Invisible Kingdom

On the flight to Tennessee I sat next to a Korean businessman in his middle age. Since we have no idea or much choice about who we sit next to, it’s always a slightly awkward social situation we get into on an airplane. I felt somewhat relieved when I saw him taking out the Bible from his bag, and didn’t feel weird when he started talking to me.

Our conversation went from the usual “what do you do” and “how long you have been in the U.S” to our spiritual lives. His church is deeply involved with a ministry in China, and he shared with me the experience of his first mission trip.

Last year a group of people from his church visited a leper village in a very remote area of China. According to the Chinese government, leprosy has been eradicated from the country. So the leprosy patients, who were denied of their existence, support themselves in small villages in the deep mountains with no medical care or any other form of public service. The leader of the mission team was a physician and they were bringing medications to treat the leprosy and other necessities to the villages.

The team had to go over many mountain ridges to get to the village, and the businessman I sat next to on the plane happened to be the first one to arrive there. As he approached the entrance of the village, two men came out to greet them. Though he knew leprosy is not easily transmitted, the businessman hesitated when the first guy extended his had for the handshake. Then he remembered what he heard earlier. A celebrity pastor from the biggest church in Korea visited a leper village in a small island in Korea. Many of the residents on the island are cured, but most of them continue to live there because of the social stigma of having been affected by the disease once. When the village mayor offered his hand for the handshake, the celebrity pastor refused it. Later when the mission team leader from the businessman’s church went there, the mayor smiled and said, “Don’t worry about shaking my hand. Not even that pastor from the big church didn’t shake my hand. I understand”…

When that story came to the businessman’s mind, something else also came to him and drove him to take the offered hand. After the first handshake, he got bold and became the first one to offer his hand to the second man, whose right side of the body was blackened from head to his arm with the hand missing a few fingers.

Later he found out that the first guy was a Chinese minister the businessman’s church is supporting, and did not have leprosy.

I think you did a very good thing, I said to the businessman. Human touch is powerful. Jesus, who raised the dead with just a word, chose to touch the leper against the Jewish law. Rejected even by his own family and friends, how long had it been since the leper was touched last. How healing the touch must have been to his soul as well as to his body. What better way to show Jesus’ love, even if you were scared inside?

The businessman also told me that there are over three thousand ministers registered with the Korean government for China. According to the Chinese government, there are no ministers in the country. So the Korean ministers, who were denied of their existence, go in to the country as a teacher, a doctor, or a businessman.

The invisible messengers bringing good news to the invisible people. The government won’t even know what’s invading their country.

I Corinthian 10:13 (Cont’d)

I was reading another entry in the same blog I mentioned previously. Her blog is an inspirational bonanza.

In the blog, my friend talked about a conversation she had with her friend. First they were talking about the John Newton’s song (“Conflicting Feelings”) and it led her friend to share difficulties she was going through in her life. Marital problems, challenges in raising children, disappointing experiences in church… My friend mentioned how we may talk about bad events happening in our lives, but we often don’t go into feelings we have about them.

Maybe we are reluctant to be open about our feelings because we feel ashamed of having certain feelings or are afraid of being judged. I’ve been blessed with friends I can share my honest feelings with, but in the past I heard my share of “I think you just need to trust God more” and “Have you been praying about it enough?” type of comments directed to myself and others. I’m sure I’ve done the same to others, time to time. After a few experiences like that, we realize resorting to the sterilized approach to hardships in our lives can be a necessary skill to survive in a “proper Christian” community. Absolutely unhealthy.

My friend quoted this verse from Psalm 116:10:

I believe, there fore I have spoken. “I am greatly afflicted”.

Having anguish is not a sign of lack of faith. And expressing it is the declaration of faith, faith in God to be there, to hear, to care, and to be able to do something.

Dear God, help me to cry out to you from the depth of my being. Help me to be not afraid of how foolish I may appear to others. Help me to desperately hold on to you. And help me to be the one who accepts the rawest of people’s cry, and pray the supplication prayers with them. In the love of your son Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Shoot My Mouth

I’m having one of these moments I want to go back in time and hit myself in the head.

There were a couple things I got pretty offended by when I went to Tennessee. It wasn’t anything outrageous in the retrospect. They skipped me when they were going around the room to introduce everybody. So I started out the meeting by feeling like I was taken lightly.

When I started translating, I posed once to ask a question to make sure I understand what the person meant. I didn’t do direct translation, because English and Japanese have such different strictures and direct translation often doesn’t convey what the person really wants to communicate. So I wait until I get all the information necessary and reconstruct the sentence to maintain the flow of the conversation. This is not acceptable in certain business deals or politics where the nuance of each word has higher significance. But for the industrial technology meetings like the one I was in, I find it almost to imperative to regulate the conversation to avoid dissolving into a total chaos (and lots of wasted minutes).

But to somebody who is not used to having discussion through a translator, it must have not been clear what I was doing. Maybe they interpreted my questioning and reconstruction of the sentences as incompetence. They turned to another guy from Japan who can speak English but not a part of the company we are in. I suppose they felt more comfortable with him. It really irritated me. I take pride in what I do, and I need to be trusted to be truly effective. I spend quite a bit of time studying the material we were discussing, and was pretty confident to carry out the duty. I felt I was discounted and run over.

I understand, though, they were really desperate to make the meeting go successfully. They did not mean to offend me, and even if their action was influenced by the prejudice towards my age or gender, it’s not my problem. I got paid for my time, and they were really very nice to me before and after the meeting.

By the time I got back to Michigan, I wasn’t upset about the whole thing any more. I actually liked this people a lot, and was looking forward to seeing them when I go home. Despite the Holy Spirit nudging me to let it go every time I thought about bringing it up, I opened my big mouth and mentioned the incident to my boss, and to the engineer in whose place I went to the meeting. My urge to get sympathy overridden my good sense.

This morning I found out both my boss and the engineer e-mailed them a complaint about the way I was treated. I was so embarrassed. The people would have no idea. They probably thought they treated me as well as they knew how (which they did). I might have exaggerated when I told the story, too. The part of their actions that bothered me was most likely unconscious anyway. I practically made an ass of myself with the combination of my stupid pride and self-pity.

I’m writing about this so I won’t forget. The verse in the Proverbs has pierced me like an arrow. The proud will be put to shame, and the humble will be honored. Rather humiliating way to find out.

Good Morning From Nashville

It’s 6:20 am here in Tennessee, and 7:20 am back in Michigan. I was supposed to meet up with people from work and get picked up from the hotel at 7:30 am Central time. When I woke up I saw the clock in the hotel room showing 6:40 am. Though strangely my cell phone alarm hadn’t gone off, I got up, got ready, and came down to the lobby.

Nobody’s here.

Strange. Anally punctual Japanese businessman that they are, I was sure the work people would all be here by 10 minutes before we are supposed to take off. Then I looked at the clock in the lobby. 6:10 am!? Was the clock in my room an hour early for whatever reason, or did I just hallucinate? No wonder my cell phone alarm hasn’t gone off. I already turned in my key to the front desk, and it doesn’t matter what exactly happened at that point. Oh well.

Could it be that God wanted to spend time with me so badly, He had to trick me into getting up early? Hmmm. Well, in that case, I shall utilize this time by praying, the Devine Houring, journaling and what have you.

I like the word Tennessee. It has two Ns, Ss, and Es. I also like the word Mississippi and Chattanooga for the similar reason. The South is full of cool names.

This is my first time traveling to Tennessee. Though I usually don’t get to go around much on a business trip, I was able see a good deal of country side as we drove out from Nashville to Decherd where Nissan plant is located. Not surprisingly, the Spring season is in a later stage in Tennessee. The medial strip of the highway was absolutely full of wild flowers. It looked amazing with bright red poppies, Queen Ann’s laces (which I love), cheerful yellow flowers I don’t know the name of, and pale pink flowers I’ve never seen before. Most of the plants here didn’t look drastically different from the ones in Michigan, but the trees seemed larger and the scenery was generally lusher.

There were a lot of rock shelves on either side of the highway. I’m guessing the foundation here is much more rock based than the clay based unlike Michigan, where most of the land used to be covered by the lake. Another thing I noticed was the color of the plowed soil in the farming fields. It was much more redder than what I see in the Midwest, in almost like a terracotta color. Maybe it contains more iron or something? I loved the contrast between the warm brown and the fresh green of the grass.

The sky was so very high and big over the vast expansion of farm and cattle land, framed by the mountains blue in a distance. The emotional response mountains stir up in me always comes as a surprise. I remember when I saw the mountains for the first times in months after I first arrived to Michigan. I was driving through the hilly portion of Pennsylvania, and didn’t know why the sight of mountainous landscape made me want to cry all of a sudden. Rolling hills of Tennessee had a similar affect on me. As much as I enjoy living in Michigan, I’m out of my element, the sea and the mountains, more than I am conscious of.

Ironically though, when I am in my home town I don’t feel so comfortable anymore. The place my heart is yearning for may exist only in my memory now.

I Corinthian 10:13

I came across this song by John Newton (the composer of Amazing Grace) in one of my friends' blog. The theme of this song is taken from I Corinthian 10:13. The melody is the same as the “Solid Rock”.


Conflicting Feelings

Strange and mysterious is my life.
What opposites I feel within!
A stable peace, a constant strife;
The rule of grace, the power of sin:
Too often I am captive led,
Yet daily triumph in my Head,
Yet daily triumph in my Head.

I prize the privilege of prayer,
But oh! what backwardness to pray!
Though on the Lord I cast my care,
I feel its burden every day;
I seek His will in all I do,
Yet find my own is working too,
Yet find my own is working too.

I call the promises my own,
And prize them more than mines of gold;
Yet though their sweetness I have known,
They leave me unimpressed and cold
One hour upon the truth I feed,
The next I know not what I read,
The next I know not what I read.

I love the holy day of rest,
When Jesus meets His gathered saints;
Sweet day, of all the week the best!
For its return my spirit pants:
Yet often, through my unbelief,
It proves a day of guilt and grief,
It proves a day of guilt and grief.

While on my Savior I rely,
I know my foes shall lose their aim,
And therefore dare their power defy,
Assured of conquest through His Name,
But soon my confidence is slain,
And all my fears return again,
And all my fears return again.

Thus different powers within me strive,
And grace and sin by turns prevail;
I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive
And victory hangs in doubtful scale:
But Jesus has His promise passed,
That grace shall overcome at last,
That grace shall overcome at last.


What rawness! I emphasized with every single verse. I find these conflicting feelings in myself everyday, but am often too scared to acknowledge them.

The third verse hit particularly close to home: I know I want to live in the promises, and I’ve experienced the sweetness of them, too. But they have left me unimpressed and cold. This scares me.

Round and round and round, I hear the familiar voice circling in my head:
You should not be feeling this way. How dare you doubt God’s goodness? Do you not believe in Him? Are you sure of your salvation? If you are, why can’t you trust Him?

It proves a day of guilt and grief,
It proves a day of guilt and grief.

I know the accusations I’m hearing are not from God.

But soon my confidence is slain,
And all my fears return again,

Mr. Newton, did you have any idea what you were getting into, when you called out to God that one dark night from the raging sea? Is it impious to say we are all saved out of one kind of storm to be thrown into another?

I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive

Up and down we drift on the rough waves. Jesus, will I find you sleeping under the deck?

Allergy Test - Part II (And also a sequel to "Got Iron?")

So I went in for the allergy appointment.

They moved the Japanese Family Clinic to a building in the Domino’s farm. The new office was fabulous. It had a simple yet elegant décor with a generous dose of light-colored wood. I loved the view from the big windows in the office, looking out to the back of the farm. It was raining outside and the brand new greens on the branches looked ever fresher with the moisture in the air.

I thought I was seeing an allergist, but it turned out she was an Internal Medicine doctor. She took a look at my inner ear and told me it looked horrid.

(Beware. It’s pretty gross.) Basically, my ears are secreting lots of fluid in an allergic reaction. Usually the fluid drains out to my nose and to the back of my throat, but the pathways (Eustachian tubes) are blocked off because of sinus infection. So the fluid is trapped in my inner ears, causing sinus pressure, which then leads to dizziness, headache, nausea, ringing in my ears, and lethargy.

!!

All these symptoms I attributed to iron deficiencies were probably due to the sinus congestion. I still need to get more iron in my diet, but most of the problems should go away by taking care of the drainage. Woohoo! Now that I think of it, I’ve been bumping into things/people a lot, and have some trouble standing up (or even sitting up) straight. I thought it was because I’m clumsy, but maybe it was because of my equilibrium system being out of whack with the fluid in the circular canal. What a great impact a little bit of fluid in the ear has on the whole body!

No wonder I didn’t have any craving for ice cubes…

Anyhow, I’m taking 120 mg of Pseudoephedrine, and my goodness I can breathe through my nostrils like crazy. I guess my nasal cavity has been perpetually puffed up because of various allergies and I forgot how it feels to breath normally. This may also explain why I don’t feel refreshed when I wake up in the morning. If I’m not breathing right while I’m sleeping, I would inevitably get drowsy. My headache is definitely better, too. I still feel a little bit of dizziness and pain in the sinus area, but I imagine it takes a few days for that to heal up.

It’s really wonderful when you go to a doctor and she tells you exactly what’s wrong with you and how to fix it. That is not always the case. I’m SO HAPPY! The only thing though is this medication makes me feel slightly antsy and palpitated. I’m wide-awake and a little bit anxious, like I had way too much caffeine or something. I suspect it opens up my Eustachian tubes by increasing the blood flow. It might be opening up vessel elsewhere, too. The benefit I get outweighs the discomfort of side-affects, though.

So if you see me acting jittery, loopy, or downright strange, you will know why ;-)

Kyonsee (?)

When I was in elementary school, there was a series of very popular movies from Hong Kong, featuring monsters called Kyonsee (I have no idea how the word should be spelled. So I’m taking the liberty here). Kyonsees are basically the Chinese version of zombies; dead bodies roaming around and killing people. If you get bitten (they have sharp teeth, and alas, sharp long dark nails. Yuck) by a Kyonsee, you become one, too. They all ware a dark, long-sleeved tunic-like costume with underpants and a round cap. What sets them apart from other zombie-types the most is how they move. They have their arms and hands up straight forward at the chest height, and they hop. And boy, can they hop! It's pretty impressive how fast and far they travel with that mode of ambulation.

Kyonsees are quite powerful and cannot be destroyed by swords (a strike of a sword bounces off their body. Apparently they are very hard.) In the movie, there are Kung-fu ghost busters specialized in dealing with Kyonsees. They stick a paper talisman on Kyonsees’ forehead, which “deactivate” Kyonsees and make them obey the ghost buster’s orders.

So you got the picture. The reason why I’m dragging Kyonsees out of an obscured corner of the childhood memory is because they made an appearance in my dream a couple days ago. I was a ghost buster for the night. Absurd!

What wasn’t so absurd was that I didn’t have any Kung-fu moves, which is true to the reality. Instead, I was trying to fight Kyonsees by cutting their blood circulations off (which is absurd. They are dead. They don’t have any blood flow). I would somehow push them down on the floor and press really hard on their wrists or neck vein with my fingers. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that was supposed to make them “faint”. So I'm pressing to find the pulse on the neck of a Kyonsee, who is lying on the floor and struggling frantically for his dear life. I’d be yelling at anybody in the vicinity, “Get me a talisman, quick! He’s gonna get away!!”

Funny thing is that they didn’t look like Kyonsees at all; Kyonsees have blue skins to make them look dead. But the ones in my dream had rather normal complexion. Maybe a little on the greener and purplish side, but not blue. They also wore normal clothes. But I just KNEW that they were Kyonsees, you know?

Anyhow, that’s my account of Kyonsee busting experience. No spiritual importance whatsoever, but I just thought to share it with ya.

Got Iron?

I’ve been really tired lately. It’s mostly because I haven’t been very diligent about getting enough sleep. But I think it’s more than that.

I noticed that I sometime get really sick towards to the end of my workday. For the last few days, I’ve been getting dizzy to the point I feel nauseous whenever I get up from my chair too quickly.

Then the light bulb came on. Ah, I might be iron deficient.

That would explain some of the dizziness and lethargy. I guess I could get tested for it, but I would rather try getting some iron in my diet and see if it makes any difference. I have an iron supplement, but it made me sick in stomach before. It was supposed to be a “gentle iron for sensitive stomach”. Apparently it wasn’t gentle enough for me.

Unfortunately just about any pill makes me sick in stomach. I always take it with food, though.

Is iron readily absorbed in body? Spinach is relatively high in iron, but I heard the type of iron it contains is not easily absorbed as is. What are the other foods with high iron content? Do I need to cook them in certain ways to increase iron absorption?

Here’s what I found out about iron.

There are two kinds of iron.
Hem Iron: mostly contained in animal protein such as liver, red meat, sardine, bonito, clams, and oyster. 15 to 25% of hem iron we eat will be absorbed.
Non-hem Iron: Mostly contained in vegetable protein such as soy bean products, Hijiki (can you tell I got this info off of a Japanese website?), spinach, and Komatsuna. Only about 5 % of non-hem iron we eat will be absorbed (darn!)

The key is to eat non-hem iron with vitamin C, which helps to convert non-hem iron into a more absorbable form in our bodies. Another thing is to have a healthy amount of stomach acid, because better digestion also means better absorption of iron. So the website suggested the use of citrus with non-hem food items along with other things.

I personally have no problem having enough stomach acid (I got the acid reflex). But this must be why it is recommended to squeeze lemon on spinach!

Maybe I should have a stake dinner with a side of spinach, perfected with a wedge lemon tonight.

My lunch today was a slice of pizza and strawberries, by the way.

Remembering how she laughed

Have you noticed a particular way someone says a particular word, and you picked it up? It happens to me a lot.

I had a Spanish teacher in collage, who adds “no?” at the end of the sentence in stead of saying “isn’t it?” or “right?” She told us she picked it up from her Spanish teacher. And I picked it up, too. I tried it once just to see how it feels in my mouth, and haven’t been able to get rid of it since. That’s ok, though. I know it’s a little strange in English, but “no?” feels a little softer than “isn’t it?” or “right?” to me (probably because my Spanish teacher was a soft-spoken person. I associate “no?” with her speech in general). Besides, it’s shorter and easier.

One of my best friends told me she loves my gagging laugh. I inhale and make gagging sound when I’m laughing. I hadn’t realize I was laughing like that until she told me. I loved her for loving my strange laugh. That makes me love my laugh, too.

Probably these are the kind of idiosyncrasies people will remember me by.

I was thinking about Lisa, the girl I never got to know in VY. Pastor Ken told us about the condolence Lisa’s cousin gave in the funeral: she said, “I’m scared of forgetting Lisa’s laugh. Please don’t forget her laugh”…

I used to be really scared of forgetting Nagiko. I was scared that her memory would slip away from me over time. So I tried holding on to traces of her as tight as I can. On my bedroom wall, I put up framed prints of colorful coke bottles and Andy Warhal’s Marilyn Monroe. They used to hang on her bedroom wall. I’ve kept all the magazines and letters and post cards she gave me. I didn’t even erase a copy of my own “sent” e-mail to her, which I never got a reply for.

I heard about parents who keep their children’s room just the way they left it for years after the children have died. As if they still live there.

6 months passed, Nagiko has shown no sign of fading so far. I still don’t feel like she is gone. Somebody said to me he keeps coming up with things he wants to talk to Nagiko about, and then realizes he can’t. He asked me if that happens to me, too. I said I talk to her a lot; perhaps more often than when she was with us.

If I’m in denial, I don’t know. I’m in no hurry to find out.