Lesson No. 1000-something in abandoning the quest for my own renown.

In the last 48 hours, I have purchased music from three different independent label artists, dried a load of laundry on a clothesline, and exercised two days in a row. I like to believe that I am continually becoming a more mature and contributing adult, but the truth is that 48-hour periods like this, filled with all this local hero activity as listed above, are rare. 


Motive-check, everyone! : I only bought that music to ease the guilt I feel for listening to music left under my pillow by the Music Fairy, or gained by other means. I only dried my clothes on hangers outside because my Taiwanese dryer wasn’t working, and I was motivated to work out only because I care about what others think of my fluctuating, moving-over-seas-and-back body weight. I wasn’t rebelling against the injustice of media-pirating, or actively protecting the air of my already super-smoggy city of Taipei, nor was I exercising with the Christian virtue of “taking care of my temple.” It was all about me.
 

Why do you the good things that make you a “good person”? Beware. Insecurity, guilt, and pride in their subtlest, most minuscule forms, turn out to be the most dangerous. Those are the kind that eat away at your true compassion for other people slowly and painlessly. Are you at your job just to build your resume?  Are you on the treadmill because someone made a comment under their breath about your weight, or how beautiful a celebrity is? Or are you like me, where when 21st century convenience fails, you’re forced to revert back to medieval peasantry and in doing so, you figure you may as well save a polar bear or two? I take an inventory and find that so many of my actions and decisions are aimed through the scope of what I want, what I don’t have and what I fear. I lack faith in so many of my works.


We’ve all heard the “faith without works is dead” shpeel (shpeal? shpiel ?...nope, still underlined). But my mentor and spiritual mother, Suaysi, always reminds me, and I paraphrase: “Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are also dead.”  It is one thing, and another blog, to believe that faith without action is rendered lame. But to do good things without the belief that there is some sort of eternal impact...Then, what is the point? Eat, drink and be merry, for we all have the same fate, if that’s the case. Or in doing virtue with ME as my main concern, then where does God have any room to come in and use me to heal someone, or do a miracle, or speak to someone’s hurting heart? Our ego's literally take up space in that sense. How can the Church be the hands and feet if we’re constantly just following our own feet? Follow? “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” says Paul to his church in Colossae. Hmm. I do so much of my life in Kelsey’s name, and what’s worse, without a shred of gratefulness. I make my own commandment: “Love Kelsey, and the second is secondary, love God and others if it’s helpful for your cause.”


So, here I am back in Taipei, Taiwan. I’m not pretending to be in some dire missionary, “Oh my word, Kelsey is such a good Christian” type of life circumstance, because I’m not. I’m too comfortable for comfort, actually. But I am learning thankfulness and the truth that everything I do and say has some sort of eternal significance in the lives of those around me. And every day in the comfort of my swivel chair [for which I’m very thankful!] and in my nice little westernized east Asian city, God gives me this opportunity: “Die to yourself, and do everything in My name. Buy music for My glory. Be physically healthy for My sake. Teach French and slave over your syllabi and take care of the ozone layer for the praise of My name.”


So, here’s my parting thought for you to take home, er, to heart: Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are also dead...kinda like a palindrome like wow, mom, or racecar. Now you’ll never forget it! Aww, there’s the teacher in me.

So long, for now!

this poem has nothing to do with Taiwan

Here's a sample of some of my amateur work. I love the sound of a poem just as much as the search for its meaning, and I therefore write my poems with the purpose of being read out-loud. The beauty of poetry is magnified tenfold when read out-loud, and ten-fold again when heard by another, yes? So, if you're not at the library, or even if you are and you're not embarrassed, use your vocal cords and bless someone.

“Swollen Feet”


is it the satiety of a search
to which there is no dotted line
nor a fat red ex to end?
how can her search quell
what dwells in the bowels
of the bowls of cereals
of childhood hopes
or could candy ropes tie knots
that rot not after so long a time on the hunt?

she camouflages trenches
building lincoln log fences
stay out!
her days then spout
open into an argyle itchy sweater
taken off at seven p.m.
with a podiatrists’ swollen numb  mind
too tired to follow that dotted line
that she once scaled into a tree fort to find

one day like a baby tortoise flailing its shell
she fell
from a high syrupy sycamore
into the adult life of a whore
buzzed through a cheep pilsner haze
but only on Saturday.

turns out, the turn taken
wasn’t an overturned turtle on its back at all
but a hurdling bird, hurt wings
but able to leap over things
when those spikes in the back came
and the right to leave the black became
bright all around
and that prowling nemesis was at last tamed


the hunger of her search was filled
only when the boulder rolled over
the dotted line ex, crushing everything
that might vex, like that flesh-colored fence
and arriving at the spot
it was an ex all right, and a blood red one
staked into the ground
with mockers’ spitting all round
“my God, my God,”
but His face could not be found
that’s how He found her, though,
that whore who’d fallen from the sycamore
pulled out of the trenches
the stenches of swollen feet healed
and instead of itchy sweaters
clothed as the flowers of the field

The end.

I'm in Oregon for another 12 days. When I get back to Taiwan, I intend to blog more about God and life and Taiwan and America and to share my poems at Red Room. My stage fright will be conquered!

"I could make three tents."

"I Could Make Three Tents"


Too sad to fight temptation,
we are sleeping for sorrow
then, the most malicious kiss.
through the air the priest's servant
hears my own sword hiss and then
that bloody ear hears no more.
but even with his own torture impending,
Jesus touches his ear.
So the servant surveys, "My God!
This man is about to be slaughtered
in a way so inhumane,
yet he regards
my
problem
my
wound and
my
pain."

My Lord is taken away 
without dragging his heels
but goes ever so easily
as if on wheels.

Then I find a village bonfire
I warm myself
I hide myself
with eyes wide and
thrice from my lips
my best friend I deny.

Now with my own ears,
which never had to be healed by my Lord
or had to listen to spitting scorn
with ears that didn't have to be split open and torn
with a king's royal round of thorns,
I hear a roo-koo-koo-koo-koo.
sob, drop my sword
spitting out the
bitter flu which
caused me to say
"I am not his!"
I bet He's thirsty now.
He is.


Tell the Disciples and Peter that He is, that He lives.

Is your love for me true?
I love you, sure it is.
Is your love for me real?
It is, yes, it is!
Is your love for me legitimate?
My Lord, you know it is.

The Dog Poop Sidewalk finally articulated

I was lounging around with Noel and her YWAM friends this Sunday and related all too well with Carl from Norway, who, while his friends all had their MacBooks open on their own laps, exclaimed "Agh, I need to finish my blog, I'm really struggling here!" There's a silly sense of urgency to communicate with those of you at home who might still think that being overseas doesn't change your life or that this place is really that exotic. ...As if Taiwanese people didn't do normal human things like eat, fall in love, or sit in bookstores reading finance magazines they won't end up buying like the rest of the developed world. Not that this culture doesn't fascinate me, because it does. But it is beginning to tire me to automatically file every cultural nuance in the "blog inspiration" folder, believing momentarily that I will actually enjoy philosophically analyzing the nuance, or that you will actually enjoy reading such bullcrap. I want start writing other things and direct my creativity elsewhere, so at least this journal has played a role in inspiring me to do so. So, whilst my poetry awaits publishing and if you're still on the edge of your swivel chair with your back hurting, dying to know about what's going on in my life, well...I walk a lot.

Taipei is safe. It's been nine weeks, and I have yet to see a scary crackhead talking to themselves as they limp past me. I have yet to hear about violence in schools, or to be advised to "Tell the administration immediately if your art students draw anything strange." And I have yet to read about a murder in a newspaper, because I can't read Chinese. Am I in la-la-land and naive? You bet your rear. But really, what I love most about this society is that I feel safe when I walk around by myself. Suddenly I want to watch Bowling for Columbine again and argue with someone about it.

At 7:20am every weekday morning, I'm out the door to go to work. I walk by a teeny, family-owned white bread factory, stuck right in between two tall apartment buildings. The sweet pastry scent is the best one I smell all day long, reminiscent of France. A couple blocks further down, I begin to walk faster because I'm running two minutes late, as-per-uge. Then I pass the local public middle school whose bell is about to ring. After impatiently shuffling in and around the line of about 50 awkwards crossing perpendicular to my path, I continue my trek through what I call "The Dog Poop Sidewalk," where every local mutt drops a load at least once a week. And I mean a huge loads, steaming loads which counteract the steaming white bread, so pleasant in my nostrils just moments before. Despite their pranks, I like the street dogs, because they keep to themselves, they aren't that ugly, and they so innocently stare at me because they've never talked to a foreigner before.

Sometimes I talk to God out loud while I walk. Who cares? What, with blue tooth's nowadays, who knows why I'm talking to myself? I could be a scary crackhead or a young business professional, or just a Christian who enjoys talking to her God who hears. My best days are the ones where instead of mentally preparing a last minute lesson plan in my head, or wallowing in the woes of long distance love, or instead of huffing irritably at the poor middle schoolers or dogs who don't know any better....I just walk with God. Literally. And those days that I deliberately hang out with Him before I do anything else turn out to be the most peaceful days, with behaving students and with more laughter.

Convicted for the who knows how many-ith time that I need to work on my punctuality, I reach the intersection caddy corner to the Academy with mere minutes to spare before the morning faculty meeting. Now, scooter exhaust in my fresh Almay morning face and my own game of frogger. I get honked-at on a regular basis. In my homesick/slash/movie scene mind, the cab driver yells, "Heya, watch it, yeh dumb broad! Get oudda da road!" in a Bronx accent with a fat cigar hanging out of his mouth. In lieu of the drama, just a polite toot, "mit-mit!" Now, if I could read a blog about a west-coaster's new life in Manhattan, I'd choose to read that one over mine in a second. Because I think in New York, people only eat from food carts (the ones you see on the Food Network) because they're so busy, and that there are too many people--too many potential mates to even meet someone to fall in love with in New York, and that businessmen are rich and busy enough to actually buy the finance magazines they flip through at Borders. When I go to NYC one day, I'll write about the scary crackheads and about the smells I smell there, too, only this time in the form of Dylan-inspired private poems and not blah-blah-blogging.