TO LOS ANGELES, CA — The day really couldn’t be more glorious, though it didn’t start that way.

Instead of packing last night, I stuffed my bags this morning. It made me 15 minutes late. No problem. I still had time to catch the train, but there’s no margin. We raced up the 5 to get to the Solana Beach station. I jumped out of the car, and bolted to the ticket window. The teller waved her hand to dismiss the ID check, and told me that the train was already at the station. I’ve got literally one minute.

I hurled myself out the doors and down the stairs, only to find a dead end. I raced back up the stairs, across the bridge, then took a wrong turn only to backtrack left and stumble down two flights of stairs only to see the train start to move. I thought about running alongside and hopping on like a hobo. Instead, I stopped on the third stair, turning my head to watch the train roll by.

But conductor said, “You’re late, but I’ll see if I can get the train to stop.” And it slowed down, and with my heart beating hard, I jumped into the passenger car.

But since then, I’ve caught my breath. And it’s been glorious.

It’s a great way to start a day: an oceanside train-ride up the California coast while the sun is welcoming a new day. The soft, orange glow of the morning gives light to the penguin-donned surfers enjoying their first break. It’s a gorgeous day. A beautiful day.

But the day ahead is set up to be just as glorious. I’m heading into Union Station where some of my best friends will pick me up. They’re busy, but they’ve given up their weekend to help me find an apartment in their old stomping grounds. When I leave this weekend, they’re going to let me borrow their truck and trailer so that we can haul the entirety of our material possessions out of San Diego and into our new apartment in Los Angeles.

It’s a glorious day. Every day.

If we only have eyes to see it.

I live in God’s beautiful world, and enjoy the friends he’s given me. My family — and my new son, Nathan! — are daily gifts to me. They’re like having Christmas every day. In it all, my heart full enough to burst, and my eyes are ready for grateful tears. And the Scriptures tell me that Someone up there is orchestrating it all, to be the one who “satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” I don’t know how youthful eagle’s are, but being satisfied sounds wonderful.

If I keep searching for the good, and being thankful about the good, and keep on bringing in the good, then it makes sense that I would become full of the good. Soaring on wings. Because we can’t give, love, serve, or bless out of lack. It always comes out of abundance of mind, heart, soul, and strength. If we feel poor, money won’t flow out of our hands. If we are tired, there is no more time that we can give. Without contentment, it’s easy to burnout. We can only give out of what we have.

Father, satisfy me with good.

I’m going through major transitions.

First, we’re having another boy, and he’s due in September. Second, we’re moving to Los Angeles. We don’t know the exact timing, but we’re heading up there sometime in the next seven months or so. Third, I’ll be out of a job in six weeks as a director for San Diego InterVarsity.

Conception, location, and vocation. What else could possibly change?

And the transitions weighed down on me like a burlap sack full of black coal. First, I really loved the first seven years of my marriage. No kids. Eat out? Anytime. Movies? We’ll be there. Sleep in? Enjoy the snooze button. Life was good in no-kid-ville. Don’t get me wrong: Ice is a joy. But when he came into the world, my lover became a mother. And I became the help.

Second, L.A. is Nineveh to me. I grew up a Laker-hater. Plus, add lung-blackening smog, parking-lot traffic, and the expectation to drive 45 minutes to see friends, and it’s hard to think of a city that can be any more aggressively anti-community. Throw in materialism and rampant image-consciousness into the mix, and it seems to stand against everything I live for. I hate L.A. so much that though my wife hails from its South Bay, we drove down to San Diego when I proposed because I couldn’t stand to think of being engaged in L.A. See, I’ve got serious issues.

Third, I couldn’t dream. With my wife’s job lasting for only a year, I found myself again in limbo. I can’t live out a dream. I have to wait for another year — possibly two — before I can work for something longer term. I’ve often felt like a racehorse at the starting line, where the other gates have opened while mine has stalled shut. And now, I have to wait even longer.

Eyes downcast, it’s hard to stay upbeat.

But I’ve been called to let go of what isn’t real. The wife of my first seven years is no longer. She’s now a mother. A beautiful, tender, nothing-held-back kind of mother, the best kind that my son could ever have. I need to let the old wife pass away to embrace the wife I truly have. Because the wife I have, though different, is still the wife I desperately need and deeply adore. And L.A. may be Nineveh, but I can’t go to Tarshish. Sure, what place can be more idyllic than San Diego? But it will soon no longer my home. Instead, l’ll need to embrace my new home. (Though, rooting for the Lakers may take some time.) Besides, I hear the food can’t be beat. And my past director role — and all the identity that was wrapped up in it — needs to die, so I can embrace what will come next. Letting it go gives me an empty hand to grasp the new thing. And I want to make sure that I’ll be able to catch it when it comes by.

For Christians, Fridays always come before Sundays. Crosses are the way to crowns. And resurrection is always preceded by death. The two are never separated — in faith and in reality.

But perhaps we don’t give enough attention to Holy Saturday. Good Friday and Easter Sunday get a lot of attention in liturgical calendars, but many of us live in Holy Saturday: we know death has already come, and we wait to be reborn.

You gotta check this out: a student, who just spent her summer with the urban poor in Cairo, tattooed the fourth circle of The Big Story on her foot! She said that “it has become a great conversation starter!” No doubt!

Click the links to see the original videos of the Big Story — part 1 and part 2 — or the training manual.

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Update: The write-up article is no longer available because the short format allowed for too many misunderstandings. For a fuller treatment, please check out True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (for believers) or Based on a True Story (for seekers). A study guide for True Story is forthcoming through InterVarsity Press.

I remember the day when I found out Santa was a fraud. It’s frightening that parents all over America, who are charged with the education and training of their offspring, agree to deceive their own flesh and blood so that they can bribe good behavior. They’re already physically bigger and can use brute force to get their way. Do they have to resort to psychological manipulation as well? But my Dad is a North Korean refugee, and he didn’t have a lifetime to learn how to deceive well.

When I was six, I wanted this contraption called the 150-in-One Electronics Kit for Christmas. Only Radio Shack sold it, and that alone should’ve warned me about the nerd I was becoming. It was a wooden box, and instead of a lid, it had a piece of cardboard with metal springs sticking out, each with its own number. Imagine a geeked-out panel that you might see Sulu handling on the Enterprise. All I had to do was fasten wires to metal springs in a preordained fashion, and voila ⎯ a bulb lit up. You could do anything with it: light up the number “7” on the LED screen, tune into static that’s supposed to resemble some radio station, have a buzzer sound irritatingly. I suppose if I wired it well enough, it could also solve world hunger and bring world peace. Yes, it was every six-year-old’s dream, every nerdy six-year-old’s dream, that is.

I had bugged my Dad to get me one of these for a month before Christmas. Or more accurately, barraged my Dad like mortar fire. It was really unfair. He really couldn’t have any idea what hit him. Every night, right before going to bed, I’d look up at him with round, swimming pool eyes and ask him:

“Have I been a good boy this year?”

“Of course you have.”

And then I’d turn mercenary. “Then, do you think Santa would get me the 150-in-One Electronics Kit?”

He’d give that reassuring smile given by parents when their children are acting less like offspring, and more like, say, illegitimate pirates with eye patches and wooden legs. It’s the smile to cover up any desire to take the plush down pillow and keep it over the child’s head. It says, “I can’t believe this one has my genetic code,” and then sends God Almighty a little curse.

“We’ll see,” Dad says, smiling.

After the month-long propaganda campaign was finally over, the polls were still undecided. I went to bed Christmas Eve without having the assurance that Santa, through my dad as proxy, would really get the message. I mean, something could’ve gone very wrong. After all, my father didn’t have a strong command of the language. What if the elves didn’t understand broken English? I tried to drift to sleep, but my mind kept wandering back to the possible need for UN Peacekeeping between my family and the large one that lived at the North Pole. But good children stayed in bed, so even with my heart pounding hard and my breathing a bit clipped, I stayed right under the covers.

When the Christmas morning had just the tiniest shade of gray, I leapt out of my bed, and raced to the tree. But I stopped suddenly, because there was a wrapped package on my desk. On my desk? That should have been the first tip off. Doesn’t Santa leave gifts under the tree? Perhaps he didn’t like our artificial one? Then I saw the note, written on a 8½” by 11” white piece of paper that was torn in half. Any elf would’ve been quite ashamed of himself: who wouldn’t use scissors for the perfect cut? Plus, the North Pole must’ve really lost its class by using plain copier paper instead of a Christmas card. This paper had the rough edges of a fold-and-tear deal, and the whole scheme stunk to high heaven.

But I kept reading, still wanting to believe that this precious gift came from the sleigh. So I read about how I’d been a good boy this year, and that I’d deserved this present. As I was reading the note, I wish I could tell you that it sent warm fuzzies all across my shoulders, but this was the hors-d’oevres, and I was ready for the main course. And as I was ready to tear into the package, I noticed something odd. The note was signed: “Senta.” That’s right: S-E-N-T-A.

The truth sank in, and slowly my mind put the pieces together. Dad wasn’t the proxy, he was the provider. Jolly Old Saint Nick had been my father all along. How did my Dad gain 100 pounds, grow a white beard, get enough make-up to look Norwegian, and then drive a sleigh pulled by twelve flying reindeers to deliver presents to all the good children in the world in one night? Or, perhaps there really was no Santa. Does that mean I still have to be good? My short childhood was lived in a bubbled farce. I had to trade in the big, red furry outfit and the patent leather belt for my dad’s polo shirt and a pair of worn jeans. Santa didn’t exist.

Dad blurted out, “No, that’s how he spells it. S-E-N-T-A.” He was determined that we would live like Americans, even if it meant he would lie like a con artist. He loved me too much to admit the truth.

I guess I had a right to confront my dad right then, to ask him why he pursued this charade over all of these years. Perhaps I’d show him the psychological damage that he put me through, stammering out the words while twitching at the neck, and how I’d need decades of therapy to get over my trust issues. Instead, with great glee, I opened the box and started sticking wires into metal springs ⎯ c’mon lucky number “7.” Santa may not have been real, but Radio Shack surely is. And so is my Dad.

So take a look around and let me know what you think. Check out the upper-right hand corner: you can pick between fixed-width or fluid-width (though I prefer the fixed). And you can change the theme’s color to whatever you like. Next time you visit, it’ll remember which options you chose. I like red, and orange is nice too, but my wife hates all of the colors. (“Too bright,” she says.)

I know, very nerdy. But I’m excited. Everything should be up and running. Hope you like it!

My thoughts waver between birth and death these days. Sure, that would seem obvious: every thought we have happens in that in-between space, right? But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not in the middle, but at the ends. And it’s a weird place to be: at both times thinking of death and birth, the already and not-yet, of what has come and what is to come.

On one end, I’m thinking a lot about my future son these days: Isaiah Choung. Yes, the Ice-man cometh. We still need a Korean middle name, but in a few weeks or so, a crying, wrinkled pink lump of flesh will arrive in our tired, weary arms. Our friends say stuff like, “Get all the sleep you can now!” or “Go to nice restaurants and movies, because you won’t be able to later!” and I have to wonder if they’re being helpful or inwardly grinning with glee that someone else will suffer the same tortures they’ve been through.

I can only think about my son in the future tense. But that’s exciting: the best is yet to come. I want him to be a man full of hope. Yes, in tune with reality, but even in the middle of the junk, I hope he fiercely clings onto to the idea that a better world is possible. My prayer these days is: Please, Lord, let him do more good than harm. My hope is that he’ll be an agent of the Kingdom Come, that he’ll do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Is that too much to ask? See, I’m already becoming an Asian parent, loading him down with dreams he can’t possibly fulfill on his own. Should his middle name be “Harvard” instead?

I wonder what kind of Dad I’ll be. Disciplinarian? Hippie-friend with few boundaries? “Here, Ice, take these shot glasses and Hennessey’s and drink in the basement. If you’re going to drink with your buddies, you might as well do it here under our roof.” And his friends will think I’m cool, though I’m sure he’ll still be embarrassed. Will I micro-manage? Or will I sit him down and train him on how to prepare a mission statement for his life: “Here’s a great book by Stephen Covey, Ice. Think about what you’ll want written on your tombstone”? And he’ll say, “But dad, I’m only three.” I have no idea what kind of dad I’ll be, or what kind of son he’ll be. What will we do if he’s a reclusive introvert that thinks his parents talk too much? Is that genetically possible?

Yet, on the other end, I have a dear friend who’s only 32, and has been confined to a hospital bed for over two years. He’s not doing well. I think of the past, and of memories. And as I scroll through old pictures saved on my computer, my hand instinctively reaches out to him. He always had this goofy, cheesy smile. And it doesn’t even feel right using the past tense.

Life just throws us too much change. I wish we could just hit the pause button on life, and let it freeze on the best parts. Relatives wouldn’t leave, friends wouldn’t move away. It would be just like the pictures, and that’s good because some of the best smiles are captured in stills — even if that day was full of quarrels. I guess we all wish for that. One day, that Kingdom will come.

But for now, I’m caught between two worlds: new life and death, joy and mourning. A wise man once said there is a time to laugh and a time to mourn, but he didn’t say I’d be doing both at the same time.

And I have no control over either of these events. I wish I did. I’d try to make things better. And I wonder why it takes God so long to make things better. And why are things here so temporary, so fleeting? I wish it were more permanent, like Teflon or Twinkies. But things here are only shadows, hints of what’s to come. What’s interesting is that shadows are cast from a real object when it crashes into a great light. So shadows, however fleeting, are connected to something real. So I’ll do my best to hope, and wait for the greater light.

They had to act quickly. If they stayed on the mountains they were surely going to be caught. So, they went down to the Han River.

Since the bridges were blown, small boats attempted to shuttle the fleeing refugees across the river into relative safety, but when the boats landed on shore, the swarm of people would overload the boats so that their edges would be flush with the water’s surface. Inevitably, somewhere along their journey across the river, the boat would tip and sink and many would drown. Dead if they don’t cross, yet dead if they tried. After seeing the boats sink, other boats didn’t dare come to shore. It was a stalemate, and the Communists were close behind them.

While my family were thinking about how to cross, some South Korean soldiers came to shore, and one of the men was badly wounded. The officer of the group called out to the sailors, but they refused to come. So he pulled out his gun and fired a shot to get their attention, and finally, a boat reluctantly came to shore.

Right when the boat came up, my grandfather put his whole family onto the boat before the soldiers, then the soldiers got on, and then the crush of the crowd came so that the boat was about to sink. The officer told them to stop coming on, but they refused, knowing that if they stayed that they would either die or be captured. But the officer again pulled out his gun, this time against the onrushers, and threatened to shoot if they didn’t get off the boat. Staring down the barrel of the gun, they considered their chances, but ended up leaving the boat one by one.

When the last one in front of the soldiers came off, my granddad jumped into the water, and pushed the boat from shore to keep others from coming on. He begged the soldiers to allow his family to stay, and he tearfully told his family that he would swim across and meet them on the other side. The officer, moved by this display of sacrifice, allowed my grandfather to come back onto the boat. They were the only ones that crossed, and in that moment, whether it was sheer luck or a God-given blessing, my family’s survival was secured.

Their troubles weren’t completely over. They hitchhiked on trains toward the south, and sometimes the engines would detach and leave for hours, but they always came back. Sometimes, they rode on roofs, and other times they jumped into coal cars and were covered with soot. And one time, an American plane mistook his orders and sprayed their train with bullets. But they made it down to Pusan in one piece.

I find it easy to admire my grandfather’s sharp mind and quick instincts. He kept his family alive through street smarts and improvisation. Because of him, I get a chance to live today. My dad’s like that too, and when you add his ease with people, he’s quite a charismatic force. And he has used those gifts to minister to others. Ask my dad about his life, and he’d tell you that he has no regrets.

As for me, I’m in a line of great men. I never met my grandpa — he died of stomach cancer when I was a toddler. But I know my dad. And if my life is half the life of my father’s, then my life would be a success.

If my dad were thinking about his own dad, he’d probably say the same thing.

My father’s side of the story is like a Hollywood movie script.

In the early part of the 20th century, Presbyterian missionaries found a receptive audience in northern Korea. But in 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, Korea was divided in two and the Communists took control of North Korea, and started to persecute Christians.

This was bad news for my dad’s parents, because they were leaders in the Christian movement. So when the Communists took over, they threw my grandfather in jail because of his faith. Though my grandmother was able to bribe the guards with nicely tailored clothes to garner his release, the experience shook him up. So they decided to make a break for it and flee to the south. Since they were being closely watched, they acted like they were merely going for a picnic with their son — my dad — but then headed for the west coast to climb into small boats ready to smuggle them into South Korea. They became refugees, leaving everything behind.

In the next few years, my grandfather, always the entrepreneur, built up an in-home textile factory with forty sewing machines in the basement. Through innovation and perseverance, they were able to recreate some of the fortune they had lost. At the same time, my great-grandmother would go back into North Korea to visit her daughter who still lived there, but would also go to the family’s old home to bring back valuables. But after six months, the border guards forced her to choose sides — either the north or the south — because she wouldn’t be able to cross again. She went back home to Seoul with a sinking feeling in her heart.

After that time, my grandfather kept his ear close to the ameliorating government radio broadcasts, assuring those in Seoul of their safety. But one night, the broadcasts suddenly stopped, and he knew it was time to leave immediately. So again they were on the run and escaped to the mountains with nothing else but a blanket for the journey. And in the darkness, my dad can remember seeing the orange explosions that destroyed the bridges over the Han River: the South Korean government, in trying to contain the North Korean advance, effectively cut off the escape route for anyone from Seoul. They were trapped.

(To be continued…)

Jinhee and I were up in the Seattle area spending some time with family and friends. Our first stop after arriving at Sea-Tac International Airport was visiting my grandmother, on my mother’s side. She lives in an apartment complex for elderly people near the International District in the heart of Seattle, and up on the 7th floor, we chowed down on some tasty Naengmyun — Korean cold noodles — and swapped stories about how my family survived during the “Civil War,” what Westerners call the Korean War.

For those of you who don’t know, my food tastes are a dead giveaway to my cultural background. While doing a pastoral internship overseas, my senior pastor asked me about my favorite Korean food. Without hesitation, I said that I loved Duk Mandoo Guk, or Korean dumpling soup. And with my reply, I unknowingly gave away my national identity. The senior pastor then asked, “Is your family from North Korea?” I didn’t realize until then that dumplings and cold noodle soup are specialities of the North, and I dearly love them both.

So I’m North Korean. Or at least of North Korean descent, though born on the north side of Chicago. But it’s weird to think I’m connected to Kim Jong Il in some way. More than that, being of North Korean descent also means that my family history is really quite interesting, and the stories I heard that cloudy afternoon in Seattle rooted me even more deeply in where I came from and who I am.

(To be continued… )

As you can see, Tell It Slant just got a makeover, though not quite an extreme one. I was never fully satisfied with the previous look: the colors never looked right. So what you’re seeing is the fruit of some sleepless nights. (Insomnia sometimes has its benefits.) It’s essentially the same website with a few tweaks — and less space. I especially like the new “archives” page, which is the genius of some generous programmer out there.

Take a look around, and let me know what you think.

I turned 33 yesterday, and many people have told me that it’s the year that Jesus finished his earthly ministry and was crucified. Not only did I start thinking about all that I hadn’t accomplished up til now, but I also started thinking how I would be crucified this year. And they call themselves my “friends.” But today, I got a taste of pain, though on a much, much smaller scale.

This evening, I was putting the finishing touches on this website. I clicked the button and sat in shock: I erased all of my posts. All gone. But I’m not afraid. I have a backup. Phew. So I followed the instructions and purged my old website from the server to make room for the backup. Then I uploaded the backup, and I got this message: “It looks like WordPress is not installed. Click here for…” My server was a blank slate. There was no data. So not only did I erase the posts, but I also erased all of my pages as well. The day after finishing the website, nothing was left.

In worse moods, I would’ve ranted. Even in the good state I’m in, I was still tempted to question: “Haven’t I been faithful, God? Why would you…?” (I know, sad, isn’t it?)

But for some reason, I didn’t stay there that long. Four hours later, after finding all of my old posts on Google (oh yeah — gotta love Google’s “cached pages” link. But it also means that nothing ever really leaves the Internet — rant one day, and you will never be able to erase that shame. Muah-ah-ah… Sorry, I digress)… so after rebuilding my old webpages (luckily, the customizations didn’t disappear), after meticulously re-adding the formatting and links to the posts, after readjusting all of my options, after even putting the correct date and time stamps back on the posts — my blog is back. But the comments didn’t survive.

I wish I could say that it was a meaningful day. But it didn’t feel that way. There was no epiphany, no angels from the sky, no sounds of bells or trumpets nor were the heavens rent open. No — just another day. Rebuilding. And sure, I learned more about websites, updated the blogging software and even fixed a few bugs. But in essence — there was no rhyme or reason to lose everything today. But what else could I do? Sulking doesn’t sound like much fun, and I wouldn’t have much to show for it except an annoyed wife. So instead, I rebuilt.

So if this is my year of the Cross, it should also be one of Resurrection, right? And sometimes Resurrection looks amazing, dramatic, powerful. Other times, perhaps it looks more like rebuilding after the storm, one day at a time.

The change: I left Blogger and moved over to WordPress on hosted space. Oooo. I think I was ready to take off the training wheels and really ride. It’s nice over here not quite as cataclysmic as shifting from a PC to a Mac *grin*, but somewhat comparable. There’s lots of bells and whistles including stuff I’d never use, like categories. But you gotta try the translate buttons over to the side. I can’t tell if they translate well at all, but it sure is fun! If you’re ever going to start your own blog, definitely start with WordPress instead of Blogspot.

Anyway this post is getting far more nerdy than I had anticipated. I just reverted back to my geek days in college for a while, but now Jinhee will get her husband back *another grin*. What a way to spend the first four hours of my birthday and now it’s time to get some sleep.