2012/07/30


Dying Practice - A Meditation



This will sound weird. I feel like I am dying, and this is a good thing.


Explanation please, Marc. 


Preparing for a year overseas is like engaging a death you see ahead, coming your way, in your lane, on your tracks. Subscriptions to end, banking details, house-cleanings, getting rid of the unnecessary, the good-byes (the long ones are still hard!), even the will that needs an update. "Getting your affairs in order" is the euphemism.


I love it. This is good spiritual practice for a control-freak. All this contingency planning, imposing your last will and testament on the future, finally gives way to how I have no real control. After the panic attack subsides, I relish this feeling of being out of control (The fool who persists in his folly will become wise. - William Blake). I the caterpillar inch up one blade of grass, to have that blade bend over as I reach for the next. Leaving. Anticipating. What exactly can one leave behind, if anything? When was the last time my careful reaching-planning actually played out? 


Into which world do I really live? Invest? Giving up so much in the here-now, for what feels like a mostly-planned-out year ahead ... it feels like a spiritual practice. This practice of giving up, of losing control - voluntarily - feels so right. Why?


"Sometimes I feel like I'm dying." Letting loose. Letting go. All my linear wrenches so carefully oiled and maintained in my toolbox hardly fit the spiral bolts a-coming.


The dandelion seed lets go, knowing only about clinging; how can it know the ride ahead? Why would it let go? 


Saint G.K. Chesterton has the last idea: It is a paradox. One confronts death honestly only by continually stepping within an inch of it, combining a strong desire for life with a "strange carelessness" about dying. (From his book Orthodoxy, 1909)


This is not suicide, worry not! Drink in life like water, drink of death like wine may be the only way to prevent the many forms suicide takes. 


May I be pictured with a glass in both hands?

2012/07/23

Thanks

For all that has been, Thanks. For all that shall be, Yes. - Dag Hammarskjold
 No one gets to do what I am about to do without a great deal of help. You just don't decide to "up and go off" to Korea one day, and get on the plane the next. Thank you to:

  • Professors Hee Sung Chung (Theology) and Young Sook Nam (International Studies), my two main academic contacts at Ewha, for moving heaven and earth.
  • My colleagues at Mars Hill: Professors Kathy Meacham, Matthew Baldwin, Nathan McMahan, Phyllis Smith and Lucia Carter for helping me dream this big dream, translate it into  academic-ese, and green-lighting the entire process.
  • My dean, John Wells, who kept on saying "Yes."
  • The HR department at Mars Hill, especially Deana Holland
  • My family: 
    • My parents, seeing me off to Korea a second time.
    • My daughter, who has done so much investing in me to enable this.
    • My wife, who joins in this venture with enthusiastic support.
    • My two brothers, who help with family support.
  • My friends the Speegle-Snells, who will be more the family they already are.
  • My faith-community, the Circle of Mercy in Asheville.
  • Dharma and Maya, my therapists who happen to be cats.
  • Thanks also to Hands and Feet of Asheville, and The International Foundation of Ewha Woman's University.
Such a Cloud of Witnesses.

Thanks, and Yes!
Marc

2012/07/05

Pre-Flight

Welcome!
인사와 안녕하세요!



July 5, 2012, Asheville, NC -- Six weeks to go. This site I will use to share pictures, news, and insights regarding my sabbatical year from Mars Hill College, to Ewha Woman's University


Departure from the USA is August 21, and the first day of class in Seoul is September 3. I am scheduled to teach an undergrad course in Missiology, and a grad course in Heresies, an inquiry into the processes whereby certain ideas become orthodox, and unorthodox, or what the Christian churches have refused to believe or practice.


I plan to talk about what my students are like, what it's like to live 30 miles from North Korea, cultural and religious observations, etc. You are welcome to read, and to comment, and to suggest items about which you'd like to hear about. I call this All Korea Considered on purpose. Since I have lived in Korea about 2.5 years already, what may seem newsy and curious to you is what I might not think to write about. So, DO comment!


지금은 좋은 bye.


Marc


PS: If you want to keep up with this blog, one way is to use your Bookmark feature on this page: CTRL + D.