an endless cycle of beginnings and endings.

I have been trying this past 6 months or so to make North County my home. It’s been an interesting experience. I’ve had to mourn and cut myself off from things, people and places that have made me comfortable. But I have found that as I’ve come up here, there have been new experiences and joys that have made the pain of leaving worth the reward of entering.

However, I’ve encountered a new phenomenon lately. I’ve watched my new “home” begin to change. It is an obvious but strange occurence that change happens… in the places you’ve left and the places you’ve entered.  This strangeness slapped me in the face today, when I found out that the Smart & Final down the street that I go to for party supplies told me today that they are closing. My Myers-Briggs NF started to kick in and there was this strange heavy sentimentality that overwhelmed me. And I’ve had to say goodbye to many more things than stores. Closed doors. Relationships. Friends. Familiarity. “Home”. There were times in my life where I felt like I couldn’t stop mourning- I would finally finish mourning the loss of something, and then another thing would disappear from my life and the cycle just kept going.

But perhaps my experience of mourning so much (I’m not sure if it’s from an unhealthy disposition towards holding onto things too much or if i’ve really just been in a position to have to say goodbye to that many things) fits so much with community colleges. We watch people leave all the time. I watch my leaders leave so quickly- some to transfer, some back home, some back home to God. The student body seems so transitional, and I find myself really resenting it sometimes. It is easy to be in a constant state of mourning because of all the people I’ve seen who come and go. I can never hold very tight to things, and it often frustrates me. MiraCosta seems to be in an endless state of flux, constantly having to say goodbye to each new thing I’ve encountered, surrendered to the reality that I can’t keep things how I want them to be forever.

I’ve found, though, that the mourning is only one side to reality. As constant as the reality of mourning and the leaving is, the reality of the birth and new beginnings are just as constant. In fact, more constant. Hardly a dualism between death and regeneration, I’m starting to see that the movement of healing, redemption, hope and birth might just have the ability to completely overwhelm our experience of death and mourning.

As quickly as I see people leave, new people come. As quickly as God takes away, he gives again, better.  At least that’s what I have to have faith for. Sometimes, in our present and past realities of brokenness, it is hard to see the present and future healing and redemption. But it is faith in that present and future reality of wholeness where we will no longer have to say goodbye that continues to drive me forward. These days, I find that I am no longer surrounded by death, but by the Kingdom of God ready to be birthed everywhere I look. I am challenged to see hope and life behind every disappointment and death.

The Smart & Final is leaving but in its place is a Henry’s, one of my favorite grocery stores. I can’t dwell on losing my discount bulk supplier, when what I get in exchange is a store with fresh produce, organic stuff and tons of more awesomeness.

made it.

A lot of things happened this week. Some were miracles. Some were disappointments. Some were mistakes. Some were funny. Some deserved anger.

It has felt like a month compressed into one week. I’m not sure how I made it, but I did. And I can’t be thankful enough.

Protected: Old heartaches through new eyes

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A short reminder to self…

I have to stop and remind myself of some things in this season of fundraising…

Fundraising is not an obstacle. It is a means to growth, it is a refinery of character, it is a place where God forges radical faith and hope.

It is what reminds me to not be independent, it is a symbol of community.

It is not a downgrade in power, but an invitation to bring others into the sweeping current of God’s Kingdom that I have the privelege to experience.

It is not begging for money, but is receiving God’s provision. It is a message of hope to those that partner with me, not a message of burden.

It is not dependent on the health of the economy, but rests solely on God’s identity as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.

Keep my heart dependent on You, as I am often fall easily into hopelessness. Give me faith and increase my faith to see you provide for me. Help me remember that I am Your son, who is loved by You, and that You never lead me into places where you will forget me.

amen.

post-intellectualism

It troubles me how much intelligent conversation is used as a distraction from loving others. It’s all TALK. Do we veer close to the edge where we have philosophized about love so much that we have forgotten how to actually do so? I am not against intellectualizing. I’m just scared that in our attempts to not be lemmings that walk off cliffs, we’ve become apathetic and just sat there without budging… waiting for ourselves to think ourselves out of our problems.

I’m so tired of people who feel that thinking will solve their problems. I spent 4 years relying on my thought and my ability to sound eloquent expressing that thought… and found myself in this intellectual ivory tower (more like a glass and concrete library in the shape of a tree) that was high out of reach from relevancy.

I’ve seen long conversations go full circle. And it’s troubling to see how cyclic they can become. It’s part of our scientific process that was born out of a disillusion with faith during the enlightenment… but what happens when you’ve become disillusioned with a disillusion?

I know people who suspect I’ve totally abandoned rationality. I haven’t. It’s just that at the end of it all… the deepest and most mysterious truths are the simplest. And they should be kept that way. there’s no breaking them down…faith. hope. love. i’ve tried. Breaking them down just leaves them… torn apart, without power. Understood, but turned into the latest science experiment, not something that changes and guides me at a deep level.

I don’t want to be guided by my own analysis. That just leaves me within a yuppy heaven (or hell)- in smoky independently owned coffee shops sipping from a cup and trying to look as emo as possible. There’s something deeper. There’s something beyond my ability to analyze. my analysis, intellectualism and philosifization can be the springboard into it, but it is not the ends.

Concerning age

Coming home always puts certain things in perspective, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

I was standing in line with my dad at Starbucks today. Behind us were a group of people from the class below me from my high school. I remembered them and the classes i had with them, but I did not remember their names, so I stood silent and listened as they carried along their conversation. “Well, I was just talking to Chris, and he says ‘STAY IN SCHOOL’. I think it’s stupid. He’s hiding. I mean, look, I work at Google now, you work with finance now… why do we need grad school for anything?” Then a haughty laugh. Man. I forgot how it was to be from Lynbrook Highschool, where success was already guaranteed to you just for going to the high school. I glanced back, and saw them dressed as if they were in their thirties already. I looked at myself. In a sweater jacket, a funny shirt, jeans and flip flops. All of a sudden, I just felt immature and silly. I just did not want to even try to start conversation to relearn their names anymore. I felt a strange shame, in that I was still a little kid, and not doing adult things. It’s strange to explain to these people who have grown up in the silicon valley with success as their destiny why I have chosen my path. And doing student ministry often feels as if I’m just doing some youthful splurge because I am trying to run away from adulthood. In reality, yes, there is much to be proud of my job. But when standing next to these people with their 100 grand jobs who expected me to do the same is just strange and jarring.

But simultaneously, in these last few weeks, this old feeling has started to overwhelm me, strangely dissonant with the feelings of immaturity I feel around these old high school friends. I have prayed with friends with diseases that shouldn’t be plaguing them at this age and don’t cure. I have had to sit with my grandma as she shows me her sugar level logs, stained with blood from the pricks in her finger and stomach she has to do everyday. I have had to speak at a memorial for a student who just recently passed away. I just recently had to sit bedside with a friend just a year older than I, who had just gone through his first batch of chemo treatments for cancer. I have been telling people that I have been feeling strangely old.

I was at a prayer meeting with the Mandarin congregation at my church up in San Jose. I told the two older ladies in my group that, “我觉得神要我的心长大很快。“ (I feel God wants my heart to grow very fast). I am growing up. But not in the way they predistined me to grow up during my time at Lynbrook where they laughed at me for not applying to any Ivy League schools and scratched their heads when I told them I was choosing to go to UCSD over UCLA. Age and maturity does not come with a big salary, big title or the fulfillment of a destiny of entitlement. Instead of entitlement, the maturity comes with a call to always find joy in the times of grief. To be inspired by my friend’s enduring faith that God will heal her even though we’ve prayed for it every week. To see the smile in my grandma’s face to see me with her poor vision and that her grandson has visited her. To see the joy that overrides grief at my student’s memorial as there was more laughter than tears when people saw the loving and cheerful impact he made at MiraCosta. To say goodbye to my friend who just finished with chemo in higher spirits than when we first got there. The grief is overwhelming. But the joy I see in the midst of all of this is inexplicable and unstoppable.

As I am in this airport pondering the “Kingdom that is here, but not yet”, I realizing that the “age and maturity” dictated by my Silicon Valley upbringing can just ring so hollow at times. Underneath this muddy and young exterior of jeans, a funny t-shirt, a sweater jacket and flip flops, perhaps there are diamonds of maturity being formed.

I have been realizing that as we grow up, God does not toy with us and manipulate us into His plan at our expense… but He brings us into something so undeniably and ravishly beautiful, that the pull of the grief, pain and shame of our path is but miniscule compared to the compelling gravity of His love and joy that endlessly pursues us. The joy and redemption is worth something, the scars are there, but the life we receive renders them as just marks of God’s grace.

The road is more painful and doesn’t feel as glorious, but it is irresistably filled with more of the grace of maturity than I could have ever deserved.

A Couple of Pictures

Open Heavens Again

My Latest Painting

_____________

Catalina

letters to God from a very conflicted and undecided voter.

God, I feel a battle over my opinions. Each side paints a foreboding picture of a society not living up to the standards of Your kingdom.

God, I’ve been telling people that You don’t want us to be on the extremes of either side, but to be incarnational in our votes- that we would vote on behalf of others, and stand in the shoes of those these laws affect- on both sides. My ideas of true objectivity as actually the culmination of the hypersubjectivity of compassion are so good on paper and in speech… but now I find myself torn, distraught, and without peace. It’s because the challenge is so much greater than sharing in the joy and pain of all people, but it’s pushing even further to hearing what is on YOUR heart. You hold true objectivity in Your hands, You created each individual subjectivity, You know what must be done to best heal heal us, to best make us whole.

God, as we vote, may we be at peace that Your Kingdom is not reliant on any law or person in power. Your kingdom is much more subversive than that, much more powerful than that. Your Kingdom moves forward with grace and mercy no matter our just or injust decisions. Yes or No on prop 8, Obama or McCain, *YOU* are the one that is in charge. Even if they are the “wrong” decisions, you have the power to bring about justice and mercy even when laws say the opposite.

No matter what happens in this election, I know that You still call me to one person at a time, one moment at a time, to witness Your kingdom spring up from the ground. One thing i know for sure- there is no urgency… at least the urgency we think there is. So many people tell me, along with myself saying this, that this is an urgent time to vote. In a sense yes, but we speak of this urgency as if You are not in control. We speak of urgency in a way that if we vote one way, the our moral fabric will be torn apart, and if we vote the other way, God’s compassionate message of love will be permanently undermined.

Yes, I still want to fight for just decisions. I still believe that there is an urgency. But this urgency becomes manipulated by the enemy when we let the urgency control us instead of our trust in the Lord. Our radical actions of and intercession of mercy and justice must be accompanied by radical, perspective shifting contemplation on the One who holds divine wisdom.

So God, as I step into that voting booth, may I do so out of trust in Your justice, mercy, love and power. May you be the only voice I listen to. May every decision I make as one citizen out of millions be grounded in You and in the ways of Your unstoppable Kingdom, of which my true citizenry lies.

amen.

Isaiah 58

This has been so heavy on my heart today… God  have mercy on us.

True Fasting

1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.

3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness ^[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

14 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Unfair

I went to a black gospel church today with one of my students (which was really awesome. It struck some chords that have not been struck for a while… but that’s for another entry). A conversation really caught me off guard. I told a guy I was living in Carlsbad. He laughed and told me he got close, but “they” won’t let him live there. I laughed, telling him how guilty I felt (which is usually my comedy line when I tell people where I live). We both agreed I should count my blessings, with plenty of laughter in between.

What’s funny is that as I was driving back home, and crossed highway 78 from Oceanside to Carlsbad, I really did feel guilty. It didn’t feel like a joke tonight. It might actually be reality.

But I remembered what the guy said to me- “count your blessings”.

Just be thankful, and live fully, love fully. Sometimes, though, it’s so hard to live in such a broken yet beautiful world. My dad used to tell me I had to just accept that the world isn’t fair (”The world isn’t fair, Daniel”, as i wondered why my sister got the cooler toy (ha don’t worry, i have no bitterness, charissa)). But sometimes I wonder if it was meant and created to be unfair…

How do I love people on both sides of the unfairness? How do I remain in between and retain my sanity? My identity must rest in God, He is the only one who can empower me to love the rich and the poor at the same time in a community where the rich and the poor live so near one another (almost literally like “across the train tracks…” except it’s a freeway). I feel like I have a rich mask and then a poor mask, depending on which part of the Tricity area I’m in (and it’s ironic my mom came from a rich family and my dad came from a poor family). But God rips apart the masks and reveals that my identity (and the members of this community’s identities) is not rested upon social standing, but upon his passionate and unrelenting love for all of them- rich or poor.

The sunset over the ocean that I can see from our giant windows… is so beautiful, but so broken, because only the priveleged can view it from where I live. I know I must not be swallowed by guilt, but the question still haunts me… Is this sunset worth it? How can I share it?