you're doing it Peter!!

What?? Second blog post in as many days??  Shut the hell up already...sorry kids...i couldn't resist...before i get going...a little shout out to Danny Gokey and Allison Iraheta whom I hope just rock the joint tonight for Idol!  Yes, i'm back on the Idol bandwagon...mostly because one of my new(not really new...but my newest roommate) roommates watches it religiously and it's a good chance to hang with him.

I wonder what ever happened to this kid from Hook...don't you ever wonder what happened to child stars in the movies we grew up watching? you guys all have seen this movie...it's one of my all time favorites...i think it's because it was one of the first movies i watched and understood in english.  Hook came out in 1991 and my family had been in the States for about 2 years so it makes sense.  There are so many things that happened in this movie that I remember vividly but one scene that really sticks out is the food fight scene..."you're doing it peter..."

Do you remember being a kid and being able to have fun with pretty much anything?  Kid's imaginations are so amazing...i remember once where my brother and I and one of my friends had a imaginatory baseball game in our apartment in Korea.  I hit an imagined home run(the only home run i've ever really hit in all my real and imagined baseball career) and my brother got so excited that he actually ran through our balcony window...27 stitches later to his face and a remnance of a scar still reminds me of the fun we had as kids.  if you ask my brother, he'll probably tell you a different story of how i was never supposed to have a friend over while my parents were gone and thus the reason for the accident...i just think it was pure excitement over the imagined home run that i hit.

so, back to Hook..."tick tock tick tock tick tock..." so i was thinking about this scene in the movie and when Peter(robin williams) finally opens his eyes and sees the awesome spread of food that he couldn't see a few minutes before.  it's funny because he thought everyone else at the table who were eating air food were absolutely nuts.  it actually pissed him off because he was SOOOO excited to eat and starving from all his Peter Pan training.  imagine how disappointed he was when he smelled all this good food only to see empty casserole dishes, pots, and pans. he didn't begin to see the food until he finally let go of his pride...his pride that he's a grown up adult and he won't stoop down to having faith like a child...almost a blind faith.  

this reminded me of my current journey of life...i feel like i went through what peter pan went through. i've been disappointed so many times when i feel like i had taken the necessary steps to really be able to see and experience God...but i think it was because i didn't truly have faith that God could do what i've read and heard about in my own life.  i am finally able to see all God has for me...the abundance of His love, the never-ending grace and forgiveness, the joy in His salvation.  yes kids...i am drinking the kool-aid(is that the right term??  i'm still ESL when it comes to slang).  i'm so hungry to learn more, to experience more, and to share more of God.  "you're doing it peter..."

i hope all of you can open your eyes by having faith like a child and see what i've been able to experience lately..see what peter saw in front of him...with faith like a child let's all really see God the way He wants us to see.  

a couple of videos today...one is from the movie Hook...go to about the 2:50 mark on the video...that's when he starts seeing the food...

this one is the song "Faith Like a Child" by Jars of Clay

if only they knew...

I was sitting in my office this morning having some blueberry cereal and realized how much I had changed in the last 20 years I've lived here in the US.  You may wonder..."how in the world is cereal making you think of such things??"  It's true...cereal, especially blueberry cereal, is a weird catalyst to bring on such thoughts.  

Oh...a little off topic...the blueberries in my cereal were the size of little pebbles...1/10th of the normal size.  I wish they had fruit cereal where the fruit in the cereal was closer to scale of the actual fruit and not all miniaturized and dry.  You know the fruit that you end up throwing away after a week of sitting in the fridge?  I bet the cereal companies somehow get their hands on that and put it into our cereals...conspiracy?? Yes, I think so!! =)

anyways...so back to change...I have been able to remember things from my childhood recently which is something I'm so excited about because I had a tough time trying to remember my past.  My brother is really good at it and when my family got together would always be like...hey bro, remember that one time back in such and such place and we did such and such thing??  i would have no clue what he was talking about...and then my mom would bring out pictures of what my brother was talking about and i still didn't have a clue.  I kind of brushed it aside as if it didn't bother me but it really did.  So now that I'm remembering this stuff...it makes me really happy.

one memory is from when we first moved to the US...Hawaii to be more specific...and September of 1989 to be even more specific.  we were served breakfast and there was this brownish goup type of thing(which we all know as oatmeal), and we thought it was maybe some sort of brown rice soup...so like the Koreans we are...we put soy sauce in it and ate it.  i remember people looking at us as if we were completely nuts but it made sense to me back then and i wasn't ashamed.  If they had all known why we did what we did...they wouldn't think it was crazy either.  If only they knew...

this brings me to how i'm tying this all in today as i write...one of my friends who has been going through a lot of new and awesome things with God was overwhelming me with just a lot of God stuff...whether it be little comments he made or his general "God-high"...just everything about it was almost over the top and i thought he was crazy.  if i only really knew what he was going through...

i now am sort of going through the same...i've felt and seen God's love for me recently in ways I've ever known and all i want to do is share it with everyone...and i'm sure there are people out there looking at me and seeing me like i was eating oat meal with soy sauce...crazy.  if only they knew...

i want everyone to know the love of God...it's amazing...i don't even know how to put it into words but imagine the best day of your life...whatever you felt in that moment and multiply it by the amount of digits after the decimal place in the number "pi" and that's where you arrive.  if you don't know how many digits are in "pi"...it's infinite.  yes, i'm sort of a nerd...haha =)

have a great week everyone and enjoy your breakfast!!

Valley Song

So this is my first ever blog.  Welcome those who care to read...fasten your seatbelts.  =)  A few disclaimers...I'm the first one to say that I'm not the best "writer"  Don't expect any literary masterpieces from my writing although if you are someone with a good english writing background(like Jobu, or Buell...first people that come to mind) and see something that you like, you can tell me and make me feel good but know that it was by accident.  I'm not trying to "impress" anyone with the style of my writing =)  Plus, I was recently reminded that I'm technically ESL(english as a second language) although I speak English much better than Korean.  

You may be asking why I decided to blog?  I always ask this question when people start blogs...like wow that person must think he's so cool that he thinks people are going to take time out of their busy lives to read a whole bunch of random thoughts and for me I have had a bad attitude about it.  The reason I started this blog is that I don't care who reads it...I feel like I have a lot to share with people and I do share with people that I love and care for each day. I'm putting it in writing for me so that I have a record of my thoughts, feelings, or RANTZ! =)  If even one person gets something out of it...good or bad...then that's just a bonus. Oh and I will "simulcast" my blog postings on the Facebook "Notes" section for those of you who don't like navigating to other sites to read stuff.  I'll share more about this kind of stuff in future posts...

So here I go...

I got to the office this morning...for those of you who don't know...I am a financial advisor in Gloucester focusing on Investment Management and Financial Planning with a heart and desire to help clients do charitable planning...so yes, I got to the office this morning and the first thing I did was to turn on www.pandora.com(again, for those who don't know...it's the best site for music).  I've been listening to the Jars of Clay channel because my roommate and one of my best friends, Brian Buell was telling me how he's been listening to Christian music lately.  

The first song that came on was The Valley Song by Jars of Clay.  Here are the lyrics to that song...

Valley Song 

You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
On a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to you

Chorus
I will sing of Your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

When death like a Gypsy
Comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face

But I fear you aren't listening
Because there are no words
Just the stillness and the hunger
For a faith that assures

Chorus x2

Alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia, alleluia

While we wait for rescue
With our eyes tightly shut
Face to the ground using our hands
To cover the fatal cut

And though the pain is an ocean
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
Higher mountains have come down

What an amazing song.  Jars of Clay has a special place in my music heart as it was one of the first bands I liked when I was learning about music as a kid in middle school.  My parents were very protective and didn't want me listening to "non-christian" music and one day my mom went to BJ's(a store here in Danvers, MA that's like Costco) and they were handing out demo EPs of Jars of Clay.  Even though their new stuff isn't as good as their first few albums, they will always be a band that I love.

Back to the song...it really hit me this morning on my drive to work like a ton of bricks that I'm in a valley.  I haven't communicated...even attempted to communicate with God in over 2 months.  The funny thing is that before this hiatus, I was closer to God than I had ever been(in my humble opinion of course).  Listening to this song reaffirmed me that God is still there for me waiting...always there...forever there even when I choose to leave him for awhile.  Yes, I say "choose" because life is full of choices.  We make choices every day...many times each day.  We choose to get out of bed, we choose to go to work, we choose to go to the gym, we choose to hang out with friends, we choose to watch the Red Sox kill the Yankees, and yes...we even choose to screw up...we choose...we choose...but this choice has to be made to be with things in terms of our relationship with God as well.  We need to choose to communicate with God through prayer, reading the Bible, fellowshipping with other Christians, loving those who need love, listening to people in pain, giving to those who need, sharing God's love to those who don't know or have forgotten about His love.

I should have really titled this post as "Choose"...for a minute there I went back to proof read this and had a bad feeling that I spelled the word "choose" wrong.  You know how sometimes you look at a word over and over again thinking you may have misspelled it but it really is the correct spelling but it looks wrong?? I just had that experience with the word "choose".  It really is a weird word...

So I choose today to go back to God.  I will choose to read my bible tonight before I go to bed...I will choose to pray and tell God everything that I've been thinking about even though he knows it all already.  People always say...why pray to God when he knows all your thoughts anyways??  Something that makes sense to me is this...why do you say I love you to a loved one even when you know that they know that you love them already?  You say it anyways even though they know.  Maybe not the best comparison but it works for me.  

A friend prayed for me today as I sat in my car in a parking spot outside of my office.  The prayer was wringing through all the speakers in my car(thank you BLUETOOTH!!) and just enveloped me.  It felt like a nice shower from one of those hotel shower heads that are like the size of a frizbee that just puts out so much water...just something that went from head to toe and just felt so refreshing.  So thank you for that!  Go and pray for or with a friend today or a family member, or a loved one or a random stranger.  Like actually pray out loud for/with them...if you can't, then pray quietly inside to yourself...it all works and it's all good...like pizza...cold or hot...it's all good.  

I hope you all choose God today in some way, shape or form.  

peace...jp