Love does not live in a closed mind.

I’ve been attending the occasional Bible study group with my parents. They base their discussions on the videos of a guy named Rob Bell, a young, vibrant pastor who, as far as I can see, has his fingers stuck in the light socket of some truth. I really love what he says… and I love that he doesn’t go overboard with the ‘Jesus is Lord’ praise shtick. I can relate to him.

Last night, the group entered a discussion about the “Bullhorn Christians” – those who stand on street corners spewing hatred, hell, and damnation to all ye who don’t repent and turn to God. Eventually, one member of the group suggested that perhaps Bullhorn Guy’s tactics were off… but shouldn’t we ought to let people know there is a hell… you know, as a service?

By the time he had presented his carefully-considered argument, my heart was beating so fast and so hard, I was almost sure you could SEE it in the movement of my body. When I responded, I could barely control my volume, pitch or tone.

You see… There it was, yet again. The condescension and arrogance. “Well… obviously you don’t know what’s going on here. Maybe I should tell you… and try to lead you in the right direction…”

This attitude pisses me off more than possibly anything else about Christians. I recognize this isn’t all of them (I’ve had a wonderful, ongoing interaction with the church’s current pastor, Patti – we get each other), but many of those I have spoken with seem to have it.

We’re all hypocrites, true enough. But I don’t think most of these “holier-than-thou”s recognize this as hypocritical… and seriously offensive. On the one hand, I admire their solid faith – so solid it is, they can’t fathom any other truth. On the other hand, it’s a closing of mind. And to close one’s mind in such a huge way (essentially proclaiming ignorant and lost most of the world’s peoples) is to make yourself nothing short of a jerk… a jerk for Christ.

What this episode also makes me think about is how frustrating it is to not be understood (and, in turn, be looked upon as a lost, frightened little girl in need of a little Christ in her life). When I really get going… I lose most people – I can see it in the look in their eyes.

I miss and love you, my wonderful friends the world over (whose fingers are definitely stuck in the aforementioned light sockets)… who follow me where I go… and who, in turn, lead me where I want to be. Let’s stargaze and get lost in the wonder of the universe soon.

Frogg Pond Karaoke

Ditolvo, Jaimes, Logan and I spent a night together in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We drank, made merry, and partook in a little Frogg Pond karaoke.

In this recording, you’ll hear the ongoing banter of our crew, Ditolvo’s and my singing (accompanied once by Logan), as well as the singing of a 53-years married couple, Neil Diamond, and one guy who did a heck of a “Come On Eileen.”

(The last song is dedicated to Cathy Justice. We missed her…)

Recovery

After coming back from visiting a friend in NYC, my everything… dipped. My moods were lip-puckeringly sour. My outlook was hopeless. I barely moved for almost two days.

Fortunately, things are brighter now. I reunited with an old friend last Wednesday, and that lifted my spirits tremendously (Check out the interview!). I’ll be reuniting with another old friend in a few hours. Old friends are what I need right now.  Old friends and long walks, fruits and vegetables. And kombucha!

I’m crazy trusting of my intuition. The path I have to walk is quite clear to me… and so right… I’m either “on to something” (as Margaret suggested) or I’m dangerously deluded.

I can’t tell you exactly what I mean. It seems the big, important stuff rarely manifests itself in thought I can make sense of or express. It’s like… a flash of feeling… a flash of insight (thought)… then nothing. My mind continues to make noise. Songs play, fantasies romp, irritations and cynicism arises… but none of that makes any difference to what’s actually happening in my life. Thinking is still great fun for me (and more), but I think I’m finally starting to understand it’s unimportant position in the big picture of my life. My mind whirs, my mouth runs… and in the meantime, I continue to move forward with a sense of purpose. Shannon once said to me, after a particularly spirited session of worried babble (from me), that it seemed to her I knew exactly what I was doing and where I was going. If I stepped out of the stream of constant mind noise and just took a look at my life… I could see that.

I did. And I do.

Just don’t ask me to talk about it.

Childhood Homes

The experience of being home with my parents has gotten much better over the years. If nothing else, I now know what to expect… so when I start slamming my face into the emotional wall, I’m not wondering what the hell is wrong with me THIS TIME.

I hit said wall today… rather hard. It began last night with a sense of loneliness, confusion and sadness, some crying. This carried over into this day, as I realized suddenly why I so often wake up anxious.

When I was a kid, I delivered a morning newspaper for a number of years. Most mornings came rudely, roughly… my mother’s increasing frustration with trying to wake myself and my sister up resulting in her typical nastiness. When I wasn’t waking up for the newspaper job… or school… I was being dragged (literally and figuratively) out of bed at the crack of dawn on a weekend to clean up something.

Evil stepmother. Wicked witch. Bitch, romanticized.

I still have hatred towards my mother. Every so often I have nightmares in which I’m suffering some form of abuse or other… except, of course, I often find my voice… and use it to get at least a slight sense of revenge. Or equality. Rage flows from me in a steady stream, its release profoundly cathartic.

Today I was considering (once again) leaving this place and never again coming back. I often wonder why I do (come back again).

To be fair… my father is not without guilt in the skewed family dynamic. I’m sometimes as angry at him as I am my mother. I hate them both for gifting me with the uglier parts of my nature… parts I fear I can not shed. I’m afraid that I will always be skilled at hurting others. I think this is why I don’t necessarily want a committed relationship… or a family.

Paris – the Audio Diary

Lindsay in Paris, Part I:

Part II, in which Lindsay cries upon seeing the Venus de Milo:   

Part III, in which Lindsay goes to Montmartre:   

Paris, the Finale:

Bonjour, Paris…

Hello, Paris.

I’ve been here for about 6 days. I have walked countless miles, up and down the Seine, into and out of the Latin Quarter, the Marais, Bastille, down Champs-Elysee, through a big cemetery. I’m utterly exhausted and ever-hungry for more more and more. I’m flexing my French muscles, which are surprisingly supple given my complete lack of practice after studying the language for 9 months in college.

I feel full, overflowing. The French excel in culture. I have lived more or less without culture for almost 2 years. As Julia said, Paris is THE perfect antidote to a culture-less existence. I spent about 6 hours wandering the enormous halls of the Louvre today – quite unexpectedly crying at the sight of the Venus de Milo.

I’m happy. Life is again good, right, feeling balanced.

Within the next couple of days I hope to post some audio diaries. Stay tuned…

South Korea – Audio Diary

I haven’t felt like writing as much as talking, lately. In an effort to document somewhat my experience in South Korea, as my time here comes to an end, I spent a day making some recordings.

waking up and walking to work:

at school:

eveningtime:

the other day someone asked me what the rest of my life looked like…. (Sudeshna’s project)

As I’ve become more aware of the world of which I am a part, and the subtle and gross injustices surrounding me, I’ve been emotionally provoked, but never compelled to get involved. I expected, at some point, I’d feel so provoked that I’d just know this was my issue. This was the direction in which I had to move, the cause I should join, the war I should wage.

That hasn’t happened. I can see the future, though it doesn’t present itself to me in specifics or details… photographs or paintings. My big cause or issue may still reveal itself to me somewhere down the line – who knows – but for now, my life is simple. I ignore my own personal will to power and I focus on what’s in front of me. The world benefits from my connection to the planet, each person I meet, my own body and mind. It’s not for me to save the world, but for me to save myself.

Should everyone feel so inclined, and foster such connections, then the world saves itself.

And that… should be what the rest of my life looks like.

So Longs

I leave Korea in one week. If I let the thought hang out for too long… I begin to freak. So I tend to just push it aside. (It looks like that effect you see occasionally in film and television, with the blacking out of the scene from the side… like pulling a curtain across a stage… you know.) It’s hard to sit in my apartment – my worldly possessions, as well as those that aren’t mine and must be moved out, are beckoning me to deal with them. Breathe breathe breathe.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to leave Korea, to go to Paris and London and Brussels and home. But I’m not exactly bouncing off the walls. Perhaps the excitement of leaving so many places and so many self-inflicted upheavals has left me over it. I seek happiness and contentment over excitement. Am I happy to be moving along? Yes.

I went up to Asan this weekend to visit RC and Jackie, meet some new people, enjoy a bonfire that frightened ducks, and get marshmallows on my gloves. I did all of these things AND re-met someone I’d met briefly only once before.

Upon leaving, I left my wallet in Jackie’s place and watched the train I was supposed to be on whisk away without me. At this point (watching said train do said whisking without me on it), I wanted to cry. I felt utterly ridiculous – and, I might add, I’ve missed buses, in a similar fashion, before. Thankfully, an hour or so later, I could laugh about it…

I was pretty emotional for the day, though. I listened to Regina Spektor’s newest album (I now sum up my love for her with: “I’ve got a perfect body, though sometimes I forget/ I’ve got a perfect body, cause my eyelashes catch my sweat/ yes they do, they do-o-o-o-o…”). I listened to some Burial. Outkast snuck in there. Yann Tiersen.

Spending time with the Asan/ Cheonan folks brought back something… In the middle of my first meditation course, in Massachusetts, I was struck by how close I felt to the people I was meditating with. In fact, I’d never felt closer to anyone in my life. I set out to think my way to the bottom of this mystery – How could I be so close to people I’d never spoken to (these nifty courses are conducted in Noble Silence – no communication of any kind, except with course instructors and managers)? In my mind, “getting close” happened with talk. With sharing dreams, fears, ideas, interests. An information exchange, or… the interacting of personalities. I knew and liked someone based on what they told me.

What I learned during that fateful course was that this wasn’t entirely true. Sure, sometimes people tell us things that are intellectually appealing to us. But underneath and behind the sentiments there’s something bigger happening. I suppose this may be what people mean when they refer to the “sharing” of feelings. Literally… we’re sharing feelings. Over the course of that course, I shared myself with my fellow meditators without saying a word. In fact… I shared myself more COMPLETELY than I’d ever shared myself with anyone before. The final night, I stayed up all night with a roommate – we talked like we’d known each other all our lives. And in a very Buddhist or Eckhart Tolle kind of way… we had. The next day, we said our goodbyes and, for the most part, never spoke again (also very Buddhist or Tolle, I’d say).

Relating this to the Cheonan-Asan-wherever-else-they-came-from crew, I feel as though I talked less amongst a group of people than I have in a while. But I felt good, included, loved, comfortable (except for the popsicle feeling in my feet), and relaxed. It’s nice sometimes not having to talk.

Thanks for a great night (and reminder), friends. You’ll be missed (in a strictly Buddhist, Eckhart Tolle kind of way, of course).

What I Might/ Might Not Miss

Might
the kiddos
my “foreigners” (who should know who they are)
kim-chee
sam gyep sal (with sufficient amounts of soju)
dak galbi
soju-fueled skinny dipping in local universitys’ man-made ponds
bulgogi
the overall gentle and amiable Korean nature
the mountains and hiking
diving in the East Sea
the free time
bibimbap
Chana paneer, chai tea, aloo chatt (in particular)
my adult students

awkwardness

Might Not
HEL-LO!!!!!
dodging Koreans
the pervasive despair, hopelessness, purposelessness, helplessness
killer buses
the locals’ overall lack of deeper thought (I’m still amazed that this country is Buddhist.)
the lack of integrity
expat “culture”
the concrete jungle
the gawking
the free time
the whining

elevators

SOJU

To be continued…