Category: Thoughts

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Memories of Grandpa – Becoming Softer

Grandparents

What’s reminiscence without complementary grandpa?

My paternal grandfather was a man of education. He spent the entire life on education. He was a principal to an elementary school in Namwon. Most of the people that are in and around the area grew up having him as the principal. I recall so many people coming over to pay their respects during his funeral.

It was a very emotional one for me. He had just one wish and that was to hold a great grandson. Trust me, if I could turn back time, I wish I could grant him that one last wish. But alas, he died without having held JJ. I used to think badly of that. You see, Anna is my older child but having grown up in Confucius teachings and the older culture, he practically ignored my daughter when we had visited him several years ago.

I used to hold that against him… but now, I just … let it go. He has known that culture for all his life and have realized that expecting him to love my daughter just as much as he would my son was more than he could. Perhaps, it was being a principal but I remember him being very strict and … not very fun to be around. My (paternal) grandmother was so much kinder, though I barely remember her now… She passed away when I was only about 20. Having bored 10 children was more than she could handle. The biggest thing I remember was that she would let me go out to play when grandpa told us not to go outside.

Namwon was a countryside back then… no covered roads to home… just dirt. So the beginning decades for me weren’t very fond memories of him. But as conversations come back again and again to it, jung (?, the essence of emotional bonds between people that is formed over time and/or circumstances) is a very strong and scary stuff.

Since adulthood, I have had the opportunity to visit him again and again. Once he came to visit us in the States. We drove him around even to Canada to sightsee. Over the years, I noticed him getting… softer. It was rather subtle but it was there. He was less strict and laughed more (at least to what I remember).

I’d like to believe that he died peacefully having made peace with what he could and the people that he could. Seeing all those people coming to pay respects reminded me that he did something right. But it was definitely a gentler and softer grandfather that I remember now…  I am so glad that is how I remember him.  See you soon grandpa…  Hope you can see JJ from up there…

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Baggage – Carrying our Past With Us

“We are born broken. We live by mending. The grace of God is the glue.” ~ Eugene O’Neill


I saw this on Twitter posted by Pastor Eugene Cho.  Normally, I would’ve just passed it by.  However, this quote spoke volume to me.

You see, I believe we all have baggage.  All the little and big things from our past be it mistakes, people, or secrets, we all carry that into the present and future.  No matter who you are, and whether you are a Christian or not, we all carry that.

We as Christians don’t feel like going to church or work with others.  I still remember from my mission trip to Thailand in ’93, that the number 1 reason that the missionaries leave their posts and return home is none other than other missionaries.  I was only 20 at the time so I did not know what that really meant.  Over the years though, I have felt that and lived that.  It’s so true that it’s hard to live with other people around us.  So to work with others would be even more difficult.

Younger people don’t want to go to church but just stay at home and use TV and the Internet to receive the message these days.  While that may seem efficient on the surface, inside, it reveals something darker.

If you recall the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:21-35), this servant that was forgiven a million dollars could not forgive the debt of a friend who owed him $1000.  The master who had originally forgiven him of that million dollars found out and put him in jail for being ungrateful and unmerciful.  We all are that unmerciful servant in that we were all forgiven million dollars.  What others have done to us and do to us are small compared to what God has forgiven.

As the playwright Eugene O’Neill stated, “we are born broken”.  We are born messed up and none of us are in “good condition” to begin with.  This is why when we try to work with others or live together in harmony, it is so freaking hard.  I have holes in my heart.  So do you.  And all those around us.  Our own imperfections can’t deal with each others’ on top of our own.  None of us should be surprised to learn that.

We try to be islands and become ascetic.  For anyone else, that may be fine.  But I believe God has put us to live with each other for a reason.  If we truly understand the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant and realize just how much we have been forgiven, we can forgive others.  And second sentence of Eugene O’Neill’s quote becomes possible.  “We live by mending”.  Why?  Because “the grace of God is the glue.”

As the life unfolds before me and life goes on, I am reminded of the million dollar debt I am cleared of and that God asks me to love others just as He has loved me and accept others with their imperfections just as they are as we all struggle to mend ourselves.  We shall truly fail if we use our own strength.  We will only succeed if we use the grace of God as glue.

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“Lost” Finale – Remarks

*SPOILER ALERT*

In case you haven’t heard or really follow the series, “Lost” is finally found.  It’s over.  Yup.  Series has ended as of Sunday, and I finally got to see the ending…

In case you also forgot, this series was directed by the one and the same:  J. J. Abrams who brought “Alias” to us.   Yup.  I hated the ending to that series.  The complicated plot that should’ve been addressed more appropriately came to a screeching and frustrating ending.  “Lost” has NOT been any different!  It has brought in way more questions than answers… each season!  By third season, I was officially frustrated with it and watched it only to watch with my wife.

So when I heard this would be the last season, I didn’t have very high expectation thinking that J.J. would botch this one too.  It was a mixed review on Sunday night when I rudely discovered that the series finale would air on Sunday instead of its ‘regular’ Tuesday.  Not only that, people were already throwing out spoilers!  Sheesh… But I managed to stay away and finally watched the finale today.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I expected disappointment and while I wasn’t blown away for sure, it ended rather… pleasantly.  No it did NOT answer all the questions… including what the island is to begin with and why it’s there in the first place!  However, what I did NOT expect was the more personal touch to the series.  As all the cast members gathered in the church towards the end, it felt like the writers were hinting at religious theme and an ending.  That’s not what made me forgive its (still) botchy ending.  It was how the characters interacted to the end.  Also, the way the black smoke/John was killed off by “turning” off the light source was ingenious and was not expected!

I guess the writers and the directors knew that the ending was impossible to answer all the questions… so only with few major questions answered, they decided to leave it to our imaginations.  And you know what?  Unlike “Alias” ending, I was not minding it at all… I still would love to find out more answers and wished for more concrete implications of what the final “gathering” in the church meant but I will let the show go…

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Brain Working Overtime

I have been busy with work past two months.  Last week, more things culminated to the point where I was having hard time figuring some stuff out.  It had to do with understanding different … assumptions.  Needless to say, I left last Friday unfinished and unresolved.

Indirectly and directly, I kept thinking about the issues at hand and tried to make sense of what the differences were and how it should be addressed.  (Sorry for such abstract words but it is proprietary project) My brain functioned more indirectly than direct as lots were happening that weekend.  However, by the end of the weekend, I had finally understood how to address the differences and begun to understand what changes needed to be entailed.

I was rather surprised at how human brains can still work in “background” mode (you Linux nerds may get a chuckle out of that one!) and still manage to process the work while immersed in other activities fully.

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Recent Thoughts on What a Church Should Be

None of us are perfect.  Even after being Christians.  Actually, let me correct myself…  Especially, after becoming Christians.  So I was naturally more and more disappointed to find out that we are even less and less tolerant of those that are not Christians, let alone being different.   After all, that’s exactly the same groups that Jesus warned us NOT to be like – the Pharisees!

However, we become more and more reclusive people that only accept “clean” people.  Today’s Sunday school was about how God accepts and loves EVERYTHING about us.  Yet, we as church, seem to require that people change before we come to God’s church to grow and receive Him.  Jesus often compared Himself as a doctor who came to heal the sick.  That would imply that the people were still not saved.  Yet, over 2000 years, we somehow changed to allowing “pre-requisites”.  We want “decent” people only… if we lack any skills, be it social or intellectual, if we lack any riches or economic standing, we don’t seem as receptive.

I say the more screwed up we are, the more we need Christ in our lives!  That can only happen if we receive all those that enter God’s doors just as they are!  Is that too much to ask?!  Is that too crazy to demand of?!

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Is GT All It’s Cracked Up To Be?!

No, I am not talking about cars… though it is something I can easily talk about.  I am referring to the “Gifted & Talented” program.  One of our kids, I won’t mention who, has been nominated and admitted into the GT program.  I for one am not so sure about it though… especially in regards to long-term perspective.

Sure it allows advanced or fast-learning kids to not get bored by giving them more stuff… but I see more drawbacks than anything else… Let me explain.  First of all, smart people are easily anti-social and tend to not work well with people… especially those that they don’t consider as intelligent.  Second of all, smart people don’t understand how the world turns.  On the daily level.  Intelligent people tend to get isolated from what normal average people feel and experience.

Ok, so you may think that I am exaggerating things and stereotyping people a bit.  And that is true but so far, I haven’t been proved wrong.  I worry that GT program would isolate the child even further than necessary from regular people and how things turn around daily…  If you recall, I have said over and over that I’d trade smart kids for sociable ones on any given day!  Smart kids tend to think better of themselves.  My wife’s friend’s child is showing such symptoms, as well as co-worker’s son.  I am not saying that all smart people are evil.  But it sure seems easy to become so…

If this world is to become a better place, we need people who can tolerate others and work with others.  Together.  Not a bunch of smart self-reliant people.  Take that as my 2 cents… If humility can be in co-existence though… then it can save the intelligent.

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Learning From My Own Conversations

I spoke with a friend from the past couple of weeks ago.  Won and I go back some 15 years but he’s not your typical sociable person or does he keep in touch even though we are great friends.  In our conversation, we spoke about some deep stuff.  You see, if you know Won, you know that he doesn’t like to deali-dally in the conversations.  He likes to get down to the important stuff.

In our conversation, he complained about how he felt so fake at a church’s small group asking about what he does for a living and what school he graduated from, only to have them change from “oh” to “oooh” after learning his school credentials (you see, my friend graduated from Harvard MBA program).  As proud as I am of him for being so smart, it does irritate me when he complained that it’s hard to “go beyond the surface”.  He wants to be able to develop relationships on a deper level beyond the tip of the iceberg.

I think we all want that.  However, as I had told my friend, unless you have the teleporting capability, we all have to go through the tip of the iceberg or the surface (the 10% of the iceberg) if we are to see the iceberg in its entirety.  Quanity must come if we are to seek quality.  As dull and annoying as it is, we all must go through the “10% of the iceberg” (aka. the tip), if we are to establish anything signficant in terms of relationships.

Of course, he was annoyed because he knew that I was right.  After this conversation, I realized how important that point is, and how I must keep at it, even if it means asking the dreadful questions like “how is your week?” or “anything new?”

Taking that one step even further, if we are to develop meaningful relationship with God, we must spend much time with Him in the Bible reading and praying, even if it seems repetitious and boring a lot of times.  While qaulity is superior to quantity, you cannot obtain quality without quantity.