Katie & Me

(WARNING A MOVIE SPOILER!)

OK. In this tweeting rising and blogging declining time,
I decided to write a blog entry (at least try) every week.

Finally, I watched “Marley & Me.”  It was much talked about by the Kim family and one of the siblings (Becky/John/Angel/Joe) told me that my senior pastor cried watching the movie (he LOVES animals), so I figured that it would be a good emotional ride.

Overall, I was glad to finally understand the bond between man and his canine that seemed so foreign to me.

And through out the entire movie, I just couldn’t help but to think about the pup that I had for 24 hours during my 1st year of seminary. It was a Shiba Inu and I named her “Katie.”  YG kids told me that you shouldn’t name a dog’s name that sounded like a real person’s name but I decided to give her that name anyhow – named after my favorite actress. Isn’t she a good looking pup?

But after interacting with a pup for the first 24 hours, I realized that I have no capacity/time/patience to responsibly raise her, so I returned her to the owner. People say that you will treat your kids like how you treat your pets, so this may not be a good sign for my parental side.  This is something that I will need to work on later, when I get a new dog or a kid (or which one comes first).

Going back to “Marley & Me,” two things that stuck out for me:

1) “Love suffers long.” This is the KJV’s translation of 1 Cor 13:4 “Love is patient” and for this verse, I prefer it. Through out the movie, I loved the patient suffering that the entire family showed to Marley “the world’s worst dog.”   And the last scene was definitely moving, I think the kids learned an invaluable lesson on love – that every relationship comes to its inevitable/temporary end, yet love is still worth giving and receiving.

2) “We all want a good life.” For some reason, I totally identified myself with John G. The main character in the movie might possibly have everything a man would want in his life, yet his eyes were set another life/career of his friend.   This attitude of “My life will be complete with _______________” is so prevalent in my life and our time.   And the movie ends by sharing a few simple thoughts on dog’s attitude:

“A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine.

A dog doesn’t care about whether you’re rich or poor, smart or dumb, you give  him your heart and he will give you his.”

Simple contentment that comes from a simple life.

Unwavering loyalty displayed to the master’s faithfulness.

No wonder so many people prefer to relate with dogs over people.

So True…

Being a newbie to a pastoral ministry,

I love getting advices from the older & wiser pastors.

Here’s one worth listening to:

“People will get mad at you anyway, so you might as well do it right.”

Jester Pastor

Alright. Since it’s a slow Friday, I think it’s a good time for some blogging.

Yesterday, I was introduced a term “JESTER.”

My co-workers and I were taking an online quiz: “Are you a metro-sexual?”
Don’t ask me how we got into this. But one of the guys, who wears ripped jeans & tshirts to work and answered “I forget to wash behind my ears.”, got a result of “JESTER” for his possibility of being a metro-sexual. But for some reason, he wasn’t happy with his result, so he showed up wearing a nice black shirt (with a white pair of socks) and told us that he spent 11 minutes grooming himself this morning. So we retook the quiz and he ended up with with the same result: “JESTER.” I guess once a jester, you will always be a jester.

This mornig, I get a call from my dad. He sounds pretty excited. He tells me one of the church members is selling a 2004 Honda Pilot for a really really good price.

This news grabs my attention, because I think Pilot’s a decent car and my current car is dying slowly. You gotta understand that I love my accord and I wouldn’t mind driving it until she’s dead. But this past year, I already put in ~ $3K for a new transmission, broken ball bearings, etc and she already has 185K miles. So I don’t know what kind of future financial problems she will grieve me with.

So I was totally willing to jump on this deal. I asked my dad about the Pilot’s spec:
- 4 Wheel Drive – Check!
- Moon Roof – Not bad!
- 36,000 miles – Excellent!
- 19 mpg – So so!
- 8 seater – Yes! Can drive more YG kids around!

Then I asked him what color it was. My dad says red or burgundy.
I couldn’t believe my ears, so I looked it up on the net.

And i guess it is really red. My superficiality kicked in and the color of the Pilot became the deal breaker. I think the next car I get will be with me for another 10 years and I just didn’t want to drive around a mini fire truck.

So I told my dad, “NO.” I give him the real reason and a made up reason that I need a car with a better gas mileage. Then my dad reads me like a book and he tells me that since I am going to be a pastor, I shouldn’t really care about the color of the car.

Yeah. I think dad is right on this one. But I will stick with my accord for now.
But this little incident reveals a bit of story of my past year.

Constantly thinking and struggling about how I am fitting in as a future pastor:
- Am I saying the right things?
- Am I dressing appropriately?
- Am I behaving properly?

I think I was at the both ends of the spectrum: “heck with it!” or “become a slave to high expectations.”
And either way, I ended up feeling and acting like a Jester Pastor. A pretender.

This Sunday, I will be preaching on Philippians 2:12-16 and in these verses, I find my strength & hope.

12 Not that I have already obtained this (KNOWING CHRIST) or am already perfect,
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Paul, probably the guy, who has the most cognitive & personal knowledge of Christ, says that He’s not fully there, so He will press on to know Christ. This “press on” is a hunting language – to “pursue and capture” or “chase and overtake.” So Paul is literally hunting for Christ to make Him his own. This was his life passion and his essence of Christianity. But this pursuit is made possible only because Christ has already made Paul His own. Paul was pursuing Christ, but at the same time, he was already caught by Christ. Trying to know a person, who already fully knows you & loves you – I believe this is a situation you just can’t fail. So we press on.

So, if you see me driving a Red Pilot in the next month. Praise God that I am overcoming my superficiality.
But if you see me driving my old Accord, then Praise God that He still knows and owns me.

Another Post :: Bitter-Sweetness

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A good rule of thumb for launching a new site:

“Make sure to have enough quality content.”

I am not sure if these entries are quality, but since I am deciding to launch my blog site during my finals week, two entries will do for now.

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As I am studying for my last final exam and writing an exegetical paper, I am finding myself with bittersweet emotions.

Did I tell you how much I dislike writing academic papers? Being a 1.5 generation Korean-American, I am bound to love math and science – that’s my way of saying I avoided writing papers. In undergrad at the U of I (majoring in Mechanical Engineering), I wrote a total of 4 papers – one in macro econ, one in micro econ, one in religious studies, and one in my engineering rhet class. Yeah, I realize that writing is not my thing. My proofreaders (Eric & Susan) can totally back me up on that. But even in my inadequacies, I am thankful that I can logically document and articulate all of the great truths that I am learning at Covenant.

This might sound strange to you, but I really don’t want my 1st MDiv year to be over. I don’t want it to end. Sure, I might be getting slightly nostalgic, because things are about to wrap up, but it really was that good.

I am pretty sure that I will dedicate one entry to the top lessons that I learned at Covenant.

Here’s a big one: the Bible comes to us in a narrative format.

God has not given us a book of systematic theology, but His revelations come to us in one big story.

The Bible is a redemptive drama with four parts:

Creation—when everything was as God meant it to be.

Fall—the tragic intrusion of sin and death, resulting in the pervasive brokenness of all people and everything God has made.

Redemption—God’s astonishing promise to redeem his fallen image-bearers and creation through the grace-full work of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Consummation—the magnificent fulfillment of God’s plan to gather and cherish a people forever, and to live with them in a more-than-restored world, called “the new heaven and new earth.”

It might sound too simple, but this redemptive/historical/narrative framework has given me the ability to properly fit all biblical truths I have learned over the years into its proper perspective.

In this Story of God, where Jesus is the main character, each of us is invited to participate in this grand narrative of hope.

What a privilege, what an honor, what a calling this is

So as I am wrapping up my studies, I am all the more thankful for my professors at Covenant Seminary. I really am. Yes, even the one who gave me a C on my term paper to ruin my run at straight A’s for the first semester.

Going off tangent here:
But did you know that the new ESV Study Bible has come out?

It looks pretty amazing. If you order it before May 15th, you can get 35% off. I just ordered one tonight.

Going back to talking about my profs at Covenant Seminary:
If you visit the ESV contributors page, you will recognize all of our wonderful profs: Collins, Chapman, Perry, Aucker, Bayer, Sklar.

But let’s not forget the profs that are not mentioned here: Chapell, Barrs, Agan, Bradley, Dalby, Douglass, Williams. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t trade the past year of education for any other years in my life.

Yeah, enough brown nosing.

Let’s get back to studying for finals.

Hello Blogging World!

Yes. I have officially jumped on the WordPress wagon.

So why leave the Xanga community for a new one?

I am not sure. It seems like you rarely get comments in this blogging community. I am pretty sure that I will miss getting those superficial eProps.

I guess you write to express. That’s the way of POMO.

And I guess you never know who’s reading your blog.
One of my Covenant Seminary profs wrote a blog about Obama’s situation with Pastor Wright. Obama actually posted Anthony’s blog on his website.

Not too shabby. (Where’re my smiley faces at? For now this will do.) =)