near constant entertainment in a myriad of forms, and even though most citizens don't realize it, wealth and luxery is the air we breathe. North Carolina is unique amongst states: it is every imaginable shade and texture of green, sweet tea flows like rivers from every restaurant and home, and the local accents are like a massage for the China accustomed ears.
So I'm back.
How do I describe the delight of sinking my teeth into anything with refried beans? To what can I compare the freedom of driving over near deserted roads winding through pastures and forests? Is there anything more liberating than the realization that the clothes in the stores might actually fit you? What about the thrill of options you can read at the grocery store?
But I'm forth.
Somewhere in the midst of the glee of being immersed back into a culture that swallows me up like a wave of jelloesque familiarity there are the inner rumblings of the all too understood and disected storm clouds of foreignness. I fit here but I'm differet. It's easy for me but I'm haunted by idleness. I have lived a life based on the reliability of the spiritual due to the unfaithful material yet find myself in the pulsating deception that the material seems convincingly stable. I have changed through a year long refinement process but to all appearances, nothing here has.
Back... and forth...
Comfort... and discomfort...
Back, and forth.
Backandforth.
In a few short weeks it will be back to China so maybe I'll just soak America, the parts that have been redeemed, in while I can. Is it even possible to overdose on the company of dear friends and burritos?
I'm back and I'm forth.
The harvest is here...
The kingdom is near...
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The rain in Spain is very plain...
But in Seoul it's torrential.
I had forgotten what real rain was... this place has gotten more rain in an hour than Lhasa does in a year.
I had forgotten what real rain was... this place has gotten more rain in an hour than Lhasa does in a year.
Ode to Seoul Rain:
It is
absolutely flooding.
Am I swimming or
walking down the street?
Great sheets of
water.
This city must be located under a
heavenly faucet which someone has just left on all day.
Where is the ark?
Forging
great rivers equipped only with an umbrella.
Rainy day in Seoul.
My first thoughts on rain was gratitude which quickly turned into discomfort, not because my pants were instantly soaked up to the knees but because of the excess. It's just too much water, it's more than what this city needs, it's a waste.
The image that came to mind as I splashed between subways and wandered damply around the Seoul History Muesum was one of an angry child being told that he has to wash the car and instead of doing it methodically and carefully, thus actually cleaning it, in a vain fit of rage just throwing dozens of buckets of water all over it. If the Father wants to wash this city from its whoring to consumerism then this much rain is a show of desperation, isn't it?
Then this damp thought swam to the surface: As the rain which comes down from heaven and does not return to it without watering the earth so My word goes out from My mouth, it will not return to me empty but will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
This rain is not the frivolity of some cranky school child, it is the profusion of a heavenly Father who has opened His arms in grace and pours it out, in the same overwhelming quanities as this rain, over the earth achieving the very purpose for which He sent it.
Who am I to question such excess?
Instead allow me to join in the spiritual water fight with this: You heavens above rain down righteousness, let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up...
My pants will never be dry again.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
It is well with my Seoul...
I left Lhasa to about a dozen students giving me kadas, carrying my bags to the car, telling me not to worry... on the drive to the airport I glimpsed a very large lizard scurrying over the rocky mountain side. Goodbye for now Lhasa.
I arrived in Beijing greeted by a dear friend whose eagerness to see me was revealed in this text which I received while I was in baggage claim: just take somebody elses.
I woke in the middle of the night in near agony that I was going to be on the move again in a few humid hours.
A dalliance if you will: It's amazing what Asia will do to you, the way that somehow it makes your brow crinkle and stomach churn at the thought of having to transition. I used to love travel, and even though I've never had a horrendous experience, now the thought nearly drives me insane. In a world that's as unstable as this one is it always strikes me as some sort of masochism to put oneself in a decidedly less stable place, thousands of feet above the air in route to some destination that is sure to be nothing in your realm of experience... I have long asked for there to be more of Him and less of me and my current understanding is that such a request requires me to travel in Asia by myself.
Enough.
I arrived in Korea with a bookbag of clothes and an extra hour, that's how early the plane was. The hour was quickly spent deciding a few things about this culture: 1. They wear flip flops 2. They don't seem to care that I'm white and 3. They are madly efficient with time... in short this is the least Asian country in Asia.
I got off the airport bus with time to spare and walked right into the McDonalds and bought a milkshake for roughly a dollar... I sat down to write about why it is that a well placed McDonalds is suddenly the latest revelation of grace in my life.
I had a random Korean girl (who spoke no English but somehow knew exactly what the phone number in my hand and pleading look on my face meant) help me call my friend, which produced a very joyful reunion. Now I'm writing to you from the fourth Asian country that I've visited in nine months... that's if you only count China as one country.
Whatever my lot (and what an unpredictable lot it's turning out to be) He has taught me to say... it is well, it is well with my Seoul.
I arrived in Beijing greeted by a dear friend whose eagerness to see me was revealed in this text which I received while I was in baggage claim: just take somebody elses.
I woke in the middle of the night in near agony that I was going to be on the move again in a few humid hours.
A dalliance if you will: It's amazing what Asia will do to you, the way that somehow it makes your brow crinkle and stomach churn at the thought of having to transition. I used to love travel, and even though I've never had a horrendous experience, now the thought nearly drives me insane. In a world that's as unstable as this one is it always strikes me as some sort of masochism to put oneself in a decidedly less stable place, thousands of feet above the air in route to some destination that is sure to be nothing in your realm of experience... I have long asked for there to be more of Him and less of me and my current understanding is that such a request requires me to travel in Asia by myself.
Enough.
I arrived in Korea with a bookbag of clothes and an extra hour, that's how early the plane was. The hour was quickly spent deciding a few things about this culture: 1. They wear flip flops 2. They don't seem to care that I'm white and 3. They are madly efficient with time... in short this is the least Asian country in Asia.
I got off the airport bus with time to spare and walked right into the McDonalds and bought a milkshake for roughly a dollar... I sat down to write about why it is that a well placed McDonalds is suddenly the latest revelation of grace in my life.
I had a random Korean girl (who spoke no English but somehow knew exactly what the phone number in my hand and pleading look on my face meant) help me call my friend, which produced a very joyful reunion. Now I'm writing to you from the fourth Asian country that I've visited in nine months... that's if you only count China as one country.
Whatever my lot (and what an unpredictable lot it's turning out to be) He has taught me to say... it is well, it is well with my Seoul.
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