the discovery of a hidden talent in my son 2006.12.12
Posted by Hakuna in ohana ("family").3 comments
it’s every parent’s responsibility to discover, develop and encourage the things that your children are uniquely gifted in and/or have a passion to do. in that spirit, i’m re-publishing a hilarious post from a good friend’s blog — memyselfandbo’s Xanga Site — that is about my son, kaeden. enjoy…
**outdone by a six-year-old.**
so, awhile back, i showed you some pictures of the multiethnic staff conference we had in torrance, california. since i’m korean, i’ve always had a love/hate (more like hate/hate) relationship with my flatter-than-pancake nose. but when it comes to balancing a spoon on my nose, the flatty flatness comes in handy. observe:
up until now, i thought that i was special. usually, when i show people the flatty flatness trick, they’re amused or wowed. i make people laugh, and they tell me how great i am. some even try to do it themselves, fail, and then shower me with compliments like, “wow! i can’t believe you’re still single!” or “man, if i had a nose like that, i’d be rich.” and i, of course, in a very humble asian manner, reply “oh thank you. i know i am quite awesome, and i hope that all of you will strive to be like me. who knows? one day, balancing a spoon on your nose may save your life!”
BUT…
i HAD to start working for intervarsity. i HAD to meet the hiratas, a super-friendly and hug-loving family who live in madison. keith, the alpha male of the family, works as the associate director of training in the national service center. amy, a physical therapist, is one of the nicest women i’ve ever met. their kids? adorable. at least i thought they were adorable, until now.
meeting the hiratas meant meeting their six-year-old son, kaeden. kaeden is now my number one enemy. observe:
look at that technique! four spoons at once!? i even heard a rumor that his parents may pay for plastic surgery, so that his ears have more surface area on which to add two more spoons!!!
my hopes have been shattered; i am now a broken soul. my dream of being the life at every party has been stolen by a six-year-old. sure, he looks innocent; sure, he looks cute. but watch out, when you’re not paying attention, he will slam you like a fat man doing a belly flop. observe:
so, any suggestions on which circus i should contact?
don’t wait till marriage! 2006.12.02
Posted by Hakuna in christian, friendship, marriage, ohana ("family"), social commentary.2 comments
there was a very interesting op-ed piece in the new york times a few weeks ago, but before i share some of my thoughts related to it, allow me to state unequivocally at the beginning that i have been married to an amazing woman for over 16 years now! (the photo of us to the right is from our first year of marriage in 1991.)
amy is certainly more than i than i deserve — both in character and beauty. i don’t want anything that follows to cause anyone (especially her if she reads this) to doubt my love and commitment to her or the joy that can be found in the institution of marriage. that being clearly and said, i will continue.
marriage is not and was never meant to be one’s sole source of relational intimacy. (please note that i did not say “physical intimacy”! marriage is a holy covenant that one makes to another and i do not believe it leaves any room for sexual infidelity.) in many places around the world but especially in north america, marriage is viewed as the single relationship in life that opens the possibility for one’s total happiness and satisfaction. to not be married in our culture means that there is something wrong with you and that you have absolutely no chance at having a full life.
marriage is not relational nirvana but this is exactly what our culture tells us it is! this warped view of relational intimacy has significantly contributed to what can only be described as an epidemic of loneliness in our society and world. professor stephanie coontz, author of “marriage, a history: how love conquered marriage,” in her ny times editorial writes, (bold added)
…in the last century, Americans have put all their emotional eggs in the basket of coupled love. Because of this change, many of us have found joys in marriage our great-great-grandparents never did. But we have also neglected our other relationships, placing too many burdens on a fragile institution and making social life poorer in the process. A study released this year showed just how dependent we’ve become on marriage. Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage. In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn’t have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.
before amy and i married, we discussed the nature marriage and of friendship and committed to one another that we would make our marriage one that empowered us to be better friends to others. we had witnessed so many newly wedded couples “disappear” from the lives of their friends and we did not want that to happen to us. we wanted our marriage to be a place were we would receive greater relational energy because of our marriage. marriage should increase our respective capacities to be a blessing to those around us — by god’s grace, we trust this has been the case.
i can certainly affirm that my deepest friendships have been a blessing to me and to amy (albeit indirectly in some cases). my significant friendships make me a healthier person and husband as well as father. they help me to see from perspectives other than my own and sharpen me to grow in areas of my life that i would be blissfully content to leave fallow.
in closing, i have many friends who are single. delving into the broad dynamics of singleness is beyond my purpose in this post, but if you are single and reading this entry, don’t wait for marriage to provide you with deeply satisfying relational intimacy! relational intimacy is not something to be saved for marriage. invest every resource you have into deepening your current friendships and create new ones with those you are drawn to today. don’t wait for the initiative of others! take risks of relational rejection and initiate, initiate, initiate.
It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. It is community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me. -Joan Chittister
playing catch with my son 2006.11.01
Posted by Hakuna in addictions, christian, hope, ohana ("family"), sports.3 comments
this fall, i’ve been co-coaching my son’s t-ball team comprised of four, five and six year olds. i wish i could say that it has been nothing but sheer joy to help nurture the physical and character development of these young boys, but in truth, i cannot. the only part that i have really enjoyed so far is getting to watch kaeden grow and thrive.
i’m discovering that kaeden is actually quite coordinated and easily the best player on his team if not the league! (i wish you could see the prideful grin on my face and oh, if you’re one of the parents of the other kids in the league, my apologies.)
let me clarify: it’s not that these kids are particularly uncoordinated and athletically challenged. most four year olds and many five year olds are simply not developmentally ready to learn t-ball or any team sport for that matter. so, the majority of my “coaching” this season can be accurately described by my having to simply say,
stop playing with the dirt and keep your eyes on the ball!
about 10,002 times each game & practice. alas, it is an exercise in futility because many of the boys continue to be more intrigued by the dirt in the infield than the little white ball that the game is actually centered around.
that being said, as i watched kaeden throw, catch and hit the ball last week, it reminded me of an experience i had with him 3 years ago.
the chicago cubs were in the 2003 major league baseball play-offs for the first time in years and they were actually doing extremely well. (you may recall this because it only happens about once every quarter century — they’ve only had one back-to-back winning season since 1971-72.)
anyway, as kaeden (3-1/2 years old at the time) and i sat there one evening watching the cubies out-perform their post-season opponent, he went and got a ball and we started to play catch in between innings. he was a quick study (to my delight) but many of the balls he threw somehow flew backward landing behind him instead of flying forward toward me. catching the ball proved to be even more challenging for him, but he was trying very hard and occasionally, he would catch it — more from the accuracy of my throw than his dexterity though.
that night, regardless of whether he threw or caught the ball very well, i’d give him a high-five and praise him effusively for every attempt. the cubs won that night, but the deeper joy i experienced that evening was from the interaction i had with my most precious son.
that next morning, i had to get up early because i was leading a weekly sexual addictions support group for men at our church. a young man, let’s call him “sam” for convenience here, was downcast in spirit because he had failed in his area of addiction for the umpteenth time. as i silently asked god for wisdom in how to comfort “sam”, the lord gave me a flashback to my prior evenings interaction with kaeden. after describing that evening to him and the rest of the group, this is what i said,
of course god takes sin very seriously. so seriously, in fact, that jesus was willing to sacrifice himself for us! but god is also our father and as our father, he loves us and sees us as his most precious children.
i am not patient by nature, but last night, i was able to celebrate and cheer kaeden’s every attempt at throwing and catching the ball regardless of his level of success. why? because i knew that one day in the not-so-distant future when he turns eleven or twelve years of age, he will be throwing that ball right at me with speed and acuracy 19 out of 20 times and that his catching the ball will seem automatic.
if i had screamed, ‘what the hell are you doing kaeden? i showed you step-by-step how to throw and catch the ball just a few seconds ago! why can’t you just do what i said?’ at him, he would have either fallen to the ground weeping or stomped off angry. either way, i would have wounded his soul and he would have had little if any desire to re-engage with the activity of learning to play baseball in the future.
again, i know that god takes sin seriously, but could it also be that because he knows that we are growing into perfection, he patiently cheers us on every time we fail?
before becoming a father, i saw god as a frowning judge who was more often disappointed by my performance than pleased by my existence. this is how “sam” was seeing the lord that morning. i now know this is completely false! a deeper understanding of god’s word and my experience as a dad have shown me that god our father is always cheering us on and encouraging us to continue on the path of growth. he knows what we are becoming and therefore sees us ever so clearly as we are and as we will be.
kaeden is still only six years old but he’s already looking more and more like that eleven or twelve year old playing baseball that i imagined that autumn night just three years ago.
(unfortunately, the chicago cubs didn’t go on to win the league pennant that year! even god my have lost hope and patience with them by now.)
angry & afraid! 2007.01.04
Posted by Hakuna in ohana ("family"), social commentary.2 comments
i am angry because if media (hollywood and mtv) is hell-bent on driving our culture in this direction, where are the parents? when i read the editorial above, i thought that the girls must have been rebellious youth who surprised and shocked the audience and faculty of the school by this performance. sadly, this was not the case because mr. downes reports:
is anyone else out there fearful and upset? i certainly hope so.