Late nite musings

As is usually the case, nights in Korea have a way of bringing out the surreal and abstract. It also narrows in on feelings and emotions that are usually sub-surface.

To preface this post, let me paint a little background. I've been working night shift for the past 2 weeks. Twelve hour night shifts to be exact. So now that the work part is over, my body is still very much on night shift. So now I'm here, awake, and I'm just reading through various expatriate blogs of foreigners' opinions and experiences in South Korea. Unique reading indeed.

So, with that as the physiological backdrop, let me express some thoughts...and be warned, there are no filters.

I have a very weird relationship with Korea. Initially, it seemed to represent a lot of freedom for me. But as I learned more about it, I also discovered ways in which I hated it for the bondage that it represents in me. It has been a constant tug between these two ever since.

Until I met my amazing wife, I often looked to Korea as a big pinnacle point for me for the most part. But even in trying to assimilate Korean culture (learning the language, opening myself to the culture, etc.) I discovered some of the EXACT same fundamental frustrations that I experience with American culture, just with a completely different twist. Every culture has them. Every culture is in bondage to these problems.

However for the most part, these frustrations would easily be overlooked because of the good experiences and memories that I have of trying to be a part of a different culture. I even thought that I would surely meet a Korean girl that I would hit it off with and marry.

Oh, how foolish we can be!


I now see the moment I met Christine as being the second major defining moment, and certainly the most important moment in my growth over the last several years.

When Christine entered the picture, I suddenly had a woman that was ridiculously attractive, intelligent, and everything that I wanted in a woman...regardless of what culture she was from.
But what made it especially interesting was that she turned the cards on me in one particularly powerful way:

Christine is half Chinese. It gives her a physical beauty that is unmatched by any other in my book, and a family background that is destined to be interesting for the rest of our lives.
Her Chinese heritage represents mixed emotions in her life. While she certainly appreciates on some levels that she is part Chinese, there is also parts of her that are really reserved on the topic, and for good reason.

So suddenly, instead of being able to approach her within the context of me wanting to study a "new culture" that I'm excited about learning, I must actually put off my selfish desire to "prove my worth" in learning the culture in order to address who SHE is.

Let's make it clearer.
My desire to learn and love other cultures is wholesome. My motivation...WHY I wanted to learn it, was selfish.
There was a deficiency in me that I was trying to fill by proving that I was "able" to assimilate a new culture that was very different than my own.
This has powerful implications for me, and really for anyone who is trying to make sense of how to love ALL neighbors that we have been put in contact with.

I was already plainly attracted to Christine in all respects. But the fact that she was part Chinese just happened to play into my selfishness in a way that needed to be addressed.

As I daily studied her and learned more about this person that I am crazy about, I started to see where these notions that I had about impressing her by assimilating her culture were really getting in the way of loving her and treating her with the respect that I wanted so desparately to give her.

I began to see that our common ground was between our souls. It was in how we communicated. It was in how we loved one another and then expressed that love to others. It was in how we wanted to live our lives, and what things we considered to be important pursuits.
I stopped trying to find our common ground in "old things", and I began to invest "new things" into our relationship.

Marriage was the only choice. There were no questions. Christine Alison Hu was who I desparately needed to be with, and no one else.

Now, while I certainly want the foreground issue to be this romance, I want to take a moment to address the back burner issue:

Culture is temporal.

Beautiful? Sure
Complex? Absolutely
Interesting? Without a doubt...

...but its temporal.

In other words, with my worldview of who Christ is and how He relates to us, I would say that culture is NOT something that we should be investing our time and energy into.

"But...!" you say.
"Steve, culture is so tied with language and EVERYONE is part of a culture....there is NO WAY to ignore culture!"

And my answer to you would be this:

In order for culture to be truly appreciated, it MUST be submitted to things that are NOT temporary. It MUST be submitted to love.
Any other configuration will cause division, strife, bias, and ultimately death.

All things that are temporary must come into submission to who Jesus is.


And now I'm tired.

...To Be Continued

Morning Calm: Day 3 & 4

The business begins.

I miss my family.

I'm tired from time and shift changes.

I feel better after chatting with Christine.

I don't feel very deep or motivated right now.

Maybe I should get some food.

Morning Calm: Day 2

I needed sleep.

I was awake for over 24 hours straight.

I feel better now.

Since it's early in the morning and I am stuck in my room, I had a few fleeting thoughts about bondage...but the Holy Spirit gave me strength, and then I was able to talk to my wonderful spouse.

Now I need a shower.

And food.

Morning Calm: Day 1

Here I sit in Korea once more.

This country has found it's way into my blood, and it won't seem to let go.

Actually, that's not totally true.

The truth of the matter is that when I first came to Korea in 2005, God Himself began to take me on a journey that forever ended childish things in my life. It happened to be Korea, but it could have just as well been Alabama, Canada or Somalia.
Oh sure, when I left for basic training and joined the Air Force, the process started...but it wasn't until I went to a far away place with no one to rely except for Christ Jesus that I began to see a totally new (to me anyway) side of God.

Now, if the title of this blog is to be accurate, then I need to be clear.
My first time around in Korea had some major pitfalls for me. I crawled back towards bondage that I've been set free from. (Please read this link for clarity of what I mean: http://www.brittmooney.com/2009/03/adopting-conquered-gods )

But even in my Judas-esque choices, God spoke to me calmly and evenly about how gritty, visceral, and downright powerful His love really is.
It's not some hippie thing. It's not some weak idea that's for those who need a "crutch."
It's the kind of love that rips mountains out of the ground and throws them into the sea as if it's nothing.
It's the kind of love that overcomes abuse, lust, anger, selfishness, violence, pride, murder, war, sadism, and all other kinds of evil.

I can't emphasize enough how poorly our word for "love" conveys the truth of the reality of the concept.

So with that as the backdrop, let me begin day one.

Much has changed since the last time I set foot on this land.
I'm married to a wonderful woman, I have a beautiful child, we have a wonderful group of believers that we are fellowshipping with, and aside from the Air Force Reserve I am in desperate need of a full time job.

I've made it a practice to be brutally openly honest with my wife about my struggles. This has led to some very encouraging victory, and EXTREMELY satisfying openness, trust and intimacy with my wife.
Add to this a consistent theme of "truth in the inward parts" in the journey that Christ is leading me on, and I have a very different launch pad from which I'm entering Korea than the first time around.

What does this mean in plain terms? I have the opportunity to reclaim lost territory in my soul. I have the opportunity to submit my weak areas completely and totally to God. I have the opportunity to take captive EVERY thought and impulse and give them to my creator to be transformed. I have the opportunity to look at Korean culture from a place of satisfaction instead of need. I have the opportunity to invest in Love, Truth, Faithfulness and Self Control in my relationship with my beautiful wife.

There is a scene in the Matrix that is a very apt analogy for this.
It's the final scene of the first movie, and Neo has realized who he is. As the men in suits are shooting at him, Neo raises his hand and resolutely says simply "No." The bullets stop and fall to the ground. He then engages them in hand to hand combat, and a serenity can be seen on his face as he realizes that their attacks are utterly useless. He is faster than they are and he easily beats them.

We serve a King who is not of this world. He doesn't make reality...He IS reality.

His question to us is this: "Don't you know who you are?"


Finally, for every entry that I put in this blog while I'm gone, I want to let my wife know how much I appreciate and love her.
This morning as I was leaving for the plane, she wrote a beautiful letter to me. I pulled it out halfway through our 14 hour flight, and the Holy Spirit ministered to me through it. I have what many do not have. I have a wife that loves me in the way that the church should be loving Christ. It puts new weight and meaning into my calling to love her as Christ loves the church.
It also puts weight into how important our response to His love is in our relationship.

Self Assessment

My main spiritual gifting is teaching.
Perhaps there are others, but I have not explored them. This is due mostly to the fact the gift of teaching requires some pretty hefty exploration into the character of God, and then some pretty brutal exploration into your own character in order for the gift to be of any use to anyone.

While I will certainly explore reasons why I see the world in certain ways, and how those ways came to be, this post will not be going quite that deep.

In the mean time, it will suffice to say that there is wisdom in exploring the idea that Jesus consistently praised qualities that children possess and even equated those qualities as essential parts of walking with Him.

One of my potential reason is that children are so darn honest. There is no getting around them or getting one by them. They call it like they see it, regardless of any social repercussions that we "mature" adults would be worried about.
"Why does that lady have such a funny looking face?"
"Why is that man so fat?"

Of course most parents would cut this kind of talk off, with a firm explanation about how we are not to behave that way in public. And to be fair, we should absolutely be considerate of the feelings of others. There are ways of approaching something in love.
But there is an underlying honesty that gets stifled along with the bluntness. The parent will probably either refuse to answer the question, or answer with a quick vague answer to the effect of "some people make different choices in life, but we don't talk about things like that."

A child wonders in innocence, "What caused that person to be in the state that they are in?"
It's a question that most people don't want answered about themselves, and don't care when answered about someone else. And then, throw culture on top that says "it's rude to ask those questions" and you have quite the recipe for confusion, insincerity, and unrealistic expectation.

What is interesting to me is how little people are willing to be brutally honest about who they are in the dark. Even those people...and we all know at least one...who claim that they don't "mess around" or "sugar coat" anything, are really just tactless people with an undisciplined and unbalanced view of speaking "truth."
I have yet to see any who, first and foremost, have called their own lives out on the carpet and began the process of healing and overcoming before they would even THINK of calling someone else out.

But even in saying that, I don't want to enable the bondage that is the following: "I can't confront my brother/friend/enemy with the truth if my life isn't together."


So there seems to be a balance that must be struck.

On the one hand, there is the fact that too many people have never taken an accurate inventory of the darkness that resides within them. This is an epidemic, and so I think for the majority of people this would serve as an appropriate place of emphasis.

However, on the other there must be an understanding that we are called to push our brothers and sisters. We are called to love our enemies. We are called pray for those who curse us. And nowhere in that calling is there a caveat that talks about having our act together before we can do those things.

So the conclusion then, is to understand that we are always in need of humility. We need to have a firm grasp on the fact that we are all the murderers, liars, adulterers and thieves...and we are the worst breed of them.
Because if we understand that we are capable of those things, then when we see another who is lying, lusting, killing or stealing, we will approach them with a totally different attitude.

We get angry at people who struggle with things that we are guilty of most. We hate that we are so similar to that person. We hate that we might look just like that guy that gets under your skin so much.
I think that this anger is born out our unwillingness to see who we really are in dark.
The adulterer makes me angry because I don't realize that I hate the adultery that lies within my own heart.
But if I know that I am the adulterer...and that Christ has set me FREE from adultery, then I can love the adulterer, and I can speak truth without hypocritical judgement.

Imagine if the church in America were to take a season to spend time understanding the bondages that it holds onto in order to truly overcome them.

Imagine if *insert your name here* were to do the same thing...

Introductory

In the past, I have engaged in the art of blogging. I did it a lot when I first left home for the Air Force. Most of the time, I would blog for a time and then come to a hiatus where it seemed my thoughts were just becoming regurgitations of the place in life that I was at.
Time would pass, and eventually, the newness of a new leg of the journey would inspire me to once again take to the keyboard. This would usually also include a change of blogging service.

With the inspiration of some good friends of mine and the advent of Google's world takeover, it seems appropriate that I begin a blog anew with this service.

But with this blog, I hope to start something new. Not just new for this cycle, but new altogether. I've been trying to think of a title for the blog, and it has eluded me. Now finally, after some interesting growth and discovery, the name hit.

Authentic Identity.

If you would humor me, please allow those two words to sit with you for a while. If I could take those two words and put them within the context of love, life, relationship, strife, victory, friendship and every other meaningful pursuit, then I would have something that would never become a regurgitation.

This is my goal. I never want have a meaningless regurgitation. I never want to become irrelevant because of mindless repetition.

My entire worldview is grounded in Christ Jesus.
If the concept of Christ as the very center...in fact, the very reason for my worldview scares you, then I invite you to keep reading. See what it is that makes me so bold/crazy/foolish as to make me really believe such a thing.

If the concept of Christ as the center of my worldview repulses you because you already have plenty of experience with the American expression of religious Christianity, then please...keep reading! I assure you that the Jesus that I follow, often looks quite a bit different than the popular expression of country club Christianity that is so prevalent today.

Now that the foundation is covered, the framework of my worldview is shaped by my understanding of who I am, and how I interact with the people around me.
First and foremost, I interact with my lovely wife and my daughter. I can quickly find how well I measure up to what I say by listening to my wife's view of how I treat her.
The concept simply expands from there to my friends, my relatives, my church, the dirty guy on the side of the street, the arrogant religious hypocrites, the politicians, and suburban apartment managers. All of them are people that I am to love. Not the English word "love", but the unconditional, uncomfortable, selfless, irrational love that doesn't seek it's own needs.
You know...the kind of love that English doesn't have the word for. That kind.

After the framework is established, then the skin and guts get put on.
These are my passions. Music is amazing. Mountain biking is a great activity. Dogs are awesome. Spicy Thai food warms my tummy like no other.

All of these elements make up my worldview. They make up me.

So with this blog...this NEW blog, I want to share my authentic identity with you.

Enjoy.