Eyes to see

Martyn Lloyd-Jones has asserted that rather than judging Scripture by our own experience (or our lack of it) we should be judging our experience by Scripture. C S Lewis put things another way. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

With the massive suffering in Haiti, and the smaller stuff but equally deeply felt by those close to me, we can get stuck in the "Why?" question. Rather than seeking to find God wherever we can, in whatever way possible. In the 9/11 tragedy the stories took sometime to come out to expose the hope and light in the darkness. Look closely, have eyes to see. But also we need hands to work to bring light and hope in difficult situations. Compassion should flow from the loving relationship we have with God.

Love and Friendship

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, ... interests, or ... histories. ... more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

I learned personally a long time ago that no-one can take away personal pain. We can numb it, deaden it using alcohol or pain medicine, but actually it is still there underneath. We can seek distraction but it is still there. She cried much of yesterday when I was away from her and later when she was with me. Words can cause so much pain and given in rejection. But I cannot take away the pain, only be a friend.

Friendship is an important aspect of human relationships and essential to being-with another person. A spiritual director is sometimes called soul friend, someone who accompanies another. I am learning the importance of being a friend in every situation. for friendship can make all of life shine brightly even in the middle of the darkest night. I know that for the many I call friend in their difficult life situations. God give them his shalom.

Love and weakness

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

I'm learning that love requires vulnerability and openness. When love is exercised in strength there very different products or results to when we operate out of weakness. In weakness we need the other, in fact we recognize our need of the other when we recognize our weakness rather than strength. Life is fragile and walking in the snow might seem a beautiful thing, however when we see it as a comforting duvet in which we want to rest or sleep, life becomes fragile. A dangerous episode.

Seoul had 25 cm of snow yesterday worst snow fall for 41 years and the city ground down to a halt. The Korean determination or will power or strength of will I love but is also contains danger or risk when exercised without care.

nick name, love, and the future

I got the wrong animal my 다람쥐 is a chipmunk and not a squirrel. Similar animals but one is cuter and not called a tree rat. She really is a challenge and a joy.

Life takes incredible turns. I've decided to take a leave of absence for a year from the Dmin. Too many major life changes. increased responsibilities in my employing agency and this possible soul mate and help mate as well.

I felt it was a wise decision to put everything academic on hold to sort out these major aspects of my life. I'm happy to put things on pause with the stresses of relationship to run its course. The current situation is exposing God's providence and grace are bringing forth new depths to my experience of the divine in daily life. Every day is a bit of a struggle with highs and lows. Somehow we assume love smoothes everything out. But that's not true. Shakespeare's Love is Blind is really a lie. A Korean saying says you cannot hide a cough, sneeze or love.

As I prepared talks over the Christmas period I realised the Christmas is about love and a desired relationship. The cost was extremely high and involved great vulnerability and the possibility of rejection. But the love wasn't blind, it was a clear chosen act, a giving of self.

... love also takes the form of the incarnation of God. The divine Beloved becomes man. he enters the realm of God's created love. He is now loved as one of creation. Reversely, being united to the Word made flesh, human persons enter the realm of God's immanent love. To be one with the Christ means to share the divine filiation and to receive the Father's love. George H Tavard A Way of Love page 66

For my current situation seems providential with miracles, voices, and discernable divine action - what remains is whether for a season or a lifetime? I have to trust that things will work themselves out.

Love languages

I gave her the plant first a while ago and it grew and had to be cropped and it is now two plants. But 10 days ago I carved this spoon for her. A fusion of cultures. The practice or carving love spoons is a Welsh habit I don't know when it dates from but I wanted to do something special. It has Chinese and Korean carved into the surface and then stained. The inner wood takes the staining more intensely, hence the dark lettering.

Chapman's 5 languages of love are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. These in a sense are the communication mediums of love. I'm weird because I like all and love to do all. perhaps its more a matter of balance not to exclude one. But love needs to find its roots, source and sustenance in God. For love is like a plant which need feeding and being watered.

God has so impregnated the soul with his own life that it can no longer love itself except in God and for God. God always remains the primary object of our love (177) Marriage is a synthesis of every love known to the heart of man. Nothing could be truer, for it makes it appeal to the most physiological love , which is sexual attraction, as well as the most spiritual love, which is charity [read charitas, agape, or Christian love] (187) Charles V Heris The Spirituality of Love

Life and the future

Not a real picture but this is a squirrel and represents my 다람쥐. I have no idea about what the future holds ( I know what I desire but that's not inevitable!) but I can say that the roller coaster of emotions continue for me. Life involves significant changes, which I welcome and desire. I covet your prayers and many different things need to be sorted out.

But to have two senior and experienced friends/colleagues validate this journey with her and this has given us courage for the future. For we have seen God's hands in the path so far and look to the future.

Sleep calls

I am emotionally tired even exhausted. Love may be patient and kind but it demands and delivers both joy and sadness in the same moment. After far too many years she has given me courage to face the dentist albeit a sedation dentist. This is liable to be expensive but the fear is tangibly real and why I have avoided it for so long.

Love has been long in the coming some 20 years, in fact longer than when I last saw the dentist. I am happy after months of struggling with my emotions and my Christmas cactus has come into bloom to celebrate. But how can I tell those around me? It's been tough and I have leaked some information already but this is the beginning of my public declaration. Someone has truly touched my heart and brought significant changes. I am trying to keep tidy and wash dishes, cook food at home, keep up with my laundry, eat healthily and in fact have lost over 7 pounds in weight!

She has been there in all my recent moments of need. Thanks be to God.

cleaning and clearing

The cleaning has slowed down but is still happening. Now I must deal with new old things in my life. Sometimes we allow the past to shackle us and events and memories are like lead weighing us down. We need to find healing and a new space to live. I’ved loved the concept of ereignis as a philosophical idea from Heidegger. Often translated as an event, Hubert Dreyfus defined it as "things coming into themselves by belonging together." I see it as a conceptual clearing in the forest or place of meeting. I'm in that little place where you can see the sky.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say this, Those he redeemed from the land of the foe, Those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and sea Some wandered in desert wastelands Finding no way to a city where they could settle they were hungry and thirsty And their lives ebbed away. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble And he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straightway To a city where they could settle. Psalm 107: 2-8

Falling and being alone

Last night brought home one of the dangers of living alone, I slipped and fell down the stairs. I was seeing the Bible study group out of the apartment and my feet went from under me and I landed on my elbows and back/shoulder. Don't think anything is broken. I was so embarrassed that I pushed everyone out and went upstairs again to ice my elbows. I did feel a lot of pain but at that point I was alone. Thank God I had my cell phone in my pocket and I called for help. She was with me within half an hour.

Yes I'm OK. missing a layer of skin and bruises on both elbows, but OK. My back is sore again and have probably set back my recovery. I was a bit shocked and I fell right asleep later when I lay on my air mattress. (The loft bed being a little dangerous.) I'm resting today and sleeping trying to avoid doing anything stupid. I thank God for her.

God and the why, where, who of God?

I know how to love you beyond just me and you … You are only a stage along my rise toward God. Antoine Saint- Exupery Citadelle

I read this on Oct 26 2009.

… human love can join two people together only on one condition that it makes them love each other in something greater than themselves. And since this something greater is entirely spiritual and divine, it is finally spiritual love alone which can draw us away from ourselves and project us toward the other in a gift of absolute sincerity. Charles V Heris Spirituality of Love

On Saturday I made this my first soapstone carving. It marks a significant change in my life and perhaps also the future. Who knows what will come?

Falling in love

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

What exactly is a healthy intimacy? I am privy to deep parts of people's lives and wrote to a friend recently as we discussed the nature of love and the dimensions and different parts or forms of Love - "For me the tension is very real in loving another so deeply and feeling their experiences, that that loving doesn't cross over into falling in love. A very real risk." Pedro Arrupe I think points to a falling in love with God but there is a wider aspect to be considered.

Thanksgiving

Today I give thanks for so many things perhaps the clearing and new aspects rising in my life as I make space in the apartment. Putting in 12 hours and producing a startling meal for 120 people was a crazy journey and yet it went well. I give thanks to God for Natalie and Andrew without whom it would not have happened. For Rosanne and others who pulled everything through and worked so hard.

Probably most of all I I give thanks that I can have a sense of gratitude for life itself. Even though my vertigo has come back and my back doesn't work properly and occasionally I fall over because my balance isn't working quite right, somehow I am glad I can feel good, sometimes feel sad , feel the pain and struggles of others. Recently I learned about the struggles of others who have been deeply affected by the insensitive remarks of siblings and sense of worthlessness. Yet I had cause to learn in a recent Bible study that not are we loved by God but precious for God has put his image in/on us.

I am so tired at the moment I'm going to bed now...