Numb

All things shine on the sun; how can they not when they radiate so?  They're so vibrant with color, they're shaking in my very sight, and they send their lights out.  All things are graphic-- any blur is a man-made thing.  The dew on the window is no cause for blurring-- the droplets themselves are so vivid.  Displacement of attention is a man-made thing.

And why do we have loss of detail?  It's all a numbing-- we numb the pain, we numb the senses because only then can we ever become deluded enough to think we can do it ourselves. But we cannot... we're weak beings who have the knowledge enough to make ourselves ignorant to our weaknesses.  We're too knowledgeable for our own good on how to cut out what we consider excess, when really it is vital, even inherent.

Because in our weaknesses, we cry out to God...

Otherwise, we hesitate and stumble, become confused and fumble, and we find ways to numb ourselves again.  We let these moments pass with dissatisfied taste, but we convince ourselves that it's "just the way it is."  There's nothing else to do, then, but to harden ourselves to it, and after a lifetime of this, we build walls into a corner.  But this corner seems safe; this corner seems good, because it's a space we can control.  But we forget about God; how can you be satisfied knowing you're in a delusion, and you have to deny true things to be happy?  How can that possibly make you happy?

We numb ourselves so well... it's the one thing we are all good at.  We trim out the truth, we're a race of convenience, and we justify it because we work hard to attain convenience.  We're so numb.

Fire

There is an awakening in my heart akin to that of a rekindled flame.  It roars with passion at some times, and at others, I protect it from the wind with cupped hands-- but it burns, nonetheless.

I felt the spark of it when I stepped into Jubilee Church.  It was like gathering the fuel and recognizing it as good flammable material.  And there were sparks that landed dangerously close, but none that embarked on a glowing trail to the center of my heart.

Here, I must take the time to recognize God's influence on my circumstances and thank Him for what He did for me.  It's one thing to know it and such a difference matter to apply it.  I had planned a trip with Allison which had to be cancelled, and here, I must admit that I am prone to do the things that would make Allison happy. Well, although I associate her presence in my life with God's blessings, I hesitantly decided to attend my church's men's retreat.  I am a man of words, and so, what would I be if I wasn't a man of my word?  If I recognized that the church had all the right materials to set things ablaze, then how could I live with myself if I ignored the obvious act of Fate when God shattered my plans?  And so, at the risk of hurting Allison, whom God Himself had put in my life anyway, I committed to going to this retreat.

And lo and behold, what happened?  Things happened exactly as they should if only I let them-- or rather, let God.  This is what I had been missing.  All those allusions to melancholy and ennui-- lack of inspiration and color in my life-- they were all instantly cured, and not only cured, but replaced by new passions I had never even known to want.  It's like I wanted fire in all its orange splendor, and, instead, I got a beautiful blue flame, even hotter than what I had originally intended to want.

But it wasn't all an effortless receiving of the Spirit, there were moments even after the moment.  It didn't end with just the decision to commit; there was the moment that I decided to raise my hands for praise, the moment I decided to speak (in fact, this moment occurred again and again), the moment I decided to be honest with myself about my past-- there were moments after moments.  And every moment added fuel to the fire, and it grew bigger and brighter.

And then-- I jumped into the flames themselves for, you see, there were moments after the retreat.  I had to enter the fire and be refined by the heat as it burned away the earthly things that had taken hold of me with fierce determination.  But I see them as they close into a crinkled black mass of what I recognize to be repentance, and I could see the Purity that every soul is meant to be underneath the ugliness as it fell away.

And if this soul is me, if I am it, then I have to take this moment to state that I could not recognize it.  There was a lingering fragrance resembling nostalgia, like something deep in my past that transcends even my memories, but other than that, I must admit that I was beholding something novel that I can only now proclaim is something truer to myself that I had ever uttered myself to be.

I am, once again, reborn.

Redefining habits

It's easy to forget how we ever pick up routines that inhabit our lives, filling them with definitions for our existences.

The interests we have in our lives intrigue our minds enough to evolve our initial curiosity little by little into specialized routines that define us.  In this way, we become "experts", but the process with which it happens is truly fascinating.

(Also, when I say "routines", I mean daily routines that define your occupation, e.g. sitting in front of a computer for a programmer in contrast to hitting the gym for an athlete.  I don't mean "get out of bed and shower rather than brush your teeth first" kind of routines)

The habits, routines, whatever you want to call them, become integrated into our lives initially without any effort at all because they become adhered to by curiosity.  I've seen it many times, felt it just as many, to have whole days and nights become consumed by a chance brush with something fatefully interesting that it proceeds to change the course of a life drastically.

But then, many times, human fallacies, or maybe just personal habits of lesser degree that are more obstructive, tend to spoil that pure, innocent, even giddily fun and enjoyable interest into ambitions that're a little darker, a little less for the interest and a little more for the self.

I am, of course, talking from my own experience.  Writing is one of those things that I started doing purely for the delight.  It was just something that I was somewhat good at, something that brought me great pleasure.  But as I grew, I began to regard it less as a recreational habit and more as a tool-- a tool to gain recognition, respect, even money one day.

But I should know that if I truly believed in my talent as a writer, then all these things will follow only if I hone my skills to the best that they can be, and I can only achieve that if I don't waste any of my mind, time, and ambitions on anything so superficial as where my writing can take me monetarily or in regards to fame.  I wouldn't try to get to a destination by wearing the proper attire, but rather, by building the very vessel that would take me there.

I live in an increasingly abstract world, I know, but I have to come to realize the language that the abstract has with the tangible world.  It's the natural world that grows flowers, but it's the abstract one that calls it beautiful.  So I must harness my natural inclinations and let it be abstractly interpreted as it must be to better my world, to cleanse it-- not by denying, but by redefining.

Jubilee's Men's Retreat

Over the weekend, I had the gracious opportunity to accompany the men of Jubilee Church of Seoul on their men's retreat in... oh dude, I forgot where we went. An hour and a half out of Seoul.  But it was beautiful, man.



All I can say is- I've been missing this my entire life.  Just becoming enveloped by the love for God that I felt resonating from the voices of every man who was praising God around me.  Just being given the opportunity to experience it made me feel so blessed.

Pastor David was a blessing by himself.  He loves God, and it's so apparent when he speaks because his diction isn't forced- his words simply come out the way they do because you can tell he's trying to describe something that simply can't be vocalized.  Other men do their best to put their sermon behind the podium, but he brings his love for God up there and does his best to try and convey it.  It's awesome.

And the praise was simply great.  Tim 형is a blessed singer, no wonder he's a 가수, but more than his skills, his love for God spoke louder than his voice, I couldn't help but dance. Man, I couldn't help but dance.


What can I say?  I could try to relay to you all the experiences I had at the retreat, but they're feeble attempts to describe to you the awakening of a flame inside me that's refining my very heart, and it's joyful to the point of sadness because I've been missing it for so long.

But joyful, nonetheless, for I have found it again, but now the real battle starts- but I won't, can't despair.  Cuz "if my God is with me, whom then shall I fear?"