this morning as i got ready to go to the hospital, i had all these bible verses come to my mind. i never was the type to memorize those things even when i was going to church, so it's strange yet comforting that they would surface from my memory bank at this time. verses like "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." "perfect love casts out all fear." "and we know that in all things god works for the good of those who love him." "come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and i will give you rest. my yoke is easy and my burden is light..." "the lord your god he is mighty to save...he will quiet you with his love and he will rejoice over you with singing." "for i know the plans i have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future. "a bruised reed he will not break; a smoldering wick he will not snuff out." "the lord is my shepherd..." and then there were those verses from the book of job that i only know in the form of the song that my friend and former pastor wrote--



for i know my redeemer lives and in the end he will stand on the earth

for i know my redeemer lives and in the end he will reign on the earth

though my flesh, it be destroyed, yet with my eyes i will see god

for i know that my redeemer lives, and i will stand with him on that day

for i know that my redeemer lives, and i will stand with him on that day.

(my redemer lives by john willison)



i know those verses have meant a lot to my dad lately.



i am off to the hospital now.



today's soundtrack so far-- blood on the tracks by bob and harvest by neil

songs running through my brain -- healing time by denison witmer and lullaby by pedro the lion

i went to the hospital and spoke to my dad's surgeon. i've also spoken on the phone with his personal physician, who's a very close family friend. both have told me that there is medically no hope for my dad short of a miracle. this puts me in a tight little corner. i am not a gracious loser when it's my loved ones at stake. my only hope is that i will get a miracle or that someday i will be reunited with my dad after this life is over. now i might get my miracle even if i don't believe in miracles, but if the miracle does occur, what then? and if i see my dad in the next life, that would assume that i've made the cut, and to make the cut that would mean choosing faith. (in case you're wondering, my dad's a pastor, i was raised in an evangelical christian family, i was immeresed in the christian subculture my entire life until i jumped out of the fishbowl--i mean left the Church--four months ago.)



tonight i decided i will pray. i am not turning to religion. that word has too much negative connotation for me, you know, like as in religiosity, which even jesus said he hated. am i turning to god? some think weak people turn to god. well, guess what? i'm weak. i'm very weak. i'm not going to fool anybody including myself into thinking i'm not. this is no "i've been born-again washed in the blood" terminology. it is a rational logical statement that i am weak. i don't mean anything "religious" or spiritual by that statement.



some think people who are lacking in knowledge turn to god. well, i know for a fact that i know so little in relation to the potential knowledge that exists in this universe that i mathematically know nothing. if the knowledge base out there is equal to all the money in the world plus all the money on other inhabited planets in this entire universe, my knowledge is less than a korean won (there are one thousand three hundred wons in one u.s. dollar, so that's like 1/13th of a penny). i'm not being modest. i'm being mathematical. so if i know nothing, how can i possibly know that there aren't other realms of reality, that there aren't things or beings that i can't see or hear or touch or taste, but who are real nonetheless as much as i am real? if i flat out deny the possiblity of anything, that would be based on fuzzy logic. i may choose to not believe in something, but then that's a matter of freedom and not reason. so basically, there might be a god and there might not be a god. which of the two you believe is your choice. my choice.



so am i turning to god? that depends on what you mean by turning to god. tonight i am simply going to have a few words with him. where i go from there who knows. i can't commit to anything right now. i'm trying to be open with my heart as well as with my mind. and for some inexplicable reason i am drawn to songs like the one here below by pedro the lion and books like life after god by douglas coupland. the christians would say that's god working in me. whatever. i'm not labeling it anything, but i'm not going to stop "it" either. but whatever it is had better knock me out of my socks because i am not easily impressed, having been raised by a pair of extremely zealous evangelical christians. i want the truth, even if it's not exactly popular with my friends or with my own liberal sensibilities. i may be disillusioned with the church, but i can't blame god for that. in fact, it's really a reflection on god's patience that he puts up with the church instead of zapping them into oblivion and creating a whole other alternate universe to start over. that's what i would do if i were god.



"i could hear the church bells ringing, they peeled aloud your praise

the member's faces were smiling with their hands outstretched to shake

it's true they did not move me, my heart was hard and tired

their perfect fire annoyed me, i could not find you anywhere



could someone please tell me the story

of sinners ransomed from the fall

i still have never seen you, and somedays

i don't love you at all



the devoted were wearing bracelets to remind them of why they came

some concrete motivation and the abstract could not do the same

but if all that's left is duty, i'm falling on my sword

at least then, i would not serve an unseen distant lord



could someone please tell me the story

of sinners ransomed from the fall

i still have never seen you, and somedays

i don't love you at all



if this only a test, i hope that i'm passing,

cuz i'm losing the stake but i still want to trust you



peace be still peace be still peace be still" ~ secret of the easy yoke by pedro the lion



as i type i am listening to:



tonight i will retire - damien jurado

ghost of david - damien jurado

secret of the easy yoke - pedro the lion

diamond ring - ptl

invention - ptl

whole - ptl

lullaby - ptl

healing time - denison witmer

reaching - denison witmer

light my way - denison witmer

everybody knows - denison witmer

on the way home from work, i found out my dad, who's been in the hospital for the past 10 days or so, has had his cancer spread to his intestines. i spoke to his doctor, and he flat out came out and said it's very bad. this is sudden and i am kind of in shock right now. we knew they'd found traces of cancer cells last week, but the doctors said it was such an early stage of whatever that they thought a low dose of chemo once a week would be enough of a treament. it's weird, because i had a bad feeling about this whole thing. like i said in sunday's post, that even though the doctors were saying the prognosis was good, i didn't want to discuss it then. now i have to discuss it because that prognosis has been reversed, taken back, negated, nullified, zapped into oblivion, and with it the little hope i had that my father would be back to his old self--maybe not a normal self, but back to the HEALTHY jesus freak people loving daughter doting dad i've grown accustomed to over the years. now he's just a jesus freak people loving daughter doting dad.

as soon as i found out, i called my boss and told her i wouldn't be coming in to work tomorrow. i hung up with her and broke down in tears at 75mph southbound on the tristate. i called the only person i could stand crying to at the moment, my best friend josh who recently transplanted himself to new york. josh answered the phone and i cried. i don't cry often, and when i do i try to make sure no one knows about it, but today i needed to cry for my father, my mother, my brother, myself, and i needed to cry for my best friend who i have been missing since he changed time zones 2 weeks ago.

my dad has always loved me adoringly for as long as i can remember. this is probably the greatest gift i've known in my life. i remember when i was little i used to follow him everywhere. i have tape recordings of him seranading me with lullabyes and holding conversations with me when i was just a wee baby, with my brother insisting in the background that my dad was wasting his time because i was too young to understand what he was saying. i remember my dad teaching me to read and write korean before we immigrated to the u.s. because i was too young to have attended school, and he wanted me to know how to read and write my first language. i remember my dad teaching me short division and how to do square roots by hand and the binary system (he was a computer programmer for over 20 years). i remember the stories he would tell of growing up in a 3rd world, war ravaged country, going from riches to rags because of the war, how he loved mountain climbing and that the first date he ever took my mother on was to seoul national university's alpinist club meeting. he told me about being a newspaper reporter in korea, about how he used to drink and get into brawls and how he got his fake front tooth courtesy of our local officer friendly during one such brawl. i love the pictures of him in europe when he went to a ski school in the alps, especially the picture of him in a french beret with his red ski sweater in front of the eiffel tower. the only thing typically asian about him in that picture is the camera slung around his neck. he told me again and again about the avalanche his climbing team was in when 10 of them died, and how my mother was pregnant at the time and frantic but that he insisted on staying with the rescue operations to cover the story for the newspaper and i'm sure out of loyalty to his friends. he also told me how he almost died because of kidney failure and that while he was in the hospital he read the bible out of boredom and came face to face with the god he'd been running away from for years and years, and how his life has never been the same. this part he hasn't had to tell me because i've seen it with my own eyes. my dad loves jesus. he is a bona fide jesus freak. yet when i told him 3 months ago that i was leaving the church and that i didn't know what i believed, he didn't condemn me or freak out or tell me i was going to hell. he told me he knew i'd be okay and that he wasn't worried about me. he's the reason i didn't run away to california, not just because of his health, but also because of his love and acceptance. my dad is jesus to me as far as i'm concerned, and that's why i will continue to search for truth for myself, because i have seen the effect of the gospel on my dad's life and being a witness to that for the past twentysomething years has made an indelible mark of the cross on my heart, whether i like it or not. i know that christian parents or zealously religious parents in general have hurt scores and scores of their young. my dad wasn't perfect either. he really hurt my brother, and there were times when i felt neglected because of all the time he spent doing god stuff. but the miracle of the kind of faith that my father has been living out is that he confesses his weaknesses to even his children and reconciles with us and so we heal. he has been far from the perfect dad and an even less perfect husband. but it's okay because he knows it and doesn't pretend to be perfect. i wouldn't want the perfect dad anyway. that would be like way too much pressure because then he'd have an excuse for expecting more from me because he lives up to it himself. with my dad, i know i can be incorrigibly flawed and a downright wretched little wench, and he will still love me as his own. because that's who i am, his own. for this i am eternally grateful because that is just what may save me someday.

"the sun shines, leaves blow and my hope like autumn is turning brown
i know it seems like i am always falling down
but it does not matter to me although it seems like it should
it's because i know i am understood
when i hear him say, 'rest in me little david and dry all your tears
you can lay down your armor and have no fear
'cause i'm always here when you're tired of running
i'm all the strength that you need'

it's up hill both ways, tomorrow i swear i won't act this way
i know it seems like that is what i always say
but it does not matter to me although it seems like it should
it's because i know i am understood
when i hear Him say, 'rest in me little david and dry all your tears
you can lay down your armor and have no fear
'cause i'm always here when you're tired of running
i'm all the strength that you need'

you know i want to be like jesus
but it seems so very far away
when will i learn to obey, obey" ~ lullaby by pedro the lion (david bazan)

today's soundrack:
in light of what has happened, my musical choices for today seem trivial. all i will say is that as soon as i get in the car to drive to the hospital, i will be listening to pedro the lion and denison witmer.

peace--

i was dragged out of sleep by the sound of the cd player going off, and i couldn't figure out why i was hearing over the rhine in the middle of the night. i was way too delirious with sleep to realize that i had actually set the alarm for 05:00 of my own volition, and over the rhine was just doing what they were supposed to be doing, and right on time i might add. i got to work at 06:53, a good 2.5 hours prior to my past practice of rolling in between 9 and 10 am. then i fought and fought to keep my head from crashing into my keyboard. i was so out of it that i couldn't count my change when purchasing my bagel in the cafeteria. the only reason i finally gave the cashier the correct amount was that i knew i had 95 cents in one pocket (i needed to pay 85 cents) and i knew if i took out two nickels that would do it. but it was pathetically futile for me to try counting from my quarter on up. i tried. i failed. it was sad. it took 3 cups of strong coffee for me to finally keep my body perpendicular to the floor (versus the parallel my body was yearning for).

i went to the laundromat for the first time in like i don't know how many years. that big black oil drum looking thing is my very handy dandy laundry hamper. it is HUGE!!! i bet you can fit a body in it. ok, i admit it. i KNOW you can fit a body into because i went in it myself. not only is it huge, but it also has a strap so that little old me can easily (well, maybe not that easily) carry it down from my 3rd floor apartment to my car. i went to my local spin cycle, which is just a couple blocks away, got ALL my laundry done in one load cuz they have those humungo 5 load washers. i think going to the laundromat is going to be one of my favorite activities. when else am i going to be stuck in a place with absolutely nothing to do but wait for my clothes to stop spinning for a good hour and a half? i listened to cds and read a book. it was totally relaxing.

after doing laundry, i went over to olarn's to show him how easy it is to set up a website. on the way there, i came to the sudden realization that i was ravenous, which should have been no big surprise considering all i'd eaten the entire day was a bagel and 3 cups of coffee and it was now 8:15pm. it was that coffee that did me in, fooling me into thinking i was full the whole day so i forgot to eat lunch then dinner. i called olarn and had him go to hubbs and pick me up a grilled cheese & fries. now he says that he'll pay me for my technical services in grilled cheese sandwiches from now on. whatever. i'm not interested in getting paid for that stuff any way.

so i have just started re-reading one of the most spiritually moving books i have ever read. it's called life after god by douglas coupland. it's not a christian book, and it's actually BECAUSE it's not a christian book that it moves me so much and makes it seem so genuine. if it were a christian book, i'd read it and be like, 'yeah, whatever, you're SUPPOSED to say that.' but it's not. and here's an excerpt so you know what the heck i'm talking about. i have a sneaking suspicion this is where i'll end up someday:

"now--here is my secret: i tell it to you with an openness of heart that i doubt i shall ever achieve again, so i pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. my secret is that i need god--that i am sick and can no longer make it alone. i need god to help me give, because i no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as i no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as i seem beyong being able to love.

i walk deeper and deeper into the rushing water. my testicles pull up into myself. the water enters my belly button and it freezes my chest, my arms, my neck. it reaches my nouth, my nose, my ears and the roar is so loud--this roar, this clapping of hands.

these hands--the hands that heal; the hands that hold; the hands we desire because they are better than desire.

i submerge myself in the pool completely. i grab my knees and i forget gravity and i float within the pool and yet, even here, i hear the roar of water, the roar of clapping hands.

these hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole." --from life after god by douglas coupland, 1994.

today's soundtrack:
good dog bad dog - over the rhine
under cold blue stars - josh rouse
blue - joni mitchell
for the roses - joni mitchell
murmur - r.e.m.
blackout - good life
figure 8 - elliott smith
the smiths - the smiths
cerulean - the ocean blue
after the gold rush - neil young
ghost of david - damien jurado
things shaped in passing - the 6 parts 7

lately, the first thing i do when my alarm shakes me from my slumber is to pull back my bedroom curtain to take a look at the view. this morning, i was greeted by a partial moon and a clear sky. by the time i hit the road at 06:40, the sun was shining brightly and it looked like it was going to be a lovely 1st day of april. then i heard the newscaster say something about rain in the afternoon, and i thought to myself that surely he was mistaken. it was just way too gorgeous of a day to go down the tubes just like that. i am one of those foolish people who never believe a bad weather report and always hope for the best and then get caught in a monsoon a few hours later with no umbrella. today, however, i was right. the forecaster was wrong! we didn't get rain this afternoon--we got frickin' SNOW!!!!! ah, it is april fool's day. how appropriate.

and to think just this weekend my body was feeling like it could finally begin to trust the seasons. how silly of me to forget that i live in CHICAGO, where spring always forgets whether it starts in march, april or may, and summer forgets it's not due until the end of june, not the middle of may, and then lingers like molasses like that unwanted wearisome guest who keeps sticking around for another week or two.

i got a letter from my friend steve in san francisco today. he talked about walking around in the city, about it being a nice sunny day, about walking fisherman's wharf and the golden gate bridge. i thought about all those times josh and i ended up at fisherman's wharf without even trying, and how we tried and tried to get to the golden gate bridge and never made it. i thought about how i was supposed to leave for san francisco today, april 1st, according to my original "plan" to fulfill my dream of reuniting myself with the part of my heart which i'd left buried somewhere between SFO and oakland. the day's snow added salt to my wound of a dream deferred, and i wished i could be with steve in san francisco...

p.s. today's soundtrack:
the whole ep by pedro the lion
the only reason i feel secure by pedro
it's hard to find a friend by pedro
ask me tomorrow by mojave 3
excuses for travelers by mojave 3
sleeping on roads by neil halstead
ghost of david by damien jurado
river bends ep by denison witmer
something about airplanes by death cab for cutie
davey jones' locker by the ocean blue
loaded by the velvet underground
(good god! did i really listen to all that? and to think i listened to each of the pedro cds like 3 times...)