Lead, Kindly Light

It’s a quiet, lazy Memorial Day afternoon.  

I woke up around 10am, then lounged around in bed reading Samuel G. Freedman’s “Small Victories,” a third-person memoir of a teacher’s struggles to fight for her students’ futures in New York City’s blighted Lower East Side in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I whiled away a couple hours, engrossed in the stories spun and woven in the paperback’s aged and ruffled pages.  It has been a long time since I’ve been able to read through, in a single day, 125 pages of something unrelated to work.  It’s a good feeling.

After munching on some Chicken-in-a-Biskit crackers (savory munchies reminiscent from my childhood), I went out for a walk along the river to the track as Rascal and our friend ran to the track to clock in a few laps in the summer sun.  Then we came back and Rascal made heavenly omelets with onions, tomatoes, avocadoes, garlic, and ham, and I made Belgian waffles.  We topped it off with berry-pineapple smoothies and freshly-cut watermelon before settling into a quiet afternoon lazing around in the living room.

And so it goes… this is the life of a homebody professional who happens to have a long weekend off.  It is, in many ways, the life I have often longed for: quiet, peaceful, steady, predictable, humble.  I take great joy in sitting on a blue beanbag, leaning against an open window, with the sun streaming onto my shoulders and hands.  I live so much of my life in a big blur, in a hurried rush to get from point A to point B to point C, to sleep, so that I can get up in the morning and get to point A once again.  This weekend is a chance to truly rest and relax and just be.  In many ways, I think this is how my life was meant to be lived.

But somewhere inside, I feel a silent nagging.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s because I feel a little guilty for enjoying myself, since I’m not really serving anyone through this lazy afternoon.  Along those lines, maybe it’s because I fear that I’m sinking into a suburban mindset that basks in its own comforts without concern for the suffering in worlds not-so-far from here.  Maybe it’s because I feel nervous that days like this will be few and far between, and that the calm–however tinged with ambivalence–I feel today won’t revisit for a long while.  

Or maybe it’s a little of everything.

In less than ten weeks’ time, things are going to change.

It’s a little funny.  Right now, merely four miles separate us.  Still, it takes an hour to get from Point A to Point B, because of a pesky river and the width of this small-but-congested island.  In ten weeks, Point B will relocate itself to a point 215 miles away.  That’s 50 times further away — but it will take somewhere between 4 and 6 hours to travel between Points A and B.  50 times further, but the trip is only 4-6 times longer.  It doesn’t seem so bad.

But it’s not just distance.  Other things will change.  Weekday dinners, for instance, will cease to exist for thirteen months.  Every other weekend visit will be erased from the calendar.  And the ones that remain will be truncated significantly.  The phone and webcam will substitute for actual presence.  The number of shared experiences will decrease. And all the while, a whole new world will open up in Point B, filled with new people, new duties, new surroundings.

People ask how I feel about this.  To be honest, I’m not really sure.  It makes me a little sad.  It makes me a little nervous.  But I know it’s not throwing me into a panic.  And that surprises me.

Usually, I like knowing what’s going to happen to me.  Somewhere in this otherwise-calm exterior lives a little cartoonish-looking character who has a nagging habit of jumping up and down while banging a wooden spoon on a pot.  She yells and screams for attention, all at once begging and demanding to be informed.  WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? she yells.  WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?  She causes such a ruckus and stirs me so much within that I often give in to her urgent cries and join in her noisy fray.  And I become her.

But curiously, she’s quiet these days.  Maybe she got tired the last time around, from all that screeching that caused me a couple weeks of misery.  Or maybe she learned her lesson.  In either case, she’s sleeping like a heavily-sedated patient in a hospital.  Because not only is she sleeping, she’s resting.  And yes, there is a difference.

One can sleep without resting.  Sleep can be induced by the exhaustion caused by unending worry and anxiety.  Resting, though, involves relinquishment and giving things up so that one can be actively inactive.  Sleep alone is merely collapse.  Resting requires trust and faith in the midst of uncertainty.

The character inside is resting, and so am I — at least for the time being.  I don’t know what the future holds.  Things may not work out.  The 215 miles for 390 days may prove too great a burden for us to bear and too lengthy a challenge for us to survive.  If that’s the case, that will be sad.  It will be disappointing.  It will even be depressing.  But.  There’s one thing it will never be.  It won’t be a matter of chance.  It will be a matter of God.  And because of that, whatever “it” turns out to be will be okay.

Our lives are long strings comprised of 24-hour segments called todays.  One day is followed by the next, and the next, and the next – and the days keep marching along steadily until all of a sudden, you wake up one day and marvel at how much your life has progressed and the degree to which your circumstances have changed since you last paused long enough to ponder.

Sometimes, when I’m about to fall asleep, my leg twitches.  And these days, at random intervals, my memory twitches without warning, instigated only by a smell, a sight, or a sound.  Unlike the physical twitches, which last for but a brief moment and are inevitably followed by peaceful slumber, these mental twitches trigger a paralyzing response and transport me back to specific moments in the annals of my memory.

Earlier this week, as I walked to the gym, I suddenly thought of the Michelina’s microwave dinners we used to keep stocked in our freezer at home.  I remember the flat fettucini noodles sprinkled with specks of parsley, with a frozen mound of white alfredo sauce.  Nuking that flat box for four minutes produced a warm, semi-creamy/gooey pile of noodles, a 280-calorie snack to tide me over til dinner.  Or, more accurately, a 280-calorie snack to tide me over til my parents came home.  This had nothing to do with hunger.

Now over a decade later, I know what was really going on back then.  I didn’t eat because I had a physical need.  I ate to fill an emotional gap.  Food was my friend, my activity to soothe my emotionally-unfulfilled needs.  I was lonely as a child, without close and dependable friends, and although I always had steady love from my parents, my need for more attention was insatiable.  Getting perfect grades and filling my life with extracurricular activities did not fulfill me either, so I turned to something to which I always had ready access: food.

The habits started really early on — back to those summers as an eight-year-old left at home with my brother as our brave and diligent immigrant parents worked to make a way for our family.  I froze 7-up soda in a cup at 10am, and scraped the ice off as I watched afternoon television around 4pm.  That soda went really well with the daily installation of “Salute Your Shorts.”  Other times, I snacked on the little bags of Doritos or Cheetos that Mom bought at the grocery store for 25 cents each.  Whenever I got bored, or more likely lonely, I would go to the freezer, cupboards, or refrigerator to find something to fill my emotional needs.  Of course I was mismatching and confusing my needs with my wants with my solutions.  But I didn’t know it back then.  I was just self-medicating.

I’ve thought about these things many times during the last few years, when I finally came to understand that aspect of my childhood.  After years of talk therapy, the habits that influence my sometimes-irrational behavior as an adult began to make a lot more sense.  Understanding that was the beginning of a long road of healing for me.  That road has also brought me to and through a number of important milestones: learning more self-acceptance and self-awareness; developing close and lasting friendships; understanding my parents and their countless self-sacrifices for the sake of our family; acknowledging God’s acceptance and love for me as His creation and child; and finally overcoming (for the most part) my eating and food issues.

Even though my mind is very familiar with the rough terrain of loneliness and the means by which my younger self chose to ride over that terrain, it still jars me when I think about it now.  I lookat my younger self with a mix of pity, sorrow, and relief.  Pity, because I’m sorry that was my experience.  Sorrow, because of the lost opportunity for joy during those days.  And finally, relief, because I’m not that person anymore.

Except that I am.  The younger self grew up in one sense, and also grew up in the other sense.  But she’s still here somewhere — just because she grew doesn’t mean that she disappeared.  And sometimes even now I fall back into the same bad habits, the same insecurities, the same loneliness, and the same poor solutions.  On the whole, I’m doing better — much better.  But I’d be in denial if I tried to convince myself or anyone else that I’m completely past my past.

Dear God,

Did You see me when I packed up my bag
and walked twenty-one streets back home
Gazing blankly into people-filled space?
Going through the motions of an automaton
Not even trying to beat the yellow lights
Just shaking my head every once in a while —
Did you see me? Were You here?

Did You hear me when I finally got home
And I screamed into the long hall
To no one in particular —
just screamed in a voice so raw
and surprisingly loud
that I scared even myself for just a moment–
Did You hear me? Were You here?

Did You feel the couch pillows shudder
When I pitifully punched with all my might…
(the little might I have)
And did You feel the trip of metal against Your feet
When I threw that humble little office supply
to the ground over and over just to hear it clang?
It was the only thing that wouldn’t break.
Did You feel it? Were You here?

Did You hear me when I prayed
Day after day, hour after hour?
And did You hear me when I half-prayed
because I couldn’t feel Your presence anymore?

Where are You?
I know somewhere You are here…

But I wish I could see
I wish I could hear
I wish I could feel
You near.

I must remember —

Pray with my hands open

Not with them folded,

Not holding on to my will.

Not facing down,

Not closed to what may come.

But palms open to heaven,

Ready to let go,

Ready to receive.

The Lord giveth

and the Lord taketh away

In times of plenty

In times of want

In times of love

In times of doubt

In times of much uncertainty

His name shall still be praised.

The Lord is good,

His love never fails.

He is slow to anger,

Abounding in love.

He gives good gifts–

do I trust enough to receive?

He takes charge of our days–

do I have faith to believe?

With loose hands I come

Bearing a weighty heart

I take all my cares

my doubts

my fears

my hopes

and hold them out

in my loose hands —

And trust You will take them

out of my hands

and replace them

with Yours.

Some people have camcorder memory. Their minds tape everything that happens to them, but only in low-resolution. My memory is more like an SLR camera, because it’s selective, generally takes only snapshots–sometimes of seemingly random things, and the moments that are captured are more likely to be vivid than not.

So once in a while, at random and unpredictable moments in the day, I catch glimpses of my past in my mind’s eye. Sometimes the memories are provoked by environmental cues. The smell of cigarette smoke on a hot day could evoke my few but memorable trips to Asia. An arctic blast of snowy wind against my face on a grey and dark morning might suddenly bring to mind countless treks to the bus stop as a child experiencing a perennially harsh winter. Arrhythmic chirping amid the white noise of rustling Cottonwood leaves can elicit memories of hot summer days when a bright ball of blazing sun filled the sky with its radiant heat and made us extra-grateful for ice-cold watermelon chunks and the pool of sugary pink soup at the bottom of the bowl. I like these types of memories; they remind me of home and people I love.

Other times, my memory pulls up the dregs — the muddy, dreary dregs. These often involve self-imposed exile and hiding in small spaces… tissues…  hugging stuffed animals and looking into their sewn-on eyes and reassuring smiles, and imagining their comfort or understanding… curling up into a ball to pray and cry… and sleeping. Some people drink away their sorrows; some people get high; still others abuse their children; me, I sleep.

Recently I’ve been thinking about these memory flashes in greater depth. There are certainly phases in my life that I generally categorize as “fun/good,” other phases that I would label as “not-so-fun/good,” and still others that belong in the “let’s try to forget it happened” category. On the whole, my life keeps improving during each year that I live — I rather like the trend, as it gives me more and more to look forward to the older I get. But it’s sad in a way, too, because sometimes I look back and I say to myself, “Thank goodness I’m not there anymore.”

Sometimes the tone of the memory doesn’t match the phase (as I’ve come to categorize it) though, and that’s a little confusing. It’s like this — I’ll walk down the street and suddenly something will set off one of my fond and sentimental memories. Ahhh, I sigh with satisfaction to myself, remembering. Wasn’t that nice way back when — don’t I miss that. When I snap out of the momentary reverie, though, I find myself slightly puzzled, because such a happy memory came from a not-so-good timeframe.

I don’t write this because I have any serious point to make; I’m really just rambling by now. But I do wonder which memories will stick out from this phase of life — my first couple months in New York. Will the happy ones prevail (and there have been many), or will the work hours win out (and there have been many), or will the angst-ridden moments of concern for my health situation dominate (there have not been so many, but the few were very compelling)? Who knows.

In the meantime, here’s to my SLR memory, still snapping away.

Lord, I know it’s been a while

and it’s time my soul is grumbling

Telling me it’s been feeling empty

And it’s tired of mindless fumbling

Day by day I see You, God,

I pass you on the street

I see Your hand in all creation

In the faces of every one I meet

But my gaze has grown too casual

Sometimes I see straight through

Or I walk right past Your message, Lord,

I need a closer walk with You

My soul is hungry for thirsting, God

It wants to seek You first

It wants to know its only hope

Is in You

Fill my soul with longing for You

Make it seek You every hour

Create desire to walk alongside

And move only through Your love and power.

…begins with but a single step.

I just got off the phone with Mom an hour ago; it’s really good to have her back in the States. While I was in the thick of the cardiology stuff, she was overseas, and there were many moments when I just wished I could hear her voice on the other side of the phone line. Of all the people in this world, my relationship with my mom is one of the strongest. She knows me inside and out, she understands almost everything about me, and she has unconditionally loved and freely provided for me in physical, intellectual, and emotional ways for my entire life. I owe so much to my mommy.

One of the awesome things about Mom is that she knows the right questions to ask. She expressed her concern this evening about whether I’ve thought of any strategies for dealing with the stress at work that has caused my recent heart problems, and what my future plans are. Only Mom knows when to ask these things, and how.

My answer is that I actually don’t know what is the right thing to do. When I think about my options – as well as the potential sacrifices and the possible opportunities that accompany each option – I am left with no more clarity than when I began. But while I am concerned and admittedly preoccupied with these questions, I can safely say that I have not yet succumbed to overwhelming worry, because in a strange way, I feel like I’ve been here before.

I’ve been at the place of seeing my dreams seemingly evaporate into impossibility. Seven years ago, I walked down State Street and wiped the tears rolling down my cheeks because for the first time, I had reason to believe that I might not have a chance to become a lawyer. Circumstances beyond my control led me to that conclusion, and it was devastating. In the weeks and months that followed, I kept working in the general direction of law, while exploring other options and keeping them open just in case. And slowly over the next years, God untangled the problems, lifted the burdens, and cleared a path for me – one that led me all the way to Harvard Law School and beyond.

I have seen God deliver me (in this respect, and in a big way) at least once before. So this time it’s less scary, because I have the faith and confidence that I gained from the last time around. What I learned through my past experience is that God’s plans are bigger than ours; His foresight is infinitely greater; His wisdom is so much deeper; and His glory is most evident when all the usual distractions that charm and entice us are removed and we see that they are as reliable as gales of wind that appear powerful, but are here today and gone tomorrow. Only God and His vast love remain. And that’s what I’m banking on in the current crossroads.

So here I am, again confronted with a serious health issue, and not sure of what it means for the future of my career and of my life. What do I do? Well, sometimes I think hard about it, and it gives me a headache. Sometimes I swat away the questions and leave them for another day. But for the most part, I am walking in the general direction of where I still believe I’m called to work. At the same time, I’m looking into backup plans. And most of all, I’m praying for God to guide, and trying to trust and have faith that He will get me to where He needs me to be…

I just need to keep walking step by step. The little steps that I take every day will turn into feet and miles over the years, and one day – I hope to pause mid-step on the road that I’m taking, look back behind me, and see that all the twists and turns made sense in the end. And then, as now, and as in all the moments in between, I plan to give thanks to God for this life.

I just got back from the cardiologist’s office.

On Sunday, my heart started doing funny things — it’s not pain, but it’s definitely pressure, or abrupt movements interrupting the usual slow and steady pattern. These sensations just aren’t natural. It’s weird; our bodies are built so that when the heart is functioning well, we’re not supposed to notice that it’s there. It just does its job, and if we don’t notice it – that means everything is okay. It’s one of our most important organs, but it’s designed to go unappreciated.

The cardiologist ran an EKG and did not like what he saw; he said that someone my age should not have an EKG reading that looked like that. He also drew seven (SEVEN!!!) tubes of blood for further testing, and suggested that I check into a hospital tonight so he could run an echo and other tests. In the end, we decided that another office visit tomorrow would be better, so that’s what I’m doing, and hopefully we’ll know more twenty-four hours from now.

In the meantime, I feel oddly fragile. I feel like God is reminding me that all life belongs to Him, nothing is for certain except that which He commands, and we don’t set the courses for our own lives. Young people tend to feel like they’re going to live forever, that their health and vigor will last well into the horizon that is oh-so-far-away… I feel like that wind has been momentarily been taken out of my sails, because apparently, some cardiologist thinks that my heart’s condition deserves great concern at this moment in time.

* * *

Part of me — I think most of me — is fearful right now, but knows deep down at some point beyond the layer of fear, that things will be okay. God has plans for my life, and He wouldn’t have brought me this far, only to let me tumble… would He?

… Or would He? This is a good opportunity for me to test my beliefs in a sovereign God. Like many other people, I have trouble reconciling the suffering in this world — but mostly my ending point of analysis becomes simply that God is God and I am not, and His ways are bigger than mine, and He in all His infinite wisdom, love, and might has a much better and holier picture of the world than I do. So who am I to question Him, when all I am able to see with my human mind and eyes in this vast universe is my little smidgen of a corner?

Applying that view to my situation, it’s harder to swallow. I guess things like that are more difficult to accept when they become personal … but that is the test of true belief. And I think… I think I can still say, that even if God never let His plans for me materialize for whatever reason — I wouldn’t like it, but I would still believe that He had some greater purpose, and I think I would still try to trust that when I got to heaven, I would look back and it would utterly defy logic, but up there, from that view, it would make total sense.

All at once it feels like it’s been forever, and I kind of wonder what life was really like for so many years before we met. And at the same time, mentally I know only two months have gone by since he first saw me on the subway, not knowing that the stranger he was judging (and not in a good way!) was heading to the very same gathering — and would soon become his plus-one — and it seems so strangely fast.

It started with being “lunchable,” and we just celebrated one month with the penguin letter, Lunchables and Mike’s Hard (berry!) Lemonade in a pot, Avenue Q, our Sunday night prayer, clementines in the morning, a re-do of the first date with lunch at Go Go Curry, lots of quality time, dinner at Fresh Basils, and just more of the same things that we’ve been enjoying for the last thirty days. Caring for, learning about, and delighting in each other. Isn’t this how it’s supposed to be?

He has prayed more than once that God would smile at us, as we smile at each other. It’s a beautiful picture – and I trust that it’s true.

At the end of today, he said, “Sounds like the honeymoon phase to me. I hear it sometimes lasts forever. =)”

And in the back of my mind, I heard Jordin Sparks singing, One step at a time, there’s no need to rush / it’s like learning to fly / or falling in love / it’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen / and we find the reasons why / one step at a time…