Thursday 31 December 2015

The Universe - Friendly or Hostile?

(Note - this New Year's reflection is drawn from our Christmas Eve theme along with some images of that wonderful night at VEV. Warning: "shameless grandparents advisory.") 

The Nativity provides the answer to one question for which the great scientist, Albert Einstein, could never find the answer. Obviously overcome by the sheer magnitude and vast reaches of the universe, he asked, “Is the universe friendly?” Left all to ourselves, he saw the universe as a frightening, lonely, and even cruel place.

If we were to hear news of extraterrestrial life coming to planet earth, our first questions would be, “Are they hostile or friendly?”  “Are their intentions for us for good or for harm?” The Nativity tells the Story of one time that planet earth was indeed visited by an "extraterrestrial," an outsider - the Creator himself! Was it a friendly visit?

The Creator knows our tendency to fear what we do not know or understand. Fear assumes that whatever is different than us – not known or understood – must be hostile. Like in the TV series, “Lost,” fear creates “the others,” even if just in our own minds. Fear creates violence, in attitude, word, and deed.  It labels people, marginalizes them, and engenders a sense of “us and them.”

The Creator chose to come to us in a way that would dissolve our fears and replace them with love. Our kids at VEV love to sing the Celtic carol, “Love Came Down at Christmas,” and indeed, that is what happened. The Creator came down to us in the form of Love - in the most disarming, non-threatening way imaginable. Love came in vulnerability. Love came as a helpless baby, dependent on the body of his teenage mother. Thirty-three years later, Love died the same way he was born – weak, vulnerable, surrounded by scandal and misunderstanding, even though he could have chosen otherwise. Even in the face of hostility and violence, he refused to become defensive, intimidating or threatening in any way. He wanted us to know that love is the most powerful force in the universe and that we don’t need to curse the darkness – we only need to turn the light on.  

The Parable of Smudge

Whenever our neighbours go away on a holiday, they ask me to take care of their cat, “Smudge.” Their main concern is that I feed her daily and give her a friendly pet. Smudge, even though an animal, needs love. The whole universe is made for love. When that does not occur, things go wrong. That helps us answer Einstein’s question and also the question, “If the universe is friendly, why does it seem so messed up?”  

Smudge has some issues. Before our neighbours adopted Smudge, she must have experienced some trauma. Somehow, she didn’t receive the love and affection she was created for. When I pet Smudge, she seems fine for a few minutes, purring nicely, then all of a sudden she will exhibit hostility and even attack my hand. This is what fear does. Fear assumes that that friendly hand that has only good intentions for you is hostile. I have to persist gently (with some risk!) to reach out to her, in the confidence that love will overcome her fear. Slowly things are getting better, and so are my scratch marks! 

Perfect love casts out all fear. Love assumes that, because the Creator is friendly, the universe is friendly and chooses not to fear. This does not mean that love is naïve, or that love is without risk and doesn’t require discernment. Neither does it mean that love is without cost. Jesus said, “I send you out as sheep among wolves.” Nevertheless, he still sends us. In spite of the risks, love still goes where it is sent. Love still reaches out.

As we learned in our recent “Art of Neighbouring” series, major cities across North America have discovered that the most effective way to address urban social problems like drugs, crime, prostitution, and gangs was for people to be good neighbours to one another. Yup, just do what Jesus said…and love your neighbour, whether that neighbour is Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Asian, African, Hispanic, First Nations, European, young, old, gay, straight - and this will accomplish more than all the government money can come up with. 

Fear is Not An Option

2015 was a year where the temptations to fear and create more divisions and barriers were rampant. Propaganda and paranoia based on half-truths seemed to rule the media including social media – whether it was over all the terrorist attacks, a new government, the Syrian refugees, the financial and housing markets, or the recent minor earthquake we had. As we head into 2016, the temptation to fear will always be lurking, and indeed, I'm sure new threats will emerge. Yet, for disciples of Jesus, fear is not an option. Have you ever noticed how often "don't be afraid" is mentioned in the birth narratives - to Zechariah, to Mary, to the shepherds...? This is not by chance. Fear is the root cause of our toxic relating. As has often said, the command to “not fear” is the most frequent command in all of Scripture. In fact, we are told this 365 times, one for every day of the year.

Friends, when we are confronted by the sheer terror and intimidation of the dark side, turn on the light. Choose the way of love. Light is greater than darkness. Love is greater than hate. Perfect love casts out all fear. Love is the greatest power in the universe. In fact, Love has a name: Jesus. Immanuel – God With Us - not just at Christmas, but every day of the year. 

Have a happy and blessed New Year!




Thursday 17 December 2015

Sabbatical 14: I Heard Jesus Whisper

Over two months of my sabbatical had passed (now mid-June) and I was enjoying 28 days of just being at home in Vancouver with not a drop of rain! My days continued to be filled with lots of reading, prayer, exercise, reflecting, and doing odd jobs around the house. Near the end of this period, I celebrated my 58th birthday. How does an introvert celebrate his birthday on sabbatical? (No introvert jokes please.) Being an introvert, I replenished by being alone and being on sabbatical amplified my sense of wanting to be quiet. However, birthdays are also about relationships, so I felt torn. The day started quietly enough. Then, text and voice messages started pouring in, even from around the globe. I received touching messages from my kids and grandkids, parents, and friends. I even got a voice message singing “Happy Birthday” from our “angel of Seoul,” Kyung Jin, in Korea! Earlier in the week, Kathleen and I were treated to a lovely supper by my friend and former assistant pastor Alec (Arnold), and his wife Crystal and family, just before their move to St. Louis for Alec to pursue his Ph.D. That same week, we were also hosted to a wonderful luncheon and relational catchup with our friends and interim pastor, Joanna, and her husband, Wade.  Last but not least, our dear “Oma Nim,” Korean mama, Kwonju (Esther), who attends VEV so faithfully every Sunday, shared a delicious Korea Town lunch with us. I didn’t do too badly that week relationally, for an introvert!

However, on my actual birthday, I was given one of the most remarkable gifts I could have ever received. For special occasions like birthdays, I love to go the Cactus Club at English Bay, and on the rare occasion that I do, I have to make a reservation for the dining room. This time, I also wanted to watch a Stanley Cup Final game that was showing that night. The only way that Kathleen and I could view the game at the Cactus Club was to sit in the beach level pub area. I was told by phone that they don’t take reservations for that area, so there would be a long line-up to get in. We decided to try anyway. Sure enough, when we arrived, it was packed. Long lines extended outside and down the beach. We were told it would be a minimum half-hour wait and even then, we were not guaranteed a view of the game. Still, we made our way to the back of the long lineup. 

A BIRTHDAY MIRACLE GIFT

Then, the miracle started. As we made our way to get in line, Kathleen recognized an East Indian family from a Hindu background that we had prayed for over a year before. At that time, through a connection with Crystal Arnold’s mom, I had first been asked to come and pray for one of their teenage girls. She was in the psyche ward due to being tormented by evil spirits in the night. I first went to visit her at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. Through our conversation, I found out that we had the same birthday (if not the same year)! Not only so, we found out that we shared a mutual love for celebrating our birthdays at the Cactus Club at English Bay! We had a good connection and she allowed me to pray for her. I visited her a second time, and this time Kathleen joined me, and we both enjoyed a profound connection with her.

A short time later, we were called by her mother who was again requesting prayer. Her daughter had since been discharged from the hospital, so this time, Kathleen and I went together to pray with her and her family in their home. When we arrived, the whole family had gathered, including her father, mother, sisters, and one aunt. Well, the Holy Spirit began to move as we prayed, and Kathleen got several words of knowledge and prophecy. I noticed the surprise on their faces several times as words were given. One of them literally exclaimed, “How did you know that?!” The Lord had shown up and was graciously showing his love and care for this precious family.

After our prayer time, they invited us to stay for a cup of tea. Foolishly, we declined as we were under time constraints. Later, I deeply regretted this because I didn’t hear from them for over a year and wondered if we had offended them. Now, here they were once again at the Cactus Club and they seemed so excited to see us! Sure enough, they were celebrating their daughter’s birthday, and she looked radiant. To our amazement, we found that she was much better, and that both she and her mother had since become followers of Jesus! They had both been baptized in water, and were now attending a Christian church! We were overwhelmed. 

The mother then particularly expressed her profound gratitude to us that we were willing to go all the way out to the Royal Columbian hospital to pray with her daughter whom we didn’t know, and as a result, her daughter had felt so loved by us. At that moment, I felt this warm blanket of affection from Jesus being wrapped around me, thanking us for being willing and available to him so that he could work in this family whom he loved so much.
Well, even though we had just arrived at the Cactus Club, I could have gone home right then. It would have been enough of a birthday gift. However, after a wonderful visit with this family, Kathleen and I then headed outside to the back of the lineup down the beach. We had only been there five minutes when a lovely waitress came right up to us and invited us to follow her past many people who were lined up in front of us. (I can only surmise that they preferred outdoor seating on the pub patio.) She led us to a table with a front row view of the big screen TV where we could enjoy our meal and watch the hockey game. To our left at eye level was a breathtaking view of English Bay and the setting sun over the mountains of Vancouver Island. During our meal, the family we had met earlier came back to see us and thank us one more time. After they left, and Kathleen and I sought to absorb all that had just happened and to savour it along with the remarkable setting we were in. It was then that I was sure that I heard Jesus whisper, "Happy birthday, Gordie!" 

Thursday 10 December 2015

Sabbatical 13: Turning Points (May 24-June 14)

A Historical Watershed
During the 28 days of just being "at home" in Vancouver (May/June), Kathleen and I were delightfully surprised to find that the three year-long Truth and Reconciliation Process (TRC) in Canada had finally come to completion. I well remember that Tuesday morning, May 26th. We both wept as we listened to the national broadcast of Justice Murray Sinclair’s summary report on seven generations of stolen children through Canada’s Indian residential school system. The TRC findings entailed the telling of 6750 stories of unimaginable heartache, separation, and abuse - some of which Kathleen and I had heard live when some TRC events were held in Vancouver several years ago. Many of you will remember that VEV cancelled a service at that time in order to join the Vancouver TRC march of 70,000 strong in September of 2013. In the pouring rain, we were all so moved by that powerful message by Bernice King, the daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King.

St. Andrews Wesley United - the
interchurch TRC service was held May 31
Now on our sabbatical, I decided to attend a special TRC worship service the following weekend (May 31), being hosted at St. Andrews Wesley Church on Burrard Street. This was a cooperative effort between St. Andrews Wesley Church (United), Christ Church Cathedral (Anglican), Central Presbyterian, and First Baptist. I was deeply touched by the display of love and unity of the churches and their inclusion of First Nations. I invited Frances Carlick, a residential school survivor and part of VEV to also attend. She, too, was deeply moved by the service. When I walked in, I was warmly greeted and I was struck by the beauty of the architecture and the massive stained glass windows. I felt like I was back in Europe. Most importantly, I loved the liturgy which involved extensive use of Scripture seamlessly integrated with First Nations songs and prayers. I was touched by the willingness to address sin and our need for repentance in the readings. I was also touched by how tastefully they integrated First Nations people, their prayers, and their songs. The Kids Blessing involved a highly skillful five minute storytime recalling the narrative of the residential school saga in Canada. For the teaching time, a First Nations leader and lawyer from Vancouver Island spoke eloquently for 20 minutes about the road to reconciliation. I followed up my time there by writing an appreciation letter of thanks and received a very warm response back from the pastor at St. Andrews.What an experience! 

Close Call for Big Dave
But then, at the end of the next week, the first week of June, my Sabbath peace was shattered by a text from Gordie Guiboche stating that Big Dave had suffered full kidney failure and a doctor had given him a day or two to live. Big Dave has been a part of our church for years and carries a huge heart for the marginalized in our city. As I waited for news and updates, I prayed and mentally prepared for the prospect that my sabbatical, which had been so wonderful up to that point, might be ending prematurely. In preparing for the sabbatical months before, this was a "worst case scenario" that I and the planning team had hoped and prayed would not occur. However, as I prayed, I sensed “resurrection” in my spirit and, along with many of you, prayed for God’s intervention. Mercifully it happened!

A card full of love and best
wishes from VEV
in Big Dave's hospital room
That Sunday morning, a day later, June 6, I was able to take some wine and some of Kim’s incomparable banana bread and go and serve communion to Big Dave and pray for him in his hospital room at VGH – right at the same time that church was in progress at VEV. What a joy to walk into that room and see and hear Lynne singing songs of worship with Gordie G. I joined in, prayed with Dave, read Scriptures and shared communion. We had church there. Dave couldn’t talk at that point but I could sense his receptivity and living faith. It didn’t occur to me until later that our church would have also been having communion at the same time. This was totally unplanned. Yet, it felt like all the love and mercy that was flowing from our church towards Dave had formed a fertile womb for a miracle. I also felt it was a turning point, and indeed, it was. What a joy to see that through the modern marvel of dialysis combined with lots of prayer, Dave is back in our community today! Thank you, Lord! 

Another Turning Point
Exactly a week later to the day, I was back in an ICU unit again. This time, it was due to Caili Naumann, one of our VEV teens, who was suffering the effects of toxic shock syndrome. I was only able to see her briefly but was able to have a tender time of prayer with her dad and mom, Dean and Rose, and we hugged. Again, God intervened and showed us his immense mercy, reminding us once more of how dependent we are on that mercy each day, and how grateful we are for Caili, who has grown up in our church and continues to be such a beautiful gift to us. Again, love and prayers produced a turning point, and she is well today.Thank you, Lord! 

Remarkably, in spite of these crises that occurred in our church family in June, I never felt like I had to stop being on sabbatical, even though I was preparing for that possibility. This alone was a miracle. I believe that this is a testimony to God’s gracious intervention, but also a testimony to the maturity and health of our wonderful VEV community who surrounded Dave and Caili and their loved ones with such immense love, prayer, and care. As we had seen love create a miraculous turning point in our country through truth and reconciliation, it also created miraculous turning points in our own church family. This is who we are. During these crises, I did not feel pressure from our leadership team or community to fulfill any pastoral role, but was lovingly included in these circumstances as a member of the family. Something about this touched a deep cord within me. When I returned from sabbatical, I realized that I wanted this sense to continue and increase. First and foremost, I am a member of the VEV family, who just happens to be serving as pastor during this season. In many ways, this renewed sense of profound belonging irrespective of my gift or role has been a significant turning point for me, and one of the greatest gifts this sabbatical has given me. 



Thursday 3 December 2015

Sabbatical 12: "Flattened" by Insights

Reflecting back on the first three months of sabbatical, I see it now like a surgical procedure in three phases: The initial phase was our first month in Asia, which was pre-op anesthesia in preparation for surgery. My two weeks in Osoyoos was like open heart surgery where God did a deep work as described in previous blogs. The third phase was after my return from Osoyoos where I had 28 days of just being home in Vancouver. This period was like post-op recovery!


Those 28 days were amazing days. They started quietly enough, but they didn’t stay that way. The sun shone every day. The early summer mornings were intoxicatingly beautiful. I usually got up between 5 and 6am and then went out on our back deck every morning for devotional time and enjoyed listening to the chickadees and other west coast songbirds. Sometimes the birds were joined by the chanting of my Buddhist neighbour as she added some rhythm with her exercise machine! As the sun greeted the morning, I would journal, soak in the Scriptures, then go for a prayer walk, or run to Trout Lake and back – about 4 or 5 kms.   Spiritually, I was in post-op recovery, but physically, I felt wonderful. All the insomnia I suffered from pre-sabbatical was gone. My body and mind felt at rest, and I slept at night like a baby. 

In addition to Scripture, I read voraciously, continuing to read Julian of Norwich and would often get “flattened” by her surprising and startling insights. For example, when she was contemplating the suffering of Christ on the Cross, she wrote: “The joy and bliss that Jesus had in winning our salvation far surpassed all the suffering that he suffered, and he wants us to experience his joy and delight. He so desires our joy, endless bliss, and honor, how could he ever withhold from us anything that is pleasing to him that we ask for?” BAM! I was surprised and humbled by this insight. Another concept she introduced was the “courtesy of God” towards us. I had never heard that term used with regards to God’s heart for us. It disarmed me and opened me up to new levels of intimacy. He is courteous which means he is kind, gentle and respectful of us and will never violate us. Wow!

I also spent many hours reading books on spirituality such as Heart of the World (Urs von Balthazzar), The Naked Now, (Richard Rohr), and more novels on Korea. I read another book of a North Korean escapee, an upper class citizen who was imprisoned with his family, called the Aquariums of Pyongyang. Plus, I read The Year of Impossible Goodbyes, a story written for middle-school aged children, describing what life was like under Japanese colonization. I also read more Chaim Potek novels. I began to resume vocational reading related to being a pastor and church, with my first book called “The New Parish,” a beautiful book written by three pastors who live in the Pacific Northwest, just south of the border. This book was about their journey to integrate spirituality with ecclesiology. (Ecclesiology is just a fancy word for “how we do church.”) Yum! This is where I came across the remarkable story of the lobster which I’ve referred to often since I’ve come back from my sabbatical.

I took my afternoons, just to be home, to enjoy where I live, my neighbourhood. When Kathleen came home from tutoring, we had lots of wonderful walks and talks, meeting neighbours, connecting with our Chinese friends at Templeton Pool. We also enjoying Serge, our wonderful and delightful waiter, at our weekly breakfast date at the Roundel Cafe.  Few waiters have ever given us so much joy, and he is such a gift to us.


I embarked on a very special project. At the Spirit Ridge First Nations Cultural Centre, I found some beautiful cards with First Nations art by a Vancouver artist, in which I began to write thank you notes to the parents of our homestay students who had been so generous to us in Korea. Saying thank you was easy. Practicing my Korean (Hangul) was not so easy! Nevertheless, the delighted response I received back from them after they received made the effort more than worth it! Here is a sample of a card, as well as my Korean handwriting on one envelope to Jini's family, You can only imagine what the text looked like. I wrote an interlinear translation in English in case I got it badly wrong - a slight chance that might happen! 


Finally, I began house and yard cleaning projects. Methodically I worked my way through the house, cleaning windows, walls, Venetian blinds, finding places where dust had gathered that I didn’t know even existed! As I worked my way through this four week project, all kinds of thoughts went through my mind: “I’m going to have to do this all over again next year.” “No one will ever notice that I did this, but they will notice it if I don’t do it!” and so on. You have lots of time to think when you’re cleaning. Then I thought of the phrase from Ecclesiastes – “Meaningless! All is meaningless!” However, it was truly therapeutic to feel that after I had started something, I actually got something done. This experience can be quite elusive when you’re a pastor, and brought fresh meaning to the ordinary. 

Sabbatical 11

BUCKETS FULL OF HOLES

Ten years ago when we took our last pastoral sabbatical at VEV, three of those weeks were spent in a mountain cabin built above the tree line in the high Alps of Switzerland, all thanks to the generosity of our son-in-law’s family. It was a remarkable three weeks which constituted the heart of the sabbatical in 2004.

On our recent sabbatical, the ten days I spent at Spirit Ridge in Osoyoos felt similar. In my last blog, I wrote much on my time there, and before I move on, I want to ruminate a little more on that time which was so significant.
In my readings, I was struck by how small, seemingly insignificant but tight-knit Christian communities in medieval Europe had such a profound impact on their surrounding culture, resulting in immense historical significance. They were not megachurches so they were easily dismissed by the mainstream culture. Yet, they contained faithful people who were willing to slow down and pay attention to God together in the midst of some of the most turbulent times imaginable which included the black plague, political unrest, and natural disasters. It was so encouraging to the vision I carry in my heart for VEV, to be part of such a community that is attentive to God and is faithfully extending his radical embrace to one another, to our city, and to our world.

At Spirit Ridge, I spent much of my time immersed in the writings of Lady Julian of Norwich, a 14th century anchoress at a medieval church in Norwich, England. An “anchoress” is someone who lives at the church, usually in a little room attached to the building, and serves the church in practical matters such as getting the Eucharist prepared, warming up the building for worship in the mornings, and the everlasting ministry of... cleaning!   Most importantly, she served the church in prayer and solitude.

A Download from Heaven
At the age of 30, Julian received a “download” from heaven that the greatest theological doctors of the church are still trying to unpack to this day. Nevertheless, Julian’s writings have brought infinite blessing to millions of people around the world through the centuries. They came about through a prayer she prayed followed by a life threatening illness she suffered. Her prayer had three requests: 1. That she would have a vision of Christ’s suffering and passion; 2. That she would have the full experience, physically and spiritually, of dying without actually dying; 3. That she would experience three “wounds,” (as she called them), namely, contrition, compassion, and longing for God. She suffered a bodily illness for three days and nights that was so severe that she was administered “last rites.” Nevertheless, God intervened and she recovered, and all three of her prayers were answered. She received a series of heavenly “showings” that are recorded in her book, Revelations of Divine Love, in which I soaked during the heart of this sabbatical. Julian’s book was likely the first English language book ever written by a woman.

Julian wrote that she had come out of that experience with only one compelling reason to go on living – “So I can love God better and longer, and living so, love and know God more as he is in the bliss of heaven." She was the first writer I’ve ever read who, while contemplating the passion of Christ, actually felt compassion for Jesus. So many write about the compassion of Jesus for us on the cross, but she wrote on the compassion she felt for Jesus as he suffered. I wrote in my journal, “It takes a woman to have this insight.” I recalled the prominence of women with Jesus in the Gospels, particularly, at his crucifixion. It was the women who stayed with him. It was the women who helped him when all the men had run away in fear. It was the presence and witness of women that helped Jesus complete his mission, and add to his courage to give his last drop of blood. I easily visualized Julian as being one of the many women who, though powerless to rescue Jesus physically, would have simply stayed present to him. I visualized many of the women in my life who have been the same to me – Kathleen, my mom, my daughter, my sister, and so many of my beautiful sisters and friends that I’m surrounded by here in our VEV community. Perhaps it was in honor of this that Jesus commissioned a woman to be the first witness to his resurrection. Mary Magdalene became an “apostle to the apostles,” and the men were invited to first accept the truth of his resurrection through the witness of a woman.

One of the “showings” that Julian received was that of the hazelnut, to which we referred much in our three evenings of contemplative prayer last week. She saw a tiny “ball” in her hand, the size of a hazelnut. God showed her that this was how the created universe was in his hand. “He made it; He loves it; He preserves it. Everything was made for love, and everything is preserved by love.” To this day, I continue to be overwhelmed by this. Last week, we included hazelnuts with this reading as part of our evenings of contemplative prayer to extend a Sabbath blessing to each of you. He made you; He loves you; this Love preserves and sustains you.

God as Father and Mother
Last but not least, Julian’s legacy was a significant contribution to theology from a feminine perspective. Obviously, there were many outstanding female theologians who preceded her as far back as Priscilla in the New Testament, but their voices were often muted. We have access to Julian’s writings, and in them, we find, as John Leclercq writes, “the feminine’s characteristic genius in its intuitional approach to reality.”

One of Julian's greatest insights was of God as Mother, as well as Father. She also wrote extensively of Jesus as Mother. This has been controversial in the church, or at the very least, strange to our ears. One reason is the fear of associating the worship of YHWH with the worship of the goddess that stretches back to Old Testament times. However, I suspect there is a greater fear. Since the fall, there has been a perennial fear in men of women. There has been a fear of the image of God in women, reflected in their wisdom, intuition, and wisdom. As Adam, men have continued to blame women for humanity’s sinfulness. They fear that to give women too much freedom will extend their misery. This manifests itself in control, violence, and the oppression of women through the perennial patriarchy that has lingered, not to mention sexual objectification and exploitation. Let’s face it. Sin has caused a deep painful division between the sexes. It is manifested so much in our world today. Patriarchy has suppressed and silenced the voice and role of women in the church and society, who, alongside men, in a loving partnership of co-leadership in Creation, were intended to reflect the image of God.

As a result of this oppression, the damage to church and society is beyond comprehension. It has deeply limited our view of God and our capacity to connect with him. Consider the alarming number of Christian men trapped in pornography. The Barna research group reported last year that over 65 percent of Christian men look at pornography weekly and almost 80 percent monthly. Churches and ministries have made many efforts to address it including implementing accountability partners, 12-step groups, spiritual disciplines, and  “porn-blocking” software. There isn’t anything wrong with these things but it hasn’t stemmed the tide. What’s missing?

Does Julian give us a clue? To be clear, Julian never advocated substituting God as Father for God as Mother. Rather, she sought to integrate the two. So, if God is also our Mother, have we cut ourselves off from the comfort and grace available to us because we have suppressed the feminine? Is the immense demand for porn and prostitution in our culture a misplaced cry for the comfort and security that can only be found in God our Father and Mother? Have we cut ourselves off from God, as men, because of the fear of the feminine – in our sisters? In God? In ourselves?

Last week, I wrote about significant battles I was facing against giants of anxiety during my weeks of solitude. Fear is a terrible spirit that is manifesting itself so much in our world today. Fear is the root of all violence. Love leads to peace, even though the road is fraught with risks and sacrifice. Perfect love casts out all fear. As I soaked in Julian’s revelations of divine love, the anxiety I was suffering began to dissipate and I began to be immersed in love, returning to rest. To use an analogy I heard recently at my Soulstreams intensive, I initially felt like a bucket full of holes trying to contain water. The holes were all my sins, failures, shortcomings, fears and insecurities. To try to tend to all the holes and mend them was overwhelming and self-absorbing. As I continued to be immersed in God's love, rather than trying to plug all the holes, I felt I was being immersed in an ocean of God’s love. As this occurred, all the holes became irrelevent. Even more, I saw that God uses these holes as conduits of his love, flowing in and out of me. Yes, we are buckets full of holes, but we are being immersed in the ocean of God's love.

Sabbatical 10

Solitude, Silence, and Snakes, in the Desert (May 4-22).
After four weeks in Asia, Kathleen and I were back home in Vancouver. It took us a week to recover from jet lag which for me was not helped by a cold I had caught on the way back. During that week, I read the beautiful Korean novel, Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-Sook Shin, which was on the Chapter’s bestseller list last spring. It is a hauntingly beautiful tale of an elderly woman who goes missing on a Seoul subway station and the journey of her daughter, sister, and father in their attempts to find her. Each of them reflect back on her life. The novel is written from a “second person” point of view - a unique but effective way to tell a story. It spoke to me of the generational angst of our time, as culture and tradition clash with new realities in the modern world, as well as the care of aging parents. It reminded me of my own fragility and made me mindful of my own parents, now in their 80’s. It greatly increased my anticipation of the priceless opportunity to spend some time with them in Calgary as part of the sabbatical in June.

I was struck by the stillness and the silence I felt when we came home. I felt so protected. I felt I was able to rest. For the first time in years, I noticed that I had experienced little or no insomnia for over a month. I again was overwhelmed with such gratitude to VEV and all who had helped make this rest possible.

During our first week back, I checked in with my spiritual director, Jeff Imbach, who generously offered me a Sabbath gift of free spiritual direction to prepare me for a two-week retreat I had planned in Osoyoos May 8-22. As always, he was so helpful, but he expressed concerns about me being alone so long (two full weeks) as Kathleen had to return to work while I continued my sabbatical. His concerns were well advised. I wasn’t prepared for the emotional toll of saying farewell to Kathleen for two weeks. We had just enjoyed such an amazing month together of joyful adventures in Korea and China. Now, to part so suddenly felt like a jolt. It didn’t seem right. We both cried. I decided to reduce my time away to 10 days, so I could spend Mother’s Day weekend with her, and then, after a tender breakfast date, I left on Monday, May 11th for Osoyoos.

Soul Surgery in the Desert
I never get tired of the drive to Osoyoos, because of the beautiful route along highway 3 through Manning Park, the Coastal Mountains, and then the dramatic shift from towering green forest-covered mountains to semi-arid desert, once travelling east beyond Princeton. After I settled into the unit at Spirit Ridge, I began a balanced regimen of reading, walking, and prayer. Under Jeff’s direction, I did no vocational reading (related to church work or being a pastor). I pulled out three Chaim Potek novels, generously lent to me by the Pontaltis, and began to immerse myself in the riveting tales of tradition clashing with progress, painfully identifying with them over and over again. I also read, Revelations of Divine Love, by Lady Julian of Norwich, a 13th century Anchoress from Norwich, England, and Heart of the World, by Hans Urs von Balthasar. I continued to miss Korea so much, so I read Korea Unmasked, an insightful commentary on Korean culture and history, from the perspective of a Korean journalist in cartoon format. It was highly informative and hilarious! I also read Escape from Camp 14, the harrowing story of an escapee, Shin Dong-hyuk, from the North Korean gulag. As far as is known, he is the only person in the world who was raised in a North Korean concentration camp, to have escaped. He now lives in Seoul.

I also resumed reading and meditating on Scripture after a one-month break, and it immediately became a gentle scalpel in the hand of the Great Physician. My first month, April, in Korea was “anesthesia before surgery.” The euphoria of non-stop encounters with people Kathleen and I loved so much in a beautiful land and culture so different from our own for a whole month, effectively helped me to stop and shut down all my “ministry systems.” As mentioned in previous blogs, I did not read Scripture or have my regular devotional prayer time for a whole month. I only did some journalling and very little reading. Yet, I felt that the whole time was “prayer.” I felt as close to God as I have ever felt before.

However, my return to Canada in May, including the ten days where I was alone in Osoyoos, felt like I went into surgery and intensive care (ICU). My time on retreat was both glorious and painful. I deeply grieved being away from Kathleen. However, being an introvert, I also enjoyed having the space to be alone, the long silences, the reading, the walks, the running, the prayer, and reflection.

Post-Surgery, Dragons and Snakes
In spite of the wonderful long hours of stillness and silence, the surgery in my soul left me vulnerable. Old wounds of anxiety and performance were stirred up in me, and I came under severe attacks in the middle of the night. I felt like I fought loud intimidating dragons of fear that I thought were long gone. Sometimes, I felt like I was having another breakdown like I suffered 27 years ago.  Attacks came about my age, that I was no longer relevant – to anyone, let alone to God. There were also attacks about my future retirement, about the debt still owed on our house, about feeling so alone and helpless, and also that my life hadn’t counted for much. I found I was comparing myself to so many others I regarded as being so much more successful than me. I saw more snakes in a shorter period of time (yes, real rattlesnakes), than I had ever seen in Osoyoos. I sometimes stopped on the walking trails and spoke to them. I was also blindsided by powerful sexual thoughts and images offering counterfeit comfort for the severe anxiety and loneliness that had hit me. All of these sought to distract me from the rest and stillness I had previously been enjoying on the sabbatical.

As I resumed reading Scripture and practicing lectio divina, deep and painful surgery occurred. I was confronted by the sheer magnitude of how broken I still was. The damage that had occurred to my soul through years of non-stop public ministry seemed evident. Living a Christian life where so much time is either spent on the platform (literally and figuratively), or preparing for and recovering from it, can be so dangerous to one’s spiritual health, appealing to one’s worst narcissism. It often kept me from being present to the moment.

However, I was comforted by my extended phone conversations and prayer times with Kathleen, as well as an incredible webcam visit with my daughter, Danielle, and all our grandkids – where I had extended quality time with each one of them. I was also comforted by the writings of Lady Julian of Norwich. My readings of her Revelations of Divine Love led me into a deep and restful repentance – something that I know will need to be an ongoing process. This repentance was from the sin of unbelief where I frequently seemed so oblivious to God’s immense delight in me. As Ignatius of Loyola wrote, “Sin is the unwillingness to trust that what God wants is our deepest happiness.”

While the first few weeks were sometimes difficult, I felt God do a deep work in me. I left Osoyoos and returned to Vancouver with a much deeper sense of God’s rest than I had ever known, and a new-found joy of how supremely delightful I was to God. This joy remains and has been a source of significant and sustaining strength for me - yet another beautiful result of Sabbath.  

Sabbatical 9

BEIJING, HOME, AND RINGING BELLS (APRIL 28-May 3, 2015)

Seoul to Beijing is a two hour flight. When we booked our flights to Seoul from Vancouver through Aeroplan points, we discovered that our flight home had a one-stop connection through Beijing, so we rearranged our flights to stay there for a few days. Because we had no relational connections in Beijing, we organized our tour through a Vancouver-based Chinese tour company which helped us obtain our visas, set up our hotels and transportation, as well as secure a tour guide. Visa regulations were just changing, and the costs of getting a visa produced a big of a “gulp” for me, but we realized this was a once-in-lifetime opportunity. It is much more difficult for a pastor to gain a visa for China than an English teacher. Kathleen’s visa is now good until 2024 when her passport expires. Mine? It lasted 90 days, so it has already expired!

After arriving in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon, April 28, we were met at the airport by our lovely tour guide, Siejae. Born and raised in China, she had never been outside the country. Because it was still off-season, we had her and her driver all to ourselves the whole visit. As they drove us to our hotel, we experienced the trauma of driving through Beijing rush hour traffic. I have driven in New York, LA, and Toronto, but have never seen anything like Beijing traffic! I vowed I would never complain about Vancouver traffic again! The collision warning sensors in our car were constantly going off as we navigated the freeway! Many of the cars had buffers made of styrofoam to protect them from fender benders.

After crawling at a snail’s pace to get to our hotel, we settled in and then went for, yes, you guessed it, Chinese food! Of course, it was wonderful. As we enjoyed our first meal there, it was hard for us to take in the reality that we were in China. We couldn’t comprehend the sheer magnitude of the population. Beijing has a metro population of over 21 million people – nearly 2/3 the population of the entirety of Canada!  Furthermore, Beijing is only China’s third largest city! Shanghai has a metro population of 35 million, the size of the whole population of Canada in one metro area!

We soon became acquainted with what our homestay students called, “the great firewall of China.” When we settled into our hotel room, we were surprised to find that we could not connect to Google, Facebook, or “Kakaotalk,” a Korean internet platform. Neither were we able to send email. It felt like we were cut off from communication to the outside world. We did find that we could send “Kakaotalk” messages to Korea, so we relayed a message home through one of our homestay daughters in Korea. China has opened up significantly in the past few years, but it was still jarring to feel the control and restriction of information as we did.

Centres of Power - Past and Present
We had two non-stop days of touring Beijing and vicinity.  After a great breakfast buffet of Western and Asian cuisine, we were picked up and taken to a tour of the Summer Palace grounds for Emperors and Empresses from centuries past. Breathtakingly beautiful, it was situated on a massive human-made lake, built in the 11th century. We could not comprehend the engineering feat that it would have taken to build this lake back in the days when there were no earth movers. From there, we toured Tiananmen Square, the centre of political power in China. All I could think of was the massacre of June 4, 1989. I still remember where I was when I heard the news. To our surprise, Siejae seemed unaware of the event!

Adjacent to Tiananmen Square was the ancient Forbidden City, which made up the main palace headquarters of dynasties stretching back thousands of years. It was rebuilt and refurbished in time to showcase to the world at the 2008 Olympics. What struck me most was how similar the layout of the palace was to the description of the Jerusalem temple, with its outer court, inner court, and inner sanctum. Emperor worship is part of China’s cultural heritage. I again thought of how this design could be like the “Old Testament” for Chinese culture, pointing the way to Jesus who has now given us access to the one true God through his sacrifice on the cross.

Because it was included in our tour, we next rode a rickshaw through a traditional part of Beijing, and ate a home-made lunch in an ordinary looking Chinese home, even though the price of the home was anything but ordinary! It was valued at over 8 million dollars, due to Feng Shui (“wind and water”), the Chinese understanding of how geographical location affects energy related to fortune and prosperity. For a country that regards itself as secular communist, we were struck by how much religion and superstition there was centred around wealth, long life, and fortune.

At the end of the day, we attended a spectacular acrobatic show with stunts and stage affects that left us breathless. During the performance, the whole stage was transformed into rushing rapids and water falls from dry flooring within seconds, and then back again a few minutes later. At the end of our day, in the heart of Beijing, our guide took us for “Peking Duck” – Chinese cuisine as authentic as we were ever going to find!

Rural China and the Great Wall
Our second day in Beijing consisted mostly of a tour through the Chinese countryside to the Great Wall. To get there, it took about a two hour drive from Beijing. Probably the most moving part of our visit was to see authentic China – rural peasants still eking out their living with little plots of agriculture, stacked row upon row next to each other, mile after mile across this vast land. I thought back to my first introduction to China as a child when my grade two elementary teacher in northern Alberta had taught us about Chinese culture. I remember particularly learning about the Chinese rice diet and the farm paddies. It could still see in my mind the little plastic packets of rice that we glued to our construction paper. Now I was seeing the rice paddies and the farmers with my own eyes. In this part of China, nothing has changed for thousands of years. While China has become much more urbanized, the majority of its people are still rural. I closed my eyes and imagined some of our neighbours back home in Vancouver whose parents and grandparents had immigrated over the last century – this was their history, their ancestry, and part of their story. Many had come at great cost, against many adversities and injustices over the past century, and yet they helped build the nation of Canada. They are now part of our Canadian Mosaic.

Once we were out of the smog of Beijing, we were suddenly struck by the beauty of the mountain scenery that rose majestically around the city. We drove through grand mountain passes to one of the access points to the Great Wall of China, one of the Seven Wonders of the World! We took some time to walk the wall, marveling at the grandeur and the history of it, recalling the stories of empires defending themselves. It was a beautiful day. We later  stopped in at a Chinese cafe in the countryside for lunch, before we were driven back to our hotel. We hoped to catch some rest before our flight home the next day.

Home and Ringing Bells
Our departure day to Vancouver was May 1. As we attempted to drive through Beijing May Day traffic congestion, our car often was stopped. Our tour guide was getting worried that we weren’t going to make it to the airport in time, which made us nervous too. But, we made it! Our flight left at 1:30pm Friday afternoon, and we arrived in Vancouver at 11:30am Friday morning! Oh, the joys of international travel and crossing date lines!

We came home with a new appreciation for our Chinese friends in Vancouver, both Mandarin and Cantonese speaking, some of whom have become our friends through our mutual swimming excursions at Templeton Pool, not to mention our next door Asian neighbours. We had a new appreciation for their stories, and the part they had in our story. We also were so grateful for God’s planning because our trip to Asia had been the perfect beginning to our sabbatical. It had served to provide just the right kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual rest that we had needed for the first month.

It was a beautiful spring morning when we arrived in Vancouver. We had travelled lightly, so we took the sky train and transit home. It felt good to be home. We took the first two days to unpack and settle in.  All was quiet although we got some loving “welcome home” texts from church family, but we felt the respectful and caring space given to us in the recognition that we were still on sabbatical. We had planned to go to Graham Ord’s Saturday night concert on May 2, but we had failed to take into account the toll the flight would take on us physically, and I had caught a cold somewhere between Seoul and Beijing, so we gave our tickets away.

Sunday morning, I got up, and was enjoying my morning devotions on our back deck, when I heard church bells. Then it hit me. They were our church bells! The bells of Vancouver Eastside Vineyard Church at St. David of Wales were ringing! Was it Kenny or Big Dave ringing them? It is hard to describe what I was feeling when I recognized them as our church bells. We were home, only blocks away from our church family, who were faithfully meeting that morning. It felt like they were sending us a message –"Welcome home! Keep on resting, dear ones. All is well!”

Sabbatical 8

DMZ, Secret Gardens, and a Wealth of Friends (April 24-28, 2015)

After our “second honeymoon” week in Busan, we took the KTX bullet train to Seoul Station (SS), checking in to our SS Guesthouse, right across the street, in preparation for a final “whirlwind” weekend in Korea. Our final days were full of rich, deep, relational connections, as well as more adventures. After we had settled into our guesthouse, we met up with Hyun Jin (“Jini”) for the first time since we had arrived in Korea. She had stayed with us in the fall of 2014, and the wait to see her again was getting unbearable! We had met few people in our life who had the ability to be as emotionally present as Jini, regardless of who she was with. I particularly loved watching the way she would interact with the kids of VEV during her time with us. She helped serve in kids’ church, on church work bees, and other community activities, and of course, spoke to VEV one Sunday on what it was like to be a second language English Student in Canada. 

During her stay with us, Jini told me the story of how that every morning since she could remember as a little girl, her mother would wake her and her brother, gently massaging their arms, necks, shoulders and backs, soothing them with her voice. Jini’s mother always wanted them to face each new day with love and affection. This morning ritual occurred from Jini’s childhood to her teen years. The impact on her relational and emotional intelligence was evident. There was no describing the joy we felt to be with her again, and to be able to look into her smiling eyes. Of course, she treated us to another delectable Korean dinner, courtesy of her parents, who had already paid for our car rental on Jeju-Do.  

A DAY AT THE DMZ
The next day was an emotional contrast to the previous, but with the same degree of intensity. Courtesy of our “angel,” Kyung Jin, we were treated to a whole day tour of the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone). The DMZ is a 5 kilometre buffer zone that runs east to west between North and South Korea – the only remaining location of the Cold War, which ended for the rest of the world in 1989 at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, but not for Korea.  The border between North and South Korea runs right down the middle of this buffer zone, from sea to sea. We found it hard to grasp the magnitude of what this small strip of geography represented. Canada’s daily newspapers feature stories that describe the unimaginable heartbreak, grief and loss that have occurred due to this border. (See “Reunited Koreans Let the Tears do the Talking,” from the National Post, Wednesday, October 21, 2015). 

The DMZ, heavy with barbwire and guards on both sides, was set up because North and South Korea are still officially at war. Even though the Korean War occurred from 1950 to 1953, an armistice, or ceasefire, was declared, but there was no peace treaty. This meant that war could again flare up at any moment. There are still incidences of conflict that occur every few months. On our trip to the DMZ, the level of tension and security was very high. We were always accompanied by armed soldiers. Our ID’s were check and re-checked, with guards carefully scrutinizing us. We were strictly admonished to adhere to a dress code –no shorts, t-shirts, etc. as well as follow a specific code of conduct. Most South Koreans do not ever take this tour as they have to go through much more red tape and security clearances than foreigners. We had to sign the most unusual waiver form I have ever signed, stating that the tour company was not responsible if we were shot, wounded, bombed, kidnapped, etc. The tension was palpable as we approached the DMZ. Barbed wire and armed guards were everywhere.

We stopped at a bridge that was called, “The Bridge of No Return.” Why? At the end of the Korean War, 13,000 prisoners of war were returned to the South from the North. 90,000 POW’s were returned to the North. None of them knew that it would be the last time they would be able to cross that border. Family members were separated. Many would never see their loved ones again. The photograph on this blog shows a place we visited at the DMZ where South Koreans remember lost family members. Thousands of ribbons and mementos were posted. Every ribbon represented a broken heart, a missing family member, and a story of unimaginable pain. (I highly recommend the movie, “Ode to My Father,” which captures this story so well. You can view the trailer for it here). 

Next, we went into a UN controlled area and entered a building which is the only place on earth where North and South Korean leaders ever meet and talk to each other. We had the opportunity to cross the border into North Korea under the watchful guard of a North Korean soldier. We also were taken to a high vantage point to get a more panoramic view into North Korea. The South Koreans have intercepted a number of tunnels infiltrating the South from the North. We had the opportunity to tour one of them – a very well designed tunnel that could have facilitated the rapid movement of a high volume of army troops. The whole day felt like a day of tears and we arrived back in Seoul emotionally and spiritually drained, trying to take in what we had just witnessed. This experience continues to weigh heavily on our hearts to this day.
  
A WEALTH OF FRIENDS
Our return to Seoul provided some relief to the deep grief we had experienced on our tour to the DMZ. That night, we were thrilled to meet up with Jessica Shin’s parents, Munchal and Yeiri, in Seoul. We were again treated so royally, and I was beginning to wonder how much more we could take! The Shins had all attended VEV over a decade ago while Munchal was involved in highly covert missions to China. They are now missionaries to Japan – such beautiful, godly people who have given their lives so sacrificially to share the good news. Their daughter, Jessica was a teen in our youth group when they attended VEV, and she has now emerged as a strong and gifted Christian leader. As we met with her parents in Seoul, we were all anticipating Jessica’s upcoming wedding back in Vancouver in July - our first VEV wedding at St. David of Wales Church! Just before our sabbatical, Kathleen and I had the privilege of doing the premarital counselling for Jessica and her fiancé, Peter, mostly via google hangout, as he is a university professor from Michigan! 

On Sunday, we again saw Jini along with another friend, named Daegyu, whom we had met previously through her in Vancouver. Jini gave us the sad news that the Flames had eliminated the Canucks from the Stanley Cup playoffs. We couldn’t have received this news from a more comforting messenger. Last fall, thanks to a generous gift from Gary and Kirsten Veldman, I had taken Jini to a Canucks game so she knew well the impact of this news on us. We were able to move on with our lives when we visited the Choenbokdong Palace later that afternoon, the location of the exotic Secret Garden, another historic and beautiful Choson dynasty home and grounds, in Seoul. We enjoyed a very romantic and beautiful tour through these expansive gardens at the height of the April spring blossoms. This tour was so popular, we had to book it weeks ahead. 

That night, we met up with Yeon Kyung and Jihyun, friends we had made last fall through sharethanksgiving.ca, an initiative in Vancouver that connects host families with international students and visitors. These gracious and gifted exchange students at UBC were now attending top universities in Seoul. When they found out we were coming to Korea, they insisted on seeing us, and treated us to samgyetang, a whole boiled chicken with rice, another Korean delicacy, followed by tea and dessert at a traditional Hanok teahouse. We are the wealthiest people on earth. 

LAST DAY AND FAREWELL KOREA
On our last afternoon in Seoul, Kathleen took a break while I again met up with our friend, Daegyu, in Gangnam. We strolled beside the Han River, drank beer (allowed in parks in Korea), enjoyed the sites on another beautiful spring day, with the Seoul skyline nestled among rolling hills and mountains to the north. The towers of Gangnam and Yoiddo sprang up to dizzying heights to the south and west. We walked, talked, laughed, told stories, and I enjoyed listening to Daegyu share his dreams.  

That night, we met with our most recent homestay student, Jaeyong, and his father who treated us to exotic seafood on Korea’s west coast. We ate eel for the first time, accompanied by mackerel, all the Korean side dishes, and of course, soju. Afterwards, they drove us back to Seoul Station, crossing what some of the locals call “suicide bridge,” where so many young Koreans have taken their lives, due to the enormous academic pressure they face and the limited opportunities to really get ahead financially due to such fierce economic competition. All of this, ironically, was within view of Yoiddo Full Gospel Church, and the towering Bank of Korea, both symbols of economic and spiritual success and power. Signs all along the bridge-fencing begged youth not to take their lives –assuring them that they were loved, valued, and precious. 

We arrived home that night to a love package from Kyung Jin, full of Korean tea and snacks to take to our VEV family back home in Vancouver. We had no idea how we were going to fit these gifts into our luggage, but we knew we had no choice. As Kyung Jin accompanied us to the airport the next day on the train, we shared our stories, and showed her all our pictures from the past few weeks. She was as eager to hear as we were to share! She had been so thoughtful and caring for us the whole time, but we had hardly seen her since the first week, although she was in constant contact, always helping us so generously. She was our “beautiful angel of Seoul.” God had used her to make our trip so restful. I had been so tired but I didn’t have to worry about any travel details.  Kyung Jin was there for us each step of the way. She had been the first to meet us at the airport three weeks earlier. She was the last to see us as we embarked on our flight for Beijing. We prayed, hugged, and cried. We were lost for words that could adequately convey gratitude. "We love you Kyung Jin. We love you Korea. Farewell for now.” 

Sabbatical 7

BEACHES, BUDDHISTS, AND BUSKERS IN BUSAN (APRIL 20-24, 2015)

After a three hour foggy rainy bus ride from Jeonju through the misty mountains of southern Korea, Kathleen and I arrived in the beach city of Busan, the second largest city in Korea, with a metro population of 8 million people. (Seoul has 25 million). Yet, in spite of its size, Busan’s beauty is comparable to Vancouver’s, surrounded by lovely tree-covered mountains and waterways. Historically, Busan was the last and only city to remain under South Korean and allied control when Soviet-backed North Korean troops invaded, in 1950. It became a base for allied operations until a counter-attack was organized under General Douglas MacArthur, that regained the peninsula.

When we arrived in Busan, we got on a series of trains that transported us to our hotel located at a popular resort area called Hyundae Beach. For navigational help, a “gang” of Korean senior women took us under their wing when Kathleen offered one of them her seat and they observed my attempts to speak Korean to them. They immediately became our chaperones, helping us to make the right connections to our desired destination with lots of joyful interaction on the way. Our hotel, which I’d randomly booked through hotels.com, was so beautiful, we both cried when we entered our room. At the rate of a 2-3 star hotel in Canada, we pretty much had a 5 star as for some unknown reason, they gave us a free upgrade when we arrived. Our 15th floor room gave us a spectacular view of Hyundae Beach and the East China Sea. It had a large Jacuzzi bath. There was a separate sitting area where we could read and write while overlooking the beach below. It was like a honeymoon suite. The weather turned hot and sunny all week. It was April but it felt like June. Like every other place in Korea we had already been, we fell completely in love with Busan.

After a highly social weekend in Jeonju, God was so good to provide us with yet another week of contemplative stillness and marital retreat in Busan. We had lots of walks, enjoying the scenery and the buskers along Hyundae Beach, the beautiful forested parks, and the traditional Korean Markets. We had already been writing postcards to family and friends back home, but in Busan, we increased the frequency, as we knew our time in Korea was coming to a close. We particularly wanted to make a special effort to send one to our dear “Oma Nim” Konju (Esther Moon) who faithfully sits at the front every Sunday in church, unless her handy dart is late! Busan was her home city, the city of her birth. As a young woman, Esther emigrated from Korea to Germany to become a nurse. The story of the wave of Korean immigrants, post-Korean war, to Germany is documented in the powerful movie, “International Markets,” which we highly recommend if you want a moving summary of the last 50 years in Korea. Have your Kleenex ready! This was Esther’s story. After living in Germany for a number of years, she moved to Canada – Toronto first, then Vancouver, where by God’s wonderful mercy, she became part of our church family at VEV. There was no describing how moving it was to be in the city of Esther’s birth, and to be able to send her our love with a postcard along with a Facebook post which Joanna and Kim faithfully passed on to her. We heard back that she was equally emotionally moved. We are so much more inter-connected as human beings than we can ever imagine.

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE AND HUMBLE APOLOGETICS
Not unrelated to this, the next day, we visited a spectacular Buddhist temple, high in the mountains surrounding Busan. As beautiful as the setting and architecture were, I was mostly impacted by the devotion and passion of the Buddhists at prayer. They were shameless in their public devotion, with their body language of bowing face down on their knees. I could see the influence of the Buddhist culture on the devotion and passion of the Korean Christians. Buddhism has a long history in Korea. The country is now about 23 percent Buddhist, 48 percent claim no religion, and, another 29 percent Christian (about 16 percent Protestant, and 13 percent Catholic).

I was mindful of C.S. Lewis’s approach to other religions. Lewis was one of the greatest Christian apologists of all time. As an academic at Oxford, he came to Christ after resisting Christianity as an atheist and literary critic for most of his adult life. One of the difficulties he struggled with on his road to faith was the issue of other religions. He had difficulty with the claim of Christianity that there was only one way to God, namely Jesus Christ. One thing that helped him come to Christ was when he came to the conclusion that all religions pointed to Jesus. Rather than saying that other religions were “wrong,” he saw them as incomplete, but still pointing to Jesus, similar to the way the Old Testament did for the Jewish people in the Bible. Lewis would have seen Buddhism and Islam as the “Old Testament” for the many cultures where they were practiced. In that Buddhist temple, I found myself praying, “Lord, with the growing number of Buddhists in Vancouver, show me how Buddhism points people to you.” Indeed, I went beyond that to asking, “What can I learn from them regarding their devotion and capacity to be contemplative?” Of course, I’m not advocating syncretism or the worship of other gods, but I was mindful of Paul, who admired the devotion and worship of the Athenians in their altar “to the unknown God” (Acts 17:23ff), even though their search for the true God was yet incomplete. But there is a difference between being incomplete and being wrong. The awareness that we are all on a journey and that none of us has fully arrived, protects us from arrogance, and keeps us engaged in what John Stackhouse calls, “humble apologetics” when dialoging with people of other faiths.

On our last night in Busan, we went on a hilarious adventure to a seafood restaurant on the waterfront in the Hyundae Beach area. No one at the restaurant spoke English so we had to order by pointing at aquariums full of aquatic creatures swimming around, saying “Egaw jusayo” (this please, that please). I’m still not sure what we all ate but soju (strong Korean beer) again helped us wash it all down. We had a hilarious sitcom type of episode when I tried to get our server to write in Korean what we had eaten so we could brag to our Korean friends about how brave we were. He thought we were complaining about the bill. It took an emergency phone call to our angel in Seoul (Kyung Jin) to settle all the concerns and rescue us from certain deportation! We laughed our heads off. Yes, we laughed so much on this trip. We cannot describe the nurturing, replenishing balm of laughter that we experienced over and over again. I remember a newcomer to VEV one once saying to me that this was a distinctive characteristic they observed about our church – that we laughed a lot. What a gift that is.

On the day we departed from Busan, we met up with Sam, Joanna’s cousin who had married a Korean and was living in Busan, teaching English. His love for Korea was completely obvious and we totally identified with the passion he exhibited for the Korean people. However, I must confess that we met him at a “Dunkin’ Donuts” outlet at the train station. Ok, there are limits to cross-cultural idealism!

We said farewell to Sam after a delightful visit, and then took the KTX, a high-speed bullet train from Busan to Seoul. It travelled so fast at 200 km/hour that the cars on the freeways seemed to stand still as we passed them. The ride was so smooth that we felt we were in an airplane. As the train headed back to Seoul, a wave of emotion again overwhelmed us, a combination of gratitude and grief in contemplating that this would be our last weekend in Korea. I had known we were going to enjoy and love Korea. But, it turned out being ten times better than I had expected. What a precious gift we had been given in this beautiful land – such a balance of rest, marital enrichment, and connections with people we loved so much. In addition, to top it off, we were getting reports from back home about how wonderfully our church family was taking care of each other. It all couldn’t have been any closer to... perfect!

Sabbatical 6

SO ARE WE… ..CLOTHED IN THE GOODNESS OF GOD
(JEONJU – WEEKEND OF APRIL 17-20, 2015)

"So just as our bodies are clothed in our garments, our flesh enclosed by our skin, our bones wrapped in our flesh, our hearts centred in our bodies, so are we, spirit and flesh, clothed in the goodness of God”  (Lady Julian of Norwich, ~1395AD).

As we neared the end of our second week in Korea, we flew back from Jeju Island to Gimpo, a domestic airport on the edge of Seoul, Friday, April 17. On the flight, I was so moved to clearly see the city of Jeonju from the air, the city where so many of our homestay students had come from, and where the agency that connected us to them was based. This was our next stop.
We flew into Gimpo just after noon, and, again, with help from our “angel,” (Kyung Jin), we made our bus connection for a three hour ride to Jeonju. For the first time, we were able to see the Korean countryside on the mainland. Driving along the Han River, it seemed like it took us forever to get through Seoul. Just after leaving the city, we were soon driving south through yet another city, Suwon, an ancient place of learning under the Choson dynasty, and even now, it is still a university town. Two of our homestay daughters, Eunsoo (Sue) and Hyun Jin (Jini) were attending there. No sooner had we left Suwon, we were then driving through Cheonan, the city where Jini grew up.

For over two hours we saw much of the Korean countryside, punctuated by frequent stark and surprising urban interruptions. Korea is such a beautiful little country, full of enchanting green forested mountains alternating with valleys rich in agriculture with an abundance of rice paddies and other produce growing fields. Frequently however, seemingly out of nowhere, a complex of 10 to 15, residential high-rises, 20 stories and higher, would spring up in the middle of the country along the side of the freeway, seemingly unconnected to any municipality. There seemed to be no shops, recreational complexes, or community centres in proximity to them. They were just there, on their own, surrounded by the rural landscape. Each high-rise had a large identifying number on it. Korea has a small land mass, twice the size of Vancouver Island, where a population of over 50 million resides, compared to 35 million for all of Canada. Population density is a huge issue, with people constantly struggling for livable solutions that can provide housing access for everyone. The “No Tower” signs we are seeing in Commercial drive today would be a strange sight to Koreans indeed!

We arrived in Jeonju at around 5:30pm. To our great joy, Sohee was waiting for us! We had such a joyful reunion! Sohee, as many at VEV will remember, accompanied us on our last visit to Lower Post in July 2014, where she quickly became very popular with the First Nations children and youth. We enjoyed a wonderful meal together with her at a traditional Korean restaurant, where we sat cross-legged on the floor, eating at a table that was only inches off the floor. She then accompanied us to our cute little “Hanok Village” guest house. “Hanok” is a Korean term meaning “traditional house” – its architecture the way it was before the arrival of the modern age. Jeonju is home to a large Hanok style village, which features lots of traditional guest houses and café’s along with other tourist attractions. There is also a large Roman Catholic Cathedral there with gothic architecture, very striking in the midst of the traditional Korean village. Our guest house was in the heart of this village, with no western style bed, just a simple Korean style mattress on the floor. We found out that the place was actually owned by a Christian family. One of the owners, a university professor in Jeonju, when he found out we were pastors, invited us to come back and stay for free on weeknights! Wow!

A DAY IN PARADISE
The next day, another one of our homestays, Boem (Chloe) Lee, who had stayed with us during the fall of 2013, was celebrating her birthday. Her parents were retired and living in a mountain village, one hour outside of Jeonju so her father came and picked us up and took us to their mountain home where we were treated to delicious, homemade bibimbab, a world famous rice dish consisting of vegetables and various meats, again with all the varied Korean side dishes. Her father, Joengsu, played a rendition on a traditional Korean flute, the Dansu, followed by a special forest walk tour surrounding their home. We felt like we were on sacred ground.

Boem (or “Chloe”), like our other students, was such a delight to get to know when she stayed with us. She arrived as an avowed atheist, but she carried such a passion for human rights, social justice, and true democracy in Korea, and everywhere. She was true to the spirit and reputation of Jolla-Do, the province in which Jeonju resides. It has a fierce, independent spirit, with a long history of student democratic movements that have shaped the story of Korea. The Gwangju Massacre, like the “Tiananmen Square massacre” in Beijing, left hundreds of students dead at a University town near Jeonju, in May, 1980. It resulted in the loss of support for the South Korean dictatorship at the time, and opened the door to a much more democratic system by the early 1990s. One night, back in Vancouver, while Chloe was living with us, we hosted the late Freddie Hasselberg, an elder from Lower Post, and his daughter, Freda. I was struck by how much Chloe connected so naturally with them, in spite of the obvious language and cultural differences. I asked her later as to why this was so, and she replied, “Because we have a common story, and we feel that connection!” Indeed, Koreans know what it is like to be invaded and colonized, as from 1910-1945, they were colonized by Japan in similar ways to First Nations in Canada. They, too, were not allowed to wear their regalia or speak their language. They were separated from their families and regarded as second class citizens. Korea became one large residential school for 35 years, so Chloe could feel the solidarity with First Nations in Canada!

I recalled that Chloe’s departure at YVR was one of the most moving I had ever experienced. I’ll never forget her looking into my tear-filled eyes as she prepared to clear security saying, "Papa, I’m not yet a follower, but He’s now my friend.”  There was no describing the emotion I felt at hearing this statement, so full of her characteristic honesty. Now, in Jeonju, there was no describing the joy we felt at seeing her again, this time with her family in their home.

OK, AND ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
Then, on Sunday, we connected with another one of our wonderful homestays, Ara, and her family, who again treated us to a five-star meal followed by an exquisite dessert at a coffee place in Jeonju, overlooking the valley and mountains. Ara stayed with us during the spring of 2014.  I particularly remember Ara’s immense help when she became my personal assistant in helping me prepare a professionally made video tribute in celebration of David Johnson’s life at his memorial service. She linked the slide show to Brian Doerksen’s song, “Father, Father Me,” which was a blessing to David’s family.

Our visit with Ara and family in Jeonju was a particularly tender time for them, as Ara was preparing to return to Vancouver for five years to go to Capilano University at the same time her brother had just gone into the army. As Korea is still officially at war, every young Korean man is required to enlist for two years of highly rigorous military training and service. This is very interruptive to their schooling and extremely stressful on their families as there is limited contact while they’re away. To have both children leaving at the same time was so hard on these beautiful parents, so we offered the best comfort that we could to them. We assured them that we would be waiting for Ara in Vancouver when she arrived in Canada. She is now living in Vancouver and has been to VEV already a few times!

Monday came, and it was again time to say another tearful farewell to our friends in Jeonju.  The joy of seeing them again was now accompanied by the sadness of having to say goodbye so soon. It had been such a rich weekend, packed full of memories that we would cherish forever. The rainy and misty bus ride through the beautiful mountain countryside to Busan reflected our mood.  Through the tears, we knew we were incredibly wealthy. The circle of love and friendship continued, and we were completely clothed in the goodness of God.

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Sabbatical 5

MERMAIDS, OCTOPUSES, AND SLOWING DOWN ON JEJU-DO (April 13-17)
It was Monday, April 13. We had only been in Korea for five days but it felt like we already had a month or more of memories! And it wouldn’t stop. We checked out of our guesthouse in Gangnam, and took the train to Gimpo, an airport now geared for Korean domestic flights. We boarded a flight to Jeju Island, which some call, “the Hawaii of Korea.” This beautiful semi-tropical island, south of the Korean peninsula, is located in the Korea Strait that joins the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. It is somewhere between the Philippines to the south and Korea to the north, west of Japan and East of mainland China. It is a gem of a place and a popular resort famous for its food, beaches, volcanic mountains, spectacular scenery and hiking. Thanks to Daegyu, a wonderful young Korean friend we met in Vancouver last fall through Hyun Jin (Jini), we found some remarkably cheap flights, car rentals, and hotels. Indeed, we received even more Korean generosity as Hyun Jin’s family rented our car for us. Just amazing! We were again overwhelmed.  Many of you will remember Hyun Jin (not to be confused with Kyung Jin) who endeared herself to our church last year. Last December, near the end of her time with us, she spoke so effectively to our church on what it is like to be a second language foreigner in Canada, which greatly informed our discipleship as a church in reaching out to internationals.
After such a social week in Seoul, Jeju was more of a marital retreat and adventure for us with lots of exploring, hiking, people encounters and, of course, eating! Indeed, we had heard about the famous Korean barbequed black pork (heugdwaeji) on Jeju, so, upon arriving and settling into our hotel, we found the most exquisite Korean barbeque place nearby where black pork was their specialty. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed and seated at a round table that had a barbeque and chimney apparatus extending downwards from the ceiling to the table, stopping just inches above the gas lit flame where our meal was to be cooked. Our server and host, whose English was quite good, entered into an animated “let’s get acquainted” conversation with us. We noticed that he was not in a big hurry to get on with the meal. Indeed, relationship, community, and even spirituality were all intertwined in what soon felt like a deeply sacred event. We felt ourselves slowing down.
It struck me how much food means to Koreans in a deeply spiritual way. They truly celebrate as a “food culture,” and, it makes sense. Less than sixty years ago, the nation was starving, eating food waste discarded by allied soldiers who had fought on their soil during the brutal Korean war which claimed over a million lives; some of those, Canadians who were buried there. Now, there is an abundance of food, but it is still not taken for granted. As such, there is a reverence for food, and a sacredness in eating. Our server at the Black Pork restaurant actually became our chef. While we watched, he prepared the barbequed pork in front of us while continuing to carry on an animated conversation with us. Then, along came an amazing array of side dishes including kimchi, rice, and special flavoured sauces. With the interaction between the server and the served, it felt like a harmonious blend of culinary delight, social connection at the heart of community, and spiritual encounter. What I observed was that in order to fully enter into this experience, we had to “slow down.”

Haenyeo – The Remarkable Women of Jeju
Another wonderful food experience on Jeju Island occurred for us when we visited the famous Korean Haenyeo divers. On our last full day, we drove our rental car to the opposite side of the island, about an hour away. The Haenyeo are female divers, most of whom are 50 years of age or older, who have made their living all their lives providing for their families by diving for exotic seafood. These women, almost like real life mermaids, without the aid of an oxygen tank, dive to depths of 20 metres (that’s right, 60 feet!) to catch seafood. We arrived in time for a scheduled demonstration of their skills. They first gathered together and, prior to their dive, they wrapped their arms around each other like a sorority, and sang one of their traditional Haenyeo songs, many of which were prayers invoking divine help for their catch. Then, they waded into the deep and disappeared into the sea for about 30 minutes after which they returned with an exotic catch of octopus, sea cucumber, clams, and abalone. One of the women waved a wriggling octopus (affectionately called moon-aw in Korean), in front of me and through gestures, asked me whether I would like to have it for lunch! I nodded, mindful that I would soon need to give an account to our Korean friends. She disappeared into a kitchen facility they had onsite and a few minutes later, returned with the same octopus all chopped up (and perhaps a little steamed, I couldn’t quite tell!) I was told that the real delicacy was eating the octopus while it was still wriggling as you swallowed it so you could feel it moving in your throat! I detected no movement as I ate it. Perhaps they had drugged it as an act of compassion for the poor white guy!
It actually turned out to be quite delicious, especially with all the Korean sauces, and particularly accompanied with Soju, a very strong and popular Korean beer. I have had it quite frequently since then (octopus, that is!), and even back here in Canada. I was so proud of Kathleen who was game to try anything as long as I tried it first. Being the great sport that she is, she tried some octopus with me, to the wonderment of many Chinese tourists who seemed very intrigued as they observed us merrily eating our moon-aw lunch together by the seaside as if we were native-born Koreans!  It was truly a shared experience, and great for our marriage!
We drove back to our hotel that day, physically tired, but feeling so enriched and happy. We felt like we had plunged deeply into the heart of another land, losing ourselves in its culture and ways, and in so doing, we had recovered some of our own humanity. It was another sweet way that the Father had poured his grace into us and restored our souls. This wild adventure into another world pulled us out of the ministry ruts such as the seemingly never-ending cycles of preparing for Sundays and then recovering from them. It drew us out of the orbit of wrestling with moral, theological, and ethical dilemmas, mediating relational disputes and conflicts, and putting out repeated relational or administrative fires. Of course, all of these are part of the life of a pastor, but due to significant emotional and spiritual weariness, what had normally been simple issues, were starting to feel life-threatening. Immersing ourselves in this completely different world, not as missionaries with an agenda or project in mind, but, simply as friends plumbing the nectar and drinking deeply of all that was beautiful about Korea, was just so replenishing.
As we drove back to the airport to catch our flight back to Gimpo, we savoured those amazing five days in this special place. While it wasn’t on the Korean peninsula (mainland), all of our homestay students had visited Jeju-Do during their childhood – either on a school trip, or on a family holiday – often both. It was part of their psyche, their memory, and their story as Koreans. Our next stop would be Jeonju, the home of a world famous rice and veggie dish called bibimbab, but, more importantly, it was the home city of most of our homestay students we had met in Canada. Now that we had experienced Jeju-Do, we had so many stories to tell them and experiences to share with them, adding to our sense of solidarity we felt with our wonderful Korean friends.
All over Jeju-Do, we noticed large billboards that said, “We love having you here.” All we could say in response was, “Thank you Jeju-Do, for you gave us the gift of slowing down and savouring life again.”