Memories rise,
unexpected, unbidden:
haunted, haunting specters
from days before.
Ancient pains recur;
old wounds ache, ooze;
what was, and what was not,
pierces the heart.
Old patterns emerge,
crystallize, gain strength,
seeking to shape behavior
yet again.
Old habits appear,
shatter new resolutions
with ease,
reasserting former ways.
All occur as we
cross the threshold
of once-lived places,
reentering the past.
28 August 2014
Cleveland Heights, OH
Filed under Cleveland Heights, Poem
The facade cracks,
slowly falls away.
The truth,
only the truth,
painful, wrenching truth
remains.
Naked, vulnerable,
do we
retreat to old pretenses,
erect new falsehoods,
renew delusions?
Or do we dare
open ourselves to
resurrection,
new creation?
28 August 2014
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Filed under Cleveland Heights, Poem
Grace Ji-Sun Kim and a number of my friends have an exciting project in the works. You can help support this book!
We are doing a Pubslush Campaign to raise funds to help publish a new book, Reflections Along the Journey: Theological Narratives of Korean American Clergywomen
(Judson Press).
Please help spread the word and please support our publication. Please go to the original site to donate. Thank you!!
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Thanks to the Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia for gathering sermons, prayers, and reflections from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on responding to the killing of Michael Brown and the response in Ferguson and addressing the systemic racism which ensnares us all.
Filed under Antiracism, Current Events
People are more important than labels. Get involved in the movement for justice. A reflection on the biblical story of the Canaanite woman and Jesus by the Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia, Vice-Moderator of the 221st General Assembly (2014). I am grateful for her words. I am honored to be her friend.
Filed under Antiracism, Current Events
Roberto Clemente would have been 80 yesterday.
Today is World Humanitarian Day.
It seems fitting that these two days fall so closely together.
As great a ballplayer as he was, Roberto was a greater humanitarian, a greater man.
Feliz cumpleaños, Roberto. Te recuerdo.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Baseball, Current Events
Thanks to Hyeyoung Lee and Kurt Esslinger for sharing this prayer for peace, reconciliation, and reunification on the Korean Peninsula.
Today is Liberation Day on the Korean Peninsula. May they be liberated from division and war. Let us pray the prayer composed together by Christians in the North and in the South:
God of Love!
It has been 25 years since we agreed to keep the week of Independence Day as a joint prayer week with the wish of reconciliation, and peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula. It was a promise from the South and North Korean churches’ deep prayer to God for peace and reunification and was a vow of love in a very difficult time. We, however, still have not reached full liberation and still are experiencing conflict and hostile policies. Oh Lord! Have mercy on us.
God of the Road!
You know our suffering and pain at the division of our people. Lord, the road of reconciliation and peace, created by the life and devotion of…
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Filed under Current Events
In conjunction with Orange Days to end violence against women and girls, CongoSwim brings together Presbyterians and people of good will to witness and raise funds to
In solidarity with the Walk for Congo in Oakland, CA, I will walk 5k (a little over 3 miles) with family members in Cleveland Heights August 23rd. If you are in town and would like to walk with us, let me know. In support of my participation, please consider the below ways to support groups working for lasting peace and an end to violence against women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
If you prefer to give by check, make it payable to Friends of the Congo and put CongoSwim and my name in the memo line. Mail your check to:
Friends of the Congo 1629 K St., NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006 See you along the Trail
In response to the killing of Michael Brown and others, people will gather in solidarity across the country on Thursday, August 14, to hold vigils and observe a moment of silence to honor victims of police brutality. Find information about a National Moment of Silence 2014 near you.
For those who are called to prayer at such a time, Mihee Kim-Kort and I offer the following for you to use or adapt or take as a starting point to create a completely different prayer:
Gracious God,
With breaking hearts and aching spirits, we turn to you.
God, have mercy.
Another violent death has torn your human family.
God, have mercy.
Another person of color,
another of your beloved children,
killed too soon.
God, have mercy.
Families, friends weep.
Communities question and rage.
God have mercy.
Have mercy, God.
Guide us
to see each person,
to value each person,
to treat each person,
as your beloved child.
Help us
to remake systems that diminish, divide, deny, and degrade,
to establish and enforce policies of accountability,
to turn from violence,
to end state-sanctioned police brutality and antiblackness.
Draw us together
to allow justice justice to roll like waters,
to permit righteousness to flow like everlasting streams,
to wash over all your children.
All your children.
This day and every day.
With breaking hearts and aching spirits, we turn to you.
God, have mercy.
Amen.
Filed under Antiracism, Current Events
Along the Graybeard Trail 