The Fast - Day 4

Y'know, I'm not sure if I'm on a fast or just some crazy liquid diet.  I feel fine.  I feel really sharp, actually.  I'm beginning to think that at our level, food is just a pleasure and a distraction.  I can see how my mind could get really muddled with a big fat steak in my stomach.  Woof.  I was at work today and I thought it would be pretty tough not eating, but it wasn't that bad.  It was busy today, too.  I met up with a friend of mine later and we talked and prayed for each other.  And it was so easy to pray for him.  Like the words and thoughts just rolled off my tongue.  I feel focused.  I feel powerful.  Woof.  I sound delirious.  Life is good.  God is good.

Currently Craving:  Cranberry walnut scones.  Mmm... all buttery and fluffy and just slightly pasty.  And some tea with milk and sugar...

Prayed About:  Being a better worker at my job, that God would provide financially, going back to Japan for missions with AIM, that I'd meet someone who would be my match...

The Fast - Day 3

Day 3 is almost over.  Felt a little bit hungry at different points during the day, and beginning to feel noticeably weaker.  Fell asleep at Charles's house for an hour after church while everyone played Outburst.  My mom is so funny.  When I first told her I'm doing this fast for six days, she spent 10 minutes trying to talk me out of it, telling me to do only three days or do one meal a day or something like that.  Finally, she gives up and says, "Your brother needs to fast, too."  Haha.  She thinks my brother eats too much and I eat too little, and she's always very concerned about my eating habits, so she's a bit stressed about this whole thing.  But my mom also has what I like to call, a highly-motivated personality.  She's the one who always remembers when the videos are due back, when the bills need to get paid, and she's always had a steady job while my dad went through a whole bunch of different ones.  She's also the one who donated her kidney at the age of 55 to someone she didn't even know just because she wanted to honor Jesus that way.  So at the same time that she's all worried and fussy and complaining that my face has shrunk, I know that secretly she's happy too, cuz, well, she's done a lot of this herself, and she respects the conviction that drives it...

Currently Craving:  Pad thai.  Actually anything with noodles sounds yummy right about now.  Mexican sounds heavenly, too.  Funny that I'm not craving anything Korean...

Prayed About:  God's spirit to bring about a revival in the world, that he'd energize the missionaries and churches around the world, for GFC's growth and its impact in the community, for my mom to chill out and not always to have to have a say in everything, for my dad to enjoy seminary and learn some spiritual discipline...

The Fast - Day 2

Hmm...  Day 2 wasn't really bad at all.  In a way, I want to feel hunger because isn't that the whole point of this?  To feel like I'm sacrificing something so I can impress God in some way, show him how much I want Him in my life, demonstrate how much I want to change.  But I wasn't all that hungry.  Maybe in another day or two...  I've begun having some strange thoughts, though.  I'm thinking, maybe I'll commit to fasting one day of the week for the whole year.  I think the biggest danger to my spiritual life is being too comfortable.  So, why not set aside some time to make myself hungry, make myself uncomfortable, just to remind myself who I am, and what I live for.  It's what I'm doing now, but what happens when this fasting period is over?  Why not do something like this the whole year?  I so easily forget the Lord.  This is one way to make sure I don't.  Plus, it certainly does help me pray.  Another strange thought occurred to me.  I think I'm going to make a commitment to sitting down and praying with at least one person every Sunday at church.  Enough of the meaningless crap I usually talk to people about...

Currently Craving:  Manhattan clam chowder.  I don't usually like my dad's cooking, but my mom brought it out to give to my relatives, and that stuff was looking real good today...

Prayed About:  writing my novel, my overall spiritual growth, that God would help me resist temptation for my favorite sins, that I would discipline myself and be frugal this year...

The Fast - Day 1

Wasn't sure I was gonna post about this, but really, this whole fasting thing has got a lot of natural drama potential, so I figured why not?  Today was the first day, and it's always supposed to be the hardest the first or second day.  I had mostly water, a cup of OJ in the afternoon, and a glass of milk right before I climbed into bed.  So far, so good.  Had a bit of a headache a few minutes ago, but it went away.  Spent most of the day cleaning my room, and my brother and his family came over.  I played "Poison Cow" with my niece on and off about 6 times, and after everyone left, the Choi men (my brother, dad and me), as is our custom whenever we get together, played a card game called Canasta.  As usual, the person sitting to the right of my dad won (my brother this time), cuz my dad always gives up the pile too much (you'd have to know Canasta).  Some things never change...

Currently Craving:  Of all things, fruitcake, that a friend of the family had baked for Christmas.  Had some of it last night and that sucker was good...

Prayed About:  Y'know, I made up this big whole list of stuff to pray about, and I didn't really get to any of it.  I just spent most of the prayer time repenting for this past year.  I guess that's good too...

Much Too Late for a Wednesday Night

          Zach ran around the nursery, stopping every once in a while at the foot of the plastic slide as if waiting to greet the next child coming down.  He would plant himself at the bottom and stare up at the top though there was no one there.  The rest of the kids operated as a mob, and right now they were busy making sure the poor beetle that had wandered in would never again see his wife and kids.  Occasionally, Zach would run his fingers along the stitches on his forehead just to feel the prickly sensation.  It made Karen nervous watching him do this.  She still had so much trouble reading him, and since he couldn’t express himself clearly, she was in constant despair of failing him.  When she had arrived at the hospital to pick him up, the nurses told her he had been pretty brave and didn’t cry once while they cleaned and dressed his cut.  Karen didn’t tell them about Zach’s autism and that the reason he didn’t cry was that he couldn’t really feel the pain.  She packed him up, brought him home, climbed into bed with him, and held on to him for dear life until he finally fell asleep.  As he lay sleeping next to her, she gently recited Psalm 139 over and over again, as if she were his mouthpiece, fully believing that though the words came from her lips, God would understand that it came from Zach’s heart. 

          It was time for worship now, and Zach ran in and sat with the other five-year olds for praise time.  He seemed to enjoy the songs, and though she had never seen him attempt to sing, he would joyfully mimic whatever else the other kids did.  Karen picked a seat a few rows behind him, making sure she had a good view of him, and tried to concentrate on worship.  By the third song, she felt herself beginning to really speak to God and naturally started closing her eyes to focus on Him.  But a wordless alarm went off, and she jerked her eyes open and frantically looked around for her son.  Zach was there in the same spot, oblivious to her panic.  Unable to tear her eyes off him, she resumed singing, consciously holding herself back .  As the last slow song came to an end, the praise leader exhorted everyone to lift up their hands in prayer.  Zach raised his arms along with everybody else and Karen’s throat tightened up and she felt the tears gather in her eyes as she watched him.  Even if he had no idea what he was doing, it made her happy to think he was praising God in his own way. 

          The praise leader finished the prayer, and in one motion, everyone sat and put their arms down.  Everyone except Zach.  He remained standing by himself with his arms up in the air.  Karen began to tremble.  She couldn’t see his face, only the silhouette of his little body.  She knew it was ridiculous, what she was thinking, and yet she could feel the warmth of God’s answer spread through her body.  And now the tears came fast and strong as she clenched her fists and let all the pent-up doubts and fears flow out of her.  Five seconds passed, then ten, and still he wouldn’t put his hands down.  And Karen finally closed her eyes.  As she closed her eyes, at first all she could see was the image of her son worshipping God.  But the image shimmered, and soon she drifted into the cool, blue waters of a river.  And there she was, fighting her way through the rocks and the sticks, against the mighty current, making her way upstream to lay her eggs before dying.  And she could see that it was good, that it would continue on and on just as it always had, just as God had always intended.

An Exercise for a Sunday Night

          Karen concluded her prayer by accidentally banging her head on the protruding ledge of the pew in front of her, scattering pencils all around.  It caused her to smile and she carefully got up and wiped her eyes, and headed for the door.  As she stepped outside, the wind ruffled the leaves at her feet, sweeping them up and around her in ever widening circles, eventually falling to the ground, each in its own distinct pattern.  She hurried to the subway, trying to remember which stop was closest to the hospital.

These are the visions I have for my life:

Family level:  To adopt a child with my wife.

Church level:  To serve as a Christian counselor and youth group pastor in my church.

World Level:  To write and publish a Christian novel that would be glorifying to God.

I'm 32 now, we're on the cusp of the year 2004, and I am nowhere close to achieving any of these visions.  I think I'm officially having a mid-life crisis.  And yet I'm strangely hopeful...

Went to another wake tonight.  She was my age.  I shed no tears.  Not tonight, not last week either.  I think it's because I wept for them all a long time ago.  I wonder if I'll cry when my parents pass away.  I wonder why I went tonight.  I didn't know her that well.  Maybe it was to say I'm sorry...

I helped bury my friend's dad today.  Or was it my dad?

Birth Dream

Last year, a couple of months after my break-up, I picked up this girl while waiting for the bus at Port Authority.  I had seen her a few times cuz she took my bus late at night sometimes and she reminded me of this Japanese pop star, so I started talking to her one day.  In Japanese.  One of the very few times I've actually tried to pick up a girl, and wouldn't you know it, I wasn't even speaking the right language.  As it turns out, she was Korean and a fob, here in the states to study floral design at Parsons (yep, people really do such things).  We hung out a few times, but she had some boyfriend in upstate NY, so since I couldn't date her, I started taking her to church.  One day, as we're driving, she asks me what my birth dream was.  I had no idea what she was talking about, but she went on to explain that in Korea (as well as other Asian countries, I'm sure), expectant mothers-to-be all have some major dream before giving birth to their children.  In their dream, they usually see an animal of some kind, and it's supposed to signify something about their soon-to-be born baby.  She told me her mother had seen a rabbit or something in her birth dream.  It was the first time I'd ever heard of this, and she suggested I ask my mom about it, so a few weeks later I did.

Upon asking my mother whether she had some sort of dream while pregnant with me, she got all excited and started gushing about it.  My mom actually saw TWO animals in my birth dream.  The first animal was...  drumroll, please...  a dragonfly.  Is that cool or what??  I'm sure it was a brilliant green.  Dragonflies, in a lot of Asian cultures, are symbols of happiness, strength, courage and success.  In Native American mythology, they're thought to be messengers.  In fact, to the Tlingit native peoples of Alaska, dragonflies were thought to be transporters of the human soul, symbols of transformation.  Man, that is so me.  Dragonflies are graceful, ornate and best of all, they eat mosquitoes.  I was really happy when my mom told me about the dragonfly.  Then she went on to tell me about the second animal.  She said she was walking in some field or forest somewhere, when she came upon...  a pig.  But see, I think she only saw a pig because I was going to be born in the year of the pig, the Asian zodiac, y'know?  It must have been going around in her head subconsciously.  But hey, I'm okay with that.  Pigs have some redeeming qualities.  Pigs...  taste good.  They make great bacon.  And in Asian cultures, they often symbolize wealth.  Boy, was that right on.  I think you could draw some parallels with my writing, too.  Sometimes I write like a pig, sometimes like a dragonfly.  So there you have it, my soul laid bare, in essence...  a pig-dragonfly...

Anybody else know what their birth dream was?  If you don't, go and ask your momma...  And, oh, in case you were wondering, the bus chick went back to Korea in June...