A Korean Grace

Today was Joe's and my last Sunday at Grace and Peace Mennonite Church in Hongdae, Seoul. One of my biggest regrets about leaving Korea now is that we did not have an opportunity to visit there more often, or become better acquainted with those welcoming, generous, caring, peace-and-justice-seeking people. I am grateful that the Mennonite Church includes these brothers and sisters.

Every time Grace and Peace meets for worship, they celebrate Communion and every time they meet they eat a simple meal together that is also a communion. Both there and at the Korea Anabaptist Center, where staff take turns cooking for each other every day for lunch, we sing the same grace. (I took my turn too - I made my kind of Mennonite food; see here and here for more or less what I made) I thought I might bring it back to Seattle with me. Below it appears in Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and an English alphabet transliteration as well as a literal translation. I also took a stab at a more poetic English rendering.

Hangul
날마다 우리에게
양식을 주시는
은혜로 우신 하나님
참 감사합니다
아멘

English transliteration
namada oori aegae
yangshikeul jushineun
eunhyaero ooshin hananim
tcham kamsahamnida
amen

English more or less literal translation
Everyday, to us
giving food
gracious God
thank you very much
amen

My English version
The gift of daily bread
On this and each new day
You feed us thus, most gracious God.
In praise and thanks we pray.
Amen

Worshiping at Grace and Peace Church

For the past few months Joe and I have been trying to go more regularly to Grace and Peace Mennonite Church in Hongdae in Seoul. It’s an hour commute by subway, we always seem to drag our feet getting there and we’re always late. But without fail, the commute is worth it.

Since we always arrive late, we always arrive during the singing. This past Sunday one of the song was to the tune of ‘God Save the King’ but some of the lyrics were as follows (there is usually a translation printed in English):

…He makes wars rage no more
sword, spear, the tools of war
we shall not fear…

It choked me up. In the several times that I have worshipped with other Mennonites in a language that is unfamiliar to me, it is sentiments like these that speak most powerfully to me. I am so profoundly grateful and humbled by my God who works and moves and is petitioned for peace by Christians all over the world in many tongues and traditions.

Themes of peace are powerfully woven into the worship of this congregation. Here in the music, and later on during the time of prayer, when we learned more about the village in Jeju island that is resisting the construction of a naval base on it’s shores. Grace and Peace will send envoys to stand with the villages in solidarity and protest. When we pray together, regardless of the language, I know that all of these voices are being raised in a petition for peace and justice, and I experience the feeling of joy in belonging to the ‘people of God’s peace.’

That same feeling of gratitude and belonging infuses my experience of Communion. As pastor Nam says the words of institution in Korean, I can whisper a translation of both words and ritual to Naomi, not because I understand but because I know. The knowing and participating in this community ritual is awesome. I find myself hungry for it, eager to get to this part of worship as soon as we walk through the door. Grace and Peace celebrates every Sunday and with all comers. It is a celebration to which all are welcome: children, guests, seekers, foreigners like me.

I think it is no coincidence that it is these two parts of this worshiping community, the commitment to peace and celebrating the Lord’s Supper, which touch me so deeply. Among so many other thematic threads, peacemaking and non-violence is woven into the celebration of Communion, and following and remembering the non-violent Christ is at the heart of my faith and that of the Anabaptist Community. Alan and Eleanor Kreider with Paula Widjaja, remind us in their book A Culture of Peace, that the Lord’s Supper forms us a people of equality, non-violence and reconciliation. At God’s table we are all equals, sharing the memory of Jesus, who’s life and death were the example of non-violence love. We come confessing our wrongs and making right our relationships with each other and our God. The early Anabaptist recognized this and celebrated the Lord’s supper as often as they gathered for worship.

I am grateful that I have been able to participate in this community. In a few weeks I will post more about Grace and Peace along with some pictures of me preaching there July 10. Thanks be to God!

Jesus at the sauna

John 13:1-15
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

Someone asked me recently, after I’d written my last post, how it is that my life lines up with the liturgical calendar. I replied that really, it’s probably more likely that in my awareness of what is happening in the liturgical calendar, that I notice when things happen in my life that are relevant to that. Something like that happened today.

One of the things that I love (and I mean LOVE) about Korea is the public bath or tchimchilbang.  Not only can you can sit and soak in the various tubs, shower, scrub and sit in the different temperatures of sauna in the women’s (or men’s) only area. You can also, in the common area, wearing gender assigned pink or blue shorts and t-shirts provided by the sauna, eat at the restaurant, work out on the weight equipment or cardio machines, watch tv, go online, sit in a massage chair, get your nails done or any other variety or personal services.  And more.

It is an awesome place to relax and so much better than my cramped shower room at home. I try to go at least once a week. I never feel self conscious about my body or about being naked; after you go once you realize that bodies – even Asian women’s bodies which are sexually idealized by western media – come in all shapes and sizes. But I do feel a little conscious of being a very pink and western woman in the otherwise all Korean setting. This is never more true that when I bring Naomi. Who also loves getting naked and wastes no time stripping, jumping in the tubs and playing, often with joyful noise – in the water, hopping from pool to pool, slipping and splashing and otherwise drawing (completely obliviously) as much attention to her noisy, adorable pink and blond self as possible.

So…when I go on my own I try to blend in, keep to myself, take advantage of not having to watch like a hawk a child who has no qualms about slurping the draining water off the floor (I know…so gross). Today was no exception. After a very satisfactory run and 20 or so minutes spent in the hot water, I found a stool and shower in a corner and started my scrub.* It’s pretty common for women to come together and when one can’t get her own back, her friend will scrub for her and then vice versa. It’s definitely preferable to trying to scrub your own, and when I’ve gone with my friend Rora and it works out nicely. No awkward stretching, no missing the area right in the center where you just can’t quite reach.

This morning I was doing the awkward stretching and reaching but in spite of that was quite happy with the scrub experience. I was thinking, in my corner, that I was inconspicuous, but I was surprised in my ablutions when a young women approached me and gestured to me an offer to scrub my back. Almost before I could indicate an assent she’d begun the best back scrub I have ever had and at the end poured the cool water from the basin in front of me over my back to clean all the suds and dead skin off the freshly scrubbed area.

I thanked her as fully as I could with my small vocabulary, then I gestured to return the favor. She refused. As I was about finished, I did a final shower rinse, collected my various soaps, hair products and scrubbers, wrapped up my hair and went out to change. And as I got dressed and brushed my hair and packed up my belongings, I could think only of Jesus. Specifically of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

Maundy Thursday was yesterday and I didn’t do anything to mark the date. I didn’t even remember it until my encounter today. Yet Jesus managed to take the form of a Korean woman offering to scrub my back as a reminder of the day. Like him, she refused to let me wash her. She made a pure act of service to someone whom perhaps she saw as a stumbling and struggling foreigner, or perhaps was just a simple thing she’d have done for anyone. In any case, I came away with new and grateful skin and a new and grateful heart. Thanks be to God!

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* In the Korean spa, there are four or five pools in the center of a large, stone tiled room. All around the room, in addition to a few stand-up showers surrounded by stations, are low shower stations along a marble shelf about a foot off the ground. Each shower station has a detachable shower head, a mirror and usually a plastic basin or two and a short plastic stool that nicely forms to one’s butt. Women go to the sauna several times a month to soak and scrub every inch of their bodies with small abrasive mitts. The cutest is when moms bring small babies. The last time I went there was a family with the absolutely fattest and happiest baby ever with her mom and older sister. That splashing baby totally made my week.

God is a boy...

As we were getting ready to leave for preschool this morning, Naomi said to me, “I don’t like God because he’s a boy.” Yikes!

I did not show my dismay, however. I just replied, “God isn’t a boy or a girl. And God is both a boy and a girl. God is everything at once.”

To this Naomi replied, “What’s God’s name?” As if, knowing God’s name would be proof.

“God,” I said. “But God has many names. People know God as Comforter, Yahweh, even ‘Rock’” Saying the first things that came to mind.

“And Cloud?”

“Yeah, and God is sometimes a cloud.” Then, as we were putting on her shoes I asked her if, after school, she’d like to look with me for some of the names for God in the Bible, to which she nodded and that was that.

But, that is not that. How has the daughter of a feminist pastor already learned that God is gendered. And that she can’t like God because God is not her gender? Naomi is at this stage in her development, figuring out what it means to be a girl, and what it means to be a boy. She sometimes also says that she does like daddy because he’s a boy. Or she only likes me because we’re girls. So I don’t really think that the God’s purported gender would ultimately inhibit her loving God, but that’s not the point, of course, is it?

I have not been doing my job. Even with those books about God having different names and God being everywhere and my un-gendered talk about God, Naomi still knew that God was a ‘boy’ because that’s the language that everyone else uses. But, as anyone who’s given any though the question of a gendered God knows, language makes the naming of God tricky because our personal pronouns just don’t cut it.

To me this question challenges me at a particularly relevant time. I’m beginning to prepare a study on the Lord’s Prayer for our small English congregation. The Lord’s Prayer, which begins “Our Father in heaven.” We say it every Sunday, so I decided we should be thinking about it’s contents. And now, thanks to Naomi I’m thinking about how, with my Korean friends, I will address that very first line. It’s how Jesus instructed us to pray, so what does it say about who God is, gendered and otherwise?

I suspect that it might be a little radical for me to suggest that God might be anything other than benign abeoji. In Korean, as in English the word used is the more formal ‘father’. Yet Jesus invites his disciples to begin addressing God as appa, in Hebrew abba, something more akin to ‘daddy’. For Jesus’ disciples this meant an invitation into the arms of an intimate God. A God whose new community is like a family. But now for many using calling God ‘father’ or even ‘Daddy’ is not comforting but a stumbling block.

When I was a camp counselor at camp Valaqua, north of Calgary in Alberta, I butted heads several times over the differing theology I had from another (male) counselor, his being much more conservative than mine. But I was surprised to find that when it came to naming God, he readily accepted mothering imagery. As we talked about it, I discovered that because his relationship with an abusive and neglectful father, he had great difficulty thinking about or praying to a Father in Heaven.

The United Church of Canada congregations that I am familiar with in Winnipeg pray, “Our Father and Mother in heaven.” This is a little messy and confusing but at least acknowledges the complication of gendering God. I think when I address this prayer on Sunday I will talk about the multiple ways that we are invited into an intimate relationship with the Creator of heaven and earth. I believe that is what Jesus wanted for his disciples then and now.

Once again I am grateful to Naomi for helping me to think about who God is. In this case, she has also reminded me to help others think about who God is…Creator, Adonai, Yahweh, Sustainer, Spirit, Cloud, Light Rock…The list, of course, goes on. Thanks be to She.

An Anabaptist Creed from Korean Anabaptists

I'm not generally a credal person. At the English service of the church Joe and I sometimes attend we recite the Apostle's Creed, but I'm not really sure I can get behind everything in the Apostle's Creed. And I don't like the jump from virgin birth to suffering death. But here's one I like. It's always projected and printed in both Korean and English and recited in whatever language is most comfortable to each at Grace and Peace Mennonite Church.

I believe in God the Parent, who made heaven and sustains it. May God bless us and have mercy upon us.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and lived in this world like us. He called his disciples and taught them the good news and truth of God's kingdom; he also teaches us about the beloved community; peace and justice were his; he cared for the poor, the sick the widow and orphan. He faithfully obeyed the word of God and was crucified, died and was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead. He is seated at the right hand of God from there he will come again.

I believe in the Holy Spirit who empowers us, renews us daily, refreshes our souls, and helps us to share our lives and possessions and reconcile with each other.

Finally, I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. may God bless us to do God's will with humble minds though the church, of which Jesus is the head. Amen.

Korean Christ

For some interesting images of the "Korean Christ," here's and article and images by artist Woonbo Kim Ki-Chang.

Making Friends

I haven't found a lot to write about for this blog lately. What I want is for this to be a space in which I reflect on how God is present, in challenge and in grace, in my sabbatical months in Korea. And yet, although I haven't felt God's absence, I haven't felt a real Presence either. And I've been thinking about why this might be. I know that God is here and working. I know that my lack of an emotional God-experience does not mean that God is not doing something within and around me. But, I've realized that one of the ways that I experience God powerfully is in relationship with other people. One of the great difficulties of not understanding and being able to speak the language of those around me, is the inability to begin any kind of relationship with the people I encounter. Most of my interactions with people involved me paying for something, or having to respond to friendly (or other) approaches with, 'moreogessayo' (I don't understand) and a chagrined shrug.

But, the first morning that I was bustling Naomi out the door to preschool, there was another mom bustling her two kids out the door and onto the elevator. She said, 'hi' and we exchanged pleasantries in English but since we were both bustling, it never went any farther than that. We did the same a few mornings in a row, until on morning I asked her, 'How is it that you have such good English?' and she told me that she was a teacher. She tutors school children in English in her home. The next day I asked if she would be willing to tutor me in Korean. And thus begins our fledgling language-trade friendship.

Rora (her English name) and I have met once for a teacher session. She bought pastries in order to bribe me (her words) to be her friend. Little does she know how much I needed a friend and how grateful I am for the opportunity to learn from and hang out with her. She also invited me to take a paper-folding class with her, a traditional practice which I jumped at. In her I have and will encounter the hospitality, grace and openness of Christ to the stranger.

God does answer prayers on airplanes

The first time I traveled to a foreign country, I was more or less in the position that Naomi is – the child of parents who decided to transplant our family to a new location because of their calling to teach English internationally. This time I’m the parent, and this past weekend, Naomi and I traveled from Seattle to Seoul. Perhaps needless to say I was somewhat anxious about being the sole parent and adult our little traveling party.

I know that many people were praying for us, but I’m ashamed to say that I have not spent much time in prayer or communion with the Divine at all in these past few weeks. There was very little time to relax or think of much of anything on the plane, as I was entertaining Naomi or responding to her millions of questions, observations, and demands. That we would get a visa to enter Korea has never been a certainty. At least, a visa for any considerable length of time. We did not apply for a visa’s as Joe’s dependents so I was counting on our Canadian passports to get us six month tourist visa’s. But we don’t have return tickets and more than once, both by the Korean consulate in Seattle and by the worried looking check-in agent at the Korean Air desk in Seatac Airport, that it’s all up to the customs agent and Koreans don’t like it when you come into the country without a return ticket. Thus, when I was on the plane, and Naomi had finally fallen asleep in the final hours of the flight, my prayer was simple and direct: God, may we go through customs smoothly. I said this on repeat as I watched the miniature plane on the screen in front of me get closer and closer to Incheon on the map.

I thought that if I landed at the airport in the state I was in, and I was asked even one question like, “Do you have a return ticket out of Korea?” (no) or “How long are you planning on staying?” (a year) I would probably start crying. I was lugging a tired and pee-stained preschooler, my bags and hers, and had not slept for about 24 hours. And yet the customs agent barely glanced at us long enough to verify that we were the people in our passport pictures. A quick stamp and a scribbled ‘6 mos’ and we were through the doors and waiting for Joe.

Five or six months from now, when Joe and I and Naomi are returning from our yet unplanned vacation through Asia, I hope God is listening again!