Desert of This

I tread lightly upon these, the sands of despair

Lest I wake up the demons that slumber around,

Tired from the feast of their most recent fare,

The last poor soul’s stumbling they’d found.

The winds desperately destroy what my feet create

Until I forget how far I’ve come, if at all.

The sun dries me with thirst I barely sate

With tears demanded by fear’s stifling pall.

Still I know from the screams of my legs

And the growing insanity of my mind,

If I keep one foot ahead as the other begs,

I’m moving somewhere , just moving blind.

And in the dark recesses of my heart,

As the answer to my most urgent wish,

A light shines that these sands cannot part

To walk with me in the desert of this,

The desert of loneliness where soon I can rise

To walk hand in hand with Him to paradise

everything is meaningless

We're reading through Ecclesiastes in small group right now.  The main theme: everything is meaningless.  Under the sun, everything is meaningless.

And doesn't life really feel that way?  We wake up, we do whatever we do, and by the end of the day, we sleep for another day.  If life is one of the most precious gifts given us, then why do we find that days blur together?  How come MOST days of my life are forgettable?  I might as well have been asleep for half my life for all I got out of it...right?  I love God, and I know God loves me, but too often, and all the more recently, that realization doesn't seem to be epic enough to answer the ultimate question of life: "how do i find meaning in it?"

Today, some profound things were uttered, and I began to understand how to answer that question.  A brother shared this passage:

"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little"

Paul knew the answer.  It will be an ongoing lesson to learn how to serve God in trials and through the most difficult of situations; yet I've found that I'm most in danger not when I am suffering, but when I am thriving.  I am closer to knowing how to live on almost nothing than I am in knowing how to live with everything.  And now, don't I have everything?  I have people to talk to, more food than I can eat that I have to store things for later and keep leftovers, a bed with several layers to keep me warm, movies and books to keep me entertained, the Bible to read and believers with whom to fellowship with.  If I keep studying and follow a program already laid out before me, then I will be a respected doctor with a salary.  And what is my greatest problem?  that I am bored.

And for now, the answer I have come up with is that I lack compassion.  In my abundance, I am not giving.  In my everything, I ignore those with nothing.  Instead, my first thought is study.  When 30 minutes pass by, I think to myself "that was 30 minutes I could have studied.  or at least worked out."  I study and forget to pray.    Compassion.  There is a small section in Matthew, a prelude to where Jesus sends out the Twelve.  It reads:

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few..'"

Jesus had compassion everyday for those he walked amongst.  Who am I amongst?  I don't walk among the hungry in Ethiopia or the oppressed in Indonesia.  For now, I walk among secular medical students - but I have no compassion for them.  Rather, the temptation to live a secular lifestyle, reinforced by the demands and motivations of the medical profession keep me actively trying to distance myself.  And so, I don't have compassion.  and I don't know how to live on a full stomach.  and I am bored, and I question the meaning of each of my days.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Doritos

I bought some doritos today.  The Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch kind.  They say that smell and taste are the most closely linked senses to memory (and now thanks to medical school, I know what tracts make this true), but as I was eating those Doritos, I had some major flashbacks.

Back when I was growing up in Korea, American food was RARE.  Instead of skittles, I had these misshapen, slightly off-tasting Korean copies (Unfortunately, I cant remember the name).  Instead of m&m's, I ate chocolate covered 해바라기씨 (sunflower seeds).  Fruit rollups?  Gushers?  Get out of here, every blue moon, someone would bring some from their vacation in the States and they were everybody's best friends for all of the 30 minutes their stash lasted.  I remember one time, I got punked into getting a free fruit-by-the-foot if I ate some "candy" this guy gave me.  Turns out the candy was some bitter bitter medicine that numbed my taste buds and I couldn't taste the fruit-by-the-foot at all.  Lucky for that person I don't remember who it was.

Yet there was a way I could eat Doritos.  Sometimes, I could get on the American Base (gate 52!) and persuade the clerk to sell me candy without a base pass.  Sometimes.  Then after a point, I must have begun looking too much like a terrorist to pull it off.  No more Doritos.  Compared with the tiny 500W bags of korean chips I could get, those humongous $2.50 Doritos bags were a kid's dream come true.  I would love eating them with my fingers and then licking my fingers clean - sometimes it seemed that the chips themselves were just a way I could get to licking my fingers.

When I was feeling down, my mom would make an extra trip out to the base to get me the only New York style pizza you could find in Seoul - Anthony's Pizza on the base.  She'd get me a fresh box of pizza and the only Taco Bell in the entire city - on the South Post.  I'd sit at home until she'd call me, then I'd come out and help her balance the big Taco Bell cup on the pizza box as we climbed the stairs.

Life was simpler as a child - I think I felt America was such a bigger place than Korea, with much better snacks, more freedom and more opportunity.  Every other summer, I'd go to America and spend an entire day sitting in the Barnes and Noble, catching up on my Redwall series and browsing through the comics.  Then we'd get our annual Panda Express at the mall before I picked up my one Nintendo game that would last me the rest of the year until I came back to the States.  and I was happy.

Now with everything that I wanted as a child, I'm living the paradox of wanting to return to being a child.  I don't think its a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.  I've seen a lot more of the world, and I've realized that there's fewer things as precious as the childhood I spent growing up in Korea, between two worlds, and between Doritos.

February 2010

It's already February of 2010.  I find one of life's biggest ironies in just how much we can't wait for time to fly faster as kids, then when we're adults we only wish for a way to turn back time.  What sparks that ironical transition?  I guess I haven't experienced life enough to say for certain.  Maybe right now I'm living that transition - a part of me wishes to return to halcyon college; another part of me can't wait until I'm a resident.  Or maybe it's just the present at the moment that I'm having a hard time biding by.

Where was I 10 years ago?  2000.  Wrapping up 8th grade year.  That year actually signifies very little in my life beyond discipleship with Myong.  It was probably my first time really studying the Bible as something of substance outside of sunday school.  We spent all of 6 months studying the book of James - something of my time in that Bible Study gripped me, and I believe it to be the time I first became a real Christian.  As I think upon it now, I think that finding some small semblance of community in that discipleship group after a socially rough past 2 years may have contributed a lot to my hunger for affirmation in God, and my finding Him in the book of James.

For some reason, I remember sitting in on a high school concert and asking Julian, do you think you'll do Psalms next year?  And that very first morning psalms of 2008, my first week as a high school freshman, I stepped into the cave and sat down on the first of many mornings with Mr. Raatz and my Psalms upperclassmen.  Psalms was a continuation of the community I felt a little of from 8th grade.  The smelly carpet, the pictures of Jazz Band, AGAPE, I love you Charlie Brown, Fiddler on the Roof lining the walls, the closets of mysterious violins left overnights - I found much comfort and encouragement among them over the next three years.

But 10 years ago.  I didn't think about my career - I didn't think about being a missionary, a doctor, a pastor. I sought friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation.  And I waited on God.  and God was faithful.  Today, I seek much the same things.  I seek friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation - I guess now I would call this community.  God was faithful.  I believe He is faithful still - I will wait on God, be it 2000, 2010 or 2050.