Conocimiento

I'm currently in the process of bridging the following:

First: Malcolm Gladwell, Mitch Albom, David Sedaris, Orson Scott Card, Ayn Rand, my mother, my father

Second: conocimiento, mabuhay, aloha, yoroshiko onegaishimasu

Third: Judaism, Buddhism, the Bahá'í faith

= = =

Regarding the first...

These authors and people have captured my imagination by bringing together seemingly unlike concepts and comparing them in interesting and even humorous ways. They are introspective and investigative about human nature. They are reporters and artists. They write captivating stories, fictional and nonfictional, that allow others to think differently about the world and imagine a different world. They do it without being outright political, sensational, or activist in nature. In fact, I wonder how political some of these authors are at all. I don't share many, if any, of these authors religious or political beliefs, yet I admire their writing and their creative minds.
~~~
My mom is one of the -- if not the -- best listeners I know. She's quiet, yet extroverted. She meets strangers at storefronts and store check outs, on airplanes and in airport lobbies, at church and at work, and everywhere in between. She walks away having learned entire life stories of strangers, many times without disclosing much information about herself. She quietly listens to me as I verbally work out my life plans: to move away or stay in one place; to teach, or not to teach; to date and marry, or to stay single; to have a career, or have kids, or have both... She listens without judging me and without lecturing me. After I finish my long, one-person-yet-two-or-more-sided debate, she shares her own experiences and her own thoughts. She's a great listener.

But she wasn't always that way. I remember growing up and trying to let my mother into my life as a teenager, a feat made difficult enough by the simple fact that I your typical, run of the mill, closed off and depressive suburban American teenager. My mom was a full-time working woman with a fifteen-year-old teenager, an eleven-year-old preteen, and a ten-year-old child. Her husband was off at war in Iraq. My only snatches of one-on-one time with my mother was while she was driving and I was in the passeger seat. My drama-filled stories were often interrupted and punctuated with responses like "Do we need milk?", "I can't remember if I turned off the stove", "Help your sisters with...", "Shoot, I missed the right turn", "Can you turn down the music, I can't concentrate on driving", "I can't focus on what you're saying right now, I need to concentrate on driving."

I would pout, slouch in my seat, and give up on my story.

Fast forward a few years. I'm now 23, one year out of school, and living with my parents. My mom has lived in Hawaii for about three years. She's a changed woman. She spent one year has a stay-at-home mom, attending to her youngest daughter as she finished out her last years of high school, before returning to work. During this time, her two older daughters are somewhat grown up, or at least, away at college and not living at home. My mom started spending much of her day exercising, gardening, preparing and eating healthy meals, and reading and watching TV shows about healthy living habits.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a small, plain, unimposing notebook. Being the paper and notebook collector that I am, I rifled through a few pages of the notebook, assessing its previous use and deciding whether or not to take it and stash it with my personal pile of diaries, legal pads, and stationary sets. I came across a page titled "Goals" in my mom's handwriting. I immediately felt guilty and unforgivably nosey. I recalled how I felt the time that my parents found and read my diary in high school. I didn't want to violate my mom's privacy. And yet...

Goals
1.) Listen to my daughters. Really listen.

My mom's number one goal was not about herself, but about her daughters.

All of this to say, my mom has lived up to her goal and then some. She elicits personal stories from people and coaxes them into sharing their wisdom while examining the paths they've carved.
~~~
My father and I spend the better part of our time together either disagreeing or bonding over shallow, materialistic things. We have a lot in common interests-wise. We have too much in common personality-wise to have a smooth-sailing relationship (ha ha). My dad is an introvert. He's thoughtful and critical. He's a man of few words in conversation, but of many in personal letters. He writes letters to express his love for his wife and daughters. He writes letters to explain his frustration with me to me and writes letters of apology to respond to my letters of frustration with him to him.

When we finally have a conversation, though, it's about politics and war tactics. It's about trends in history and society. It's about the places he's seen around the world. It's about the inspiring chaplains and people of God he meets. It's about language and culture. It's about our family history -- the mysteriousness of it due to repressed memories and untold stories over generations and the people in our families whose lives were either taken by or deeply affected by war.

All this to say, my father is compassionate and curious about human nature. He's awed by the goodness of people and quiet about his own. Conversations with him are few but thought-provoking. Hes' an excellent writer.
~~~

= = =

Regarding the second...
~~~
Conocimiento, mabuhay, aloha, yoroshiko onegaishimasu. All of these are words in other languages whose meanings continue to develop in my understanding. We don't have direct translations for these words in English.  


Conocimeniento - acquaintance with a person (place, or thing), compassion, understanding, oneness, solidarity.


Mabuhay - long live, cheers, hello, God and life be with you, welcome, peace be with you.


Aloha - hello, love, kindness, peace be with you, I acknowledge the life within you, I acknowledge your humanity, may there be compassion and mercy between us.


Yoroshiko onegaishimasu - nice to meet you, let's be kind to one another, thank you for helping me, please help me, best regards to you.

While it's important on an interpersonal level to learn new languages in order to better understand and (obviously) communicate with each other, it's also helpful personally and spiritually. It'd be arrogant to think that every thought, every emotion, and every idea can be expressed in one language alone. Every culture has a history of philosophers and followers who, over generations, develop explanations about God, humankind, and the universe. Only by learning each other's languages can we begin to conceptualize ideas beyond our own language's (and culture's) limits.

= = =

Regarding the third...

I am a born and raised, baptized, and active Catholic parishioner. I'm sometimes quiet about my faith, sometimes defensive about it, and always welcoming about it. I question it, am weary of the Church (capital "C", as in Rome, the Pope, the Bible...), am liberal, have not read the Bible in its entirety, do not abide by all Catholic doctrine, sometimes daydream during sermons, and robotically cite memorized prayer and gesture motions because I don't understand what I'm saying or doing. I find community in some Catholic churches, but not all. I find peace in some Catholic churches, but not all, and in some non-Catholic churches, but not all.

I've had trouble finding a church in which I truly feel the presence of God since I arrived in Hawai'i. I say this after having tried at least five Catholic churches. My faith began to falter or fade, I'm not sure which. Most churches were too "conservative" for me (mostly in denouncing women's right to choose her live above her unborn child). Many churches were led by old white guys whose sermons were difficulty for me to relate with. Some churches were either bare and lacked history or a personal touch; some churches are ornate and have been here for over 150 years.

Last Sunday, I attended yet another Catholic church. It was my first visit. The pews and decor were warm and welcoming. It had two parallel walls of endless bay view doors to let in natural light and natural airconditioning. Most of the parishioners were locals, Filipino, or of descents unfamiliar to me. The priest was young, funny, self reflective, wise, and kind. He's from Zimbabwe. The lectors and cantors greeted the congregation with Hawaiian words -- "aloha", "mahalo" -- and traditions -- leis for newly anointed eucharistic ministers and warm greetings of aloha and gifts of rosaries to newcomers of the parish. Everyone who spoke from the pulpit or podium had accents from Africa or parts of Asia. Even members of the church with accents of parts of the mainland were foreigners in this mixing pot of a church, out in the middle of the Pacific ocean. As a newcomer and outsider, I felt just as much as an insider as everyone in the church. Surrounded by strangers, bathed in Hawaiian sun and cooled by the gentle cross breeze, I felt God's presence in my prayer.

Between church hoping, I've also been learning about the faiths of others. I've engaged in long conversations with coworkers, students, friends, and strangers about their religion, their personal history with their religion, and God. I'm never looking to convert anyone, nor am I looking to change my own faith. I know that the latter sounds closed minded, but after two decades of slowly developing my own faith -- learning what the Church believes, deciding what I believe, and mixing the beliefs of others in with my own -- I'm not ready to jump ship and start from scratch with an entirely new religion.

I visited a Japanese Buddhist temple for (surprisingly) the first time yesterday. I visited it with a Korean Buddhist friend of mine. I've dropped in on a Thai temple once before -- I dropped in with non-Buddhist friends, meandered about the statues and ornate fixtures, and then shoved my feet back into my shoes and made my bad over to the cheap, Thai temple brunch -- but that was the extent of my Buddhist experience. I bought a book about Siddhartha a few months ago, but I'm too ignorant about Buddhism to understand any of what I was reading.

Before arriving at the temple, my friend laid some groundwork for my understanding. I should mention, she's an English language learner. She's grown up as a Korean Buddhist and knows the basics about other sects of Buddhism. She also speaks Japanese and has lived in Japan. In fact, she's even lived in the Philippines (this only came up when we were browsing books in the temple souvenir shop, and to our delight, we found a book about Buddhism in English, Korean, and Filipino translations). We compared notes about our own upbringing, differences and commonalities in the languages we share, and our religions in order for her to begin explaining to me the history and fundamentals of Buddhism.

She was so sweet as to buy me a book about the Buddhist faith and even bought one for herself in the Korean translation. She asked me if I wanted the Filipino version, but after quickly thumbing through the table of contents and a few chapters, I quickly realized that I would give up reading the book after stumbling on $5 Tagalog words such as the words for "glorified", "faith", and "wisdom". I was proud enough to understand the phrase walang hanggan (eternal) but I only recognized it because that's the title of the Filipino soap opera that I'm currently following with my mom.

She promised that we would study Buddhism together. I pointed out to her that she probably already knows everything in this book, which was essentially a beginners guide or the ABCs of Buddha. She insisted that she's interested in learning more.

I want to continue this study of religion with other faiths as well. Judaism is one that I've had the opportunity to partake in some rituals and celebrations in with close friends and have recently been reading about (in the book I'm currently reading, it's actually being Juxtaposed to a Christian Baptist experience). The Bahá'í faith is brand new to me. I learned about it from a British coworker of mine. He is ethnically Iranian, but has lived the bulk of his life in England and many years in China (he speaks Chinese). He tells me that the Bahá'í faith acknowledges all religions and believes in one God -- one God in the universe and one God for all religions. The faith encourages religious discussion between faiths.

= = =

Unfortunately, I don't have a way to neatly tie and unify these three thoughts together. Maybe these chapters all belong in three different books. Regardless, it feels good to iron out some of these wrinkled, newborn thoughts on white paper.

Mabuhay!

Writing for Good

You know that "trick" where you cover a quarter with a piece of paper and use your pencil to shade over the paper until you have an engraving of the quarter? You start with a blank piece of paper and before you know it, a quarter reveals itself to you in a thicket of smeared graphite.

That's what writing (especially blogging) feels like for me. I say that I like to write/blog, but it feels more like a story or piece is already there, nearly living and breathing; I am a mere instrument that scratches graphite back and forth until its finally revealed.

However, I do not want to understate the feeling of uncovering a piece by equating it to creating a worthless facsimile of US tender. On the contrary, when a piece needs to be written, it needs to be written. It nags at me and impatiently sits at the fore of my brain and the tips of my fingers until it's let out to breathe and live independently.

This is why writing is so much a part of me -- I'm a a slave to it; I am possessed; I have no choice in the matter.

This being the case, I want to do something good with it. Rather than scream meaningless words that will only be carried away in the wind, I want my words to do the moving. I want to find a way to make them move others to tears, move others into action, move others to think critically about themselves, and move others to do good.

I write because...

"I love her, but... when we talk, she makes me think too much. It kinda makes my head hurt."

--Quote about me, as said by a good friend, which was not intended for my ears

Verbiage

I write because...

folks think I'm too serious as it is,

because I always rehearse stories in my head before telling 'em,

and I'm over sensitive if you don't listen a certain way,

and neither of us seem to have the time of day to converse rather than chat,

and because the words never come out right the first time.

I write because my thoughts are unfinished and connected to previous thoughts,

and it seems to be too much work for anyone to get caught up in anyone else's ever-forming story.

I write because...

Lilian

The following is an unfinished draft from one year ago. I have no background information to provide about it -- I don't remember why I wrote it, what was going through my mind at the time, or how I intended for it to continue.

That being said... I hope that I haven't lost your interest and that you keep reading anyway!

Lilian

Her real name is Elizabeth, but when she was 4, she told her
parents to start calling her Lilian because she felt that that really should be
her name.

Lilian hates when things match. She has three piercings in one ear
but only two in the other; earrings don't come in fives and Lilian's earring
never match. Neither do her socks, for that matter. Her rule against
matching extends far but falls short of her shoes; she tried wearing a
different shoe on each foot once, and found it to be a very uncomfortable
ordeal. Her clothes never match.

Lilian always wears black clothes - skirts, turtlenecks, flood pants...
the list goes on. But Lilian loves colors; her body is a blank canvas for the
bright splashes of color she applies every morning in the form of baubles and
beads.

Lilian is an artist, but she doesn't know it yet.

*

Pen Pal

Call me old fashioned, but I've always wanted a long-term pen pal from somewhere far and mysterious. Woman, man, young, old, it doesn't really matter as long as 1) They are open and honest with me 2) I get to learn about their culture 3) They write beautifully.

Is that too much to want?

I browsed Craigslist to see if anyone was looking for a pen pal. Oh, also, I would prefer snail mail. Somehow, "email correspondence" doesn't have as nice of a ring to it. With all the psychos and ax murderers in the world, I understand the danger of sending a stranger my mailing (home) address... I would like to think that my perfect pen pal is none of these, though, nor anything equally dangerous.

I happened across a letter-writing website a couple of years ago. An English-speaking/writing man had one simple message on the site: that if you email him your mailing address, he will write you a letter. His reasoning was that folks nowadays are in too much a of a hurry to appreciate the beauty behind a personal letter and that many people in the world are lonely and only looking the simplest human connection.

That was so beautiful to me. I teared up when I read that. I went back to the website not too long ago. It was either moved or taken down; for whatever reason, it wasn't there anymore.

I want to do something like that. When I saw his website, I didn't feel the need to be written to (although that would have been interesting as well), but I wanted to partake in this project with him.

His message continued, saying that he writes about things that anyone would write in a letter - his day, a poem that he found, an interesting lyric or quote. He doesn't tell the recipient when they should expect the letter because that takes away from the fun of waiting.

If I started my own letter-writing project, I imagine that it would be a bit like blogging, but with one audience member. One real, live reader. When I write here, I write to anyone and no one. I write to me of the future about me of the present and past. If I started by own letter-writing project, I'd write about the important things; I'd bare my soul and include no return address.

This brings me back to my pen pal dilemma. A pen pal needs a return address. I suppose that's what P.O. boxes are for (or I can just get with the times and use a regular ol' good-for-nothing email address). But that's fine, a pen pal needs a reader, too. Someone who cares.

I'll care. Just write to me. I'll save every letter.

Twitter

I think that I will just update here periodically instead of Twitter.. because I'm at my computer anyway, and because the urge to Tweet is followed by inevitable twit-scroll through everyone's lives.

12:26 p.m.:

Beautiful day out.

Church was lovely.

"God knows what is in your heart." my first thought: 'Len, God knows you're in there, say hi!' ...cheesy, I know, I know..

I didn't follow the grape vine analogy too well. but MAD PROPS to the male Catholic feminists out there. Is it inappropriate to throw up snaps in church?

Special K & Coffee for lunch. Hella thrown from my morning routine.

Watched YouTube videos on the phone with my mom and talked about Twitter. I think that she wants to get one.

9:45 p.m.:

I owned every hour of my day -- not a minute was wasted. OK, that's not to say that each minute was spent writing, but it's better than two hours passing and thinking, "did I just look at photos on facebook for two hours?!"

...and OK, i went on twitter quite a bit. I'll try to stop.

I am also confident that I will own each of the next 18 hours. If I want to have a productive 4:00a.m., I will! If I want to sleep for only 30min, then so be it!

Onward!

11:13 p.m.:

I think my legs are undergoing muscle atrophy. and I'm bored-hungry again.

11:25 p.m.:

I'm averaging 2.2 new followers on Twitter per day... in reality though, I've received 6 in the past 24 hours. People -> Twitter : Moths -> flame : Me -> distractions

12:21 a.m.:

Paper frustrations have found their way to poor me. in the refined words of my man shaq: AAGGGHHH

Shower & grub to get refocused. Maybe coffee. Definitely not tea.

1:04 a.m.:

I thought I was going to get away this finals season without any of my dramatic changes (remodeling room, new piercing...) but, I lose. While taking my shower, I decided that I am getting a new hairstyle. Just like that. And so it will be. After this paper.

1:22 a.m.:

OK, this log is getting ridiculous. but "blog mobile" ?!?! Basically REAL twitter-blogging... even twitpic-blogging. forget you, facebook.

4:14 a.m.:

12 hours to go. Why do I insist on stretching this assignment? Also, I'm an idiot. We played "Lost Without You" for PCN last year.

8:30 a.m.:

9:09 a.m.:

I think I'm going to meet @gabebondoc one day. Like, I'm pretty sure I will. Also, finally ironing out the finer details of essay #3. A+, f'sho!

9:50 a.m.:

Forget you, Pandora. You were supposed to serenade me with at least one million songs of similar rhythm, style, or genre -- if I wanted to hear periodic intervals of the same songs on 3-peat, I would have listened to KyXy (aka KOIT, for you Bay Area speakers. pun intended.)

12:01 p.m. :

2:35 p.m.:

DONE. Save. Print.

IMY

You'd think I'd be tired of writing after a work-filled weekend like this, but I've been itching to blog. Instead, I have a notebook filled with unread scrawls, an invisible list of (undocumented) dreams, and long-lost mental notes-to-self.

Anyway. Blog Another Day.

Good night.