TESOL Graduates!

Today has been a good day. This whole week the temperature has been in the 50's and today it peaked to 60 degrees. The sun was out, and all of us that came here to be English teachers graduated from TESOL today. For those of you who don't know, TESOL is an acronym that stands for "Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages."

After four weeks of classes that lasted from 9:30am to 5pm ever day, with lectures, multiple micro- teaching and teaching practices, we are finally done! I am thankful for this class because I feel much more equipped to fulfill my role as a teacher successfully. I am also grateful because this certification opens up even more possibilities. We are now certified to teach English anywhere in Asia, and it looks good on the resume when we look for jobs when we come back to the States!

Now we have a three day weekend, and we start teaching March 2nd (which is the beginning of the new school year for Korean students). I am really anxious, but excited to start! But first, we're going to celebrate our graduation by going into Seoul and hanging out!

... on another note, I got my first haircut in Korea today! Fortunately, they gave me to a hair stylist who spoke English, and it turned out pretty good! For $10,000 won ($9 dollars) I got a cut, shampoo, head and shoulder massage! That's less than they charge at Great Clips in the States!

Well, we're off to a Noreabong tonight to get our KARAOKE ON!!!!

Love you all!

Questions die away...

I finished re-reading "Till We Have Faces" By: C.S. Lewis. It has been three years since I last read it, but it still leaves me in awe. C.S. Lewis has a way of helping me through my struggles against God, and to fall deeper in love with Him.

After Orual (the main character) has a chance to state her complaints against the gods, she reflects on the experience by saying:

"I saw well why the gods do not speak openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"

After Orual's meeting with the gods, she is utterly transformed. At the end of her life, she writes in the last paragraph of her book:

"I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?"

I have often struggled in my faith due to philosophical and theological contradictions between my heart, mind, and life experiences. Sometimes, I have teetered on the edges of relativism. But as I pursued God (or as He pursued me), many of my questions lost their meaning. As I spent time, and as I spend time with The Christ, I begin to realize how much of my struggles were only babble based in illusion. These illusions fall away as I dwell in front of the face of Christ.

I have been practicing Lectio Divina in the Gospel of John, and I find myself afterwards, feeling like I have just sat at the feet of Christ, as if I was actually with the historical Jesus. And the truth is, I was. C.S. Lewis' words are so true..."before your face, all questions die away." The only point in all of life is Christ. It is when I stray from this understanding that I find myself babbling like an ignorant child again.

I guess my point and hope is that those who are plagued by theological, philosophical, and experiential struggles - struggles that keep them from seeking out God - would just take a moment to set them aside, and get to know the Christ. If you seek to grasp or own some truth, you will be disappointed, because the truth is not something one can own, the truth is a Person.

Let us look into the face of Christ, that we may find our true faces.

amen.

New Tastes!

One of the major parts of culture adjustment are all the new tastes. If you've grown up your whole life around food from the West (as I have), then being immersed in foods from the East can be challenging. Drinks are often the same way. My favorite thing to do right now is try new drinks. I have tried one drink that is produced by the Coca-Cola company called "Fanta-shakers" that I really like. It is a drink that you have to shake, and then when you open it, you drink down what feels like carbonated jello. It is part liquid, part solid. Another drink that I've found that I like is called 포 카 리 스 우ㅔ 트 which is called in English "Pocari Sweat." It is kind of like a Gatorade type of drink, but its flavor is unlike anything I've ever tasted. The English translation would obviously make it difficult to sell in English speaking nations. But if you understand it as a drink for people who are playing a sport and sweating, it makes more sense. It is an "ion supply drink." It is not a drink with sweat in it...which is what an English speaker would probably imply. My advice to anyone who travels outside of their country who wants to experience the culture: try whatever new food/drink item that you can!

"Die before you die. There is no chance after." Focusing on Lent.

I am re-reading C.S. Lewis' book "Till We Have Faces." I feel as though it is having an even greater impact on me now than it did when I first read it. Tonight at the International church in Korea, we had a Lent Service to begin the season of Lent. It is a season of remembering our

mortality--we are from the dust, and to the dust we shall return. Most of all, Lent is a season of remembering the journey of Christ towards the cross, and hoping for the Resurrection. In this time, we consider the things in our lives that prevent us from following Christ. Therefore, in this season, we repent and fast those things that enslave us to the world in order that we may be bound to Christ.

Tonight, as I was reading "Till We Have Faces," I was struck by Your truth. The main character was about to kill herself in an attempt to escape the shame she carried...but the voice of a god stopped her and said:

"Do not do it...You cannot escape {Shame} by going to the deadlands, for {Shame} is there also. Die before you die. There is no chance after."

Therein lies the truth: "Die before you die. There is no chance after."

We must die to the evil and the shame and the death that enslaves us to ourselves. We must die by putting our lives into the hands of Christ who can resurrect us. For only He has overcome the power of evil's child: eternal death. If we do not die before our deaths, we will be led by our shame into eternal "deadlands."

One of my theology professors in college said, "God does not send people to hell...he simply honors their will to reject Him."

So it is with us. God has given us a choice to be with Him, or to not. Only in Him is there life, and apart from Him, there are only "the deadlands."

In this season of Lent, let us remember our mortality, and let us choose life.

"May we die before we die,"

....in order that we may live eternally in Christ,

" for there is no chance after."

amen.

Buddhist Temple

Today we had a day off, and some of us decided to go into the mountains of Cheonan and visit a Buddhist temple. It was such a blessing because I got to do what I love to do--take pictures. Often when I go out to take photographs I have a difficult time because I can't concentrate, or I'm distracted by something. But if I'm able to focus, photography becomes an act of contemplation for me. If I'm able to come into this place of concentration, I feel like my soul is being nourished by the simple, yet difficult ebb and flow of capturing the right light and composition in a photograph. I find myself noticing the world not just as some material object, but rather infused with light and glory. What if our lives were really just a representation of how we choose to see the world? What if we could change our lives by choosing to see differently? I think God gave me a love for photography for this reason: to bask in, and point towards His creative glory; and to learn to see differently...the way He sees. I've posted a few photos of what I took today. You can see the whole album on my Facebook page.

Praise God for C.S. Lewis.

February 6, 2010

It is Saturday (the second Saturday I've had in SoKo). After a long week of TESOL courses, I am thankful for a day off to rest...a little, for homework is always on the horizon. But today, I took some time to myself, while Jill went with a couple girls into Yawoori. I wanted to try and get some work done, but I was drawn to C.S. Lewis' work: "Till We Have Faces." I am re-reading it, and I have to confess that it is just as powerful, or more so than the first time I read it. There are many people I want to meet when I die, but C.S. Lewis's writing has been such a blessing to my life, that he is one I want to meet and thank with deep gratitude. Of all his works, I have been moved and blessed most by "Till We Have Faces."

Today I was reading in "Till We Have Faces," and I came across a passage that seemed to pierce my heart, for I knew it to be true. It was a knowing that I experience only by grace. It was a knowing that I glimpse and hold only briefly because I comprehend so little, and because the glory of its fullness could destroy me. For some reason, by God's grace, I am given these moments when I least expect it, and only when I stop to listen. I know one plus one equals two. But when God reveals a truth to me, it is as if my whole being is transformed to embrace a truth that cannot be grasped or owned (as 1+1=2 is), but only honored, and worshiped. I honor and whorship it, because truth is not an objective material that I can examine; rather truth is a Person...and when I AM confronts me, I am the one that is examined.

I was examined by this text:

"Now mark yet again the cruelty of the gods. There is no escape from them into sleep or madness, for they can pursue you into them with dreams. Indeed you are then most at their mercy. The nearest thing we have to a defence against them (but there is no real defence) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at the earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one."

Some context must be given for this text. This was written by one of the characters of this book, and she is also the narrator. She is the older sister of a beautiful princess. She loves her princess sister to the point of obsession and co-dependence, which is in fact not love at all, but only self-interested passion. Her beautiful sister is taken by the gods (for a reason she is not yet aware), and she wrote this book as words of defiance against the gods. This book has a powerful climax, as she finally gets to say what she's always wanted to say to the gods...but she discovers everything she thought was true about love was only an illusion.

I love this book, because over and over again, I can hear the complaints that I've uttered towards God. This story has a powerful way of revealing the truth or lies that are hidden in my complaints.

This text pierced my heart today because I find that often I make subtle choices in my spirit, and in my actions in an attempt to escape from God. Often they seem innocent--dive into my work, stop listening to music, and stop doing what nourishes my soul ; or just as subtle, yet much more evil: I push the people I love away.

You see, God never stops pursuing us. It may often times seem cruel what we think God is taking from us, but it is truly a work of grace to come to the end of yourself, and find the only thing that matters...and that thing is a Person, and that Person is God.

Praise God the Father, Son, and Spirit who are One. May we not seek escape, but rather unity with each other and Them.

amen.