The Mirror

It's 1999.
Happy New Year!

I'm ringing in the New Year with my family. As usual, with Martinelli's non-alcoholic grape juice. 4 the last time. In a few months I'll be a student @ NYU. In a few months, I'll be an atheist.

A year passes. I'm on the 7 train one night, on the way back from a club in Flushing, NY. a.k.a. Korean 20-somethings partytown. Glowsticks. Baggy UFO raver pants. You're not supposed to ride the train late @ night, but I don't care.

I transfer @ Times Square to ride the N/R home, + I see a subway musician. He's playing "O Holy Night" on the sax, even though Christmas was 6 days ago. I wonder what it must be like to pandhandle w/ an instrument + sleep on the streets + live on McDonald's hamburgers. I don't give him any money.

I get home. The drugs are wearing off. As I wash my face, I can't look @ myself in the mirror. I hate who I've become. But I know the next night, it'll happen again. + I don't have the power to stop this vicious cycle.

The next day's nice out, so I take a walk to Union Square Park. I see people tryin to make a buck. Passing out flyers. Promoting their demo CDs. Selling their wares. But nobody cares. Nobody wants to look you in the eye. Everyone's got places to go, things to do. It's a dog-eat-dog world + I'm nothing but a dog. + so are you, baby. So might as well live it up while the night is young. Who knows what'll happen tomorrow. As for now, I'm gonna get my drink on, + my freak on, because right now might be all I got.

Fast forward a decade.

I walk around the streets of NYC. What used to be a faceless, impersonal blur, is now a steady stream of broken humanity, painful stories, familiar strangers. I try to look people in the eye. Some of them let me. Everytime, my heart breaks. Everytime they don't, it breaks too.

In the city where I wandered aimlessly, I've a newfound purpose. I'm in Union Square Park, where I can see my old apartment building. With a group of young people, some only 9, 10 years old, others in high school + college. Doing an improv puppet show. Singing praise songs. Passing out flyers, to direct them to a website my friend Robin's made. That may lead them to a relationship w/ God. They pass us by, sometimes, without looking @ us, without even finding out what we're about.

Sometimes though, somebody stops. Listens. Asks. Talks. Takes. Smiles. Prays. Hugs. Cries. I don't know why. I never did. But something compels them. In the middle of this heartless city, a pulse. After all.

It's the end of another year. I'm on the subway, the 7 train. It's late at night. I'm pretending to be a subway musician, with my guitar + scratchy voice, passing out DVDs of...myself? My band? It's actually a DVD my friend Kyle's made, that might make them question their spiritual health. Maybe, just maybe, it'll jar them awake. To search 4 the God that's always been searching 4 them.

I don't know this train well, + I'm in the middle of my song when the conductor says: "Jackson Heights, 74th Street. Stand clear of the closing doors." I barely have time to get off. The door catches me, + I'm stuck. I hold the doors apart, grab some DVDs + reach my hands out to anybody who'll take 'em. I'm desperate.

Who knows? This might be the last chance I'll have to tell them. The last chance 4 them to hear about Him.

I'm still trapped, the plastic edge of the doors digging into my shoulders. Frantically, I ask the guy sitting next to the door to pass 'em out to everyone who wants 'em. I pry myself free. The doors close. The train exhales, engaging the tracks again. It begins to inch forward. The people must've sensed how important those DVDs were to me. I see them eagerly springing out of their seats to take one.

The train flies past. I'm enveloped in the rush of air, the rhythmic thumping of the tracks, the screeching of the metal. But in the streak of blurry faces, against the reflection of the windows, I catch a glimpse of someone I recognize.

It's me. A decade ago. Face pressed against the glass. Jaded. Emotionless. But just beneath that hardened expression, a silent cry. For hope. For meaning. For love.

It's 2009.
Happy New Year.

The Prodigy

Her skinny fingers flash across the black wooden fingerboard like tree limbs flailing in a storm. She's so frail and waifish. She still sleeps w/ her bunny doll. But @ certain moments in the song, her body bucks w/ confidence, chin jutting out with bravado. She's a maestro, a child prodigy, people say. + she's only 11 years old.

Most kids do their 6th grade English project on dinosaurs, or Britney Spears. She did hers on violin master Jascha Heifetz. She gleefully shows me a Youtube clip of him playing Paganini's Caprice #24.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPcnGrie__M

So what makes him so great? Well, his intonation... What's that? I ask. Oh, that's the accuracy of pitch when you… + I can't catch the rest. She's so comfortable talking technical specifics, like a child mechanic explaining the valves in my car engine.

Her parents urge her to play 4 us, and after some prodding, she obliges. It's a piece from the opera Carmen. Her intonation is a little off, I notice. She just started learning it, her parents apologize to me. For long concertos, it usually takes her 2 months to learn, and 1 month to perfect for performance level.

Play another one, her parents say. She asks 4 the sheet music. You forgot it already? They sound annoyed. So she starts to play, without the music.

2 hours of practice @ a time is all her fragile nerves can handle. Another famous maestro played 14 hours a day. How proud her parents would be if she could play that much.

She only placed 3rd @ the prestigious Concord violin musical competition in Chicago. That's nice. 1st place would've been nicer. After all, her uncle IS a world-famous baritone for the most prestigious symphonic orchestra in Korea. Her cousin IS an up + coming pop star. Her teachers see potential in her. Her parents have big dreams for her.

But what she really wants is to be able to play outside with her friends. Watch TV. Go shopping. Instead, each afternoon, she flips the cover of the custom-built floor socket, plugs in the light attached to her professional stand. + practices. On occasion, she ruefully steals a glance outside @ the boys playin ice hockey out on the lake.

She broke down last summer. She + her mom went to an Adventist retreat center in Korea to recoup. A week of Bible study + prayer later, her daughter apologized first, crying, saying that she'd be more obedient. Later, her mom declared to the group, I'll never force my daughter to play violin again! Her daughter beamed. For 2 months, she ran through the lily fields, capturing frogs by the creek, letting her hair run wild. She was free!

But that was last summer. Her dad came to pick them up @ the airport. + things went back to normal. Over the last 6 months, her smile's slowly faded. Every Saturday is another fight. Daddy is warming up the car for the 5, sometimes 6 or 7 hour drive to Chicago for the lesson w/ a Jewish maestro @ Northwestern University. + the long, silent drive back.

But oh how she loves Daddy still! mother and daughter decided to get baptized together. Secretly, because Daddy would forbid it. The night before, she cried all nite. What about Daddy? oh he'll come around, her mom said then. He still hasn't.

As we talk tonight, he seems so laid-back, jolly. No overt Kim Jong Il tendencies. I know he grew up dirt poor, as most of our Korean parents did. The famine of 53, when all the weeds + tree bark were stripped clean by a starving country. He immigrated to the States w/ a few bucks in his pocket, graduated from U of Illionois, and built a successful accounting firm. + his daughter's gonna have all the opportunities 4 success that he never had.

It might be hard now, he tells me, but in a few years she'll be in high school + she'll be motivated to practice 4 herself. Really? Where will his daughter be 5 years from now?

A prodigy concertmaster @ the NY Philharmonic?
Estranged from her parents?
In the church?
Suicidal?

It looks hopeless now. I have to believe, though, that the God who randomly worked it out 4 me to meet these people, is the same God who is gonna find some way to reach them, guide them, closer to Him.

I'm sitting here typing this story in the guestroom, as the little violin maestro is sleeping with her bunny doll in her room next door.

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Smoked Up

May 9, 2005
New Orleans

I smoked a cigarette in my classroom today. Well, actually, my squeezable Heinz ketchup bottle did. The cotton balls inside were supposed to turn black + shrivel up but they didn't really. My kids with asthma were standing by the door, coughing. One student complained, "Mr. Choi, why you killin us?" It was great.

To end class + continue w/ the theme of "Hip-Hop Culture Against Drugs," we played an Outkast song feat. Goodie Mob - "Git up, Git out." When they heard the funky beat start up, they looked @ me kinda funny like the first time they'd ever seen belly button wax - like wha? Then they started to sing along haha - the chorus goes:

You need to get up, get out + get something
Don't let the days of your life pass by

You need to get up, get out + get something
Don't spend all your time tryin' to get high

You need to get up, get out + get something
How will you make it if you never even try?

You need to get up, get out + get something
Cuz you + I need to do for you + I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRQt2LvTyKk&feature=related

They have no idea how much expletive-filled gangsta rap I listened to back in my angsty teenage years =)

They have no idea how much joy + pride fills my heart when I see how far they've come, how well they work in cooperative groups, how polite they are to visitors - all this in spite the fact I still don't know what the heck I'm doing in that classroom =\

They have no idea how depressed I'll be on May 26 when they walk out of my life for the last time =..(

On a bright note, I saw Dwayne, one of my old students from last year, standing around @ a block party on Orleans next to the Iberville Projects. I remember he used to get beat up every day b/c he was short + smart + got A's on his report card. I yelled @ him + threw him a can of Tropicana Pink Lemonade that was rolling around the floor of my van. He yelled, "Hey Mr. Choi, I'm @ Gregory High School now!" Like making it to high school was a major accomplishment. I guess in this place, in his life, it is. Look Mr. Choi, I'm still alive @ age 16. In this city, in his hood, I guess that's an accomplishment too.

Dear God, you're the great Teacher. Help me to teach my kids what they need to know, to give them a bit of hope for their futures, to offer them an alternative to the negativity that surrounds their lives. To teach them somehow that there's more to life than just getting by + getting high.

Hello Mr. President

When I first heard of him, I was like, Da Rock who?

He sounded like an Arab wrestler.

I was flipping through TIME and in the middle of the 17 Hillary Clinton articles + all the Republican potential nominees, there was this tall skinny big-eared black dude from Illinois. First term senator. I didn't even read the article. How's this guy gonna become president?

That was Fall 2007. Then in January, He won Iowa, a state that is 90% white. With a limited budget + no brand-name, he flexed his community-organizing muslces, his listening skills in those town halls where Iowans expressed their fears, concerns, hopes.

The primary season was crazy, but I followed every punch and parry with relish. Through the whole Reverend Wright fiasco, the NAFTA ordeal, the campaign firings, the gamesmanship, + the mudslinging, I was thinking: Wow, can this lil' David really take down the Hilla-stine giant, all by his lonesome?

I wanted to get to know this guy, beyond what CNN told me. So I ordered his book "The Audacity of Hope" on Amazon. Slowly read through it over the summer.

It was a most unlikely story. From his single-mom, welfare-stamp upbringing to his $17,000 community organizer salary even after graduating @ Columbia Univ...from his underdog Illinois house rep campaign in '95 to his Christian conversion @ a run-down south side Chicago church, he was a man who'd defied the oddsmakers. He seemed to have a keen understanding of how messed-up politics was, + yet he had this hope. Not only for his own party, but for the country, + for the world. I gave $20 to his campaign.

Still, I wanted to get to know him, see him up close. So when he came by South Bend, Indiana for a rally, I waited in line for 4 hours. 3,000 of us crammed into a tiny high school gym, a crowd of every color, cheering his name, dreaming the same dream of a better tomorrow. Pinning our hopes on this man. + when he bounded onto that stage, he seemed so confident. Larger than life. He seemed to be speaking to me. + I knew then, that he'd already captured America's heart.

+ then, last night in his Chicago acceptance speech, he said, "This victory belongs to you"…I was smiling @ first, + a happy tear rolled down my cheek…but then I thought, No it doesn't Barack.

I mean, in the sentimental sense, yeah, it belongs to all of us in America.
But seriously speaking, Barack, you don't know me.

Sure, I know you. After all, I've followed you for a year, watching your stump speeches live on the internet, updating political tickers, bowling photo-ops, interviews. I've read your book, donated at your website, chanted O-BA-MA at your rally, prayed for you @ night (+ John McCain too), + photoshopped pictures of myself next to you.

But if one of your aides came up to you + said, hey there's a Chris Choi from Berrien Springs. He wants to know if you have some time to, I dunno, grab a Happy Meal @ McDonalds or something?

I have a feeling you'd probably decline.

I know all sorts of stuff about Barack Obama. But he doesn't know me. + probably never will.

4 years ago, he was just a two-bit state legislator. Only Illinoians knew who he was. Now, he's the president-elect of the United States. + the whole world knows his name.

+ I'm just Chris Choi. Just a regular person, like you. In a country of 300 million, in a world of 6.6 billion. Our name's not Oprah Winfrey, or George Clooney, or Rudy Giuliani. + President Barack Obama is never gonna take notice of us!

I heard, though, there's an important Person that wants to meet you. He used to be a two-bit woodworker in a podunk town. Now, they say He's become some kind of President. President of the Universe, supposedly! I'm not really sure why or how, but He says He wants to get to know you, have lunch with you. I wonder if you have the time...

Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. (Revelation 3:20)

Biceps // Breasts // Brains

A man is grunting in a high-tech basement gym. Benchpressing 375 lbs. Easily.
He's got electrodes strapped to his chest. A team of trainers + doctors, analyzing him like a prized racehorse.

His lactate threshold, his VO2Max, his lung capacity, are @ world-class levels
He trains 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, 50 weeks a year.

Every Sunday, the world watches him in breathless anticipation
He's shattering the hallowed records of his sport.
He has more money than he knows what to do with.

He can have any woman he wants
Every man would kill, to be him for a day.
Because of his biceps.

Strength.

A woman is brushing her eyelashes in front of a vanity mirror.
Naked. With a smile on her face.

Her breasts, her legs, her face, her skin.
Her proportions are the stuff of Greek goddesses. Her silhouette is a synonym for sex.

The richest companies pay millions just to associate their product with her image.
Her breakfast menu, the car she drives, her body weight, are topics of tabloids worldwide

She's got the world @ her fingertips.
Just the thought of her incites lust in every man
She's the envy of every woman
Because of her body.

Attraction.

A man is talking into a cell phone at the top of a federal buildling. Forehead creased. The weight of the world's on his shoulders. Burly men in suits and earpieces, surround him. Nobody can get within a mile of him.

He's @ the peak of his career. He's about to take over an entire nation.
Ask his entourage…and they've all got political aspirations. The most powerful man in the free world!

He can move crowds with a wave. Millions, at his beck and call.
He's got more groupies than a popstar, clamoring for his touch, or gunning for his fall.
He's got the whole world reading his books, studying his ideas
Because of his brains.

Intelligence.

He's got it all
Strength.
Attraction.
Intelligence.

He's the King of the Universe
+ in a few minutes
He's about to give it all up.

And I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me…
(John 12:32)

Generation eXcess

I like facebook
Before, I wouldn't know what was going on in people's lives
+ So I'd call. Visit. Ask. About their "status."

I love facebook. Because it keeps me connected to people's lives
I just wish I didn't waste so much of my life doing it from a distance.
"Chris is…too busy to talk because he's checking his facebook"

I like Ebay
Before, we used to drive to the store + buy things when we needed it
+ my mom paid with a check. + she only spent money that we had

I love Ebay. Because anything I want is just a mouse click away.
I just wish I wasn't so impulsive. to clutter my house w/ shinier versions of stuff I already got
"Wow, a flight to London for $223 RT! Buy it NOW!!!"

I like my GPS
Before, I used to pull out a map
+ figure out the best way to get places. + when I got there, I knew my way around.

I love my GPS. Because I can just turn it on + drive
I just wish I knew what direction I was going. + wasn't so dependent on a machine
"Go straight. Go straight. Go straight."

I like my generation
Before, I thought the world revolved around me.
+ now I realize, I'm a part of a larger movement of change. Like nothing we've ever seen.

I love my generation because it's my generation
I just pray that it doesn't become a victim of its own success. + I guess it starts w/ me
"Such is the generation of those who seek your face, O God." -David

The Immigrant

I'm a Honduran refugee. Or some would call me an illegal immigrant, whichever flotas your botas. I left my family a year ago. + took the train all the way up thru Central America. In Mexico, I found a "coyote" to take me across the desert, thru Arizona. 3 days of walking, with nothing but a gallon water jug, a loaf of bread + the will not to die. I was several months pregnant at the time. I made it across the border + was taken to Ontario, California where I could hide out for a few months. No family or friends. I'm 19 years old.

I'm a seminary student. Know what that is? I got an Masters in…Divinity. Which means I study…God. So I'm supposed to, you know, win souls. Go ye therefore. Baptize. Teach. Evangelize. You hear amazing witnessing stories of airplane testimonies. + if I'm a real Christian, then I should have a story too. A star on my crown, too. So as part of the M.Div curriculum, they send us to a "boot camp." 1 month of door-to-door evangelism, bible studies in the day, an evangelistic series @ night. If you were worth your salt, you'd get @ least one baptism, right Pastor?

I get to Pomona + I discover, it's a black church. When most cities in SoCal are 60% Hispanic, + growing. Great. + they're sending us to Ontario. It's 10 miles away, gas is $4 a gallon + a lot of folks don't even have a car. Just wonderful. After one week of going door-to-door, I haven't had to speak that much Spanish since I got lost in Mexico once. Perfectamundo.

It was weird being so pregnant, so helpless + having everyone around you so American. I've been here 11 months but I've barely learned any English. I'll never forget that late nite, my friend running red lights + me biting my shirt in pain. Never knew my body could feel so much pain! But my beautiful baby girl was born at the Pomona Hospital on November 27, 2007. I named her Britney. People always laugh when I tell them…that’s a white girl's name! I'm not even sure why I had her. I knew it would make the journey slower, more dangerous, more uncertain than it already is. But no matter how bad it gets for my baby girl, it can't be worse than what I've left behind.

It's 100 degrees out. I'm in the Mexican ghetto, in front of a decrepit apartment complex w/ all the gates locked up tight. I'm about to give up, when a teenager rolls by on his scooter + lets me in. Inside, I see a lot of little kids running around, a dejected mom sitting on the stairwell, a lot of abuelas (grandmas) at home, everybody politely interested which is the American equivalent of "not interested." The smell of marinated achiote chicken + beans + rice on the stove. It's been a bad day + I'm hungry. Oh well, just a coupla more doors...

I'm babysitting 6 kids at my friend's place. It's chaos. I barely hear the knock on the door, + when I open it, the kids all quiet down. It's a chino! Some kinda Bible student. His Spanish is terrible. He gives me a set of Spanish bible studies + prays a prayer for the kids in his terrible Spanish. They're having a Bible seminar about some end-of-the-world doomesday stuff, like some kinda cult. I've always been curious about the Bible, but it's hard to understand. I give him my phone number, but he gets his seis and siete mixed up. I doubt he's gonna call.

Tonight's the 1st seminar. I've called + offered to pick my contacts up. I go to pickup Maria, the Honduran girl, but she's not at home. After a week, I still haven't brought anybody to the seminars. + plus, this field school is chaos. (I'm complaining to my door-to-door partner, Juan Carlos who's from Panama). What are we doing here Juan? I don't agree w/ the pastor's methods. Revelation Seminar? A bunch of English-speaking seminary students going into a Hispanic community, asking them to come to a black church? This is ridiculous. I've given up on anyone getting baptized. The church members aren't involved, the prep work wasn't done, the people's needs aren't being met. Maybe God sent me to the wrong field school...

A week later, I went to my 1st Revelation Seminar. I've never studied the Bible like that before! + the people there really seem to view God as a friend, when they pray to Him or talk about Him. + they're very nice to Britney =)

One day, I visited Chris + Juan's apartment on their vacation day. I'm looking thru some pics on Juan's laptop + I find one where he's all wet, wearing a gown in a pool. So Juan gives me a little Bible study about what it means. I've heard about baptism, but I didn't really what it was exactly until now. I guess it means just giving my life over to Jesus, and promising to follow Him for the rest of my life. I'm still young; I know I have a lot to learn. My future seems so unstable. But maybe that's why I need Jesus even more.

It's Thursday, our day off. Maria called + wanted to just hang out…she's usually @ her apartment all day w/ the baby. As Juan + Maria are discussing in Spanish, I'm playing w/ Britney. She's teething right now, so she wants to gnaw on everything...a pillow, a slinky, my finger.

I look at this baby, + all the hope she represents to her fugitive mom. I think of all the things that had to happen for us to meet that afternoon. I look back at all the people I've met in the past month. All the different worldviews, religious beliefs, of every denomination, and in every walk of life. I realize that despite all my prayers, invitations, discussions, and rejections, no matter how many doors I've knocked on, flyers I've passed out, and people I've connected with, I can't bring anybody to Jesus. He's the one drawing them. He can use us to move them further along that path. but whether He's asked me to sow, or cultivate, or weed, or reap…God's the only one Who can make anyone grow.

I realize how selfish I've been. How much I've been focused on human things. Like numbers. Impressing others. Proving myself. It's always been about my contacts. My charisma. I'm here to get my star, on my crown. I've forgotten, that I'm just a tool in the carpenter's hands. + the more I make this about myself, the less He can do with me.

+ all of a sudden Juan's voice interrupts my thoughts. Maria's beaming. Britney's cooing. + he tells me, Let's pray, Chris. Maria's decided she wants to get baptized.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things...so that no one may boast before him. (1 Cor 1:27-30)