The inside of the dilapidated old house was a cheese cake of mahogany--through and though; a lost jewel covered in mud. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer tilling in the fields who uncovers a treasure, buries it over, goes home, sells everything he owns, and comes back to purchase the field."
Then what?
In a mountain valley he could see the sun breaking on the houses on the valley floor. The light coming in from the east danced on the white-washed walls and seeped into the charcoaled shingles. Following the pasture lands up the mountain to the hill on the northern side, summer suddenly became fall, then winter. The silhouettes of torn edges combing the blue sky at the crest are now awash in a watercolor of snow-drizzled fog, and, and a late-March flurry woos the imagination.
Then what?
Somewhere inside, in the seed of our becoming, the richness, the jewel beckons us. Though a million settings in a thousand lands set us apart from one another; we are bound to consummate that richness somehow, someday.
Through the swirling mist the sun battles-through, revealing the crest, again, in outline; then the clouds overtake the moment's radiance. Back in Virginia we were told that the sun breaking through the pouring rain meant that the devil was presently beating his wife. Bright sunshine and pouring rain battling along for one instant...
But on top of the world, here in Korea, we re-shape the metaphor: for in that day the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the seas. There shall be no hurt in all his Holy mountain, and every jewel shall glow, from a light within.
The dilapidated house is not the reality. We shall make it anew, this reality. A Japanese wife, a Black American Husband with Children born of an international/interracial love for a generation--many generations--removed hence. We settle in the mountains of Korea. Who are these children? Where do their loyalties lie?... In the original lineage, towards the original hope of one universal family of the New Heaven and the New Earth.
Does that loyalty not embrace this Korean mountain top?
I went to visit the elementary school down the road, where our two older boys are attending. Again, this year, as the new school year starts, the teachers there are wondering, asking if we are really going to let our children continue on into middle school, here, in Korea.
The sense I picked up was that, "Well, they are not really Korean, and so... they might not fit in, here"... (like they are going to fit-in any better in Japan or America, after spending their whole elementary school career in Korean schools).
"They do not really understand our customs and manners... and they are still a bit behind their peers."
"Really?" I thought to myself, a titch sardonically, "who would of thought they'd need some extra push." But, yes, these parts are where they are headed, seems to me.
And later that evening I ran into an recent graduate of the high school, here. And he too, asked, where are we going to send the kids. Like its a foregone conclusion that they would not fit into the system of higher education, here.
"Who are they, really?" he asked. "Are they Japanese? Are they American? ... Where will their loyalties lie?"
And then again the following day in class:
"Mr. Johnson," one of the students asked, "why do you salute our flag and our ancestors, before every class?"
"Because your nation is a part of my world," I replied.
"Your history is, then, a part of my history.
"Chi-man, Isn't America a part of your world?"
"No, its the enemy country -- just kidding," he said, being jovially contrary.
But Susie jostles him, "Then why are you trying so hard to get there for college?"
"Just kidding. Just kidding, I said."
"Chi-man, I solute your flag and your ancestors for they are a part of me, I love them, I need them, in order for me to be whole. And I hope that, by the time you graduate, you feel that this whole world is yours. I am looking for the best of your ancestors, the best of your nation, for the sake of the greater benefit of the whole world.
"Jung-Shil, don't you think that Chi-Man would make a great 'President of the Whole Wide World'?"
"Yes, surely!"
Can our loyalty to that world, to that one, universal family, not embrace this His mountain top?... this land, this hemisphere, His solar system, this cosmos; and, can it not embrace the Source and Origin of us all?
The last century saw some gargantuan birth pains. But, for what? a still-birth?
Or shall we live? truly, and go on to claim our common identity and common global inheritance?
Hmmmm. We've got to purchase a hill or two... and get that house in order.
No Woman, No Cry.
"In this bright future you can't forget your past..."
It's 8:30 PM. Jason is on the computer, a typing game, practicing Korean typing. "Ta-kuni," his older brother ("Tadakuni," really), is washing the dishes while little brother, Tae-Seong, is gluing small, twisted origami paper appendages to an empty ice cream box. The result looks like a whale, thanks to these added 'flippers.'
And Bob Marley is giving us "No Woman, No Cry."
We all had Pasteur Ice Cream Bars, after dinner, tonight. Courtesy of the Founder and owner of he Dairy, which sponsors the school that he also founded.
While 1300 won is twice the cost of the most expensive ice cream bars, here; on the other hand those others are not sweetened with honey, but with sugar. And the milk they use is probably not pasteurized.
"Quality, the best... to support Quality Education: for Quality Leaders; for a Quality nation; of a Quality bright tomorrow..." That's what this doctor ordered.
Mihoko san is on the phone, discussing the food-order for the luncheon after church service this coming Sunday. We have that down-home, layed-back gathering-time every week, after the service. Euphoric in its simplicity, the cheerful noise of 20 pre-schoolers running around in-between bites of food... intoxicating.
So, Mihoko's on the phone, discussing the grocery order with another Japanese 'sistah' and there is just something so... chuckle-able about the tone of the conversation; with the Bob Marley in the background, and we being here, in Korea and all.
Potatoes are high this week? Sounds like what she said. But when she gets off the phone she's glowing because she noticed that I was eaves-dropping and chuckling over what I thought I understood.
"No, not quite."
Oops, my Japanese is slipping. The other Japanese sister (co-partner for preparing next Sunday's meal) is married to a Korean farmer. They have many potatoes (that staple being one of the main crops they raise). So they would prefer to offer potatoes, rather and funds towards the food budget.
Mihoko was asking her to peel the potatoes and soak them in water the night before. So that they would be easier to handle on Sunday morning.
Mihoko. Something about her just reminds me of how sacred women are. We do not have a daughter, and I did not have a sister growing up. But I guess, through the warmth of my mother, I learned early-on that, yes, the ladies, they are sacred. But how to convey that reality to our charges, at school and at home? when all around the standard seems to be slipping.
Girl's are... someone's daughters, sisters, and are likely to be in the future, someones' mothers. Sacred.
Fellows do not have to be "macho-men" and do not need to define their virility by celebrating their lust for the opposite sex. Nor should they think (or fear) that they must be 'wierd' or 'perverted' because they don't feel the urge nor have the need to violate that sanctity.
I suppose girls could also come to the same conclusion--about the sanctity of boys. For my wife did actually express such a sense; that growing up, she felt that she should be more concerned about encouraging members of the opposite gender to seek their enlightenment, rather than be distracted by pre-mature attractions. She grew up in a Buddhist family, way out in the countryside of southern Japan.
But we've got an environment which is running wild, so wild and out of control; and our kids and our students are subject to forces in the media, in entertainment, that is frivolously "pushing the envelop," so to speak, lowering the bar further and further towards "anything goes," anytime, anywhere.
Hopefully, though, we can put the breaks on. Yes, there is reason to believe that
"everything is going to be alright,
everything is going to be alright."
In this bright future, we can forget this past.
So despite the excesses and the abuses, of recent days, even:
No Woman, No Cry...
Links to other sites on the Web
Three Boys and a Mom
Last Night I Had a Dream
On a Day so Green, So Blue.
A Root
High School Lovers
The Power to Resist
Black/Japanese Descendents of Tan-Gun?
Ancestral Lands
Open Letter to America's Survival
Israeli-Palestinian Solutions
We All Want Control
In Search of the Heart of Lao Tzu
Ginger and Other Remedies
More Poetry and Music
The Scholar, The Samurai, and the Man of Calling
My eyes are going bad
The Impotence
Emptiness, Mu (무) 無 (naught, infinite potential)
The Gamut of Paramita?
Precipitation
Tel Afar
Language Screens!
Tsu Nami (Wharf Wave)
The Torque of Remembrance
Beyond the mundane : Morality (道德)
You Come Down Again, Your Own Self
I Do Not "Go"...
What is "Trust" ?
Trafficking Children?
HT News (and other Homeostatic Truths) ("Reload" for current affairs)
Family Greetings 2005/2006
© 2002 carltonj@hotmail.com