Tuesday, July 17, 2012
"i like his tight butt!" "GRANDMA!!" "well i doooo!"
operation "part hair on other side to hide grays".......has commenced.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Big Real
Elderly Korean people can drink a LOT. I have a lot more research to do on this topic before I can speak authoritatively on it, but just going off of what I can see, their tolerance is quite high. Public intoxication is fairly commonplace, though it is viewed as unsightly and embarrassing and most people usually look the other way. On most nights walking home from work I see a few elderly Korean men doing what I call the "Soju Shuffle", stumbling home from an alcohol laden business meeting, or just dinner with friends.
Yesterday I went to the Sea-Parting festival in Jindo, a small seaside town about an hour and a half bus ride away from Gwangju. The Sea Parting festival is for the most part exactly what it sounds like--once a year, the sea parts, Moses-like, revealing a 150 foot wide, oyster laden path along the coast. Hundreds of people come to see the "miracle", walk the path, and collect all the oysters/other edible sea creatures they can find.
What they don't tell you about festivals in the pamphlets, however, (because everyone already expects it, I guess) is the amount of intoxicated old Korean people you will see. It's a lot tamer than, say, 20 somethings at Austin City Limits, but the Ajummas and Ajussis can throw it back, man. And they do. At every stop on the Festival path were the less-than-intimidating Korean policeman with their high-water pants and plastic batons, whose sole purpose it seemed was to deal with the intoxicated elderly heckling various performances. I saw middle aged and more than middle aged men and women being physically removed from the stage areas of each show we saw.
Granted, it was a festival. And these people work incredibly hard...they are entitled to a little time to cut loose and let go.... or escape, rather. However I noticed that most of these disorderly drunk were also of the indigent variety--dirty nails, bad teeth, not your average well-kempt Korean.
And then it happened.
My friends Kezia and Jack and I were sitting under an outdoor tent, enjoying Korean seafood pancakes (pajun) and beer when an intoxicated, elderly indigent sat down beside Kezia. He was quite alone, in every sense of the word, and literally frothing at the mouth with copious amounts of white, mucus-y spittle. His eyes were wide and he seemed intent on conversation. I don't know if this man was homeless or not, or if he had any family at the festival (I doubt it), but he spied an empty seat with three young foreigners, and wanted to join in, possibly to see if we would buy him a beer, but also possibly just to sit under a tent and have a conversation like everyone else. Like "normal" people.
Despite our repeated attempts to assure him we did not understand his rapid Korean, he spoke to us avidly, asking us questions and I'm sure, making jokes. However the one heartbreaking thing that kept punctuating his words was the only English expression he knew-- "I am sorry". Which he repeated over and over and over again. We caused a small scene, as the tent proprietors came over several times to try to remove the source of the awkwardness, but he was tenacious. He wanted to stay, he wanted to talk. Throughout the ten or so minutes he was at our table, I met eyes with several other Korean patrons who smiled at me, embarrassed and apologetically. Even though this was not my first experience with a homeless drunk person, I was embarrassed....but not because I was near him, or embarrassed of him.
I was embarrassed by myself. I was embarrassed because his white mouth was grossing me out and I just wanted to eat my seafood pancake and be left alone.
Everything in his eyes was saying Look, look, look, look, look at me. Look me in the eyes. Listen to me. That is all I want. Just listen to me, try to talk to me, don't be embarrassed by me. But he wasn't too drunk to know he was an embarrassment. His chorus of "I am sorry" communicated that well enough.
Escapism. He couldn't escape his loneliness with Soju, and I can't escape mine, either.
Richard Rohr, in his book "Everything Belongs" has one section entitled "Liminality and Transformation". He makes a distinction between liminal (threshold) experiences that bring about real change and liminoid experiences, accepting a false comfort in an attempt at finding a real remedy. Liminal space, he says, induces a type of inner crisis to help us make a needed transition. Not over, around, or beside but THROUGH. Through pain, through grief, through despair, through the dark dark places of life. To feel and know and suffer and then be reborn. Again, and again and again, over and over and over, be born again.
And finally to find real Love and real Grace on the other side of it. Simone Weil said, "It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void."
Did I mention yesterday was Easter? Rohr said
"When we see the image of God where we don't want to see the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own. Prayer reconnects us with inherent value. Everything becomes priceless if it is sacred. And everything is sacred if the world is a temple. The purpose of prayer and religious seeking is to see the truth about reality, is to see what is. And at the bottom of what is is always goodness. The foundation is always love.
I don't know that I have touched it yet. At some moments, God had parted the veil and it's tasted very good. It's tasted like the real. Enlightenment is to see and touch the big mystery. The big pattern. The Big Real. Jesus called it the kingdom of God; Buddha called it enlightenment. Philosophers might call it Truth. Most of us just call it love. There's no answer, no problem solving, simply awareness. You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God. You cannot earn this God. You cannot prove yourself worthy of this God. Feeling God's presence is simply a matter of awareness. Or enjoying the now. Deepening one's presence. I am able to see the divine image in myself, in you, and eventually in all things. And finally seeing is one.
Jesus pushes seeing to the social edge. Can you see the image of Christ in the least of your brothers and sisters? If the world is a temple, everything is sacred. One God, one world, one truth, one suffering and one love. All we can do is participate."
Yesterday I went to the Sea-Parting festival in Jindo, a small seaside town about an hour and a half bus ride away from Gwangju. The Sea Parting festival is for the most part exactly what it sounds like--once a year, the sea parts, Moses-like, revealing a 150 foot wide, oyster laden path along the coast. Hundreds of people come to see the "miracle", walk the path, and collect all the oysters/other edible sea creatures they can find.
What they don't tell you about festivals in the pamphlets, however, (because everyone already expects it, I guess) is the amount of intoxicated old Korean people you will see. It's a lot tamer than, say, 20 somethings at Austin City Limits, but the Ajummas and Ajussis can throw it back, man. And they do. At every stop on the Festival path were the less-than-intimidating Korean policeman with their high-water pants and plastic batons, whose sole purpose it seemed was to deal with the intoxicated elderly heckling various performances. I saw middle aged and more than middle aged men and women being physically removed from the stage areas of each show we saw.
Granted, it was a festival. And these people work incredibly hard...they are entitled to a little time to cut loose and let go.... or escape, rather. However I noticed that most of these disorderly drunk were also of the indigent variety--dirty nails, bad teeth, not your average well-kempt Korean.
And then it happened.
My friends Kezia and Jack and I were sitting under an outdoor tent, enjoying Korean seafood pancakes (pajun) and beer when an intoxicated, elderly indigent sat down beside Kezia. He was quite alone, in every sense of the word, and literally frothing at the mouth with copious amounts of white, mucus-y spittle. His eyes were wide and he seemed intent on conversation. I don't know if this man was homeless or not, or if he had any family at the festival (I doubt it), but he spied an empty seat with three young foreigners, and wanted to join in, possibly to see if we would buy him a beer, but also possibly just to sit under a tent and have a conversation like everyone else. Like "normal" people.
Despite our repeated attempts to assure him we did not understand his rapid Korean, he spoke to us avidly, asking us questions and I'm sure, making jokes. However the one heartbreaking thing that kept punctuating his words was the only English expression he knew-- "I am sorry". Which he repeated over and over and over again. We caused a small scene, as the tent proprietors came over several times to try to remove the source of the awkwardness, but he was tenacious. He wanted to stay, he wanted to talk. Throughout the ten or so minutes he was at our table, I met eyes with several other Korean patrons who smiled at me, embarrassed and apologetically. Even though this was not my first experience with a homeless drunk person, I was embarrassed....but not because I was near him, or embarrassed of him.
I was embarrassed by myself. I was embarrassed because his white mouth was grossing me out and I just wanted to eat my seafood pancake and be left alone.
Everything in his eyes was saying Look, look, look, look, look at me. Look me in the eyes. Listen to me. That is all I want. Just listen to me, try to talk to me, don't be embarrassed by me. But he wasn't too drunk to know he was an embarrassment. His chorus of "I am sorry" communicated that well enough.
Escapism. He couldn't escape his loneliness with Soju, and I can't escape mine, either.
Richard Rohr, in his book "Everything Belongs" has one section entitled "Liminality and Transformation". He makes a distinction between liminal (threshold) experiences that bring about real change and liminoid experiences, accepting a false comfort in an attempt at finding a real remedy. Liminal space, he says, induces a type of inner crisis to help us make a needed transition. Not over, around, or beside but THROUGH. Through pain, through grief, through despair, through the dark dark places of life. To feel and know and suffer and then be reborn. Again, and again and again, over and over and over, be born again.
And finally to find real Love and real Grace on the other side of it. Simone Weil said, "It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void."
Did I mention yesterday was Easter? Rohr said
"When we see the image of God where we don't want to see the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own. Prayer reconnects us with inherent value. Everything becomes priceless if it is sacred. And everything is sacred if the world is a temple. The purpose of prayer and religious seeking is to see the truth about reality, is to see what is. And at the bottom of what is is always goodness. The foundation is always love.
I don't know that I have touched it yet. At some moments, God had parted the veil and it's tasted very good. It's tasted like the real. Enlightenment is to see and touch the big mystery. The big pattern. The Big Real. Jesus called it the kingdom of God; Buddha called it enlightenment. Philosophers might call it Truth. Most of us just call it love. There's no answer, no problem solving, simply awareness. You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God. You cannot earn this God. You cannot prove yourself worthy of this God. Feeling God's presence is simply a matter of awareness. Or enjoying the now. Deepening one's presence. I am able to see the divine image in myself, in you, and eventually in all things. And finally seeing is one.
Jesus pushes seeing to the social edge. Can you see the image of Christ in the least of your brothers and sisters? If the world is a temple, everything is sacred. One God, one world, one truth, one suffering and one love. All we can do is participate."
Thursday, March 22, 2012
oh, K
Potential energy is not relative to the environment of an object.
It's just not.
It's potential....possibility.... calculable and yet still completely uncertain.
Potential energy is the possible energy derived from an object's position.
Everything is potential. Everything is transfigurable. Everything is redeemable.
There is suffering because there is possibility. There is suffering because there is Grace.
It's just not.
It's potential....possibility.... calculable and yet still completely uncertain.
Potential energy is the possible energy derived from an object's position.
Everything is potential. Everything is transfigurable. Everything is redeemable.
There is suffering because there is possibility. There is suffering because there is Grace.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
certain of what you do not see
had that strange feeling again tonight. that bilbo-baggins-wandering-out-his-front-door, felix-felicis-gut-instinct feeling.
it might have had something to do with the ice cream and peppermint tea at dinner with friends. or maybe just the fact that the precipitation coming from the sky wasn't frozen. nevertheless, as i walked home on this last day of january, my feet felt like they were moving independently from my body. i felt like i was along for some sort of ride, walking back to my apartment from downtown at 11pm on a weeknight. i ended up walking along the gwangju river. in fact i walked for so long that i passed the big street going towards my house and just kept on walking. then finally at one point, by a particularly charming little waterfall i just stopped and stared. and couldn't stop smiling. then my mouth started to move independently from my body as well and i just looked up at the neon-light reflecting sky and said "I don't know!!!" and grinned like an idiot some more.
Because I really don't know. I really don't.
I have no freaking idea. I have no idea how I got here. I have no idea what purpose it all serves. And yet there is such a huge and pervasive sense of OK-ness about it all. like the river I'd been walking by for 45 minutes. it's wide and deep and it just keeps going. even when it stops, it turns into something else and you just have to be ok with that. at that waterfall moment, a line from the bon iver song i was listening to said "its just like the present to be showing up like this". and i listened and laughed and smiled some more. you can't really make many solid plans in life. we just don't know. but life is still somehow so cyclical in it's divine OK-ness. it reminded me of the poem "the song of the river" by W.R. Hearst that Bopoo had framed for Momoo on their who-knows-which anniversary.
faith is such a strange thing. trust is such a strange thing.
we have to just step out, step wildly out into this unknown grand canyon and hope that our wildest, deepest, most innate and profound desire will be met.
love is real. but we love because we are loved. NOT for what we've done, or how we compare to others. for nothing external. not even for anything really internal.
we just are.
and god just is.
and he is love.
and we are loved.
and that's it. it's that simple but it's the hardest thing for anyone to do because we still torment ourselves with this lie that we'll step out and it won't really happen and it will be all our fault. but it won't be. it can't be. because the love you experience wasn't deserved in the first place. you didn't do anything to get it and you don't have to do anything to keep it. we're swimming around in it whether we choose to acknowledge it or not... it's holding the planets together. it's holding your cells together. it's proclaiming itself over you with every single breath you take.
I spent the first fourth (third and fourth 1/4ths forthcoming) of my time in Korea doing a lot of rock climbing. i went several times to this one place called yeongsopokpo (it means grace waterfall in korean, by the way....). anyway it's just stupefyingly beautiful. it was this fourth time rock climbing at this same place (probably my 7th weekend rock climbing here in Korea) where i finally realized that it's pretty easy to die rock climbing. i was about halfway up a 5.10a grade climb, 50 feet in the air with my fingers wedged into the crack of a cliff and my knees banged up from repeatedly falling and trying to scramble back up the bare face when i realized "wow. my life is literally hanging by a rope right now". i realized several things i do each time i climb, that i hadn't realized before:
Which brings me to the real point: being aware of the risks, making peace with them, then being willing to step out in faith anyway. all of the previously listed climbing dangers are things climbers are aware of and have made peace with. the people i've been climbing with (and most people in the climbing community) are generally REALLY smart, aware, safety-oriented people. they communicate, talk to each other, double check everything, and take extra precaution to warn anyone about unsafe routes or loose bolts/anchors.
but they STILL CLIMB. they climb every effing weekend. they are in love with it. they are good at it. they keep pushing themselves and they get better and better and better all the time. the've taken really scary falls. and all of them are still climbing. with all of their limbs, completely alive, and feeling alive and loving every single minute of it, even though, yes there are dangers involved, and yes freak accidents occur, and yes i guess you could honestly say they could die doing it.
you can die standing at the bus stop.
you can die in bed lying on your back.
you can die choking on a grape.
why not die after hanging by a thread 100 feet off the ground with a view like this.
(photo credit, the one and only Lyndsie Olivia Coon)
love is real. and faith is real, too. and they are both definitely a choice. but it's a pretty damn visceral choice. so even though i don't know where my feet might take me when i step out my front door, i'm still going to keep walking further up and further in. because you never know.
you just never know.
it might have had something to do with the ice cream and peppermint tea at dinner with friends. or maybe just the fact that the precipitation coming from the sky wasn't frozen. nevertheless, as i walked home on this last day of january, my feet felt like they were moving independently from my body. i felt like i was along for some sort of ride, walking back to my apartment from downtown at 11pm on a weeknight. i ended up walking along the gwangju river. in fact i walked for so long that i passed the big street going towards my house and just kept on walking. then finally at one point, by a particularly charming little waterfall i just stopped and stared. and couldn't stop smiling. then my mouth started to move independently from my body as well and i just looked up at the neon-light reflecting sky and said "I don't know!!!" and grinned like an idiot some more.
Because I really don't know. I really don't.
I have no freaking idea. I have no idea how I got here. I have no idea what purpose it all serves. And yet there is such a huge and pervasive sense of OK-ness about it all. like the river I'd been walking by for 45 minutes. it's wide and deep and it just keeps going. even when it stops, it turns into something else and you just have to be ok with that. at that waterfall moment, a line from the bon iver song i was listening to said "its just like the present to be showing up like this". and i listened and laughed and smiled some more. you can't really make many solid plans in life. we just don't know. but life is still somehow so cyclical in it's divine OK-ness. it reminded me of the poem "the song of the river" by W.R. Hearst that Bopoo had framed for Momoo on their who-knows-which anniversary.
faith is such a strange thing. trust is such a strange thing.
we have to just step out, step wildly out into this unknown grand canyon and hope that our wildest, deepest, most innate and profound desire will be met.
love is real. but we love because we are loved. NOT for what we've done, or how we compare to others. for nothing external. not even for anything really internal.
we just are.
and god just is.
and he is love.
and we are loved.
and that's it. it's that simple but it's the hardest thing for anyone to do because we still torment ourselves with this lie that we'll step out and it won't really happen and it will be all our fault. but it won't be. it can't be. because the love you experience wasn't deserved in the first place. you didn't do anything to get it and you don't have to do anything to keep it. we're swimming around in it whether we choose to acknowledge it or not... it's holding the planets together. it's holding your cells together. it's proclaiming itself over you with every single breath you take.
I spent the first fourth (third and fourth 1/4ths forthcoming) of my time in Korea doing a lot of rock climbing. i went several times to this one place called yeongsopokpo (it means grace waterfall in korean, by the way....). anyway it's just stupefyingly beautiful. it was this fourth time rock climbing at this same place (probably my 7th weekend rock climbing here in Korea) where i finally realized that it's pretty easy to die rock climbing. i was about halfway up a 5.10a grade climb, 50 feet in the air with my fingers wedged into the crack of a cliff and my knees banged up from repeatedly falling and trying to scramble back up the bare face when i realized "wow. my life is literally hanging by a rope right now". i realized several things i do each time i climb, that i hadn't realized before:
#1, i trust a person i've never met. someone, at some point (probably a korean person) climbed up to the top of my route with a drill, and drilled an anchor bolt at the top, a bolt to which my rope is currently connected.
#2 I am trusting myself (a thing i rather dislike) with the figure 8 knot i tied, connecting that rope to my own harness.
#3 i'm trusting my belayer to pay attention to my climb and catch me if i fall. not to mention, have hooked the rope correctly into their harness/ATC device. and (probably most importantly)
#4, i'm trusting the rock. and let me tell you something about the rocks at YeongsoPokpo....they are really, really, really flaky. The rock-loosening is worsened by the constant waterfall precipitation, and chunks fall off with just enough frequency to be off putting. Someone actually accidentally dislodged one my last time climbing there and it rolled down a steep hill and hit me on my back, on top of my spine. I was ok, but the thought of what could have happened is really frightening.
So I just don't think about it.
Which brings me to the real point: being aware of the risks, making peace with them, then being willing to step out in faith anyway. all of the previously listed climbing dangers are things climbers are aware of and have made peace with. the people i've been climbing with (and most people in the climbing community) are generally REALLY smart, aware, safety-oriented people. they communicate, talk to each other, double check everything, and take extra precaution to warn anyone about unsafe routes or loose bolts/anchors.
but they STILL CLIMB. they climb every effing weekend. they are in love with it. they are good at it. they keep pushing themselves and they get better and better and better all the time. the've taken really scary falls. and all of them are still climbing. with all of their limbs, completely alive, and feeling alive and loving every single minute of it, even though, yes there are dangers involved, and yes freak accidents occur, and yes i guess you could honestly say they could die doing it.
you can die standing at the bus stop.
you can die in bed lying on your back.
you can die choking on a grape.
why not die after hanging by a thread 100 feet off the ground with a view like this.
love is real. and faith is real, too. and they are both definitely a choice. but it's a pretty damn visceral choice. so even though i don't know where my feet might take me when i step out my front door, i'm still going to keep walking further up and further in. because you never know.
you just never know.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
some good quotes of late
"skidamarinkiedinkiedink....hey look i can speak Afrikaans!"
"did apostrophes abuse you at some point in your life?"
"did apostrophes abuse you at some point in your life?"
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