chasing after you

from the often hype and high-energy gospel artist tye tribbett, this particular song is refreshingly subdued and prayerful and still carries within it that passionate something i love about tye’s interpretations and musicality.

it is a song that declares an incredible hope and faith in an active pursuit of the one who has and continues to pursue us. i will go and i’ll be chasing after you are the two main lyrical lines that capture the essence of this song. both are active and suggest a doing on our end. as much as we tend to seek and long for the receiving aspect of our relationship with god, i wonder if we are reminded in this song about god’s desire for us to chase after toward the one who has already chased after us.

though we can never equitably love god in the way god loves us, and though we are often inadequate in our pursuit of god, i am grateful that this god continues to chase me down and refuses to let go! at points in this song, i hear the words as if it were my own prayer and at other points, i hear it as if it is being spoken over me.

as you hear this song may it be your prayer and know that you are loved by a god who never abandons or forsakes but rather, chases after us in hopes that our lives would be turned toward and in pursuit of the one whom we declare to be the lover of our souls.

life as a stranger

what does it mean to be bound to a people who are “other?” to see your identity in someone that is a stanger? or, in a different light, what does it mean to be the stranger? the other? these are some questions that i believe are central to the issues of our christian identity narrated through the lens of immigrant reality.

in this piece entitled, ruth and naomi, by the artist he qi, i am reminded of such a story in the old testament about a daughter-in-law, ruth, who had decided to leave the only land she knew in hopes of being bound to a new people, a new land, through her mother-in-law naomi.  it is a story of a woman who saw her identity so closely bound to her husband’s people that she chose to become the stranger as a moabite in bethlehem. in ruth 1:16 she tells naomi,

where you go i will go, and where you stay i will stay. your people will be my people and your god my god….

what does this mean? why is this so profound?

for those who have been to my home in seattle, you know that this artwork stands prominently as the focal point in our living room. it is not only a reminder of my immigrant parents who each, in their own way, struggled with the overpowering pull of assimilation, but more profoundly, it is a reminder of my own struggles of placedness and identity, both culturally and as a christian.

though i am an asian-american woman, more specifically, a korean-american woman, i have often found my home/refuge/comfort to be amongst a people whom most koreans have historically considered as “others”- the african-american community. in friendships, in communities of worship, in my affinities, and ultimately in my spouse, i have found a freedom, love, embrace with a people who i now cannot see myself without. however, like many things that are worth something, it has been costly.

as the painting so intimately depicts, our binding to another that blurs the very lines of where one begins and the other ends, is the binding that christ calls each of us to – to a people who may be strange to us, foreign, or alien to all that makes us comfortable. in this way, are we willing to be the stanger? to be the one who picks the fields after another, who waits for the other to determine our livelihood?

friends, this is the space where christ dwells. it is in christ’s body where all are bound together. may the same spirit that binds us to our creator, bind us in ways that begin to transform who i think you are to who christ says we are.

real time #3 -anticipation

fall tends to be an exciting time of year at the bantum house. not only does the cool brisk air trigger the need for hot cocoa and cozy socks, but also brings about a dysfunctional yet blissful christmas spirit in me (well, that’s a lie….it actually begins in july!) friends, by the time advent comes around, i have already been waiting on baby jesus for four months!

come october, my middle boo, ezra, celebrates a birthday on halloween! ezra and i are probably the two who get crazy excited about random things that we actually physically manifest, i.e. can’t sleep well, jittery, jumpy, act crazy, etc… ezra starts counting down the days until his birthday from sept 3 (the day after my oldest son’s bday!) his excitement and anticipation often gets so overwhelming by the time we get a week out….can you just imagine the frenzy going on in my house right now?!

all of this to say, children often offer us glimpses of pure joy and anticipation in ways that our tired and marred hearts sometimes fail to see. it is a gift. anticipation is marked by rhythms of momentum and energy in our lives that keep us hoping and looking forward. the beauty in such anticipation is that it allows freedom to enjoy and embrace the now. life is so much more than the “daily grind.” it is only when we choose to live into the seemingly small joys of being alive, of friendships, of laughter, of provision, of days off, or whatever it may be, that we are able to anticipate and hope in what is to come.

i pray that our lives would always be pregnant with anticipation and hope…. not an aimless hope but a hope that is found in a god who creates, breathes and forms our inmost being. in this season of busy unrest, find joy in the little things – in the laughter of your child, in the love of your friends, in the smell of your tea, in the sound of your favorite tune.

be full of hope, find joy in the small things and know that everyday is a gift.

so grateful. xx

being still

psalm 46:10 offers us a tremendous challenge to “be still, and know that i am god.”

we often throw this phrase around so loosely when we feel overwhelmed or stressed with decisions, things to do, conflicts, chaos, etc. however, as i’ve been pondering the impact of what this phrase is asking of us, i realize that the concept of stillness does not come naturally to most folks. we have a difficult time just exercising physical stillness in this day and age, trying to stay afloat in our attempts to manage multiple facets of our lives. but to be still in our thoughts and minds is perhaps an art -an art of faith.

so why is stillness so hard?

i can only speak for myself, and what i know about stillness is that it always requires surrender. surrender, for me, often suggests fear…. fear of the unknown, fear of not being the one in control of the outcome, fear of the dreaded waiting space… to be still means that i must begin to embrace who i am, as imago dei, rather than relying on my worth centered around what i can do, my charisma, or my gifts and talents. it is a recognition of who i am and who i am not.

when i sit still before god, stripped of all the glam, i recognize that i need god and honestly, it’s a vulnerable place to be.

stillness takes great faith and patience. this, i am learning.

real time #2

i know there is a movement among some christians that are into this whole “be poor with the poor” notion of the christian life, aka the new monastic movement. i have a problem with this… not so much with the intent but the hyper spiritual authority/superiority that some folks revel in who participate in such movements. here’s why:

i’ve had my taste of poor. i remember big government cheese blocks. i remember doing homework by candlelight because our electricity got turned off. i remember taking cold showers because we had no hot water (in chicago!) i remember being evicted from multiple homes. i was poor.

that said, though i have had the tremendous opportunity to arise from the suffocating realities that poverty imposes, i often feel convicted because i know that so many others are still there. at the same time, i don’t want to go back from whence i came.

i like nice things…..actually, i LOVE nice things. is that wrong? i’m just being honest.

to the folks that live into the monastic movement, is it really that you’re living poor or is your “poverty” still a manifestation of power? to be able to choose poverty is power. at any point, these folks can choose another way. however, those who are truly victims of poverty often have no out, have no choice, have no sense of hope -basically powerless.

perhaps this is the reason why i was a prime candidate early on to embrace the prosperity gospel. though i am no longer a follower of the prosperity movement as it is generally thought of, i do believe in hope, in blessings, in faith, in a god who desires only good for humanity yet dwells among and with those who suffer.

the truth is, i struggle with this. even the thought of being poor in that desperate kind of way gives me hives. *sigh*

selah.

i need you

so, in a previous blog on desperation and worship, i narrated a posture of worship that emerges out of a sense of need or dependence on god – desperation. this sense of need, i believe, arises out of difficult moments and aspects of our stories and life experiences.

however, in a recent conversation with a friend, i was confronted with the reality that some folks may not have a seemingly desperate life situation from which to draw upon and so how would this notion of desperate worship relate to such people? here is what i think:

what a blessing it is for those to have had the opportunity to move through life thus far relatively smoothly -peace in the home, financial security, solid relationships, both familial and friend-wise. yes, we all endure forms of dysfunction but for some, life has progressed fairly uneventfully and with relative ease.

the important thing is that i don’t think desperation should be thought of as necessarily arising out of a kind of nothingness, absence, loss, darkness, etc. but rather an addition of sorts? while i strongly believe that no one should feel guilty for such a life, perhaps the way we all can truly tap into this notion of desperation that i so often speak of is to bind ourselves to the cross so to speak. if it is not our own cross, then it should be the cross of another. this is the nature of the christian life… of community. if it is not our own pain from which we can draw then we are called to bind ourselves to another’s pain, another’s story. this is the story we find in mark 2 of the paralytic man whose friends carried his limp body, through the roof of a house, to the healing presence of christ. his pain became their pain. his hope became their hope. his healing became their healing.

in the same way, i want to encourage you to allow another’s story to become woven into your story. we ought to become bound to one another so much that we cannot tell our story apart from another. this is the beautiful story of the church. be desperate for god! god is the reason why we live, move, and have our being. we ALL are in need of god and each other and i pray that we would not be afraid to live into this reality. may the beautiful cries of desperate worship arise as incense to the one who dwells among, redeems, heals, restores and offers new life. xx

real-time #1

i wanted to share some “real-time” moments/thoughts that i have been experiencing lately that i thought might be helpful (or at least offer some solidarity) to those who may be going through similar situations. at times (usually) they are raw and vulnerable glimpses into my life but isn’t that what keeps us real? i am not perfect. i am not refined. i am merely a sinner who has been redeemed, forgiven, graced and shown mercy through the blood of christ.

so, my friends, a “real-time” moment in all its glory:

real-time #1

for the first time in my life, i find myself in a situation where i have been forced to deal with the “who am i” question. don’t get me wrong, i’ve dealt with many identity issues but this is different….kind of. my identity issues have now switched from the what am i to the who am i. my struggles in the past have dealt with everything from race, class, culture, etc.. but i’ve always had a strong identity in what i did as a musician, leader, minister. those things offered me a kind of security, an affirmation of sorts. it was easier for me to place my identity in the things that i did rather than exposing who i was.

since our move out to seattle a few months ago, i have been given an incredible opportunity to just be…. nothing really pressing for my time or energy except for my family and no real “job” to speak of. i thought this anonymity would be an amazing time to be free and do the things that i’ve been wanting to do for so long. but now that i am in it, i don’t really know what to do with myself. i have no real job that makes a claim on my skills, my gifts, my abilities, you know….the things i’m good at! rather, it is the everyday mundane tasks that mark and consume my life these days. for so long, i have juggled full-time ministry, 3 babies, full-time seminary blah blah blah… and now i juggle myself -what i should eat, this shirt or that shirt, should i blog or write the book, what color i should paint the walls…seriously.

it is truly a season of patience, of perseverance, of hope, and of incredible faith. i am grateful that god’s presence is in the mundane. in the margins. in the space between the doing. god speaks if we would only be still. this is my season of stillness (and it seems like a long one). honestly, my margins right now are so big that it takes up the whole page! i am learning to be patient and to enjoy being with myself. a friend of mine recently told me that i need to see this time as a gift and not abandonment. god has not forgotten about me, this i know.

my prayer would be that whether your margins are wide or just specks, know that god is with you and in those seemingly insignificant moments. your worth is not in what you do but rather in who you are as a child of the living god.

be full of faith and hope my beautiful friends! xx

i know that you are for me

perhaps one of my favorite songs right now by the beautiful kari jobe.

oftentimes, in moments of transition we are consumed with what is in front of us and things don’t always seem to play out the way we had hoped or imagined. what a great reminder this song is for those of us who may be wading through uncertainty to know that god is for us!

for those who are discouraged, or who have lost hope, i pray that you would hear these words sung over your life. be encouraged because i know that god is for you and will never forsake you.

much love xx

do you feel it? why worship can’t always be about us

gotta LUV the jon birch cartoons!

well, after some conversations with friends about their thoughts on worship, i’m continually confronted with the stark differences in the ways various communities express their worship…. and i find myself asking the why’s and the what does that mean questions. why is there such a gap in religious experience and more pointedly, why are our encounters with god received and expressed in such different ways? does all of this derive from personality differences, cultural differences, experience differences and/or theological differences? or could it be all of the above? how is it that two people in the very same room have such different experiences of god’s presence (or lack thereof) during the same worship service and yet speak of it all as communal?

in light of this, when we ponder the disciples who were praying (worshipping) in the upper room, in one moment, all were experiencing and manifesting the spirit’s power and presence in similar ways. there wasn’t an option to decide how they were to receive the presence and power of god and thus to act upon this option. it was a presence that was all consuming, overpowering and able to break down all inhibitions as they began uttering prayers in other tongues. this is a powerful witness! oftentimes, i wonder and question, even for myself, whether our worship is so contrived that we are forced to behave within a “system” that has been named and defined on our behalf in order that we maintain a bit of control –all undergirded, i believe, by the whole idea of the rational. similarly, our worship can also tend to be dictated by how we feel at any given moment. so often we wait to “really” worship until we feeeeel the spirit -and i’ll be the first to admit that i am sometimes guilty of that!

now, on the other hand, we must be cautious in not claiming our response as the true, right, and only response that constitutes what worship ought to be or look like. rather, shouldn’t we be taking our cues from the disciples by allowing our worship to flow out of a powerful impressing upon by the spirit in which the outcome may be utterly different than what we had thought it would be? what would a community like this look like? how do we allow our everyday lives to reflect such worship?

jazz teaches us about community

in his recent article entitled tension gives it groove, ross kane offers a profound connection between jazz music and its capacity to articulate the christian life in community.

we all know that real relationships encounter ups and downs and conflicts abound when living life together. so how do we negotiate such a life in community? kane writes,

Despite the church’s expressed commitment to creating a peaceable community through reconciliation, in daily life we often sidestep tension and conflict… Often Christians see conflict and tension as problems to be forgotten or hastily avoided.

For the jazz musician, however, without the tension there is no groove. The sense of movement in a jazz solo depends upon the building up of harmonic tension followed by release. In jazz, the idea is not to reduce the tension or eliminate it, but rather to negotiate it and let the tension and resolution work together to create something beautiful.

what a great analogy! tension can be a beautiful thing. if we could only imagine our lives, our interactions and our offerings of vulnerability as something not to be feared but rather as a collaboration of sorts – each one hearing, adding, receiving, and filling out the interpretation of the other. this is the call of christian community.