Adventures in Korea

This week my life was tightly planned with long-awaited activities in Korea and California. This week those plans went into the trash can. I write this note from Japan, my port in the storm, which was never in the plans.

I no sooner arrived in Seoul than Typhoon Bolaven also showed up. My travel plans to Osan were canceled; the country was locked down, awaiting Bolaven in silence and stillness. We waited; it came. I did not notice. Honestly, I was holed up at the hotel, totally oblivious to what was going on outside. (That's me: Mme Oblivious.) The typhoon came and went, and I only found out about it when I went to dinner with a colleague. But I did find some photos (below) on Internet.

I managed to escape to Osaka this morning as another typhoon rolled into town. Whew!

Monday Morning Meditation #137: What God Allows

Good morning -- or evening -- or whatever it is where you are -- from Korea. Whenever I travel here and pass over that (in)famous international dateline and jump ahead a whole day and, from California, a bunch of additional hours, I become very confused as to the time in the rest of the world. I don't jetlag (Thank you, Lord!), so Monday morning for the Koreans (or for the populace for wherever I happen to be) is also Monday morning for me. However, it is not Monday morning for my blog. I have not yet figured how to convert the blog to react swiftly to my changing time zones or even if I should. So, the blog stays on California time while I may be on nearly any other time in the world. As I write this, it is Monday morning in Korea, but Saturday night (I think -- please don't hold me responsible for time calculations, which is just a tad different from time travel) in California.

I have continued to read Matthew, which continues to be a great gospel. This week I stopped at the following verses (just a couple verses beyond those of last week). It is difficult to zoom through such rich reading.

²¹ From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
²² Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
²³ But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Reading: Matthew 16:21-23

Meditation: One of the things that was initially (post-conversion) difficult for me to understand -- and I have heard that I am far from alone -- is the negative/bad things that God "allows" to happen. Now, of course, the determination of whether events are bad or good is man-determined in this case. If I say God lets bad things happen to me (He generally does not!), then it is because I am interpreting that is happening to me as bad. I am not sure that there is an absolute bad -- or good -- out there. Was it bad that my daughter was born with spina bifida? Well, in the long run, no. There have been many positive things that have come from that. I could point out a lot of other "bad" things that have served a more noble purpose. I think now the bottom line for me is to trust that God will take care of me and not worry whether things are bad or good, they just are. With time, they may appear differently, or they may not. I just don't really think about that aspect of life much anymore. I leave all of that up to God.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to thank God for all the experiences He has given to me or allowed, regardless of how I might have interpreted them when the occurred, to repent for any time I have questioned His intent, to praise Him for having a bigger picture even if I do not know what it is, and to ask Him to help me always to accept what comes my way, knowing that He is there to help.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

PS. SORRY THAT THIS DID NOT GET POSTED ON TIME ANYWHERE, NO MATTER HOW YOU COUNT THE TIME ZONES. WE HAVE BEEN ON A TYPHOON HERE IN KOREA. (ACTUALLY, NOT JUST A WATCH OR WARNING; IT IS REALLY HAPPENING.)

An Unplanned Life

As I was ordering my box lunch for a conference I was attending in Washington DC earlier today, it hit me that my life is terribly unplanned. (Why it did not hit me years before, I don't know. I guess I have been too busy planning unplanned things to realize that I have absolutely no routine in my life.)

Take this week for example: Monday and Wednesday, I mostly sat on a plane. No exercise. Meals at strange times. Tuesday I walked for an hour after work with a colleague -- in Anchorage, Alaska. We forgot to eat. (Not that I need food all that much, mind you.) Today, I rode buses all around DC to and from the conference; Starbucks for breakfast -- the only thing open during the early hours when I had to leave in the morning for the conference -- and box lunch; no dinner and no exercise except chair pressing.

Even routine medications are not routine. If I am supposed to take a medication every morning, what happens when morning where I am (some place in the world) is a different time from morning in California. Do I stay on Cali time for the meds, which might mean 2 a.m. in some cases, or do I match the med times to the time zone I am in? I'm not asking for an answer; even my doctor doesn't know!

Well, there is a good deal of advantage to not being able to plan my life. Most of it gets left in God's hand, and while there may not be routine, there is certainly value and interest. And, to think about it, I don't have to worry about anything because I am not the one doing the planning!

Monday Morning Meditation #136

Entering this Monday morning has been so different from the last several weeks. First, I had a very relaxing Sunday, sharing lunch at my house with a couple friends from work. It is so rare these days for me to have these kinds of lazy and refreshing moments or even to spend quality time with people I like and from whom I can learn. Second, I don't have to go into work first thing in the morning. Yay! I am leaving for Alaska (on business), but my plane is not until mid-afternoon. It will be nice to have some weekday morning time to deal with personal issues and needs that get ignored for weeks at a time. Of course, knowing me, I will probably try to squeeze too much of that in, run out of time, pack in a hurry, and depend upon Donnie to get me to the airport in time.

So, I have continued to read Matthew, taking the time to think through what I have read at leisure. (This is a real pleasure and rarity, indeed.) As I have said before, I think Matthew is a great gospel. This week I stopped at the very beginning of Chapter 16, i.e. I did not get very far at all. The verses that stopped me are ones that have often puzzled me -- not the verses themselves so much but the verses of yesteryear counterposed to the behavior, thinking, and even happenings of today. The topic is discernment, and that, too, has been something I have struggled with, so for a number of reasons, I stopped right here:

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven.

² He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’;

³ and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

⁴ A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.

Reading: Matthew 16:1-4

Meditation: OK, so I "get" a few things here. I get that Jesus is foreshadoing/foretelling his own death -- three days of darkness in the tomb (like Jonah in the belly of the way) -- and resurrection. I get that this will be the only "proof" of his being the Messiah/Christ, and I cannot imagine that any other "proof" would ever be needed.

What I don't get is the comment about signs. Almost everyone I know who is in the process of discernment asks for a sign that they are going in the right direction. In fact, I did this just two weeks ago. I had turned down a promotion because I did not believe that God wanted me to take it. Logic seemed to indicate that I should stay where I am. Intuition seemed to indicate that I should stay where I am. But others kept whispering to me that I should take it? Were these whispers from God or Satan, or just compliments and desires of others? I felt I needed to know when a co-worker I trusted sat me down and talked to me about how disappointed she and others were in my lack of desire for the appointment (promotion). So, in a final effort at discernment I asked God to put the right words in the mouth of this colleague, and then I called her the next day to raise the topic again. She told me that my words the day before had given her peace with my decision. So, I took this as a sign that I was moving in the right direction. Is this really bad or wrong? Or is it unrelated to the comment made by Jesus here about signs? Was he only referring to a sign of whether he was/is what he said he was?

Therein lies my confusion. Any thoughts?

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to
thank God for leading me as openly as He does, to repent if I have wrongly asked for help in discernment via "signs" of some sort, to praise Him for His willingness to intervene in my life in whatever manner works, and to ask Him to help me become better at discernment (to notice the timing of the red sky).

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Fortune Cookies

Fortune cookies are funny things. Sometimes they seem to make no sense at all, just little pieces of paper stuffed into cookies with funny Chinese characters and an oddly translated sentence. But then then there are other times that you just have to wonder how the cookie maker knew what it was that you were supposed to read/hear.

Take two weeks ago, for example, when I took the newly promoted managers to lunch. We went to Chef Lee's, and, of course, we finished our lunch with fortune cookie reading and eating. On the way to the restaurant, I had gotten into a discussion of patience with two of our managers whom I had driven to the lunch. As we parked, I laughingly confessed that sometimes I pray, "Dear God, please give me more patience, and please give it to me right now!" Well, my cookie had a little slip of paper that said it is better to wait for the hen than to eat the egg. I did not get it until one of those managers reminded me about my prayer for patience. Ah, let the egg hatch and grow up. Got it!

Years ago, I had planned to open my own business and leave the comfortable managerial spot I was holding. The uncertainty of running one's own business, however, made me nervous, and during lunch with a colleague from another organization, I shared both my desire and my concern. "I am a little afraid to take that next, big step," I told her. That time, too, I was at a Chinese restaurant. We opened our fortune cookies after lunch, and mine said, "Don't be afraid to take that big step." I did take it just a short few months later.

First, however, I met with a lawyer friend and some close friends, who were also colleagues and interested in supporting my new business in some way. In addition to looking at when I should move on and how the business would be organized from a legal vantage point, I wanted their opinion about when to tell my boss. I was a senior manager and could not simply walk out the door. I had already lined up some business, but it was not enough to live on. When the tipping point was reached, though, I would have to depart quickly, and I did not want to live a legacy in which I had toppled projects, goals, and even business deals. So, we discussed how open to be about my plans. Again, I was at a Chinese restaurant (I do eat in places other than Chinese restaurants, by the way), and the fortune cookie cleared up everything: "Keep your plans secret for now."

Go figure!

Monday Morning Meditation #135: Fishes and Loaves

Just when I had convinced myself that things had calmed down a tad at work, I learn that this is just not so. I am off to an emergency meeting this morning with our legal team to look at some of the issues that have been besotting us (Can you say that in English?) for the last month or more. It does not make me feel any better that I was right about some of the legalities involved. No matter what, all of management is in the same boat together, and if the boat overturns, it does not matter who insisted, rightly, that one needed to make a j-stroke as opposed to any other and that no one listened. An overturned boat is an overturned boat. Now, I don't think this boat is going to overturn, at least, not so that anyone drowns -- we all know how to swim. I do think that this morning's meeting will be interesting, elucidative, justifying, edifying, and a whole bunch of other, similar adjectives.

In the interim, I have continued to read and enjoy Matthew, which continues to be a great gospel, and I continue to make certain progress through it. This week I stopped at Chapter 15, which contains several parables and stories. The most familiar one is perhaps the story of fishes and loaves.

Reading: Matthew 15: 32-39

Meditation: My life is one example after another of the fishes and loaves story. I don't know how God does it, but God does multiply things in my life, just as Jesus multiplied the fishes and loaves. I have blogged about this upon several occasions. One clear example is God's credit card, which has allowed me to help many people with money I don't have but which appears in time to pay off the credit card. (Note: If I use the credit card for something personal, which I only do for an extreme emergency and when presented with no alternative, then it takes a l-o-n-g time to pay it off.) Another example is the time that Padre (Fr.) Julio needed money for the children of Colombia. I was helping him with his website, Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia/For Love of the Children of Colombia, which he was using to fund-raise when I had to go on a business trip. I promised God that I would donate any leftover per diem to Padre  for his children -- and all $1000 of the per diem ended up left over because everyone provided me free meals and free lodging. Yet another time I felt I was being directed to donate 25% of my salary to restoring a Franciscan retreat center (like St. Francis was called to rebuild a church). I could not afford that, but I was certain I was supposed to do that, so I made the commitment/pledge. One week later, I received a 25% salary increase! And so on and so forth. God keeps multiplying the fishes and loaves in my life so that I can do my best to feed God's people (literally and figuratively).

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to
thank God for blessing me with so many fishes-and-loaves experiences, to repent if ever I have lacked sufficient gratitude for them or worried about them not occurring, and to praise Him for His willingness to intervene in my life in this way. And then, I will ask Him to keep doing it -- because I like it!

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.