Impatiently Waiting for the Good News of Easter

The day between death and life and defeat and victory is a long one. I am impatient. I cannot wait. I do not like sitting and waiting. I want to move. I want answers.

Good Friday and what Jesus accomplished on the cross doesn’t become Good News until I’ve sat through Friday and Saturday. Until I’ve allowed myself to taste the anguish and utter devastation of losing and loss, of death, of fear. I’ve come as close as a mother ever wants to that kind of anguish, of losing her son while clinging to the tiniest hope that all is not lost forever. No, my son is no Jesus nor is he a savior, but I remember and can still feel that loss and grief and fear and hopelessness wash over me as I picture a curtain not tearing in two but separating us from the flurry of doctors and equipment.

And then there was the waiting. The in between I find myself sitting in now. The initial shock and reminders are over, and I wait. There is a way to mark Friday and Sunday but what about the in between? Waiting for Easter and the little boys and girls in their Holy Sunday finest (that is not the fight I chose to fight with my now not so little ones) because it is new and exciting and hopeful and in so many ways easier for me than to sit here on Saturday night. Waiting.

There are only a few minutes left of this day, and it is finally time to sit and wait and prepare my heart again. I’m thinking of friends who are waiting and hoping for God to make all things new because the brokenness of Good Friday in our daily lives is almost too much to bear. I remember sitting and keeping watch over my son as he lay in a drug-induced coma thinking I was either going to have to prepare for his burial, just like the women did so early that morning, or find that this time around death would not have victory, just like the women did so early that morning.

I am so impatient. Just a few more minutes.

Thanksgiving Turkey and Kimchee/Kimchi

Of all of the American holidays we adopted as we became a hyphenated family (Korean-American), Thanksgiving is the one that has evolved into a part of our family tradition. We have gathered for the occasional 4th of July, Memorial Day or Labor Day barbecue, days off of work making it possible but not locked into a tradition requiring scheduling around extended family and in-laws.

There is the story about  Mom roasting a duck because all birds wrapped in plastic look the same or memories of opening a can of cranberries but not having the foggiest idea of what to do with that ruby-colored gelatinous cylinder on a plate. We tried to set an American Thanksgiving table as best we could and then added the real fixings – white rice, kimchee, mandoo, jjapchae, bulgogi and smaller plates of more banchan. Sometimes there was water or sparkling apple cider or barley tea. We learned about pumpkin pie but didn’t complain if there was an unexpected plate of dduk.

Learning about “Pilgrims and Indians” was a part of my childhood experience though I don’t remember much except visiting my second grade classroom. We were moving to the suburbs and Miss Thompson was my teacher. Her classroom was decorated with turkeys made with pantyhose wrapped around wire hangers decorated with construction paper feathers. Moving from Chicago’s Northside to the western burbs was culture shock enough. Walking into a room full of stocking turkeys…well, I think I was just surprised to see pantyhose used as decoration. (Was I the only kid who grew up seeing her mother darn holes in pantyhose with some thread and seal the repair with nail polish?) What I would only later take in was that the feathers included written descriptions of the things my future classmates were thankful for. Turkeys=thankfulness. I get it!

Since then I’ve also learned turkeys=trots, bowls, platters, carving and a whole heckuvalotta work. Our family has never trotted or played football on Thanksgiving, but we know about embracing tryptophans. I have become the Thanksgiving host, and while I haven’t yet mastered the perfect gravy or dressing recipe I’ve tried brining and glazing my turkey (brining, definitely brining). The number of people at our table or tables changes from year to year, the amount of Korean food fluctuates (this year my kids are asking for mandoo, odaeng and curry to accompany the turkey) but there is a comforting and familiar rhythm to the afternoon and evening, starting with a crescendo of voices as family arrive and ending with a turkey-induced quiet and dessert over Black Friday strategies and lists.

We’ve never talked about the pilgrims or the Wampanoag Indians at our Thanksgiving table, but as I have spent quite a bit of time this year sharing bits and pieces of my family’s story – our journey from Korea to America and my journey from Korean infant to Korean American adult – I am reminded that there is a part of our family’s story and that of my Christian faith that resonates with being both the “other” and becoming and being the “hosts”, reluctant or not.

I suppose the way our dinner table looks, expressed on the faces, in the names and in the food, is a reflection of that American history  – “others” alongside the “hosts” trying to to understand one another and find a place at the table or a way to reconfigure the table to include both the turkey and the kimchee and the older American history alongside a more recent history.

It’s not a perfect history, nor is it a perfect turkey, but I am incredibly thankful.

Halloween, Christmas, Yoga & Jesus

In about one hour my neighborhood will feel more like a neighborhood – kids running around, some with parents a few steps behind to exchange friendly greetings with those they share a street or zip code with. The streets here are safe, just like I remember my streets on the north side of Chicago were some 35 years ago. Halloween was and still is one of the few times during the year it is completely acceptable to ring a stranger’s doorbell and say “hello” (of course, unless you are a Girl Scout selling cookies).

I grew up learning with my parents about these “American” traditions – begging for candy, selling cookies, baking Christmas cookies, hiding Easter eggs. It was more about being and becoming American and not so much about whether or not these were acceptable Christian practices.

But in the past few months there has been a bit of chatter around whether or not Christians should practice yoga because of its Eastern religious roots and how “those” values and beliefs are dangerous and in complete opposition to Christians and our faith.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up practicing so many things that were rooted in those scary Eastern traditions that I am trying to make sense of the fuss while I stretch out in downward dog and breathe in deeply. I bow to my parents and elders of the family every New Year’s Day. Yes, the actual practice has Eastern roots (btw, can someone help me understand why Christians should fear the East? Aren’t our religious roots deep in the East?) but through immigration, many Christian Korean Americans cling to the practice as a way of redeeming culture and our value for respecting our elders – for the cloud of witnesses who have and continue to go before us.

It seems that so much of what we Western Christians practice as “Christian” – Christmas trees in December and Easter eggs, for example – were created in response and reaction to things going on in the pagan world. Yoga isn’t in the Bible but trees and egg hunts aren’t either so how is it that we decide some rituals and practices are ok and not scary? Yes, oversimplified question to a complex situation. I know. But it’s a start, right?

Our children (even the teenager) will dress up this afternoon and run through neighbors’ yards and collect enough candy to frighten (or delight?) my dentist husband. We choose to participate in what has become a fairly benign cultural practice because it’s a great excuse to spend time with friends and neighbors with busy lives and schedules. We have decided that the darker roots of this day are a chance to bring out into the open the things that we might be afraid of but do not have to be. I read somewhere that Halloween is Satan’s favorite holiday. I beg to differ. I think the way we American Christians celebrate Christmas might make Christmas Satan’s favorite holiday, IMO.

I’m off to a friend’s Halloween potluck party, just weeks away from unpacking the Christmas tree ornaments and decorations, hoping to manage my time well to practice yoga and spend time meditating on Jesus…Do you and yours “celebrate” Halloween? Why or why not? What other holidays have been tweeked and adjusted to be in harmony with your family’s core beliefs?

The Growing Pains of Mother’s Day

I am a mother of three, but it wasn’t always this way.

1993: my first Mother’s Day as both a daughter and daughter-in-law. Two corsages, two cards, two gifts, two sets of expectations. Let’s just leave it at that.

1996: my first Mother’s Day remains a bit of a fog. I was five months post-partum, which meant five months into a low-level funk that was occasionally accompanied by a wave of intense and overwhelming crazy like I’d never experienced love for the little baby girl the doctor and nurses let me leave the hospital with after simply checking a couple of plastic bracelets. There I was celebrating Mother’s Day still scared silly that I would wake up and find out it was all a strange, cruel, sweet dream.

I’ve since come to realize it is all a wonderful, sometimes slightly horrifying and embarrassing reality, and I hope I never fall asleep.

1998: the suckiest most bittersweet Mother’s Day ever. I was emotionally raw, again, but this time from just having had a D & C. Our second baby had stopped developing in my womb at 6 weeks, but the body I had so trusted, the body I thought I knew, the body I thought I could control and “time” with pills and calendars tricked me in the most awful way. I miscarried. Another seven weeks would pass before we realized that we weren’t going to have a baby in the fall. Mother’s Day that year was horrible because I felt like such a selfish byatch. Why couldn’t I be happy with the one child God had already given me when there were thousands and thousands of women desperate to be a mother of one, let alone a mother of two? What was wrong with me for worrying about losing a fetus when I was so young and could easily get pregnant again? What the hell was wrong with me? Well, I was grieving the death of my child and the death of all the dreams I had for that child.

I realized how tightly I held onto hopes and dreams for this baby that had yet to see the light of day, and then I realized that slowly letting go was what I would have to continue learning for the rest of my life as a mom.

My one memory of that day is sitting with my daughter who reached up with her cute little hands to wipe away the tears I could not stop and said in her wisest two-and-a-half-year-old voice, “Mommy, you’re so sad.” I wanted to stop crying and smile, but all I could manage was to do both.

And I have since known that it is OK and absolutely necessary to be sad and deeply joyful and to let my children know when their hands and voices ease the sadness and are part of the reason I experience such joy.

Since then I have celebrated Mother’s Day as the mother of two and then of three. Each year I remind myself it wasn’t always this way. I remind myself that for me it is less about celebrating and being celebrated as it is remembering to be fully present. Remembering this is not a dress rehearsal or a dream I cannot fully remember. Remembering it’s a wonderful, broken, imperfect life. Remembering to love and let go at the same time. Remembering to feel the depth of pain and sadness and unbearable loss while knowing there is space at that same moment for joy and peace and love and even laughter.

Thank you, God, for Peter. I needed some help to become a mother, and every day he helps me become a better mother by being such a great father. I’m kind of competitive in a completely healthy, appropriate way.

Thank you, God, for Bethany, Corban and Elias (and even “baby Andrew” who pushed me to learn about letting go). They are the reason I get to pick the restaurant for lunch today and the reason I am more self-aware (i.e. I know how selfish I really am and how much sleep and/or coffee makes me a nicer person), and wiser, gentler, younger at heart and goofier.

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