Couple in Cheonggyecheon

I took these cute pictures of a couple kissing on one of the Cheonggyecheon bridges, while I was out with my buddy taking video of the Christmas lights last week.  It took some color altering to actually see the couple, but I still think they're nice photos.

Still alive, but...

Re-watched Thunderball, the old James Bond movie.

Ate breakfast at a W Hotel.

Narrowly avoided sunstroke.

Saw 40 different kinds of fish.

Life is good in Roboseyoland, but once things settle down a bit more, I'll be back to blogging as usual.

So far, the leader in the "Girlfriendoseyo needs a new nickname" sweepstakes is Selorm (seconded by Kushibo) with "Chagiseyo" - but I'll have to check with the official "updated romanization" whether I'll be using "Jagiseyo" or "Chagiseyo" or something else suggested by someone else in the comments, that's even better.

And now... it's Chagiseyo's birthday, and I have to get some stuff ready.

Stay joyful, dear readers.

Here's my mood right now.
Those who came to the wedding know why.  Chagiseyo's learning the words now.  The three times she's funniest are when she's singing, and when she's half-drunk.



Wedding and honeymoon photos later, once the huge mass of them (two different cameras) get processed.


Until then... Joy wrote up a nice little post about my wedding, which you can read. Thanks, Joy. I'd also like to take this moment to publicly thank Chris in South Korea for the photos he privately sent me of the wedding. Chagiseyo loved them, and sends along her thanks, too.

Advent Post: How I Almost Decided to Hate God, Authenticity, and why One Sufjan Stevens does More Good Than The Entire CCM Industry... Part 2

(and that's just the title!)


OK. They say well begun is half-done, so what does it mean that I’ve started this post five times now?

You can hit play and start reading...but I almost want to encourage you to just listen to the song without any interruptions once, and be moved by it before you hit replay, and THEN start reading. The song deserves it.

Holy Holy Holy, by Sufjan Stevens.


Sufjan Stevens is an artist. He makes music. He writes songs with a delicacy and creativity that stays constantly intriguing. He tells stories that are easy to care about. Whether the events he sings about are true or fiction, I don’t know, but he sings about them honestly. And I would, in a heartbeat, will the entire Christian Contemporary Music industry out of existence, in order for one other artist like him to come into being.

While I have other issues with the Christian Contemporary Music industry that I won’t get into here, one of the fatal flaws in it is, in my opinion, that it exists at all. See, by the sheer existence of a genre, a label, and even separate shops to sell Christian music, a very clear line has been drawn between Music For God and Music For Everything Else.

I have seen this same false binary drawn in the characters and philosophies of a number of religious people I’ve known. They seem to delineate the parts of their life into Things Of God and Things Of The World. Here: I’ll give you some examples: yeah, it’s a bit of a caricature, but what ya gonna do?

How Roboseyo Lived His Life Until 2002:

Things of God
Church
Bible Study
My mind/spirit/soul
My friendship with John (who’s a good Christian)
My friendship with Janice (I’m trying to get her to come to Church with me)
1/3 of my music collection (the CCM stuff and the classical stuff by Bach, because he wrote “to the glory of God” at the end of his compositions)

Things of The World
The R-Rated Movies I own, including three with nudity
My coworker Jeff (who swears, and doesn’t believe in God)
My body (especially the parts that excrete things)
2/3 of my music collection (the devil music)
My job (money is Of This World, but you gotta eat)
The “dirty” pictures on my hard drive, which I periodically delete because I feel guilty, but then find more
My favorite restaurant (I should give that money to the poor, and it’s a fleshly indulgence, and I should fix my mind on higher things, not animal pleasures like food, but it’s just so darn good)

and the thing is, by drawing a circle around Things of God, and keeping them separate, Things of God are slowly painting themselves into a corner, a little niche so specific that it’s no longer relevant to anybody’s life. I wrote a poem once that described it as a leviathan trapped in a well. I mean, come on. Who except Christians listens to Christian Contemporary Music? And why do THEY listen to it? Because it’s comforting and comfortable, (usually) not because it’s making them think about new things or pushing the envelope, either musically or lyrically. Most praise songs are written to be easy for a near-novice to learn how to play on guitar, so that church bands can sing them without throwing the amateur praise leaders for a loop. The lyrics? Don’t get me started.

sidenote: please do not confuse Christian Contemporary Music with Sacred Music.

For a simple explanation:
Christian Contemporary Music, or my personal (un)favorite: "I could repeat this line forever"
Sacred Music:

(Ave Maria, by Shubert)


But the problem is this: the more I think about it, the more I reject this kind of reductionist view of the world. Compartmentalizing things might make them easier to manage, but it’s just not true to life. (and yeah, I know this is a bit of a straw man argument, and I’ve unfairly characterized/simplified the binary here. You don’t have to tell me that. There may even be some CCM artists worth their salt, but I’m just not ready to wade through the rest to find them. Sorry.)

Back to Sufjan Stevens. He sings about God. He drops a reference to bible study into his song, he met the girl after church one day. He also sings about serial killers, ex-presidents, leukemia, Santa Claus, and cities he’s visited, and lakes, and it’s all one. It’s all Sufjan, and the spiritual stuff is in contact with all the other topics he sings about, and when it does come into play, it’s all the more surprising for its appearance, like a flashbulb at midnight, or an unexpected hint of lemongrass in a stirfry, BECAUSE it’s in the mix with everything else, and not segregated, the way Elvis made Gospel Albums, and Rock Albums, and nary the two should mix. This means all Sufjan’s work shimmers with this sensitivity, everything is enhanced by his spirituality, and we end up with this feeling that the guy down the street is sacred, is just as sacred as the altar at the front of the church, even.  And it's not affected, there are no strings attached: he never stops singing and says, "Well, now that I've got your attention, I'd like to tell you a story about a man who lived a long time ago..." with that "I know what's best for you" tone that's so off-putting.

This is what Franny wanted to realize when she tried to Pray Without Ceasing in Franny and Zooey. It’s what Zooey was driving at when he said, “There isn’t anybody out there who isn’t the fat lady” and later, “Don’t you know who that fat lady is?. . . It’s Christ himself.”

And that’s what spirituality is like. Or should be like, I think: if I have to draw a line around what’s spiritual and what isn’t, then the sacred, the holy, well, yeah, it has a pretty space, when I go there, but for the rest, it kind of doesn’t affect my life, does it?

So I haven’t been to church in a year. I’ve been in churches. Some beautiful churches, churches built for God’s Glory, and been moved by the way the architect did his work as an act of worship. But not during a 9 a.m. church service, not with hymns, organs, announcements, a sermon, handshakes with strangers, and a closing song. Not where we orally read bible passages or creeds in call and response.

And saying this will cause a great deal of concern for some of my family back home. They might think I’m falling away from God, but they’d be wrong.

You see, I have met God this year, and spent time with her in a zillion places. In Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry and JD Salinger's books. In the laugh I unintentionally got out of an old lady while goofing off for girlfriendoseyo, in the mountainsides of Gyungsan province on the train to Andong, in the Korean fireworks and the jjim dalk. In the bamboo forest. In a Korean Traditional performance, and in Blue, by Joni Mitchell. In me and my best friend finishing each-other’s sentences, or making the same wise-crack at the same time, while our significant others watch, bemused. In this incredible meal at a two-person restaurant near Dongguk University. In a musical bliss-out, and a lot of caramel macchiatos. In cherry blossoms and fall colors and pigeons scattering as the kid runs out to catch them. In telling stories with a few old Canadian boys over beers. In a coffee shop near Inwang Mountain, in sunlight waking me up through my curtains, in a brilliant witticism from a level one student, in a little girl on the subway who became my friend in five seconds, in smooching with girlfriendoseyo.

I have found the community of God’s people and the exhilaration of minds meeting in truth in conversations with pastors’ wives, atheists, muslims, Christians (with a big c), christians (with a small c) pantheists and buddhists, in the bible, in books of poetry, in the Dalai Lama’s teaching, and in some photography that moved me. In watching a person make the friends she needed to survive in Korea, in seeing my best friend be goofy-in-love with his wife. And you can’t discount that. You can’t discount any of that: if that stuff’s not sacred, then nothing is, and if I’m not allowed to appreciate its sacredness, I don’t want to hear what else you have to say about what is and isn't holy and worthy of my startled wonder. Again, from JD Salinger’s “Seymour, An Introduction,” “Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one piece of holy ground to the next. Is he NEVER wrong?”

This is the world, this is life, and God made all of it, and it is wonderful, and seeing that and appreciating it is an act of worship, and an act of thanks, if ever there was one, and if you tell me it’s not, if you tell me I’m not as close to God as I once was, because I haven’t gone to Church, or if you ask me about my journey not to hear about it, but to evaluate it, and judge whether I'm checking the right boxes and will still get to heaven...

I’ll change the topic, dodge the questions, or say what you want to hear and move on, because frankly, you’re not God, and I don’t need anybody but her to approve my journey before I can be sure that me and the hep-cat upstairs are square.

So when I wanted to pray for Sally, instead of rejecting God altogether, sure, you can call that the Holy Spirit calling... I’ll accept that. And yeah, when people tell their stories in Church, about how God pulled them back to The Fold after they’d wandered far, they invoke the Holy Spirit too, but somehow, the Holy Spirit isn’t leading me to the place everyone expects, when somebody tells a story like that, and I'm not going to retroactively revise the story in order to fit the normal testimony arc.  Starting my spiritual narrative on a half-truth is pretty shaky, if you ask me.  I still don’t know just where I'm going, except that one: God ain't through with me yet, and I'm not through with God, and two: I’m still moving, and listening, and trying to become Who I Really Am (which is another way of saying Who God Created Me To Be, for those of you who prefer blogs to be written in Christianese). Honestly, if the journey keeps going like this, full of learning, growth, change, and spackles of beauty all over the place, I'd even argue that Getting Home is overrated.

So I was tempted to say I’m taking the long way home... and that phrase gives me an excuse to put this lovely, lovely Tom Waits song, which had a lot of meaning for me in 2006, into the post. (Soundtrack: hit play and keep reading: The Long Way Home, by Tom Waits [later covered by Norah Jones. He did it first.])


but I don’t think it’s about getting home anymore: as I said in last year's advent post, when I wrote about recovering from grief:  

Maybe some honest stumbling about in the woods IS an act of worship, and by being OK with that, or even celebrating that, it might even become a celebration of the fact we need never cease our search for meaning, that every part of our life can continue being deepened and enriched, long after we stop feeling sad.

So, you know, I haven’t turned my back on God. I just don’t think that’s how things work. See, saying I’ve switched from Christianity to Buddhism (as I did on April Fools’ Day) doesn’t really wash to me either, because that’s just a label, and my label can’t change the way my mind has been wired for 29 years now, how my character has been put together. It seems to me, switching which book I read for my morning meditation and which building I visit to worship, balanced against the sheer mass and inertia of my 29 years of life and thought and choice-making, is about as fundamental a change as painting my black car red, and saying it’s a new one. I’ll still be the same guy, either way, I’ll still treat strangers the same way, and follow the same steps to solve a problem, and be moved to a place of sacredness, meditation, or elevation by the same things. I don’t even think it’s possible to turn my back on God: she’s been woven into my cloth too intricately, and I wouldn’t want her out anyway. Instead, I think it’s more accurate to say that God has spilled out of The Church Space, and started making every part of my life shine, exalted and transubstantiated entire tracts of what used to be The World, and soaked them with holiness. Jeez, guys, God is way bigger now than she used to be...and quite a bit awesomer, too, to be honest.

This song was also on Sufjan Stevens' Christmas album.  (Seriously, go and buy it.  You can download it for free, but you should buy it, so that you're supporting the artist.)  I'd listened through the album a few times, but then one night I was walking around Gyungbok Palace with girlfriendoseyo, and we were sharing the MP3 player in that cheesy way couples do in Korea, and this song came on, and in the dark and cold, walking with my lady, the gentle beauty of Sufjan Stevens' songs, about all kinds of holiday topics, led us to a point where I was finally ready to be moved by this song again.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing


And the a cappella verse moved me to tears that night: somehow the bottom dropped out of this Christmas album, and it went from some very nice Christmas music to a moving experience.  It has stayed in that wonderful place since, and I've been listening to it like an addict.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

I went home after that night, and watched the Youtube video of "Holy Holy Holy" before bed (the same one that started out this post), and again, was moved right to tears, and God was absolutely in the room, saying, "Our story's not finished yet, pal." There's no way I can walk away from that. Absolutely no way. Yeah, the way I worship now looks way different from how it looked five or seven years ago, but more places shine now than then, more of the world is sacred and beautiful now than then, and God is way, way bigger now. Where we go from here, I don't know. Whether I talk about it with a single soul in the universe remains to be seen...though I wouldn't be surprised if God and I saw fit to keep it mum, it being only between us anyway.

To the people who are missing me and thinking of me this Christmas: merry Christmas. I miss you too.

To everybody else who was patient enough to read this whole thing. . . wow. Good on ya. And merry Christmas to you, too.

love
Roboseyo

From an Owlish Angel

From my dear friend Tamie's blog:

Last night I was talking to one of my best friends, someone I've come to trust deeply over years of being in the kind of conversation that is woven into our whole lives. . . .We were talking about self-perceptions, and how they compare to how others perceive us. I often perceive myself to be....all these negative things, but according to my friend, this is not how my friends perceive me. . . . I'm writing about how almost all of us do this very thing all the time, and how just sad it is, maybe more than anything.

If we knew that we were loved, it would change everything, wouldn't it? What if for one day you were granted some kind of supernatural power so that you could feel just how much people loved you? (I feel like I know what so many of us would fear--we wouldn't want to be granted that supernatural power because we'd be so afraid that people are secretly annoyed and disgusted by us. And this is precisely the point.) But people do love temporally and imperfectly. But if we knew that we were loved, absolutely and eternally, that we are always always inside endless love....well, yep, that would change everything.

Why, tell me why, is this so damn hard to really get a hold on? Why are we bumbling around in these illusions, so convinced that we're on the cusp of being cut off, when in fact we're fairly swimming in love? Jesus. In those brief moments when I know that I am loved, through and through and through, then I am completely free. And in those moments it becomes suddenly clear to me just how not-free I am most of the time. How I am missing the joys of my life, missing the glorious cosmic dance. Not because I'm not a part of it, but because I'm deaf to just how much of a part of it I am. I can't hear that the music is everywhere.

And even in this, in my deafness and illusions, I am loved. Oh, but how I wish that I could know it, live it, all the time. Know what I mean, dear readers? Know what I mean?

Okay, enough said for now. Time for yoga.

Thanks, Tamie.

My Hero.

My Mom's dad (we call him Opa, the Dutch word for grandfather) has made one of the main tasks of his retirement to write a family history. He started off with the life story of HIS father (my grandfather), which he published at a little, family publishing house (the kind of place that prints out genealogies and small-scale projects) to hand out to his kids and grandkids. I received my copy when I was sixteen, and (being sixteen) had no clue yet of the importance of roots and heritage. Too busy finding out who I was, I didn't have time to wonder about where I was from yet.

The man himself: my hero, Opa Boonstra:


Later, I worked for two summers as a guide at a heritage museum, and started to learn about the importance of history, and what a resource our elders are, simply through the stories that have given their lives meaning. I spent two summers hearing older folks come through the museum talking about who they were, and how things are changing, and what still stays the same. Sure, these thoughts are nothing you can't find in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but it's amazing how the technology, the methods, and the setting change so dramatically, but we human beings are STILL just trying to figure out who we are and what we're doing, struggling to connect, to know and be known, and to feel like our lives were worth something, carving out a place in this world, like writing our names in water (kudos to John Keats for that one).

I read that book finally when I was about twenty-four, just a little while before we found out my mom had stomach cancer. I was touched and moved by what, ultimately, read (to me) as a tender and admiring tribute to my Opa's father. What a blessing for the whole family, that we can have that story written down, as a piece of our heritage, that those stories will not be forgotten in time. It was an act of love for my grandfather to write a history of his father, both for his father, and for his children and grandchildren: he gave us the gift of knowing where we are from (or at least being able to).

Here in Korea, families have amazing, long genealogies -- during the Korean war, one of my students told me how, as his family escaped their burning house in North Korea, fleeing the approaching Communist Troops, his grandfather ran back into the house to rescue the family genealogy. I shook my head in wonder, and he told me "It goes back thirty generations". Cripes!

North America, because of the immigrant culture, doesn't really think too much of Genealogies -- especially when a lot of people are like my sister-in-law: "Irishambodiargentinianativenglisherpa" or, as she charmingly says, "Heinz 57". At best in North America, unless your progenitor rode the mayflower, genealogies are a hobby. However, in reading my Grandfather's memoir, I realized that for many Canadians, especially second or third generation immigrants, the story of "How We Came To Canada" (or America) is as important a part of our self-stories as Koreans' "Your five-times-great grandfather served in the court of King Wi-na, but was executed during a purge when the next king took the throne". In that respect, as my friend Tamie says, I bow to my grandfather's effort to keep our family story alive, to make sure it is not forgotten in the past, as those who experienced it die away.

The memoir includes stories of living through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and in the second volume, my Oma (grandmother) tells her story, too, and shares the fear her family felt when her father went off to fight the Nazis, and went several weeks unaccounted for. I read how my mother was born, how they built their first house in stages, as they worked off the previous home-builder's bank loan and more funds became available to them (basement first, then frame, then electricity, septic tank? Grab a shovel! etc..)

I thank my grandparents for writing this down, committing it to paper, so that it will not be forgotten.

And for everyone who wonders whether the things they do to help others matter at all, here is an excerpt from early memories of my Grandmother's grandfather:

"Later on when [my Oma's] Opa had his own shoe shop, he would not charge people if they could not pay. People held him in great regard for that. When I (Marijke) was visiting in Shalom Manor [an old-age residence with many Dutch immigrants] in 2005, I met Mrs. Zeldenrust, who lived in Hoogkerk many years ago and had known Tante Grietje [my grandmother's aunt, I believe]. Mrs. Zeldenrust's son told me about Opa's generousity and how peope appreciated that. I was amazed to hear that story forty-one years after his death."

Forty-one years after his death, people still remember his acts of kindness and generousity. Sure, "Nazi Week" will garner more ratings on the Discovery Channel than "The Friendly Cobbler," but, dear readers, kindness IS noticed, and remembered, whether it's ever mentioned back to you or not.

My man Jesus said, "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is , there your heart will be also."

My personal favourite kindness CAN make a difference moment:



Les Miserables: a gracious act by the Bishop pulls a life out of the gutter and redeems a character who'd given up on himself; Jean Valjean goes on to become the greatest of grace-givers, thanks (though he might never have found out) to a kindness done by a bishop who'd been robbed, and would have been within his rights to send our man Jean back up the river where he came from.

(read the book. knocked my socks off. just read it -- Jean Valjean is one of my favourite characters anywhere, because of the way he incarnates grace to everyone around him)

Preach it.

Two thoughts, then download the album linked in the next post.

1. Konglish: there's a bar right next to my school called "Beer Valley"

that's harmless in itself, but because of Konglish, and the fact the Korean lettering system has no character that stands for "V", they've replaced the short "a" sound and the "v" sound, so that the phrase, when read aloud, could mean either "Beer Valley" or "Beer Belly".

makes me smile.

2. My lady, Girlfriendoseyo, is my new favourite spice: every food tastes better with her! (We had lunch together and it was great.)

Now go to yesterday's post, click on the link, and download the Havalina album -- seriously.

Part two: The Advent of Meaning. . . at least for one guy.

This is the second part of a two-part post. Please read the first part first, here.

Rilke again, 'cause dammit, he deserves to be read twice. (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

"How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage. . .
place and settlement, foundation and soil and home"
(still elegy number 10)

Another pitfall:

I am surprised and amazed at how impatient people who grieve can be, for their own wholeness (myself included). I am dismayed, but not quite as surprised, at how impatient OTHER people can be with mourners, dispensing Bible verses like medical prescriptions and declaring the issue done with. "Why are you still sad? I told you to give your grief to God a month ago!"

When Bruce Lee injured his back in 1970, he spent six months in bed, reading, because if he took a short-cut or rushed his recovery process, he would have put a ceiling on his own post-recovery ability, or worse, re-injured himself. The human body needs recovery time for injuries. That's just how it works. (Bonus points: I just compared myself to Bruce Lee! I kick ass!) Seriously, though, why do I think my heart would work any other way than the rest of me? The only part of me that can change quickly is my mind, and even then, the mind often has to wait for the heart to catch up -- that's why it was so hard to break up with exgirlfriendoseyo, even when I could see that we had no future.

I finally realized it's OK to say "actually, my life is pretty shitty right now," instead of "God is teaching me patience", when my friend wrote "I think God honours honesty more than anything else we try to give him" in an e-mail. I'll buy that. Isn't that what the entire book of Job is about: finding an honest answer instead of a quick answer? Also: thanks for that, Mel.

I believe an honest doubt honours God more than a blind faith, and waiting for real meaning is more beautiful, and more consecrated, than skipping to a rote, ready-made meaning, even if the quick answer comes in the form of a bible verse. I think an afternoon volunteering at an orphanage or a soup kitchen honours God more than either of those. (And helping others can do wonders for one's own hurt.)

During the dark, disappointed, meaningless parts, I found comfort remembering that during the wait for a messiah, God made Israel the nation it needed to be, not through a series of growing successes, but through a string of spectacular failures. (Don't believe me? Go read Numbers, Judges, and Chronicles.) Ditto for Saint Peter. The word Israel does not mean "He Who Has All His Shit Together" or "He Who's Squared Things Up With God". Israel means, "He Who WRESTLES with God," and what a wonderful name for a chosen people!

So after all that grief, after avoiding those false trails, where am I now? What meaning HAVE I found? Well, my ideas about God are very different than they used to be, and I think that's a good thing. There's a lot more honesty in the mix now, and a lot more knowledge of my weaknesses.

I no longer think of faith as a helicopter, lowering a ladder from the sky, to rescue me from my griefs -- I think now that faith is more like a walking companion, someone with well-worn shoes and holes in the knees, who doesn't always know the way, and certainly doesn't have all the answers, but who'll point out a root across the path, or pick me up after I trip on it, who makes interesting observations about the trail, who'd have my back in a pinch, and who's always good company. No, he doesn't make the path shorter, but at least he makes the time pass faster, and maybe from time to time, he just happens to have an umbrella when I really need one, or a pocketknife, or a joke that helps me laugh through a windstorm. In my diary, four months before my mom died, I wrote "I want a faith like a steel cable: tough, flexible, and useful." Maybe I'm closer to that now than I was before, but I'm not out of the woods yet.

I'm beginning to think it's OK not to be out of the woods, maybe that's not a statement of despair, but a statement of hope, hope that there's still more to be learned, if I keep myself open to learning. Maybe admitting "I'm not out of the woods yet" authentically IS the best thing I can come away with, and maybe The Lesson I've Learned is that life doesn't fit in boxes, nor needs to: Things I've Figured Out quickly become Prejudices, if I decide I don't have to keep thinking about them. Maybe some honest stumbling about in the woods IS an act of worship, and by being OK with that, or even celebrating that, it might even become a celebration of the fact we need never cease our search for meaning, that every part of our life can continue being deepened and enriched, long after we stop feeling sad.

"Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,
let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart
fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,
or a broken string. . . .
How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you."

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, Tenth Elegy, Opening)

I wrote this for Tamie's Advent blog, but I'll post it here in two parts.

Without advent, Christmas arrives through the side door, and startles me while I'm brushing my teeth for bed. With advent, it enters with fanfare, as the culmination and final satisfaction of a month-long buildup. Opening presents is the fun of Christmas, but lighting candles and reading Isaiah, looking forward to something just beyond my fingertips, is the feeling of Christmas.

Waiting is the most underrated, quickly-forgotten experience-enhancer: nothing improves a food's taste more than hunger, yet nobody thinks fondly back on hovering by the oven door, sniffing for the smell of roast turkey: caroling, presents, stuffing and snowball fights monopolize our nostalgia. Advent, though, is soaked in waiting, it drips with anticipation.

So many of us live our lives between our reach and our grasp, waiting for. . . something, and the thing between my reach and my grasp for the last two years was another very human thing: meaning.

Meaning is the rope that lashes us to the pier. It's the string wound out, that will lead me back out of the maze after battling the minotaur. "Man's Search For Meaning," (highly recommended) by Victor Frankl (a concentration camp survivor), says that meaning has the power to make any ordeal bearable, as long as we can firmly believe that our trial brings us closer to a greater goal.

Losing meaning is a scary thing - people lash out and lose rationality when their lives' meaning is merely DISPARAGED (when somebody says, "You should quit your job and raise kids" or "Just a house-mom? I thought you'd amount to more than that" hackles rise, fast. As for religious debate -- well, nobody ever strapped a bomb on his body to prove "Pet Sounds" is better than "Sergeant Pepper"). To actually lose meaning is downright terrifying -- how do you measure anything when you don't trust your own reference points anymore? Friedrich Nietzsche described it this way:

"We have left the land and have embarked! We have burned our bridges behind us - indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us! Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean. . . but. . . you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. . . and there is no longer any 'land'!"

In the space of six months from late 2005 to early 2006, I lost my mother, the woman I'd intended to marry, and several other things that were crucial to the person I believed myself to be. When my mom died of stomach cancer at age 53, I was at her deathbed. Being right there to hear her stop breathing was like being at ground zero of a meaning-grenade blast. Later, breaking up with the girl I loved was another such blast. By April 2006, every mooring was loose - I had the rope in my hand, but the other end wasn't tied anywhere! I was like a cat in zero gravity.



(hee hee hee)

The layers of meaning that had kept me warm were torn off like shrapnel shredding a winter coat, and nobody can survive winter, naked in the snow. But, I also didn't want to drape myself about with the nearest rags, overestimate my preparedness, head into the storm, and freeze anyway.

When it comes to searching for meaning, "Any port in a storm," is not enough, and I didn't want to short-circuit my own search for meaning. The German poet Rilke (one of my best friends), says, in his tenth Duino Elegy,

"How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage. . .
place and settlement, foundation and soil and home"

Sure, things were going badly, but I didn't want to squander my hours of pain, to short-cut through them and thus waste them, if I could instead come through them richer, deep green with tough foliage, rooted with place, foundation and home.

See, sometimes it seems like the world takes a perverse pleasure in poking our softest spots (it actually doesn't: sometimes life sucks, but it's nothing personal. Just trust me on this one). Faced with disillusionments that are sometimes sudden and forceful, like a nuclear bomb, and other times slow and soul-sapping, like a trench war, short cuts are easier than gritting teeth and gutting through life's challenges. Bad ports are rife in the storm, and inviting.

To boot. . .

I used to say things like, "God is teaching me patience." There's nothing wrong with saying that, and sometimes there's deep truth there. Sometimes, though, skipping to the lesson one wants to learn from a situation is a way of hijacking any true learning that might have happened.

Consider this analogy: in university, I studied literature, and discovered that there's a huge difference between reading The Great Gatsby for its colour imagery, and actually reading the Great Gatsby, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it. Sure, if colour imagery (or Freudian symbolism, or power and gender relations: pick your essay topic from those listed on the handout) is what I'm looking for, I'll find it -- but if that's all I'm looking for, a lot of other things might pass me by.

I didn't want to be like Prince Humperdink (skip to 1:58 in the clip if you can), bellowing "Skip to the end!" instead of bearing through the full marriage ritual.



So, instead of "squandering my hours of pain", instead of just saying, "Skip to the end. . . say Man and Wife!" I wanted to dig in deep, and commit to every step of the journey through the dark valley -- because you never know which patch of mud in that valley has diamonds in it, especially if you're only scanning the tree-branches for silver apples, or thinking about the beef stew at the hostel on the other side.


Another shoddy port for the storm:

One Sunday, I heard a pastor tell a story about his brother-in-law being senselessly murdered in a parking lot by street thugs. The shock-power of the story silenced everyone, and the pastor intoned, "That story just proves that life is war. . . spiritual war," the theme of his sermon.

If that really was all he learned from his brother's death, what a narrow, embittering grief he must have had! And if it wasn't, I thought with outrage, how dare he exploit his brother-in-law's murder, using it as a prop for his own message, to shock people into listening! I wondered how many other themes he'd tacked onto that tragedy, and whether he realized his lurid tactics left such a sour taste.

It is wrong, and it trivializes a tragedy, to put a false meaning in, where one is waiting for a true meaning. The pastor who blamed the 9/11 attacks on the US Government's tolerance of gays ought to be. . .what's the religious leader's equivalent of disbarred? Publicly and loudly reproached, at least. Ditto for the pastors who blame the Colombine shootings on politicians' taking prayer out of school (did any of you get that e-mail forward, too?).

There are some situations in life where, when faced with such difficult realities, the only appropriate response is deep, sad, and searching silence. No parent who has lost a child deserves to have her child's death used as a political platform, and it dishonours my mother's death, and cheapens the entire rest of my journey, if I twist that tragedy to reinforce my own prejudices. I'd rather wait for something true. The meaning will come, but meaning can be like a shy cat: sometimes we have to stop yapping, clicking and beckoning, before it'll approach.


(part two. . .)

with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for

(the pictures are explained at the end of the post.)




Before I get into that:

a thought on music: the measure of a great songwriter, I think, is that other artists can take the song and do something interesting with it. (submitted for consideration: Bob Dylan songs, Beatles songs have been covered meaningfully [or otherwise] by so many artists. See also: jazz standards, where any artist can give it their own take. If your song has been covered by a jazz artist [or by more than one] you can console yourself that it's pretty darn well-written.)



but

the measure of a great musician, I realized today, is that people don't dare cover the song, because they know they could never measure up to the standard set by the original (or at least THE version) -- Every artist who sings "Hallelujah" will be measured against Jeff Buckley, every artist who sings "Watchtower" will be measured against Jimi Hendrix. Some bands just never have, like, ANY of their songs remade, because their musical identity is so unique that no artist could measure up. Really, who's gonna cover a Led Zeppelin song? You'll never top them, so why bother trying, unless you take it in such a different direction that it's barely the same song anymore, or only do it live, where Zep is sure to fire up a crowd? Even in jazz -- "My Funny Valentine" isn't done much anymore, because that's Chet's song, and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is cute, but you won't be as cute as Louis and Ella. Mark of a musician.



Next:

a Roboseyo observation on life:
Problem is, the worst 1% of a demographic is usually also the loudest.




OK then. Blog soundtrack time: hit play, and then read.



I don't know if this blog actually qualifies as a public forum. . . though theoretically it is, much in the same way you can hold up a sign on a street corner and people can choose to read it or not. . . maybe this blog is more like holding up a sign in an alley at night, I'm not sure how many people come here, really . . . nor whether anybody other than folks who used to be on my personal mailing list still care, but. . .




In going through my old e-mails from the year before, and then the year after Mom died (no small task: over 500 pages just from the five I e-mailed the MOST during that time) I've been struck, staggered, and humbled, by the amazing quality of friends I have.



The thoughts and emotions shared during that time were pretty raw, I was basically bleeding through e-mail a bunch of the time, and my friends (in descending order of number of pages sent back and forth) Tamie, Anna, Melissa, Matt and (before we broke up) Exgirlfriendoseyo really worked like a life buoy (or maybe a tourniquet) for me.





So here are some specific things I'm thankful for, concerning each of these friends:

(in descending order of pages)





Tamie - was my grief buddy. We were peripheral friends during University, but she stayed on my e-mailing list, and then suddenly, when Exgirlfriendoseyo and I broke up, she sent a letter so gentle and compassionate that we've since become good friends. We connected deeply and instantly for several reasons, but you'll just have to ask HER what they are, for privacy reasons and such. Our e-mail correspondence was extensive, and traced a lot of changes in my character and faith, as they were happening. Tamie is wise, gentle, and compassionate. She doesn't give unsolicited advice, or answer without thinking deeply first. She was really diligent in speaking with compassion and without judgment, and by doing that, gave me a space where I could poke around at myself, during a time when I really didn't like being in my own company. Thanks, Tamie!

(also, for a while I think Tamie and Mel were the only ones actually reading my blog. . .)

(it's American thanksgiving, so I guess I can get away with this.)



Anna - my friendship with Anna was one of those "friendship least likely to happen" situations after university ended, but despite (or maybe because of) a knotty beginning, we became good friends later. She lives in my brother's hometown, and she has brown eyes full of wisdom, and she's my age, but she's still the kind of person who listens to birds, and goes outside to look at the frost on the grass in the streetlights, when it shines like diamonds. Like Tamie, our lives followed a somewhat similar arc in certain respects over the last while, and between conversations and e-mails, she's been a good travel companion through some rough patches.




Melissa - didn't get as many pages of e-mail, but it's not because I love her less (it's because we'd meet while I was in Canada, and back in Korea, I phoned her more - hard as that is to believe, considering how sporadic my calling habits are). If I had to be stuck on a desert island with one person, I'd have to choose Jesus, because then we could walk on water back to the mainland (and chat along the way) but if I got to pick three people, it'd be Matt, Dan, and Mel.


One of the things I love about Mel is that she'd beg me to choose someone else so that she could remain with her wonderful husband and her amazing two little boys (you can go read about them on her blog, which is linked on the side here). Mel makes me laugh beyond all reason, and she's been my most loyal university friend. Our friendship has had some amazing give-and-take, and I'm so grateful to have her around. She's extremely smart (but never arrogant), and she takes no crap from me, and chops me back down to size if I get too preposterous, at the same time praising me when I do well. She's one of those rare friends who can give a person the truth honestly, but also kindly enough for a person to really learn something, and maybe become a better person. She has an amazing family, and she needs support right now because her husband is far away in RCMP boot camp, so you should go put encouraging comments on her blog. She's also a badass paramedic, and you can read some of the blood-and-guts stories on her blog.




Soundtrack 2: press play when the other one ends, then scroll down and ignore the images that run as the music plays. Seriously, PLEASE scroll down so you can't see the images that play. They're really cheesy.

The song's "Call it Off" by Tegan and Sara. They're Canadian, and great.

The original version vanished, but this live version has a great crowd singalong.

Matt - Again, more that passed between us was conversation than e-mail. While I was in Canada, with Mom, he got the concentrated stuff, and the korea-related stuff, but once I returned to Korea, well, I might have made it without his support, but it would have been a much rougher, slower go, and I might be a different person than I am now. Matt's the most loyal friend, and the best friend, I've met since university, and he's influenced me more than probably anybody outside my immediate family.




Matt's smart but not arrogant, gentle but tough, honest and tactical. He, like Mel, will call me out if I'm out of line (I really appreciate people who do that), but, like Mel, when he does, it comes from a place of compassion, of knowing me well, and knowing what's important to me (sometimes I get called out by people who misunderstand me or my situation, or who press their values onto my life. . . then it's more of a "thanks for your opinion" than a "I never noticed that before. . . I'll adjust accordingly" as it has usually been with Melissa and Matt. He's funny and he keeps me light-hearted when I need it, and he's ready for a sauna, a poetry reading, a night of revelry, or a mountain-climb, as suits the situation. I love him to pieces. His wife Heyjin is so amazing she, like Melissa's family, really deserves a post of her own, so for now I'll say, I'm glad and grateful for my friendship with her.



Finally, Exgirlfriendoseyo:

Before things fell apart on my return to Korea, she was a good e-mail pal, and she got a lot of the day-to-day updates on Mom's condition. I'm glad she was in Korea waiting for me, because having someone to look forward to sure makes a difficult time like watching your mom die a little more manageable. Exgirlfriendoseyo was (and probably remains, for all I know) a sweet-hearted woman. She's caring and lovable and I'm glad I met her. We weren't quite ready to go the distance together, but I learned a lot about loving from her, and then I learned a lot about grieving from losing her, and for that, I ought to be grateful.




There's a song I wanted to have as the soundtrack for this post: Red Cave, by Yeasayer ends with the repeated lyric, "I'm so blessed to have a good time with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for" -- which sounds nice, but it's miles better set in the rest of the song.





At some point in the future, some cut-and-pastes from the e-mails that passed between me and those five (e-mailing was basically my version of therapy for those two years, along with a few other habits and activities), might appear on this blog. They might not. It depends on the context where they seem most appropriately used.





There are a lot of other people who have been there for me through this time -- shout out to my brothers and sisters and my dad, of course, as well as some other e-pals and coworkers, and the people pictured throughout this post. I love you all and I'm so glad you're in my life. I haven't attached names because I don't necessarily have permission, per se, to name these people on my blog, but you've meant a lot to me. But the five mentioned that bore the lion's share of my grief (certainly my e-grief), and as I look through the old e-mail records, I'm wildly, ridiculously grateful they (and the rest of you) were around when I needed them.

Thanks, eh?





all the love in the world:

rob



(Actually, when I think about it again, maybe the one person I'd choose to be stuck on a desert island with is Dick Cheney, so he couldn't f*** up the world any more than he already has. . . but that's another post entirely)





(Morning has broken, by Cat Stevens)

November 2005: back in Seoul, Korea

So back in March, when I made plans to live in BC with
my folks for as long as it too Mom to live out her
cancer, I had no idea it would take all of seven
months for her to do so, no idea that it wouldn't be
until late October that I'd finally finished all my
visiting and taken the trip to Seoul.

So I'm back now. Back in the land of palaces and
gingko trees, easy public transit and lots of rice and
pickled vegetable side dishes. In fact, I've been her
for a month (tomorrow).

Out here in Korea, it's been an interesting go. I
spent about a week recovering from jet-lag and getting
re-acquainted with Korea in general -- revisiting my
favourite areas, taking long walks, writing in my
diary -- and found myself incredibly bored, so I
headed out to find a job, quite a bit sooner than I'd
expected to. The plan, originally, was to take things
really slow, to see Matt and my friends, to travel,
maybe see the countryside, and make sure I'd given
myself enough time to grieve my Mom here in Korea
before I jumped into working and going back to the
grind of things. Being in Korea is interesting,
insofar as I'm finally on my own -- there are no roles
here for me to play, except for Rob. I'm not "Rudy's
Boy", or "Dan's Brother" or anything but Rob, and
finally (in that way) being on my own, gives me the
chance to start sorting out my own closet, after
spending most of September with the family, in BC, and
then in Ontario with Dad.

Being in Canada was good. Satisfying. Appropriate.
I'm glad to have had the chance to take that time and
be there with my mom and dad. I'm lucky that I was in
a situation where that was possible. Now, it really
feels good to have my life back in motion again.

Unfortunately, being back in Korea was boring, with
Exgirfriendoseyo studying as much as she could, and with Matt
working, and with only so many books, and so many
hours I could walk around without getting sore feet
and smog headaches, so I looked for a job. I went to
the director of my first school, to ask him for a
reference letter, and instead he offered me a job.
His preschool supervisor was leaving at the end of the
month, so he'd bring me in as a supervisor. I said,
essentially, "why not?" -- I love the area, it has
great access to Seoul and two nearby parks, and good
restaurants, there are good restaurants nearby, and
the foreign teachers working there right now are
really good people -- I like them a lot, and they have
some good, close friendships. It's nice to be
connected to that network, even after only one month.
Plus, my boss absolutely adores me, and I should be
able to work that to my advantage, and, if nothing
else, he's a known quantity, so I know what I'm
getting from him and from this school.

The drawbacks are these:
1. a roommate -- and female at that. I gave Exgirfriendoseyo
the chance to veto the job, and she said she was OK
with it, so we'll see how it works out. (Though it's
nice having a friend nearby -- sometimes my apartment
last year was WAAAY too quiet.)

2. the director remains the same guy he was before --
he means well (usually), but he's also a bit of a
wildcard, and often asks you to do things without
enough advance notice.

3. the first month in a supervisor position is a lot
of work. if the workload decreases after I've got the
hang of things, then I'm set, and I'll have a really
great schedule down the line, but for now, I've been
working long hours (on my own perogative, however,
which is a nice change from being iron-clad-required
to do so. I figure that, like with ice skating, if I
do a strong push at first, it'll be easier to coast
later.) But. . . 3.1. I was very clear with Mr. Kim
that if the supervisor thing didn't work out for me,
I'd be stepping down -- that was one of the terms of
me coming on at all. So if the workload's ridiculous,
he knows that I'll approach him, and we'll work
something out involving either a pay increase or a
responsibility decrease.


Fair enough. We'll see how it works out. I'm trying
to be supportive for Exgirfriendoseyo -- her huge
middle-school-teacher qualification test is coming up
in two weeks, and she's been getting more and more
stressed about it, and I've been seeing her less and
less. That's a bit frustrating, but, as Matt keeps
saying, "Patience patience patience" -- that patience
will pay off in time. Meanwhile, it's been good to
pour myself into work for a while. It gives me
something to think about other than Mom, and it's been
a while since I've had enough going on in my life to
be able to say "I'll just set that aside and think
about it when I have time". That's good, after a
certain amount of time. As much as I love Mom and Dad
and the siblings, I needed (in a bad way) to get back
to my own life.

So that's where I am now. The church here remains, as
always, awesome. They actually postponed their church
picnic for a few weeks so that they'd have it after
I'd returned. That kind of love is hard to come by.
Matt, too, has been a stellar support: compassionate
and understanding, with a good sense of when to talk
about it, and when to help get your mind off it.
Exgirfriendoseyo and I are doing our best to be there for each
other, between her studies and my new job, both of our
schedules are heavily taxed right now, but hard times
prove the measure of a relationship, and this story
isn't over yet. I like my coworkers more and more.
One of them (his name is Caleb. . . Overstreet? . . .
is an MK whose father worked with my friend Cheryl
(Mellis) Zeke's father in Amsterdam. I said the name
"Cheryl Mellis" and he said "Oh. Colin's sister." It
was cool. I made spaghetti for those folks last
Wednesday, and it went over really well, despite the
difficulty of finding the right spices here. (If
you're into care packages, send sage, seasoning salt
(the regular orange kind) and italian seasoning. . .
and Colgate total, which I forgot to stockpile before
I came here). My students call me "rocks teacher"
sometimes, but they're already warming up to me.
They're younger than anyone I've taught before, and
that's challenging, but it's interesting. Plus, being
a supervisor is using a bunch of abilities and
faculties I possess, but haven't used in quite a long
time. It's interesting tapping some of those aspects
of personal interaction again. I even learned how to
make a spreadsheet!

My next update will contain less matter-of-fact and
more colour, I hope. But right now, I have to send
this one out and head down to Dr. Lee's house, for the
American thanksgiving celebration potluck he's holding
at his house.

Take care of yourselves.

love
Rob

March 23rd 2005

Well, it's quiet today: last time I wrote a letter
like this, I was sitting in a sauna in Seoul, hoping
my ears wouldn't get blasted out of my head by the
earthquake-loud dance music playing nearby. This
time, I can hear a clock ticking, and wind blowing
outside the window. The air smells like carpet (an
extreme rarity in Korea: almost all floors are tile or
plastic cleverly disguised to look like light wood
paneling). I also smell cypress trees, growing things
(happy beginning of spring, all), and . . . nothing
(no car exhaust, no street food, no cigarettes). This
can only mean one thing: I am back in Canada.

I finished working on the 28th of February. My
Kindergarten students graduated to first grade (I have
really cute pictures) on the 25th, and I'm proud as
punch of them; Exgirfriendoseyo ALSO graduated from university
on the 25th of February, unfortunately at the same
time as my students, so, lacking the time to develop a
working duplicater safe for human use, I had to miss
seeing my girlfriend graduate. The conversation
went/may have gone like this:

"I wish you could be here to see me graduate, Rob."

"Oh Exgirfriendoseyo -- I wish I could be there! I'd scream
'That's my girlfriend and I love her!' as loud as I
could as you walked up to get your diploma!"

"But I guess it's OK that you can't come. Have fun
with your Kindergarten kids!"

for some reason she wasn't too upset.

I stayed in Korea until March 14th -- two extra weeks
after I finished working. Matt F, my best friend in
Korea (and the newest member of my pantheon of best
friends in the world), let me stay at his house for
two weeks, in his guest bed. This was really great of
him (especially after I figured out that the window
panels were improperly lined up, and THAT'S why the
room was so cold at night.)

The reason I stayed an extra two weeks was so that I
could end my time in Korea on a series of high notes
with my different friends and communities, rather than
on a frantic, rushed, "I still have to finish
packing!" note, like in 2003. Also, I wanted to spend
a LOT of time with my wonderful, beautiful, sweet,
funny . . . (she knows all the other adjectives that
go in this space) . . . warm-hearted and all-around
fantastic girlfriend Exgirfriendoseyo.

After my last day of work, (and before), I had a real
blast winding down my time in Korea. Matt took me
dancing one night (something I'd missed doing since we
were in Japan), I lost money playing poker with the
old coworkers, and I spent a lot of time with Exgirfriendoseyo.
A lot. In fact, just about the only time I DIDN'T
spend with Exgirfriendoseyo, was spent either packing, or
preparing some kind of gift for Exgirfriendoseyo, or travelling
to meet Exgirfriendoseyo, or sleeping, or with Matt. The number
one goal of my extra two weeks was to solidify the
relationship Exgirfriendoseyo and I have had since the end of
July, and make sure that it's built solidly enough to
last, and grow, during my time in Canada. It will be
a difficult time, and distance is never easy, but the
extra two weeks seemed to be exactly the right amount
of time to get everything really working well.

My next goal is to get her to come to Canada. We're
working on a strategy for talking to/asking her
parents, that includes a formal invitation from my
parents and stuff like that. Here's to hoping. My
mom really wants to see Exgirfriendoseyo again (and Exgirfriendoseyo wants
to see my Mom), and I think we can make it happen.

Now that I'm back in Canada, I'm starting to look for
work, and I'm writing a lot. This is a good thing. I
hope that I'll be able to do a lot of work on poetry
and stories, and hopefully, even be able to start
sending poems out to magazines and such. So if
anybody reading this is a magazine publisher, and you
need a poem to fill in an empty space, just give me a
shout! Beyond that, my main goal is just to be around
the house, making myself useful to my mom and dad as
Mom gets weaker, and Dad feels the strain of caring
for a sick wife. It's really the least I can do.

One thing I've learned over the last six months is how
important family can be. Mom and Dad have been
supported by their church family these months, and now
I'm in Canada to do what I can. Often, the best
things families do for each other aren't spectacular:
your uncle doesn't have to save you from a burning oil
refinery to be your hero, and your friend doesn't have
to carry you down a mountainside after you break your
ankle, to prove (s)he's a friend for life. Usually
love shows itself best in small ways -- a touch of
compassion, a compliment, a hug at the right time.
Right now, to be here for my mom and dad, it's all
menial things -- carrying in the groceries, mowing the
lawn, cooking dinner because mom loses her appetite if
she cooks, cleaning bathrooms because company's
coming. But, the sum of those things is not the
trivial nature of the work I'm doing, it's the way I
can show my love for my family right now. I'm lucky
enough to be in a position where I can do that, and
I'm so glad that Mom has someone to carry in the
groceries. (I think she is, too.)

Mom gets tired more easily. In October, when she came
to Korea, she managed to out-last both me and my dad
as we toured around Seoul. Now, she rests most of the
day if she's going out in the evening, and she falls
asleep at 8 pm if she's been active in the afternoon.
Sometimes she eats well, and sometimes her stomach
just rebels, but she is amazingly peaceful. She is
happy to see the people who come by, and she has an
attitude as positive as anybody I've met (which is
totally in character for her, but that only makes it
more remarkable). Dad sometimes feels the strain, too
-- he gets headaches and such sometimes, and every
once in a while he has a really emotionally exhausting
day, so please keep both of them in your prayers.

The Thursday after I arrived in Canada, my brother in
law had a birthday party for my sister. Her birthday
is January 1, but since New Year's Day is already a
party day, he decided to throw her a party on a
different day, so that her birthday was a special
occasion of its own. Unfortunately, Mom, Dad and I
had been told everything about the party but its
location (I don't think that's what was intended when
Brad said a surprise party), so we only managed to
find the party at all because I had stuck our
cellphone in my pocket, and forgotten it was there
when we drove out to Langley. Deb called us and we
found our way to our friend Sarah's house.

Then, on Saturday, my Uncle Tony and Aunt Marianne
came from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and on Monday my Uncle
Hugh and Aunt Heather (both Uncles are Dad's brothers)
came by from the Okanagan in BC, in order to help us
celebrate Mom and Dad's 30th wedding anniversary.
This was a pretty big, exciting thing. About 80
people from the Agassiz community came to and open
house in our church building, and gave their best
wishes to Mom and Dad. My uncles and aunts played
guitar, sang, and told jokes, and everybody ate,
signed the guest book, looked through Mom and Dad's
wedding album, and took pictures of the happy couple.


My uncle Tony reflected how an anniversary like this
celebrates the idea of marriage and commitment, as
well as my Mom and Dad's marriage, and it reminds
everybody to hold onto the ones they love. Doing this
takes a lot of different things: sometimes one is
needy, and sometimes the other. Sometimes, the main
thing that holds a marriage through a hard time is
stubbornness, and sometimes relationships only survive
by luck, or sheer grace, by the hope that things will
get better through commitment, effort and humility,
by the hope that the stubbornness will be worthwhile,
and give the grace a space to shine. Through all this
celebration, the main feeling, I think, was
thankfulness -- Dad thanks God for Mom, and the time
he's had with her. Mom thanks God for Dad, and the
love she's been able to give and receive. I thank God
that Mom met Dad, because if they hadn't, I'm not sure
how I'd be able to send this letter (and they swear
they're glad I was born, too). My parents have
touched a lot of people in their lifetimes, and will
touch more people in new ways before they're done, but
the anniversary celebration was a great way to note
how much good can come out of two people deciding to
build a life together, to make love an important part
of their life. I've always thought love is like a
muscle: the more you work it, the stronger it gets,
and the stronger a muscle is, the more work it can do,
and the more people it can help.

I'm not sure how long I'll be in Canada, but I hope I
get lots of opportunities to exercise love, and to
grow stronger because of it; the people around me in
Canada (and the US), and the people waiting for me in
Korea, deserve the strongest, most loving Rob I can
be.

Take care of yourselves.

If you live near Agassiz, give me a call: I have lots
of free time right now, and I'd love to catch up. If
you don't have my number, just hit the reply button
(delete the text of the rest of my letter) and ask for
my digits.

with love:
Rob Ouwehand

Christmas 2004 and New Year's 2005

The really, really loud music from the dance show
finally stopped, and now I'm only contending with the
moderately loud music and real-time fighting games
played by the kids sitting near me. I'm sitting in a
sauna's internet cafe, paying a lot more per minute
than most internet cafes, and feeling quite mellow,
thanks to having just soaked in hot and cold water.

I've reached the point in my contract where the light
at the end of the tunnel is getting quite a bit
brighter, and I don't mind that a bit; soon I'll get
to that mellow stage where nothing can phase me
anymore, the stage where I walk around all day as if
I'd just woken up, and I answer everything anybody
says to me with "No worries, pal!"

We have a CD player in the staff room, so all is well,
as long as I can put on some music during the five
heartbeat (I mean five minute) pause (not long enough
to qualify as an actual break) between classes, and
listen to a song. I've nicknamed the CD player "My
job satisfaction", because really, I'm just that easy
to please. There's a selection of music in the CD
wallet I leave at work that's varied enough that I'll
have songs ready to start me up (Led Zeppelin, Yeah
Yeah Yeahs), slow me down (Norah Jones, Nick Drake),
give me something new on my mind (Miles Davis, Glenn
Gould), take me out into left field (Flaming Lips,
Havalina Rail Co.) or just plain make me feel good
(Cat Stevens, Beach Boys, Prince). Seeing as the
break is exactly one song long, I'm set. Nothing bugs
me, as long as there are tunes -- even the new
Kindergarten teacher who made defamatory statements
about Mother Theresa's politics ("she should have
built a hospital -- why did she go and send all that
money to the vatican?"), or questioning the historical
existence of the prophet Mohammed (who led a conquest
during his life, and whose line of heirs were/are(?)
Islam's leaders for centuries). Whatever. It's all
good. She's just trying to start a conversation, and
sometimes it's fun to take her bait, if you can still
hear over the sound of Joe (the guy sitting on the
other side of me), grinding his teeth in annoyance.
(He isn't fond of her shocking statement converstaion
style).

Whatever. It's all good. No worries, pal!

Happy New Year.

As most of you know, I spent Christmas in BC (Agassiz
specifically, with brief forays into Langley,
Chilliwack, Vancouver, Harrison Hot Springs, and a
mountainside near my home). This was an excellent
thing. The doctors have given mom about 4-6 months,
(but we don't say things like "Last Christmas
Together" out loud, 'cos that makes the egg nog and
almond rings taste a little bitter, or at least
bittersweet, and who's cutting onions in the other
room again?). We had some amazing moments of family
closeness reflecting on the last year, making
Oliebollen (dutch new-years treats deep-fried in oil),
cooking a turkey, wandering around Harrison Hot
Springs, and driving all over the Fraser Valley in
units of three or four.

Of course, as with any family, seven days of family
closeness was. . . well, tiring -- everybody was
totally beat by the end of it, but it was great.

My nephew kept wanting to hug me so hard I fell over,
"Tio Rob. Do you have a squish for me today?" and my
niece wanted to shout "NO" at me every time I spoke to
her (which her father asked me, rightfully, to
discourage. I did my best); she would also blink at
me rather than make other funny faces. She was really
sweet and affectionate to my brother Dan, though -- I
smiled to see her run towards his legs as if he were a
magnet and she a paperclip begging to be picked up.
I'm continually impressed at how reasonable my
sister's kids are -- they respond amazingly well to
reasoned and calm explanation of why you can't play
that game, or why you won't give him the plastic
hammer until he says he's sorry for hitting your. . .
um . . . lap . . . with it. (didn't actually happen.)
If you tell them to play nicely, they actually DO!

Deb and Brad were in and out, being the closest to
home in Langley (an hour away), but the dinner table
is never full without the laughs Deb brings to it, and
the planned zaniness of things like no-utensil
spaghetti meals and cream pie fights. Dan remains the
funniest person I know, and also the one who
understands me best in the world -- the one who'd know
all the secrets. The midnight cigars and frigid walks
and drives are something I'd never trade for anything.
His fiance Caryn. . . let's just say I can't wait for
her to be my sister. She fit into the family
amazingly well. Her first ENTIRE WEEK (wow) with the
entire family totally exhausted her (of course -- a
new family is like a new culture, and culture shock is
exhausting, whether it's national or familial), but
she stood up amazingly well, and I think everyone in
the family has really warmed up to her, since seeing
her in all the different contexts and situations that
come up in a whole week together.

Two of my uncles came out as well -- it was great to
see them, too, and I love those people, and two of my
nearest and dearest also came out to see me, and that
put a big old smile on my face, too.

On the Tuesday, my sister bought some whipped cream
and whipped egg-whites, and we had a cream pie fight,
where we pull names out of a hat and throw cream pies
in our family's faces. I aksidentaly got some craem
in my fase (bad for the allergies) instead of just egg
wite (and the spelling in this passage is a clue as to
who perpetrated this cream-smearing). Some got in my
eye, which irritated my eye, and had me worried that
I'd have pink eyes for. . . the family pictures later
that afternoon. Yes, we got family pictures. They
were great -- we got some amazing pictures of everyone
in the family, and especially some real keepers of my
wonderful mom. I can't wait to see the copies.

As you know, I'll be coming back to Canada in March to
take care of my family and see my brother properly
married. We'll be apart for a while, but I'm working
hard now on establishing solid roots for our
relationship, and positive patterns of trust and
communication, so that we're equipped to deal with a
time apart. Francois Duc de Rochefoucauld once said

"Absence lessens the small loves and increases the
great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and blows
up a bonfire."

(I'm not actually THAT smart: I looked that quote up
on the internet so I could use it.) So my work right
now is to make sure that the flame is big enough
before I leave that the absence will increase it,
rather than extinguish it. Talking to my friend
Melissa, who had a long absence in the middle of HER
courtship with her wonderful now-husband, made me feel
a lot better about this.

(the now, retroactively renamed Exgirlfriendoseyo and I celebrated an anniversary this weekend
at a FANCY restaurant, taking pictures together at a
photo studio (quite nice ones), and eating lamb and
steak in a restaurant overlooking Seoul at night.
Every time I see her it's better than the time
before.)

Anyway, before I make you all ill with my mushy talk,
I'll move on to other topics.

As when news came out that Matthias has muscular
dystrophy, and the sweet people in church showed their
concern by asking, weekly, "How's your nephew,"
despite the fact muscular dystrophy is a disease that
will take about 20 years to finish its process, now,
well-meaning students continually ask about my mom,
and I have to say, several times a day, "still sick."
This situation requires tact and discretion more than
anything else, as much as the first instinct is to be
surly and say "please don't bring that up right now"
or to look for the nearest exit. I'm doing my best.

It's an interesting aspect of human nature that, even
when your situation is difficult, you can still find
what one coworker calls "the little v's" -- the small
victories. He's a smoker, so for him, every smoke,
and ever cup of coffee make his day a little better.
Little things can totally change one's perspective --
people caught on desert islands probably spend as much
time wishing for a toothbrush as wishing for an
emergency transmitter. My little victories are not
cigarettes and cups of coffee, but times my students
crack me up, the five minute conversations with my
girlfriend during lunch and long breaks, getting a
message on my phone, getting e-mails, and being
cracked up by Matt and the others in the staff room.
Long hot showers. Saunas. Cold winter air that wakes
me up. The smell of Exgirfriendoseyo's hair. Matt's loud
laugh. Cindy (in Kindergarten) absently taking and
holding my hand during class. And if I can play music
in the staff room at break time too, well, I'm
laughing my way home at night. Optimism and,
moreover, contentment/happiness, just like holiness,
awareness, fitness, and punctuality, are not so much
conditions as disciplines, and I'm learning how to be
in the habit of happiness.

Take care my wonderful peoples. I hope all of you are
in the habit of happiness and optimism.

love
Rob Ouwehand