gave me chills

“There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say "Here at last is the thing I was made for". We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

susan sontag's list is v. similar to my "g.a.s.p."

excerpts from "gilead"

on writing & parental love:
"for me writing has always felt like praying, even when i wasn't writing prayers, as i was often enough. you feel that you are with someone. i feel i am with you now, whatever that can mean, considering that you're only a little fellow now and when you're a man you might find these letters of no interest.  or they might never reach you, for any of a number of reasons.  well, but how deeply i regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful i am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed.  that is to say, i pray for you. and there's an intimacy in it. that's the truth."

on baptism:
"ludwig feuerbach says a wonderful thing about baptism. i have it marked. he says 'water is the purest, clearest liquids; in virtue of this its natural character it is the image of the spotless nature of the divine spirit. in short, water has significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit.  so far there lies at the foundation of baptism a beautiful, profund, natural significance."

on mortality:
"you're just a nice-looking boy, a bit slight, well scrubbed and well mannered.  all that is fine, but it's your existence i love you for, mainly.  existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.  i'm about to put on imperishability. in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye.  the twinkling of an eye - that is the most wonderful expression.  i've thought from time to time it was the best thing in life, that little incandescence you see in people when the charm of a thing strikes them, or the humor of it."

on the hardest commandment (to keep):
i believe the sin of covetise is that pang of resentment you may feel when even the people you love best have what you want and don't have. from the point of view of loving your neighbor as yourself (leviticus 19:18), there is nothing that makes a person's fallenness more undeniable than covetise - you feel it right in your heart, in your bones. in that way it is instructive.... i avoided the experience of disobeying by keeping to myself a good deal. i am sure i would have labored in my vocation more effectively if i had simply accepted covetise in myself as something inevitable, as paul seems to do, as the thorn in my side, so to speak. 'rejoice with those who rejoice.' i have found that difficult too often. i was much better at weeping with those who weep. i don't mean that as a joke, but it is kind of funny when you think about it."

on doubt & proof:
"so my advice is this - don't look for proofs.  don't bother with them at all. they are never sufficient to the question, and they're always a little impertinent, i think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp.  and they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. that is very unsettling over the long term. 'let you works so shine before men,' etc. it was Coleridge who said christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. i'm not saying never doubt or question. the Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. i'm saying you must be sure that the doubts & questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.

on the nature of God:
"i tell there are certain attributes our faith assigns to God: omniscience, omnipotence, justice, and grace. we human beings have such a slight acquaintance with power and knowledge, so little conception of justice, and so slight a capacity for grace, that the workings of these great attributes together is a mystery we cannot hope to penetrate."

life is here

from: stall wall poetry

"not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. because waiting is not waiting, it is life. too many of us live without fully engaging our minds, waiting for that moment when our real lives begin. years pass in boredom, but that is okay because when our true loves comes around, or we discover our real calling, we will begin. of course the sad truth is that if we are not present at the moment, our true love could come and go and we wouldn't even notice.  and we will have become someone other than the you or i who would be able to embrace it.  i believe an appreciation for simplicity, the everyday - the ability to dive deeply into the banal and discover life's hidden richness - is where success, let alone happiness, emerges."
-the art of learning, josh waitzkin 

love iii

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat. 
-george herbert

sweet matrimony

(so this is kind of overdue) but my best friend is married!

she was the most elegant & beautiful bride.  j & d looked picture-perfect! and i couldn't stop bawling during the ceremony (so unattractive).

it was nice being reunited with family, old friends, current friends, church folks - all in one place. 

and it was inevitable that i was flooded with comments like "when are you getting married?!" "you'll be the next to go!" (only from the older crowd, of course) and i just stood there, grinning uneasily saying "oh no no no..." unfortunately there isn't an emoticon that expresses uneasy, slightly perturbed fake smiling.

can we please focus on the bride? it's the bride's day! but i know it's the token thing for korean grown-ups to say to single young adults. that time has come apparently... (i need to get a clever, canned answer of how to reply to such questions about my singlehood)

but yes it feels weird one of my besties is going on to the next stage - living the "real, grown-up" life, while i'm still somewhat living the college dorm-life with roommates & instant noodles.  not that i don't enjoy my life, it's just that i still feel like i'm not fully "adult" yet (i guess carrying around a hello kitty debit card doesn't really help).  

the weird thing is even if i were to be married + kids, i have a feeling that i still won't feel that way.  i guess i will always be "young @ heart" though i paradoxically also consider myself an "old soul" or a "young fogie."

i'll be sad if there comes a day where i won't be able to see the boa constrictor anymore though.

the risk of love

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
-c.s. lewis, the four loves