I do not live by rice alone
If you come to South Korea in May, you can’t help but notice Buddhist temples. Outside huge famous temples and small obscure ones – on remote mountaintops and valleys or in the city – bright-colored balloon lamps hang in rows, decorating courtyards or lining driveways and hiking trails, to announce the approach of Buddha’s birthday. The lanterns look pretty, swinging in the breeze, the summer-green foliage behind offsetting their cheerful colors.
This year Buddha’s birthday was on Saturday, May 27, making the following Monday a national holiday. Pentecost, another birthday of sorts, was on May 28. Seeing the decorations for Buddha, reminded me of the birthday of the Church, Christ’s body of believers.
I haven’t written much about faith on my blog, focusing instead on linguistic or cultural tidbits, with more thoughtful pieces now and then. My “foreigner jaw” often drops in surprise at this or that, and I write it down quickly before the novelty wears off – as it almost always does. Strange things –like eating rice up to three times a day—become normal.Being in Korea has taught me far more than I ever imagined. Through my blog, I share just a few drops with you, like the after-drip of a garden hose when the work is done. This piece too is just drops; but it’s the real stuff, more important than squid and kimchi.
This past Sunday, Yeongwol Community read the Pentecost story together from the Book of Acts. We weren’t as diverse as the first gathering in Jerusalem, but we were still a mix: Korean, British, Australian, American; Yeongwol residents and visitors; old and young; with family or without. I sat there imagining that first gathering – the wind, the flames, the language they could all understand. We had to translate Korean into English and vice versa. I’m tempted to think the gift of tongues would make life easier – but that seems almost peripheral; because, these days, I keep pondering the depth and beauty of the Holy Spirit at work in this place.
In my Korean life – that’s how I think of it – I’ve discovered I can live without many things. I have let go of a lot. But I cannot live without that invisible, inexplicable reality of God. With teaching and guidance from that Presence, I can give and receive love, and I can forgive and be forgiven –albeit through a mishmash of broken English and broken Korean, despite differences in character, age, and culture. And through all accompanying frustrations, the Spirit comforts. He is not a hard master.
Perhaps if I lived in a familiar culture, if I didn’t live in community, if I spoke the same language as my co-workers and companions, if I felt secure in my work or my life or my “lot”. . . perhaps I wouldn’t realize how much I need that Spirit. There are normally so many buoys to keep us afloat, safe from floundering in the unknown.
I thank God – and this a learned gratitude – that I’m in a place where familiar buoys bob out of reach.
When I see Buddha’s birthday balloons nodding in the wind, I smile to think of the birthday I’m celebrating and the great wind and whispering breezes of God’s Holy Spirit.
