grace like rain....

(check out the top video on the right while you read)

It’s been a ride of sorts for me and Boo here in DC. And as it’s coming to an end, it made me remember the sweet and bitter…the good and the bad…and all that fell in between.

We said goodbye (for the 1st time, but not the last time) to our best of friends in LA.

Boarded a flight and landed back on the east coast.

We saw a city in fall—monuments and all. Sat under a tree by the Potomac and breathed in the fresh air—full of hope and empty of entitlement or worries.
We got pregnant. Planned to have a baby. Lost our baby. Grieved for our daughter.

We said goodbye to Saehee under that same tree on the Potomac.

We know our little girl will always be remembered.

We wrestled with the reality of life’s losses and rejoiced with the reality of God’s giving in all the plain things and the main things.

And all somewhere in between we found a life here in this place.

We got to witness a Demon Deacon hook up with a boy from Wheaton. And if that boy knows what he’s doing, he’ll put a ring on the Demon Deacon real soon.

We got to see two other couples marry---a historian and his precious bride….a real Georgian and a born church leader.

We got mugged. Yes, mugged at gunpoint. But still enjoyed the quiet solace of time spent together in our cozy apartment sipping wine and staring into one another’s eyes…the solace that can’t be robbed.

We found a church serving this city and we found a community group ready to serve us. This group of people absorbing our lives and embracing us throughout.

We saw acquaintances and co-workers become friends. We saw these friends become lifelong support and love.
We drank whiskey (well, at least I did) and smoked cigars (again, all me) with these friends, laughing and enjoying the blessings.

We ate at Ben’s Chili Bowl, enjoyed Blue Crab in season and picnicked on the Potomac.
We toured Mt. Vernon (as well as every other known monument….multiple times to our pleasure).

We found respite in the tree-covered campus of a seminary….and nostalgia in getaways to our old haunts up northeast in bustling cities.

Along the way I discovered what it means to be free from a family in order to be free to love them…thanks Boo. I discovered what an honest relationship with a Dad can look like over a long talk in the cool Virginia air.

Most of all I discovered what kind of life can be fit into a year---a life of privilege and not of right. One in which I’m given more than I could ever imagine or dream of having and yet one in which I’m given all that God saw fit to give me at the time.

We leave here with more questions than answers. I guess that’s the way it goes. Always reaching and searching for the good stuff. The next place will be good and bad, no doubt. It will fit a life in it and teach us many lessons, no doubt.
But no doubt it can never equal the beauty and the pain of this place—though with Boo by my side I’m sure both can be equally enjoyed.

Amazing grace, indeed…

a poem for Saehee's mommy....

There is a song

and maybe a word

A prayer remembered

a brief time to smile

but anxiety waits like a lion

pacing

pacing more and more

it will rush in

and bring with it it's cold companion

death.

Back to the songs or thought

to stave off the flood of pain

which I can neither enter into or allow

to have

a foothold

Bitter tastes and rancid smells only give a shadow of the painful portrait

we're being drawn into here

Noises of hope pour in fom without

but meet only a wall

deadened by the reality of it all.

You should have been the first-born;

a new hope

an answer from God

and you were, yet you

met that wall

and it deadened you.

But of that day if I could remember

the most salient

the most real

of all

I would remember

this

the struggle for dignity amidst despair

the fight for comfort against chaos

and the beauty of a woman

who became a mother

conquered, overcame, sacrificed

I would remember Love embodied

a story dripping with the sweet

water of grace

a day laced with the glow of

redemption

From romance to love

from love to marriage

from marriage to family

from family to loss

from loss to glory

from glory to beauty

beauty which was from the start always present.

hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go....

sat outside at our neighborhood cafe today sipping a cold iced coffee perfectly made and watched the working men and women of the city schlep off to their cubicles of joy...

and each drink tasted sweeter....

i know God will probably laugh at me by giving me a long, sweaty commute to work in an overcrowded, overpopulated Chinese town very soon (hey, just giving me a J-O-B would be good enough---I'll take the commute as well, I guess).

but for now i'm enjoying the small pieces of a life of leisure that come with being a kept man on a freer schedule. coffee early in the morning before i have to sign on to work, a midday walk through a local park or late night movie on a school night. all my simple ways to breathe in the plain things around me before regret seeps in and taints a good memory....

"i'd like to thank..."

the endless support of our friends across the country and right here in DC....

it's one thing to have friends and quite another to have friends ready to go to prayer for you, to get mad at God for you, to spend long nights over tea listening to you recount your sadness or plan a picnic or drag you to kick around the soccer ball if only to taste some normalcy for a bit.

i heard a preacher once say making friends is like planting seeds which not only sprout beautiful flowers but that plant deep roots...able to support you in times of drought when you never even knew the roots were there.

ok...all right...that preacher was me and that was a thought i had when preparing a sermon on Ecclesiastes 4....

7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.

"For whom am I toiling," he asked,
"and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"

This too is meaningless—a miserable business!
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:
10 If one falls down, his friend can help him up.

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!





it's funny b/c it was another section of Ecclesiastes that originally helped me get through these past few weeks....I remember telling Booyeon that if there was a "time to mourn" then there must consequently be a "time to rejoice"....and that gave me hope...


now my reflection is on my friends---the deep wellspring of joy you have all been for me and Boo. whether it was relentlessly calling us, dropping us a considerate email, sending flowers, stopping by or entertaining us---the measure of comfort you brought is difficult to measure and not worth it to even try.

it's enough to know we have been helped up by our friends when we fell hardest...