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Home film scan from a shot taken in Paris, 2018. 

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lay your burden down upon Him..

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Conscience

I have no more to say, except this: We must live with our own conscience. Each and every one of us must live with his own conscience.- A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest J. Gaines

Conscience -- the only incorruptible thing about us. - Henry Fielding

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Know Means Know

I scream, ‘No’ to everything You are and You whisper to me, ‘Know Me’

Psalm 46:10 He says, "Be still, and know that I am God.

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“..Last year was so hard, I almost gave it up, 

but even Lazarus had hope, 

God, I pray you raise me up..”

(Step Into Love - Tedashii feat. Sarah Reeves)

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One day I will be 60 years old and think to myself how fast the days have passed.

It is relieving to know that we are just mists in the grand story.

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Today is just one of those days where I want to throw the towel in

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Us vs. “Them”

Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. 

It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue.

The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing.

If you start to think the problem is “out there,” stop yourself.

That thought is the problem.” 

- (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 100)

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If you look for the good in others, you will find it. If you look for the worst in others, you will find it. If you love yourself, you will accept yourself. If you hate yourself, nothing is acceptable. Not even the smallest mistakes. You can be with someone you love and them spilling ketchup on your shirt will be nothing. You can be with someone you hate, and them sipping on soda will annoy the hell out of you. Literally bring the hell out of you.. I am the hardest on myself and it hurts the ones who embraces my dirt. I looked and found the worst in me. The smallest speed bump was unacceptable in my life..But there is Someone who's love is as deep as the #ocean. Today, look for the good in others, the world, and most importantly yourself. (at Malibu, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqH7waVD-2h/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1r8igdw5cyin6

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Love you, Dad.

Haven’t written in here in a while. 

At least something meaningful to me. 

Anyways, just to cut straight to the topic, I had a bit of a clash with my Dad the other week over.. well, we just had a disagreement. Not just one of those minor ones, the phone call ended pretty bad with me saying horrible and ignorant things.

I ended up apologizing a few days later over text, but it was one of those weak apologies, you know the kinds where you say sorry, but you really have no plan to follow up with them or talk to them in the future? 

I guess you can say I was sweeping the matters under the rug. Apologizing just because I knew it was the right thing to do. Plus, my wife telling me haha.

He even wrote me a long paragraph in Korean, but I didn’t bother to get it translated or ask anyone to tell me what he said. I didn’t even try to read it.

Last night my Mom messaged me in a group chat with me and my Dad saying they loved me and missed me very much.

I quickly replied with a smiley emoticon and generic response, but I did feel some anxiety brewing within me...

Anyways, today I was just in bed on my phone browsing through social media as I always do when there’s nothing to do (lol).

Suddenly, I get a call from, you guessed it, my Dad.

I was about a swipe away from screening his call, but decided to pick up because I knew I would have to deal with it one day or the other. 

I answered and we began to do one of those weather talks. He told me my older sister was coming over dinner and wondered if me and my wife were available to join.

I told him I couldn’t because I had to catch a flight the next morning.

All the while he was weather talking with me, I felt this strange anxiety well up in me again.

As my Dad was talking to me over the phone, I immediately realized why I was feeling so much anxiety.

In 2007 when my parents were struggling financially, I took up a job working 8.5 hours a day at some assembly line, sweat shop, God-forsaken hole in Industry City updating each camera that came down the line with a software chip. 

I did this for about a month to pay for my own things.

16 years old, commuting 1-hour back and forth, working 8.5 hours in a non-air conditioned room with a bunch of others who were older than me. 

One day, I was driving back home and I get a call from my Dad.

He asked how my day was and started weather talking. 

“How was work today?” 

“I see, you’ve been driving far to get there? Did you eat yet?”

Yadi, yadi, yada. 

Soon he went silent on the other line..

“Dad?”

“Dad? Are you there? Did you lose reception?”

Suddenly I heard the most terrifying thing a boy could hear from his father who he thought was invincible:

He began to cry.

Not like one of those cool cryings you see in movies.. He began to cry a lot. And I’ll just leave that at there. 

I know he cried because as a Korean man, he felt like he couldn’t provide for his kids to the point his 16 year-old was working a 9 to 5 job to support himself.

I never saw it like that, but I guess it’s different when you have a kid.

I didn’t know what to say. I asked him if he was okay.. He told me he would see me at home and hung up.

I came home later that evening and he was in the kitchen with my mom cooking as if nothing ever happened. 

And he gave me a warm look as if to say, “It’s okay, don’t bring it up here, son.”

Today I lay in bed as a 27 year old listening to my Dad weather talking to me over the phone and I felt that same anxiety. 

Not knowing if he would break down again..

I could tell in his tone he missed me.

I think I felt this anxiety because this man still loved me despite my wrongs. 

I think it’s logical for us to find solid ground in hate because it’s so easy. You tell yourself you hate this person because of a, b, or c. And if that person hates you back, all the more to hate him more.

The anxiety I felt was that I was a, b, and c to my Dad all my life, yet he still loved me.

That left me on a foundation of crumbling sand. 

...It’s a mystery. Illogical. Like... why do you put me in this awkward position to respond to you? It brings a soft side out of me... 

The anxiety I felt was me having to make a choice: do I become soft or hard-hearted?

And towards the end, I wasn’t even listening to what he was talking to me about. He was going on about my job and asking me if we should go eat some BBQ with the family on Sunday.

Same ol’ yadi, yada.

I didn’t care about that. 

I lay there in bed almost in a trance just listening to his voice almost wanting to let him know I loved him, but I was too scared.

I lay there thinking about how much I would miss these random phone calls once he’s gone. 

I lay there thinking about how wrong I was and how he deserved so much more...

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later, son.”

“...Okay, Dad, I’ll see you soon... bye.”

“Okay... bye..”

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.. And some days, you just want to give up.

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I used to blog a lot on tumblr and in my journal. I'm not sure when life seemed to have gotten "so busy", but I decided to start blogging again on my website in the Personal section. Mainly because I just got back to my habit of reading again. Currently reading: 4 Loves - CS Lewis. Recently experienced hurt, anger, & love all this past weekend. So I did what any other millennial would do: blog about it. Link: http://www.etcprod.com/love-bridges/ (at North Vancouver, British Columbia)

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Politics.

I didn’t know politics could qualify as a quality sufficient to reject a brother or sister.

The other day I carelessly posted a status of a candidate’s last name, of which I look back, and see as totally stupid and immature. I posted because I thought this whole election was ridiculous... although I still voted.

But I accept those with views different than mine.

I don’t accept it when views override relationships.

I’m friends with gays, non-christians, gang members, drug dealers, etc. And have shared food on the same table as them in the past year of 2016.

My view is different. They accept me. Vice-versa.

How have political lines been traced on the floors of the church?

My pastor preached this past Sunday on how Jesus said a ‘kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.’

Jesus was right, and if I was the Devil, I’d use something like politics to divide the church.

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Came back from an amazing family trip, but one thing that stood out from this past week was the posting of the little boy from Syria: #omardaqneesh The feeling I felt, which I'm sure everyone did, was utter heartbreak. What is more is that I know in a few weeks this feeling will fade from its emotional vibrancy, the intense vividness that human beings such as Omar Daqneesh experience in full effect everyday, to us, a time-to-time shock. I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone. I know for myself how depraved I am. I will likely go on with my schedule, going back to living life with am ounce of worry, celebrating weddings, family, food, etc. To us, a story/article. For many others, harsh reality. I don't know what to do. I can pray. I can also look in the mirror and realize I too am capable of such evil if put in the right circumstances. I can wake up each day with deep thankfulness. But how does all this affect global moral corruption? "Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone" echoes in my ears once heard from a pastor years ago. If we can make a difference to the one to our left and right, I hope that love can chain react to human beings like Omar on the other side of the world. Just a thought. I needed to process this somehow. (at Glacier Point)

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Authentic for the Sake of Authenticity

It seems to me that one grace of our era is the chance to achieve personal honesty at a fairly sophisticated level.

The reason is not that we have become less prone to conformity than our predecessors, but that the currents to be conformed to are presently so numerous and complex that in the end you can’t be something you’re not for the simple reason that you can’t even figure out what that something is.

And even if you succeeded, there are others so needy to establish their own identities that they feel compelled to deny the authenticity of yours.

You may think you’re a real environmentalist, a real feminist, a real black man (what’s an unreal one look like, do you suppose?), but you’re not...

It’s the moment when you simply have to give up the game.

A certain degree of frustration departs with that decision, and a certain degree of peace takes it place. I’m reminded of a quote by Andrea Dworkin (which I sent to a school principal I know, who now carries it in his wallet): “On one level I suffer terribly from the disdain that much of my work has met. On another, deeper level, I don’t give a fuck.”

(p. 346, The Enigma of Anger, Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin, Keizer)

George Macdonald once wrote in his essays something along the lines of, “Jesus never strived to be authentic”

Something along those lines, I wish I could quote it verbatim, but I’m at a cafe at the moment and that precious book is lying somewhere in my bedroom.

That quote seems so simple, but it carries such relevant truth to our generation today. 

I went to New York a month ago and one thing I noticed about the restaurants and shops here, especially the pizza and coffee shops, was that every store claimed to be “New York’s Best _____”

You look on instagram these days and see every account claiming to be unique or authentic. 

Shallow groups of college students in a group or coupled together with the hashtag #oneofakind

I think a lot of us has fell in love with the idea of authenticity instead of actually trying to be authentic. 

And when there comes a person actually doing something unique, we view them as extremists or radicals. 

I feel like the world demands you to chase this never-ending game of striving to be authentic,

but I think the real authenticity comes when you choose to give it all up.

And by giving up, not by settling for less and not striving for better, but rather just to do what you do without the pressure of pleasing the world.

I think that’s what Jesus did, huh?

He did what he had to do. He had this vision and didn’t go by the world’s standard. 

It’s like this world has a standard to, let’s say, get the ultimate white shirt.

So everyone is born into this world to strive for the most unique white shirt.

Some knit it, hem it, trim it, loosen it, tighten some edges, make it into a v-neck white shirt, sleeveless white shirt, etc.

Sure, some are unique, but what if in that world, one person or group comes along and gets a red shirt?

I think that’s kind of like how the world is today.

The world says, here is the standard, and we need to come in here with a freaking red shirt and create a new standard. 

Now that would be authentic, whatever that “red shirt” may be to you. 

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Human

You can’t see people as a project.

You can’t see people as something to fix.

You need to relate to them as human beings. 

An overweight person doesn’t need someone to tell, or motivate, them to get their ass to the gym. Don’t you think they would know that? 

Same with an alcoholic, smoker, drug dealer or the fiend, porn addict, lover of money, etc.

As soon as you start viewing people as projects to fix, you will get frustrated, disappointed, and angry. 

The world doesn’t need more people from the church to view them as a project; as social media bait for self-promotion. 

(I roll my eyes at countless instagram photos of ‘candid’ moments of helping someone in need. Granted, social media is a powerful tool of spreading the good news, but how about you not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing?)

I remember a few years ago during the holidays when I went to Long Beach with a few outreach members to simply hand out food and talk with the homeless there; to get to know them on a personal basis, ya know, what you would do to another human being.

No cameras, no need to share to others. Just go there and be with people.

While I was talking with a few people, suddenly a group of people who felt like they needed to cross off a few tally marks of good deeds on their moral chart came with a bunch of clothes. 

One person rounded up the homeless to gather in a line so they could receive their bag of goodies. 

As they were doing this and the lines began increasing, I remember this one lady quickly telling her teen kids(?) or social club/church members to pose for a few pictures in the midst of the crowd.

After what seemed like 30 minutes of expedited passing out of clothes, they packed up and left the location. 

Sure, the homeless got what they wanted, but I remember seeing that peculiar scene and thinking to myself how impersonal that was. 

That one lady must have uploaded the pictures on her facebook or what not with a caption and a few bible verses or good deed quotes with the same ol’ predictable hashtags. #blessed #givingisbetterthanreceiving #Lovewins 

What I saw was someone wanting an applaud from her peers. 

She didn’t care about the homeless. She helped the homeless to really promote herself. 

Stop treating people out there and in the church as people to fix. 

Talk with them. Walk with them. Be there for them. Like Jesus did with us. 

It was never looking into our sin and flaws that made us change or turn to Jesus.

It was and will always be his kindness that he manifests through the church that leads us and the world to turn to Him. 

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Out of sight, out of mind.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country....

...But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him..

There’s a saying that goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind’

Even though some time has passed, perhaps not a considerable time, but enough time for one to squander all his wealth and go from the top to the very bottom of a pig’s den, it is enough time for many of us who might have a rebellious son like this with a limited love to forget or suppress any memory of him over time. 

But what is mind-boggling about this story is that the father does not do what many of us, including Jesus’ listeners, expect him to do. 

The son does not come home to an empty house or a forgetful father. 

He comes home to the way everything used to be. The same scent of what he  as a younger man had remembered tasting before he left. 

Most importantly, he comes home to a father who has not forgotten. 

A father who had not repressed or become resentful.

He had come home to the same father who loved him so much he would let him go, but wait eagerly everyday for his return.