Second Experience of Grace

So here I am at HoneyRock once again. In contrast to last summer, I'm residing here presently for the sake of my studies and ministry/work. The high school program I will be counseling is entitled, "Service Team" and consists of juniors and seniors. And if I may add a subtitle to it, it would probably be ": Learning to Lead a Life of Service."

As some may have known it, throughout the week and a half before I arrived at HoneyRock for two sessions of summer school, I was frantically considering whether or not I would take the opportunity also to work as a Service Team counselor. After what seemed to be a very rushed decision process, I made my decision to leave once again -- this is the second summer in a row now. Why? Well, it was simple. There was one responsibility the Lord was calling me to this summer, and that task was to write. I'll be working on an extensive piece of literature titled Side by Side: Imagining the Heavenly Community on the Earth. [The sneak peek lies in my blog under the title On Earth as it is in Heaven] After a year and a half of receiving the Lord's imparted wisdom and contemplating the intriguing ideas of this theme, the Lord led me to begin compiling an elaborate explication.

It still doesn't sound entirely cogent why I would leave to work instead of remain at home where I had innumerable days of freedom; countless days unscheduled. It is entirely true that staying at home had its positives, and vice versa. For HoneyRock, the same conclusion. Will I really have an increased amount of time while I'm at home writing? Yes. I would have at least 4 hours a day which was the amount of time I had planned to spend on this peculiar project. Would I be more efficient? After much consideration, HoneyRock's context is a much more apropos environment for me to create this discourse. Though I will have less time, I will be invigorated with much more thought and articulate with much more dexterity. But why? It is because my journey of the conscious discovery in regards to the theme of community began in the Wheaton community. This community challenged me in my participation in the body of Christ as an individual and as a part of the whole in its myriad of shapes and forms. So the discourse of which I will be working inherently finds its earthly home in the Wheaton community. This is the reason why even my explication should be more appropriately completed in the context of where it was born. It is not a rule, but it is a preference because of the dynamism of this context's effectiveness.

It is not that I did not consider the suggestions of my community at home, from my fellow Asian brothers and sisters. I did consider their thoughts and challenges. Coupled with these considerations, I was most seriously considering my family's desires for me. After such an extensive amount of thought, HoneyRock was my choice.

I believe that my return to this sacred place will not be a reflection of my past summer, but that I would receive a second experience of grace. Before this post, I was planning on writing a post entitled The Incarnational Grace Found in Equilibrium, and I may still write that post. To phrase with succinctness, grace looks differently when we require a different balance in our lives. Our lives are kaleidoscopic and does not cease to change, and so our equilibrium is our worship day after day. The grace that we begin to see is tailored to the contextual equilibriums to which we acquire, and so the Lord incarnationally reveals to us according to these contexts. This is the reason this second summer will be as Paul quotes in 2 Corinthians 1, a second experience of grace. It is a grace that is illustrated differently from the previous grace received. There is nature around me everywhere, there is the same sort of quietness, and the same sorts of animals singing its sweet melody, but there will be an experience of the Lord, whether through these things or not, unique to this visit. I am excited for each component of this summer, each giant I will be confronted with, each relationship I will encounter, and the realms of thought into which this discourse will lead me.

I am imaginatively excited for this second experience of grace.
And I would greatly appreciate your prayers.

FACE

There are a multiplicity of moments in which I feel faceless in the perception of others. Ideas roll through my mind and visions fulminate from the depths of my life in isolation; in the hidden room. Heck, visions arise and expand in my vast life of worship. Fallen in prostration, yearning, and knowing the preestablished truth that the Lord -- his name is Emmanuel. He says I am the God of all comfort. The Lord -- he says he comes, he does not keep silent. Rumors are disseminated bolstering of the gifts and passions of this one man, and his name is... What is the meaning? What does this name embody? What is the incarnation? Well, we do not not know, we only know that his name is... Blank, nothing, invisible. Where is the vitality, where is the purpose? Empty.

The truth is, each person wants to be known, and each person desires overwhelmingly for an identity. They want to be given a name; not just several letters that are consolidated to be linguistically correct. What we want is not what we receive, and what others perceive is not what should be seen. We want others to see the physical and internal beauties. The things that are visible, and abstractly evident. These amount to idols for the individual observed. We desire others to see our affections and the depths of our heart for the convictions in our souls. We desire to be admired for such fountains of righteousness that conceive of lies and obstructions from what is true. And what others see, which is also visible, does not fulfill a purpose, but simply begins to appear obsolete. It is temporal, it does not put a name on it. It spells out the temporal letters without persisting to seek the underlying meaning.

This diabolic exchange of what we want others to see and what they do envision blinds us from who we are and the one that sees us with a face that transcends what is physical. We are encumbered, though we do not recognize it, and it blinds us from the one who has given us a name. We seek what we do not receive, and others perceive us in a manner contrary to what should be seen. We continue to pursue that face which is faceless because it is visible. Yet what we adamantly convince ourselves is that it is permanent. One thing I can declare -- a face that is both visible and faceless is dissolving and diminutive. We have to begin to desire a face that is everlasting, a heart consisting of elements that will be forever sustained, and we have to begin seeing in a manner that prints an eternal name.

"as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

kingdom of God.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen