songs sung when you can't sing

singe the wick

of my candlestick

when there is no more tallow

sneak in the oil

your secret toil

when I feel shallow

shear these limbs

for your whims

or let me lie fallow

sore throat

The cold rain of Seattle

Lack of sleep due to trip to Portland

+ General sense of fatigue this past month

______________________________________

An unexpected reminder of my frailty,

which, when I subtract my strengths anyway,

there is still a kind of bonus that doesn't add up.

Even on this side of equilibrium,

I am being given the gift of myself,

a dissolution of the divisions of my life.

I am bread and fish broken, but

in order to be fruitful and multiply.

As I sip on this derivative of ginseng

to ease my throat, being full of phlegm,

I wonder at how sickness sometimes sucks

dry my moistened ambition and makes

me more integral, whole, and greater than

by being less than all this.

the art of justice

I recently ate at a buffet in Lynnwood and had to roll myself out of the double doors. Thinking back on it, I had to blame, if not myself, then the food. The food was just so good-looking and tasty.

Which got me thinking about basic necessities.

If someone who was poor was given everything he needed in order to survive--that is, food and shelter, even some company--but it did not include something called beauty, would his existence truly be human? If his food came to him in some paper bag, all mashed up into one blob of grub, yes, we could still say that he is being sustained, but would that be justice? We could give him a roof over his head and clothe him in the most holey of holeys, but would he have any standing among us?

In other words, justice and mercy cannot just mean the meanest of a livelihood, the bare scraps to scrape through the day. Justice is wedded to dignity and beauty--the opportunity to share. I think it unconscionable to practice the art of justice without the luscious brushstrokes of jubilee. Justice without beauty is like painting the rainbow with only black and white.

beet poetry

There is no doubt of the connection

between food and poetry.

A well-cooked meal is a muse--

paeans on paella, scones of scorn,

the turn of verse as marinated

steaks sear with grill lines,

the iamb from shaking sea salt on lamb.

Good food renders us speechless and,

in that moment, the ingredients for poetry.

The poet, like the chef, wakes up in the morning

and goes to the market, finding choice

and fresh edibles, before the others get to them.

We could live off of intravenous

glucose pumped into our stomachs,

pre-digested concepts that pass for food,

sustenance that does merely that: sustain.

We could shuffle off our mortal coils

without ever having crispy onion rings

or kielbasa covered in sauerkraut.

We could manage with newspaper

fat, tablets of tabloids, three-second

sound bites, snippets that impress upon us

less speech rather than leaving us speechless,

the instantly accessible loaf of banality.

We could,

but we find room, always room,

for that everyday indulgence,

for that which is utterly beautiful,

for that which sings

like bread still quivering from the oven.

Once you have tasted gourmet,

there's only one way.

Once a verse touches your language,

salts your understanding, brightens your eyes

like honey does after a fast,

you know what hunger and poverty is.

O how much flavor, breadth, and depth we lack!

How little we feast and how much we snack!

O beet poet, standing on stage

reading your recipe for life,

peppered with reality, looking at us

with your glazed glare,

stop starving art with your open mic-

rowaved slam.

getting my leaven's worth

Just had to put up some photos of my bread-baking craze of late:

Special thanks to jamie for her recipe on how to make delicious artisan bread in less than 5 minutes a day. truly, your leaven's worth.

Man does not live on bread alone. It needs oil and salt.

our church home: a genius?

I've just finished skimming through Deymaz's book, Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church, and what I found was disappointing. Not that Deymaz's book isn't a well thought out book, but I couldn't find any resources for how to take a homogenous non-White church (e.g. a Korean-American church) into the multi-cultural river. It makes sense that Deymaz is writing for the majority culture, but it did strike me as ironic that the practical application of the book was geared totally towards White churches that are seeking to become multi-cultural. Ironic because it doesn't really seem like a multi-cultural approach.

What I am struggling with is the tension between ethnic-specific ministry and multi-cultural ministry. I see the need for both. (Throw in multi-socio-economic factors, and you get a picture of what my ideal church looks like.)

Is this a question about being relevant? Am I unsatisfied with ethnic-specific churches because they don't accurately reflect their surrounding communities (in cities that I live in, like Shoreline, WA)? Or is it about being prophetic, staying true to the vision we see in the book of Acts and Revelation?

To be quite honest, one of the reasons why I desperately desire a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-socio-economic church is because of evangelism. I remember when I was back in youth group. Zealous as I was, I wanted to invite a few of my high school friends out to church. They were and still are good friends of mine. But they aren't Asian. And while they respectfully and graciously made their visits to my church, there was no place for someone like them. It had made my heart heavy to realize that as much as I could pray for them, I did not have a church that I would even feel comfortable welcoming them into and having them call it home.

Yes, there are many Asian Americans that still need reaching out to, still need to be welcomed to the church. And there are many that have left the church as well. But perhaps if those Asian Americans saw a church that practiced reconciliation and that more accurately reflected the communities they live and work in, maybe there would be more that would come.

Everyday I meet people in coffeeshops, at the grocery store, in and around my neighborhood, who have a relationship with me but don't have a relationship with Jesus. And I want to invite them to church, but feel somewhat hindered by the fact that my congregation is entirely Asian American. In other words, our homogeneity, while a strength in building a church home, seems to be a detriment to being gracious hosts. Our homogeneity affects our hospitality. It also affects our theology. (A tangent that deserves another post: what happens to your spirituality if your communities on Monday-Saturday look different from your Sunday morning community?) And this should not be.

What, then, is our way forward? One church, homogeneous? Help.

I need plastic surgery

The Asian concept of saving-face is a kind of face-lift.

And like face-lifts, there is a specific aspect to saving-face that has always struck me as odd. It is in the realm of gifts. I didn't know what all the hubbub was about. When somebody brought over a gift, there was always an outcry, something like "oh, you really didn't have to do that!" And there was the initial refusal, the vigorous thrusting of the gift back into the hands of the giver, and only when the giver nearly appeared insulted, was the gift reluctantly received.

A gift tiff, if you will.

It took me several years (and I am still learning how) to say the words "thank you" whenever anyone gave me a gift, even a compliment. I began to wonder if I was never taught this elegant solution for fear it might seem like I wouldn't take the gift seriously enough. Of course, all the noise drew more attention to the recipient than the gift, or the giver for that matter! Or if it was because we didn't want to feel indebted to the giver because of the gift. Gifts always came with strings attached.

(Ironically, "gift" in German means "poison.")

But I am wondering, and I think C. S. Lewis would agree (cf. "Weight of Glory"), if wanting to appear self-less is not the point. Being grateful is beautiful, because it shows a receptive heart.

My heart is still a shy host, unsure if gifts require something of me. I am conditioned to think that I must at least play puppet to the strings of the gift. So when something is given to me, I hide my blush, and vigorously prove that I should never receive such a gift, if only to show that I do not go down without a fronted fight. If only to show that even in receiving, I can still hold up my nose job of pride.