When Three People Ask... (Faith Journey pt. 1)

On three consecutive days I was asked for the same story by three friends, each from further back than the last. The first made me happy, the second made me sad. The third insisted that I share my answer with you, here, in the seemingly permanent cloud that is Blogger.

The first friend was Sam, who I first met this year. He's 21 years old, married, and interested in philosophy and other people. He asked to meet me mostly so we could exchange stories. We both talked about the role of God and the Church in our lives, and when we parted I felt good about my story.

The second was David C., who I first met in university. We both lived in Pearson Scholarship Hall at the University of Kansas, but lost touch years ago. Then out of the blue I get a Facebook message from him: "Hi! Remember me? I found you, and read some of your posts. When did you become a Christian? I'd love to hear about it!"

I told him that I would get back to him. Which is what I am doing right now. And it's taking a while, because I didn't feel so good about my story at this point. I didn't feel so good, because by the time I first met him, I had been a Christian for years. Just not a very good one. Or at least not an obvious one.

The third request for my story coalesced from a few different directions: the first two requests, a sermon that my Dad is preparing, a marriage seminar Horyon and I attended that Saturday, Sunday's sermon, and a Sunday lunch conversation with my friends, Rick and Joe. By the end of lunch I shared with them the source of the third request: The Holy Spirit.

The Spirit was telling me a lot of things. "Share your story bigger, wider, farther. You are not disgusting to me. Your sins are covered, forgiven, forgotten. David won't judge you, your friends at Redeemer won't judge you, and even if they all do, We won't. Besides, you haven't posted to the Roblog since March. Seriously, it's been two months, and that last post was about your gout. You had no trouble publicly discussing the pain in your sole, so why not deal with the condition of your soul? Let's get something worth reading up there. Now get busy."

I only stalled for two days before getting started. Not bad for me. The 400 or so words up to here are the last of the stalling.

I grew up going to the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Leavenworth, KS. Sunday school, choir, youth group, camp and retreats. I turned 49 this year, and my childhood memories are hazy, but I was baptized around the age of 13, because that's when kids got baptized in our church. We took a class first, but I don't remember much about any of it. I certainly don't remember a sense of becoming a new creation.

If you had asked me, I'm sure I would have told you that I took my faith seriously, and that I believed in God, and that I was saved. I believed it then, and I believe my then-self's sincerity. I knew my Bible stories, I felt the love of God in my church. I believed.

I was a church camp counselor. I went to church camp and helped younger kids along the path of belief. In high school I attended a weekly morning prayer group, because I believed. I didn't talk about my belief in the halls or at lunch or in class, because people didn't do that, but I believed.

Then I went to university. I was on my own, and my weekends were mine to use as I pleased. I visited the local Disciples of Christ church a couple of times, but it didn't feel like home, so I didn't go back. Besides, I was home once or twice a month, and that was enough church.

I drank some alcohol there, but not nearly as much as a lot of people. Never more than once a week, and a lot less than that before I turned 21. And I know that I did some swearing, because there was no one telling me I shouldn't, or making me feel shame at it. And one way to blend in with a group and find acceptance is by using the same language that they do. So I did.

But I was still a believer. Not like David, but I believed. David wore his faith on his sleeve: relentlessly cheerful, kind to everyone, and always ready to talk about God. Church every Sunday, no drinking, no swearing. To him, I must have seemed like just another heathen.

Some time during this education, I took a couple of classes that struck some serious blows to my poorly exercised faith. The first was "Women in World Religions," a.k.a. "Being a Woman is Really a Bummer in Most Religions." It hit all the major religions, including Christianity, pointing out the inequities inherent in most all of them. Most of it was unpleasant to learn about, and some of it was sickening. But as long as we live in a world in which female genital mutilation happens, it is important for us to learn that it happens. I took comfort in belonging to a church in which women held leadership positions. Though we had never had a female pastor, it was not out of the question (though always a decade or two in the future).

That class made me compare my religion to others in a way that I had not previously. In hindsight, this was essential to my faith. After all, can one truly choose their faith if one has not even considered others? It did draw attention to a broad pattern of treating women as less-than-equals in faith communities. I do not recall whether or not the professor portrayed this as a fundamental flaw of religions in general (and by extension, of God), but it's a simple enough connection to make, even for a student as lazy as myself. This was never a core idea for me, but at the very least it colored my perception of God, and got added to the barrel of bad things that a good God would never allow to happen.

The other class hit harder. It was on the Bible as an historical document. There was some literary analysis, a lot of connections to previous and surrounding cultures, and a sort of clinical detachment that left faith completely out of the discussion. From my perspective now, I can see some advantages to this approach. Namely, it helps to avoid arguments that aren't going to be settled in a class like that. I learned a lot in that class, but my big takeaway at the time was that the Bible is a mess of a collection of documents written by people.

As I've mentioned, I had grown up with the Bible as a steady presence. Not that we had regular family Bible readings, but faith was lived out in our home. It was an underlying assumption, rather than a line to be toed. The choir practice and youth group meetings I went to were modeled for me by my parents going to their own choir practice, board meetings, elder meetings, celebrations, funerals, church gatherings, and Sunday School. Every year Chris and I got Sunday School attendance certificates, because we went at the same time as our parents. Never even occurred to us to try to avoid it. We went and we learned, because it was important. Bible stories and faith were sometimes talked about at home. Monthly giving to the church was not only done, but the percentage increased over the years.

My faith was based on our church, which was based on the Bible. And I felt like the Bible was starting to crumble around the edges, maybe even fall apart completely. (In hindsight, I am the one who was crumbling around the edges, making it possible for me to be renewed by God, but at the time it sure didn't feel like that!) In the following few years, I had some conversations with my pastor, and with a few other people I trusted. I gradually came to understand the Bible in a new way. Well, new for me, anyway. And by gradually, I'm not sure exactly how long that process took. In a sense, it is no more finished than I am.

I will return to this idea later (maybe in another post), but for now I will just say this: I stopped thinking (or I began to stop thinking) of the Bible as a book that God sat down and wrote, or even dictated to people.

That process of evolving faith continued into the year after I graduated from university. I spent that year joining the Peace Corps, though I had no idea that it would take that long when I started. Submitting all the proper forms, having an interview, getting a full medical check-up and background check, and lots of waiting, including a couple of false starts. I lived at home, with my parents, for more than a year. An extreme test of their patience which I am afraid I barely noticed. I worked with Dad building decks and doing other projects, and directed a youth choir at church.

During that year, I attended my parents' Sunday School class, The Seekers. (They were founded back when names like that were widely considered to be 'groovy,' and they still have the same name.) That's where my concept of what an adult group of believers could be, and my current style is still modeled on it.

It was a good year, and I wish that I could tell you more precisely how my faith evolved during that time. I was journaling then, but those journals are in my parents' basement, 14 time zones away from my current home in Busan.*

*That is a convenient excuse. I am not lazy enough to have my own meme about it, but it is easy to imagine that I would either not go look at all or get so distracted that this project would get left behind.

My time in Nepal with the Peace Corps was a Big Deal. A big enough deal that it calls for at least the beginning of its own post.

But as a reward for staying with me this whole time, I offer you photos of a more recent journey. These are a few family selfies from January of this year, on our way to visit my parents in Kansas. The first nine are of us waiting in the Busan airport for our first flight. You will notice that in each one of these nine photos, someone is out of focus, or looking the other way, or being extremely silly. In a way, this sums up our family very well. The tenth photo is in Chicago, about 16 hours later. It accurately captures how tired we were, with one more flight to go.

Pretend hamburger?

Looking in Quinten's ear.

Tongue out.

Blurry wife, Maxine starting to lose it.

Blurry everyone, me starting to lose it.

Wife stretching, Quinten fading, Maxine worried, me annoyed.

Maybe this time... nope.

Seriously?

We give up. Maxine is not amused.

I cannot explain my cheeriness in this photo.

Gout

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "gout" I think old-timey, rich old dude disease. I had no idea what caused it, or how to treat it, or even what the symptoms were.

Now I know. And not in my usual "I read it somewhere" way, but in a more practical sense.

Last Monday as I went about my day I got a cramp in my right foot, at the joint where my big toe is attached to my foot. I tried to work it out by stretching and walking through it, but it got progressively worse through the day. It got a little swollen, but not as much as I would expect from a fracture. That big joint became painful to the touch, and I started to lose flexibility in my foot. At the end of the day, I got a ride home because I could not stand the thought of walking to and from the bus. When I got home, I went to bed, took some Tylenol, and tried to sleep. That didn't go so well, since my foot was only comfortable when not being touched by anything and resting at a comfortable angle. I couldn't find a comfortable angle, and I live in a universe that is chock full of matter, so my foot was constantly touching something. It was a lousy night.

The next morning, my father-in-law, Youngsoo, took me to a clinic. They took x-rays and drew blood for testing, and made me walk around with one bare foot in their office, which made me grateful that it was early in the morning.

(Side note: every x-ray technician I have encountered in this country has inspired an incomparable blood lust in me. Apparently they believe that foreigners feel no pain, probably because we are not very good at expressing ourselves when some ass-hat grabs an injured limb and twists it into position for that perfect angle. And while I am aware that in Korean culture laughter is a very common way to show discomfort, it is difficult to set aside the fact that in American culture laughing at someone else's pain is considered a sign of being a super-villain. Fortunately, my Korean is not good enough to say, "I wonder what sort of x-ray picture we would get if I were to forcibly insert the x-ray projector into one of your body cavities?" I really need to take more Korean lessons. But I digress.)

The doctor was guessing gout, and gave me a prescription that he said would help if it was. I went to school that with a cane borrowed from Youngsoo and medicine to take after lunch. I was walking like a gimp, trying to figure out how best to use the cane, and how to avoid flexing my right foot. It was a long day, and I was exhausted from trying to avoid pain.

So here are some things I learned about gout. I do not know if they are generally true, or just in my case, and some of them are a bit speculative. I do not recommend quoting me in a research paper.

- gout happens when uric acid crystals form in the joints, most often the big toe.
- it is very much driven by diet, and can often be avoided by changing one's diet.
- the big toe does not, in fact, go to market, nor is it a piggie.
- crystals in general are kind of cool, but they have sharp edges, like a thousand little knives.
- flexing the joint with the crystals in it applies pressure to the crystals, breaking them into millions of tinier, newer, sharper crystals.
- uric acid is highly concentrated in organ meats, so I need to avoid liver, gizzards. No problem.
- and red meat in general. Dammit.
- and some seafood. Well poop.
- Including mackerel, a fish which I could not have picked out of a lineup before moving to Korea, but is now easily my favorite: cheap, flavorful, with so much natural oil you can cook it in a dry pan, big bones that are easy to remove, and full of the purines that lead to high concentrations of uric acid in the bloodstream so GOUT GOODBYE MACKEREL I WILL REMEMBER YOU FOREVER!
- It is removed from the bloodstream by the kidneys, unless they are busy processing alcohol, so I am going completely dry for the next month. Maybe longer.
- Oh yeah, sugary drinks interfere too. I didn't want my weekly Pepsi that bad anyway.
- The doctor said it is aggravated by stress, so if giving up everything you enjoy eating stresses you out, TOO BAD YOU GET GOUT ANYWAY! HA HA! - sincerely, your body.
- Once you announce that you have gout on Facebook, you quickly find out who else does as well.
- Just like every other medical condition, you are likely to do better if you are not overweight.
- But hey, if I'm taking everything fun out of my diet, that shouldn't be a problem.
- The medicine works, and fairly quickly.

By Wednesday night I had no trouble sleeping. I was walking more carefully, and my foot only hurt when I flexed it too much. But at least I could flex it, and it was no longer painful to the touch.

Thursday I was walking slowly, with short steps, and without the cane. Occasional pain when I forgot what I was doing, but nothing like earlier in the week.

Friday I was mostly back to normal.

Except that I'm no longer sure what normal is. Even now, a full week after I had trouble sleeping because of the pain, I feel something when I flex my foot. Not exactly pain, but the memory of pain. A sense that that pain is lurking just out of sight, and ready to come back any time. I have medicine to take, and I'm pretty sure I'll recognize it the next time I have an attack. Taking the medicine early and being gentle with my foot should make a second attack much more manageable, but...

It's a reminder that even though we pay attention to how our age is counting up, our remaining days on Earth are also counting down. It's a reminder that the body is a wondrous machine, but like any machine it requires maintenance. It's a reminder that going to America and eating your weight in meat has a downside.

I'm not going to claim that this has turned my life around. But I'm paying more attention to what I eat now. I'm trying to be more active.

And I am seriously hoping that research into the human microbiome leads to that Woody Allen future where you eat whatever you want and remain healthy and fit without even trying.

The Return

February 2019

It was not the smoothest of trips, but it wasn't bad. I did a terrible job of emptying my pockets, so I got the full pat-down by the heroes who keep our airports safe. Since I didn't take some things out of my pockets, it seemed reasonable for them to assume that I was a potential terrorist, using my own children as cover. I also had four tubes of toothpaste in a carry-on bag. Fortunately, they caught that and threw them in the trash. I don't know about you, but I feel safer knowing that no one on the flight had a full tube of toothpaste.

"I demand that you fly this plane to Libya, or everyone here will soon have minty-fresh breath!"

It all felt like a punishment for not properly preparing to fly in a police state. Seriously, how much more secure are we with everyone getting their shoes run through the x-ray machine? And please, don't tell me that you feel more secure. You know what makes me feel secure? Cockpit doors that are sturdier than the lavatory doors. Remember, we have our shoes x-rayed because one idiot tried to smuggle a bomb in his shoes. And it didn't work, not even close. I was already emotionally exhausted, as well as physically tired. The annoyance you see here is what's left of my ire four days later. Sorry, five days. I forget that the trip itself takes an entire day.

Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy.

(Dang, that's Louis C.K. Sorry, but it's still funny even though he is a jerk.)

One good thing did happen in Kansas City International Airport: In packing, we had loaded up Maxine with a relatively big, blue, fabric suitcase to use as a carry-on bag. It was heavy, because it had a lot of her books in it (that's my girl!), and she added some notebooks to bring back as presents for friends (that's Mommy's girl! I don't bring back crap for my friends!), making it even heavier. I figured it was still way cheaper then shipping it all, and was prepared to carry it myself. Then, while we were waiting to board, they announced that the plane was overbooked, and that there would be trouble fitting everything in the overhead compartments and under seats. They offered to check a bag if we wished, all the way to our destination. Complimentary! So we shuffled her important stuff into her backpack (which was in the blue suitcase), moved some stuff from Quinten and my carry-ons as well, and checked it through! Bada-bing bada-bang bada-boom! We dropped at least 15 pounds of carry-on stuff! That would have cost us like $200 to check!

I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to step aside for a body-cavity search. You just used the word "boom," which is a sound we expect from terrorists. Please come this way, and do not resist.

Once we got on the plane, everything was fine. Except that there was a problem with the fueling truck, so they had to bring over another fueling truck. So we left a little late, maybe 15 minutes. They made it up by giving us an extra snack and asking us to all hold our breath so the plane would be lighter. Apparently it worked, because we arrived close to our scheduled time.

They did not ask us to hold our breaths. That would be silly. And they also did not give us anything extra. That would be intruding on the profit margin, which is even more silly.

We had no problem making our flight from Chicago to Tokyo. It was a long walk to our gate, but at least we didn't have to carry as much stuff. I mean, we were all carrying our bags, coats and jackets, but we got to use a restroom on the ground, and smell airport food. #blessed. The flight itself was fine. We landed in Chicago at the time they started boarding our next flight, and we were almost the last passengers to board, but we made it. In hindsight, it would have been very nice if the airport staff had offered us a ride on one of their golf-carts, but at least I can rest assured that no one there had a full tube of toothpaste.

The Chicago airport actually smells pretty good: there were a number of restaurants, and it was early enough in the day that most travelers had not yet acquired the funk you get after about 10 hours. I know this funk because I generate it in spades, and appreciate how it encourages other people to keep their distance.

The flight from Chicago to Tokyo was about 12 hours. Half a day. It is absolutely amazing that we can cross to the other side of the world in such a short time. One hundred years ago it would have seemed like a miracle. A hundred years from now it will either seem tediously slow or just one of those stories old people tell around the hearth about how things used to be right before they start crying and yelling, "You blew it up, you b***ards!"

You know you've been travelling too long when the ending of Planet of the Apes starts to look more like a sunny day at the beach than a post-apocalyptic vision.

As usual, the last flight is the most painful. We arrive in Japan feeling like we should be home, but there one more flight waiting, just two and a half hours, and a couple of hours in the Tokyo airport. That's a long four and a half hours, even though it takes about 40 minutes to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate. And during that time, I hear our names being paged. I go look into it, and they tell me that something in our luggage looks like a gun. They will want to open one of my suitcases with me, just to be sure. I'm thinking it's probably Quinten's bug-catching gun, a chunk of plastic that is suspiciously shaped like a futuristic ray gun.

Sure. Whatever. I haven't slept more than 4 hours in the last 40 hours, I'm an emotional mess after leaving my parents behind, I'm exuding a funk that has me hallucinating, and I'm an American. But you want me to be there when you open the suitcase that might have a gun in it? What could possibly go wrong? Just in case, you all should prepare to be shrunk, or frozen, or turned into newts.

It is the euphonium. They have a musical instrument case the size of a bassinet, and they want to make sure that I'm not smuggling a gun in it. Oddly enough, at the American airports the subject never even came up. Because flying around with a gun is fine, but

leave the m****r-f*****g toothpaste at home!

Sorry. I'm still pissed that I had to throw away almost four full tubes of toothpaste, and I can't even blame it on Trump because America has been buying into this ridiculous crap since 9/11.

By the way, you are welcome to disagree with me on this, but unless you can point towards a legitimate source showing that the TSA has stopped anything significant, I'm going to just suggest that you write about it on your own blog.

So the last flight is painful. Night is falling, and I feel that I am, too. My eyes are getting that gritty feeling, like I've been in the desert a couple of days with nothing to drink buy my own urine. My wrists and ankles hurt, my hands and feet are still swollen from the previous flight. When we got on the plane I start watching a movie. (It is my 7th on this trip, "The Greatest Showman" because I don't feel like I need to pay close attention to it and the music will keep me awake.) Thirty minutes into the movie I look out the window (from the center section of seats) and am surprised to see big, clear lights. I think, "Oh my, we shouldn't be that close to the ground! Maybe it's a reflection of a light inside the plane?" Then I realize that we have not yet taken off.  We end up taking off 45 minutes late.

Thirty minutes into the flight: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We had some technical problem before taking off. We thought we had it fixed, but after testing we found that it wasn't. So we fixed it again, and that's why we left so late. But everything seems okay now. Thank you for your patience."

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the politeness and honesty. But the timing was a bit disturbing. And I will chalk up the use of "seems okay" to a translation slip. I'm sure he meant that "everything is absolutely okay and this airplane is working perfectly."

Seriously. Translating is hard. I mean, it seems to be hard.

We arrived in Korea and cleared customs and immigration with no problems. From getting off the plane to getting our bags was less than 30 minutes, then we were out, euphonium cannon, non-minty-fresh-breath, bags and all. Horyon was waiting for us right outside, and I was the same emotional mess that I was when we arrived in Kansas City a month earlier: happy/sad/exhausted/relieved.

Please be careful while deplaning as your emotional baggage may have shifted during the flight.

And don't even THINK of bringing a full tube of toothpaste!