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| i often write in hyperbole to illicit reaction and provoke thought.
doesn't always mean it is the truth as i understand it in my soul =)
anyways its somewhat ironic that last night i experienced some pretty awesome hospitality
at house church on the south side.
its a start.
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| a lot of random and reckless thoughts.
i understand what teachers and professors feel now
when they look at the young and immature
and have to practice patience
and allow people to live out their lives and make their own mistakes
in hopes that they'll learn and grow from them someday.
in part its about where certain people are in life.
what some people have been through
what some are ready to go through
and what some are not willing to.
being in hong kong for a good 2 weeks i noticed a few things.
i was there as a photographer so i was always observing.
while i was there i spent a good amount of time experiencing a certain culture
a community.
i wasnt just an observer, but i became a participant by very nature of the community i was observing.
not for a moment did i feel like i didnt belong or that i felt like an outsider.
i just want to say that my short and extremely subjectively understood time in hong kong was the best i've ever experienced as far as community is concerned.
never. i swear i have never experienced nor seen such a strong and loving community as this.
at first i judged it merely as spectacle. just waiting for that "fail moment" around the corner.
it never came.
with each day and each successive gathering, event, banquet, social event..
i became more and more convinced that something was terribly wrong with our side of the world.
or maybe just the my world in specific. the relationships in my world.
not that theirs is perfect by any means.
i've just never felt such transparency...such hospitality...such self sacrifice..such love.
i mean. the friendships i have here are awesome...and by many standards i'm spoiled with such strong relationships.
only because our standards here in america are so fucking low.
most people i know here, and close friends aren't exempt from this, are at their best...self seeking individuals.
there's very little sense of responsibility and a whole lotta sense of deserving.
the spiritual is dead. completely and utterly dead.
false sense of do-gooding with self righteousness attached to fruitless pursuits founded on shallow and uneducated values and beliefs.
our priorities are all wrong and i've been ranting about similar things forever now.
self centeredness. apathy. worship of knowledge. of the status quo.
haha wow. you know what. thats enough negativity from me.
you gotta love these blogs. when you're mad and upset...blog it up!
fuck it i'm leaving. not the blogosphere. america.
as faithless and unbelieving as it is to say there are some things (good and positive things) that just aren't possible in this country...i just did.
maybe i'll come back around some day to the idea that there's hope for this place.
but i dont even see it for my immediate community.
i should write more about what i saw in hong kong that was such a breath of fresh air
but i dont think anyone would understand it.
not that anyone is reading this.
sarah and i are getting married in italy.
in the midst of planning and looking for places for our guests to stay
we've stumbled upon some great living options for ourselves.
through planning we've come to learn many things not just about ourselves
but our friends and community here.
main observation being...those things dont really exist outside of a handful of people we may never see again.
people who used to be on the fringe of our relational lives have become closer
and some who have been the closest to us through the years have become lost in the crowd.
i'm very grateful to certain adults who've shown us nothing but love and support.
humans only have so much emotional capacity for relationships.
its not in my nature to abandon people..and i never will.
i'll always be there when called upon.
but the number of people who i can call upon is changing, its decreasing.
and its freeing.
what did i like so much about what i saw in that community in hong kong.
first thing that comes to mind is hospitality.
next is that "mi casa es su casa" is a very literal idea.
genuine good natured-ness. no hint of pretentiousness.
love and good will to your fellow man and woman.
how international it all was.
people from all over and mixed races living as one family.
which goes back to the hospitality thing.
and they were all happy.
thats the key element i feel. international.
by nature they were different.
by values and beliefs they were bonded.
by experience their community was deepened.
theirs is a persistent cycle of spiritual wealth.
here, we only have persistent cycles of poverty.
i have a sense its got something to do with priority.
over there, its all about family. and family is a very liquid term.
family. community. neighbors. friends. all synonymous.
if you knew but one person connected to that community.
BOOM. you are part of that community
and you felt like you've been there forever.
i know this sounds crazy and like it doesnt exist.
but i was there. i did my best to be critical and cynical
and in the end love overcame me.
i feel like its all about hospitality first over there.
and then priorities trickle down.
"you can stay at our place"
"here eat this"
"is that warm enough for you"
"here's some money to get around"
its not like everyone's rolling in the dough
and obviously it costs some money to house, feed, and host people.
but thats just what i'm trying to get at.
here, its the complete opposite.
its...first, IF there's enough money, if i have the time and resources..
THEN i'll host you, feed you, shelter you.
and thats america for ya.
is it any wonder why poverty runs rampant in our inner cities.
even in the world.
captalism along with its pal globalism has done this to our world.
i'm not saying that such a community is not absolutely an impossibility here
i'm just saying you'd be hard pressed to find a person who lives with hospitality foremost on the mind..
let alone an entire community subconsciously dedicated to a now-lost and foreign incarnation of love.
can you blame me for wanting to leave.
can you blame me for running wildly towards what is good?
hell. i've tasted and seen what is good.
and we are in a serious short supply of it here in america.
anyways.
now for the obligatory part of the post where dan takes the high road and says..
i've been blessed and challenged by the experiences god has allowed me to have.
its not like i've lived multiple lives or that i've even been through a wide spectrum of human experience.
i understand this much about myself and from what i've been told by those close to me that
by nature i'm observant. and i'm constantly processing my thoughts and ramifications of my observations.
its a constant game of checks and balances. does yesterday's truth hold up to today's?
whats been uncovered and what have i seen in a new light.
boring. cliche. but it is what it is. i'm sure many people out there understand it but do they live it.
i remember having similar thoughts to what i ranted about above back when i was in school still
about hospitality being that certain transformative element lost in american community.
i've only recently been reminded of it again.
so i will do what i can to take this value and priority and live it
and one can only hope it catches on
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| you must go see slumdog millionaire.
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| two observations from tonight.
a friend asked me if i've had anyone comment about me eventually being in an interracial marriage. like if anyone has pestered me with ignorant ideas about sarah and i being racially different. my first reaction was "i'm in an interracial relationship?"...and then it came back to me that sarah wasn't chinese..obviously. but not really. in the beginning it was like, "yea i'm in an interracial relationship..." but over the past year or so that thought had never entered my mind til tonight when those exact words were brought up again. its weird and so special at the same time that i cant really explain it. i look at her and i dont see any particular race or mix of races...i just see sarah. i could be standing with her in a room full of asians and i wouldnt immediately be able to figure out who stuck out. its not that i dont recognize her individuality and its not that she's just become a part of the crowd...not by any means. what i'm trying to say is that...i guess this is what happens when you're in love. you dont see someone taller or shorter, darker or lighter, clever or clumsier, or whatever those differences may be...you just see someone you've come to respect honor and love. i guess as we plan our wedding i've had time every now and then to think back about where we've been and how far we've come in our relationship. i must say the odds were very much against us haha. but we pushed through all the shit life had to throw at us. or through all that refiner's fire. sigh. what a fuckin miracle. haha
the other observation was about friends. its clear to me that i'm no longer as close to any of my friends as i used to be. not that this is a bad thing or a result of any quarrels or arguments between any of us, no. its just a honest and candid observation that today i am not as close to x, y, and z as i was this same time a year ago or ten years ago. maybe its just cause guys are lazy and lack any form of intentional communication over distances. i used to be pretty good with keeping up but its not happening anymore. i see that the others are getting together just fine and all...or are they? anyways, they'll always be my friends and i'll always love them. i'm just wondering how much of this perceived distance is because of where i'm at in life. counting down to a wedding...working with a clear reason and a purposed goal. i'm not clear as to exactly when it happened but somewhere along the way sarah became my best friend...again. not the best friend that i couldn't go wait to see after class in those stages of puppy love. but the best friend with who i can travel the world with a thousand times over and never be in any dire want or need of another intimate soul. notice the adjectives. i know and recognize there are still people and community outside of us. what i'm saying is they've become blurs. there is a clear pecking order. my world is changing drastically. and i'm welcoming it.
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| to make a long story short..
i used to hate my mom.
it wasnt her fault i was just immature.
i didnt understand things like how difficult it was as an immigrant
and only wanting to protect your children and to see them succeed..
and then one day i decided i was tired of hating her.
so i told her i hated her.
there were a lot of tears...
and after that most important conversation of my life with her
our relationship has never been the same. for the better.
its like i wrote about before when i said
the great degree to which i have faith in jesus
is only possible because of the great degree to which i am cynical of this world.
in the same way the huge amount of love i have for my mother now..
is not possible if i had not experienced such deep pain and hatred for her...
and if i had never confronted and overcome that hatred and pain.
so many things in my life have followed a similar pattern or formula...
like you can only go so far in one direction only if you've gone deep the other way...
or something like that.
one can only hope that they end up on the right side of the spectrum in the end.
i guess that may also be why in part that when some people have great loves taken away from them they fall so deep..and are sometimes consumed by the grief.
having a supportive community helps with picking oneself back up
but when there is a lack of a strong community then what.
i think i learned a little bit about that this past weekend..
after a recent conversation with my sister i've just realized how much my mom has sacrificed.
i dont know anyone that loves her family more than my mom.
i've never seen anyone as affectionate with a parent than my mom with my grandfather.
whenever my mom calls long distance to taiwan to talk to my grandfather...
her voice switches from the strong woman i'm more familiar with to
a really sweet baby voice that gushes at the sound of her father at the other end of the line.
actually. this reminds me a lot of sarah.
i suppose what they say is true about guys marrying their mothers. right. anyways..
it really is very touching and sweet to see my mom be so affectionate towards my grandfather.
it really is.
but recently my grandfather has gotten very ill from old age
and my mother has flown back to taiwan to be with him in his final hours.
there's no question that she's gonna be there for as long as necessary
staying by her father's side until his dying breath. be it tomorrow...or next year.
this is where i realize i'm very much like my mother
in the way i love my own family and friends.
so much so that at times it truly is difficult to be away from them.
and this is where i start to truly understand the sacrifice my mother made when she left taiwan
to be with my father, to start a life in this country, and to raise three children.
she left everything she loved and knew.
its no secret that the relationship between my parents is not a great romance.
they're together based more upon principle and culture than emotions and rebellion.
so when i say she left everything she loved...i mean just that.
it was honorable in her family's eyes for her to leave taiwan to seek prosperity in america.
now that my grandmother has passed away and my grandfather is dying...
only now do i begin to understand what it must be like for her.
to be half a world away and so disconnected.
to not be considered part of the family anymore because you've been 'given away' to another
there's nothing in any will to be inherited by my mother from her parents
all that is going to my uncle who lived with and took care of my grandparents in taiwan for the past 24 years.
basically what i'm trying to internalize is the fact that my mother will soon be alone.
not only that but how she's sacrificed her life for as long as i've been alive..
how she's sacrificed herself so that i, my sister and my brother can simply live.
i know she still has us but it won't be the same.
she loves her children but no one compares to her father. her dad.
i hope she knows the great life lessons she's taught me by simply living her own.
she's the definition of strength.
i'm not quite sure i can come up with a better example of strength right now.
well, actually i can.
but maybe thats what makes people we learn about in school so great
its how they sacrifice and live.
not like this is anything new to anyone...we all know these truths way back in our minds..
but growth is dependent upon how these truths are impressioned upon our souls
and my mom has made quite the impression on me.
its kinda depressing to think about.
i guess thats in part what maturity is...or possibly a large part..
or possibly this is exactly what maturity is..
sacrificing those selfish human tendencies without complaint.
sacrificing the inherent selfish human tendencies but not simply the meaningless things such as material goods
sacrificing the big things like love. family. desire.
sacrificing the desire for pleasure...the inherent masturbatory tendencies of humanity...
sacrificing all that
for fruit. for life. for the idea that life goes on after you've gone. after your father's gone.
prior to this past weekend i knew that i loved my mother and that she was a great woman..
no matter our differences or gaps in our culture or generational thought processes..
but now i understand better.
growing up, i never talked much to my mom.
after the turning point in our relationship we still didn't talk much.
i suppose at times talking just cheapens things or...it just makes things too easy
and you take understanding and observation for granted.
i've never asked my mom many questions about her life or her beliefs
and she never told me either.
she just lived her life. lived and led by example.
and i've been fortunate enough to pick up on things.
maybe this is why i take pictures.
why waste my team reading books when i can just read the life in front of me.
why sit there and listen to a sermon when i can just go out and learn from the street.
we're all spoonfed one thing or another to a certain degree
and some of it is necessary depending on person to person
some of it is grace.
and some of it is just conditioning and manufactured.
what am i trying to say...i dunno.
dont get so caught up in all the different medias the world of communications has to offer
that you miss out on the only media with soul.
the human kind.
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