Blog Fail, to fail at blogging.
It shouldn't be that hard, to blog twice a month. But here I find myself, halfway into April and nothing to be said for March.
How did it come to this? I know not, but I come and ask for penance from my blogging peers and beg that you allow me a chance to catch my breath and put the pen to paper, finger to keys, once again.
Thank you!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Looking out the window
The Dean of the School of Psychology came up to the third floor last week. Giving the rare presentation to students he left his corner, 1st floor office and found himself peering into my small shared office.
"How are things up here?" He asked. We shrugged and mumbled some string of words expressing our relative okay-ness.
"Wow, you guys sure have the view!"
We nodded, because you are supposed to agree with the Dean of the School of Psychology and smiled.
Usually Janneke (my coworker) and I feel bad for ourselves, alone on the third floor. The rest of the staff team on the 1st floor. The physical distance is difficult and isolating. But the consistent staring at papers, documents, and especially computer screens has left me ignoring the window.
Being on the third floor means a view over towards North East Pasadena, the hills in the background. And as I look now I can see the mountains behind, the air cleared up by all of the rain. Clouds are gliding across the sky in numbers, tracing patterns Los Angeles usually is not blessed to see.
The wind is carrying them into the east and I sit, behind sealed windows, for once enjoying their slow, peaceful and inexorable movement away from me. This picture is one I don't usually enjoy. I take neither the time nor the energy to sit and watch. In the midst of my frenetic and harried work days looking out the window either feels wasteful or a mockery of my place in front of screen glare and the physical bureaucracy of paperwork.
The sun continues to set and the clouds lose their brilliance, at least for now. Until tomorrow, as long as the rain lingers and the sky will again light up with beauty from the interplay of light and dark, clouds and sky. And I will continue to watch from behind sealed windows. I will sit and watch and wonder whether to feel the somber loss of my sterile environment or sit in thankfulness that I get to see anything at all.
"How are things up here?" He asked. We shrugged and mumbled some string of words expressing our relative okay-ness.
"Wow, you guys sure have the view!"
We nodded, because you are supposed to agree with the Dean of the School of Psychology and smiled.
Usually Janneke (my coworker) and I feel bad for ourselves, alone on the third floor. The rest of the staff team on the 1st floor. The physical distance is difficult and isolating. But the consistent staring at papers, documents, and especially computer screens has left me ignoring the window.
Being on the third floor means a view over towards North East Pasadena, the hills in the background. And as I look now I can see the mountains behind, the air cleared up by all of the rain. Clouds are gliding across the sky in numbers, tracing patterns Los Angeles usually is not blessed to see.
The wind is carrying them into the east and I sit, behind sealed windows, for once enjoying their slow, peaceful and inexorable movement away from me. This picture is one I don't usually enjoy. I take neither the time nor the energy to sit and watch. In the midst of my frenetic and harried work days looking out the window either feels wasteful or a mockery of my place in front of screen glare and the physical bureaucracy of paperwork.
The sun continues to set and the clouds lose their brilliance, at least for now. Until tomorrow, as long as the rain lingers and the sky will again light up with beauty from the interplay of light and dark, clouds and sky. And I will continue to watch from behind sealed windows. I will sit and watch and wonder whether to feel the somber loss of my sterile environment or sit in thankfulness that I get to see anything at all.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Telling the Story
This post was inspired by a talk by Ira Glass [hattip: Kottke.org] I listened to at work today. Ira Glass is the host of this American Life, the most listened to podcast on the internet currently, an amazing story teller and one of the most articulate people I've heard on the art of story telling. 
Listen to the lecture, it is interesting and engaging, and full of great tips on telling a good story. But one thing he says is how telling a story is two fold. The first is the actual narrative of the story. The process of "first I did this, and then this, and so this happened, and in the end this." The second is connecting the story to a larger, more universal theme... the part that makes the story have meaning and resonance for more than the one person who told it.
In the Christian circles I find myself running in (and I often do run in circles), this is called the action/reflection cycle. The fact that we must act, then we must reflect. That the process of reflection is as important as the action that proceeds it. It is within that space that we allow God to speak and to unveil meaning, direction and insight.
Where I think we can learn, is often we reflect so quickly in our pursuit of God's voice, that we turn our experiences into trite life lessons, where we learn patience, love, trust and faith all in quick succession. I remember sitting with my family as a child doing evening devotions. Dad would get out the "One-year devotional for Teens!" (notice the exclamation point... it helps make the bible more interesting and exciting for teenagers and instantly rids them of all their angst) and we as a family would read a story about a young girl or boy, who was lied to by a friend at school. Her mother will sit her/him down patiently (as all mothers do) and help the young one understand that even though she is angry, she needs to forgive her friend.At the end there would be a memory verse and a series of questions. "Have you been hurt before?" "Who do you need to forgive today?" Appropriate questions for my 12 year old mind. The devotional would continue to dispense with these moral lessons all year, teaching us to forgive, to give to others, to be kind to old ladies, to treat our teachers with respect. And in the process I learned that the story is merely a tool towards a greater purpose. God uses stories to teach us to be good. I encountered this in most Christian fiction, dramas for vacation bible school, and in preacher's sermons.
This reality is a sad one. What I am learning from Ira is that you need to tell the story first.
In this life of pursuit of Jesus, this life of discipleship, our story is reality. The moralizing is not. We walk along the path of our story. The grit, failures, successes of our life are our story. As we live life and walk along this path, we then reflect so that God can remind us why we walk, why we strive, to give us inklings as to where we are on the map of his greater plans. When we forget the importance of the story, it's as if we have stopped walking, contenting ourselves with analyzing a map of the road.
We could learn from Ira Glass. That the story comes first. That the story needs to be told and that we need to invite people into the turmoil of our story. We want them to hang on to every moment as we reveal step by step how we have fallen, picked ourselves up and continued to walk. How we have struggled with cross-bearing decisions and have chosen for ill or for good. How we have sat in times of darkness and are still not completely sure we see the light. And then, and only then, when in our vulnerability we have opened ourselves up to be critiqued, ridiculed, or worst ignored, then we can pause and ponder, "God, what is it that you are leading me into? What is the greater story?". For it still necessary to understand who we are amidst the grand landscape of God's sovereign motion and movement, but let us not be too hasty to say we know where we are.
note: The devotional above was not the one we used as kids. I just thought it was "awesome" :). On another side note, my parents often couldn't stand some of the devotionals either and so we would have good conversations off of that. My parents are awesome, the devotional materials of the early 90s... so so.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The call to create
Five days ago I took up the challenge of the blank page.
The challenge posed by the blank page as it stares at me, daring me to pollute its clear, ordered, lined surface. It sits in scorn of my feeble attempts to create new order, thought, or meaning in messy black scrawls. I feel inept and unfit for the task.
To my hope and chagrin, I have a community of friends who have taken up the same challenge, and they will push and drag me till I decide to soldier on. And I am further pushed by the call to create.
This new understanding of creation comes from a book I recently read and I offer you this tidbit below.
The author reflects on "An Artist in His Studio" and he muses, "I have come to see [the Artist] not primarily as a portrait of a person but of a posture. The artist steps back from his work. His weight is on his back foot--he is contemplating, waiting, watching. But the brush is already in his hand. he will soon step forward to the canvas that looms before him with all its possibility and danger. He contemplates in order to act. he is still in order to move. He is alone in order to offer something to others. He is small and humble, recognizing that what he is creating is in some sense more lasting and of greater import than himself. But he is also dignified by this moment of waiting and watching. The painting depends on him, on his willingness to risk being a creator."
That is the challenge of the blank page... to risk being a creator. To take the God-given experiences, stories, insights, knowledge, and make something new.
Perhaps in creation... the ephemeral nature of truth is concretized for a moment, and I will be given the grace to see God.
The challenge posed by the blank page as it stares at me, daring me to pollute its clear, ordered, lined surface. It sits in scorn of my feeble attempts to create new order, thought, or meaning in messy black scrawls. I feel inept and unfit for the task.
To my hope and chagrin, I have a community of friends who have taken up the same challenge, and they will push and drag me till I decide to soldier on. And I am further pushed by the call to create.
This new understanding of creation comes from a book I recently read and I offer you this tidbit below.
The author reflects on "An Artist in His Studio" and he muses, "I have come to see [the Artist] not primarily as a portrait of a person but of a posture. The artist steps back from his work. His weight is on his back foot--he is contemplating, waiting, watching. But the brush is already in his hand. he will soon step forward to the canvas that looms before him with all its possibility and danger. He contemplates in order to act. he is still in order to move. He is alone in order to offer something to others. He is small and humble, recognizing that what he is creating is in some sense more lasting and of greater import than himself. But he is also dignified by this moment of waiting and watching. The painting depends on him, on his willingness to risk being a creator."That is the challenge of the blank page... to risk being a creator. To take the God-given experiences, stories, insights, knowledge, and make something new.
Perhaps in creation... the ephemeral nature of truth is concretized for a moment, and I will be given the grace to see God.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Do I believe in New Years Resolutions?
First, an apology for the 3 month disappearing act! Returning from Manila and transitioning back into life in America was a blitz and if you would like to hear more about it, call me and we can sit down and talk. :) Rather than write a 3-month reflection blog... I figured I would jump back into it with the thoughts that are actually on my mind.
With that said...
---------------------
Do I believe in resolutions?
January 1st is a world-wide accepted marker for the beginning of something new. Measuring our lives in seconds, minutes, hours, work weeks, months... this is the beginning of a new year. Now, is the time to experience a freedom from the mistakes, regrets, and failures of the previous 52 weeks and walk forward free to dream again. But what makes this day any different then yesterday?
Was it the count down with friends, the singing of Auld Lang Syne (you know, that song everyone starts singing but no one knows the words to), the champagne that gives the New Year signficance? Is it Pope Gregory and his final adjustments to the Calendar the world now accepts as standard that gives this day significance?
While I was in college, the New Years was only as significant as the people I was around. Personally, the end of the school year had muchmore meaning, as I launched myself into summer having completed another year of classes, bible studies, and college life.
But as I sit here celebrating the day after new years at my favorite coffee shop I felt like there was something about 2009 that I had to take note of and acknowledge.
I'm at a crossroads. And because I'm at a crossroads, 2009 stands before me as another menacing "year of transition". Transition is good for us, it is in the midst of transition that we grow and mature. But transition is hard because it is often vague, and the journey is much hazier then the vision for the end result. I currently am not looking forward to 2009...
But as I've spent some days in reflection and rest... I realize that God is calling me to vision with Him. To have goals and dreams. Both for personal formation and for accomplishments and the future.
One thing I desire to do is write more.
All of you need to keep me accountable for this okay?
With that said...
---------------------
Do I believe in resolutions?
January 1st is a world-wide accepted marker for the beginning of something new. Measuring our lives in seconds, minutes, hours, work weeks, months... this is the beginning of a new year. Now, is the time to experience a freedom from the mistakes, regrets, and failures of the previous 52 weeks and walk forward free to dream again. But what makes this day any different then yesterday?
Was it the count down with friends, the singing of Auld Lang Syne (you know, that song everyone starts singing but no one knows the words to), the champagne that gives the New Year signficance? Is it Pope Gregory and his final adjustments to the Calendar the world now accepts as standard that gives this day significance?
While I was in college, the New Years was only as significant as the people I was around. Personally, the end of the school year had muchmore meaning, as I launched myself into summer having completed another year of classes, bible studies, and college life.
But as I sit here celebrating the day after new years at my favorite coffee shop I felt like there was something about 2009 that I had to take note of and acknowledge.
I'm at a crossroads. And because I'm at a crossroads, 2009 stands before me as another menacing "year of transition". Transition is good for us, it is in the midst of transition that we grow and mature. But transition is hard because it is often vague, and the journey is much hazier then the vision for the end result. I currently am not looking forward to 2009...
But as I've spent some days in reflection and rest... I realize that God is calling me to vision with Him. To have goals and dreams. Both for personal formation and for accomplishments and the future.
One thing I desire to do is write more.
All of you need to keep me accountable for this okay?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Last Slum of Makati
You will probably hear it before you see it.
If you are listening, amidst the towers, the parking lots, the banks and coffee shops of Makati you will find it.
If you are listening... the sounds of cars, people, & construction will give way to the crowing of a rooster, in the center of the financial & commercial sector of Manila.
And if you are truly listening enough to care you will look up from the ground in front of you and peer beyond the trees growing so perfectly along the roadside and you will the corrugated rooftops of the last slum of Makati.
It stubbornly sits there, wooden creations, a spot, a blemish on the face of the otherwise clean and spotless Makati exterior. Laundry hangs out the windows to dry and an older man lounges on the third floor just in view over the tops of the perfect row of trees, which worked so hard to mask the existence of such a place.
The blemish, meticulously hidden yet betrayed by the cocks crow is there to stay. A miracle in many ways, perhaps God preserving the homes of the few, a symbol of his care for his people in the midst of an unjust opulence. Maybe His judgment, an indictment against the superficiality of Makati's prosperity that is striving to hide the abject poverty that lurks below the surface that is the backbone of the construction of the grand and soaring skyscrapers that tower over the miracle blemish.
And perhaps it, in this moment, is God's word to me... pleading with me to have his eyes and his ears for his people. To listen for his voice, even if by such mundane things as a rooster's crow.
If you are listening, amidst the towers, the parking lots, the banks and coffee shops of Makati you will find it.
If you are listening... the sounds of cars, people, & construction will give way to the crowing of a rooster, in the center of the financial & commercial sector of Manila.
And if you are truly listening enough to care you will look up from the ground in front of you and peer beyond the trees growing so perfectly along the roadside and you will the corrugated rooftops of the last slum of Makati.
It stubbornly sits there, wooden creations, a spot, a blemish on the face of the otherwise clean and spotless Makati exterior. Laundry hangs out the windows to dry and an older man lounges on the third floor just in view over the tops of the perfect row of trees, which worked so hard to mask the existence of such a place.
The blemish, meticulously hidden yet betrayed by the cocks crow is there to stay. A miracle in many ways, perhaps God preserving the homes of the few, a symbol of his care for his people in the midst of an unjust opulence. Maybe His judgment, an indictment against the superficiality of Makati's prosperity that is striving to hide the abject poverty that lurks below the surface that is the backbone of the construction of the grand and soaring skyscrapers that tower over the miracle blemish.
And perhaps it, in this moment, is God's word to me... pleading with me to have his eyes and his ears for his people. To listen for his voice, even if by such mundane things as a rooster's crow.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Ate Luce
This isn't really finished, but I haven't posted in a while... so i'll go ahead and post it for you all. A too short sketch of Ate Luce
----------------------
Amongst the Sari-Sari stores of Botocan most people know of Ate Luce's store. The most variety and the cheapest alcohol make it a common location for all people in Botocan to drop by, sooner or later.
If you were to drop by you would meet a kind but quick, hospitale & sassy mother of two, the central piece of the Sarmiento household who pile into the upstairs of the store every night, all eight of them sharing the space of a small studio apartment in Los Angeles. There's Mom & Dad Sarmiento, Ate Luce and her husband Guya Weng, there are two kids, Dart (short for Dartagnian of Muskateers fame) and Basti (short for Sebastian, though his real name... long story). Finally, Luce's two brothers, Nielsen and Ken, round out the mix. It is a close & loyal family, true to each other & committed to their mutual success.
Luce is always available to talk amidst dealing with customers, caring for Basti, or taking a break to smoke. She is quick to smile and quick to invite you in for some afternoon meryenda or a late dinner; especially if you are an awkward and slightly befuddled American "missionary". She is proud of her brothers, both who are studying at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and is devoted to her husbands and sons.
"Where were you Daniel?" she chides me after a day away. "Next time you need to eat with us!"
Recently the twinkle has disappeared. One peels back a layer and underneath the quick smile is a sadness, the weight, worry, and anxiety of a mother concerned with the future of her children. Less than a year ago her father had a stroke rendering him unable to continue his work as a mechanic. The household now survives on three jobs, Luce's mother's job washing dishes, Guya Weng's job as a pizza delivery man, and the store. Luce is thinking of going back overseas. She is not sure if she can afford her children's schooling. She loves her kids and wants to make sure that they have opportunities. So she is applying to go back to Japan again. Last time she went as an entertainer. She called her family every day because she missed her family so much. But because of her love for her children, she is willing to leave. To leave for the love of her children, the most tragic love of all.
----------------------
Amongst the Sari-Sari stores of Botocan most people know of Ate Luce's store. The most variety and the cheapest alcohol make it a common location for all people in Botocan to drop by, sooner or later.
If you were to drop by you would meet a kind but quick, hospitale & sassy mother of two, the central piece of the Sarmiento household who pile into the upstairs of the store every night, all eight of them sharing the space of a small studio apartment in Los Angeles. There's Mom & Dad Sarmiento, Ate Luce and her husband Guya Weng, there are two kids, Dart (short for Dartagnian of Muskateers fame) and Basti (short for Sebastian, though his real name... long story). Finally, Luce's two brothers, Nielsen and Ken, round out the mix. It is a close & loyal family, true to each other & committed to their mutual success.
Luce is always available to talk amidst dealing with customers, caring for Basti, or taking a break to smoke. She is quick to smile and quick to invite you in for some afternoon meryenda or a late dinner; especially if you are an awkward and slightly befuddled American "missionary". She is proud of her brothers, both who are studying at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and is devoted to her husbands and sons.
"Where were you Daniel?" she chides me after a day away. "Next time you need to eat with us!"
Recently the twinkle has disappeared. One peels back a layer and underneath the quick smile is a sadness, the weight, worry, and anxiety of a mother concerned with the future of her children. Less than a year ago her father had a stroke rendering him unable to continue his work as a mechanic. The household now survives on three jobs, Luce's mother's job washing dishes, Guya Weng's job as a pizza delivery man, and the store. Luce is thinking of going back overseas. She is not sure if she can afford her children's schooling. She loves her kids and wants to make sure that they have opportunities. So she is applying to go back to Japan again. Last time she went as an entertainer. She called her family every day because she missed her family so much. But because of her love for her children, she is willing to leave. To leave for the love of her children, the most tragic love of all.
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