Reclaiming Home

Dear Family and Friends,

After a long absence, I am making an attempt to explain the big changes that occurred in the past 2 1/2 weeks. As many of you know through our emails, Elizabeth and I decided to return to Colorado from Taiwan. We left Taiwan on December 26th, the day after celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas morning mass with two different congregations in Taipei.

Our decision largely revolves around a need to reclaim joy, love, and a supportive community. Our time in Taiwan was marked by an extreme period of growth for our marriage, our understanding of Episcopal mission work, and our appreciation for Chinese, Chinese tea, Taiwanese customs, and the Taiwan Episcopal Church.

As can probably be assumed by our early return (we were scheduled to return in August), not all of our experiences were life giving or sustaining. However, we learned more in 5 months about ourselves and our relationship with God and our need for open communication, love, and support than in any previous church, class, or work experience. Our time in Taiwan was life-changing, in many ways we have yet to process and do not have ways to verbalize.

In the coming months I hope to continue updating our supporters along the "reclaiming" theme. The end goal (I think for life, not just for this phase in life) is to verbalize feelings of "reclaiming love." To this end, all of our supporters, readers, emailers, and gift-givers have been invaluable. I pray we can continue to maintain communication and sift through all of the life giving and growth-giving experiences that will unfold from the past 5 months of experiences.

Your communication and questions are always welcome. But please, be gentle. We will respond in kind. Speaking the truth in love is the goal.

For now, I would like to leave you with two pictures from our last week in Taiwan. The first is the wonderful Christmas Eve service at St. John's Cathedral, featuring Bishop Lai and Dean Lin. The second is the Christmas Eve aftermath, Elizabeth and Victor enjoying a nap at the National Palace Museum. Really, they just needed a "little" breather. Celebration and Exhaustion!

Peace (and more to come),

Seth

Reclaiming Joy

reclaim |riˈklām|

verb [ trans. ]
1 retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given, or paid); obtain the return of : he returned three years later to reclaim his title as director of advertising | when Dennis emerged I reclaimed my room.
• redeem (someone) from a state of vice; reform : societies for reclaiming beggars and prostitutes.
• archaic tame or civilize (an animal or person).

2 bring (waste land or land formerly under water) under cultivation : little money is available to reclaim and cultivate the desert | [as adj. ] ( reclaimed) reclaimed land.
• recover (material) for reuse; recycle : a sufficient weight of plastic could easily be reclaimed.


Elizabeth and I are entering into a new stage of our lives. I have chosen to name the first step "reclaiming joy." I especially like the second definition: bring (waste land) under cultivation. We have a lot of work to do, and some practical steps to take. I am beginning this process by cultivating an acute awareness of the joy God takes in welcoming each one of us into relationship. This joy is expressed in wonderful ways, in tears, laughter, relief, and beaming smiles.

We will have much more to say on our reclamation project as it continues. . .

curiosity piqued?


Love,

Seth

Karaoke Mountain

Cold Mountain, Brokeback Mountain, and now. . . Karaoke Mountain!

A few years back, the advertising slogan for the University of Colorado College of Music (our alma mater) was "Music to Match our Mountains." Very cute and alliterative. Well, today, Elizabeth and I stumbled upon one of the most bizarre and joyous cultural events in Taiwan.

It's a story we're calling: "Karaoke to match our mountains."

Elizabeth and I have been wanting to get out of Taipei for weeks. We finally took the opportunity today to hike the Jiantan Shan trail. This trail is accessible by subway and basically scales a mountain overlooking the city. It's a beautiful day hike and was just what we needed. . . peace and quiet, solitude, relaxation.

And then we started hearing voices on the hillside. Amplified voices. In the middle of the woods. Apparently the North side of Jiantan mountain is covered with small permanent shelters, very much like picnic shelters at most U.S. public parks. However, these shelters are owned by families, marked very much like U.S. ranches and include badminton courts, a storage shed, and most importantly, electric generators to power televisions, microphones, and a sound system.

On our way up the mountain we passed at least 6 separate families singing karaoke. At full volume. Without a care in the world. It was incredible, bizarre, fun, and surprising. We have a video of the experience, but it is too large to upload on this blog. Which means we'll have fun home video time when we return to the U.S.!

Hiking in Taiwan is stunning. The flora and fauna are lush and colorful and vibrant (in December!!!). Hiking here is quite similar to hiking in Boulder. Most of the trails in Taiwan start from sea level and immediately climb up into the mountains. Therefore, the trails are steep and give great views overlooking Taipei. It reminds me a lot of hiking Flagstaff and seeing the red tile roofs of the CU campus or going up to Red Rocks and looking out over Denver.

More mission writing next time and less travelogue, I promise. But until then, enjoy the beauty of Taiwan:

On the Bus

At times it seems like most of my time is spent traveling. I travel at least an hour and half every day, not counting walking to NTU and to Chinese classes (about 20 minutes away from the cathedral). For the most part, I don't really mind. Most people probably have jobs they secretly would like (perhaps just for a day). A favorite "dream" job of mine is long distance semi-driver. I really enjoy watching the scenery go by, and I get some of my best thinking done while in the car, or bus, or train, or subway. . .

This week I have been thinking about convenience. This thought is closely tied to transportation. I'll get there soon. . .

In the days after the presidential election I was asked by many people in the U.S. what the reaction was in Taiwan. Overall, I got two reactions: #1: Most Taiwanese don't care about U.S. politics and #2: Obama ran a really slick ad campaign. I wish I had more to report. Keep in mind, these results are not statistically significant or even remotely reliable as an indicator of the Taiwanese political mindset. Although uninterested in U.S. politics, over the few months we have been here I have discovered an issue the Taiwanese will discuss with passion: convenience.

Convenience is usually how the value of things are gauged. Consider these (not-so) hypothetical scenarios:

#1: I am talking to a student at NTU who is from Kaohsiung (southern Taiwan).

Me: Do you like living in Taipei?
Student: I guess so. It's very convenient.

#2: Discussion with cathedral members about English Bible Study

Me: We are holding the Bible study at 7:30pm on Tuesdays. Late enough for students coming from classes and early enough for students to return to study.

Cathedral member: Thursdays are not convenient times for students. Maybe a weekend will be more convenient?

#3: Taiwan has more than 4,000 7-11 convenience stores. Plus almost as many Family Mart and Hi-Life convenience stores. Taiwan is an extremely small country. It takes 4 hours by train to go from northern to southern tip.

Back to transportation: On the evening bus ride from NTU to Xindian (where we live), the bus is always packed with middle and high school students. These students leave school anywhere between 4 and 9pm at night. The students then travel by subway or bus often 30 minutes to an hour each way to their homes. (This is true because the school system here is run completely on tests. These tests decide what school you go to. Students are tracked into vocational or college-prep high schools by the time they are 13/14 years old)

Perhaps convenience is so highly valued by college students and adults because they spent half of their own childhood traveling back and forth to school. Or maybe they are simply exhausted by going to school for 12-15 hours per day (plus Saturday school in high school). I can understand the appeal of getting a good job and wanting everything (and 7-11's have just about everything) within arms reach.

But is this the reward for such hard work and intense traveling for 18 years? Convenience? Are we allowing convenience to decide our quality of life? Students like college because it is convenient!? Students only go to Bible study because it is convenient?

If there is one major thing I have learned this year is God is not convenient. Jesus spoke of a narrow path and the eye of the needle, not convenience. Certainly not the easy life.

What does this mean? For many emerging church writers, this means a revolutionary way of living. For some like Shane Claiborne, this means living the Simple Way. Simple, but not convenient. This means working on long-term relationships, reaching out, traveling, stretching ourselves into new ways of living, being, interacting. We (I) have to be willing to take a bus 15 minutes, transfer to the Subway for 20, walk for 30 minutes, talk with strangers for 2 hours about the love of God and then make the journey in reverse. And then wash, rinse, and repeat for the next 8 months.

That doesn't sound easy. And it certainly isn't convenient. It's not even fun. But it is what God is asking right now, in this place. So I'll get back on the bus tomorrow and keep praying for love, not convenience, to take over.

Love,

Seth

The night time pictures are from our excursion to the Opera! The CKS Memorial Hall is pretty at night. And, I got to wear my jacket! The video is a man playing the harmonica outside the hall. I think he was better than the opera! (I'm serious, very very serious. It was a bad opera. . . and the harmonica man is pretty good.) Also, we had pasta with marinara sauce and garlic bread for the first time in over 4 months! It was absolutely breathtaking. Good enough to post online!