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:

 #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.

                               (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. 

some good quotes of late

"skidamarinkiedinkiedink....hey look i can speak Afrikaans!"

"did apostrophes abuse you at some point in your life?"

Cooking metaphor #54810

attempting to let things "cool" on top of an in-use oven is counterproductive

pea protein and plagal cadences

was apparently singing along with the blender this morning. i was in the kitchen making a smoothie and all of a sudden i got goosebumps and couldn't figure out why. then i realized the song i was singing, before i even turned on the blender, was in the same key as the noise of the blender and together we had just made a plagal cadence.

maybe it's time to be in a choir again. clearly something is being repressed.

The simple act of bending at the waist

In 2011, my life has much resembled that of a retired person--I am well compensated for working very few hours a week, have early evenings, late, slow mornings, and during the day I mostly commune with persons over the age of 60. In Europe I went to the markets about the same time as the retired, lived in the apartments of retired ex-pats, and here in South Korea I spend my mornings hiking the trails near my house, along with--you guessed it--the Asian elderly.

On these trails, with these older individuals, is where I first really encountered the Korean custom of bowing when saying hello. It happens lots of other places, (like when walking into a store, encountering a teacher/student/boss/coworker, etc) but it happened with alarming frequency whilst hiking. Normally, in a culture of respect and deference such as South Korea, I would be the one bowing to people older than me, but I think the combined shock value of my caucasianess/height/relative youth and the strangeness of my presence out and about during normalperson work hours, just squeezed out a bow.
I  soon realized that the culturally appropriate, respectful thing to do would be to bow back. So I made up my mind to do this. Every. Single. Time I saw an old person.

This is how I came to realize a strange truth about myself: I am an awkward bow-er.

In my defense, I've not had much chance to practice. I come from a culture where the mantra is to "Stand/Sit up straight!", "Shoulders back!", and my favorite "Stand Proud". And so, when it came time to bow, with humility and deference, to demonstrate respect, I realized I look really, really weird. I think they noticed my awkwardness, but appreciated the thought. Most people smiled (definitely a laugh-AT-you kind of smile, but still very sweet) and returned my "annyeong hasheyo" ("Hello, How are you?") with kind and happy eyes.

Repeating this process, probably once every five minutes on an hour and a half hike, caused another realization: I am a proud person. I don't like to be wrong, I don't like to feel ignorant, I don't like to be out of the loop, and I feel really uncomfortable bowing to others. Like my body just sort of grimaces and spazzes out when I do it.

But it was the smiling eyes of the elderly that won me over. Then the metaphors came flooding in, as metaphors are wont during long hikes in beautiful places. Rest and peace come from humility and trust. When you come before God with no agenda, and a simple heart, then you can really listen. Then, you can really let yourself be loved. Then, you can really love others.

On subsequent walks around the city, I saw many elderly Koreans with backs literally bent double from years and years of work (and probably bowing).

And yet, the second thing I noticed after the bent backs were the (toothless) grins and the smiling, thankful, peaceful, eyes. So different from the latent looks of unrest and insecurity that often lurk in the eyes of the tall, beautiful and proud.

I want crazy, crazy crows feet. I want smiling eye wrinkles that go down to my knees. But mostly I want the sense of peace, joy, and humility that caused them.

The good news is that moving to a new continent comes with a wide variety of opportunities to be humbled. Like when your friend Duyeon informs you that that crosswalk button you've been pressing is not to make the light change faster, it's for the visually impaired. That's why Koreans have been looking and laughing when you press it. Or when you wear a dress you thought was really cute and your precious korean student asks if you're pregnant. Or when you realize that Asian women simply do not sweat---and that you are an incredibly sweaty person, even by Western standards. Or when you realize that the third graders you teach speak about 95% more of your language than you do of theirs.

All this to say, it feels really, surprisingly, counterintuitively, wonderfully freeing to be humbled.

Wayfarers All

"By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and strengthened, his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness that seemed caught from some faraway sea beacon, filled his glass with the red and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the Water Rat, compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he talked.  Those eyes were of the changing foam-streaked gray-green of leaping Northern seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very heart of the South, beating for him who had courage to respond to its pulsation.  The twin lights, the shifting gray and the steadfast red, mastered the Water Rat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless.  The quiet world outside their rays receded far away and ceased to be.  And the talk, the wonderful talk flowed on--or was it speech entirely, or did it pass at times into song--chanty of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor sonorous hum of the shrouds of a tearing noreaster, ballad of the fisherman hauling his net at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of guitar and mandolin from gondola or caique? Did it change into the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from the leech of the bellying sail?  All these sounds the spellbound listener seemed to hear, and with them the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea mews, the soft thunder of the breaking wave, the cry of the protesting shingle.  Back into speech again it passed, and with beating heart he was following the adventured of a dozen seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies, the comradeships, the gallant undertakings; or he searched islands for treasure, fished in still lagoons and dozed daylong on warm white sand.  Of deep=sea fishing he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of the mile-long net;  of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless night, or the tall bows of the great liner taking shape overhead through the fog;  of the merry homecoming, the headland rounded, the harbor lights opened out;  the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, the splash of the hawser, the trudge up the steep little street towards the comforting glow of red-curtained windows.

Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer had risen to his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast with his sea-gray eyes.  "And now," he was softly saying, "I take to the road again, holding on southwestwards for many a long and dusty day. ...And you, you will come too, young brother;  for the days pass, and never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'TIs but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a store of goodly memories for your company."

-The Wind in the Willows

projectile

the holy spirit has given me two really good words today: cease striving.

though i feel weighed down by the suffering of the world, i don't have all the answers and i don't have to. my job is to sit beside him. to be loved by him. to be still and hold hands with him. this is what will evoke change. first in me, then in the world.