at the risk of seeming ridiculous…

One must dive under the superficial crust of reality, of common sense, of reasoning reason, in order to touch the very bottom of the soul and awaken the timeless forces of desire: desire which makes of man a refusal of everything and a love of everything: desire, the radical negation of natural laws and of the possible, a call to miracles; desire which, by its mad cosmic energy, plunges man back into the seething breast of Nature and, at the same time, lifts him above Nature through the affirmation of his Right to be unsatisfied.



-Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus

Discontentment.  Refusal.  Resistance.  Prophetism.  The world of activism swirls with these notions… and understandably so.  For we live in a problematic world.  From the structural to the psychological, every good and beautiful thing seems to come through the tattered rags of the wrong and the ugly.  Such is the nature of the world.  Simply put, it is just too damn hard to be good.

For those that even try to do good, we are all still caught in a web of exploitation and alienation.  For each small thing we buy, we can probably trace some strings that are attached to the oppression of another fellow person.  For the very areas we live in, regardless of whether we are rich or poor, we live standing on the backs of the third world who are suffering to make our lives that much more comfortable.  We, in the Western world, occupy a strange existence.  We, in the modern-day Roman Empire, have a peculiar dilemma.

I am hinting at the essence of who we are as people.  I am trying to plug into the very core of what we claim to be.  It is that very mode of being where we have the divine ability to choose.  Yes, we are the product of social forces.  Yes, we are the product of our family structures.  And yes, we are the collection of the long line of influences we have from birth till today.  However, we are also the creators of our own destiny.  How is this true?  Because as strong as we think those forces are that have molded us… those forces had its beginnings in the choices of people.  The world we live in today is the product of the choices millions of people have historically made in the past till the present.  We have shaped this world.  We make it what it is.  And as bad as it may seem, we can also change it.  Because that is our right as human beings.  It is our right to live in a better world.

The beauty of discontentment is that at its core, it is idealism.  People raise their fists because they know things can be better.  That is the poetic nature of activism.  The fist in the air is a declaration to the world that it is not everything that it could be.  And more profoundly, it is a plea to the human heart to realize that it can be good.

We as people, as human beings, must always strive relentlessly towards that which is good, true, and beautiful.

Activists, I implore you to keep raising your fists, lifting your voices, and moving your feet.  For your prophetic desire is grace unto a world that should’ve unraveled long ago if not for people like you.  Musicians, painters, writers, poets… keep creating.  For the beauty and truth you are able to show the world helps the soul envision better places that can be brought closer to reality.

It is our right to be unsatisfied.  For the good, the true, and the beautiful hinges on our discontentment to dynamically and constantly make the world into a place it should be.

 
*Published in Common Ground, a newsletter for UCSD’s Cross-Cultural Center.

If we confine our scrutiny to the zero-sum heroics of revolution successfully achieved, we discount the vast proportion of human social action which is played out, perforce, on a more humble scale.  We also evade, by teleological reasoning, the real questions that remain as to what are the transformative motors of history.  -Jean Comaroff, Body of Power

  This quote came as a gift to me on Christmas Eve.  I believe that it provides a significant insight into the nature of what social action is.

We have to sit still for a moment in our hype-driven culture… and just reflect on what it means to be “socially active”.  In the world of Bono’s and Gore’s, it’s hard to think of social action (or love…) on the simple level.  When you have Brad Pitt come out on television holding an AIDS-stricken child, it’s hard to think of that inner-city teacher who has committed the past 15 years of her life teaching and loving her kids… without the fame nor pay that she deserves.

This makes me think about what is truly meaningful when it comes to helping “humanity”.  Is it really the big things?  Is it getting white wrist bands on over a million Americans?  Is it holding massive concerts around the world to talk about a single issue?  Is it even getting airtime?  Or is it simple love?  In the form of commitment…?  Is it that person who commits everyday to being at the after-school program at 3pm sharp so that kids will have a safe place to go?  Is it that mother who works hard through the hours of the night so that she’ll be home when her kids come from school?  Is it that guy who merely shows up because he said he would?

Don’t get me wrong.  Seeing something revolutionary is not a bad thing.  It’s a glorious thing… something that fills people with hope.  But like any grand thing, they are momentary.  They pass.  But the question is… are the people still committed after those grand moments?  It’s dangerous to only rely on the grand things… the true test is whether our lives resonate that grandness on the day-to-day basis.

Mother Teresa said it well:

 Speak tenderly.  Let there be kindness in your face, your eyes, your smile, in the warmth of your greeting.  Always have a cheerful smile.  Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.  Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.  We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.  And be faithful in these small things because it is in them that your strength lies.   

myspace.com/chuckykim

Some music for ya.  Hope you enjoy. 

As I reflect upon the fires that roared through San Diego last week, I’m filled with both hope and despair. On the one hand, it was a beautiful thing to see so many volunteers take time out of their day to come down to an evacuation center to lend their support and services. I felt honored to be among people who wanted to help because something told them that things need to be done beyond the realm of self-interest. Organizing pillows and bedding, directing people to specific locations, carrying water, serving food, laughing, talking… one learns the utter goodness of life when you actively make a choice to simplify life down to the service of the other.

On the other hand, I felt despair for the other side of San Diego. Those who weren’t even warned to evacuate. Those who had no cars to even get to an evacuation center. Those who felt too afraid to go to one because of fear of deportation. With an honest and loving look into the world in which we live, it’s not hard to see that there are really two worlds. One of the well-to-do… and one of the underprivileged. It is really in times of disaster that dramatizes this heinous dichotomy. 

It’s hard being idealistic about the world and hopeful about its people when you read about how wealthier areas had an abundance of resources… many volunteers were turned away from such the great turnout. Yet, when you then read a story about how undocumented workers were being round up by authorities who used evacuation as an excuse to interrogate… your heart breaks.

The evidence always looks grim. I’m not if sure I still have hope for the world that I once used to. But I believe in people. There was an over-abundance of helpers this time. The tragedy is that they only knew to go to the ones populated by wealthier people. We exist in two worlds where one doesn’t see the other. The task is to expose the illusion of the wall that separates the two.

Fire consumes. It burns away the unnecessary things. Perhaps it also exposes who we are. Not merely individually, but collectively.

Pray for those who have been affected by the fires. Pray for those who have lost much. Pray for those who were once again reminded that they don’t matter because they live in the wrong area. Pray for all of us that we would learn to love one another… passionately and boldly.

By the practice of active love.
Try to love your neighbors actively and steadfastly.
The more you practice love,
the more you will be convinced of
the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.
Should you attain total renunciation of self in
your love for your neighbor,
then your faith will be absolute,
and no doubt will ever assail your soul.
This has been tried,
this has been tested.

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Brothers Karamazov

“If we speak of a healthy community, we cannot be speaking of a community that is merely human.  We are talking about a neighborhood of humans in a place, plus the place itself:  its soil, its water, its air, and all the families and tribes of the nonhuman creatures that belong to it.  If the place is well preserved, if its entire membership, natural and human, is present in it, and if the human economy is in practical harmony with the nature of the place, then the community is healthy.”

-Wendell Berry, Conservation and Local Economy

We all know the process very well.  Sometimes it happens during a lecture.  Sometimes it happens when we’re studying.  Sometimes it just happens.  It is this natural phenomenon we all like to call hunger.  Our bodies naturally need proteins, sugars, carbohydrates, etc.  And to achieve equilibrium, we eat.  Now, most of the time, this is a very mundane process for most of us out there.  Our stomachs grumble and we fill it.  If you’re anything like the average college student, it’s usually done with haste and in between classes.

Granted the circumstances most of us are in, I would assume that many of us don’t take those extra few minutes to actually sit there and think about the origin of the food that is sitting right in front of us.  Do we stop and think about how that piece of bread began as a seed that was planted?  Do we think about the cultivation of the soil that gave rise to the wheat?  Do we imagine the process from which the wheat is picked and gradually turned into dough, which is then baked into the wonderful, delicious treat that we so lovingly place onto our tongues?  If you do, then I must commend you.  But if you’re anything like me, there’s hardly a second thought.

I recently attended American Pie.  It is a quarterly program put on by UCSD’s International Center where they take international students to various locations around San Diego and beyond.  Each quarter has its own theme.  This quarter’s was on sustainability.  As a result, we attended two organic farms, the San Pasqual Academy in Escondido and Sage Farm in Hemet.  The latter of the two allowed us to plant strawberry roots.  Personally, it was a wonderful experience.  Knees on the dirt, fingers pressing the roots into the wet soil, breeze brushing against your face, and the sun providing its warmth.  But more than the actual work itself, it was incredible to be able to plant something myself that I knew would be eventually eaten by someone.  Furthermore, I knew that it would in no way be harmful to that person because no foreign chemicals were used.  The process was completely organic and nothing that was ecologically unfriendly was introduced.

This made me ponder about food itself.  I wondered exactly what I choose to put into my own body.  I wondered if I knew what sorts of chemicals were used on the produce that I buy at the grocery store.  I wondered about the breeding and raising practices of the meat I consume.  On a deeper level, I wondered what the affects of the agricultural economy that I support on a weekly basis are doing to its surrounding environment.

We don’t really seem to think about these things on a meal-to-meal basis anymore.  The reason is simple… we have lost our imagination.  We don’t get to actively participate in the cultivation of our own food.  This may be a relief to many of you who dread even getting close to dirt, but for the others, we’ve forgotten the centuries old wonder of turning wheat into bread.  And somewhere in that process, we’ve also forgotten how interconnected our food is to our local environment.

We live in a globalized world.  It is a world where we no longer are intricately connected to the soil upon which our nourishment comes from.  Our veggies no longer come from Escondido.  They come from Chile.  Things are produced in mass quantities.  And with anything done in overhaul, we must think about the sustainability of its ecological surroundings.  When we over-produce something to feed a country from a particular area, we kill the soil.  When we kill the soil, the community, and its surrounding economy, dies as well.  Now this is a scary thought not only for American farmers, but also for their global counterparts.

Now that environmental issues are somewhat of a fad, we have more liberty to discuss these sorts of issues that will profoundly affect us in the years to come.  But like with any issue, it must survive the media hype in order for it to substantially change anything.  Put simply, we don’t need another Al Gore.  We need a critical mass.  So I ask you to join me in something.  When you sit down to eat your next meal, take about a minute and ask yourself, “Where exactly did this come from?”  And if you’re still intrigued, ask, “How was this made?”  This act of questioning may not change the way we steward the environment today, but it is a step in changing ourselves.  It is a step somewhere.  And like the great writer Flannery O’Conner once wrote, “Somewhere is better than anywhere”.

*Published in Common Ground, a newsletter for UCSD’s Cross-Cultural Center.

I’m sure many of us have felt it.  I’m not talking about instances purely related to the spiritual.  I’m talking about those moments where things just seem to come together.  Things that are seemingly unrelated just happen to come together at a certain place in time.  This phenomenon has many names.  Grace, providence, destiny, chance, choice, etc.  I would personally call it hope.  Hope that something bigger than all of us is at work.  That perhaps there are moments where truth clothed in beauty breaks into the world.

The collective unconscious and the theory of synchronicity were probably the most notable contributions Carl Jung gave to the world of psychology, or perhaps just the world in general.  Whereas Freud would not differentiate between an individual and collective psychology, Jung focused his work around the collective.  He talked about there being something that happens in our unconscious, which is common to all, that intuitively knows and has a better grasp on our ideal selves than our own egos.  Jung calls this collective unconscious the “reservoir of the experiences of our species.”  I’m reminded of this scene from the film, Waking Life, where two of the characters start talking about puzzles.  A test was conducted on a person, one of the characters said, on how fast he can finish a puzzle.  The first puzzle given was not yet released to the public.  The interesting phenomenon was the second puzzle.  Unknowingly to the test taker, the second puzzle had been released to the public a day before.  The person finished the second puzzle significantly faster than the first one.  The character concluded that it seems as though once the answers are already “out there,” we seem to all intuitively “know” it.

So why the talk of psychology?  And how does this relate to “the work of the spirit” as my entry is perhaps pretentiously called.  Well, it is wrapped up in this notion of synchronicity.  Jung developed this theory by describing it as an experience where multiple events that are meaningfully connected occur together, but these events are also unrelated.  Things happen together, yet the actors involved in those events are somewhat unaware of the happenings of the other events.  This idea was used by Jung to describe the dynamic of the things that govern the human experience.  The mover of the collective unconscious if you will.

The 60s.  1960s to be exact.  I can think of no better decade in history that dramatizes Jung’s theories (also because I’m obsessed with the 60s… but that’s for another day).  Here we have this moment in history where people rise up and take the direction of history into their own hands.  But what makes this event incredibly significant is that it was not just in America.  Many of us will often think of the Civil Rights movement when thinking of the 60s.  MLK.  Malcolm X.  But we fail to recognize that the liberation movement of the 60s was a global event.  Barack Obama often refers to the civil rights movement as something that gave ripples off to other parts of the globe that inspired movements.  This is a bit too glorifying for America.  I would argue that it’s something greater.  Something that took hold of people not just in the states, but also in Europe, Latin America, South Africa, China, etc.  Malcolm X, after traveling around the world, said it well in that the world was having a revolution.  Not just black people.  Something took hold of the world and pushed it forward to its dynamic liberation.

Jazz and blues.  It only takes traveling to various countries to realize that music is a synchronistic phenomenon as well.  As jazz was having its heyday in Harlem, Bossa was springing up in Sao Paulo.  We mustn’t also forget about the developments of South African jazz.  The basis of these forms of music is the dissonance created by the 7, augmented, flat 5 / flat 9, and diminished chords.  These chords represent the anguish experienced by suffering people.  To that effect, one could also see the emergence of arirang folk songs in Korea during the Japanese occupation as well as its further development through Korea’s tragic history.  It is in the nature of the blues to sing your sorrows away so that you can be free.  I don’t think that it’s by pure chance that these developments across the world emphasized the struggle and liberation.  Again, I believe that it was something greater that knew the hearts of men and its yearnings for freedom.

Jung touched on something profound.  Perhaps it was the spirit of God he was tapping into.  That’s what I would like to think anyways.  Nevertheless, I am filled with hope because I know that something knows our ideals better than we do.  And that it is dynamic in its push to get us there.

*Much of this was inspired by talks with d.sohn during this past summer.

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarrented concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating it’s arbitrary actions. Even today, there is little value in assuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or withhold from the press and the public the facts that they deserve to know…

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions–by the government, bye the people, by every busisnessman and labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly effecient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its disssenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the cold war, in short, with a wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security–and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

And so it is to the printing press–to the recorder of mans deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news–that we look for strength and assistance, confidant that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

-John F. Kennedy, Address Before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (April 27, 1961)

 “In the gospel accounts one never perceives Jesus to complain about the difficulties of existence.  He never asks why evil exists side by side with a God who is Father and Love.  It is clear to Jesus: Evil does not exist to be understood but to be fought and conquered by love.”  -Leonardo Boff, Jesus Christ Liberator    

 A friend showed me a news article today.  The grotesque nature of this random act of violence was not the most disturbing thing for me.  The fact that it was an innocent 5-year-old boy made me feel sick to my stomach.  It is at this point where any person with a heart would ask, “Why?”

The question of suffering in the world is perhaps the most important, if not the only, question to agonize over.  For we know that in the face of suffering, all other questions, interests, and ambitions seem to retreat to the periphery.  It is a question that we all address in our lives.  Some are satisfied with the answers they arrive at, others get disturbed enough to the point where they end their lives.  In any case, I believe that we all wish to understand why it is that suffering still ravages a world, particularly the world of the innocent.  In the spirit of Dostoyevsky, one wonders if the suffering of the innocent can ever be vindicated by some future justice.

This theodicean problem presents a particular dilemma.  If God or some future justice is going to vindicate the suffering of the past and of today, we are still left with the suffering of the past and of today.  On a practical level, is this future vindication of good over evil what we tell the oppressed today?  Even in the midst of their present suffering, is this what we ought to tell them?  As idealistic or logical as it might seem, there is an underlying sense of absurdity within that counsel.  How can any future vindication ever justify the present and past suffering of an innocent child?  Like Ivan Karamazov, I’d have to confidently decline such a notion.

MLK once wrote from a Birmingham jail cell, “We must come to see… that justice too long delayed is justice denied.”  It is easy for people not under the heavy sword of oppression to speak of a future justice.  But it is imperative for people under the sword to will its quick removal.  The senseless acts of violence and hatred are things to be stopped now because people have the power to stop them.  If it is within our power to do so, the notion of a future justice becomes more of a unnerving pipedream rather than a philosophical insight.

But I realize that there is a major difference between seeking to understand evil and actively willing its removal.  It is really a difference between the conceptual and praxis.  Reflecting upon the problem of suffering can too easily become a purely introspective endeavor.  When it remains conceptual, suffering can be thought about, discussed, and conclusions can be drawn without even coming face to face with those in the struggle.  It is a devious way to make oneself look like they are serving humanity when really they remain within the comforts of their conceptual prisons.

This is not to say that thoughts about suffering are unnecessary, but rather that they in themselves are inadequate.  The true posture is that of warfare.  You fight evil to overcome it.  It is a dialectical relationship.  Knowledge of evil must be used to propel oneself to fight it.  It is only within this practice that justice has integrity.  And it is within this framework that I believe Jesus showed us how to live.

It makes me wonder if I even have the courage to live that sort of life.  Dostoyevsky once wrote, “My greatest fear is that I will not be worthy of my sufferings.”  Am I even worthy enough to partake of that cup of suffering?

Let me start off with my thoughts on politics.  The system of politics, for me, must create the conditions necessary for people themselves to do what they can for each other.  In this sense, government itself is a contingent entity, which must fluctuate depending on the sorts of demands by the people.  Democratic… yes.  That said, I believe it is an ignorant notion to think we vote people into office to do the work for us.  No policy change will end racism.  No policy change will end poverty.  No policy change will end sexism.  It is, rather, the people themselves who must change and must act.  Policy must follow accordingly to make those movements possible.  If we want change, we must take responsibility and do it ourselves.  We can’t wait for someone to do it for us miles away in a white house.  It is really our task.

Grassroots activism is how change really happens.  If you read your history, you will know that too.  Societies and their political systems change because the people rise up and change it.  A good politician helps make that happen.  Obama is that kind of man for me.  He was a community organizer.  He understands the grassroots process.  And with his experience as a civil rights attorney, he also understands how to make that happen.

So let me cut to the chase and be frank.  Obama understands the plight of the poor.  You can see it in his senate voting record.  And honestly, that is the most important issue in my opinion.  For it is a tragic betrayal of American ideals that a family ought to go hungry.  It is blasphemous to think a child cannot get treated due to health care costs.  Painful to see schools get shut down from under-funding.  Ironic that a student must go kill another man in order to have the financial means to attend school.  You see, poverty is a pervasive issue.  It affects all realms of life.  On a deeper level, poverty is the very negation of what humanity is.

He’s fought against poverty.  He’s voted against it.  And his focus on it is refreshing.  After all, how you judge a country’s character is to look at how it treats its poor and downtrodden.

That is what is most important for me.  All other issues are secondary.  Though, how he stands on the other issues are quite inspiring as well.  But you can check that out yourself.

Obama being pushed into the presidential candidacy was a grassroots phenomenon.  Whereas Clinton is really just a reflection of the Washington establishment… not the present administration but rather the process of getting there.  But Clinton is a great candidate too.  I just prefer Obama.

Anyways.  Obama for ’08.

Now… where can I get my shirt?

One can compare the Spiritual Presence with the air we breathe, surrounding us, nearest to us, and working life within us.  This comparison has a deep justification: in most languages, the word “spirit” means breath or wind.  Sometimes the wind becomes storm, grand and devastating.  Mostly it is moving air, always present, not always noticed.  In the same way the Spirit is always present, a moving power, sometimes in stormy ecstasies of individuals and groups, but mostly quiet, entering out human spirit and keeping it alive; sometimes manifest in great moments of history or a personal life, but mostly working hiddenly through the media of our daily encounters with men and world; sometimes using its creation, the religious communities and their Spiritual means, and often making itself felt in spheres far removed from what is usually called religious.  Like the wind the Spirit blows where it wills!  It is not subject to rule or limited by method.  Its ways with men are not dependent on what men are and do.  You cannot force the Spirit upon yourself, upon an individual, upon a group, or even upon a Christian church.  Although he who is the foundation of the church was himself of the Spirit, and although the Spirit as it was present in him is the greatest manifestation of Spiritual Presence, the Spirit is not bound to the Christian church or any one of them.  The Spirit is free to work in the spirits of men in every human situation, and it urges men to let Him do so; God as Spirit is always present to the spirit of man.

 -Paul Tillich, the Eternal Now