What is this city you have built before me? My city was made with an abundance of creativity and ideas. Yet… I feel alone in this city. There are shadows in this city that I hide under when I am at my weakest. Will you be my refuge, not this city?

The Lord says, I’ve provided you with everything you need and desire. He continues, you have you career laid out ahead of you. You have your role in your family. Your church is steadfastly growing and renewing you. You have a woman somewhere near you. You are alive. You are alive.

But Lord, it doesn’t feel like these are the things I want at this point in my life. Or maybe.. its just not exactly what I want. My soul, the deepest part of me, is running for cover. Fire in the hole

I hold onto a desire and I won’t let go. I’m a little thirsty. My drive in life is from this hope of discovering romance. And it’s always pushing me, pushing me. I am not seeking remedy to my life - I have enough love that my heart needs to be grow another chamber. I simply wish to share my own life of love and extend my heart to another. I want to let the overflow from my life reach a new relationship. Romance is the safe-haven from the brutal world that cannot learn to love strangers. As we rumble in the cold winds of reality, romance is the warmth that allows us to feel like human again to which we find ourselves saying, “Wait, we’re warm-blooded?”. Some say people like us ought to halt The Search and wait until The One will fall into our laps; and supposedly this event will coincide with our readiness. I’ll buy that; attraction is coupled with time and we need all need our “me” time. But the beauty of my search is that it has been going on all my life. I refuse to put a gap in its timeline. I’ll continue, and continue. And at the end of my life.. I will romance The One knowing that it took all my life.

Hopeless romantics are indeed hopeless. For them, all is in vain… and everything is an obsession over illusions and emotions are flailed around in the ownership of fake commitment. The essence of a hopeless romantic is that he or she acknowledges that their idea of romance is a dream that’ll stay in the dream.

We are much different. We are the hopeful romantics. We have insight. We have always prepared for the moment. We’ve already invested in romance by making the right decisions all our lives. And because of that our dreams become reality. We regret nothing, we are ashamed of nothing. We don’t give women what they want, we give them what they need. And with confidence as big as mountains.. we win in the end. We win big. I am ridiculously falling in love with the idea of romance. What a task I’ve set myself up for in finding someone who will trump my love for romance. My love for her will be greater than my love for romance. That’s love.

“How are you doing?! man life must be a test in discipline right now for you. i hope it’s not too hard. i know that you enjoy what you’re learning so that’s good. don’t fall in love with anyone yet. hahaha. I find myself wondering what words can possibly describe married life to you. And I wonder if it’s even healthy to describe married life to you.”  

You know me well and I appreciate that. Because you understand the way I think and the things I desire, I appreciate you. Falling in love might truly be the end of my early career. Or maybe it will inspire me. 

Dear Cosette,

     The earth is dying but universe is steady. My body is weak but my spirit is renewed everyday. Creation refreshes my mind and soul. I wish you would fall in love with the creation on this earth, even if it is dying. Will you appreciate our perishing earth? All things wear away, this love will not perish.

     Somedays I walk by two people and steal a few key words from thier conversation. It changes the way I think about certain things. Sometimes I look at a girl (and I listen) and think to myself, Oh, I never thought of it that way. 

     Don’t be afraid to fail. But whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. Your worst fear will be realized. And that’s okay. You will eventually find liberation through this experience. There is freedom in failure which is a catalyst that ignites conviction and creativity. You may have to reinvent yourself more than once throughout your life. No specific goal should define you anyway. Your Originality defines you. Work hard and be kind and amazing things will happen. Believe in yourself.

     I have my eyes set on you. Sometimes, I look past my school, my career, and even my spouse. There are hints of you everyday in my life. I perceive actions that foreshadow my expressions towards you. But there is yet a greater desire than you.

-Abba

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

     I pray you grow up but not too fast. And while you grow up, be free. Be real. Be yourself. Think about if you believe in yourself before trying to believe in another person. Trust more people as you trust God, and don’t separate these two. If you want to draw a serious man, reveal the deepest and strongest part of you. Be confident in that part of you. Close your eyes and be still so you can listen to your thoughts, and pray. Then, open your eyes and live but don’t stop praying. Read books to understand that your fore-mothers fought to get you here. Read scripture to understand what you are worth.

       Remember that beauty is a gift. Use it as a stewardship to love others and not to get your way in this world. Physical beauty is like a blessing upon a blessing, but know it will be gone by 35, or 40 if you’re lucky. Beautiful people attract beautiful people, but what we often forget that inner beauty is the source of any sustainable attraction. 

    A godly woman is someone who gives gospel strength to those around her. She gives wind to the sails to those around her. She has character and bears spiritual fruits as expressed in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Character in women is something our world has lost sight of.

     Esther was a beautiful woman who went from being an orphan to the king’s cherished wife. So yes, she was that beautiful. Esther used her beauty to serve and love her people. She used her courage to save lives. As she was chosen to be the next queen, she choose make a request to the king that he would save her people. In doing so, she risked being put to death. She risked her beauty, youth, comfort, and her life. But she chose solidarity over escape. She understood why God blessed her with beauty, courage, and royalty. And by living out the gospel, she became royalty in the heavens. Now that’s a bad woman.

I hope you don’t stress me out.

Love,

Dad

Monarch butterflies are dangerous for their toxic organ. Animals in the area know what they look like and they avoid them. Birds who feed on Monarch butterflies end up vomiting, and some may even die. The Viceroy butterfly is not harmful. However, it mimics the coloring of the more toxic Monarch butterfly, but Viceroys are actually unpalatable to predators as well. This is known as “Mullerian mimicry”.

When we act a certain way as if to come off as different people (than who we really are) we will be treated accordingly. A dangerous way to live, I’d say.

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

     My family enjoys these colors the most. Our sofa, furniture, clothes, anything else that can have color. Muted colors from the palette of Earth’s groundy floor. Earth tones. The color of soil. We cover our skin with the color of clay because this means God is our potter.

I watched Limitless with my sister recently. Half the reason falls upon my sister’s fondness of the Lead and the other half falls upon my interest in the story line. I have a list of movies to watch and books to read before I start dental school. Movies like this feed my ego and give me inspiration to run with everything I have.  My definition of success is “happiness” which is how I responded in all my interviews. Happiness in what, they asked. Just plain happiness. Plain like the Earth. Plain like its tones. That answer would have probably resulted in a rejection letter so I told it to them in their language: ”I am in the business of impacting others with what I’ve learned in my years of education and relationship. I seek to make an impression on those who I meet and those who I don’t meet.” To this day I tell people that the impression pun was what got me into dental school. But I have this ego in me that I can’t really figure out. To where do I want my ego to lead me? Money? Yes. There’s no way I’m going to be someone who says money doesn’t drive me. I imagine seeing my wife pulling up in front of a Starbucks cafe in a neatly tinted Audi R8 in its white coat with night-colored rims; I look down on the watch of my dreams and smile because, as always, she is right on time. I think of a refrigerator door made of dark mahogany so that it goes perfectly with the rest of the wooden cabinets in the kitchen. I see my children in private schools where college isn’t the goal of every student - it’s about learning bluecollar integrity and living with a steadfast loyalty for America. The future is limitless. I am limitless

I’ve thought so before. It didn’t go so well the last time I thought so. God brought down His mighty hand from the heavens and grounded my puffy dreams into smithereens. I took me 4 long years to recover. Now, I know that I am limitless through a different spirit. At 24 years I understand that to live is to be free. I accept the world’s inability to satisfy me and its great ability to often disappoint me. If I were to consider any great act an accomplishment, it would be Soul-Winning. Death has no sting, and so life itself has no bounds. Evil has no power in the end, it can only win battles here and there. I am free from worry. There is no point in worrying if life will work out the way we want it to because the future will soon become the present and it won’t be as good as I imagined it to be. The Earth’s tones provides us with a shade of reality across our impaired vision: We are all flesh from the ground. If we love someone and they die the next day, can we continue to love them the same way? And if we love someone our entire lives and they pass away at the 85th birthday, will we not have a void to fill? I am limitless because God is where limit beings and never ends. If I think my mind is an imagination factory, who built it? If the universe is infinite, who made it so? If my family is the love of my life, who gave it to me? If my family loves me dearly, who put the hearts in them? I am free from thinking that I am anything more than the dust on the ground. The Earth tones remind me every single day. Not to mention the actual ground that I walk on.

-Tu Padre

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

          A certain insightful friend recently asked me what if I don’t end up with daughters. I guess I never thought about it that much. I mean… I always assumed that things would work out the way things usually do. Haha, yeah Right, I always think about every possible outcome (a discipline developed by watching a lot of playoffs). I don’t live a happy-go-lucky life, but I try to. No, things work out for me because I work extremely hard for them to work out (Of course God’s grace is the source of all success but I’m talking about my role and what I can control with my actions). I work hard to be ready. I’m in a constant state of preparation. Life is just that. Preparation for death, our beginning. Preparation for Christ’s return. “What we do in life, echoes in eternity” (Gladiator). What we do now will have consequenes later on. If not on this Earth, then surely in the holy realms. If we are going with the flow, we are already behind (possibly eternally). We must go against the current; even fish are capable of doing this and they have a much weaker immune system than us. Everything under the sun is meangingless, all of it is vanity. Therefore we must rise above the sun and seek life above it - way above the fleshly atmosphere where oxygen and blood can’t mix, where oxygen is replaced by the Spirit and our blood is replaced by Jesus’ blood. [end digression]. If I don’t have daughters, I guess I could adopt. In the end, it doesn’t matter because there are bigger things in life than having daughters. There are biggger things than even having children. However my heart is relentless in its pursuit of you: No, God loves me too much for this not to happen. You will come. I have a strange confidence in this. I pray for you. I write to you. I’m in love with you already. The Father God loves me and I am certain He will provide. I am praying for you, and I consider it my preparation. Eliana means ”God has answered my prayer”. But maybe I’m writing to more than just you, my daughters. Perhaps these are messages intended for other women in my life: my mother, my sister, my wife.

Y’Truly,

Dad

My mother’s embrace

My dad’s attempt to connect with me through sports

My sister’s recent craze for shoes and her being down for late night food

My Grandaunt’s smirk, her cold feet, my biggest fan

My grandfather telling me I need to buy a yacht

My grandmother weeping when she talks about how much she loves me

My Friends who make life interesting, fun

New friendships growing

People who call me Joe

People who call me Joseph

Pretty girls 

Homeless people

Church, fellowship through food and sports

Happy Hour

The cute gaze my dog gives me when I lift her up above my shoulders

Korean food at Surah

Korean food at Mandurang

Korean food at home

My bathtub

The 60 degree chill

The 90 degree dry weather

The way God created California

Food from Daphne’s

Food from George’s Mexican

Good Pizza

The starbucks in Amreige, Iced Coffee with milk, sweetened

The gym, weights, huffin and puffin, grunting to finish the last set

Basketball with the high school friends

The fact that 4pm TV listings mean 4pm

The 9 year old trees in my neighborhood, my homies

Good pavement, 3 laned roads

The 91 Freeway

Expensive floss

Thinking about what needs to get done, about school, about life here at home

Space, lots of space

The clean air I wake up to

My windows

My green blanket

Target

Walmart

Alone time.

This photo gave me the weirdest vision of a duffle bag with the same colors. Then I notice the water and think about where I want to be in the impossible future. Next to the water. What will it take to get there? 

Like water dripping on a stone. If an action becomes a part of your life day in and day out, then it becomes a violent force. Violence is something done with great intensity. A continuous force can eventually become a violent force and rearrange something. Rearrange what? Personalities, insecurities, doubts, lost passion, the heart. The water’s continuous dripping will eventually reshape the stone. It’s time to seize the hearts of stone and drench them drip by drip. 

Supreme. beanie. 2010 Winter  

Dear Eliora and Eliana,  

When you are old enough to understand complex stories, I will tell you the story of Jean Valjean. Every so often I will narrate you stories from the book Les Miserables. The author Victor Hugo wrote this book with every intention to preach about the significance of forgiveness (and the renewal of life that it can offer). And if the bedtime stories of Les Mis don’t get through to you, then I’ll go with the straightforwardness of Aesop’s Fables. I will pour onto you a ton of preaching and lessons of morality. Integrity will be the binding to your agenda. As a teacher and father, I want you to know from the very beginning that I am not perfect. I struggle with the same things your struggling with. My good friend and I always agree that we ought to shower our children with words, words, and more words. Not so you could be an advanced Scrabble player but so that you might have great capacity. Not just any type of word. Good ones. Ones that help you understand integrity and forgiveness. 

Time well spent,

Joe

cap and tanktop by Supreme

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

I am satisfied, don’t let that be an understatement. When people ask me what part of life I enjoyed the most, I tell them now. That was my answer when I was in high school„ in college„ and now. It will be my answer when I finish dschool, get married, have you my children, have grandchildren, become the oldest man in my family, town, etc. The point is that life just keeps getting better. Or is it that life is always good no matter what’s going on? I’m not sure yet. But yes, my answer seems to always be “Now”. And it’s this anointed life that gives me the capacity to do what God has called me to do: to love. It’s true when they say you can’t love others without loving yourself first, not the way of the narcissist. And what better time to love others (and even fall in love) when you’re in love with everything in life and with life itself?

Y’truly,

Joseph

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

Good art wakes us up from our daily routine. It shakes our bones and pulls blood from dilated vessels. It reminds us of our responsibilities as human beings in whatever context we are in. Look for art that has these effects on you. You have to look though, the canvas won’t walk its way into your room, display itself on your wall and narrate its significance to you. 

When I’m sad I think about Claude Monet. The Impressionist idea was that life was fleeting and never permanent which meant that a sad day will be a sad day for just one day. Or a sad month will be that way just for a month. The light that shines on an object is changing every second. Everything moves on. Parked cars eventually have to move. Clouds swing over our heads at different speeds. The new building won’t look new in a year. Things will change for the better.

When I am frustrated or distracted I think about Mondrian’s Composition(s). By the 1900’s art, modern art, had hit its dead end. There was nothing else to paint. Man had mastered paint and the manipulation of the brush and of reality. Mondrian painted that exact conclusion: A box and lines. More lines. Primary colors. Basic. Simple. Minimal. Nothing. This is what painting has become. This is it. This is all we are. We now live in this grid, let’s move on. Yet this grid is the same as any other grid. So when I am frustrated or distracted I go to a place where I won’t be discovered or to a place where I can concentrate. I surround myself with the tools to be productive. I simplify life.

When I have accomplished something great I think about Picasso’s Guernica. I mostly ponder about what I would do afterwards. When Picasso completed his country’s tall order of painting Guernica, he had exhausted himself. What more could he possibly do after this? He had put so much of his skill and creativity into the work that by its completion he ran out of cards to play. When I accomplish something great I think about moving forward and climbing up to even greater heights. Life is best climbed up a ladder.

When I feel creative: I read about Andre Breton’s loose rendition of Freud’s dream consciousness ideology. One stretch of an idea on top of another. One limitless proposition creating another infinitely impossible idea. Automatic writing was the hobby of Surrealists…or was it their profession? Automatic writing was writing freely without bounds. It was writing by allowing your mind (subconscious) to write for you. No need to think. Just write! Punctuation or grammar was not imperative as long as the entire thing was impossible to understand, haha. When I feel creative I look at how insane these Surrealists were and I try to expand my mind and automatically think while also limiting myself to some degree.

When I think of you I think of the Renaissance period. Any moment in history is the same as yesterday. And many moments in history shouldn’t be forgotten. Rebirth. Birth. Born. High praise for life and the body. Admiration for what a human is capable of: literature, philosophy, art, politics, science. You will be cultured, intellectual, and keen for all types of intellectual inquiry. The rest God will grant you in your very nature.

Born Again,

Joseph

Picasso. Guernica . 1937

Does this work resolve conflict into peace or stamp war as a (permanent) means to our end?

Dear Eliora and Eliana,

I want you to live in peace: nothing missing, nothing broken. And on top of that I want you to have more than just enough. I want you to live in abundance.

No matter how successful you are in what you do, if you don’t perfect the love walk, your abundance will be hindered. If we are poor in love, we need to redirect our hearts in the right direction before we expect any blessing. Whenever you feel like you are lacking in life, take a step back and see where your heart lies. If you refuse to operate in the law of love, you will be limited. You don’t have to look for little secrets and life tips that people think will allow them to get every penny they can. It’s very simple: follow the law of love which governs abundance. God has called us to love. If we don’t have character, if we don’t love one another, we will never fully receive what is ours, which is abundance. Yes, it is ours. God created the fruits of this earth for us. He wants it all in our hands so that we can further His kingdom. Why should it be in the hands of the those who don’t live by His love? So…abundance in what? Anything and everything: money, time, relationship, comfort, health, you name it… You see God wants to provide us with everything. He gave Adam and Eve an abundant garden. He gave Noah and his family the entire world. However, this abundance will not come until we begin to love. We know that things will not change us. When you see a blind man, give him sight. When you see a lame man, give him the ability to walk. When you see a poor man, give him knowledge and preach to him for giving him money will do nothing. So when we are poor and lacking, God will look at us and hold back the “things”. He will require us to live a life according to the Word, which is a message of love. 

The reason why abundance is important is because you are called to make a difference in this world. Let’s face it, Just enough is not enough. If you think just enough is enough then you’re probably selfish because you don’t have anyone else on your mind but yourself (as long as God is taking care of your bills, your house, your family, and Your needs, life is good). You don’t worry about helping or ministering to others. Listen! You ain’t gonna help somebody with just enough. Who can you help when you have just enough for living your own life? You can’t because you’re barely getting by with taking care of yourself. You can’t always go to church and say “Lord if I had the money, I would give it”. When I say walk in love… I mean understand the love of God and act upon it. Tithe because you love to see the church grow. Forgive your enemy because you want to show them the same forgiveness that God showed you. This ain’t about what you need - it’s about more than that. You will never know when you might need to sow something in someone’s life and that ability is only possible through abundance. Of course you can still support people without money or resources: you can pray for them. The reality is that you are called to provide both: tithe/monetary support and prayer. 

Malachi 3:10 says,“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.

If you walk in love, God will provide with everything you need and desire. You see when God provides, there is always left over. There is always overflow. There is so much blessing that we can’t contain it in the homes we live in. When he opens up the doors he is really opening up the floodgates. The overflow is our power. We use it and distribute it with love. 

My family, being a pastor’s family, received a lot of criticism for the standard of life in which we lived in. The church community always shook their heads at us and rebuked the house we lived in, the cars we drove, and everything else they considered unholy. Why does it feel like so many Christians want every well-off Christian family to give everything they have to the poor? I would reply, “Why don’t you give all your possessions to the poor? If it’s what I ought to do.. is it not what you should also do?”. The fact of the matter is that simply giving to the poor won’t change them (We can serve food all day, renovate SkidRow into a beautiful town, and cloth all of downtown LA but in a few months SkidRow will be dirty, poor, and naked once again). We need to stop giving to the poor and start preaching to the poor. I used to be embarrassed by the way we lived among the less well-off congregation families in church. I believed they were right about us. Yeah, until I turned 10. I knew they were wrong because I saw my parents working hard and as a result being able to provide for struggling families at church. There was so much borrowed money that it was wrong. But it wasn’t…it was our pleasure, and it was why we continued living in abundance. I saw how our home housed people in need of temporary stay; we don’t need an extra guest room but that sort of abundance was used to love. We don’t need a bunch of water fountains in our backyard but we somehow used them for a baptism ceremony. Even at a young age I knew that all the criticism coming our way was an example of the persecution that the bible spoke of. And sadly, the church is responsible for just as much of the persecution as the rest of the world. I’m sick of people who point fingers at the well-off while they themselves live without knowing the meaning of blood-sweat-tears, toil, or sacrifice. My family has provided an incredible amount of blessing to those in need because of the abundance that we were given. While we hardly deserve this abundance, I believe God anointed us as we followed His commandment by first, loving Him and second, loving the heck out of everyone and everything on this Earth in response to receiving His grace. This abundance is god-sent and we use it to love others. What a way to live, don’t you agree?

This is what I want you to understand the most. I’m glad for the lessons you’ve learned/will learned. But it’s time to get to the bottom line. Love others and God will honor you for that by showering your life with abundant fruits. We need to

believe that God can provide with more than just enough. He didn’t lead His people to the Promise Land of Just Enough. He didn’t provide just enough manna when His people were hungry. Look at how many stars and galaxies exist above your bed, the universe is defined by abundance. I hope you will never live resource-less and power-less (which have nothing to do with humility). Is He not the God of Abundance? Believe in it.

Trying to figure it out before you come into my life,

Me

Yes, you are right. I need rest. The more you repeated it with your slurred infant speech the more I began to listen. I shouldn’t underestimate what goes on in that young mind of yours. I know that you have all the capacity to imagine why I am this way, think about what I should do, and care for me. 

It’s been a long and busy youth. It’s in my nature to be restless. I’ve been packin-the-punch my entire life. And now that I’m finally free for a while I should rest. Even with the intention of resting I find it hard sometimes to do so. I’m not used to resting. I always thought rest comes later when I retire or goto heaven. You are right, I need to wind down for once. I need to do nothing, I ought to be still. I need to catch up on the hundreds and thousands of hours of sleep that I lost. I’m resting now Soomin you smart girl.