As if you haven't already had enough...

So, in case you don't know what's happening here, this is the second installment of the Great Cornish Game Hen, Began Anna. It's a multi-volume set I'm writing for the McCormick Herald student newspaper. It's for fun. It's an adventure. It's not all Bible-thumperish. It's simply a story. A long one. About a couple of friends who take a road trip home. Our friendship still endures as we attempt, now, a year later, to make our way through second year of seminary. More about that later. Let's just say that it isn't for the faint of heart. So here's the second installment. If you like it, keep reading for more. If not, well, that sounds like a personal problem. Enjoy!

          There’s those old saying about home, you know the ones like, “There’s no place like home,” or “home is where the heart is.” My mother told me that I could always come home, except when I couldn’t… Not too sure what that was about. Either way, home at Began Anna’s was just like home. Not like my home, but like a home. You didn’t feel like a stranger, you were always welcome to whatever you needed. After our horrific bowel-churning, Arby’s cursing drive, we were glad to be home. Began Anna’s parents welcomed me like I was their long-lost child, like the prodigal daughter (although I hadn’t done anything wrong). We walked in the door into a cozy, warm living area and kitchen. The TV was on with the fishing channel and Began Anna’s mother, Tori was waiting with cooked salmon, potatoes, veggies, and wine. From this point in, wine becomes important. Pay attention.

            Began Anna’s mother looked just like her, only a few years older and a little taller. Her father instantly lived up to the stories I had heard about his shooting woodchucks out of the kitchen window in the early morning of the fall with a pellet gun. There was one in particular in which Began Anna was in middle school, female rocker mullet and all, and upon walking into the kitchen for her morning breakfast, watched her mother run into the bathroom to escape the sounds of the pellet gun going off as her father shot “the eye out of a woodchuck.” As it seems, apparently Began Anna’s father, BC, decided that the only way to kill this specific woodchuck was to “shoot him in the eye,” according to BC. Well turns out that he didn’t shoot him in the eye, he got him in the ear. Which apparently is just as good. Since I have no experience at shoot woodchucks early in the morning, I cannot speak to this except to say, “Way to go BC.”

                As Began Anna and I sat down to our dinner, we recounted our horrible stomach pangs, which in turn made Began Anna not as hungry. Which is understandable. Nonetheless, we began to eat. Tori was especially excited because she had stocked up on the wine. She was becoming somewhat of a wine connoisseur, according to her, and she wanted to make sure we drank wine in style. So she pulled out her first of many bottles of Two-Buck Chuck. Now for those of you who don’t know, Two-Buck Chuck is a cheap, but tasty wine from Trader Joe’s. It’s even cheaper if you buy it by the case, of course Tori did.

                She poured out two glasses for us and I hastily drank mine down. What can I say? Wine settles my stomach. It helped. I even helped Began Anna finish hers. This trip home was getting off on the right pace, and there were baskets everywhere. Baby baskets, medium sized baskets, big baskets to carry all the baby baskets, pictures of baskets (not sure what that one was about), baskets everywhere! Even the wine sat in baskets. I was waiting to be served breakfast in a basket in the morning. Not only was Tori in love with good wine, but she loved the craftsmanship of a good basket. This was a woman of someone’s heart. Not really mine, but someone’s. And I loved her for it.

                After eating and drinking our wine, Began Anna and I were given our bedrooms. Began Anna slept in her old bedroom, which consisted of a dresser and an air mattress, as her old bed was now in her parent’s vacay “house” in Florida. I was sent downstairs into something like the Red Room from the movie Jayne Eyre, only it was a bright and sunny yellow. The bed was a beautiful looking bed, but not so much a beautiful feeling bed. Mainly it was hard. Now I like a good firm mattress, but this felt more like sleeping on the deck of a very warm ship. Now, in my defense I did try to sleep in this bed, but it wasn’t working very well. Earlier, before bed, Began Anna had offered to let me sleep with her in her air mattress. Well, I was about to take her up on it. Tired for sleep and longing for a soft bed, I made my way from the downstairs area up to Began Anna’s bedroom. I’m not really sure what happened next, but for some reason I decided to stand over Began Anna’s bed before waking her up. But I woke her up, just not the way she would have liked. She rolled over to find a shadowy person standing over the foot of her bed. With fright she almost leapt out of the mattress. At that point I figured she was awake enough so I would go ahead and get in. The mattress wasn’t really soft, but it was squishy. It was sort of like sleeping in one of those bouncy things that kids get into and jump around in. We slept soundly, well atleast I did, while Began Anna attempted to breathe softly and refrain her movements so as not to bounce me out of the bed. Now, in case you haven’t understood this, Began Anna is half the size of me. She couldn’t bounce me out of anything unless she used a jackhammer. Well, maybe if she tried hard enough…

                We woke from our slumber the next morning, and on to our next adventure. The eye doctor.

It's the Great Cornish Game Hen, Began Anna

*The names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved in the events mentioned.

                Thanksgiving is a special time in my life. It was the only time once a year, that we as a family got to sit at the dining room table my mother had saved up for 6 years to buy. We pulled out the clunky blue and grayish colored dinnerware that we only used once a year, and the giant dark-blue gothic glasses to drink out of that we only used once a year, and my Great-Aunt Winda’s silverware set that we were afraid to eat off of because it had weird tarnish stains all over it. Dad would place the frozen turkey into the tub of mine and my sister’s bathroom to thaw. It would float around, bobbing back and forth while our weiner dog, Brownie, assessed how to best acquire the massive, floating bird for the morning. He only succeeded once.

                We always ate the same thing, every year. The same drinks, the same meal, the same desserts. That’s how my family was. We remembered things by smells and tastes. We remembered things because of the food.

                Well, this story isn’t memorable because of the food (well partially so), but it’s more memorable because of how it went down. The following events really happened. Some of it might have been exaggerated, but you won’t know which was and which wasn’t. So, in other words, it’s a sorta-true story, but most of it actually happened. It’s just told through my point of view.

                As we all know, in seminary, money is tight. Really tight. I mean Fred Mertz tight. (If you don’t know who he is, shame on you. Look it up.) Not only was my first semester of seminary tight on money, but I also didn’t have a car and I had to learn how to walk in snow. (You use muscles you didn’t know existed! Seriously!) Since I didn’t have a car to get home to the glorious state of Georgia to see the fall colors and to eat my mother’s pie and watch the floating turkey and sit at the dining room table, I had to make alternate plans for my first Thanksgiving as a seminarian. There is a community meal that many students attend, but I was lucky enough to have been invited by a friend, we’ll call her Began Anna (you don’t say it like “began” as in the beginning of something, but more like you would say “bacon”).  Began Anna and I had become great friends that first semester.  We became close, and often times we mistaken for sisters on the L.

                Began Anna knew of my sadness in not being able to go home to Georgia so she invited me to her family home in Albert Lea, Minnesota for a home-cooked Thanksgiving with her parents. I was delighted. Why not? I got dog sitters for the week and we planned out our mega-adventure. The week of Thanksgiving came faster than we anticipated, and we piled in her chariot of a car. I don’t think the trunk opened, but we got our things into the back seat of the car and made out for the north on a Monday morning.

                We had about a 6 hour car ride ahead of us, so we decided to make the best of it. We talked about classes, what our Christmas plans were, churches we visited, and just general merriment. Now, what happened next, some might call a movement of the Holy Spirit, but the rest of us would call it just plain stupidity. About 2 and a ½ hours into the drive, Began Anna and I found ourselves driving into an Arby’s parking lot. We were among Cracker Barrels, Wendy’s, Burger King, McDonalds, and a few other food places. But somehow we were at Arby’s. What led to this is still a file in the Unsolved Mysteries pile that even Robert Stack wouldn’t know what to do with. (Again, if you don’t know who this is, you make bunnies cry. Look it up.) Either way, we found ourselves walking into the Arby’s. It was a gross and grey day outside, and it was also cold. So we walked inside all bundled up, not to the Cracker Barrel where we could sit by the fire and warm ourselves with a hot meal cooked on a griddle, but into an Arby’s. Began Anna ordered mozzarella sticks and a diet coke. I ordered fries, a dr. pepper, and some sort of roast beef sandwich.

First off, why did I buy a roast beef sandwich?! It’s sliced meat. And as is common knowledge (or should be), I do not eat sliced meat. It’s gross. It’s not natural. Second, it was smothered in the Arby’s sauce, which I personally find repulsive. Third, it was also smothered in a cheese-like-sauce that one can only describe as something that one should only ever eat at a county fair in Iowa with stale chips and only after several Milwaukie’s Best. I do not remember being sick or being possessed (but that could be the case, I suppose), but I ate. I ate about half of the sandwich, most of my fries and a few sips of my drink before I began to wonder what in the h-e-double hockey sticks I was doing.

Began Anna and I threw away most of our food upon remembering our disgust of the fast food, except for the drinks after discussing the bearded man sitting a few tables over from us. I don’t remember why we talked about him, but I am sure that it was something entertaining. 

We returned to our golden chariot (actually it was white), and we began to continue to drive north. About 20 minutes later, Arby’s came back to visit. Began Anna and I began to feel sick. Now for those of you who don’t know, anytime Began Anna isn’t feeling good, she lets you know it. So I was immediately made aware of the discomfort in her bowels that matched mine. With moaning and tears we made our way to the first gas station we could find. It was a nice, clean and spacious traveler’s stop. Anyone would find it a fine place to rest and put gas in their car. We pulled in and made our way to the bathroom.

After a few minutes of agony, I felt much better, so I proceeded to wash my hands and exit the bathroom. Began Anna on the other hand wasn’t doing as well. It appears the mozzarella sticks were not sitting well with her. Which makes sense, I mean, its fried cheese. And since it came from Arby’s, it was probably fried cheese-like substance that was on my sandwich. She should have had a Milwaukie’s Best before-hand. I walked out into the store and I was astonished that they would sell liquor in a truck stop. Talk about bad ideas! I mean, really. Let’s just give people handheld little bottles of liquor to drink as they drive down the road. Someone’s a genius.

While I was reveling the in emotional turmoil of discovering liquor in a gas station, Began Anna was not doing as well back in the bathroom. After about 5 minutes, I could not find my pint-sized friend among the isles, so I went back into the bathroom to see if she needed help. She did.

Imagine a small animal waking up from anesthesia after surgery. It still has tubes in its mouth and its groggy and scared. Well that’s the equivalent of poor Began Anna’s suffering in that handicapped bathroom stall on that cold November day.  She cried out to me, “It hurts. Make it stop.”

Just then a middle-aged woman walked out of her bathroom stall to glance at me as if to say “go take care of your dying child in there.” That’s not what she said, but she might have been thinking it. “Please make it stop,” the cries came from the stall. “I wish I could help,” was the best I could do. “Just keep trying to relax.” I waited by the sinks in the bathroom for a few minutes as poor Began Anna moaned and sweated through her agony.

“Did you know that they sell liquor in here?” I asked Began Anna.

“Well, duh. It’s a store; of course they sell that here. Have you never seen that?” Began Anna replied.

“No. You can only get liquor from a package store back home.”

“What’s a package store?” Began Anna asked.

“Like a liquor store, only called a package store because you drink out of the bottle in a brown paper bag.” I answered.

“I doubt it’s because of that.” Began Anna replied.

“Well, do you have any better suggestions?” I asked.

“No. But I wish my bum would stop hurting."

“Do you want me to get you some thing?” I asked.

“Like what?” Began Anna asked.

“You know, like maybe something like some Imodium AD.”

“Ok. Will that stop the hurting?”

“I don’t know but it might help.” I suggested.

“Ok.”

So I went to comb the shelves for some Imodium AD tablets. None. What kind of store was this?! So I had to return to Began Anna with sad news. “They don’t have any. What do you want me to do?”

“I think I’ll be okay for a while.” Just then I heard the toilet flush and Began Anna emerged from the bathroom tired, worn out and still in pain. She washed her hands and we were back into the car. Until the next gas station… Stay tuned for next week’s installment of It’s the Great Cornish Game Hen, Began Anna.

Home is not here anymore...

After waking up from what feels like a nap that is making up for the past 8 weeks, I am ready to go home. Home as in Kimbark Street where things are quiet, the apartment is small and the local produce store is just 2 blocks away. The humidity exists only in my mind there and the breeze is always a guarantee. Cable doesn't exist in my apartment, but the NES is always on and ready to play. There's no stereo system but the record player always had a new needle in it to listen to the likes of John Denver, Jim Croce, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the man who wrote "Peace Train," Yusuf Islam, or as many of you know him, Cat Stevens.

Yes, I'm ready to go home. Ready to go back to my life of books, really strong coffee, community meals, Chicago Public Transit, Lake Michigan,even snow; and ready to go back to being myself.

Now, that's not to say that I'm not myself when I'm in Atlanta. I mean, Atlanta and I have a very special bond with each other. I've lived in Atlanta my entire life, up until I moved to Chicago. Atlanta has my favorite food (they even have a Jimmy John's here now!), the churches that support me, my best friends and the places that hold memories for me like in Carrollton at the coffee shop I used to work at. But I am ready to go back to being who I am now, not who I was. As much as I love Atlanta, I'm not the same person here I used to be, and that's a problem. I'm adapted to Chicago now, I've begun to make my life there, and I like that. I like being there because I have nothing to hide. I am exactly who I want to be; the person I've been trying to be my entire life. Maybe seminary got me there, I don't know. I think Deb Mullen had something to do with that...

The summer was wonderful, please don't think it wasn't. I experienced new people, new places within Atlanta, and learned that I could do more than I ever thought I could. I consider the summer a success. I didn't always mesh with the people I worked with but I learned a lot and made it through. Here's to another summer...

When I'm in Chicago I'm with people that know me for me. They know the hard things I don't want people to know, they know the things that I want people to know that most don't ever get to see, they walk my dogs and drop in for visits and some Mario; I not only am ready to go back to Chicago, I'm ready to go home to the people.

Drop Your Theology Down the Toilet and Listen to the Water Swirl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uOhD67028I

Fox News vs. Mr. Rogers

Dear Fox News,

I recently saw your broadcast about Mr. Rogers.

My response to this is: you're wrong, as usual.

What's wrong with being special? Isn't that the message we're given from God? We're special simply because we are God's children and God created us. We're not special because we're better than someone else, we're special because we were made that way. End of story.

Why are you so worried about people thinking that just because they're special they are entitled to everything, or that these C's or B's they make aren't any good. First, people think they are entitled to everything because they're selfish. I know, what a shock! We're human, we think of ourselves. Why do you think that there are divorces, or robberies, or other crazy things? You could try and blame it on Mr. Rogers, but that just seems absurd. I don't every remember the king or any of the other puppets telling me that it was okay to "pop a cap in someone" because I felt like I was special and they weren't. Look at Scientology, it's all about the self, forget community. Is that what you're asking of us Fox? Scientology? Wow, you've really gone off the deep end.

Second, sometimes a C or a B is an okay grade. Everyone learns differently. Everyone has different strengths. If everyone made A's on everything, where would special fields in jobs be? Where would special scholarships be? Where would the diversity be? So, not only are you calling for us to be more individualistic and less community oriented, but you're also calling for us to think exactly the same... Make up your mind ladies and gentlemen.

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Seminary Student

Faith Statement

            I believe in one God, who is the parent to all of humanity and nature. God created humans in God’s own image, to be in relationship with God. God is neither male nor female but humans were created as such as a reflection of God. God created the world and universe out of nothing, called it good and because of this all of God’s creations are good and God is infinitely powerful. I believe that God is present in the suffering of humanity, not as the oppressor, but as the comforter to those that suffer at the hands of others and at the hands of evil. God is one of the three in the Holy Trinity.

           I believe in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God; fully human and fully divine at the same time. I believe that Christ is the direct link between humans and God for salvation through Christ’s death on the cross, his descent into hell, and his resurrection. Christ gives salvation for men and women, equally. I believe that in his life and in his death, Christ stands for the oppressed, sick and mistreated by humanity and at the same time, stands for the oppressors of humanity because Christ does not offer redemption to just a select few, but to all of God’s creation. Christ is one of three in the Holy Trinity.

            I believe in the Holy Spirit, which is the breath of God that moves among humans, empowers humans to act and to do God’s work, is what holds the community of believers together along with God and Christ, and challenges humans daily through the mysteriousness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one of three in the Holy Trinity.

            I believe that the church is the body of believers, which represents the body of Christ in community. I believe that the church is life-giving and supports those that are outcasts and sick and living on the margins of humanity.

            I believe Scripture to be the divinely inspired word of God and a revelation from God as to how humans should live in relationship with God and in relationship with one another.

            Through worship, humans rejoice in God, Christ and the Holy Spirit and are in communion with the Holy Trinity and with each other.

            We partake in the Eucharist as an outward physical sign of Christ’s death, resurrection, and overcoming of evil in our world. By partaking in the Eucharist, we proclaim Jesus Christ as God’s Son, humanity’s Savior and humanity’s Redeemer.

            Baptism is a symbol that humanity uses to claim us as God’s children and is an outward sign of our claim on every Child of God, into the community of believers. I believe in infant baptism as well as believer’s baptism; both forms represent God’s claim over humans and God’s Children. Through baptism, our sins are washed away and we are made new through God’s abundant and infinite grace.

            I believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ and that it has yet to be fulfilled. At that time, we will be reunited with Christ, to live an eternal life with God.

~Spring 2010

Padded Seats

Have you ever sat in a classroom or in a lecture and felt the urge? You know the one; the one my grandmother still refers to as "breaking wind." We all have had that moment at one time or another, some of us more than others. Maybe it depends on the day, maybe it's a usual thing for you. What do you do? I once had a family friend tell me that if you are sitting in a padded chair, "just let it out." Theoretically, the padding of the chair should absorb the sound and hopefully the smell. I'm not going to lie, it's worked for me. It can be a lifesaver if you have the urge, can't hold it in and/or might be in a situation where it is more than inappropriate. I don't ever take the padding of my chair seriously or appreciate it until it's not there.

This is exactly what we do in everyday life, we take things for granted until they are not there. Taking things for granted is one of the most basic human errors, I think. We don't appreciate people until they're gone or until something spurs us on to miss them, and many times, it's too late. We take our own lives for granted. It's just so easy!

I take my fortunes for granted every day. I try not to, but again, it's natural human error. Whether we're programmed that way or not, we do it. Recently our housing costs were raised more than 11% by our school. Needless to say, the students (I being one of them), were outraged. But this was all put into perspective by three other students that live in my building; Wonduk, Nayoung, and Ji-Tae. They found themselves in my apartment explaining their fears to me about this rent increase. As American students, we can take out additional loans to help us pay for our school, but these students cannot do such a thing. Being from Korea, they cannot take out loans from our government. They and their families that are over here working on their degrees, learning in a new language, are supported by other families in their churches back in Korea. They depend on these other people to help them in their education and in their ministries.

A rent increase of 11% is huge for these students. First, they have to ask for these funds from families back home who do not have much to begin with. Second, their money is worth far less than ours, less than half of what our American dollar is worth. So, for them, this isn't just about $100 extra a month, it's several hundred for them.

All this being said, I can't take what I have for granted. I'm not happy to pay more money in such a tough economy, but who is? In the end, it's only money. Only cotton and paper and fibers, dyed green to represent what someone has. I don't have more than $15 in my bank account at the moment, but I have so much more than many who have thousands of dollars in their accounts.