Love your neighbors as yourself

so, i was listening to the sermon this morning about love, and this verse was referred to. it got me started to think about why God commanded us to love, but uses loving ourselves as a prompter to love our neighbors. hermeneutically questioning, well, why be reminded how we love ourselves to love others. first, i think this speaks of how there is no questioning of our self-ish love. that we readily and automatically think and love ourselves (which can be distordedly loving or idolatrously done), but that we do not necessarily do the same for our neighbors. i wonder how much of loving our neighbors can also be a reminder and a critique of how we communicate this love to ourselves and ultimately with others. that people we love can question whether the love we are expressing is being loving to them or more self serving, which create a flow between the self and the other in and by doing this, one can learn to love the self...there is that continuum of flow between the two and each can critique whether the love being communicated is being just to the other.

thanksgiving to the MAX

things that we labri-ers do really well...is jump when we take pictures!
nothing says thanksgiving with a bunch of people not knowing how to play football americano like this group. hey, its a tradition:) um, coach, the one on tidy whitey bandana is the only one really who knows how...we just run and tackle...that's how the game goes. just like "as seen on tv".

another thing we do well, lounge around and wait until the turkey finishes cooking....

i told you we do jumping pictures well...and um, jenny, didn't you get the memo??!

our best models...CK1 and Pdiddy's girl.

this is the common rating we got over the weekend...thumbs up...wait is this about the weekend or the flowery pillow??!

Ade and i along the water:)


yet another pose along the sandy beach of California

yes, we do really enjoy this day!

This get together was soo much fun. it was like we have not been apart for a year! we were just so comfortable with each other and just flowed like a well oiled machine:)
each moment was cherished and enjoyed each other's company. we even had a formal discussion naturally just flowing in our conversation...of course, it took place really late at night, and we all kind fell asleep afterwards. we even had breakfast goo, nice onion bread and well, an awesome time of just reminiscing about our beloved mountain and friends:)

Porchein arret, Labor day faux thanksgiving of 2008!

beautiful people of labri

so during my year at labri, i was able to capture some of the most beautiful friends i now have. here are some snap shots of their profile...some are sporty, some casual, while others like to be reminded of the 80's .

Merry, so great and easy to talk to.

Coach Jared (also plays Jesus during Easter) and an all time cheerleader for a team with a losing streak

Tori, one crazy roomate of mine.

Deb, oh Deb...you should have been Chinese, you are such a matchmaker. you remind me of the lady in Mulan (mannerism wise:))

Oh jasie, why did i leave you?! i miss spending time crazy times with you. how can i listen to wycliffe and Kenny, without you in the background?thomas, and kay, need i say more??!

i got really excited when i got these developed coz they turned out really well. i wish i had a dark room with an enlarger to play more with these pics...

so, these are just some people who i spent significant times with in the mountains. ive learned a great lot from them and am humbled to be called their friend.

hiking day

about a week ago, my old mountain roomie and i went hiking/tide pooling...here's some photo expo of our little trip. dude, it was windy and thus, the crazy hair.

the clear pacific ocean behind us:)

Katie navigating throught the rocks of Portuguese Bend.


another photo-op, with my crazy hair.

then we met some pirates hanging on a sail...Stephen, she was kinda cute:)

well, these carefree days are soon to be over. i have signed up to this thing called employment. i wish that our society had a better understanding of work and appreciating the necessity of rest...i believe that i will have to be intention abou this...the necessity to take time to rest and play a bit.

one more wedding

so our friends gather once more to celebrate one more wedding. all the girls came together to witness amy and scott's union. it was a great day that was had by all. kites and lanterns hung on the basket ball court and great food marinated in our tummies:)

the couple with the girls of the olden days

me with the happy couple

old friends

another bites the dust:)

well, these girls have been with me since junior high...and one more wedding is happening:) (seriously, within the last year, three of my closest friends have been married....there's one more in january...and that's in Ghana!)
its been nice to have these women with me through the years, but i'm definitely feeling the transitions as each of them become married people and well, relationships change and frequency and interactions change as well.



change is hard, specially when it involves love ones...i don't think i'll ever get used to it, but at the same time, change is necessary and at times fruitful:)

Family

so this past weekend was a whirlwind of family reunions. we visited the Morley side of the family and met some members whom i've never met before. Hang out with the aunts, who were hilarious! it was a nice time with fam over some thin crusted Chicago pizza:)

dude, it took us several tries before i was able to figure out how to do the self timer thing:) it was nice to catch up with the fam and see how things are doing .

hanging out with the Cabanatuan family:) even though we haven't been with each other (for several years), sitting together over bbq and beer was like old times:) it was nice to catch up, laugh (a lot) and just be together.

atchie ingkoy and i in her living room:)

camille and i the night before we left for california.

with the extended family and uncle junior. lola in the back is heading to canada with her girls:) she is awesomely strong! i can't believe she is now 87yo!! i wish i could be as strong as she is when i get that old.

family gatherings are always interesting. its nice to reminisce and see where everyone is now. but past expectations and the always 'you ought to do this' expectations also come out...what can you do...i suppose family function is such and the criteria of success, well, is going to be validated only by what they see, specially if they can only take a glimpse a second of your life and different paradigms are imposed on how life ought to be lived. overall, family is good and can be supportive to the extent that they are willing to allow you to individuate.

how im passing my time...

since not being employed, i have much time lingering around...this is one of the ways i pass my time...babysitting one of my friend's daughter. we watched Dora the Explorer!

As we were eating dinner, this 2 year old asked me casually, as if formally aquainting herself since not having seen me for a year: "so, you're Auntie Gwen?". i respond, "yes". she then asked "do you know my name?" i replied, "yes, you're Cat, you used to come and join the Saturday coffees with your mom and auntie Ida."

i'm amazed at how well this kid can articulate and the acquisition of words and comprehension.
i'm not sure i was this alert at 2yo!

colors

Burano, Italy

sometimes i long for colors...the weird thing about being in the city and in the name of progress and modernity, well, everything actually is becoming more uniform. ironically. one might check out the town homes with gray colors and uniform structures...

one thing about this town in italy is that, well, the designs of the homes and the crazy colors are unique...one takes time to work at these homes and place in different 'identities' in each..ironically, as we in America long for individuality, we actually seek more uniformity...and thats partly why advertising works...its not that its wrong...but i think we have also prized individuality to the point that we have a skewed view of communal being and what it means to be an individual as part of the community.

back home

well, back to good ol' southern california...for now...i thought i'd share some pics of the hometown:)

on the way to Portuguese bend
light tower by the whale watching point....i dont think i've ever seen whales out here...
california coastline
those are snorklers:) sometimes the seals are swimming by where those guys are hanging out....its a bit of a high tide right now...
well, another self portrait...

cruise

so here's a bit about the cruise...it was a lot of fun, but deng, can one spend money on this thing or what??! my friend stephen the pirate told me all about how cruises are notorious for this...its as bad as the land tour that we took in europe!
but, it was great fun and what an experience!

mom and i on the cruise ship:) i spent most mornings here lounging and reading...and watching flying fish...

sorry its sideways...this was one of them formal nights...it was annoying because you had to get dressed up really for nothing. they have picture taking throughout the ship with poster backgrounds...what the heck, we're on a cruise, why would i want a background of me being in a castle or something??!

clear waters of st martin! dude, i totally wanted to jump in...but reality critiqued me...the reality of the rock 'struck me in the head' and said, "this would hurt".

st martin coastline...um, how come the pirates got to enjoy this back then...and how come pirates of today are enjoying this??? shouldn't regular inhabitants be the ones having fun on this water??? this is supposed to be rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world...meghan's bay.

me, challenging the baracuda to bring it on. no, actually, i was just really floating around...i didn't have goggles to go down in the water and ruin the only pair of contacts i brought. im brilliant i tell ya.

mom and i and jack sparrow on Blackbeard's castle. This guy was one of the pirates who lived on this island around the 1700-1800s.

journey through forgiveness...

so, during the past year, i've been studying the concept of forgiveness, what it means, what it looks like, and the different interplay that affect and effect how it could be expressed. As i was reading through some of the books and discussing this with my tutor (karryn), it became apparent that maybe understanding evil might be helpful...and so i read some more...and thought some more...so, here's some visual on my journey on some examples of evil perpetrated by humans through concentration camps from terezin, czech republic, to auschwitz, poland...

This is the cemetery just outside of the gates of the camp. Terezin was initially a fort already created to defend the city during the earlier centuries...so inside is actually a structure already fitted with a moat and tunnels, so the Germans did not have much difficulty in acquiring a building. Most of the people here were from the czechoslovaskia. This camp was initially a holding camp, where some prisoners were political enemies and/or local criminals. The man who assasinated Franz Ferdinand was actually incarcerated here. The docent made a point that if the political tides were different, the assasin might be a patriotic hero as opposed to a prisoner...a provocative thought...this speaks a bit of how complex issues can be...who's right is being violated and who's justice is being pursued...but in the midst of all this political strife, racism and evil ensued that many, mostly innocent, perished.

"work will set you free"
this was written on the entry way as prisoners go through this passage...ironically, many of them tasted not the kind of freedom that they were hoping for.

prison cell of Franz Ferdinand's assasin

This facility was never used. This was created because the Red Cross was coming to visit. There was also a propaganda video made to show that the Jews favored being in the camps because they 'enjoyed' living together and showed them playing sports and laughing...yet again, one can't just argue that this overt manipulation of truth is merely a result of brainwashing...there was full knowledge of what was being done...which makes it worse

same sign posted in Auschwitz entrance...


guard towers lined throughout acres of fields.

barracks for prisoners to be housed in. each one can contain up to hundreds of people, and some more...because people were emaciated, many had gastronomic problems and, well, sickness passed on to each other.

Dr Mengele was assigned here and experimented on children, mostly twins, and many Gypsies. He wanted to find out how the human body functioned and how to manipulate genes...interestingly, he's studying subjects that he considered to be subhumans....this pic is that of one of the ovens where people were cremated...it was destroyed before the allies got there, but many of the artifacts left identified it as one of the cremation ovens. Mengele was never found and was thought to have hidden in Argentina.

There have been questions of whether true evil exist. a professor in canada even denies that this holocaust ever existed. one has to ask, if we can't name something evil and call it as is, then what grounds do we have in calling anything. the reality of the act perpetrated critiques how we define it...and multiple experiences of different and the same experience can also enhance our understanding of what evil can be. the problem is we often deny the reality of the situation, and most often due to our refusal to take responsibility for them. have we created such idols of ourselves that we can't even recognize our own fallibility and restrain ourselves from calling things as is because we refuse to acknowledge the more truthful reality of the situation?
i often think of what Wendell Berry spoke about in "The Hidden Wound" that humans have a distorted relationship with each other and nature...that maybe Adam's refusal to take responsibility for his complicit disobedience also speaks of our arrogance and self idolatry...that we esteem and worship ourselves on others cost.

this memorial was placed not long after the camp was closed down. Miroslav Volf's book on Exclusion and Embrace spoke about the necessity to remembering rightly that we may also forgive rightly. Memory, even if our interpretation might differ (which does not necessarily dismiss the truthfulness of the situation, but might even in situations, enhance them) is crucial in how we can forgive and reengage with a renewed relationship, and hopefully avoid the same evil again. Yet, as my train was leaving auschwitz, there were taggings along the wall, and one of them had the star of David on a noose. Did we not remember correctly, or are we just getting to taste of how insipid and evil evil can be?

prague and krakow

krakow castle grounds...

side view of the castle chapel

fort area of krakow castle

krakow plaza

so, of all the places that i've been to in eastern europe...(im not even sure if czech is still considered eastern...anyways), this is probably my favorite place to hang out. i spent most of my afternoons here in the old town plaza, just chillin'...eating overprized kebab, and drinking pilsner....i finally bought grocery food so that i would have some money left for the tram...but, still, worth just sitting here and enjoying the view. it was kinda weird, because one afternoon, there were high school missionary group that performed the crucifixion at the center of the plaza...it was interesting. it did make people stop and watch...but i hope there is more communication about what the performance was about than just what was presented.

sorry, i don't know why this is sideways, but i can figure out how to move this...it shows right side up on my hard drive...but oh well....this is tyn castle in old town.

larger view of the plaza

it wasn't as crowded as it was when i was last here...and definitely a lot warmer than christmas time. in the last year, ive been to prague 4 times...did i mention that i really enjoy this town?