One Last Story

 

Visions – Part 3 of 7

 

Its genesis, strangely, occurred on vacation.  Micah had decided to take a trip through Thailand because, well, it was cheap and he had yet to see any parts of Asia.  Midway through his tour, he stopped for two nights in Bangkok.  He had heard about the infamous red light district there, and was curious to see just a hint, the fringes of the debauchery possible.  Besides, Patpong Road was just two miles from his Holiday Inn.  He decided he’d go in the daytime, to safeguard himself from any temptation, and in truth, he was a little afraid of what he might find.  He began his tour at noon and the area proved itself to be fairly muted.  Everyone seemed to be resting up for the night.  Rows of dull, grey aluminum frames lay discarded in bunches along the street, waiting only for dusk to be transformed into the market stalls that would supplement the bustling night trade in flesh.  Still, he waded through the few day vendors hawking cheap jewelry, silk pants, wooden carvings, and live monkeys wearing lipstick who screeched at him.  The open air bars held scantily clad women who called out to him sweetly as they relaxed in their chairs.  He had nearly made it to the end of the street when his eye caught a young girl staring at him from an alleyway.  She was dressed in a dirty yellow T-shirt and shorts and looked to be about thirteen or fourteen.  She was skinny enough that he could see from 30 feet away the outline of her jaw, teeth clenched and waiting.  He paused upon seeing her, and as if on signal, she ran up to him, grabbed his wrist, and began pulling him toward the alley.  Her eyes, glimmering and cold in the reflection of the sunlight, had challenged him with a single glance and won.  They made it clear to him that the desperate experience of surviving had molded in her a stronger will than his own, yet her cries were that of a child pleading with her father to buy her a trinket.  Over and over she kept muttering something that sounded vaguely like “feta cheese”, and throwing off his shock, he pulled away from her and ran down the street.  An hour later at his hotel room, still shaken from the experience, he suddenly realized in horror that what she was trying to say in her broken English was, “very cheap”.  Micah went to the bathroom and wept for them all.  He would never know for sure her intentions or what she was doing there, but it was this very unknowing that caused him nightmares of what the truth really was.  A few weeks after he returned to the states, while browsing the web, he learned of an organization called International Justice Mission that among other things, worked to legally free underage sex workers.  At that moment, a collage of memories and images flooded his mind in perfect order as if they had had been waiting for just the right cue.  And then he knew.  He knew that God wanted him to become a lawyer.  To defend the cause of the weak and fatherless.  To maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  He knew it was right because of the way it all fit together in his mind; his history major, his years spent teaching youth group, his struggle with lust.  It would be at the same time a bold vision of his future as well as a sort of penance for the sexual sins of his past.  He enrolled in law school a year and a half later, and finally, he felt a place in the world for him.  These thoughts replayed in Micah’s mind as he stared at the fisherman who could have been casual fans relaxing at a ballgame.  Yes, this was how it began.  And yet, an unsettling realization was making its way to the surface.  He hated law.

 

One Last Story

 

Visions – Part 2 of 7

 

Micah had come to know the Lord in college after a botched attempt at dating a pretty Christian freshman.  She had promised him there was a level she wouldn’t go beyond physically, and underestimating her resolve, he agreed to comply with her guidelines.  He dumped her in three months, and promptly contracted chicken pox soon thereafter.  He had never had it as a child and as an adult, the virus developed into pneumonia.  He was bedridden for six months.  He never got over the curious timing of the illness and upon returning to school, was driven to find out what kind of God would punish him so severely for so petty a crime.  He began to attend the InterVarsity meetings on Friday nights.  During one of their retreats, Micah experienced a burning sensation in his heart and felt a shame toward himself he had never allowed before.  It was an irresistible force that had taken over his mind, heart and body, and he gave in to the rush of belonging, of relationship.  He committed himself to Christ that night.  Having found the ultimate master, he proved himself a very capable servant.  He went on to become the president of InterVarsity, and as a working adult, quickly got appointed as a deacon in his church.  And then he entered the floating void.  Lacking a true vocational degree, he got a job making cold calls for a mortgage broker, and day in and day out, found himself being cursed at, laughed at, threatened and rejected in every possible manner.  It carved a hole in him.  The days blurred into one another.  He began watching reality TV five nights a week.  He would go to sleep and wake up aching with a restlessness that tainted even the smallest of pleasures.  The uncertainty of his life and future seemed to be shortening his lifespan by the day, the hour, the minute.  It was then that he began praying for a vision.  To Micah, it was not entirely a spiritual or practical decision.  He could not remain as he was, and cried out to the Lord because he couldn’t help himself.  He simply had nowhere else to turn.  His Bible study group would get tired of the same exact prayer request every week, but he was unrelenting, saying only, “Everyone needs a vision.”  Finally, a year and two months after he had begun praying for it, he received a sign from the Lord.

 

One Last Story

 

Visions – Part 1 of 7

 

It was, to Micah, a certain kind of limbo, a place where life in all its varied assortment came to express itself.  Today, this long stretch of sidewalk along the FDR Drive played host to a dozen fisherman casting their lines into the East river for some mutant fish, a few homeless gentlemen sunning themselves on the benches, one or two couples from out-of-town overjoyed at discovering the “real” New York, and the Upper East side joggers who considered running here part of their pro bono work.  And the pigeons.  Let’s not forget the pigeons.  Like an army of malfunctioning toys, they moved as one, bobbing their heads up and down in the hopes of finding something digestible to keep the gravel in their stomachs company.   Micah turned from the water to face north and noted with a faint smile the conspicuous tension between the peace and serenity of the water on his right and the death and destruction from the cars zooming 70 mph on his left.  A guardrail separated him from the cars that were no more than 10 feet away, but he knew that just the right kind of accident could launch an automobile cleanly over the rail into his waiting body.  That wouldn’t be so bad, he thought.  If God took him now, at least he’d be off the hook.  He focused his attention on the fisherman who came today.  They seemed to be of some vague Hispanic descent and most probably lived in the East Harlem area just a few blocks from there.  Unable or unwilling to spend the time or money to fish in cleaner streams upstate, they came here, to the diseased and befouled waters of the East River.  What on earth would they do with anything they caught here?  It would be certain diarrhea or worse to consume anything from these waters.  The fish themselves were to be pitied.  Those that survived lived on, not quite sick enough to die, but poisoned enough from the chemical waste and pollution to have one or more of their organs fail prematurely.  The deposits of cadmium and mercury in their bodies would be passed on to their offspring, resulting in deformed and mutated babies that would grow up and continue the vicious cycle.  They were trapped in their toxic little ecosystem and Micah found consolation in their hardship.  He had come here to escape his stuffy room and the mountains of law journals on his desk.  Now in his second year of law school, Micah had not expected the fire of his inspiration to die so quickly.  Guilt was proving to be a much more effective motivator, but with equally dangerous repercussions.  With every forced study session came feelings of resentment that could neither be properly expressed or identified and so, silently accumulated.  Unbeknownst to Micah, God had already decided to wake him up.  Even now his mind was harkening back, as it did so often, to the time before his vision came.

 

 

The Heidelberg Catechism

Q129.  What does that little word "Amen" express?

A.   Amen means,

This is sure to be!

It is even more sure  
that God listens to my prayer,  
than that I really desire
what I pray for.

Isa. 65:24, 2 Cor. 1:20, 2 Tim. 2:13

That's it!!!  Amen, baby!  That's the last of the catechisms!  At long last!  Woohoo!!!  Praise the Lord!!  I'm FREE!!!  FREE, I tell ya!!!  O glorious day...

Just Another Night at the Movies in Jersey

Went to go see Spiderman 2 with John Choi and Animal last night in Edgewater.  I bought the tickets on movie-tickets.com and printed the tickets at home just like the commercials.  It had this long bar code down the side and I thought it was very cool that they were going to scan it just like in the commercial.  So we're waiting on line and we finally get to the ticket taker and I give him the movie-ticket.com paper and he takes it and rips it in half and hands me my half.  That didn't happen in the commercial.  Dude never even looked at it.  In the theater I sat next to Animal and he kept sniffling during all the emotional scenes.  He claimed it was just allergies, but whatever.  He's a very sensitive man.  We were watching happily right up until the moment Spidey goes to rescue MJ when suddenly all we see is Pepsi Smash on the screen and lights flashing.  Fire alarm.  What the heck???  You gotta be kidding me.  Like a classroom drill, we all file out of the theater into the parking lot.  Fire engines come.  The entire 16-screen theater empties and everyone mills about waiting to go back in.  We stand around discussing hairy girls and John tells us the story of how his elementary school crush on this Greek girl ended when she failed to cover up her armpit while raising her hand.  We tell jokes:

Animal: Yo mama's so hairy, when you were being born she gave you rugburns.

John: Knock-knock.
        Who's there?
        Interrupting cow.
        Interrupting...??
        MOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

Me: Girl goes to the checkout counter at the supermarket, and lays down on the counter a bunch of frozen dinners, one banana, one carrot, one tomato, and one quart of milk.  Guy behind the counter says, "Single, huh?"  She replies in a sarcastic tone of voice, "How'd you guess?"  Guy says, "Because you're ugly."

We wait 30 minutes, then 45, rumors are that movies won't start up again until 11:45 PM (it's 10:30) or you just have to come back the next day and show your ticket stubs to get new tickets.  Ticket stubs???  All I have is the shredded remains of the movie-ticket.com paper that has no information whatsoever of what movie we saw, time or date.  We stick around a few minutes longer while most people disperse because we notice they're giving out refunds or reimbursements or something.  I go up to the guy and show him my mangled paper and he says, "How many?" and I say "Three." and he gives me six free movie tickets.  Go figure.  Meanwhile there's some crackhead there who showed up dressed like Venom (if you know Spiderman comics, you'll know who this is) and John took a picture of him with his cell phone.  Finally we left and got some ice cream and poppingsoo at Piola 46 and Animal told us the story of the darkest ahjuma in Rochester.  Very bizarre night.  I don't know when I'll get to see the ending.  I hope Spidey wins in the end...

No Marriage

Hmm... maybe it's all these weddings I've been going to but y'know what I just realized?  I don't really wanna get married anytime soon.  This is news to me cuz I thought I did.  Yeah, I'm turning 33 in September, and yeah it kinda creeps me out, but y'know what?  I'm special.  I've got options.  And marriage, well... marriage simply hasn't shown itself to make life that much better.  I'm a pretty happy person as it is right now, and it's almost silly to think that being married would make me blissfully happier than I am now.  I've seen enough of couples and families to know there are plenty of headaches that go along with all those joyful times.  And in all my life, I've never had someone say to me, "Get married as fast as you can."  Instead I've gotten much advice to do the exact opposite: stay single as long as possible.  Of course, if you're kinda aimless and have nothing better to do with your time, marriage might seem like the logical next step.  But I need to finish at least one book before getting hitched.  I need to build some decent writing habits that are gonna last me through marriage and kids.  These years are the time to find a passion that'll be strong enough to withstand the rigors of marriage and family...

I Hate Philly...

This is my series on weddings I’ve attended this year.  This wedding was on June 26th:

Wedding #4 – Sheraton Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA

The skinny:  Can I just say, I hate Philly.  I've always hated Philly as far back as I can remember.  When I decided I was going to Westminster, I specifically chose the one in CA over the one in PA, cuz I couldn't stand the place.  I even got ripped off by this guy from Philly, detailed in this post from last year.  I'm not sure why, but I think my dislike for this particular city started after watching the original Rocky movie.  Man, the neighborhood and people Rocky hung out with were pretty darn grungy, which is central to the story I'm sure, but that doesn't matter much to a 10 or 11 year-old kid.  That was my first impression of Philly and it hasn't changed much since.  What does this have to with the wedding?  I digress.  This was Bobby and Jinny's wedding.  The only notable thing I can say about the wedding is that it was the first time I've seen the father stand between the bride and groom for the entire first half of the ceremony.  It was kinda bizarre.  The father walked the bride up to the front of the altar, and then just... stayed.  He stood next to her for the whole sermon and only left before they said their vows.  It was kind of an optical illusion cuz you're sitting there watching them and in all of your past experiences, you're used to seeing the groom standing next to the bride, but here, from the back, the guy looked like the groom, but in your mind you know it's actually her dad, which makes you feel kinda icky for some reason, and so your mind and your eyes never really get it together.  Other than that, it was a nice wedding.  Then I went to get my car.

The hotel employs one of the local garages to store the cars during overnight stays and events like weddings and conferences.  John Chae had earlier in the evening gone back to the garage to get something from his car and found to his surprise that it was just sitting in the garage with the doors unlocked, keys in the ignition and no one around.  He was alarmed, and told us about it, but we didn't think much of it.  But when the valet went and retrieved my car I found that my lovely little mp3 player was gone from my glove compartment.  After complaining to the attendant, I get a lecture about never leaving any valuables in the car ("It says it right here on the ticket.  We are not responsible for the loss of any personal items from your car, blah, blah, blah..."), and he tells me the manager will come and talk to me.  So I'm waiting for the manager for an hour, until I lose patience and ask the guy where the garage is, and I go there and wait for the manager for another 30 minutes.  Finally, he comes and gives me the same shpiel about you're supposed to take anything of value out of the car, blah, blah, blah... we're not liable, blah, blah, blah... it's printed on the ticket, blah, blah, blah.  The dude makes it seem like it's my fault for getting something stolen from out of my car while it was in his care. 

Now I know that this is fairly standard policy for all parking garages.  They all have this stupid disclaimer, but you never think about it until they actually steal something from you.  What a positively, ridiculous policy this is.  Basically, they're saying, don't leave anything in your car or we're gonna take it if we feel like and you can't do anything about it because you were warned beforehand.  That's crazy.  The employees all know this policy, so they can go through your entire car and take what they feel like.  Besides my mp3 player, I had a bag full of clothes in the trunk, a few pairs of sunglasses, $20 emergency money in the glove compartment, etc...  Theoretically, they could've taken anything.  Positively amazing.  Of course I could have gone to the police station and filed a report, but it was 11:30 PM, I was already aggravated, and I had a 2-hour drive ahead of me.  So I just left.  I am NEVER going to leave my car in a valet parking garage ever again if possible.  Parking garages are the devil.  But y'know it's not really about parking garages.  It's about Philly.  I hate Philly.  And Philly hates me.

On a scale of 1 to 10 -

Food:  5.  Hors d'oevres were ok but limited, and the best part of the dinner was their grilled shrimp and broccoli rabe with hollandaise sauce, but for some godforsaken reason the chef decided to saute the broccoli rabe with jalapenos and each dish came with about 9 or 10 slices of jalapenos on top of the broccoli.  I mean, that's just nuts.  The hot pepper oil just killed your taste buds and I didn't even eat any of the peppers.  The chef must've had a really good laugh.

Female talent:  1.  Bobby's a musician, a rocker, and Jinny plays in the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra, so I was hoping for some hot emotional violinist friends from her side maybe or at least some groupies from his side, but it was a very small wedding, maybe a 100 people and no hotness anywhere. 

Fun: -10.  What little fun I may have had at the wedding was negated by the parking garage from hell.

Projected forecast:  Bobby cried during the vows.  That's a good sign... 

A Little Madness

On Sunday, for Father's Day, our pastor gave out this little book of devotional readings for men.  I forgot who wrote it and what the title is, but if you really wanna know, I'll post it later.  Anyway, I was reading this thing and in the second chapter, he tells the story of this black pastor that he met in Chicago.  This pastor had been called to this really old run-down church with weeds growing all over the place.  He and his wife clean the place up and get it ready for Sunday worship.  Sunday comes and he gets his sermon ready for a new congregation, but nobody comes.  He ends up preaching to no one except his wife.  Still, he's undaunted and the following week prepares his sermon again for a full congregation.  Sunday comes and again the only person in the pews is his wife.  This goes on for the next... THREE years.  Finally after three years, one family comes and stays and becomes his congregation.  Soon thereafter, his church grows and grows to become a fairly large church.

But holy cow, is that crazy or what???  What kind of person preaches to an empty congregation every week for THREE years??  Y'know, it's almost too simplistic to say that he must have been a very faithful person.  Cuz to me, that kind of effort requires not just faith, or patience, or perseverance, but also a little madness.  And yet, it's that very madness, that inexplicable ability to think and act outside of conventional norms that's so dang impressive.  I don't really know the guy, and who knows, maybe he kept it up for so long because he had nothing better to do or maybe he just liked the sound of his own voice or something, but most probably he just hung on to whatever vision God had given him.  Plus, we have to throw his wife in here, too.  I mean, she's gotta be slightly crazy too.  To support your spouse while he/she does something like this...  I wonder if they had fights.  I wonder which way she pushed him - to give it up or to stay.  Cuz there's no way you can be ambivalent about a situation like that.  I'm sure the experience wasn't even close to being glamorous while they were going through it, but what a story they have to tell.  About what's possible.  Where would we be without these wonderful fits of madness?  Ah, to be fools for Christ...

Verse for the day:

"Already you have all you want!  Already you have become rich!  You have become kings - and that without us!  How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you!  For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena.  We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as men.  We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ!  We are weak, but you are strong!  You are honored, we are dishonored!  To this very hour, we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.  When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.  Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world..."  1 Cor. 4:8-13

the Calm Before the Storm

Funny how sometimes you actually notice when your life is on the cusp of change.  You're not always aware of it, but sometimes you are.  It's a weird feeling.  Time seems to slow down a bit, and there's a good deal of reflection that goes on, about how it was before, and how it might be in the future.  And then there's some regret maybe, some hesitancy, and finally, resolution.  But in the end, does it help any to know?  To be aware of the coming changes?  Doesn't it just bring needless confusion?  Life, after all, must be lived...

Repulsive Love

On Tuesday, I took my parents out to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway for my mom's birthday.  Hadn't seen it before and I thought it was a pretty good show.  I kinda wish the female lead was a bit more attractive cuz it would have made the story more realistic.  She was kinda short and frumpy and I didn't see why the Phantom and Raoul were so gaga over her but whatever.  I think for the first time I realized that what makes stories like this (Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc...) so rich is the fact that the love the monster feels for the girl is not only pathetic, but in its own way, courageous too.  Gosh, to be really, really repulsive and still declare your love for the girl takes some serious guts.  It's not just you're a geek and she's the cheerleader and you have practically no shot in hell, but I mean if you're just completely repulsive to the person and you know it, and still you go out on that limb, knowing you're gonna get utterly shot down, man that's admirable.  Of course the Phantom also kidnaps her and pretty much stalks and harasses her throughout the play so he's got some issues, but hey, nobody's perfect.  And it's nice, too, cuz there's no Hollywood ending - Christine runs off with goldenboy Raoul in the end, so it's fitting that way.  Sad and so terribly romantic all at the same time...  *sigh*  Note to self: must find a girl who thinks I'm disgusting.  Either that, or try to be repulsive to all girls in general...