No Holiday Delusions As I Reflect On The Year

It’s a weird thing, the expectations and idealizations we project onto the holidays. Given that beyond the glimpses displayed on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or the long preserved and manicured narratives of T.V. and anywhere you can shop; the majority of my personal experience has shown me we’re constantly vexed by the large gap that exists between these images of what the holidays “should” be and what we actually experience. Even in movies like the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or A Christmas Story, which attempt to bring humor to the conflicts of the seasons, there is a happy ending that addresses all of the preceding conflict(s). And of course, there is. Who would want to watch a comedy that is exactly what really happens without any embellishment or a nice bow on top? That would be masochism.

In real life, the happy moments that we might possibly experience during the holidays stand in the eye of the tornado. A tornado – of all of the issues that come with your family of origin, debt, insecurities long held, newer insecurities that developed, health issues, and the many many systematic conflicts that engulf people who are less privileged than those who are privileged (in any way, shape, or form) – that is moving constantly, violently, erratically, and will not go away easily, if at all. Eventually we will take our eyes off the shiny things, wherever they’ve come from, and see we are in a storm we cannot escape. If you doubt me, just turn on the news. If the news doesn’t get you, go back and spend more time with all of your relatives. If that still doesn’t work, then go back and spend more time with all of your relatives to talk about what you saw on the news – politics must not be omitted. We are inundated with messages of idealization that surround us like a thick dome but are as delicate as a Fabergé egg crushed under the indifferent weight of reality.

So, with the New Year and the traditions of setting goals, celebrating or trying to get a “new you,” dieting, exercising, etc., etc., etc., please excuse me if I don’t feel that there is much of a clean slate ahead and within the grasp of a few line items being listed in the books. In fact, as I am writing this, a bird just shitted on the window to the left of me at my house. An omen of things to come perhaps? They say you’re lucky if a bird poops on you…what a way to spin being defecated on. That said, I think these resolutions can be like the psyche trying to wipe the shit off of the window when the idea of luck is overridden by the fact that what just happened is just plain gross (and I did promptly clean my window even if it means my house is now blessed with luck).

I guess this is partly why these traditions exist. To bring a sense of hope and order to the recent past in which hope has been replaced with a pile of messiness and disappointment. Do this and that and maybe we’ll we be out of the storm. And why not? It’s logical to find resolutions. So why am I so bothered? I think it’s because despite this logical ritual, and trying to find a way out, the storm deserves appreciation for what it is. It’s the need to grieve all of the things that’ve happened in 2018. Things that deserve grieving. I mean, how absurd would it be for a person to have someone significant to them lost through death or breakup or whatever it is that can cause agonizing separation, and then expect the sudden turning of a calendar page to ameliorate all wounds and usher in feelings of freshness and vivacity? That is delusional.

In my psychodynamic therapy practice, I try to allow a space for human experience to be named. Where the many parts of our selves, of which many can be in conflict with other parts of our selves, can be processed in relationship and dialogue, instead of internally hidden and fragmented. It is this fragmentation of experience, where our losses in life do not match the fulfillment we desire, and where wounds are made, that our humanity has such a difficult time with. Denial, avoidance, anxiety, depression, self-contempt, nightmares, self-destructive behavior, self-sabotage of relationships, neurosis and psychosis all involve degrees of fragmentation. Integration of a cohesive self, then, involves naming experience…the part of you that still remembers the hurtful thing and things that happened, giving it its deserved space…even if the calendar page has turned.

And so for me, I am still processing the choice to have left my non-profit agency and all the unfulfilled hopes I had for it while I was there in leadership; all of the wounds incurred as I tried and tried to work those dreams into reality; the unresolved strife. It was soul sucking, and at times I felt I was at the edge of my capacity to function. Near the end of my time there, I was definitely beyond my ability to function as a “normal” human. I felt like a shell of a shadow of myself. So, leaving that place in April, saying goodbye to clients and colleagues felt like surrendering in a battle that I could not have won but desperately wanted to.

I feel somber as I think about the many health scares pregnancy has involved, which reminds me of our miscarriage the year before. There are too many thoughts and feelings I still haven’t faced from that time, which still feel raw and beyond reach of my mind and heart. That said, I can name with clarity that as much as there was profound loss, there is profound joy; and those two things continue to be inseparable.

The family-shaped hole in my life has felt gaping wide, and hasn’t really felt any smaller, after my dad suddenly died in September after keeping his prostate cancer hidden. After discovering the vast amounts of debt he incurred, as well as other things he long kept secret. My wishes to be fathered in a way that feels safe and intentional are now vapor in the wind. And I especially saw that vapor floating and lingering in the air like a ghost on my birthday, which also fell on Thanksgiving this last year, then throughout the Christmas season, and now with the New Year, with January 1^st being when my mother passed away. Today is the 10-year anniversary of my mother’s death; but it feels much closer than that. Sometimes, I still have dreams that she’s alive, that her death was a mistake and she came back from the hospital in even better health than when she was near death, able to walk and talk, and coherent. In other iterations, she awakes from the casket at her viewing. But it’s always me who wakes up, wakes up and feels sad it was only a dream and with the realization that the reality is even sadder. This year the sadness is amplified with the loss of both my parents, the pain greater than the sum of its parts.

So, as I have no choice but to step forward into 2019, I do it trying to make space for all of my parts. Parts named here and also the parts too tender for me to put into words in this space. The hopes and dreams are here, as well as scars and wounds still open from the past, long ago and fresh in time. Maybe the tornado will calm and I will find myself lucky, and hopefully ready for future storms with no delusions about it.

Endless

Endless


The warmest embrace my baby heart knew
Comfort in your arms
And when the firm and secure cradle of your hands placed me
Securely into my crib
And when I woke up to find you gone
Endless sorrow

The brightest smile my childhood eyes desired
Affirmation in your face
As you guided my hand to draw delicate birds
Imagination growing on paper
And when you spoke your praise
Endless joy

The most shaming sound my juvenile ears could brace
Apprehension in your mouth
When you scolded me for my unruliness
Being pruned like a plant
And when you looked my path
Endless guilt

The unspeakable words that had to come from our mouths, mom to son, son to mom
Unsettled in our bodies
When you could not speak
Heart grasping for something
And when you passed
Endless

Four Years

Four Years

Four years ago

You slipped quietly out of this world

Which barely understood your beauty
Worn in the canyons on your face

Set by the strains of smiles and tears

And the trembling hands you offered

To a world that often winced away

Because it did not know how to receive your wonder

And moving forward even though your feet did not follow

Stubborn to chase your heart

Looking on with innocent eyes that sliced the view with a beguiling passion

That saw terror and beauty

Ever searching you were

Even when your body refused to move

I remember that

Baffling and wondrous love

Given to us

Who barely understood your beauty

As you slipped quietly out of this world

Four years ago

Diamond

Diamond

As the tectonic plates of your world shifted around you

Relentlessly scraping, pressing, molding

Swallowed up by the earth

Deep in the suffocating soil

Your heart felt all of its weight

The more they pressed in

Your supple soul toughened

Internalized

Dense, sharp, clear

Crystallized

A diamond

People look and say,

“Oh! So beautiful!”

Yes…

But little do they know.

Yes…

But little do they know.

A diamond

Oh…

So beautiful…

Tattoo

Tattoo

The warm weight of a surgically gloved hand rests against my fleshy side

Gravity heavy and secure

With the flickering buzz and hum

Burning needles singe the wicks of my nerves endlessly

Knives meticulously sawing, cutting, piercing, scraping, stabbing

Blades with heavy feet

Running with varied cadence across epidermal topography

I cannot outrun the pain

Carving canyons of smoldering tissue

Scouring the image in

The picture must be birthed through the narrow canal of pain

A throbbing river

Waves of lightning ink surge, burst, and sear

Buried under layers

Of trauma

Emotional wounds rise

As the needles dive in

Which I have survived

Creating…

Art

This last week I got my first tattoo. It was 5 hours of the most intense pain I’ve ever experienced. Sometimes, depending on where the tattoo needle was, it felt like a hot knife scraping my flesh. Other times it felt like my tattoo artist was Captain Ahab sadistically and meticulously harpooning a beached Moby Dick with a magical harpoon set aflame by Hades and concentrated ghost pepper extract. That was a long time to try every pain tolerance technique I’ve heard of or could imagine.

I told myself to imagine the pain was pleasurable…nope, didn’t work. I tried feeling the pain and telling myself, “It’s okay. You’re safe. Those are just needles. You’re in no harm. Holyshitballsoffirewhatyouarefeelingistherealestmotherfuckingpainever!!! And you’re still safe. Those are just needles. It’s okay. It’s OKAY. It’s OKAY!!!” I tried staring at a single thing in the room so that everything else would fade away. I ended up staring at almost every single thing in my sight for at least a few minutes each before the pain returned as quickly as it would sort-of-fade-away but not-really-fade-away. I tried focusing on a beautiful tree in my mind while breathing on the hairs of my left forearm while my right hand was tightly gripping the thigh part of my jeans and clenching my teeth. I held my breath for as long as the needle was on my skin and took a breath whenever the needle wasn’t touching me, imagining I was surfacing for air while swimming. I imagined I was David Blaine doing some feat of endurance. I imagined I was Lance Armstrong and the pain was the lactic acid in my legs while I powered up the hills of the Tour de France. I listened intently to whatever was streaming from Pandora, even the commercials. I kept telling myself this is only a moment in time and it will be over soon. I did those things and more, cycling between different survival techniques for 5 long hours.

And after all was said and done, my tattoo artist told me he was impressed with how I sat. Although I was in constant agony, he heard neither a peep nor felt a strong twinge from me.

Speaking of which, I almost forgot to mention a particular pain tolerance technique I used. It was one that kind of shocked me, which I’ve used before for other painful things in life, and that I’m not proud of. I told myself that I deserved the pain. In those moments I imagined the pain to be miniscule to the pain I may have caused others. In my mind I minimized my pain by comparing it to others who I imagine suffer more than me…the mother in the throngs of child birth, people who have been tortured, all those who had ever suffered intolerable injuries and sicknesses. I told myself I’ve been a bad person before and this pain pales in comparison to what I should suffer for all the times I fucked up…so bear it and don’t be a bitch.

It scared me that I could think that way and really tap into such feelings, but in other ways I’m not surprised. I know the persecutory and minimizing voice inside me that came out has been the result of a collection of angry voices in my life. Unhealthy internalizations. Guilt derived from a punitive superego made manifest. It is what evil wants me to believe. But although pain is inevitable, regardless of whether or not it is deserved, it doesn’t mean I need to join its efforts to tear down. Getting the tattoo just reminded me I still have a lot of healing to undergo…healing that forms a beautiful picture.

Kony 2012, Eat Your Food, and Merit Badges

I still have vivid memories of my time as a young child watching T.V. and seeing Ethiopian children with skinny bodies, distended stomachs, and flies swarming about. The Caucasian man wearing khakis on the screen pleaded for the viewers’ help. As I ate my dinner during the broadcast, my parents said to me, “Eat your food. See those kids starving? They would be so grateful to have your food. Think of the Africans.”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has those types of memories etched into their childhood. The question is, "How have those memories shaped who you have become today?” More specifically, “How have those memories impacted how you react and what you do about similar images, sounds, emotions, and experiences?”

For me, the honest truth is that I have been both a softie and hard-ass in response to anything that triggers those memories I’ve had as a kid watching those humanitarian aid pleas on T.V.

I remember a time throughout my childhood (one that I’m very ashamed of) in which I saw Black people as always needing help from others. Since I was from a different race and culture, and didn’t have any other perspectives around me in my mostly Asian upbringing to challenge my views of Black people (fueled by humanitarian aid programs on T.V., my parents’ racism, the dominant White perspective that surrounded me, etc.), I had an extremely skewed perspective (as a child would). If the people around me looked like or reminded me of what I saw on T.V., my immediate response was to see them as not on the same level as me, feel sorry for them, and be glad I was not them. It wasn’t just an intellectual idea or response but a deeply embedded and visceral feeling I had. It was a strong emotion of feeling pity and sadness for the Ethiopian children and families I saw on T.V. It was the feeling of fear and anxiety that swept over my body, causing my little heart to race as I walked past some of the Black homeless people in downtown Los Angeles; scared because I thought they were in need of help but absolutely desperate and dangerous. It was the feeling of superiority I had as I made friends with Black kids at the Boys and Girls Club, thinking my family and race knows how to thrive while theirs doesn’t. It was racism in its most unadulterated and seemingly soft form. And this is what I mean by saying I’ve been a softie, because I felt like I genuinely cared for them; however the care was poisoned with a false sense of superiority. I highly doubt that I would’ve felt the same way if I saw Black people as strong, independent, and complete human beings – something that those programs on T.V. left out in their efforts to tug on my heartstrings. And whenever my heartstrings feel plucked and the old sentimental song rises, I wonder if I’m infantilizing the other and putting myself in the parent/rescuer position.

So now I am an adult; and having gone through many of my own experiences of being on the receiving end of racism, my perspectives have changed. Enough people have done the chinky eyes look to me for me to passionately hate being inaccurately made fun of and ridiculed for a physical feature associated with my race. Enough people have expressed inarticulate, patronizing, inaccurate, and over simplified views and associations of what it must mean to be Asian; to the point where I want to lash out every time somebody asks me if I know “Karate” or am “good at math” or why my people are “bad drivers” or have “small penises.” My parents and I have experienced enough times of being made felt stupid and left out for not being a part of the dominant culture, to the point that I passionately despise the racialized status quo that’s so prevalent in America. Being Asian is different than being Black for sure, but I’ve experienced enough to know that people’s views of other races must be tempered with a heavy dose of reality and perspectivism. I remember my over simplified, inaccurate, infantile and softie-racist emotional overtures towards Black people and want to avoid it at all costs. As such, I have become a hard-ass, and often think, “Who the hell do you think you are?!?” when one people group approaches the other with an emotionally charged overture of help. Are they – are you – perpetuating an oversimplified and demeaning stance toward the other? Are you taking away the capacity, autonomy, and dignity of the other by breaking the butterfly’s cocoon? As much as I question others, I continue to ask myself these very same things.

So it goes without saying that these memories, experiences, emotions, and thoughts came to the forefront as the Kony 2012 (http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc) whirlwind barraged my Facebook feed. I do not intend to ridicule anyone with the good sense to stop a horrible man. However, I do intend to question what motives are mixed into people’s sentiments and fledging urges to help. If you decide to contribute to the Kony 2012 cause, will you also look within yourself to see what lies behind your motive? Will you research how your choice to help or withhold will actually affect the people of Uganda beyond what is stated in the Kony 2012 video? Will you try to be informed beyond your assumptions? Again, these are questions I ask of myself too.

I’ll end this post by sharing two things. 1) These links here (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120307/kony-2012-campaign-criticized-dumbing-down-conflict) and here (http://hopewanders.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/the-kony-2012-party-crasher/) as food for thought about what the Kony 2012 campaign may be leaving out (there are also other articles online offering many other perspectives. BTW, thank you David L. and Jonnali M. for posting those perspectives on FB), and 2) a spoken word poem I wrote last year as I was processing some conflicting emotions and thoughts connected to much of what I’ve expressed in this post. It is meant to be read as the thoughts of an adult (who originally came from a third world country and is living in America today) perusing Facebook pictures.

Merit Badge

What is this phenomenon of White people and their pictures with third world kids?

They float around on Facebook like badges of pride,

Merit badges sowed on to their Facebook profile vests.

One, two, three White people surrounded by a small sea of dark brown smiling faces.

You could see the joy in their faces,

I mean the kid’s

But their smiles betray and mask the agonies they have had to march through

Because they have had to

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the smiles are fake at all,

For after all the porcelain veneers that cover teeth exist just as much as the fractured teeth underneath.

Do you see the brokenness?!?

Or are you so stuck on feeling like a contributor that you forget to mourn because their smiles appease your guilt and compassion hunger?

Are you satiated? Are you full yet? What do you want?

Is the answer to rescue more like these?

Are they the only ones that will allow you to rescue them? What is the true answer? I ask!

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m not disparaging the humanitarian work that exists to meet the needs of these people who count on the generosity of the human heart and its capacity to give.

Please do see the wrong.

I’m disparaging the fucked up shit that is what exists in what does not exist

As you click on the absence of humans like these

As you flip through the other Facebook pictures identifying the limits of whom to and how long one gives…and receives.

You see,

I don’t see

A small sea of brown smiling adult faces in your non-merit badge pictures.

You know, the ones of you just hanging with your family, the vacations that you take, those pictures of you eating out…

Should I go on?

Where do the Black, Asian, Latino, First Nations, Pacific Islander…PEOPLE…in your life exist?

Is there only room for diversity so long as they are children in a third world country where you come as an aid?

Is the only space in which you can hold the brokenness of others who smile through hardships or mourn and struggle a place that is far away?

What about your neighborhood?

Where do you live?

What about the bus?

Where do you sit?

What about your work?

Who do they represent?

What about your home?

Who is brought in?

What about your school?

Who is admitted?

You see, this is what I see when I see…

And I’m not just talking about Black people that need “help” in Haiti

And I’m not just talking about the cute little Korean babies that “need” to be adopted because they’ve been abandoned

And I’m not just talking about the First Nations people you buy your fireworks from on the reservations

And I’m not just talking about the Southeast Asian refugees you sponsor and host

These are the people I see and wonder when else and where else are they in your life?!?

Beyond your “humanitarian” efforts and consumer interactions and chance passing,

What should lead me to believe they exist for you beyond a one night stand?

That they have not escaped one form of forced prostitution for another?

The one that satisfies your need to feel like you have contributed?

When are they more than that?

When will we be more than Facebook profile pic merit badges?!?”

I’m Eating, So What Now God?

I’ve been attending a bible study that I can stomach...well, at least two times so far. We aren’t fearful of disagreeing with each other. The people that attend represent a variety of theological stances, church backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities. I’m not afraid to swear or say things that might be considered offensive in some more conservative circles. Christianese (you know, language Christians often use that people who haven’t grown up in the church culture wouldn’t understand) isn’t regularly spoken there. Communion is served at each study. And the fact that the Ruthruffs (the hosts) serve delicious food before each study definitely doesn’t hurt.

More so lately, I’ve had a pretty big aversion towards the practice and explanations of Christian tradition and orthodoxy that seem to exclude anybody who doesn’t immediately understand church or Christianity as a whole. In other words, I’ve been feeling something of a hate (and I think hate is a strong word, but for now it seems most representative of how I feel most times) for things that make a holy huddle. It’s my opinion that Christian practice should always seek to be relevant beyond a myopic and ingrown culture and/or worldview; ultimately representing a Christ that embraces the “other.”

Today we talked about the paschal meal – a recreation of the Passover Meal (which commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites as they were freed from slavery) that became the last supper of Christ. Historically, and in my own personal experience, these types of conversations usually leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth, the flavor of not having met some sort of Christian quota mixed with equal part shame and emotional self-flagellation. So when today’s discussion of the paschal meal led towards the topic of Lent, fasting, the exodus, identity formation, how we bear shame, and where God fits in without reverting to simple bible quoting, and included multiple self-disclosures of personal struggles in believing aspects of God and God’s actions in our lives – I became alive and engaged.

A few things surfaced in my mind as a result of the conversation.

In reading, “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight” (Luke 24:30-31), we discussed how slowing down from the day’s activities to eat with those close to us can help us “unplug” from the static and hum of life which can sometimes act as a barrier toward mindfulness and attunement towards self. The act of intentionally eating with others can help us feel and recognize the physical and relational nurturing we all long for and need. Isn’t that what the act of abstaining in Lent is intended for? To not feel full anymore. To reconnect with our longings, and as a result see the shitty parts of our lives, who has been M.I.A, how we’ve been falling short, having our mommy and daddy issues surface, various traumas, etc., and then be able to sincerely ask, “So what now God?” Maybe when the disciples received the bread they really felt the “So what now God?” and as a result were finally able to see their answer in the presence of the resurrected Christ. I mean, how often do we in our efforts to tune out the hurtful parts of our life also tune out God’s presence in those hurtful parts? Maybe if we slowed down enough to feel what is floating in the undercurrent we might also have our eyes opened and recognize Christ.

I’ll end this post by submitting to the blogosphere a photo project I came across on the interwebs. “Dinner in NY” is a series of photographs by Miho Aikawa portraying various dinner times. I wonder how these people, in their eating practices, might also be practicing connectedness or dissociation. Do any of the photos remind you of your dinner times?

http://www.mihophoto.com/projects/dinnerinny/

Colorblind (Irate Chinese American Psychotherapist)

I think it’s interesting how conversations can be an organizing receptacle for scattered experiences…and the conversations that especially feel this way are the ones I most love. Tonight’s meeting was no exception. I’ve been meeting with a group of guys for over a year (I think it’s been that long), where we’d share about our lives and pray for each other on a regular basis. Although none of us are homeless or flossin’ twenty inch blades on the Impala, we’re socioeconomically diverse. We’re also ethnically and culturally diverse, with each of us representing various races and heritages. Some of us are married. Some single. Some single and divorced. Most of us attend different churches. I haven’t attended a church for some time. But we all are young men. We come together holding these differences and similarities in an effort to love and support each other; and with that, come many times where we’d get into animated discussions about how our struggles with the same thing can sometimes look so different…such as romantic relationships, encounters with the police, what family means to us, how others perceive us, how we perceive others perceiving us, etc. Our assorted perspectives collide like the reverberations of various instruments in a jazz improv, taking form and simultaneously adjusting, making melodies that provoke and inspire. Or at least that’s a fanciful way of how I’d like to think of our conversations. Sometimes it also sounds like a bunch of guys laughing and cussing up a storm, as it did tonight. So as we ended up talking about race, dating, and self-perception; tonight’s song sounded like, and reminded me of, a poem that I wrote a couple years ago to process something that struck me while I was sitting with one of my therapy clients. I’m still processing it...


Colorblind (Irate Chinese American Psychotherapist)

So he says to me,
“I’m colorblind. I don’t see color. I don’t see difference.”
Now, I’ve learned about countertransference dominance and I’m trying to build a therapeutic alliance.
I get it; in non-psychoanalytic terms it means don’t let your shit get in the way of your client sorting through his own shit.
But now the shit has hit the fan,
It’s flying everywhere and I’m trying to pretend like it doesn’t bother me as the flying feces bespeckles my face.
Okay, take a deep breath and go slowly…watch...your…pace.
Do you even see my face!!!
As someone who isn’t color blind, I see clearly that this bothers me.
As he IS colorblind or as he claims to be, he either doesn’t see that this bothers me
Or he’s in denial or he is stuck in a strange mix of sight and unsight from which understanding, knowledge, and relationship can flee.
Colorblind,
I think I understand the thought behind it. Treat everyone the same. Don’t focus on difference. Be blind to it.
And as a person who:
Has had so much fear, having grown up feeling like the striking features of my hair, eyes, cheekbones, skin tone have been consciously or unconsciously highlighted to align me with the popular media portrayal of exotic dragon ladies, martial arts masters, sidekicks, nerds, and seldom the main character in a non-Asian film;
This by default makes me an intelligent exotic nerdy subservient sidekick kung fu master who never gets the lady at the end of the film.
Damn it’s demeaning!
Who wants to be pigeon holed into that caricature?!?
Colorblind, I see
That you don’t want to see -
These things have been proliferated into the mass consciousness of Western sensibility.
I’d love to love to believe you,
But the fact that Jackie Chan and Jet Li recently starred in a kung fu movie as side characters to a no name Caucasian kid actor who gets the Chinese girl at the end of the story leaves me to believe otherwise.
Damn I’m pissed! Because real life seems to reflect this skewed perspective!
Yellow fever spreads as I watch my Asian sisters go for the White guys
Because for some reason a guy like me is a second place prize.
Do you not see this?
Do you not want to see this?
I guess that’s why you’re colorblind.
I guess that’s why you have color denial.
Sometimes the truth of our difference is too much to handle
And the fact that your simple statement to me is not so simple to me
Highlights a difference from which my mind’s eye will refuse to be blinded to and from which you will not claim to see.
Yes, we are all God’s people, but God has made me different and there is such tragedy and glory in it that it must be seen.
I want to believe that God’s glory can be found in my unique traits that only color can communicate. Do you see what I mean?
So I wipe the shit off my face
I watch my pace
I leave the rant in my head and heart
And return to the session

Embodied

Part 1: Drained
My body often wakes up to the sound of the baseboard heater’s buzz. Buuuzzzzzzz. Buuuuuzzzzz. “Shut the hell up! I was so close. You took me away from that confusing dream. I was on the verge of figuring something out. So close. So so close.” At least that’s what I say in my mind. My body says something else. My eyes are heavy with the sandman’s dust; which feels less like dust and more like bricks in the corners of my eyes. My right nostril went on strike and refuses to breathe. My bladder shoves me and tells me I should get out of bed. The rest of my body resists, like loose wet sand slipping between fingers. Isn’t sleep supposed to reenergize you? My energy has been sapped. After a few minutes of extreme ambivalence, my body finds itself moving into the bathroom…extreme relief. The next mission, twist the little knob on the wall and stop the most annoying hum in the world.

The body says so much when you wake up, as if it were competing with the rooster’s crow. My body says to crawl back into bed.



Part 2: OkCupid
The alarm sounds and my morning iPhone ritual begins (even though it no longer qualifies as morning because it’s 4pm). I am still wet sand. I check my email. I check Facebook. I check Instagram. I check Flipboard. I check OkCupid. Yes, I check OkCupid. Not only that, I begin answering the questions in it (to explain; OkCupid is an online dating website which has these multiple answer questions you fill out so that they can have data which is used to match you with others who answer similarly. I have entered the dark side…but not really, it’s actually kind of fun. Or at least I tell myself it’s fun because it’s satisfying my curiosity of about online dating?), because maybe if I find something interesting, this tired body might wake up. Please carrot, lead this old horse.

The following question is offered: “Do you believe that mind and body are separate entities (Dualism) or do you believe that they are in a state of unity (Monism)?”

You can only select one of the following answers: “Monism”, “Dualism”, “A bit of both”, “Uncertain.”

I skip the question altogether because I am undecided...or just too tired. The sand is still wet.



Part 3: House
After inhaling the El Diablo Azul burger, garlic fries, and a hearty winter warmer (which counts as breakfast, lunch, and dinner because I woke up so late), I feel the light and cold Seattle rain sprinkle baptize my satiated body as I make my way over to “Body Orthodoxy: A Sensual Education.” The house that the art installation is in reminds me of Carl Fredricksen’s house in the movie “Up.” Large and newer buildings in the South Lake Union Area encroach on the minuscule territory that remains for the rickety house left fending for itself. The quaintness of the house punctuates the mindfulness necessary as I prepare to take in the overt and the subtleties…the things I will see, smell, taste, and touch.

A homeless lady passes by the house and asks for two dollars. Her body is in need.



Part 4: Sensual
Each room features an artist or two and their work. There are many rooms.

I see collages of animals and people with the heads of icons transposed onto their heads. God is in all creation, but sometimes we are too blind to see it.

Crochet breasts, vaginas, and penises are mounted to the wall and we are invited to touch. What does my anxiety in touching say about the shame that Adam and Eve felt in covering themselves which is still viscerally alive in me?

Amongst statues of bodies, with televisions and books and grenades in their abdominal cavities, I smell incense and partake of communion; consuming the body and blood of Christ from a soldier’s helmet. The battles and wars we engage with our body involve the body of Christ and fragrant prayers. There is so much meaning, intent, and desire. Desire for what?

The dancer twists and writes. Her body moves beautifully; amazingly. I see a story unfold. Each movement is an exercise in freedom and discovery. Our flesh in movement is the embodiment and expression of our creative souls. How often do we move freely or restrict our range of motion to basic tasks? How do we hide from our spirit in our body? How do we discover our spirit in our body? How do we hide or discover our body with our spirit?

The lady sits on the floor and wraps herself with a mishmash of items tied together. The sheet of birth control pills is weaved into lingerie is weaved into a tampon box is weaved into stockings is weaved into a pregnancy test marker is weaved into…item and item and continuous item – items that barrage the female body. She wraps these items on her limbs and torso and repeats, “This is not what I want…but I want it also.” And we watch as she slowly and consistently engulfs her body in this burden. And we watch as she unravels and unburdens herself. What do we subject the female body to that says Imago Dei?

There was so much more. But all in all, I my eyes, skin, olfactory nerves, taste buds were all doused with a bit of mindfulness; or I should say, awareness of embodiment. Our bodies tell a very loud story that we often don’t take the time to listen to nor consecrate.



Part 5: Attack
It is tomorrow and I am in a “show of support” at the hospital. I enter the room and see an imposing and fuming body. The light fixture is ripped off the wall. A large chair is upside down on the bed. The patient is huffing and puffing and red. We clear the area so other patients aren’t at risk of injury. The trembling voice cusses at the staff that show up to address this angry and frightened body. The patient cools down; but not before long a nurse is punched in the face, followed by a cascade of hospital staff bodies engulfing the patient’s limbs. The writhing body fights. The teeth reach for a shoulder to bite. The staff hang on. We encourage the patient to breath slowly. “Remember to breath…Relax…We’re here to help you.”

Body on body. There is an internal battle that leads to an external battle. The flesh cries out.



Part 6: Both/And
I guess I believe in both/and “monism” and “dualism.” Body and mind are unique, seeming to have an apparent autonomy; but one would not be in its fullness without the other, therefore also taking part in making the other. The body is the extension of the mind and vice versa.



Part 7: Invitation
History resides in our flesh. Relationship forms our flesh. The body tells a story and makes new stories. From the waking aches, to OkCupid curiosities, to knitted privates and interpretive dance, and a raging patient that is swaddled in the protective grasps of many bodies – the flesh asks to received and honored. How do we miss the many ways our bodies cry out for God; or cry out and tell us God is already there?

God Was That Dog I Held

It’s one of those nights…I am restlessly typing away at 2am when I told myself I was going to bed at 10pm. Something was stewing inside of me. That thing wasn’t going to let me go until I began typing this.

A dear friend of mine emailed me regarding his latest blog entry. It was about an interview he had with a filmmaker named Eliot Rauch, one extremely gifted in his ability to capture some of the rawest moments in a short clip. So I ended up watching a tragically beautiful video doc about a guy who was putting his dog down, and something clicked. In the slightly scratchy and sorrowful voice I heard, saying, “God was that dog I held…today…” I realized some of my own seemingly long lost sorrow.

Yesterday, I ran a half marathon. Just earlier I spent what felt like an eternity (probably a couple hours) deliberating, wordsmithing, massaging, my match.com profile only to lose it two times because the stupid site refreshed before I could save. My job revolves around social work and therapy. I attempt to help people the best I can while they may be in their shittiest circumstances. Yesterday I found out while browsing Facebook (of all places) my ex-wife was married...it felt like a sucker punch in the gut (and why the hell do I find out about this through social media instead of directly from a human being?!?). In all those things, my mind and heart were racked with heavy burdens; but an even more salient question lied in wait, the thing that didn’t let me go to sleep at 10pm. It asked, “Why do I put myself in or go through all these things – intentionally or inadvertently?” I mean, why do I long so much? Why do I have the aspirations that make up the core of my being? Why the fuck do I care so damn much when life sometimes feels like a concentrated solution of hurt, disappointment, and shit poured over a worn heart? Of course, there is the answer that says its part of my ego trying to balance my primal instincts and internalized parent objects from childhood while engaging the death instinct and the manifestations of reenactments and other such hardwired survival mechanisms etched into the bowels of my DNA that keep me going (Yes, grad school has ruined me). And while I think those aforementioned reasons are nonetheless true, I also believe I long for God.

God is love. God is most clear in those moments where honesty flourishes in a redemptive embrace. Like that man holding his dog. I’m looking for those moments; that thing that speaks to the truest part of me. It’s the milk that the baby craves. It’s what I long to experience in the peaks, dips, and in-betweens of this messy narrative. I’m looking for this goodness I feel that has been so very palpable yet extremely wild and elusive. So, like the wide-eyed gambler pathetically trying get back the winnings he had lost just a few minutes ago, I’m at the table hoping and scheming. I’m searching...for love...for God...for any semblance of truth and goodness...maybe in the wrong places, but hoping some of those are the right places. And when I find God there, I hold it like that man embracing his best friend of a dog that was in the truest sense God. Crying and reluctant to let go; watching a precious, good, and true thing slowly slip away. That feeling of God slipping away occurs when the glory of running a half marathon ends and a sore IT band sets in; when the attempts of finding someone to share romantic joy with feels futile and downright ridiculous; when helping others underscores more tragedy; and when feelings of once having been deeply loved seem more and more like a delusion. I know somewhere and at some point in those moments, amidst the furious mix of brain chemistry, psychosocial components, and narrative plots, God was present. There, God touched the truest part of me and I was loved. I believe God still does, but it just doesn’t feel the same…in fact, it hurts like hell now. But now that I’ve poured a little of my heart out, think I can go to sleep. God, please meet me in my sleep…and when I wake, work, attempt to love, and continue on…

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Go Back To Your Country!

Earlier today a coworker asked me if I run with music. I told him it depends on my mood. Sometimes I like to hear, to feel my surroundings and be more focused on what’s going on in me. So when I began my run at Sam Smith Park this evening, slowly walking and stretching without my shirt on, I was able to clearly take in everything. “Look at him! He thinks he’s damn sexy!” “Put your shirt back on!” As I turned to look around, I made eye contact with one of the ladies yelling out of the car at me. Stopped at the intersection on my left, there were at least two ladies in that old white car that I could see and hear, the ones in the front, and maybe a third person in the back seat. The one I saw in the passenger side was an overweight Black lady. And although the eye contact was only for a brief second, the impact of the gaze made the following comment feel like a torturously long occasion. She slightly grinned; and as soon as the light turned green, speeding off, said, “Go back to your country!”

At that moment I felt my stomach sink and felt paralyzed. I stood there shocked. It was so quick and there was nothing I could do about it but receive what had happened. After I was finally able to gather myself together, I began putting one foot in front of the other. Picking up my pace, the dialogue in my head also picked up the pace…What just happened? Damn you! How can you be so racist with a comment like that?!? We’re both people of color who have experienced oppression! This IS my country! Maybe I should’ve kept my shirt on. No, I’ve been enjoying the sun and its okay for me to run without my damn shirt on if I want to. Am I really so cocky that I think I’m sexy without my shirt on? Sometimes I do think I’m pretty damn sexy. Sometimes sexy is the furthest thing from what I actually think and feel about body. What if this wasn’t my country and I just moved here recently? Does that make what she said right? If she only knew my story she wouldn’t have said those things. Maybe if I knew her story I wouldn’t take it so hard. The Chinese built the fucking railroads that revolutionized America! This IS my fucking country! Why is it that Asian males aren’t seen as sexy…and on and on. The ugliest parts of me had surfaced and were part of the conversation in my head as well, which I will leave out of this blog because those things don’t need to be repeated. Let’s just say that I was also reverting to entertaining prejudiced stereotypes that I knew were a result of my wounded pride rather than out of the truth that we are all different yet still God’s people.

By the end of my run across and back from the I-90 Bridge, I think I made my fastest time with inclines. Usually I’d feel a huge sense of satisfaction, but like a broken tape player, “Go back to your country!” continued to repeat itself in my head. It stuck to me like a throbbing sting on the cheek after a slap across the face. I needed something like ice to cool me down, to comfort me. Finding a bench, I thought that if I just sat down for a while I might feel a little better. I noticed by the end of the run, that I just ran past a man who looked like he was a Native American. I looked around and I saw Hispanic people. Looking around again I saw other Black people. Then a couple old ladies walked past me, speaking to each other in Mandarin about things they eat for health. About a minute behind them was another pair of old ladies, this time, speaking Cantonese. I’m not exactly sure what it was about that moment on the bench, but I felt comforted. Maybe it was because I was reminded that my neighborhood is full of diversity - people who may have experienced worse than what I just experienced and they are still walking the park. The old Chinese ladies, the Hispanic people, the Native American man, the Black people, myself – I’m sure we’ve all experienced one form or another of prejudice, as well as have perpetuated it in our lives – yet here we all are, being ourselves at the park…and mostly not having to be apologetic about it.

Later in the evening I was able to confide in and share these thoughts with my roommate, Zac. Zac, for those who don’t know is mixed – Black father, White mom – and has also been a target of racism throughout his life. Zac is also a good friend who has on many occasions brought light and encouragement to some of my darkest moments. Here’s a little of what Zac said… “That wasn’t about you. It could’ve been any of your Asian brothers; my Asian brothers…It was about their oppression and they wanted to pass that disease to you…In those moments pray for them…I’m sure how you felt wasn’t what God wanted for you or what God wanted for them…that was a drive by shitting on you…now you gotta do a drive by prayer.” There was a lot more to our conversation; but in short, I was reminded that evil seeks to smite out the glory of God in our uniqueness – racial and cultural uniqueness especially so. Being people of difference should affirm instead of negate the joy we take in how God has made us – so gloriously diverse. So when I run without my earphones on and am taking it all in, I know I will be taking in difficult things as well, and will sometimes (if not more so) have the challenge and reward of returning a blessing toward the paths I set on; affirming the Imago Dei in the some of the most unexpected ways.

Tumbling

Tumbling down the town of my heart
I noticed the landscape has changed and buildings are missing
Windswept and sun scorched memories thirst for a rain to settle and soothe
Like a dream where familiar images are flooded with the essence of strange
A pang upon my heart resonates throughout my body
It is the feeling of homesickness
But what is home?
Images of violent force and silent cruelty suffocate recollections of gentle care
The infant cries in an empty room
And finally running out of tears, he sets out
Tumbling out of the town

Plowshare

A few have asked that I share the poem I read at graduation. I feel so honored being asked to share...




Plowshare

You’d think you’d’ve figured out by now how to unravel the knots of life that sit uneasily in your stomach or throat
That the moments that paralyze you into cloistered patterns of interaction would’ve faded away by now
You know, those ruts you’ve been stuck into, forever
As though a large field of hardened soil lies before you
And you feel only enough strength to plow into the land that is soft and familiar
You’d think that by now, the intimate moments that you long for, don’t scare you when the opportunity presents itself
So that when you pray, with eyes open…
You can look deeply into the eyes of the one you are praying with
Intimate and without shame in that deep gaze
And know that God is there, in that minute and profound moment…
Just as much as when you gaze deeply into the eyes of your lover while making love
Feeling fully known, accepted, and loved…
You are not repelled by fear
But how often does that happen?
O love that wilt not let me go

And of course gazing deeply into the eyes of anyone is unsettling
That lump in your throat returns…
You’d think you’d’ve got used to social interactions
That by now, you’d be fluent in the language of communal contact
And all it takes is the push of the autopilot button and you are cruising at interviews, dates, parties, on the dance floor, riding the bus, family gatherings, and those awkward moments in the elevator
Don’t get me wrong, I think we’ve learned to navigate these moments to some degree
Sometimes it looks like the three wise monkeys
"Non vedo, non sento, non parlo"
I see nothing, I hear nothing, I say nothing
But to fly face first uninhibited by doubts of who we are into the face of the other and operate from a complete sense of security and a sense of complete security
Fully delighting and being delighted in
Well, I think that’s the hard part
The unyielding, dry, and cracked soil
But will it ever be easy?
O love that wilt not let me go

Who can guarantee that the look I give to another across from me, like that valentine, clumsily put together with Elmers glue oozing out of its sides like my uneasy affection, and sent out in first grade will, be returned to me with grace?
That my voice as awkward, shrill, unconfident, overconfident, compensating, and true will be received, heard, and reciprocated?
So that when I risk touching and being touched, the surface of my skin will feel the warmth of safety as much as intimacy?
Or that when I timidly step forward onto untried territory that I will not be shamed but seen and rejoiced over?
What promises do I have in this world aside from my heart scarred experiences of having been dropped as a baby…
As a baby and son
As a kindergartener, junior high schooler, high schooler, collegiate
As the pimply teenager who awkwardly navigates attraction for the first time
As a clumsy lover
As a worker that is trying to find that ever elusive niche
As a boy and man
As a Chinese American
As a Chinese
As an American
As a believer and doubter
As a married man and divorcee
As a learner who forgets
Healer and hurter
As a baby…
I have been dropped so so many times
What promises do I have that the unplowed soil will be soft and yielding?
It looks so hard…
O love that wilt not let me go

And like the tortoise returning to its scarred and battle worn shell, I can be found present but not
Or like the furious bear, my violent attacks are truly my fears in bold colors splashed across the canvas of our interactions
The unspoken promises set themselves deeply into my bones and I walk the path supported with limbs saturated…
By fears and failed expectations
They weigh heavily over me like wet clothes over a frail self
Exorcize this paralyzing force that drives me into these ruts that I have plowed forever
Been stuck in
Ruts
That I have plowed
Forever…
Especially, when I know there are new acres to set upon and a harvest yet to be reaped!
O love that wilt not let me go

It’s so easy to till the familiar and soft soil time and again
It’s difficult to break up the soil that has been hardened by the dryness and fear of life
So, as the seasons come and go
And the knots resurface in the stomach and throat
And it is time to either retreat into the shell or wrathfully rage
I remember I have much more growing to do
O love that wilt not let me go…

I set my hands on the plow...

What Just Happened?

What just happened?

This last week a friend of mine passed away; I feel sad but don’t feel weighed down…that’s a confusing feeling. Then I went square dancing and unwittingly became the wingman of a friend’s friend; being asked to dance by girls we’d never seen before, and watching him get the number of a girl while I danced with her uninterested/ing friend on the side…it felt like adolescence again. Then I picked up the last of my belongings from my ex-wife (one of them being the barbeque grill I got for my bachelor party), seeing the house I used to live in but feeling so distant from it. Then I realized there’s a strong possibility that I will have no blood relatives at my graduation commencement; hoping that the dreadful sense of aloneness I have in my family will be proven wrong. Then I saw my therapist and dumped on him, feeling that a bi-weekly fifty minute session is not enough. Then I worked a lot at the hospital, spending hours upon hours with a super depressed and suicidal patient, learning his story; I wanted to cry for him…and I did.

When I got home from working a twelve hour shift today, I sank into the couch while my roommate was thirty minutes into watching the Hong Kong movie, “The Warlords” starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. I sat through the rest of the movie; simmering in its drama. It’s a movie about three brothers’ struggle amidst war, romance, and political upheaval in the Qing Dynasty. It didn’t really help me unwind. I probably needed a comedy or some other feel good movie.

Afterwards, I retreated to my room, plopped into my office chair, and began the ritual of turning on the computer to veg out on YouTube and Facebook. Soon I heard a few knocks on my door. My roommate was checking in on me. He noticed I was looking "a little irritated" or "disturbed" earlier. Good eye, Zac. Yes, I was worn out and I hadn’t realized how worn out I was until he checked in on me…saying, “You had an intense week…first ___ happened, then ___...” Wow, sometimes you just need to hear it from another person before you get it. Then, he said we need a vacation…

Practically speaking, I don’t think I can afford a vacation. But I’m glad I can always take a little vacation in writing. I think that sounds a little counterintuitive…I mean, a vacation by writing about your stress? But really, now that I’m typing, I already feel better. Going back to one of my favorite texts – Attachment In Psychotherapy – Wallin (2007) writes, “Studies show further that bringing language to bear on distressing experience—an essential feature of explicit mentalizing—can reduce its neural impact: Subjects shown upsetting images and instructed to describe them showed much less activation of the amygdala than subjects who were exposed to the images without the instruction to verbalize (Hariri, Bookheimer, & Mazziotta, 2000; Hariri, Mattay, Tessitore, Fera, & Weinberger, 2003)…For it appears that emotion regulation can indeed be strengthened when left-brain/cortical resources (language, interpretation) are enlisted in the real-time processing of right-brain/subcortical experience (bodily based feelings)” (p. 82) (side note, I think I have developed an affinity for the APA format). In other words, it helps to write shit down when you’re feeling shitty because our brains are wired that way.

Sometimes the world may feel like a morose haze around you; but when you can put it into words, the clouds lift a little. I guess that’s why I’ve come to love and devour poetry, blogging, creative writing, and other forms of literature much more so lately…I’ve learned to turn it into my little emotion regulation vacation.

That just happened.

Spider In My Brain

Sometimes I feel like I must have a conclusion. Kind of like when writing a research paper, one must have a thesis statement that acts as a hypothesis which formulates a concluding argument by the end of the paper. When life becomes confusing and messy, I feel like it is hypothesis time. I want an explanation for all the crazy shit that is going on…out and around me, as well as inside my heart and mind.

It’s as if there was a spider in my brain that spends frantic energy weaving an intricate web, hoping to capture some truth in it. And sometimes it takes a very long time before my web is complete. But am I really trying to capture truth? Maybe it’s because I believe if the truth lands in my web I can rush to it and sink my fangs deeply into it, and extract its life-giving nutrients to satiate me. Perhaps if I only knew what she really thought about me I would feel satisfied. If I knew why she didn’t say this or do that I would be less anxious. Or if I could understand what next steps to take, I can avoid more heartache. Maybe that’s why I spin so laboriously. But of course, sometimes the web gets broken, there is no guarantee a fly will land, I’ll eventually get hungry again, and I am not always satisfied with the type of flies do I catch.

Well, tonight feels like one of those nights. It seems like this last week has just brought up a lot for me. I am spinning extra hard and I don’t know why. I am wondering about this and that person, coming up with stories and hypotheses that are weighing me down, and I want relief. And there is a part of me that believes relief will look like just knowing what is “really” going on…because then things would make sense. Or would they? By now I feel like I just have a lot of cobwebs in my mind and heart, while I am left wanting.

I’m trying to acknowledge that even if I did understand the reasons of why my divorce happened the way it did – all the reasons for it, including the psychology behind choices made, what went wrong, what could have been done differently, etc. – I will not be satisfied. That if I only understood – why certain relationships unraveled the way they did, then I could do something about it in the future or maybe even attempt to repair the past – is just an attempt to change the unchangeable. I’m beginning to realize I would only have another small fly to sink my fangs into and eventually become hungry again.

Formulating these hypotheses is leaving me worn out. Why do I even have to try attempting explanations? Life doesn’t always make sense. I think its okay that life doesn’t always makes sense. I just wish that when things didn’t make sense, I had a strong sense of self and security in the midst of turmoil. That way I wouldn’t be frantically spinning my hypothesis webs.

So right now, I am writing as a way to process the idea that I need more than just a convincing story for my mind to chew on. I think I need a deep and rooted sense of security. And at this point I return to all the things I learned about in my “Human Growth and Development” class at MHGS (side note: the new name, SSTP, still doesn’t roll of the tongue as smoothly). That when a child has a parent that acts as a truly secure attachment figure (a consistent person who helps the child make sense of emotions while allowing for the child to move through important developmental phases) the child experiences security that allows for the formulation and organization of a self-identity. In other words, good parents help the child feel secure when life is confusing, scary, and disorganized. When this sense of security is internalized, the child grows and takes that security with him, even into relational shit-storms; and when the storm is over, the security is still intact.

Then what happens for someone like me who didn’t have parents that were committed to developing a strong sense of security in me? Well, we develop particular ways to cope…not all healthy. And one of my particular coping mechanisms looks like an overactive hypotheses generator. The remedy? According to many psychodynamic object-relationalists, I must continue developing my self-identity by connecting with people who are healthy. By this, I mean healthy in that I can live out mistakes with them, understand what I really think and feel, express my truest thoughts and emotions, and all in a way that does not diminish the awareness of self and other and our connectedness. There are a lot more fancy schmancy psychological terms for what I just said, but I find my colloquial terms help me make sense of developmental psychology. Anyway, that’s what I think my human growth and development class kinda taught me. Then, according to many Christians, I must continue to be rooted in God and community. And by community, I believe a truly God-oriented community will be one that embodies a healthy relationship as exemplified in a healthy self-identity developing attachment relationship. The answer it seems, in both cases, is in relationships.

I am still left wanting…but now I’m trying to convince the spider in my brain to catch healthy relationships instead of little fly nuggets of “truth” that will only add to my impulse to spin more and more.

Dear God, I realize the answers you give are not just in intellectual understandings, hypothesis, and explanations; some of the best answers exist in merely being in the presence of good people. Please, let me know what it means to continually experience relationships of true security and growth. I’m tired of spinning.

Waves Of Memory

On a whim I decided to flip through my calendar and gloss over what my last few years have been like…then the memories, vivid, and saturated with emotions came. It was as if the tide that had receded far back decided it was finally time to come back to wet the shore…

My mother passed away on the New Year’s Day of 2009. That same year, I was separated in October, moving out of my house after being the best man at one of my best friend’s wedding. She kept the house and dog while I packed my bags. I moved into a living room of a one bedroom apartment in lower Queen Anne. To cope, I put my nose to the grindstone like never before. Only letting sorrow take up partial residence, I took four classes that semester while trying to work more shifts at the Spaghetti Factory.

The shower in my new place was whacko. If the shower could have a psychological disorder, it would have a dual diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder and bipolar 1. There were days where I‘d be stuck in the shower because the water decided on a whim that it wanted to stay either ice cold or scalding hot for about 5-20ish minutes. The water pressure was never really consistent either, vacillating between a decent ppi and the equivalent of what would come from a dollar store squirt gun.

Oh, and we had a rat problem. The trap finally got it one day; and many hours later, after finding out it wasn’t dead, I removed the barely alive rat from the bloody mess behind our old rickety fridge. I took it outside and put it out if its misery. Never before, would I have considered stomping on a rat the compassionate thing to do.

The week of Christmas I was fired from my job as a waiter. He fired me because I was 20 minutes late to call to ask if they needed me to come in later that evening. It was the first and only time I had ever been tardy for a phone confirmation. Bittersweet, I say. I needed the job but was glad I didn’t have to work with that manager anymore...it was, as they say, redonkulous.

I worked hard to find a job. But with the spare time there was also space to mourn. The Christmas season was quiet. The anniversary of my mother’s passing was quiet. It was quiet as I laid in the futon alone. I had a lot of time for solitude. So I was quiet, and I worked hard.

Since February of 2010 I’ve been working at the psych hospital. So now, the people I work with at least have some idea they need mental help.

A month before my divorce papers were finalized, I had to find a new place to live since my roommate was moving out by June and I couldn’t afford to stay. June was also the month my divorce papers would be finalized by the State of Washington, by some judge in some court I didn’t care to know more about. I felt like I needed to slow down to get a grip and hurry up to take care of myself at the same time. Contradictions. So I hurried and found a new place to live in, in a short amount of time; and by the beginning of June I was living near my old neighborhood, where my middle and high school days were spent.

On June 16th the divorce papers were finalized. I also had an assignment due for Therapy 1 that day…two papers were finalized that day. When I got home I was sad, angry, and kind of numb since it felt like we had already been divorced for even longer than that. My roommate consoled me as we walked through our neighborhood and I tried to flush the grief out of my body through words. We walked miles and miles for hours and hours.

It’s almost been a year now since the divorce papers were finalized, longer since the separation, and a lot longer from when I first felt the weight and finality of the relational rift set in. I think the pressure and weight of it has considerably been lifted.

In January and February of 2011 I actually went on a few dates. The dates felt clumsy, on my part, since I felt like damaged goods. But as unexpected as they were, those nights turned out to be salve for the dry skin of my soul. Maybe I didn’t have to feel like damaged goods.

This last semester I took five classes, saw clients at my internship, and worked at the psych hospital. I worked my ass off, and it’s been about two weeks since I graduated. It feels surreal. And sometimes I question how intact, sane, and healthy I am because I was able to keep my momentum going these last few years. Sometimes I feel like maybe I should've had a psychic break and ended up in the hospital, fall to pieces and not be able to function, slip into some sort of drunken stupor, etc. Isn’t that what happens when people with warm blood flowing through their veins have their hearts broken? Instead, my executive functioning excelled and I read books, wrote papers, and ran a half-marathon. I coped like my life depended on it…and somehow I feel like my heart was preserved. Maybe it was because amidst all the craziness, I’ve had quiet moments like this to reflect and write, friends to walk with, and work that actually feels meaningful to me.

Looking at my calendar, I feel like God is very strange; strange because the terrain has been so strange. But God has also been faithful...as faithful as is strange.

The tide has washed over me.

Even God Dies

Silence.






Silence shouts.





Decomposition sinks its teeth into your cold flesh.



Hero
no
more.


Hope dissipates.


Who knows what will come of our hopes?
For even God dies.


Death.


Gone.


Worn out yesterday.
Like the mist dried up today.
Used up.
Not here.



Silence.
Mortality.
Torn.
Even God dies.
Even here you are Emmanuel.








Silence.







Even in death you are here.

Last Assignment Divina

A response to Luke 24:13-34

I didn’t originally intend it this way, but I ended up saving this lectio divina journal entry as my very last assignment as a MACP student at MHGS. Originally, I had planned to work on this in the comfort of my room, but one thing led to another (yes, procrastination was partly involved) and my plans had to adapt. And they adapted for the better.

After waking up early to work on other assignments, I took the Light Rail to Downtown where a couple of friends treated me out for lunch as a celebration of the end of my three years in grad school. Donny Trieu, Quang Nguyen, and I feasted on Brazilian rodizio at Ipanema Grill. The waiters whisked to and from our table with swords of glistening cuts of meat skewered on: garlic steak, peppered steak, parmesan pork loin, sausages that tasted like they had beer in them, grilled chicken, etc. We also ate jicama, baby carrots, varieties of mushrooms, and other interesting fresh vegetables from their “Mesa de Frios.” My belly was as full as my heart.

Then I took my time walking past Pike Place Market, breathing in a hodgepodge of scents, from fresh piroshkies to a vast array of flowers to the briny Puget Sound; listening to the eclectic assortment of buskers; and watching all sorts of people, from tourists to the homeless, go about their busyness. The wind and rain lightly blew on my face as if showering me with kisses on my walk. My senses felt as full as my heart.

Finally, I walked into the school building. I chatted with James Chi, who was manning the front desk, for a while before I headed up to the sanctuary to meditate on my lectio divina. I remember that the very first person who greeted me at the front desk when I was officially a student was Ben Oldham; who turned out to be a great friend that I could always expect the best hugs and listening ears from during my first and second year at the school. When I entered the sanctuary, the images of the icons, the benches, the arrangement of bricks with folded prayers wedged in between them, Sonny and Margaret’s picture, the large wooden cross, the little mirror, and all the other pieces of that holy place felt like faithful angels and friends surrounding me. My spirit and heart was filled with comfort.

So, as I read about the two walking along the Emmaus road oblivious to Christ’s presence until they broke break with him, I began to realize Christ’s presence with me all these years…and even on my walk to MHGS today and in the sanctuary. Jesus ate with me, kissed me on my walk, covered me as I meditated, and is blessing me as I write this in the school library. My body, senses, spirit, mind, and heart is full.

Lectio Divina: Ebbing Away

A response to Matthew 14: 22-33

In this time of endings and new beginnings it feels like Jesus is sending me out from a secure place and into a storm. During my three years at MHGS, I went through two major losses; my mother passing away from illness and my divorce. And with those losses many other dreams, wishes, and hopes also passed away. Promises to take my mom back to the Woodland Park Rose Garden, and my hopes to see her smile as she basked in the sights and smells of her favorite flowers dissipated. The feeling that I could come home to a wife and dog and sink into their kisses and love, and dreams of one day hearing the patter of tiny bare feet running on the kitchen floor (at least in the way that I had grown accustomed to imagining) were shattered. I felt like I was torn from life as I knew it; but at the same time I found deep hope and peace in ways I could never have anticipated.

I began to face questions about myself that were long buried inside of me, as well as questions that were right in front of my face but I had chosen to ignore. Questions about how broken my family and marriage was. I began to excavate the dusty and untouched parts of my life, and found relics that explained deep sorrow, anger, and resentment; those things I felt so guilty for feeling toward my mother and ex-wife. Why did you abandon me? Why am I relieved that you left me? Did I leave you? Did I ever want to leave you? I think I did at times, but why? How was I hurt and how did I hurt you? Why did hurt happen? Did it have to? Why…why…why… And all of these whys, the excavations, the process of understanding, and the search for peace occurred in a time and place of my life that came to feel deeply secure and richly good.

It was secure and good because I was surrounded by peers, friends, and professors at MHGS who were going through their own existential winnowing. They were as invested into that process as I was. Where else were there a bunch of people who would deconstruct and reconstruct with such care and love for God and our identities? We were a community of people engaged in the holy practices of wrestling with God in academics, psychology, theology, creativity, play – and all in an ardent attempt to live more into what being a bearer of God’s image can be. Never before was I able to ask such frightening questions of my life with such freedom; and never before, did I feel like God and the people around me was receiving my questions with such interest, sorrow and delight.

I imagine that in a very dark time of my life, God was holding me safely, cradling and nourishing me at MHGS. I also imagine that taste of security – the experience of care I received as God dressed my wounds – was what the listeners and disciples of Christ experienced as they ate the loaves and bread of Christ and were miraculously healed.

So, when I read about Christ sending his disciples out onto the water after such a wonderful healing experience, only to find themselves stranded on dark stormy waters for hours upon hours without their miraculous master, I can’t help but to imagine they were bewildered and that the sense of security they felt on the shore had slowly ebbed away from them as far as they were away from the shore. In many ways, I’ve already begun to feel my sense of security ebbing away. As I begin this process of leaving my beloved MHGS community, this place of being miraculously healed and fed, I feel like I’m being sent out into the dark stormy waters. Jesus is sending me there and I am afraid.

But I’m keeping my eyes open for the mysterious figure walking toward me on the waves. And when I see him, I will ask “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

Lectio Divina: Who Do You Say I Am?

Who Do You Say I Am?
A response to Peter’s Confession of Christ and Jesus’ Predicting His Death in Matthew 16:13-28.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
You are the Christ, but does that knowledge come from my head or heart?
Has it been disseminated through a surplus of fliers, camp retreats, youth groups, books, classes, political campaigns, Google searches on theology, etc?
Has the volitional willing of my being been strained through the religious status quo
To the point where I cannot even recognize genuineness when it manifests itself in honest, impulsive, heartfelt conviction?
You said upon the true confession of Peter that heavenly things will be bound and loosed because the Father had shown him things he otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
That outside of relationality with you it is impossible.
How might my vision be blocked?
How might my faith be something other than a byproduct of our intimate contact?
Has it possibly been blocked through a surplus of fliers, camp retreats, youth groups, books, classes, political campaigns, Google searches on theology, etc?
Jesus, save me from my knowledge and bring me to affection!
And this same man who confessed his affections for you,
You called him Satan!
When will my affections for you maintain the status of corruption and selfishness?
A preservation of self unlinked to your desire to be one with many?
When will I be separated from the will to lose myself to the relationality that made Peter the impulsive rock?
The one, that you knew when you asked, “Who do you say I am?” would respond with a confession that did not betray his experience of you.
His confession was his love.
I think that was why you told the disciples not to tell anyone that you were the Christ.
You wanted them to earn that confession through experience.
And to withhold that experience?
That is Satan.
So I must pick up the cross and follow you;
In the ever connected way.
Attached to affection that is ever learning,
Ever stumbling,
Ever beckoned,
Ever experiencing,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…