May I Talk to You about My Plans?



All Nations Hall


This is a question that is posed to me by my students several times a week.  I've found that the typical Handong student is much more inclined to be thinking about her or his future than the run-of-the-mill student in the States.  That's not to say, however, that I didn't have many exceptional students during my days of teaching at both Fontbonne and MBU who were quite serious about making their lives count. 

But, in general, I'm finding that the vast majority of students here think about making a difference in the world in the -- to borrow a phrase from Brother Bonhoeffer -- "the concrete realities of life in here and now."  As a result, I've had many students visiting my office (on the 3d floor of All Nations Hall -- my window is the first one on the wing that extends off to the right of the corner tower), even within the first week of classes this semester, to talk about the plans they have made or are seeking to make for their studies and future roles of service. 

Quite a number of them are interested in discussing whether the major in U.S. & International Law ("UIL") would help to equip them for positions in government or non-governmental organizations within their home countries or in developing third-world countries.

In fact, just I was started composing this post yesterday afternoon, I had a knock on my office door and a freshman came in to discuss this very question.  All the freshman here at Handong start as "Global Studies" majors, and then within their first two semesters, they are required to declare two specific majors they wish to pursue through their studies.  That's right, every student at Handong declares two majors! Many of the freshman are stopping by my office to discuss the UIL major.

Often, students will tell me of a personal "vision" they have for their lives.  They describe the positions they imagine themselves occupying in leadership roles within major international corporations or political parties.  Others have a strong commitment to developing countries and during their university studies use holiday breaks to work in Cambodia or Kyrgyzstan rather than travel to the sunny beaches of Phuket. In nearly every case, though, they have carefully thought through their plans and are looking ahead with very specific expectations.

After recounting to me their plans and expectations, these students will then sit quietly with a slight smile on their faces as they await my comments.  What should I say?  Do I affirm their plans?  Should I suggest alternatives? Should I encourage them or try to dissuade them for their proposed path, if I think it might be unwise?  Because the Asian culture puts such a strong emphasis on young people respecting the advice and guidance of their elders, I'm put in quite a precarious position.

I don't have any fixed answers for them.  I don't offer any formulas for success, nor do I try to tell them what God's will is for their lives.  Instead, I feel like the Korean Buddhist monk, well-known for his silence and meditation, who when he was asked for a "word of wisdom" by his students told them, "Never trust the word of a monk."  So rather than try to offer them specific counsel regarding their plans and choices, I encourage them to seek out the path where they can best serve the purpose to which they have been called.

I suggest that success in life can only be found as we, individually and with others, seek to discover how we have been designed and equipped to serve others, and then start doing that service now in the midst of the concrete realities of life.  Plans for the future can provide guidance for the way we live out today, but what is of even greater importance is living fully in the present -- making the most of each opportunity to serve that we are provided today.

"The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."  ~ Proverbs 16:9

What's That Beeping, Creeping That I Hear . . . ?

(With deepest apologies to E.A. Poe)

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly sleeping, suddenly there came a beeping,
As of something gently creeping, creeping along my chamber floor.

No, I won't go any farther with this, but the beeping that pierced my nights for the past two days did nearly inspire a Homeric epic.  That beeping, beeping, beeping continued nearly every five minutes through-out the entire night!  What a way to be welcomed into your new apartment, though, I must say, the apartment that I've been provided this time is a great improvement over little (did I say little) studio apartment last year.

What could it be?  Was it the first faint taunts of a fire alarm or, maybe worse, a carbon-monoxide alarm that I had inadvertently activated by using the gas cook stove incorrectly?  Was it coming from the radiant heating system that warms my floors?  Was it my water heater?  Had I forgotten to turn it off?  I looked and looked, tried this and tried that, and I just couldn't get that beeping to STOP!

My only recourse was to go to bed and pack a pillow over my ears.  Thankfully I was still so exhausted from the re-ordering of my circadian rhythm that I was able to sleep though the beeping, beeping -- at least for a few hours at a time.  Yet, each time I awoke, I waiting anxiously, listening, hoping, and then the silence of the night was fractured again with that incessant BEEPING!

I just can't go through another day with this beeping.  I'll have to move into my office until I can get someone who knows how to make it stop.  Or, is it just in my head?  I'm I just imagining this or is it really real??  There's only one way for me to find out.  The way that any good foreign faculty member at Handong begins his search for true knowledge.

I must call my TA!  Now, as any regular reader of these postings might think, it would be a very difficult task for me to find someone who might have the potential to measure up to Mr. Mok.  He was my most excellent TA who served me faithfully during my two semesters as a visiting professor here in 2009-2010.  Now, upon my return to Handong, though, I did not have to look for a replacement -- for my new TA came to me. 

Ms. Han was the top student in my Legal Argumentation class last year.  She also was the driving-force organizing and directing the Law & Advocacy study group with whom I served as a faculty sponsor.  Over the past winter break, she and two other top law students from Handong traveled to the Netherlands for a research project at The Hague and the University of Utrecht.  A more outstanding student I could not find if I had tried.

So, I placed a call to Ms. Han asking her to investigate the piercing beeping that was pervading my apartment.  With just one short telephone call (in Korean) to the University's Housing Authority, she advised me that the beeping was a signal that the batteries powering the igniter for my gas stovetop were soon to lose power and needed to be replaced.  Amazing, all that needed to be done was to remove the old batteries from the back of my stovetop (they were hidden back there) and replace them with new.

Relief!  No more beeping, beeping throughout the night.  It is such a good thing to have an excellent TA!

A Good Place to Start -- Realizing Our End

I consider Prof. Richard Hughes a mentor though I've only met him twice -- once at a conference hosted by Baylor and a second time on the campus of Missouri Baptist University when he visited there as a part of the Rhodes Fellowship.  In his book on the vocation of the Christian scholar, Hughes explains that he has one primary objective in every course he teaches -- to convince his students that they are going to die.

I was vividly reminded of Hughes' principal objective yesterday when, in between my first day morning and afternoon classes, I attended the funeral of a 22-year old Handong student who had died while serving on mission trip last month in Israel.  The student, Ms. Park, was one of a team of Handong students who were in Israel to work on a kibbutz. She died as a result of a tractor accident. It was her second mission trip to Israel.

As I sat in the funeral service and listened to the words of encouragement, comfort and hope offered by our campus pastor, I realized that this was the third funeral I had attended in the month of February.  The first was my mother's.  She had lived a very full and meaningful life that had even exceeded the "four score and ten" of Psalm 90:10 by nearly two years. Her funeral was a celebration of the reality of Christ's promise of resurrection and life in him.

The second funeral was for a friend, Rodney -- the son of the Lutheran pastor who served the congregation where I grew up. I was confirmed under Rodney's father's instruction.  Rodney had also been my family's life insurance agent and financial advisor.  He died suddenly in middle-age of a rare brain disease.  As a follower of Christ, though, he and his family had a settled trust in God's wise and good care.  He peacefully yielded to his Lord's final call.

Then, within three days of my return to Korea, I was sitting in yet another funeral service -- this one, though, for a bright, energetic young person who had died at what most would readily say was the very beginning of her adult life.  From the testimonies of her fellow students and her professors, Ms. Park had a devoted sense of mission and commitment to living her life for others.  She was a psychology and counseling major at Handong and hoped to soon begin serving others as a counselor.

Her sudden death has had a significant impact upon the Handong community.  We have all been reminded of the brevity of life and the necessity of living each day to the fullest according the grace and calling of God.  There is a tradition here in Korea that is practiced as a memorial to those who have died.  A tree is planted to commemorate the person's life and a small memorial stone is placed near the newly planted tree. 

This morning during my reflective walk about campus, I stopped by the memory tree that had been planted yesterday for Ms. Park.  It is a beautiful 3-foot fir tree.  It reminded me of three lives that had all been rooted in Christ and continue even now to bear fruit in the lives of others.  May I be mindful each day of both the brevity of life and the certainty of death so that I might be living wholly and meaningfully today -- and, teach my students to do the same.

     So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.  ~ Psalm 90:12

An Emerging Korean Call

Today marks my second full day back on the campus of Handong University in Pohang, Korea. When I departed from here last June, I expected to be coming back sometime in the future, but not so soon.  I had returned to Missouri last summer first and foremost to be close to my mother whose health was failing.  I also returned to resume my teaching position at Fontbonne and to continue PhD studies at Concordia Seminary, both in St. Louis.

At that time, I believed that there would likely be a position opening on the full-time faculty at Fontbonne and the PhD studies were helping to bolster my credentials for that hoped-for appointment.  In early November, however, I learned that the position would not be available and so, I suspended my graduate studies at the close of the fall quarter.  Within days thereafter, my mother's health took a decided turn for the worse.

I spent most of December and January caring for my mother through three hospitalizations and intervening home convalescences. Earlier this month, Mom's time on earth drew to a close, and she entered her eternal rest on the 4th of February. Earlier in December, I had spoken to my mother about possibly returning to Handong and, even as her own health was fast fading, she was still encouraging me to respond to God’s call.

My decision to return, though, did not come in an inspiring vision nor a challenging dream. Instead, it has been developing over the past eight years from my first meeting with Professors Lee Kuk-woon and Lee Hee-eun at an academic conference in the fall of 2003 all the way through my months of service as a visiting professor just last year. It has been an emerging call that has, in turn, both gripped my heart and puzzled my mind.

Having once again left behind in the States those who are most precious to me, I am, none the less, now more convinced than ever that this is the time and this is the place where I have been designed and equipped to serve others through the gifts God has given me. So I’ve come in response to what might aptly be described as my emerging Korean call. May God’s sustaining grace keep and fortify me for each day. Classes start tomorrow!

Living to Teach Rather Than Teaching to Live

As I ponder the possibility of returning to teach at Handong University in Korea, I have been revisiting the Analects of Confucius.  One in particular is especially applicable to anyone who senses that the calling upon their life is a call to teach.

Of his own role as a teacher, Confucius said, "For anyone who brings even the smallest token of appreciation, I have yet to refuse instruction."

This responsibility to the one seeking instruction was again impressed upon me when I read this morning these verses in The Wisdom of Solomon: "The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love of her."  So when one is met with a request from those who are sincerely seeking instruction, the one who has a call to teach must give the most deliberate consideration to responding.

This type of thinking challenges me to confront the question:  Do you teach to live or do you live to teach?  Another way to put the question would be to examine whether I am accept the offer to teach primarily and principally as a means to make a living, or do I view the opportunity to teach as an open door through which God is directing me to proceed in faith depending upon him and him alone to provide for my earthly needs?

Am I taking no thought for tomorrow, anxious over what I will eat or where I will live or how I will be clothed?  Am I willing to follow on trusting the one who is my Guide, not only to make the way clear, but also to provide all that will be needed for me to progress along that way?  Here Bonhoeffer instructs: "The only way to win assurance is by leaving to-morrow entirely in the hands of God and by receiving from him all we need for to-day" (Discipleship, 178).

"Watch and Pray"

I find myself in a time of waiting. As I ponder the options that are before me, I continue to wait on the responses of others to clarify what opportunities are presently open to me. While prayer is always essential to the one who seeks to follow Christ, I'm realizing even more how necessary it is during these times of waiting.

Bonhoeffer's comments on the petition "Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth" are particularly poignant as I seek to practice living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life. He writes: "In fellowship with Jesus his followers have surrendered their own wills completely to God's, and so they pray that God's will may be done throughout the world. No creature on earth shall defy him. But the evil will is still alive even in the followers of Christ, it still seeks to cut them off from fellowship with him; and that is why they must also pray that the will of God may prevail more and more in their hearts every day and break down all defiance" (Discipleship 166).

Psalm 40 echoes this theme -- "my delight is to do your will, O Lord!" -- and so may my heart and mind! Show me your way, O Lord; lead me in the path you have set out ahead of me. Again, Bonhoeffer speaks to the heart of the matter: "It is always true of the disciple that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and he must therefore "watch and pray" (Discipleship 170).

Practicing Mindfulness

A few weeks ago I learned that a teaching opportunity that I had been told would be opening for me in St. Louis within the next academic year will, in fact, not be opening. The door to that opportunity seems to be closing or is actually completely closed now. I had been planning on that position, but now it appears that I have a much greater need to practice daily mindfulness rather than living so much for an imagined future whose fulfillment was and is completely out of my hands.

In the midst of this time of searching for guidance and reflection upon my calling to teach, I have started to read Thich Nhat Hanh's little book, The Miracle of Mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh had a substantial impact upon Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the movement for peace in Vietnam during the 1960's.

I was first introduced to the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh by my good friend and colleague, John Han, when I served with him on the faculty of Missouri Baptist University. As I have read, I have been challenged by Hanh's insights in to living a whole life. In this little book, he writes: "Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves. . . it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life" (21).

Thich Nhat Hanh's instruction on the practice of mindfulness echoes the theme of "single-mindedness" that pervades the New Testament. More than merely a self-discipline, single-mindedness is very much a gift of the Holy Spirit as he is at work forming within each follower of Jesus the mind of Christ. Paul exhorts the disciple of Christ to do whatever your hand finds to do heartily as unto to the Lord (Colossians 3:23) and to do all things to the glory of God. This is practicing mindfulness.

May I be living more wholly in the fullness of my present calling today that I may know and practice such mindfulness in each moment that is granted to me.