Postcard for the Philippines:
Business Card (I'm just soooo professional):
I still would like to make up a prayer card with my mug on it... but my creativity for the day has been drained. Yay to progess!
Friday, May 29, 2009
A Look at the Cards
Here's a sneak peak at what I will be distributing shortly:
Postcard for the Philippines:
Business Card (I'm just soooo professional):
I still would like to make up a prayer card with my mug on it... but my creativity for the day has been drained. Yay to progess!
Postcard for the Philippines:
Business Card (I'm just soooo professional):
I still would like to make up a prayer card with my mug on it... but my creativity for the day has been drained. Yay to progess!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Most Recent Newsletter
I figured I might as well upload my most recent newsletter. Click on the thumbnail to get the full version. Also, since I uploaded a low resolution version it may be quite hard to read. I can email you a full version of my newsletter (in its full glory) if you send a request to my email: joelleexs@gmail.com.Hope you enjoy!
Fall 2008 Edition:
Here is my first newlsetter up here just for kicks. whoopie pie. Time really does fly by.
The Cold Awesome Facts!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (continuing exclamation from my last post).
I am moving back home for the summer to attack force delta on my fundraising so I don't have too many thoughts I can put here. But here are the details:
Where: Manila, Philippines (joining with the Filipino navigators)
Who: Jason McNeillie (fellow EDGE corps), Jon Vickers ('09 UMass - just graduated), and 8 other students from around the nation.
When: June 15 - August 1
What: You will be ministering and serving kids and their families by teaching reading English, math and the bible. There are three groups - ages 7-9, 10-12 and 13 up. This will be three to four times of meetings. Leading Bible studies among the parents and high school students and also will be showing evangelistic movies and teaching livelihood skills. We can have at least three movie screening. Please bring the movies in CD or DVD.
I am moving back home for the summer to attack force delta on my fundraising so I don't have too many thoughts I can put here. But here are the details:
Where: Manila, Philippines (joining with the Filipino navigators)
Who: Jason McNeillie (fellow EDGE corps), Jon Vickers ('09 UMass - just graduated), and 8 other students from around the nation.
When: June 15 - August 1
What: You will be ministering and serving kids and their families by teaching reading English, math and the bible. There are three groups - ages 7-9, 10-12 and 13 up. This will be three to four times of meetings. Leading Bible studies among the parents and high school students and also will be showing evangelistic movies and teaching livelihood skills. We can have at least three movie screening. Please bring the movies in CD or DVD.
Dog Days of Summer (a very cold summer though)
Now that school is over, I am into the next season of EDGE corps. That means fundraising! :|. It's a neutral face because though I know this was a great experience in light of trusting God, it is some hard work and speaks to my weaknesses (admin, finances, long-term projects). Please pray that this new journey will be an experiencing of God. I hope to be back on campus by August 25, but my budget has increased a few thousand dollars and I am going to this little trip called... the Philippines!!!!!! (read next post). When I get overwhelmed, it is easy for me to hoist the white flag of surrender. I know God is good. Thanks for your prayer!
A New Adventure
I feel like this past year has been sorely lacking in updates in terms of what I am doing. The goal is simple, to go wire-to-wire updating my blog and sending emails about this whole EDGE corps business. If I can write the final post on May 28, 2010... success!!!! Maybe see you there or sometime over the next post. One of the things I have found that really discourage me from writing blogs is writing super long posts. uggh. Hopefully it won't be so (discouragement and a regular diet of long posts).
Hasta banana!
Hasta banana!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Philippines Reflection
NOTE: This is just a written form of my presentation two weeks ago. I will be doing a revised presentation at a church in Lynn along with Jason and Jon (his church). I'm just thinking if my thoughts are coherent in a blog, then hopefully I will be able to communicate it well in a presentation. Enjoy!
Philippines presentation
Ministering the gospel especially to the poor is more than what we say, it is what we do
One morning as I got out of bed and the mosquito net in my 18 square foot room, I sat on a dining room chair just outside my room. I opened to Isaiah and started reading some of the chapters to give me a good jump start to my day. Usually I would read while the kids watched morning Filipino TV and Ate Lina (the mother of the house washed clothes or prepared breakfast). This morning was different. The kids were still asleep, it was raining really hard so Ate Lina couldn’t go outside. She asked me what I was reading and started recommending passages to me. Then in our broken English conversation, she started sharing how her husband found God, her family history, and how she refused to gossip even when there was trouble. And then she started talking about her kids and began thanking me profusely for being around. She broke out in tears as she recounted her gratefulness for my presence and the positive influence I had on her eldest son. And though I was moved, I was wondering, “what in the world had I done to be on the receiving end of such thanksgiving?”
If anything all I knew was that my pride was completely put in check. Upon arriving to the Philippines, I was sitting on my experience. I already had gone to the Philippines in 2007. I knew the sights, the smells, the sounds, and just the flow of life over there. Nothing could surprise me, disgust me, cause me delight. In fact I “already knew” the old mantras people kept telling me. It’s not to serve, but be served. Or it’s not what you do, but the relationships you build. It’s the fact that you are going there that counts and not the material wealth you bring. And I was going to master these sayings. And all this was going great until I was hit with a double whammy. I developed a cough right before I moved into my community home the first week. I had a high grade fever. These two things (turns out to be the flu and a bacterial infection) knocked me out for a week, living away from the community so I could recover. And because I got sick relatively early, I was left really fatigued for the rest of the time.
I was dreaming “big” in terms of what I would do there. I would encourage bible studies, play basketball, meet the community, and invest in relationships that would help the community long-term. I was going to tell people about Jesus. I would become a champion for the poor. And once I got sick, immediately, I could barely walk outside for fifteen minutes before feeling tired. It was depressing. I was handicapped. And all my dreams were pretty much dashed.
In this sickness I became weak and understood a deeper meaning of what Paul teaches in the second letter to the Corinthians. God’s power was made perfect in my weakness. For when I am weak, I am strong. I was weak and I needed help, and I couldn’t do anything in my own strength. All I could do was watch morning TV, play chess and card games, go on walks to help pick up and drop off the kids to school, invite them to what I was doing, and sometimes go shopping. These everyday tasks seemed miniscule. I can do these things at home! But that is all I could do in the Philippines.
And so reflecting on Ate Lina’s words, at first I could not understand the extent of her gratefulness. I really had done nothing special! If anything, I gave into the fact that the family is poor so what seems little to me might be a lot to them. But how unsatisfactory! And then I ran into the words in Isaiah on true fasting (the whole chapter, but here’s a glimpse):
==========
Isaiah 58:5-6
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
==========
In a society that tells the poor that they are only worthy of exploitation, drunkeness, gambling, and oppression, the question points to me. I am there, so what am I doing? It was never about how much or how large my plans were. The challenge was never about that. God was asking me directly, “will you love the poor? Will you love your neighbor?”
And the only thing I can ask is how? Upon reflection, I experienced living a life of love is communicated two ways. The first is just by being in community. That is to practice being blessed and being a blessing. People see the Gospel by how we live everyday. Though they are intently watching us, everyone sees our life. We are truly the aroma of Christ. In this situation what am I going to do here or there? If children are pesky, how will I respond? If the food is unsightly to me, what will I say? If the experience is shocking, how will I react? Simply by living with the hope that people will connect to God in the Philippines, people get to see what Jesus was like. That was the first turnaround, I saw that Jesus exists within the miniscule habits and lifestyle I live everyday.
And what’s great is that we actually had a lot of fun doing this. Being blessed means allowing people to serve us in the way we know best. Karaoke, late night conversations, parties, silly tv shows, food, getting tours, translators, and teachers are all part of people welcoming us into their homes. We got to do all of this. And on the other hand, we were able to give them a taste of the US, how we spend time, what we do for fun, and places we like to go to. They invited us everywhere, and we invited them everywhere. And we invited God to participate with us in all these things. The actions in themselves were not fall-out-of-your-seat amazing. Yet, all of us saw God at work. That’s truly amazing.
The second thing I saw was that the Gospel is further expressed by becoming an active disciplemaker. At least for me, I used to picture discipleship as the wise, man teacher Jesus spouting wisdom to his disciples. But upon further investigation, the power of Christ words is not affirmed by what he said, but also what he actually did. People know how to follow God more when another person shows what this means. It is more than just bible study techniques and knowledge. Those are good, but the key is showing another what it means to be a godly man or woman. Christ did not just sit on a hill, he did what he was teaching. This holistic form of teaching, discipling the whole person, means life-on-life. It means participating in their life and inviting them into yours. And this happens naturally, being affirmed by the friendship that develops.
I was privileged to the fact that Ronnel, the son of Ate Lina, respected me as an older person and welcomed my insights. I invited him to spend time in the word with me. I was curious to see how Filipinos connect with the word and tried different methods. I think cultural and communication barriers made it difficult for us to go deeper into scriptures. We connected with God through these times, but the words we were looking into was affirmed by the time we shared with each other. God’s words should not merely challenge our brains with right thought. The word, Logos, must penetrate our hearts. It is only when we are motivated by the very words of Jesus, that our actions can take place. And our actions testify not only of our words, but our whole self. Every part of us becomes infiltrated to live like Christ. And in this same way, we make disciples. We speak to the whole person.
When Ate Lina told me in tears how grateful she was in inspiring her son to read the word, and Ronnel continued to tell me how grateful he was for teaching him how to spend time with God, what the three of us had done became clearer. Did I really teach him anything? Not really, my strategies may have stunk. But it is the fact that I was inviting Ronnel into my entire life and made it a priority to spend time with God. Praise God! I don’t think I really did anything intentional, but he connected with God because of experience and not because of knowledge.
I was thoroughly beat down physically on this trip. Everything that I thought I could do was pretty much dampered. Yet, I was introduced to two lessons. We preach the Gospel by what we do, preaching the Gospel to the whole person. Yet, though we may be back from the Philippines, God continually challenges us with the same question. “Do you love the poor? Do you love your neighbor?” The Gospel is readily available to everyone around us.
And it is this encouragement that has sustained me the past few months that I would like to close on.
==========
Hebrews 12:1-2
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Thoughts of the Crossroads
This post is a shout-out to a christian magazine I have been a part of led by David Lavallee and now Tristan McDonald. It's been pretty great being part of an endeavor in which my friends are actively relating to God. Below is my article that I submitted for the Spring 2009 edition. When I get the chance I will put a link to the magazine on the front page since this post is buried somewhere on the blog.
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CEASELESS STRIVING
Seeking Life in the Most Unnatural Ways
By Joel Lee
One of the things I like to do the most is sit down in some open place (with electricity of course; I’m not an outdoors-type) and play music really loudly. I’m not into the really heavy stuff with loud boom-box beats or simple acoustic things. I want something that describes the state of my soul. Depending on my mood I switch between Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Muse, Piano Jazz, Miles Davis, Violin Classical, Beethoven, and Chopin. This stuff is complex; I don’t know how they composed any of it. Well, as I’m sitting in some open room with my music going, my mind wanders throughout the room, rising and falling with each broken crescendo. If anybody watches when I’m in this mode, I would just be sitting in some wistful state staring out the window. I think that’s where my mind has gone.
While I’ve been sitting around in one of these mental hot tubs, I was thinking about some of my childhood memories. It’s like looking at a photo album. You look at the picture and you start remembering who you were and how this or that experience affects you. Well, this memory goes back to when I was in first or second grade. It seems about the same after fifteen years. I remember having a pretty awful time in school.
Back in the day if you were looking for diversity, you would have to look under a rock to find any in a New England suburb. And during that time if you found any, you would find me. I was diversity. Somehow my elementary colleagues would greet me each day and pull their eyes back and tell me they were Chinese. It was awful. I don’t think my eyes are even like that. I’m pretty sure my teacher felt pretty bad for me and had me draw Chinese characters on a whiteboard to culturally educate the class. Reiterating living in a New England suburb, I don’t know how to read or write Chinese, so all I could write was the word “people.” One of my colleagues commented that it looks like a bird and now there was the word “people” written all over the place for the next week or so.
Then beyond being Chinese, if such a thing was possible, is being a small kid around the big kids. Everything older people say is pretty intimidating when you are in second grade. I was fortunate enough to encounter this everyday at a bus stop. These fifth graders constantly made fun of how pathetic I was as a second grader. There’s also competition between elementary children. My contemporaries would always compare how good they were, how much more they had, or how incredibly knowledgeable they were. Of course you feel like poop when your so-called friends tell you these things. Furthermore, my parents were going through a pretty rough patch of their marriage and it affected how I interacted with people.
You know, it’s not too hard to break the will of a youngster. I don’t think everyone deals with it the same way, but some form of self-protection begins to develop. I hated being picked on, pointed out, pitied. I feared being ostracized, being left alone for who I was. I decided the best move was to bring some book about rainbows to school and read it whenever I had the chance during free time. I would avoid these problems of being pointed out; however, it simply became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I became more and more shy and I think more depressed looking because I was assigned a counselor during those years. I couldn’t help it, but everything that I seemed to be doing was going downhill towards this very fear of being left alone. The very thing I did not want to be happening was actually happening.
Then I moved during third grade to another town. I think my parents knew something was up because my dad encouraged me that everything was beginning new again. He told me this was a fresh plate in which I could start adding new and different things to it. This was my opportunity! I knew for a fact that being all depressing-like didn’t help me out before, so I put on a different persona. I wanted to be smart and outrageous. I wanted people to like me and flock to me. Rather than live by fear, I decided to live by a new system of rules and rituals. I would do whatever it took for the sake of my happiness, my pleasure.
I wanted to draw a new picture of me, or at least how people perceived me. I wanted to be funny, smart, and popular. And I went to whatever lengths possible to fulfill this dream. I became a playground pervert at recess so that my new set of so-called friends would think I was hilarious and really bold. I made fun of classroom rejects and bullies so that I could show that I was a man’s man. I reviewed more complex math problems and studied vocabulary at home to impress anyone possible when I aced exams. I would try to be extra nice to people privately so that they would like me, then I wouldn’t mind discarding them publicly so that I could look cool and confident. All of this was for my own sake. I wanted to feel amazing and back up how I felt with my deeds. I’m pretty sure shades of this still show up in my life. I was popular; I was outrageous; people knew me. The very thing I wanted began to happen.
Is this the fairy tale ending I was looking for? Sure I became the total opposite of the depressing state I was in “the other town.” However, now I was trying to become someone I totally was not. I was doing things so that people would like me. I was doing these things so I could prevent my fear of being alone from actually happening. I was operating out of fear and self-satisfaction. Yet, this stuff was all fake. I lived like this all the way until I was in high school until I realized that no one around me, none of my friends really knew me for who I was. In fact I was all alone once again, only it was in a difference sense, only I knew that I was alone.
As I dig up this memory time capsule, there is one peculiar thing that stands out. Though my values may have changed, my responses to life remain the same. The decisions I make and how I interact with people are through the thought process of either protecting myself or making myself feel good. Even though I may not be the person I portray myself as, I would rather sacrifice my identity for the sake of fear and pleasure. How strange!
The question I’m wondering is, “Who am I trying to be?” I just need to DVR my conversations and see the words I choose to use, the actions I try to do, and I see that I’m trying in some shape or way trying to shape how people see my character in one way or the other. Am I alone when I share this?
Avoiding fears and pursuing pleasures run deep into every part of my life. In being afraid to be abandoned by my friends, I finagle to say the right things. If I’m dealing with some great struggle or pain, I choose to avoid the topic in our conversations. If I’m deeply hurt by one of my friends, I think bringing it up will only separate us, so I choose to ignore this pain. If I am excited by something new, inspired by something beautiful, or perplexed by something strange, I prefer to downplay my elated emotions so that I can avoid being hurt if my friends don’t feel the same way. How is suffocating our very identity a good thing?
In running away, I run towards something that is similarly disturbing. I work for my happiness even though I am willing to sacrifice my very identity. Rather than choose what I really think, I try to say nice things and do nice deeds so that people will like me. When it calls for it, I try to do mean things and say insulting things so that other people will like me. I completely ignore humanity for the sake of reputation. Furthermore, some of my habits are simply ridiculous. I lose myself for the sake of this one shot of pleasure. I gouge myself on food sometimes, I get completely addicted to video games, and I spend hours “enjoying” myself with pornography. I dwell in the fantasy and the abundance because it is better to be happy than to live in reality. When I wake up, I can’t help but ask, “Who am I?” I’ve become someone else that is unrecognizable to me. I look in the mirror I may see a familiar face, but the one who stands before me is an absolute stranger. For the sake of pleasure, I forget I am myself
Neither living on the low road of fear and isolation nor living on the high road of ecstasy and self-pleasure leads me to life. In fact, I have found that these two paths are exactly the same. They are both roads of non-life. I avoided problems when I was in second grade. I covered my life with makeup when I was older. These two actions are the same things, disregarding my very being.
I wonder if this is a common response for all of us. In running away from fears or towards pleasure, what is it that we want? I think that we are trying to shape our life into how we think it ought to be. Of all the things this world offers us such as comfort, fame, wealth, relationships, and religion, we alchemize the different ingredients in varying portions to form an identity that is great in our minds. All this hoo-ha about fear and pleasure shows us our deepest desires of having purpose and being loved. There are many different things we can do to fulfill these deep desires, yet let’s review our options: food, music, sleep, entertainment, cars, lakefront properties, promotions, resumes, net worth, sex, knowledge, being known, church attendance, hobbies, family, etc. There’s nothing really wrong with any of these things; however, if this becomes the object of our life, something seems off. Something doesn’t seem right about the fact that we are born into this world, work up some social ladder for 60+ years for one of these things, and then our life ends. At the end what do we have to show for this life we’ve worked for?
Bear with me for a moment. Imagine when we’re dead there’s this bighead platform we get to stand on. This platform is where the whole world gets to hear our crowning achievements. What would we say? What would we hear? How many 10,000 square feet homes and vice presidents would we hear about? How many picking up garbage in a park or helping old ladies cross the street stories would we hear? Here’s the thing that slays me. Not only would we hear the similar stories over and over again, but what boast would have been worth hearing? Is who we want to hear, the one we are striving after? And are they worth your life?
This is where we find ourselves. No matter where we try to go, we find these empty roads that do not lead to life. Is this the end? If there is no life in anything we do, what do we have to live for? But, Wait! There is one more way we have not yet examined.
“Look closely. Has this ever happened before, that a nation has traded in its gods for gods that aren't even close to gods? But my people have traded my Glory for empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes… My people have committed a compound sin: they've walked out on me, the fountain of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns—cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves.”
--Jeremiah 2:11, 13 (The Message)
We see ourselves living ‘empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.’ And the life we desire and pursue is riddled with disappointments that lead us nowhere. However, before we pursued this life, there was a real Life that was promised to us. What was this real Life? This Life has to transcend our expectations and disappointments, our fears and failures, and certainly the pointlessness of death. For if this Life does not supersede these things that entrap us, then it is another coy disguise of death and certainly nothing that we can hope in.
At default, even before attaining this Life, we don’t even know God. We’ve already messed up by pursuing no-life things that have disappointed us. Shouldn’t our cosmic slap in the face put us in eternal shame? If God exists, even before we work out our beliefs, we’ve already rejected Him. Yet, long before you were born as a bumbling beauty, there was a man who promised to give water where no one would thirst if one drank it. This man promised to bring us to God, not as objects of shame or embarrassment, but as children. This man rejected none, healed the sick, and actively loved the social rejects. This person did not make decisions out of fear or pleasure. He did not try to find life in pointless and temporary things, but found life in loving God and loving others. Contrary to this strange splendor, people rejected him to the point of killing by crucifying him on a cross. However, this death was not the end. Jesus Christ who received the greatest injustice in all humanity died fulfilling things that had been prophesized before. And to complete all that had been prophesized, he rose from death three days later, never to die again.
This news is incredible! In the whole spectrum of time, there is a man who promised us more than the world and transcended the boundaries of death. Among the confusing and pointless roads that lead to nowhere, there is one way that leads to Life. Jesus is worth striving after. Christ did all these crazy things so that we may know Him, so that we may have a relationship with Him. Yet, instead of looking at Christ, we still choose to go elsewhere. This is what the quoted Jeremiah passage is talking about. Despite this good news, we forsake the spring of living water. Despite the fact that we can now have Life simply by believing Jesus did all these things for us, we deny the possibility that these things even happened. The ‘fountain of fresh flowing waters’ is right before us, but we can’t even admit we are thirsty. We are just too disappointed with God. We stop going to Christ; we choose to find a way out of relationship with God; Jesus did everything for nothing. It’s more comfortable and it’s much easier this way. We deny our God-given self.
This is the crossroad I believe we are all at. The way to Life is right in front of us, but at the same time we hold out in hope that everything that has failed us in the past might not in the future. In high school as the kingdom I had built for almost ten years began to crumble, I was faced with a choice, ‘do I hold out just a little bit longer to see if the funk I was going through was simply a rough patch, or do I abandon ship and start looking for something that actually has meaning?’ I definitely held out for a while up through my freshmen year of college. I believed that I just needed to change scenery, take on different responsibilities, or adjust my values a little bit differently and things would be better. I wanted to continue to still live by running away from fears and towards self-satisfying pleasure. It was all I knew.
Yet nothing I was doing, no matter what situation I manipulated or characteristic I tried to change brought any meaning to my life. Everything that I had strongly believed in up to that point was being taken away from me. I felt like the identity I had been standing on was melting into a pool of water that was beginning to drown me. It was depression, it was sickness, it was death approaching. And in this darkest time I cried out asking for a savior. “God! If it is possible, take me back!” And in this lowest time, I saw Jesus, the perfect man who received the greatest injustice, as the only way I could be saved from my self-inflicted misery. In that moment of trusting Him as the only way to Life, I was drinking deeply from the fountain of living water. At that point I knew God loved me as a person, and that was my meaning and purpose in life. Among all the people in the world, God loved me! And there was absolutely nothing, no other road I could take to lead me to this love, to this Life.
My mind has now come back to me. It’s done wandering outside the windows. It’s dark now and the album has stopped playing. I look at myself sitting here wrapping up this essay, and can’t help but ask, ‘Who am I?’ I immediately want to cling on to the things I have said about myself. I love music and I love having my mind wander around. I am still afraid of being alone. If I’m nervous, I’ll rattle off my strengths and weaknesses. Yet, this is not who I am. I am made this way, created to think, to hear, to see, to feel the world around me. I have been given a personality that is unique to me, quirks and all. But that doesn’t make me. Even if opposite day really happened, I would still be myself. Perhaps I would be a little bit more or less stranger depending on who you asked, but the quality of who I am is not determined by anything I do. For everything I will do has already been done before, and anything that I have done will probably be done again. No. What I do doesn’t determine who I am. It’s who I am that seals who I am. I am Joel. Forever Loved by God.
“Cease striving, and know that I am God” –Psalm 46:10
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CEASELESS STRIVING
Seeking Life in the Most Unnatural Ways
By Joel Lee
One of the things I like to do the most is sit down in some open place (with electricity of course; I’m not an outdoors-type) and play music really loudly. I’m not into the really heavy stuff with loud boom-box beats or simple acoustic things. I want something that describes the state of my soul. Depending on my mood I switch between Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Muse, Piano Jazz, Miles Davis, Violin Classical, Beethoven, and Chopin. This stuff is complex; I don’t know how they composed any of it. Well, as I’m sitting in some open room with my music going, my mind wanders throughout the room, rising and falling with each broken crescendo. If anybody watches when I’m in this mode, I would just be sitting in some wistful state staring out the window. I think that’s where my mind has gone.
While I’ve been sitting around in one of these mental hot tubs, I was thinking about some of my childhood memories. It’s like looking at a photo album. You look at the picture and you start remembering who you were and how this or that experience affects you. Well, this memory goes back to when I was in first or second grade. It seems about the same after fifteen years. I remember having a pretty awful time in school.
Back in the day if you were looking for diversity, you would have to look under a rock to find any in a New England suburb. And during that time if you found any, you would find me. I was diversity. Somehow my elementary colleagues would greet me each day and pull their eyes back and tell me they were Chinese. It was awful. I don’t think my eyes are even like that. I’m pretty sure my teacher felt pretty bad for me and had me draw Chinese characters on a whiteboard to culturally educate the class. Reiterating living in a New England suburb, I don’t know how to read or write Chinese, so all I could write was the word “people.” One of my colleagues commented that it looks like a bird and now there was the word “people” written all over the place for the next week or so.
Then beyond being Chinese, if such a thing was possible, is being a small kid around the big kids. Everything older people say is pretty intimidating when you are in second grade. I was fortunate enough to encounter this everyday at a bus stop. These fifth graders constantly made fun of how pathetic I was as a second grader. There’s also competition between elementary children. My contemporaries would always compare how good they were, how much more they had, or how incredibly knowledgeable they were. Of course you feel like poop when your so-called friends tell you these things. Furthermore, my parents were going through a pretty rough patch of their marriage and it affected how I interacted with people.
You know, it’s not too hard to break the will of a youngster. I don’t think everyone deals with it the same way, but some form of self-protection begins to develop. I hated being picked on, pointed out, pitied. I feared being ostracized, being left alone for who I was. I decided the best move was to bring some book about rainbows to school and read it whenever I had the chance during free time. I would avoid these problems of being pointed out; however, it simply became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I became more and more shy and I think more depressed looking because I was assigned a counselor during those years. I couldn’t help it, but everything that I seemed to be doing was going downhill towards this very fear of being left alone. The very thing I did not want to be happening was actually happening.
Then I moved during third grade to another town. I think my parents knew something was up because my dad encouraged me that everything was beginning new again. He told me this was a fresh plate in which I could start adding new and different things to it. This was my opportunity! I knew for a fact that being all depressing-like didn’t help me out before, so I put on a different persona. I wanted to be smart and outrageous. I wanted people to like me and flock to me. Rather than live by fear, I decided to live by a new system of rules and rituals. I would do whatever it took for the sake of my happiness, my pleasure.
I wanted to draw a new picture of me, or at least how people perceived me. I wanted to be funny, smart, and popular. And I went to whatever lengths possible to fulfill this dream. I became a playground pervert at recess so that my new set of so-called friends would think I was hilarious and really bold. I made fun of classroom rejects and bullies so that I could show that I was a man’s man. I reviewed more complex math problems and studied vocabulary at home to impress anyone possible when I aced exams. I would try to be extra nice to people privately so that they would like me, then I wouldn’t mind discarding them publicly so that I could look cool and confident. All of this was for my own sake. I wanted to feel amazing and back up how I felt with my deeds. I’m pretty sure shades of this still show up in my life. I was popular; I was outrageous; people knew me. The very thing I wanted began to happen.
Is this the fairy tale ending I was looking for? Sure I became the total opposite of the depressing state I was in “the other town.” However, now I was trying to become someone I totally was not. I was doing things so that people would like me. I was doing these things so I could prevent my fear of being alone from actually happening. I was operating out of fear and self-satisfaction. Yet, this stuff was all fake. I lived like this all the way until I was in high school until I realized that no one around me, none of my friends really knew me for who I was. In fact I was all alone once again, only it was in a difference sense, only I knew that I was alone.
As I dig up this memory time capsule, there is one peculiar thing that stands out. Though my values may have changed, my responses to life remain the same. The decisions I make and how I interact with people are through the thought process of either protecting myself or making myself feel good. Even though I may not be the person I portray myself as, I would rather sacrifice my identity for the sake of fear and pleasure. How strange!
The question I’m wondering is, “Who am I trying to be?” I just need to DVR my conversations and see the words I choose to use, the actions I try to do, and I see that I’m trying in some shape or way trying to shape how people see my character in one way or the other. Am I alone when I share this?
Avoiding fears and pursuing pleasures run deep into every part of my life. In being afraid to be abandoned by my friends, I finagle to say the right things. If I’m dealing with some great struggle or pain, I choose to avoid the topic in our conversations. If I’m deeply hurt by one of my friends, I think bringing it up will only separate us, so I choose to ignore this pain. If I am excited by something new, inspired by something beautiful, or perplexed by something strange, I prefer to downplay my elated emotions so that I can avoid being hurt if my friends don’t feel the same way. How is suffocating our very identity a good thing?
In running away, I run towards something that is similarly disturbing. I work for my happiness even though I am willing to sacrifice my very identity. Rather than choose what I really think, I try to say nice things and do nice deeds so that people will like me. When it calls for it, I try to do mean things and say insulting things so that other people will like me. I completely ignore humanity for the sake of reputation. Furthermore, some of my habits are simply ridiculous. I lose myself for the sake of this one shot of pleasure. I gouge myself on food sometimes, I get completely addicted to video games, and I spend hours “enjoying” myself with pornography. I dwell in the fantasy and the abundance because it is better to be happy than to live in reality. When I wake up, I can’t help but ask, “Who am I?” I’ve become someone else that is unrecognizable to me. I look in the mirror I may see a familiar face, but the one who stands before me is an absolute stranger. For the sake of pleasure, I forget I am myself
Neither living on the low road of fear and isolation nor living on the high road of ecstasy and self-pleasure leads me to life. In fact, I have found that these two paths are exactly the same. They are both roads of non-life. I avoided problems when I was in second grade. I covered my life with makeup when I was older. These two actions are the same things, disregarding my very being.
I wonder if this is a common response for all of us. In running away from fears or towards pleasure, what is it that we want? I think that we are trying to shape our life into how we think it ought to be. Of all the things this world offers us such as comfort, fame, wealth, relationships, and religion, we alchemize the different ingredients in varying portions to form an identity that is great in our minds. All this hoo-ha about fear and pleasure shows us our deepest desires of having purpose and being loved. There are many different things we can do to fulfill these deep desires, yet let’s review our options: food, music, sleep, entertainment, cars, lakefront properties, promotions, resumes, net worth, sex, knowledge, being known, church attendance, hobbies, family, etc. There’s nothing really wrong with any of these things; however, if this becomes the object of our life, something seems off. Something doesn’t seem right about the fact that we are born into this world, work up some social ladder for 60+ years for one of these things, and then our life ends. At the end what do we have to show for this life we’ve worked for?
Bear with me for a moment. Imagine when we’re dead there’s this bighead platform we get to stand on. This platform is where the whole world gets to hear our crowning achievements. What would we say? What would we hear? How many 10,000 square feet homes and vice presidents would we hear about? How many picking up garbage in a park or helping old ladies cross the street stories would we hear? Here’s the thing that slays me. Not only would we hear the similar stories over and over again, but what boast would have been worth hearing? Is who we want to hear, the one we are striving after? And are they worth your life?
This is where we find ourselves. No matter where we try to go, we find these empty roads that do not lead to life. Is this the end? If there is no life in anything we do, what do we have to live for? But, Wait! There is one more way we have not yet examined.
“Look closely. Has this ever happened before, that a nation has traded in its gods for gods that aren't even close to gods? But my people have traded my Glory for empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes… My people have committed a compound sin: they've walked out on me, the fountain of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns—cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves.”
--Jeremiah 2:11, 13 (The Message)
We see ourselves living ‘empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.’ And the life we desire and pursue is riddled with disappointments that lead us nowhere. However, before we pursued this life, there was a real Life that was promised to us. What was this real Life? This Life has to transcend our expectations and disappointments, our fears and failures, and certainly the pointlessness of death. For if this Life does not supersede these things that entrap us, then it is another coy disguise of death and certainly nothing that we can hope in.
At default, even before attaining this Life, we don’t even know God. We’ve already messed up by pursuing no-life things that have disappointed us. Shouldn’t our cosmic slap in the face put us in eternal shame? If God exists, even before we work out our beliefs, we’ve already rejected Him. Yet, long before you were born as a bumbling beauty, there was a man who promised to give water where no one would thirst if one drank it. This man promised to bring us to God, not as objects of shame or embarrassment, but as children. This man rejected none, healed the sick, and actively loved the social rejects. This person did not make decisions out of fear or pleasure. He did not try to find life in pointless and temporary things, but found life in loving God and loving others. Contrary to this strange splendor, people rejected him to the point of killing by crucifying him on a cross. However, this death was not the end. Jesus Christ who received the greatest injustice in all humanity died fulfilling things that had been prophesized before. And to complete all that had been prophesized, he rose from death three days later, never to die again.
This news is incredible! In the whole spectrum of time, there is a man who promised us more than the world and transcended the boundaries of death. Among the confusing and pointless roads that lead to nowhere, there is one way that leads to Life. Jesus is worth striving after. Christ did all these crazy things so that we may know Him, so that we may have a relationship with Him. Yet, instead of looking at Christ, we still choose to go elsewhere. This is what the quoted Jeremiah passage is talking about. Despite this good news, we forsake the spring of living water. Despite the fact that we can now have Life simply by believing Jesus did all these things for us, we deny the possibility that these things even happened. The ‘fountain of fresh flowing waters’ is right before us, but we can’t even admit we are thirsty. We are just too disappointed with God. We stop going to Christ; we choose to find a way out of relationship with God; Jesus did everything for nothing. It’s more comfortable and it’s much easier this way. We deny our God-given self.
This is the crossroad I believe we are all at. The way to Life is right in front of us, but at the same time we hold out in hope that everything that has failed us in the past might not in the future. In high school as the kingdom I had built for almost ten years began to crumble, I was faced with a choice, ‘do I hold out just a little bit longer to see if the funk I was going through was simply a rough patch, or do I abandon ship and start looking for something that actually has meaning?’ I definitely held out for a while up through my freshmen year of college. I believed that I just needed to change scenery, take on different responsibilities, or adjust my values a little bit differently and things would be better. I wanted to continue to still live by running away from fears and towards self-satisfying pleasure. It was all I knew.
Yet nothing I was doing, no matter what situation I manipulated or characteristic I tried to change brought any meaning to my life. Everything that I had strongly believed in up to that point was being taken away from me. I felt like the identity I had been standing on was melting into a pool of water that was beginning to drown me. It was depression, it was sickness, it was death approaching. And in this darkest time I cried out asking for a savior. “God! If it is possible, take me back!” And in this lowest time, I saw Jesus, the perfect man who received the greatest injustice, as the only way I could be saved from my self-inflicted misery. In that moment of trusting Him as the only way to Life, I was drinking deeply from the fountain of living water. At that point I knew God loved me as a person, and that was my meaning and purpose in life. Among all the people in the world, God loved me! And there was absolutely nothing, no other road I could take to lead me to this love, to this Life.
My mind has now come back to me. It’s done wandering outside the windows. It’s dark now and the album has stopped playing. I look at myself sitting here wrapping up this essay, and can’t help but ask, ‘Who am I?’ I immediately want to cling on to the things I have said about myself. I love music and I love having my mind wander around. I am still afraid of being alone. If I’m nervous, I’ll rattle off my strengths and weaknesses. Yet, this is not who I am. I am made this way, created to think, to hear, to see, to feel the world around me. I have been given a personality that is unique to me, quirks and all. But that doesn’t make me. Even if opposite day really happened, I would still be myself. Perhaps I would be a little bit more or less stranger depending on who you asked, but the quality of who I am is not determined by anything I do. For everything I will do has already been done before, and anything that I have done will probably be done again. No. What I do doesn’t determine who I am. It’s who I am that seals who I am. I am Joel. Forever Loved by God.
“Cease striving, and know that I am God” –Psalm 46:10
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