April Showers and May Flowers

I have no way to talk about springtime without bombarding you with a million different cliches. Even to simply say "I love spring" seems overused and hollow. But I'm kind of okay with that. In fact, I embrace it. Because the truth is that I DO love spring, and in this season I myself transform into a living, breathing cliche; all I want to do is skip through fields of wildflowers in a flowy white skirt and barefeet (not something you'd want to, or could do, where I live in Korea, by the way).

There seems to be something intrinsic to this season that brings out wild and beautiful desires in my spirit. It awakens my heart to a deep and joy-filled thirst-- thirst for change, for freshness, for freedom and life. It is a thirst that too often lays dormant in the pursuit of comfort and warmth accompanying those long (and, this year, longer than usual) winter months, but that every year, by God's grace given in the changing seasons, refreshes me and brings a new light to my vision of the world around me. Springtime brings with it a reminder of who I am, and points me to the hope, beauty and transforming power of my God.

From the day of my arrival in this country, I have been looking forward to experiencing this season here. Springtime is a source of great national pride for Koreans-- even as early as last summer, when asked how I liked Korea, I was frequently met with, "Oh, well, if you like it now, just wait until SPRING." And I have not been disappointed-- it truly is beautiful. Spring in Korea is marked by blossoming cherry trees at every turn and various flower festivals held in nearly every city. The most popular festivals showcase apricot blossoms, the Japanese dogwood, and, of course, cherry blossoms. Korea can't seem to get enough of them, and neither can I!



Here in Ansan we had our own TULIP festival. Tulips are one of my favorite flowers-- probably second only to pink and red daisies-- and this festival did not disappoint. A beautiful and seemingly endless array of the brightly colored flowers were planted alongside the man-made river that runs through our city, drawing out hundreds of couples and families with strollers and pets in tow to enjoy this season's first real weekend of warmth and sun.

(photos courtesy of the lovely and amazing Anlee :) )

The festival was certainly a nice reprieve from all of the concrete, and, though it was not a field of wildflowers for me to prance through, it still hit me like a breath of fresh air. Because while there is a part of my heart that can only be touched by things that grow wild and unruly, I have also come to realize that there is a unique and particular kind of beauty to be found in a garden of flowers that have been cultivated and toiled over.

I credit C.S. Lewis' Four Loves for waking me up to this beauty. In that book, Lewis uncovers in a well-tended garden a metaphor for love. Embedded in the essential qualities of the garden there is on the one hand a sense of the absolute necessity of the gardener's hard work and care, at the same time that there is also an overwhelming sense that this work pales beside the beauty of the cultivated thing itself-- the thing whose source of energy, life and glory are born out of nature rather than human hands. In the same way, our diligent and often cumbersome toil is necessary in order to maintain and show love, but, ultimately, the source and glory in any display of love, as in a garden, is not our own, but our Father and Creator's.

This analogy resonates powerfully with me. It also gives voice to the reason that I chose the title and header image of this blog to accompany one another. I am thankful for Lewis' ability to articulate and shed light on something that I feel but could not have adequately expressed, and so leave you with his words rather than my own:

"It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but [keeping itself] is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct from a wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. The very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties with man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined... And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener's contributions to that glory have still been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature. Without life springing from the earth, without rain, light and heat descending from the sky, he could do nothing. When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source. "

May you all find joy and life in springtime, wherever you are :)

Loving Mothers Around the World

Mothers and motherhood have been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of reasons. Being in Korea definitely has a great deal to do with it. I have come to learn a lot in my time here about the unique challenges and pressures that Confucian ideals place upon the shoulders of women in Korea, especially with regards to family, marriage, and motherhood. On a personal level, the things that I have learned through my time and experiences here have really grown me in love and understanding for my own mother. I've been writing a lot about the life experiences of my mother and grandmother lately, and have spent quite a great deal of time reflecting on the amazing women that have always surrounded me in my family and my life. I feel incredibly grateful and blessed to have had them.

I've also recently been reading a lot about maternal health, maternal mortality, and orphaned children. These issues have really been driving me to my knees. Everything in my being wants to see mothers across the world LIVE, and succeed, and have the opportunity to nurture and care for their children. I deeply admire and wish to honor every woman who loves and sacrifices for her children, wherever and however and to whomever those children first entered the world. My heart rejoices to see mothers (and fathers) rise up and bring orphaned children into their families. I really hope I am blessed to be counted among their ranks one day.

There are other factors, too, at work in promoting my recent preoccupation with motherhood. Like my intention to travel to Haiti in August to work with women and children. And, of course, the fact that Mother's Day in the US is only two weeks away.

This year, I will be celebrating my mother from a distance, and so have been giving special consideration as to how best to show her how much I appreciate her, not only for giving me life, but also for investing in me and loving me unconditionally over the years. I've never been great at giving gifts-- I'd say the worst was probably when I accidentally broke my sister's arm and gave my mom an oh-so-glorious day in the emergency room for Mother's day-- but I'm sure that this year I'll be able to manage something at least a little better than that.

One way that I intend to expand my celebration of Mother's day this year-- and that I invite any who read this to consider-- is by investing in the life of a mother in the developing world who needs some help to provide for and support her family.

One way to do this is through microfinance and the organization that I mentioned in an earlier post, Kiva. In case you aren't familiar, Kiva connects lenders, like you and me, who have modest amounts of expendable income-- even $25-- to business owners in the developing world who need small loans to start-up, grow or expand their small businesses. The majority of small business owners represented on Kiva, I believe, are women; they constitute the group least likely to default on their loans and most likely to allocate resources responsibly. It has been suggested that this gender difference is largely attributable to the value women tend to place on the management, care, education and well-being of their families, and especially their children. In other words, making microloans to mothers is a solid investment, because it's returns are most likely to positively impact children, families and, by extension, whole communities.

For those more moved by maternal health concerns, there is also Compassion International's Child Survival Program. One issue that I have only recently learned about, but that has been weighing heavily on my heart, is that of fistula. An all too common condition plaguing women in the developing world, fistula is a hole in a woman's bladder or rectum that results from sexual assault or, often, obstructed labor. This is a condition that is majorly debilitating and that causes women to be ostracized from their communities. Tragically, MANY of these cases could easily be avoided or repaired simply by the presence of proper medical care during childbirth. The Child Survival Program strives to give women in the developing world access to this kind of care by providing pregnant mothers with skilled birth attendants, who can help ensure safe and healthy deliveries.

These are just a couple ideas to consider-- there are, of course, many other options out there. But I definitely think that programs like the ones mentioned above are powerful ways by which we can celebrate motherhood across the world, as well as demonstrate just how much we value the blood, sweat and tears that so many of our own mother's have so graciously invested in us.

Oops

I finally figured out how to allow people to follow my blog and how to get my comments settings to remain turned ON... hooray for a more reader friendly blog. Better late than never :)

LOVE and MISS!

Study study study

I'm really working hard these days to improve my Korean. It struck me recently that I will soon have spent a year here, without being able to do much more than introduce myself and give directions to a cab driver in the native language. And that is just sad.

Fortunately, I have an uncle (actually a cousin of my mother's) who agrees with me that this is a major FAIL and has graciously taken it upon himself to tutor me. In exchange for two hours of English "lessons" with me-- he's a movie director, so basically we just read articles about movies and chat about them-- he helps me slowly and awkwardly make my way through a conversational Korean book. He's very patient with me, which I really appreciate, and I'm really grateful to have had this excuse to hang out with him so often in the past couple months-- he's pretty awesome.

Of course, while I'm definitely excited that my Korean is improving, on the flip side, there ARE some perks to NOT knowing the language well. Example: it gives you a great way to keep yourself entertained during those seemingly endless subway rides to and from Seoul...

(posted at eatyourkimchi.com-- if you're living in Korea, a great site to check out)

In addition to studying Korean, I am also trying to brush up on my French and pick up a few phrases in Creole in preparation for my trip to Haiti. My brain is sort of on language overload right now, but I am kind of liking it-- makes me feel a bit more like a world citizen, and a bit less like just another jerky American who expects others to bend to her language needs.

Finding rest and letting genius go

Korea is a fast paced culture that likes to keep things always busy, always crowded, always moving. I've long admired my grandmother and mother for having an unparalleled work ethic and a kind of determined dedication that I seem to lack, and after living in Korea these past nine months, I certainly understand a little more about where that comes from. This nation is definitely full of some of the hardest workers I have ever met.

But there are also some major side effects to Korea's cultural obsession with "go," and the constant need to compete for success. South Korea, currently ranked at number nine, has the fastest growing suicide rate in the world-- a statistic that is particularly high among men and is growing most rapidly among young people. It is widely acknowledged that, like many of their parents, students here are vastly overworked. Youth often attend school from 730 to 11 or 12-- not including the time needed to complete the homework for all those classes. Families are having fewer and fewer children because the cost of a child's education, in order to give him or her a chance in such a competitive culture and economy, is so overwhelmingly high. This issue is so widespread in fact that the government has recently taken measures to send state workers home early once a week, in order that they might spend more time with their families and, essentially, make more babies.

By Korean standards, and probably by American standards as well, my own workload here is far from overwhelming. I go to work from 830 to 430 or 5 everyday, and rarely does that work carry over into the evenings or weekends. But as someone long prone to over-committing myself, I have struggled not to overextend myself in my personal life. The temptation to over-commit is powerful because, culturally, it feels appropriate here to be constantly going, constantly busy-- not to mention, it is a way of life that I actually enjoy. I really desire and derive joy from being invested in my life here, from experiencing as much as I can in the short time that I am here, and from not feeling that a single moment is going to waste. But, just as there are side effects to this kind of lifestyle which effect the whole of Korean society, there are also side effects that have been wearing down on me. Over a month ago I got sick and was unable to get rid of it for over three weeks. It definitely wasn't fun, but I was surprised to find that, despite the inconvenience of being exhausted, tired and ill, I was actually grateful for the excuse to pause and let myself take a break-- not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. I had pushed myself to a place where my body, mind and spirit had become desperately thirsty for rest.

It's unfortunate that it took a virus knocking me off of my feet to get me to take this pause, but I am glad that I have had time to recoup and give consideration to how I want to prioritize the remainder of my time in Korea.

A big part of the reason that I want to stay in Korea for another year (after my time in Haiti) is to continue to explore and nurture certain interests and sides of myself that have (re)surfaced in me over the course of the past year. One of those things, which I have mentioned before, is doing art-- in particular writing-- for the sake of experiencing joy, creativity and release. For the past few months, though, writing has become rather a source of fear, anxiety and burden; it has begun to feel less like a release and more like just another thing to check off on my "to do" list. And I certainly am not satisfied to let things continue this way. Fortunately, while seeking inspiration on a friend's blog, I came across this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) in which she talks about constructing a kind of psychological distance between yourself, your work, and the inspiration and creativity that you long to capture and release in it. Though I'm obviously no professional writer, I found her thoughts quite insightful and helpful. Her humor is also really refreshing-- completely foreign to my own tendency to take myself far too seriously.



After following her advice today, I am able to find a lot more joy and freedom as I work on my current creative project. It's nice to feel energized and rested in my efforts, rather than stressed and drained.

And, on a different note, I am very excited to see the upcoming movie based on Gilbert's book. LOVE Julia Roberts.

Seriously upset that I missed this...

A few days ago, Boyz II Men held a joint concert in Seoul with Korean ballad group 4Men.

Umm, Boyz II Men meets K-pop? Why did I not have a front row seat to this? Very disappointed in myself right now...

(skip ahead to 1:20 if you don't want to watch the introductions)

HAITI

There is not a single person I know who was not rocked by the news of Haiti's January 12th earthquake.


As updates about the extent of the devastation in Haiti filtered out to the world, we were all overcome with heavy hearts for the people of that nation. The horrifying images and stories that emerged were made all the more heart wrenching knowing that the poverty and destitution left in the earthquake's wake was not a far cry from the kind of abject poverty in which many Haitians have long been living. And despite the fact that the news about Haiti has begun to fade into the background of our world's media consciousness, this burden on the hearts of the world community to meet the needs of the Haitian people persists.

In response, I have decided to take a few months off from Korea to go to Haiti and offer what I can to the relief efforts there. I have secured a volunteer position working with internally displaced women, children and youth living in camps Pinchinat and Kay Wolf near Jacmel. I am scheduled to begin work this coming September.

If all proceeds as planned, I will be coming home from Korea at the beginning of August to prepare for my trip. I will leave for Port-au-Prince on August 30th and begin working September 1st at the IDP camp. I hope to save and raise enough money to be able to stay in Haiti for at least 3 months. I then plan to return to South Korea in January 2011.

As we all well know, Haiti cannot currently afford the cost of hosting the many volunteer workers that they so desperately need, so it is going to cost over $4000 out of pocket to make this trip possible. Though this amount looms large alongside its July 1st deadline, I am confident that through hard work, pinching every penny, and the generosity of others, this goal is achievable.

If you are able and feel moved to do so, I invite you to partner with me by offering your financial support. Even if you can only give a dollar or two, every little bit goes a long way, and by working together in this we can each play a small but vital part in helping the people and nation of Haiti to regain their strength, health and security. (Please contact me at mary.hooke@gmail.com if you are interested in giving or learning more-- Or click on the button below to make a secure donation through PayPal.)

I have spoken to many friends and family members who would LOVE nothing more than to be able to go themselves and offer support and aid in response to this crisis, but who for various reasons have ties that prevent them from being able to pick up and leave home for months at a time. I realize that I have been given a HUGE gift in the degree of freedom and flexibility available to me right now, and I want to honor you all, as well as our world community, by making good use of that gift.

To those who have been reading this blog for the last 9 months, I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for following along with me on my journey so far. The support of my friends and family has meant the world to me throughout my time overseas, and I want to let you know, in case you didn't already, just how much I value your thoughts, prayers, letters, care packages, and emails. Knowing that you are there for me and that you still go out of your way to show me that I am loved despite the distance between us has meant more than you will ever know. You have inspired me to continue the adventure and, more importantly, to take the love that you give and pay it forward.

Kiva!

I've FINALLYYYY gotten started and made my first loan through Kiva. YAY! Have no idea what took me so long (only takes $25!), but now that I've done it, I want to invite you to join me in supporting this lovely entrepreneur: Salwa from Lebanon.




She still needs $300 to fund her loan, which she will use to purchase merchandise for her store selling baby and children's clothing. I chose to support her because she is a single woman with four children from the Middle East and it is her first time receiving a loan through Kiva, but there are literally thousands of others that I could have chosen who would have been equally as deserving.

I'm excited that I have finally started doing this after being theoretically supportive of microfinance for years, and I definitely wish I had become personally invested MUCH sooner! Thankfully, a friend here in Korea recently lent me a book that gave me just the kick in the butt I needed...

(Consider this book a "must read" for all!)

Hope you'll consider joining me in this if it's not something you do already... microlending is one great way that we can all embrace and love our world, no matter where in it we happen to be.

April Fool

So, apparently I give off the "I'm gullible" vibe across all cultures...

Today is April Fool's day, and it's a day that is just as popular and well loved here in Korea as it is in the States. Knowing this, and given that I work with *middle school* kids, you would think I would have been a little more cautious and at least somewhat skeptical of anything that seemed a bit out of order today. But, no.

Every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon after school I have an extra class with about 18 of the 3rd grade (think 9th grade) boys. They are a great group-- always very active, eager to pay attention and willing to participate in making class creative, fun and productive. They are some of my favorite kids in the school, mainly because they are some of the few with whom I have actually managed to forge strong relationships.

Today, though, when the bell rang to start class, they were all standing in the hallway right outside of the classroom. A little annoyed, I opened up the door to tell them to hurry up and come in. One of the students came in and told me that one of the other English teachers had sent him to ask me to come to see him in his office. A few other students nodded in confirmation. I was surprised but went looking for the teacher anyway. I checked his office and he wasn't there, so I stopped another teacher in the hall to ask if she knew where he was.

Needless to say, I quickly figured out that he had NOT in fact asked to see me, and was reminded between laughs that it was April 1st. When I came back to the classroom, the boys were all sitting in their chairs quietly, hands folded in their laps with angelic little wide-eyed smiles on their faces. "Teacher, find him?"

A perfect April Fools prank-- not so serious or big, but still managed to make me look foolish in a big way. A number of things about the situation should have tipped me off (like, why the pre-class huddle? and why would this particular teacher want to see me when we hadn't spoken all week? and during class no less?) but never once did it even cross my mind that the kids were not being one hundred percent honest with me.

They completely got me, and it was great. :D

My only regret is not having been prepared with a prank of my own. But after this experience, if I'm still here for this day next year, I've definitely got something big in mind.