comfort

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.


When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.


Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!


- Before the Throne of God Above, hymn

loss

we met almost 3 years ago - his brother and i were friends from college days in boston. his brother and sister-in-law were vacationing in china, and we all met up for a hot pot dinner on a balmy early summer evening.

g and i hit it off from the start; we found common ground in witty banter, love of thai food, cheesy 80s music, secret (ok, not-so-secret) nerdiness and overall smart-aleckiness.

he celebrated two birthdays with me, encouraged me when i was down about my job, attended art fairs with me and took me out for sushi. i helped him edit essays for business school applications, shop for art for his apartment, and fed him with occasional homecooked meals. we argued about the existence of God and swapped books to read: i lent him tim keller's "the reason for God" and he lent me christopher hitchens' "God is not great."

late wednesday night, i received an email from his brother: g was found dead in his shanghai apartment early tuesday morning by his cleaning lady. he was 33 years old.

my first response was to laugh - first sign of shock, perhaps? my second thought was, "i guess i'm not getting my book back..." terrible, i know. realization finally started to sink in like a heavy stone yesterday afternoon. i stared at his photos on my facebook. i re-read his last text message to me. i deliberated whether or not to delete his contact info from my iphone (i can't....not yet).

the last time i saw g was before chinese new year - he had broken his toe and was hobbling around on crutches. we watched "sixteen candles", drank blueberry tea and talked about the future.

i've never grieved the sudden loss of a friend before. it feels as if something just sucked his presence from this planet, and now there's this gaping hole that his body once occupied.


cups of coffee:  2

mood:  heavy

take your journey

and so it seems change is right around the corner...

the past few months have consisted of mad galloping from one thing to another...and now it doesn't seem as if the gallop will cease. now i can count on one hand the number of months i have remaining in shanghai. now my mind is slowly imagining the rhythms of a new life.

it all seems very surreal and with so many other concerns at hand that need my attentiveness now, it is a struggle to focus and be fully present. i find my mind drifting almost every hour and i must grasp madly at my attention to keep it from floating away, as if i'm catching butterflies with an insufficient net.

besides living in new york, being close to family and wonderful friends, besides becoming a student again and soaking my brain in academia...what i'm most excited about is this sense of a natural, easy, unplanned flow of life, how one thing is leading to the next. i love stepping back and seeing how different threads are interweaving, and knowing that the threads still left hanging will someday be woven in as well. i didn't picture my life to be here. i would never have imagined i would be where i am today, never dreamed that i would embark on a career in the arts as a result of coming to china. i have planned and re-planned my future a million times, finally learning a couple of years ago to give my frantic mind a rest. i am learning how to listen.

this isn't to say that the worrywart side of me has disappeared or that the type-A northeast asian-american voice in me has quit. even as i wait for remaining pieces to fall into place, i fidget with slight anxiety and hesitation, waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, for God to pull a cosmic prank on me. my inclination is to do - to move quickly, to take care of things, to wrap up and tidy up. God just doesn't move fast enough for me sometimes. but i am learning to wait - and trust!

the sovereignty of the Almighty and our free will - it's a funny thing how such paradoxical notions can actually co-exist quite harmoniously without mutual exclusivity. it's a funny thing how our life really is not our own yet we are also called to steward and govern our lives well. we are responsible for these precious days.

at the IAM encounter, dana gioia quoted, "traveler, there is no road - only walking." and then he added, "take your journey seriously!"

we are not destined to tread down some path like we're walking off a pirate ship's plank; we have been called to undertake a journey with a glorious Guide. and what a wonderful journey it is!


cups of coffee: 3 (stupid jetlag)

mood:  comfy

good day

so i'm sitting in a small, hip restaurant in soho with my friend, brunching and discussing the discipline of thanksgiving and gratitude. i'm sharing about my grad school process and the current state of waiting to hear back from schools and feeling simultaneously at peace and antsy. our food arrives (duck confit salad for me, irish breakfast for him) along with two tall glasses of chock-full-of-goodness-for-you green tea, and we bow our heads to say grace.

shortly after we raise our heads and dig into our food, my cell phone rings. i then notice that i've actually had 3 missed calls from my parents and they're calling again. i answer the phone to the static strains of joyous shouting and hollering on their end. my friend is cracking up as i try to hold a dignified, quiet phone conversation in an intimate restaurant while my parents are making all sorts of noise.

they checked the mail that morning and received a letter from NYU - my first choice for graduate school.

it looks like i'm moving to new york. :)


cups of coffee: 1 + 1 delicious green tea with barley

mood: elated!

ashes to ashes

today was ash wednesday and since i was free at noon, i stopped by the lent service at park street church (my home church in boston).  our church doesn't engage in the practice of dotting the forehead with a smudge of ash - but i sorta wish we did. there's something impacting for me about the gesture and the visible mark of the ash - tangible reminder of how we are truly mere dust, only able to move and have our being because God breathed life into our bones and flesh.

earlier tonight, i stopped by the ministry to folks in/around their 30's to hear my friend, a minister at park street, speak about redefining romance and falling in/staying in love. it's a ginormous topic that could run in a million directions, so i admired her for tackling it. we actually had lunch together yesterday and she was bouncing some thoughts and ideas off me as she was preparing her talk, so i was eager to hear her finished product. all in all, she did a great job talking about love and marriage to a group of folks who were mostly single and antsy if not anxious about the possibility of marriage in their own lives. during the q&a time, someone inquired how to discern if you are truly called to singleness or resigning to it because you are tired of trusting God about marriage. someone else asked about compatibility and how much that should matter when compared to a virtue like conformability (a person's ability to change and grow).

one person asked how do you live a fulfilled life when you possess unfulfilled desires (i thought this was actually the most insightful question posed all evening). my friend answered each question from the eager audience with a wonderful balance of truth and grace. note: most of the question-posers were women.

my friend mentioned the dangers of self-absorption and self-pity in answering the question about unfulfilled desires, and it dawned on me how appropriate it was to have this discussion today, on ash wednesday. somewhere between eden and here, we decided that certain things in life were "owed" us. we deserve to have a good life, we deserve to be happy. anything short of rosy happily-ever-afters was unacceptable, unfair, unjust, etc. we didn't just deem it to be so - we demand it. ash wednesday reminds us that we are nothing - mere dust blowing around for a few decades before we settle back to the earth from whence we came.

BUT....

there is this strange paradox: though we are nothing, we are deeply and perfectly loved in Christ. though we deserve nothing, we are destined for magnificence. it is only when we learn to lose the white-knuckled desperate grip we have on our lives that we realize - we have everything to gain. not because we deserve it, but because God in His great love deems us worthy to receive.

this may sound strange, but lent is one of my favorite seasons of the year. i enjoy the discipline of giving something up - something that in actuality is so small yet in practice points to the great suffering that Christ endured on my behalf. what i "give up" will always pale in comparison to what Christ sacrificed. i enjoy reflecting on mortality - my own mortality as well as the finite nature of mankind. it's not a morbid thought, just an honest recognition that life is short and a precious gift, something to be treasured and not squandered. i love the quiet sobriety of lent that leads to the joyful explosion that is easter. easter changes everything.

if easter is true - if there is indeed a Lord who clothed Himself in flesh and dwelt among us, suffered and died on our behalf, and then miraculously rose from the dead, then all of life and the purpose of life has been radically altered. perhaps the point of life is bigger than my own happiness. perhaps the meaning of life is significantly greater than my narrow scope. perhaps in losing myself and my presumptions on life do i indeed find myself and gain life as it was meant to be lived.

cups of coffee: 2

mood: joyful

i'm a-tumbling

i obviously need another social media platform because twitter, facebook, foursquare, linked in, jumo, instagram and blogging just aren't cutting it. must - be - more - connected!

just set up a tumblr account and am lovin' it. what's different? it's like microblogging/scrapbooking. bits and pieces of images, text and even sound composing a hodgepodge of whatever strikes my fancy. so far, so fun!

here's my tumblr site:

http://hellocosmos.tumblr.com/

come tumble with me! :)


cups of coffee: none yet but craving a soy latte RIGHT NOW

mood: slowly waking

hello, i love you

conversations on beauty and rehumanization. poetry that transcends the mundane to rub against Divinity's edges. skylines and fire escapes. late night drinks and even later dancing. songs that thread life's moments of joy and sorrow. reunion of friends from different continents. rainy afternoons and red mango. getting lost in the art. dreaming about the future and all that is to come.

much more to share, but still processing and running from one thing to another.

new york, i love you, and not just because the t-shirt told me to.


cups of coffee: 0! (still early)

mood: achoo! sniffle, sniffle.... :(