Some light reading

After the last few of Scott's posts, I thought anyone reading might like some light reading to balance out the heavy topics previously discussed. And so, I bring you some of the lighter stories of my week.

It's so funny that with the language barrier in the classroom, you have to be really clear in your meanings. During one of my 8pm classes, they were learning the names of food ingredients and reading menus at restaurants. The book suggested that they all make pizzas using art supplies. Since I did not have the supplies suggested, I decided that we would all make a pizza together on the white board. I then told the class: "Okay, now we're going to make a pizza together..." I then proceeded to walk to the board. One of the children... Andrew...said "but teacher, we don't have any sauce, no toppings... no cheese!" He was so serious and said the last part so emphatically... it was so funny, I wanted to laugh so hard, but I was afraid that he would be upset thinking that I was laughing at him... so I simply explained that we would be drawing it on the board.

The next story has nothing to do with the children... only my own stupidity.. and that is the best kind of story. Two evenings ago, I was walking home from the school and absent mindedly walked into the wrong apartment building. Since all of the buildings look exactly the same on the inside and out, I didn't notice; just made my way up in the elevator to the thirteenth floor, walked to apt. 1307 and put in my key. At first, my key wouldn't fit the lock and so I joggled it a bit until it fit and turned (the door must not have been locked properly). Opening the door I came face to face with a Korean woman wearing an apron, who looked at me strangly and said in a questioning voice "Yobosayo" (or Hello?). I was equally as confused, not cluing in that I was in the wrong building, so I took a peek inside then quietly said "I'm sorry" and walked away. She closed the door but I just stood there, I was still really confused, I checked the apartment number and then the floor I was on... both right. I thought that I must be dreaming some strange dream. It wasn't until I was on my way down in the elevator that I finally clued in that I was in the wrong building.

Anyway, that was my week

The Myth of Religious Neutrality

Some beliefs are obviously not religious, such as my belief that I'm going to have noodles for lunch. That's not religious, even though it elicits thanksgiving. I think it's true, however, that everyone has some sort of religious belief. As Chesterton, like always, once said, if man refuses to worship God, the result is not that he will worship nothing, but that he'll worship anything. But even when it doesn't result in worship, I think everyone has religious beliefs. What makes a belief religious? This is the question Roy Clouser asks in the first chapter of his book The Myth of Religious Neutrality.

To answer this question, we need to determine what all religious beliefs, and no other beliefs, share. Usually, people tie in religious beliefs with worship. However, in some religious traditions, worship is non-existent, for example, in some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. Others think that religious beliefs serve the purpose of giving a group an ethic. Again, though, many groups which aren't religious have ethics. From what I understand, Confucianism is only a code of ethics for a well ordered society.

These obvious definitions fail us. Continuing on, then, one might define religious belief as belief in God or in gods. Once more, though, we are foiled by counter-examples. Pythagoreans did not believe in God or in gods. They believed that numbers were the primary things in the universe, the stuff of which everything else was made. They held, as a religious belief, that 1+1 = 2.

Roy Clouser proposes another definition of religious belief, one which I think covers the basics. He calls it primary religious belief. It covers the whole spectrum of religions, and only religions. It is this:

A religious belief is belief in something as diving per se no matter how that is further described, where “divine per se” means having unconditionally non-dependent reality.

This definition does not assimilate the different ideas of what is divine. It says that every religious belief is about what is divine per se, but allows that different religions believe different things are divine per se. Pantheists believe one thing, Christians believe another, and atheists believe yet another. This definition, as the last sentence revealed, includes even the supposedly non-religious. Some people don't like to include atheism as a religion, but we should. Atheism and theism are enemies, after all, in a way that theism and, say, the PTA are not, or that Atheism and the Engineering society are not.

This is only the first chapter of this book, but I'm really excited about it. Clouser promises to prove that all theories necessarily depend on one religious belief or another. Such an argument would disarm opponents who try to devalue Christian arguments because they are religious. We can rejoice, as we always should have, that our arguments are religious. They are inevitably so.

The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism

This is definitely worth the few moments of your time it will take you to read it.

The Emasculated Church

Church hopping is like bar hopping, although it takes more than a night to make the rounds. The church, so it seems, is a place where people that think along the same lines join together to hang out, and if you begin to differ somewhat in ideas you can go somewhere else. Others, however, think that the church is more like a family, where people with differences are bound together. Sometimes the family squabbles, but it's family and, except under certain extreme cases, it has to stay together. In the same vein, the church is like a city or civilization. Here's a little story from Mark Horne to illustrate:

An American drives into Canada and eats at a diner. His waiter asks him where he's from. “Oh, from America! I'm actually an American, too.” “Really? You were born there?” “No.” “Are your parents American?” “No, sadly they were Canadians their whole lives, but I've been reading this tract about American ideas and I'm fascinated by them. Now I've memorized the Declaration of Independence and I'm firmly committed to Americanism.”

This is odd because one doesn't become an American by holding certain ideas. America is an institution and not primarily a belief system, and one must enter it by a certain way. Similarly, one sometimes hears that Christianity is not an -ism. Peter Leithart, in his book Against Christianity, writes: “The Church is not a people united together by common ideas, ideas which collectively go under the name 'Christianity' ” (Canon Press, Moscow, ID. p.14). Rather, we are united in one faith, which is an entire way of “leaning into life.” We are a new culture, a new people, like the old people of God. We are united by our ritual of baptism (Eph. 5.4-6). We are united because we eat the same bread (1 Cor 10.17). We are new culture, a new people, like the former people of God, and we are united by our rituals.

We are a kingdom like other kingdoms, except we are the kindgom of God. We cannot divide between the religious and the secular, religion and politics:

In the New Testament, we do not find an essentially private gospel being applied to the public sphere, as if the public implications of the gospel were a second story built on the private ground floor. The gospel is the announcement of the Father's formation, through His Son and the Spirit, of a new city -- the city of God (16).

When one understands the church not as the city of God but as a social group like the ymca or a literature society, then it loses one's devotion, and “real life” takes place outside of the church; taking part in the church is an extra thing added on to life, which one can choose to belong to or not. In Psalm 2, however, we get a different picture:

I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel (vv. 7-9).

Jesus will destroy the other nations, not by force but by the transforming power of the Spirit. They will be assimilated.

The book of Daniel makes similar points. In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about a large statue with a head of gold, breasts and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay (vv. 32,33). Then “a stone was cut out by no human hand” and it smashed all the statue to bits, which the wind carried away so that no trace of them could be found; but the stone that smashed them “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth” (vv. 34,35). The different parts of the statue, according to Daniel, and of course he's right, were different kingdoms. The stone that smashed these kingdoms and was established forever was the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not friendly with other kingdoms. It destroys them, smashes them to bits.

Perhaps this is in the future, though. Perhaps the kingdom is not yet. In Jesus's ministry, however, he talked as though he were bringing in the kingdom. He talked as if the kingdom were there because he was there: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11.20).

Some might say that the kingdom of God is not even on earth, but is another realm, because Jesus said that his kindgom is not of this world. We can understand this in another way, however, and in a way that is consistent with scriptural language. When something is not of the world, it doesn't use worldly methods, and we have our own methods: “For though we live in the world we are not ccarrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor 10.3,4).

Back to Leithart for the conclusion. He thinks that the way we view the church nowadays (which I haven't well defined, by the bye) is a great heresy. He calls this heresy Christianity, by which he means treating scripture like a system of ideas to which we give our assent and then there's an end of it (14-15). He says: “Christianity is the heresy of heresies, the underlying cause of the weakness, lethargy, sickness and failure of the modern church” (13).

Like, you know, whatever.

Works Cited (In preparation for returning to school)
Leithart, Peter. Against Christianity. Moscow, ID: Canon, 2003.

Busheeshee

Hello again everyone... I thought I'd write on the blog because I have nothing better to do at the moment, so you all will suffer the reading of a boring blog about pretty much nothing.
Hmmm.... well, on Saturday night Scott took me on a date to the Seoul Arts Centre to see a performance by the Korea Symphony Orchestra. They did two symphonies and a movement of a third. The one movement was by a Korean composer. It was very strange.. I didn't like it as much as the German or Russian symphonies they played. The Korean music used traditional instruments in the orchestra (traditional drums and a gong). Anyway, it was a good night, the music was beautiful and the building was beautiful. Next to the arts centre is the opera house. We did not go inside, but the outside of the building is big and round and looks kind of like a Greek coliseum. It also had big fountains in front and the water movements went along with the music that was playing... it was kind of cool.
The weather has been quite nice here, spring has come. Today it was 18 degrees and very sunny. I have ended my gym membership now and have been running outdoors along the river that is close by our apartment. I usually run about 7.5 km 3-4 times a week, so I guess I'm not as consistant as when I was going to the gym, but on days when I don't run I usually walk a lot, so I'm keeping pretty fit.
Today was the first time that I have been told that my hair was 'busheeshee' (not the correct spelling... but that is the phonics of it). After washing my hair this morning I put it in braids, then before my evening classes, I had taken them out. Two of my middle school girls told me that my hair was 'busheeshee'... it means fuzzy .. I guess. I think 'busheeshee' sounds better, I'm going to start using it when referring to someone's puffy hair.
Anyway, that's all for now

ta ta

WCF and LBC, chapter II

The second chapters of the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession discuss "God and the Holy Trinity" (LBC 2). Both begin by saying that "there is but one only, living, and true God" (WCF II.I). This God works all things according to His will and for His own glory. He is

most loving, gracious, merciful, long- suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty (WCF).

The only difference is that the LBC replaces "and withal" with "And Who, at the same time."

God's glory and goodness all come from Himself, and he has no need of any of the creatures which he has made (WCF II.II and LBC 2.2). All things were created by Him and for Him. He has "sovereign dominion" over all His creatures, and He can do with them whatever He pleases. All of His actions and commands, however, are perfectly holy. Humans and angels must give Him whatever worship and obedience He asks of them, and the LBC adds whatever worship and service they owe Him as his creatures.

Chapter III, section III gives the doctrine of the Trinity. The LBC begins: "In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences" (2.3). The word "Being" emphasizes that God is one being. The WCF begins: "In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons" (II.III). This also emphasizes that God is one being. Both confessions state that these three persons are "one in substance, power and eternity (LBC). Being one in eternity means neither existed before the other. The LBC adds another clause to make this specific; the WCF doesn't. Finally, both state that the Father proceeds from no one, the "Son is eternally begotten of the Father" (WCF and LBC) and the "Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" (LBC). Actually, the WCF says "Holy Ghost," which leads me to believe that its writer's might have been necromancers. If so, we can expect the two confessions to diverge later on.

One more thing (sorry for the above "finally"). The LBC concludes this chapter thusly: "This doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and our comfortable dependence on Him." The WCF has no corresponding clause, but nevertheless the trinity is a central concern in reformed theology.

If you have the time

Here's a short article about how a church liturgy is defiant of the world. It's the second article on this page, so if you're interested, scroll down until you see "Liturgy and the Counter-Cultural Church" by Peter J. Leithart.

A Comparison of...

There is a confession of faith that most reformed churches suscribe to, namely the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646 (WCF)and there is a confession of faith which many Baptists, including Spurgeon, suscribed to, namely the London Baptist Confession, 1689 (LBC). I have decided to compare these two confessions of faith to see what are the main differences between old Reformers and old Baptists. There will be be no argument here, only a cursory comparison.

Both confessions begin with the Holy Scriptures, and both further divide this section into ten subsections.

In the first section, both agree almost to the point of using the exact sentences. For example, the WCF states that

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.

and the LBC states that

Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God so much that man is left without any excuse, they are not sufficient to provide that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary for salvation.

Both state that God wrote down his word so that neither man nor Satan could tamper with it, and because He has ceased revealing his will in the way he used to.

In the second section, they give the same list of inspired books, which are to be "the rule of faith and life" (WCF; LBC), and both confessions devote section three to denying the Apocrypha a place in the canon.

In fact, they say nothing different, and agree that: the Holy Spirit assures us that the scriptures are from God and therefore authoritative (section V); scripture contains, explicitly or by necessary deduction, all things necessary for God's glory and for our faith and life (section VI); not all things are equally plain, but what one must know for salvation is plain for anyone who will take the time to read it (section VII); God has preserved the scriptures through the ages, and the scriptures, though the original languages have the final authority in controversies, should be translated into all languages for people to read(section VIII); if one passage of scripture is difficult, then we should understand it in the light of another, more clear, passage (section IX); and that all controversies of religion are to be solved by reading scripture and being taught through scripture by the Holy Spirit (section X).

Finally, these confessions state that all decrees of councils (that includes these confessions) must be judged by the scriptures (section 10).

Note:

The version of the LBC that I used was edited by Spurgeon. This version, as well as the original and the WCF, can be found at this site

Gwanaksan Mountain

On Saturday we went to Gwanaksan Mountain to go climbing and hiking. It was really fun and warm... really windy though and a very difficult hike. It took us six hours (we stopped for one hour in total for breaks such as lunch... so really five hours). The next day and still today... three days later, I am very sore. I didn't think I would be since I exercise regularly, but they must be different muscles that you use for climbing. Scott was very sore as well.

It was beautiful and very interesting. Scattered throughout the mountain were lookout spots (little hidden caves with windows) from one of the wars, I'm not sure which. We couldn't go into most of them because they were closed off with barbed wire, but some had open doorways so we explored a bit, it was cool.

My favourite quote from the trip is from a Korean man who was hiking behind me. I had just pulled myself up a rock face on a rope and he said "Very good... like Jane". Scott and I both thought that was pretty funny... If I'm Jane, he must be Tarzan.

Well anyway, it was a good time and the pictures are posted in our photo album if you want to see them.

Unity in Diversity, pt. 2

Sometimes we have to cut off our fellowship with a Christian. Sometimes it's over a doctrine, as when John the gospel writer left the bath house because some Gnostic was in there, and sometimes it's over behaviour (cf. 1 Cor 5.1-2). Other times, we don't have to cut off fellowship. If Joe is a vegan, so be it. Let him be a vegan. If Susie dyes her hair, great! I like it, Susie. I've already said that Paul says we can have unity when we have differences, as long as the differences are about things indifferent. Let's call these peripheral issues. When defining what are peripheral issues, we can get clarity by defining the center, and in the New Testament, we get a clear picture of what is central. What is central is that

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles,unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed (1 Cor 15.3-11)

Now, Paul says that these things are of first importance: Christ died for our sins; rose from the dead; and revealed himself to many brethren. In fact, if he hasn't risen from the dead, then we are still in our sins and our faith is vain (vs. 17). Similarly, in the first chapter of Acts, Luke recounts the story of Jesus's death and resurrection, and how he revealed himself to his disciples. This paraphrase is reminiscent of how Old Testament writers paraphrase the essence of older Old Testament stories. Paul also said his task was to preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1.17), and that through believing that Christ died for our sin's God makes Christ our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (vs. 30). This is the central doctrine and story which we have to believe. Of course, in scripture, many things follow from this, and we will believe those things as well. But this story (that Christ died and rose from the dead and showed himself to his disciples) and the meaning of this story (that he died for our sins) is the source of our unity.

Yeah Baby!

 
Well, this past Saturday Scott and I went to Lotte World... it's a large theme park in Jamsil. We had lots of fun and took lots of pictures, an example of which you can see here. This particular picture was taken just before we watched the 4D movie, in which we got sprayed with water, rumbled, eaten by sharks, attacked by rats etc.. it was weird, but fun. If you would like to see more of these fun filled pictures, just go into our photo album, they're there now.

The monkey around my neck I won by throwing balls and getting them into the targets behind a moving blocker... I won, I know... hard to believe, I was just doing it because I had never tried before, I didn't actually expect to win anything.

The rides were pretty fun, we were both exhausted from screaming by the end of the night though. One ride, "the Gyro", I don't know if I would ever do again... it takes you way, way, way, up in the air (rotating as it does this) and then suddenly drops.. you're in free fall, it was such a short time, but it felt like I would never reach the bottom, and if I did, I'd be squished into a pancake; but we both made it out alive.

The roller-coasters were also fun, we waited in line forever... almost forty minutes, but they were really fast and went upside-down and all around.. pretty scary but all around good fun.

There was a parade of over 100 performers later that night, they were mostly Russians, we took a couple of silent videos with our webcam, I'm trying to figure out how to get them online so everyone can see.

Well, anyhow,

enjoy the photos, we enjoyed our time. 

Unity in Diversity

One of Paul's most liberating teachings is that we are to lay off and mind our own business. We are to accept weaker believers and not pester them with debates and unasked for advice.  Don't tell a parent, for example, how to cut the sugar out of her children's diets unless she has asked you how you did it. Another example: don't make comments to your friends about other girls' makeup, hoping that your comments will find some roundabout way of reaching their ears.

There is an example in the gospels about this. Jesus says that he came both eating and drinking and they called him a glutton and a winebibber, but John the baptist did neither and they said that he had a demon.  Jesus said nothing, however, against John; he didn't quote a passage from Paul and say, "You know, John, you're a weaker brother."  Likewise, Paul says to accept vegans as vegans. Don't try to convert them; lay off, he says.

Now, this applies only to secondary issues, to debatable things. On primary issues we are to be unbending. One should rebuke a believer that says his conscience forbids him to obey the first commandment. But what are the primary issues? The ten commandments should be taken as starters. They are laws which do not pass away, which must always be obeyed.  I'm sure there's more to say, but I can build on this foundation.

Imagine that a father, who is a faithful Christian, decides to have his infants baptized and to teach them that their baptism is legitimate, and next that when the infants grow up, a well-meaning but misguided brother-in-the-faith tries to teach the children that their father is wrong and is in fact disobeying God.  If he succeeds in teaching them this, what will he accomplish? Not the edification of the children, as he hopes.  Most likely, he will teach them one thing: to break the fourth commandment; to dishonour their father.  In this case it might be difficult, but the father, because he has been forgiven, must also forgive this brother, who caused his children to stumble. So, the father should promptly get his hands on a millstone, search out the deepest waters, and he and the brother should go out on a boat to perform the act of mercy.

Of note in the news....

According to today's health and fitness news:

"Although weight control can help lower your risk for both heart disease and cancer, so can exercise. For all weight levels, a lifestyle with at least 3.5 hours of exercise a week lowers the risk of death 25 to 30 percent, according to a recent study of more than 116,000 women." (Provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.)

Therefore... I strongly recommend that you exercise, since it lowers your risk of death... exercise and you may live forever. According to our experts at the American Institute for Cancer Research anyway.

That's my quote for the day

-Deborah

Say it like you mean it!

Dear men,

When you tell your wife that you love her, say it like you mean it. Don't say it glibly. The word has been too often profaned for you to profane it; too falsely disdained for you to disdain it; etc. Say it like you're throwing a brick through a window. Then, later on, say it like you're threading a needle. Through force and through craft, you must ensure that the message reaches the deep heart's core, where your lady is nourished.

Yours faithfully,

Montgomery, esquire.




I swear I meant to go to bed.

You can't hit what isn't there

I remember a "No Fear" shirt which said, "You can't hit what you can't see." Another truth, less frequently stated, is that you can't hit what isn't there. Postmodernism is one of those things that can't be hit because it isn't there. It's an empty title. When it does have a meaning, it's central doctrine goes something like, "No statement is true."  "But," we reply, "what about that statement you just made?" Other times, it's used to describe truths that were around long before the word "postmodernism," for instance, "you shall love you neighbour as yourself." Some postmoderns say that we should accept homosexuality, which is a lie. Other postmoderns say that we should have more empathy on homosexuals, which is true but not postmodern. Postmodernism covers a range of disparate opinions, and we don't need such an ill defined word. We don't need a cool new word to teach us the above truth. We need to repent of our homophobia, while holding firmly God's truths that homosexuality is rebellion against God, and that homosexuals, just like everybody else, for other forms of rebellion, need to be forgiven and healed by Christ. Likewise with probably any other good thing postmodernism has to say; it was an old truth, known once, and we simply need to remember it and repent of having forgot it. The label "Postmodern" should be dropped, because it's too confusing, and all writings that claim to be postmodern should be read, if at all, with caution.

Hello again

Hi, it's been a while. I haven' posted in over a month, and really, who cares?

If your interested in indie rock, I recommend Sufjan Stevens. I recently bought his album "Illinoise," which is an album in tribute to the state of Illinois. It's got some history, and the music is soft and folky, with plenty of banjo, trumpets, violins, percussion and acoustic guitar. It has pretty great harmony too. Also, the titles of the songs are really great, for instance, "A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, who went Crazy, but for Very Good Reasons," and "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois," and "In This Temple As in the Hearts of Man for whom He Saved the Earth." It's a sweet, sweet CD. Deborah doesn't like it because it has a song about a serial killer called "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

I also got a CD by a group called Page France, entitled "Hello, Dear Wind." It's quite good. The instrumentation is minimal, with mostly acoustic guitar and bells. They use a mixture of biblical and non-biblical imagery, and they reiterate their images throughout the album. The lyrics seem a bit hippyish, but they're quite good nonetheless. Here's a bit of lyric from their song "Chariot": "Come and marry us/ to the blushing circus king/ And dance like elephants as he comes to us/ Through a fiery golden ring/ With a violin and a song to sing/ As he brings for us our wings/ Now he's one of us/ He plays the tambourine/ He breaks the bread for us/ and sings."

In more music news, we've a new hymn book from Canon Press. It's called Cantus Christi. It has songs from all through Christian history, and it focusses on the psalms. It has a kind of psalm I've never heard of, namely a "through composed" psalm. It has four of them, I think. For these psalms, the composer took the text of the psalm, and composed music for the whole text. Therefore, the music can't be used for any song other than the one it was composed for. The hymn book came with an audio CD, which we can use to learn the songs and can sing along to. It also has psalms as regular songs, and psalm chants. It's a great book.

It was nice chatting with you. Drop us a comment if you're lonely. We'll do our best to comfort you.

So Tired....

Hello to the few people who read this... how are you all doing today? I'm okay myself, killing some time while on a break at work. The day has been rather stressful, so this is my hour of relaxing relief. I'm pretty exhausted and rather sleepy, but I only have one class left, so I'll survive I think.

It is snowing here right now. We havn't had barely any snow at all here, so it was kind of nice and refreshing to wake up two mornings ago to about two inches on the ground and more coming down as I walked to school in the morning. As I said, it is snowing again... to the dismay of some people here, but I welcome the change in the weather. Change of any kind is usually welcome for me, as my daily tasks become routine and boring.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a blog of complaints... that will just bore people to death... so on to more cheerful news and events. My brother Shawn and his wife Heather just had their first child and named him Liam Andrew MacDonald... he was quite the porker I guess... 9 lbs and 1 ounce. But I've seen some pictures and he looks pretty cute... Congratulations guys! So, now I have seven nephews and nieces, and I'm sure I'll have many more in the future. I can't wait to meet them all, three have been born since I left, and two of them will be almost a year old when I return... and the others that I do know, will be so big.

Scott has been working semi-diligently on getting his application and related forms all filled out and faxed away.. for applying to Acadia Divinity College. He jokes that 'it'll be so strange living in Wolfville next year... he doesn't know if he can handle the big city life and the crowds of people'. It will be quite a difference, that's for sure, but we both agree that we'll enjoy the small-town living of Wolfville compared with the big city living of Seoul... neither one of us are really the 'big city' type.

At the end of this month, we will have made it through one half of our contract here and will have six more months to go. We are going out for a big 'Western -style' dinner at the end of the month to celebrate this milestone. I look back on the past six months with 'fond' memories... some fonder than others. Let's see... I saw my first cockroach, shared an apartment with guys and millions of ants and weird flies... well other than those things.. it hasn't been all that bad... there are good things to remember like: great new foods, weird cultural experiences, etc...
All the same, I'll be glad to go home in six months.

Well, I had better be going.....

Update

Hey Everyone...

It's been awhile so I thought I'd do a little update on what is going on with us...
... absolutely nothing! Just the usual stuff, teaching, reading, sleeping, eating... it's a pretty boring life for me right now actually. Same thing day in and day out. Especially now that we are practicing English play with the kindergarteners (in the previous months we switched teaching books daily.. text, phonics, storybook etc). Now, we just practice the english play everyday until Feb. 22. So boring! It's easy though, which is a plus.

I've been experimenting with making Korean food at home. I've been buying mostly Korean groceries and have been trying to make a bit of the cuisine and experimenting a bit with ideas of my own, combining Korean and American - style food (kim chee pizza for example).

I've cut down on the exercise a bit on Scott's suggestion. I was going to the gym six days a week, but Scott suggested I just do five, since I was somewhat lacking in energy after a day of work and and hour in the gym.

I guess none of this is particularly exciting, but such is the state of my life right now.

In more exciting news, my sister-in-law, Heather should have her baby soon, it's now overdue, it was due on January 17th, so hopefully we'll have some exciting news from them soon.

Anyway... talk to you soon

Deborah

You're the one for me, Fatty!

In Korea, the older generation and the younger generation have opposing political views. As far as I know, all the younger generation have the same politics, and likewise with the older generation. One of my adult students told me this. He said that Korea was polarized. Another student replied that he thought polarized was an excellent word. We were talking about the generation gap, and he thought that the two generations were completely different and couldn't get along with each other, and that polarized expressed this because it brought in the idea of magnets. And this is how a metaphor helped me to think of the issue in a different way. I commented that actually the parts of magnets that are alike repel each other, and the opposites attract. So maybe, I said, the two generations are the same, both self-centered at heart.

'January Blahs?'

I know that the 'February blahs' are the most often referred to, but mine came a bit early I guess. The past few days, I've been experiencing quite a bit of blah. I'm not really sure what circumstances are causing it.... I just feel blah in general.
Our short vacation is now over and we both returned to work today, although kindergarten classes don't resume until Friday, so I have a few mornings off yet, I just have afternoon classes.
Today, I began the 'great clean' of the apartment, which could last some time. As some of you may know... the place in which we live is very dirty and disgusting... quite depressing to wake up to every morning. I suspect it is from build up of having men living here for years by themselves. I started with the kitchen, scrubbing the gas range and underneath of it (I don't think that it has ever been moved), and washing the cupboards inside and out. I then washed the food closet (which was completely black on the floor and bottoms of the walls)... we can now see the colour of the floor. I then cleaned the small corner with the washing machine in it. It was somewhat tiring, but seeing the black grime disappear was satisfying. Tomorrow I will tackle the main living space and the refridgerator. I have been wanting to do this for some time (since we moved in), but havn't found the time until now. I hope that this helps with the bug infestation that we've also been blessed with.
One of the teacher's from New Zealand finished his contract and went home for a few months, so we got a new teacher today from Ottawa, Canada. His name is Bradley. I have not met him yet, but Scott says that he is very nice. I saw him leaving work today, he looks pretty normal... long red hair, carries a skateboard etc.. Anyhow, he just got here two days ago I guess, and started work today, with no training or observing or anything. We got two days to observe when we came, so it's pretty bad I guess.

Well, I had better go, this is getting kind of long and boring
I hope all is well with everyone at home

Love Deborah

Howl's Moving Castle

I've finally seen Miyazaki's new movie. I've been looking for it since I came to Korea, but I've only found it in a few shops and it was expensive. I was thinking of going to a DVD bang (room) in Myeongdong to see it, but then last night our DVD store had it. I picked it up immediately, we brought it home and then went out to buy speakers for our laptop. Watching movies on this thing is terrible without speakers, and I expected beautiful music because the music on his last picture was beautiful.

I had high hopes, which is often a bad sign, because of course, it's easier to be disappointed when one has high hopes. But friends, I was not disappointed. This movie was excellent! Miyazaki's done it again! The animation was superb; the characters were loveable, quirky, cute and funny; and the whole world was insanely imaginative, from the beginning when Howl and Sophie trip across the towns rooftops, to near the end when Howl creates a new house and furniture is falling from the ceiling and rooms are popping into existence. The movie is also exciting; things happen so quickly that one is never bored.

As always in Miyazaki movies, the heroine is stunning while at the same time unremarkable. Sophie has never been beautiful, and in her words, "all I'm good at is cleaning." Chesterton said that in fairy tales extraordinary things happen to an ordinary boy and that in modern stories ordinary things happen to abnormal people. Howl is definitely a fairy tale, and in this way is similar to The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia . Sophie is a young girl who works at a hatter's and isn't happy there. Because she's not the type of girl to complain, this comes out it a conversation with her mother. One night after accidentally meeting Howl, the Witch of the Wastes comes to the shop after it's closed. Sophie tells her to leave, and she does, but not before casting a spell on Sophie. This spell turns Sophie into an old lady, and she then runs away from her home at the hatter's shop. While running away, she finds Howl's castle, gets in and designates herself the new cleaning lady because it's so dirty. Thus it begins, and through the rest Howl tries to stop a war and Sophie tries to break her spell and the group of people inside of the castle grows and they turn into a extempore family. Because this post is getting too long, I merely say: It's terrific. Watch it.

Scott's Birthday

Yesterday was Scott's birthday. It was a pretty good day all in all and we both had a good time. I made Scott breakfast in bed... heart-shaped pancakes(corny, I know), fried ham and banana-blast smoothie. Then we read the second chapter of 'The Hobbit' together. We have recently (within the last two days) began reading this book... Scott decided that we would start having 'family reading time' where we read a book aloud.. one chapter a day. We have started with 'The Hobbit' because I have not read any of 'The Lord of the Rings' books and Scott likes them. We bought it at one of the biggest bookstores in Korea 'Bandi and Luni's bookstore'; they have a huge English section. A bit later, I went to the gym and Scott went on a very long walk. After the gym, I went on a mad search for birthday candles and found a weird kind of really long skinny ones, then I went to Baskin Robbins and bought an icecream cake. (I probably would have made a cake if we were home, but here we have no cake pans or anything of the sort). It was kind of a girly cake, all pink with a little angel on top... but it was the only cake that was not a Christmas cake, so it had to do.
Later, when Scott got home... hmmm... I don't remember, anyway, around 4pm I started making his birthday dinner. I made a three course tex-mex dinner (although the third course was icecream cake, which is not tex-mex, and I didn't make it). To start, we had Mexican corn soup with Rye bread, then for dinner we had taco salad and taco chips with salsa, cheese and beans. Anyway, it was pretty good and we were both very full afterwards. Then we had the icecream cake... when I took it out of the freezer the angel had somehow been decapitated, but we repaired her before lighting the candles and singing 'Happy Birthday'. The long skinny candles, were combination candle-sparklers, so they were kind of cool... Scott did not blow them all out on the first try. The icecream cake was strange... very different than dairy queen. It had no cakey, cookie stuff or fudge... just icecream, a mix of cherry and almond icecream, it was still good though.
Anyway.... just an update, I have to go, I'm a bit late.
For more birthday photos, check out our photo album link.

-Deborah

Merry Christmas everyone!
This will be short... as I'm sure everyone is quite busy. We had a very good Christmas, with lots of eating of course and fun times for everyone. Mostly this is just a note to let you know that we have posted our Christmas photos in our photos of korea album on this page... so if you would like to see more of what you see now.. just go into our photo album and enjoy!

Christmas Eve

Hello everyone,

Today we are preparing for Christmas and for the Cantata. I caught the bus outside of our apartment and went to Home Plus, a grocery store made by Samsung and Tesco. I had to get some whipped cream for our Christmas breakfast and our Christmas dinner. I also had to get the rest of the stuff for Deborah's stocking. While I did that, Deborah stayed at home and began making some cinnamon rolls. She had already baked a pie earlier in the morning, and it's a blueberry pie; we found the filling at the foreign food market in Seoul. Now that I've got all Deborah's stocking stuff, the only preparation left is for Deborah to finish baking the cinnamon rolls and the wreath of bread she's making with the left over dough.

To prepare for the cantata, I have to find some black pants and a white shirt. I brought neither with me to Korea. I've e-mailed Pastor Bill to ask him to find me these items, because he has all the connections. He hasn't yet e-mailed back a response and I have to leave in under an hour, so I'm unsure about what's going to happen. Anyway, practice begins at 2 o'clock, but the cantata isn't until 7. That's a long practice. Good folks, adieu!

"Love in the Ruins"

I read through contemporary novels much more quickly than I read through classic novels or poems. The Oddysey, for instance, took me several weeks to finish, even though it's not that large. In the middle of it I stopped reading. Love in the Ruins, on the other hand, a novel by Walker Percy, took me five days, and it's larger than the Oddysey. For the curious, here's a bit of what I love about Love in the Ruins:

 

     "Papa, have you lost your faith?"

     "No."

     Samantha asked me the question as I stood by her bed. The neuroblastoma had pushed one eye out and around the nose-bridge so she looked like a Picasso profile.

                 ---

     I wonder: did it break my heart when Samantha died? Yes. There was even the knowledge and foreknowledge of it while she still lived, knowledge that while she lived, life still had its same peculiar tentativeness, people living as usual by fits and starts, aiming and missing, while present time went humming, and foreknowledge that the second she died, remorse would come and give past time its bitter specious wholeness. If only-- If only we hadn't been defeated by humdrum humming present time and missed it, missed ourselves, missed everything. I had the foreknowledge while she lived. Still, present time, went humming. Then she died and here came the sweet remorse like a blade between the ribs.

 

Percy's novels are full of such What's-wrong-with-us passages. In this novel, Doctor Thomas More, a lapsed Catholic, invents a device to measure the ills of the human soul. He plans to use it to save America and the world, which he believes are falling apart in some sense. The tool, however, is mostly diagnostic. It can cure people but only for short periods of time. Chesterton said that for every author, there is one title from his books that can describe every book that he has written: for instance, Dickens's was Great Expectations. Similarly, Doc Thom More's device is descriptive of each of Walker Percy's novels. His novels, Percy said this, are "diagnostic." They examine and describe the ills of the modern soul. And every time I read one, I find myself getting excited and saying to myself, "He's right! He's right!" Also, they have wacky, fun plots, and they're really funny too. So, what's not to like?

Give thanks

I have a rash on my chest. I first noticed it this morning, but at the time I thought it was just from sleeping on my chest. It doesn't hurt, though, and it's not itchy.  My chest is mottled red, pink and white. We've just finished devotions, and we read about how Christ is Lord of creation; he commanded the waves and wind to stop, and they stopped. But not only can he control waves and wind, he healed a man of leprosy and Pete's mother-in-law of a fever. So, it's not like this rash is an accident. God himself decided to smite me with this gift. What can I do? Give thanks.

Haiku

Haiku, as we know it, is that type of poem which is too short to be worthwhile. When I had to learn haiku, I thought I ought to teach my teacher about it, because she didn't seem to recognize that it was a joke. But I think that haiku is perfect for capturing the short moments of beauty that we experience from time to time. Occassionally, common things become intensely beautiful, and it often last for mere moments. It could be anything, too: the steps leading into your home; the monotous neighbourhood when seen while sitting on the curb in twilight; water dripping from a rock; melted snow streaming downhill; McDonalds when you're walking around Sydney late at night trying to get a sundae; the sky slowly darkening over the lake while your friends are on the shore and you're doing the dead man's float; looking at the glistening pavement from an apartment balcony just after the rain; any number of things. Often these moments of beauty are couched in other, more extended experiences. Sometimes they come out of nowhere. At any rate, the haiku seems the perfect form to capture these moments. Read, for instance, "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound.

A small story

When I walked out this morning, I could feel that this world was against me. And how could it not be? It belongs to Him. The graceful curve of the road reminded me of His works, which the cold, bare trees had arisen hours earlier to proclaim. The wind, blowing through the trees like fingers on a harp, was singing, "Great and Terrible, Almighty and Cold."  I shivered, chilled with fear, and walked on. The sun, I could sometimes see it over the grimy buildings, was coming up over the mountain, leaping from the peak to the valley bed to warm our city like a husband his wife.

 

Even when filled with the warm, yellow sun, this city seems a waste. Our merriment is fakery; our laughter is veiled tears; our entertainment a mere soporific, leading to the sleep of death.

 

But while walking to work I saw a strange sight. A child was walking with her mother. In a tree, she saw a leaf that she wanted to get for her mother, so she darted to the tree and climbed it. She climbed almost to the top, for that's where the leaf was, and she stretched out to get the leaf. She stretched too far, and she started to fall forward. She swung her arms furiously behind her, trying to grad hold of a branch, but she missed them all. She fell forward; the mother screamed. The child started somersault to the ground, screaming to her mother for help. I thought child would break her neck, or get some serious injury; she was high enough. But when she reached the ground, it cradled her like a soft mattress. It bent to the shape of her body, took her into the earth a few feet, and then sprang her back out onto her feet. She then ran to her mother, grabbed her hand and they walked away happily, seemingly unsurprised by the kindness of the earth.

Cultural note

In Korea, Christians will often go to worship three times a week. There is usually a worship service on Wednesday night, on Friday night, and then on Sunday. Also, they have services every morning at (I think) 5 o'clock. Some people, I'm not sure how many, go to those. This is quite different from our Western culture, where we attend service three times in one day, two in a row on Sunday morning and another on Sunday evening. This is merely descriptive, though, and no one should take me to mean that Korea is more spiritual than Canada because they have Wednesday and early morning worship services.

 

I suppose our Wednesday evening prayer meeting is similar to the service, because at this we sing hymns, the pastor shares a message and then people pray. However, as far as I can tell (I never went), prayer meeting is not very popular.

 

Koreans are also very open about their problems. They always tell me when they are distressed, and what they are praying for, and what they want me to pray for. My co-worker who sits next to me asked me how my spiritual life was going, and I my first reaction was nervousness. I'm not used to answering that question. Mostly, I don't ask others and they don't ask me. I think that here I'm learning things about the communion of saints. But don't worry; I won't come back saying, "Oh, this is how they did it in Korea." If I do, you can all bludgeon me with maces.

 

I heard in a interview the other day that the secularization of North America hasn't demolished religion, as it has done in England, but has domesticated it. It has made religion private, and Christ our god on the mantelpiece. Moses, on the other hand, approached the bigwig and said, "God said let them go, or He'll smite you with plagues." Contariwise, I would try to apologize for my beliefs, almost as if saying, "I know it sounds dumb and unreasonable, but..." Dei gratia, I am slowly growing stronger in all of my beliefs. I can now take the offensive by mocking and poking fun at false beliefs.

Lord, teach us to number our days

 


Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may learn wisdom.

Every so often it's good for us to reflect on death. This picture is to stimulate your reflections.
 

Various quotes on nothing in particular

"Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1.19-20).

 

"Who doesn't like a parfait?" (The Donkey in Shrek).

 

"And above all things have fervent charity amoung yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4.8).

 

"He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart" (C.S.Lewis).

 

"Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers" (Proverbs 17.6).

 

"Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you" (Groucho Marx)

 

"Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Deut. 5.16).

 

"The bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people" (G.K.C.).

 

"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them" (Oscar Wilde).

 

"I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing" (Jonathan Swift).

Birthday party

This will be a fairly short post as I have class in fifteen minutes. I was alone at school all day. It was the kindergarten birthday party... they have one every month for all of the children who have had birthdays that month. Only one foreign teacher is required to be present for it and this month it was my turn. It's pretty easy, the birthday children hold candles and are paraded in front of the other children as the other children sing a korean song to them, then I shake hands with each of them individually and ask... what is your name? How are you? and How old are you? Some of the children answer, some give blank stares. Then myself and their korean home room teacher pose with each of them for pictures. The party only lasts for about two hours and then I had nothing to do until my afternoon classes at 3pm, so it was a pretty boring day, alone in the teacher's room for more than 3 hours with not much to do. It was interesting though, I guess.

Well, that's all for now.

ta ta

New job opportunity

Deborah, trying to waste some time, went to the Kellogg's website. There are some new cereals here in Korea, which are not available in America. They are various bean cereals. One is red bean, one is black bean, and the last is another variety bean. They are expensive, though, and we probably won't buy them. We are fairly cheap.

More to the point, on their website there was a section for careers at Kellogg's. At first I didn't take much notice of this, because hey, it's Kellogg's. Who wants to work at a cereal company, licking the covers of the boxes, thus activating the glue to keep the boxes shut? However, Kellogg's has just a new cereal box, one that will help them compete with their shrewd competitors, Post and General Mills. Also, this new, state-of-the-art cereal box can be considered Kellogg's entrance into the profitable market of technology.

This cereal box will keep the familiar cardboard exterior with pictures of their loveable mascots, such as Tony the tiger and the disjointed chicken, but will have a metal interior. It has eye-recognition technology, and, once closed, will open only once it has scanned the eyes of the owner. All it takes to program who the owner will be the owner is a quick eye scan. This all sounds wonderful, but they have met with some serious problems so far.

Kellogg's has released the cereal boxes for testing in several supermarkets. Some frantic cereal lovers have scanned their eyes into all the boxes, and now the boxes will open for no one but them. What's worse, Kellogg's hasn't created a way for the programming to be reversed, so these boxes are lost. They can only be destroyed.

Also, teachers have been having more than the usual trouble teaching children.  School children are crouching over and holding their stomachs, whining that they're hungry.  Apparently, their dads, whose eyes are the keys that will open the boxes, have already left for work by the time they get up. Some fathers have remarked that they do this on purpose because they're sick of sharing their cereal.

Another group that has been affected by the new boxes is the blind. Some have bought the cereal thinking that it was just regular Kellogg's. When they arrived home, however, they were unable to open the boxes. Some, probably because of empty stomachs, were enraged. The National Institute for the Blind is already trying to sue Kellogg's for unfair treatment of blind people. The Kellogg's representative for this issue made things worse when, obviously frustrated by the accusers complaints, he insensitively attempted to fob off the accussers by saying, "Nonsense! Go cry your eyes out."

Despite these difficulties, Kellogg's plans to continue with its new cereal boxes, and they are already developing new models with built-in mp3 players so that people won't have to be bored while eating their breakfast.

With this new technology, Kellogg's will need technical writers to write clear handbooks on how to troubleshoot with these boxes when there's a problem. With my philosophical training, I think that I am amply qualified for this job, and so I've sent in my application. Just an update on our potential futures.

Goodness

Over the past few weeks I've been stumped for writing. I've been knackered, as the English say. There was nothing to put on the blog. There were no ideas to put in the journal.  Happily for me, though, I've discovered the problem.

There was nothing to write because I was ignoring one of the biggest things in my life, namely, teaching. I quite enjoy teaching, and now that I've started writing about it writing comes easier.  Now, I'm writing about the things I'm thinking about, and not trying to write something great and profound about something I'm not thinking about. The problem was quite simple, really.

Now I'm writing in my journal again, but about ways to teach and ways to discipline, ways to run a conversation class and ways to get children to shut the h...be quiet (phew). It's actually quite fun, and it helps me to think of how I can serve my boss as though I were serving Christ.  To write about it helps me to put my whole heart and mind into it. I have often told us that we had to serve Mrs. Kwak as though we were serving Jesus in heavy sky-blue eye makeup and tinted glasses, but had disregarded it. Now I'm doing something that feels right. We'll see how it goes. I tend to begin with a bang and end with a whimper.

Not that my writing or thinking will be limited to teaching, but it's a good place to start, and to ignore in thought the greater part of my life is stultifying and foolish.

To all my dear friends,

I hope to talk with you later.

P.S.

I've recently read a great idiom for drunkenness, from the good folks at Credenda magazine.   www.credenda.org
"He's over in the corner, running for Congress."

Pepero Day

Friday, November 11th was Remembrance Day back home... but in Korea it was Pepero Day. Peperos are the long cookie like stick dipped in chocolate pictured here. On Pepero Day, one is to give peperos to the people you love. It is a huge commercial thing like Valentine's Day, every corner store and grocery store sell thousands of the cookies in all different sizes. You can get specialty ones from the bakeries as well.

Students and teachers are expected to exchange peperos as well and so as a result we ended up with piles of peperos from our kindergarten, elementary, and middle school children. At school, Scott made a rather humerous cultural error as he gave a box of peperos to his female co-teacher (blue teacher) out of politeness.... however, it gave his kindergarten students the wrong idea and they began chanting "Scott teacher love blue teacher... Scott teacher love blue teacher... he want to marry her".. they continued to chant it as Scott protested in English that no, it wasn't true, he loved Deborah teacher and he was married to Deborah teacher. Some of the students caught on.. but others continued their Scott teacher-blue teacher chant until the embarrassed blue teacher explained to them in Korean that Scott teacher was married to Deborah teacher. Oh the trials of Pepero day... I had no such problems, my co-teacher gave me peperos and no one thought anything of it... because we're both female.. it is quite another thing for a male teacher to give peperos to a female teacher.. so it was pretty funny.

They also celebrate Valentine's Day.. but it is only a day for Men to give chocolates and flowers and gifts to the women. They have a separate day for women to give gifts to men... it is called "White day". So, all in all, they have three "love" holidays.. kind of interesting.

So, that day went well. We are doing well in other parts of our lives as well, we bought a digital camera and have been taking pictures of the apartment and stuff, to show you all where we are living... we should have them posted soon.

Oh yeah, I have another nephew... Reuban Jonathan Dixon was born to my sister Sharalyn Dixon and her husband Jonathan Dixon... their third child after Caleb Andrew MacDonald Dixon and Kathryn Joy Dixon... we were very excited, his pictures look like he's quite the screamer... we can't wait to see all of our new nephews in person... unfortunately they'll be almost a year old before we get to hold them.
Congratulations guys!

In other news... very shortly, we're having quite a problem in our apartment with these little bitty brown bugs that are all over the counter and table and get into the cupboards.. they are attracted to bread products and so are always infesting our cereal etc... causing us to have to throw it out... they're driving me nuts! If anyone has any suggestions on how to rid ourselves of or improve this situation, we're open to them. The only thing I can think of now is to keep our cereal and bread in the refrigerator... but that might make it hard and stale. I spray with bug stuff like everyday and then wipe the bodies up with a cloth, but just hours later, the place is infested again... it's really gross!

Anyway, that's all for now, I guess I've started to ramble.

Kids say the darndest things....

Just kind of a short funny story to begin with... In one of my Kindergarten classes recently, one of the six year old boys came up to me and pulled on my shirt. "Teacher... Teacher" he called, I asked him what he wanted and he said "Ab-ra-haam... Lin-colnnn..... Ab-ra-haam... Lin-colnnnn..." and continued to repeat it a few more times. I said "what about Abraham Lincoln?" and he gave me a thumbs up sign and said "I like him" and then he went and sat down. So, it was a bit strange... but really funny. He must have thought I was an American or something and was trying to get brownie points. Don't ask me where a six year old Korean hears about Abraham Lincoln though?.

Well, that was my funny story. There's not much news in our lives right now... I've been pretty lonely lately and have been missing home a lot. Scott works late most nights and I don't, so I don't really have anyone to talk to. I've joined the gym though, in the hopes that it will take up some of the down time and make me healthier (I've been sick for going on two months.. pretty much since I got here... it feels like it might be getting better now though, I've been trying to drink more water and get more vitamin C).

In family news... My sister Sharalyn's third baby was due yesterday, but no action yet, so I've been told.. the doctor thinks that it will be late. Hopefully she'll have it soon though, everyone's really excited, especially Caleb and Katie.

Oh yeah, and we are buying a digital camera this weekend, so stay tuned for some pictures of our life in Korea.

Well, that's all for now I guess... talk to some of you later.

Climbing Dobongsan

This post is a little bit late, but two weekends ago we had quite the climbing experience. We decided to be a little adventurous that Saturday and go on a five hour hike of Dobong Mountain. This is a picture of it, it's pretty high. There are many different trails, some easier than others, but being "typically us" we did not take a map and so ended up on the 'wrong' trail. It wasn't really wrong... we weren't lost... however, we did end up on the mountain climbing trail, instead of easier hiking. We had no climbing gear... gloves, appropriate shoes, rope, etc.. and so it was quite difficult. At one point, we were climbing rock and it was a pretty narrow passage... the foot holds were also pretty far apart, Scott went up ahead of me, and I made it part way up. Unfortunately for me, half way up I realised that I couldn't reach the next foot hold with my short legs and I could not get back down, as I couldn't see the previous ones behind me. In short, I was quite stuck. Neither one of us knew what to do... so I stood, holding myself up for a few minutes, feeling somewhat panicky. Luckily, some experienced Korean hikers came along and saw us and hoisted me up from below... it was humiliating and definitely humbling, but it had to be done. They probably had quite a laugh about it later. Well, the hike was long and difficult, our legs got tired and our hands got scratched up, but the beautiful views were well worth it. If you look at the peaks in the picture, we actually made it to the top of one of those peaks and it was amazing.

Rowing Under Rembrandt's Bridge

Today, in an attempt to brighten my imagination, I looked at a painting by Rembrandt for a while. It was quite good, and worth the time that I spent just staring at it. I spent only about fifteen minutes, which is no great effort of concentration. Even that was a bit difficult, though. My mind kept wandering from thought to thought, and I had to keep bringing it back to the painting. It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m sure someone could write a thousand words on this painting, but I’ll write only a few.

The subject of the painting is a small bridge over a small river. The bridge is somewhat in the background, and on the left there is a narrow dirt path leading up to it. I think that there are footprints on the path, but it’s tough to be sure; the picture isn’t the best quality. On the right side of the bridge there are some huts and a grassy expanse. Also, to the right of the bridge, even further in the background, there is a radio tower; no, wait, I think it’s a steeple. Yeah, probably a steeple.

The time is sunset, and only a bit of the painting is bright with the pale gold of the sun. A few tall trees in the middle of the painting are glowing golden green. The whole ground and the sky on the right of the painting are in darkness. In the sky there appears to be storm clouds. The contrast between the right and left parts of the sky is impressive and affecting, and the golden glow in the west makes the rest of the painting seem even darker. In the black clouds, though, there are flecks of gold paint. I’m not sure what this is, but I think maybe these flecks are also in the bright part of the painting but are there harder to see. These flecks of gold paint might be Rembrandt’s device for suffusing the very atmosphere of his paintings with golden light, for his painting “The Philosopher” is bathed in the same light.

In the river there are two rowboats, each with two passengers. I imagined myself in the boat that is passing under the bridge. This painting is beautiful, but I think that if I were in one of the rowboats that Rembrandt was painting, I wouldn’t notice the beauty around me. Being immersed in the beauty, I would have grown accustomed to it and forgotten it, like I forget about the air that I breathe or the wife I live with.

I just took a deep breath and it was sweet, oh so sweet. His beauty is all around you: in your cow patch; in the colossal trees by the old folks home; on the curb outside your house; in the wide expanse of diamond sky above your driveway; in the hills outside your dining room window; in the small patch of backyard where your dogs run around. Take a long look and you’ll see it.

A Korean Language Lesson

This past Saturday we went hiking in Dobongsan. "Dobong" is actually a town, and "san" is Korean for "mountain." To pronounce it like a Korean, pronounce the two o's like "no" and the a like "arm." It's spelled like: 도봉산 That is the first Korean word that I've ever typed. (If it doesn't show up on your computer, won't worry about it). Korean uses a phonetic alphabet, like English. It has fourteen basic consonant sounds and ten basic vowel sounds. The vowels can be combined in different ways, as can the consonants, to make new sounds. Their sentence structure is Japanese, though, which is SOV, that is, Subject-Object-Verb. For instance, they would say, "we the mountain hiked," rather than, "we hiked the mountain."

City Streets at Night

It's been a while. We will post more regularly from henceforth. But here is a problem: what if we're not able to post interesting things more often? Our posts might become so boring that, though we post often, no one will want to read them. Then people would stop visiting here altogether. What's worse, we'll be writing bad posts and no one will be visiting. It would be another matter altogether if we were writing good posts and people weren't visiting; we could take pleasure in our good posts without visitors. But we can't take pleasure in bad posts without visitors. At any rate, onward!

We've written about our Thanksgiving dinner. It was excellent. I found it strange that it took so long to prepare it and such a short time to eat it. All the same, it was delicious. Afterwards, we went for a walk by the river. There is a river by our house and it goes for a long way. The river is in a valley, set apart from the roads that run parallel to it. On the banks of the river there are wide walking paths. Many people go down there to walk, to have family picnics, to bike, to play basketball and more. We walked along these paths for about an hour, and arrived in an area of our province that we had not been to before. By this time is was dark. And being surrounded by the many small shops and restaurants, the small apartments, the large apartment buildings and the churches, each with a burning red cross at the top, gave me a sense of mystery and of joy. I felt like a stranger in a strange land, a sojourner here on this lonely, dark planet, and this whole bit of creation groaning and travailing together with me, hoping for the redemption which is not yet complete.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all in Canada! A little late perhaps, but our internet connection at our apartment has been down for a few days.

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving on Saturday since we did not get Monday off of work of course. I made a big dinner.... cooked a chicken (they do not have turkey over here), I stuffed the chicken with Mom's stuffing recipe... and it was really good, although the stuffing was purple because of the type of bread that we had, it still tasted the same though. We also had sweet bread rolls and various vegetable dishes. I was also able to make some pies. They do not have canned pie filling here, since no one makes pies, so I made pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin for the first time and it worked out well... it tasted like pumpkin pie, so I guess that's a good sign. We also had apple pie... and all of this was made possible by the little oven we recently purchased.

It was fun to have our own little Thanksgiving dinner, but we really missed all of our family being around to eat with and to talk and celebrate with. We hope you all had pleasant Thanksgivings.

Well, as I am at school, and have to teach a class soon, I will make this the last bit of talking I guess.

We miss you all, but are doing well otherwise.

Exhortation, and Some Respond, "Stop Preaching at Us."

The English verb worry comes is a descendant of the Middle English word worien and the Old English word wyrgan, which is similar to the Old High German word wurgen. This Old German word means to strangle. From this we can see some of the connotations our transitive verb to worry. To worry someone is to “subject [them] to persistent or nagging attention or effort,” or “to afflict with mental distress or agitation” (Webster's Online). These senses of worry are closely associated with the words cavil and quibble. We can “strangle” someone by continually nagging them; and in fact nothing makes a person more unbearable than continual reproaches and minor criticisms. Remember that “love covers a multitude of sins” and that it's a glory to pass over a transgression. Unfortunately, cavilers often mistake themselves for cavaliers, doing the nasty but necessary work of perfecting others. They portray themselves as knowing what other people do not know and for some reason cannot see. But again, we need to be careful, for “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Pro 14:12). This sin is most likely to overtake us in our closest relationships, for instance, with our wives or our children or our brothers and sisters. Against this we must remember to love our neighbors, who are simply the people who live around and with us, as ourselves.

Thank you, I'm Scott Montgomery. Good night.

Koreans and directions... quite the experience

Well, It has been quite the weekend. On Saturday, we went to It'aewon (the American town) it's close to the US army base, so there are a lot of Americans and mostly everyone there speaks at least some English. There are a lot of American/Western restaurants and stores there as well. We decided to be ourselves and go to Swiss Chalet.. because there was one shown on the map. Unfortunately for us, we spent an hour walking around looking for it and could not find it. So, Scott decided to ask for directions. There was a group of construction workers working on a construction project (what else?) Scott pointed at Swiss Chalet on the map and they all gathered around the map, speaking Korean like wild. They then pointed at one of their fellow workers, who put down his tools and motioned for us to follow him, we did of course, thinking he knew where he was going (silly us). We walked around with him for about ten minutes and then he went to his van and motioned for us to get in. This is something we would never do under usual circumstances... but we got into the van. He drove around asking all manner of people for directions and driving around for like 25 minutes (mostly in circles)... suffice it to say, we did not find Swiss Chalet.

We exited the van after quite a time, and rather than keep looking, we went to Outback Steak House, which we could see quite well... it's right on the main road. That was really good, they have superb bread and bloomin' onion.. our meals were delicious as well. It was a nice change from Korean food... which is also delicious, but in a different way.

On Monday, it was a Korean Holiday and our church was having its picnic. It was being held on Namang-Sahsan Mountain (I definately spelled that wrong by the way), which is about a 45-50 minute drive from the church. We were all supposed to meet at the church at 9:30am and then those people with cars would drive the people without cars. Well, we arrived at the church and were placed in a Jeep with David (our driver), he's from New York, Amy from Kentucky and two older Korean ladies that were supposed to be our guides to the mountain... giving David directions the whole time. They gave him directions all right... half an hour in the wrong direction (completely opposite to where we were supposed to go)... it was pretty funny, we arrived quite late. The day was tremendous though. We went hiking in the mountains, it was beautiful and the air was crisp and clean... you have to watch out for the barbed wire in the bushes though. After hiking we had a cookout.. lots of delicious Korean food, and then we played soccer and football. It was pretty fun. We drove home with Pastor Bill and he took us and Amy on to the US army base for dinner. That was cool.. he's one of only two non-Korean, non-army personnel in Korea to have the card that allows him access to the base, so we were pretty lucky. We ate at a Mexican buffet at the Hotel there and ate way too much, but it was awesome.

All in all, it was a great weekend... but we learned that sometimes looking on your own, even when you don't know where your going is often more helpful than asking for directions here. But, it does give you some interesting times.

The bakery opening

Things sure are done differently over here. Yesterday the Jejuguen bakery had its grand opening. It was already there on the corner before... but they closed down for renevations and expansion. Anyway, they had their re-opening yesterday and it continued into today.. what an event! There are huge flower arrangements aligning the street in front of the store, a balloon archway in the doorway, streamers and two models dressed in sailor-moon - ish clothing (incredibly short skirts and knee high boots) talking in microphones outside of the bakery, trying to get people to come in. So, as I said before, it's quite an event. Now, upon it's reopening, it is no longer just a bakery. It is a boulangerie, patisserie and confectionerie.. all in one... it's an awesome place... their chocolates look quite spectacular. Well, that's really all I can say about it... you kind of have to see it for yourself... it's wild (as Scott would say).

A quote by Francis Bacon

Last Lord's day was our second attempt to observe the Christian Sabbath. On that day I borrowed "the Pilgrim's Regress" by C.S.Lewis from my pastor, and I have been reading it ever since. It's an allegorical story about C.S.Lewis's conversion. It's great. Anyway, in it Lewis quotes Francis Bacon, and the quote reminds me of trying to keep my mind clear, or rather focussed, on Sunday:

"Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like: but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things: full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?"

Deborah now will talk to family, so I must leave.

MMMmmm thank goodness for the US army base

Hi, I'm about to retire for the night, so this will be a short update. Today we went to the Pastor's apartment to celebrate Chuesok dinner with his family and with several other families. It was a great time. One of the families came from the US army base and so had access to 'food we know not of'.... he brought the lasagna. Yummy... I know it's only been three weeks, but I tell you, that lasagna sure tasted good. We also had pies and cakes... which are luxuries for those of us without ovens... so the food was good and the company was even better.

We met two youngish couples, one from South Africa, they have two sons... one is four and one is six I think. He works with IBM I believe. The other couple is from the states. Hannah is from Washington, her husband Su is Korean, but attended University in Washington, they met at church and married. They've been married for two years and have a baby named Noah... he's really cute.

Anyway, there were others in attendance, some of whom we've met before and who we will probably become very familiar with... most all of them go to the church we've been attending.

So, it was a really good time, good food, good company and familiar games... we played 'Mafia'... must be a church thing?

Chuesok Finery and Aliens

Today was an extremely easy day at work, as the Korean Harvest Festival, or Thanksgiving festival of Chuesok was being celebrated. As a result, all kindergarten classes were cancelled, though all teachers were expected to attend to help out with the activities. Scott and I were two teachers who were not in attendance. As there were no classes this morning, we were given the morning off to go to the immigration office and apply for our Alien registration cards... which we must do within the first 90 days of arriving... or we are illegal aliens. So, that is all taken care of now... in thirteen days we can go pick up our i.d. cards confirming that we are now aliens... it's pretty good, we didn't even have to leave Earth. (I apologize for the extremely bad joke).

Anyway, I arrived back at work for my afternoon classes just in time to take in the last of the morning activities... all of the children and some of the teachers were dressed in the 'Hanbok' the traditional Korean clothing... it was quite a sight. The traditional costumes are beautiful, silk and colourful, with beautiful embroidery. If any of you have time you should look these costumes up on the internet... they are quite a bit different from the Japanese style kimono.... and they are very beautiful; each one is different.

The kids were all very excited, they had spent the morning doing traditional dances, playing traditional instruments, playing traditional games and cooking traditional foods... it was quite the morning I guess. When I arrived, the children in my classes rushed over to me to show me their costumes and the food and crafts that they had made.... One of the best experiences in Korea so far.

A bit of a mishap and a big storm

For Angela and all people who know her, I'd just like to let you all know that I now have a bump on my leg too. Not of the phantom variety.... mine is black and blue all over and hurts when I move to quickly. So, this is the short but painful story of the mishap, yet another tale of the clumbsiness of me (Deborah).

Scott and I were on our way out for dinner Sunday night, all was going well as we walked to our destination until we stopped at the stop lights. In Korea, there are cement blocks every foot on the side of the road, to prevent the cars from coming on to the sidewalk (I guess that's what they're for anyway.. I don't really know). Not knowing, or not remembering that I was standing behind one, I moved forward with my leg with full force as the little red man on the lights turned into a little green man.... SMACK, right into the cement block... I think the Korean people around me thought I was a complete idiot as I yelled 'ow ow ow ow...' and other English ouchey phrases. It was kind of painful to walk for the rest of the night and I had a nice shiny bump pretty much right away. Now it has become a nice big bruise, and still hurts.

Well, not really a very exciting story for those of you not interested in bumps and bruises, but it's the most interesting one I can come up with at present. So, on to the big storm story.

It started at about 4:00 am this morning that both Scott and I woke up to very loud thunder and probably the loudest rain I have ever heard... It was raining very hard. However, when we woke up at 7:00, the rain had stopped and all seemed calm. So, we walked to work (35 min walk) as usual and didn't take either our umbrella or our bus cards. Shortly after we arrived at work a giant down pour began, as did the thunder and lightning. This time it did not stop. When Scott had to leave the Hann campus and travel 35 minutes to the Cheolsan campus, he had neither umbrella nor bus card.... and consequently had to walk. He got drenched pretty much as soon as he left the building. When I left at 5:00pm, it was still raining hard, and so being in the same situation, I arrived home soaked to the skin.

Anyway, I guess it's all part of the Korean rainy season that supposedly lasts until the end of September. Pastor Bill (the pastor of the church we have been attending) told us that it goes in cycles and we had had quite a few sunny and extremely hot days lately. He said that we're still in for the worst part of the rainy season, since the Hann river has not yet flooded, and it usually does. Pastor Bill has been here for 20 some years, so I guess he'd know (he's originally from Oklahoma for anyone interested).

We have a long weekend this week, so it should be pretty nice to have the time off. This coming weekend is 'Chuesok'... it is the Korean harvest festival that spans three days... it is usually referred to as Korean Thanksgiving. It may be kind of cool to see some of the festivities.

Well, better go.............. Talk to some of you later.

Celebration

This past Saturday was the first time that Deborah and I celebrated the Sabbath. We began it at 6 Saturday night and ended it at 6 Sunday night.

On Saturday before 6, we prepared for the Sabbath. First, Deborah looked up recipes online, recipes that could be cooked in a skillet. When she found a recipe, we went to the store to pick up the required ingredients and then returned home. The store is in a very convenient location. It is just across the parking lot of our building. After getting the groceries inside I went to buy fruit from the street vendors. I purposed to avoid the grapes because Deborah said she didn't like them, but I bought three bunches of them. Luckily, perhaps because it was the Sabbath, Deborah grew to like them. Now, we both love them. Anyway, I also bought two large peaches and three mesh sacks of mandarins.

Deborah aimed to be ready by 6, but no bother we ate a bit later than that. For the meal, we each had a delicious piece of chicken, marinated in a honeymustard sauce and rolled in bread crumbs, on a bed of lettuce, a mandarin along with mandarin juice and baked potato from a convection oven. In a surprise, though Deborah peeled the potatoes, when baked in the oven they got a new skin. And they were delicious! I wonder whether a similar skin would appear if they were baked in a conventional oven. At any rate, we finished the meal with a dainty apple dumpling.

We began the meal with a liturgy, which I borrowed from somewhere else. First, I said, "This is the day that the Lord has made," and Deborah responded, "Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Then I blessed Deborah and gave thanks for the food, mentioning that this excellent meal is a symbol of the glorious gifts of the gospel with which the Lord is pleased to make our souls fat. After the meal, we studied from the catechism (I really need to learn how to teach), played Uno and drank hot chocolate using Pepero's as stir sticks. Needless to say, the next day our hearts were well prepared to worship the Lord with his people.

Today was a great day

Today was a really good day. All of the seven year olds at the kindergarten school were gone on a field trip to Namsang, so three of my classes were cancelled and I had a four hour break between my six year old classes and my grade sixes. My six year olds were pretty wild today, but even the Korean teachers were having trouble controlling them so I didn't feel too badly. One of the kids even mooned me, but what can you do.

On my four hour break I went to the gymnasium. It's a really big facility and I think it may have been built when the Olympics were in Seoul. Inside it has swimming and gyms and racketball courts etc.. Outside it has an outdoor rollerblading track surrounded by a dirt track, many walking trails, benches under trees and a rockclimbing facility. I walked around outside for a bit since it was a really nice day and sat under some trees to write in my journal and read my Bible. It was a great way to spend the time. I also sat by the rollerblade track for a bit, writing in my journal as they played the Beatles over the loud speaker... the Beatles made it feel a bit like home.

The weather today was fantastic! It was hot like usual, but there was a lot of wind, cooling the air. It was really windy because there is a typhoon passing between Japan and South Korea right now. It has hit the west coast of Japan and is supposed to hit Korea tomorrow, but it's been downgraded to a level 3, so we'll likely just get some wind and a lot of rain, nothing too serious.

Well, Scott won't be home for another two hours and I'm sure he had a good day as well. Because of the field trip he only had three classes today and he didn't start until like 3:00pm.

This Past Saturday: First, We went to Yongsan

This past Saturday, we traveled into Seoul and walked around for seven hours. It was amazing. Seoul was packed in the market areas, but in other areas there weren't many people. It's a beautiful city.

First, we went to Yongsan, which is an area that sells a bunch of electronics. There is something like 5000 electronics stores in 21 buildings. They are everywhere. In the main building of the district, an old bus station, there are many booths like a flea market, except they are all lit up with lights and they are selling electronics. We still had trouble, however, finding what we were looking for. In Korea, all interaction with people is like a puzzle game, unless you find someone who speaks English well. We did find someone that spoke english and he directed us to another building, where he said we could find power transformers. He told us the voltage too, which I had forgotten to look up. So, we walked across a parking lot and went to another building. This one had shops lined up along the wall of the building, like a strip mall, except the shops had no doors and they were very small and congested. They were packed with stuff. We went into one, which always takes courage, talked with the guy a bit, that is, I kept repeating "transformer," and he soon went back into his shop and picked up just what we were looking for.

Note

The previous blog post was not written here in Korea. I wrote it when I was on the ferry to PEI with Deborah and my mother. It was a bit of free writing to occupy time, but I thought that it well expressed my old subculture. It probably doesn't, but I liked it so I put it up.

Deborah and I are doing wonderful, Deborah only slightly less wonderfully than me.

Lonely Hearts

Walking on the streets of Vancouver; walking under the city lights, looking for a place to sit; looking for the next band to melt my heart; this heat will melt me, make me sweat; sweet taste of sweat on my lips, running down from my brow; a quiet, melancholy night; the city belches many noises, but nothing speaks to me; a few heckles and drunken laughs, but no real words; words ripe with meaning; words like ripe apples and words like ripe peaches; juice running down my chin, ointment on Aaron’s beard; words that ease my heart, ease my mind; none I find on these Vancouver streets; only lonely souls traveling in groups, in packs, searching for a den in which to settle and begin feasting on regretful hearts, licking wounds and chanting quietly to one another, “Go to sleep. We want to change the world, but we don’t love the world: we don’t love the world, but it’s all we were given.” And I walk past, for this den is not for me. I walk by these lonely souls; they’ll perish in that den, drowned in blood and pus they’ve licked from their wounds; I walk by these souls, they have no words for me; I taste my salty sweat as the city heat melts me, and walk past these souls, past the city lights, into the darkness.

Testing and Grand Opening

As Halifax's Christian radio station had a time of testing before its official opening, so we have had a time of testing. And as World Class, a new department store in Seoul, had a grand opening today with two Korean girls in tube tops playing electric violins on a stage outside the entrance, so we are having a grand opening today.

We now have the internet on our laptop, so our erratic posting will cease and our regular posting begin. Return here often for our superb writing, which daftly mingles intelligence and style: "Whoso is simple, let him come in hither: as for him the wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled."

We can be contacted

Hello everybody... for those of you wanting to know, we just arrived back after our trip to Seoul and we bought a power converter and a wireless router, so we can now be contacted by msn messenger, by instant message, microphone and/or webcam.

For the family... if anyone reads this, email us so that we can set up a time to contact eachother online.

We found a church in Seoul that holds English services, both traditional and contemporary, so we may attend there tomorrow. It is called Youngnak Presbyterian and is actually the biggest church in the world... 700000 people attend. Of course that is the Korean service. I'm expecting the English service to have like maybe 15 people, but it will be nice to meet some people.

Well, we're here

Hello everyone.
Well, here we are in South Korea... and I have to say it is very very different, difficult and yeah. A lot of stuff has kind of gone a little wrong, but we're surviving. When we arrived, the old teachers had not moved out of their apartment yet and so the school put us up in a 'Motel' for 3 nights... this is not your typical american style motel... our co-workers affectionately refer to these places as 'love motels'.

Anyway, it also turns out that we do not get our own apartment and we have to share a 3 bedroom apartment with two male teachers (making me a bit uncomfortable), their names are Waseem (a Muslim guy from Edmonton) and Ryan (a guy from New Zealand). We move in tonight.

The school seems pretty good though. Scott and I are both working at the same school, though they neglected to tell us that we would be working at different campuses. Scott works at Cheolsan and I work at Hann. I started teaching there today and boy was it difficult. It's hard to keep control of a class of 15 kindergarteners when you don't speak the same language as them and their grasp of English is saying 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. Some of the kids are really cute, but others are little devils that run around like crazy, jump on tables, scream and pull on your clothes.... now try to teach them anything. Anyway.... it's going to be tough. I do have 3 older girls later in the afternoon and they are really good and try really hard. The campus I work at is a traditional Korean Kindergarten school, so they also teach piano, balet and martial arts. My Korean co-teachers that teach the other classes are kind of interfering and will come into your class while you're teaching and interupt you to tell you what you're doing wrong. So nice of them eh?

Well, I guess there's not much else to say... I miss Canada with it's fresh air, lack of millions of neon lights, and lack of smog (the smog in Seoul makes it impossible to see the sun, any blue sky, the moon or the stars... although you wouldn't be able to see the stars anyway for all the neon lights).

It's not all bad, and I'll probably get used to it all eventually..... but Pray for us a lot please.