"Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are...

Ev'ry so often we long to steal
to the land of what-might-have-been
but that doesn't soften the ache we feel
when reality sets back in

Don't wish, don't start
wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and pearl..."

- "I'm Not That Girl", Wicked

Sometimes, it just helps to remind ourselves that we need never forget who we really are... all our strengths, all our weaknesses...

Wicked

Last Saturday, we went to see "Wicked" at the Orpheum in SF. It. Was. Phenomenal. This is what it means to re-interpret the story, to re-write a story in a way that honors and uplifts strong women who are not afraid of being different. This musical asks me to reconsider how I define good, bad, evil, wicked, etc. It asks me to think about our inner motivations and our inner mysteries. Always, we are asked to reveal our inner selves, to expose our deeper layers as if we were onions always wearing layers to be peeled. But what happens if we do as Gregory Maguire does for Alphaba and actually heighten our mysteries? How much more interesting and complicated life is!

How many women do we know who are willing to defy gravity, to not accept limits imposed upon them?

Something has changed within me
something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
of someone else's game
too late for second-guessing
too late to go back to sleep
it's time to trust my instincts
close my eyes and leap

It's time to try
defying gravity
I think I'll try
defying gravity
and you can't pull me down

I'm through accepting limits
'cuz someone says they're so
some things I cannot change
but till I try, I'll never know
Too long I've been afraid of
losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
it comes at much too high a cost
I'd sooner buy
defying gravity
Kiss me good-bye
I'm defying gravity
and you can't pull me down

- "Defying Gravity", from Wicked, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Thu Vàng Trên Lối

Tình em sao vẫn bơ vơ
Giữa cơn mưa buồn
Yêu người trong muôn ngàn thương
nhớ tiếng yêu vắng xa
Làm sao quên câu hát trên môi cười dở dang
Yêu làm chi mùa thu đã rơi bằng lối đi
Từng giọt nắng đã gởi nhớ thương
trong khúc nhạc êm đềm
Tình yêu đã phai
Đừng có chờ mong
Sao ngàn năm em vẫn mơ ước được bên người
Trên giòng sông thao thức cho giấc mộng ngày mai

Tình bao năm vẫn mong manh
Bóng đêm mơ màng
Yêu người cho mưa sầu giăng kính bóng đêm lẻ loi
Từ nay em xin hát cho bao mộng ước xưa
Yêu người cho màu hạnh phúc muôn đời vẫn yêu
Từng giọt nắng đã gởi nhớ thương
trong khúc nhạc êm đềm
Tình yêu đã phai
Đừng có chờ mong
Sao ngàn năm em vẫn mơ ước được bên người
Trên giòng sông thao thức cho giấc mộng ngày mai

- Nhạc ngoại quốc
- Lời Việt: Khúc Lan

Niệm Khúc Cuối

Dù cho mưa tôi xin đưa em đến cuối cuộc đời
Dù cho mây hay cho bảo tố có kéo qua đây
Dù có gió, có gió lạnh đầy, có tuyết bùn lầy
Có lá buồn gầy, dù sao, dù sao đi nữa tôi vẫn yêu em

Dựa vai nhau cho nhau yên vui ấm áp cuộc đời
Tìm môi nhau, cho nhau rã nát, rã nát tim đau
Vừa đôi tay, ước muốn tù đầy,
tóc rối bạc màu vết dấu tình sầu
Nhìn em, nhìn em giây phút, muốn nói yêu em

Xin cho tôi, tôi như cơn ngũ
Ru em, đưa em một lần
Ru em vào mộng, đưa em vào đời
Một thời yêu đương

Cho tôi xin em như gối mộng
Cho tôi ôm em vào lòng

Xin cho một lần, cho đêm mặn nồng
Yêu thương vợ chồng

Dù mai đây ai đưa em đi đến cuối cuộc đời
Dù cho em, em đang tâm xé, xé nát tim tôi
Dù có ước, có ước ngàn lời, có trách một đời
Cũng đã muộn lời
Tình ơi! dù sao đi nữa xin vẫn yêu em

- Sáng tác của Ngô Thụy Miên

Christ who suffers

As part of the Uganda mission trip, I'm reading the book Compassion by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison. We're supposed to be reflecting on the readings, asking ourselves questions that probe why we are committed to this mission work. So far, I've completed Chapter 1 (slow reader!) and have been trying to blog about this for some time, without any success.

Today's passage was about the mystery of God's compassion as embodied through Christ Jesus:

In Jesus, all suffering was sensed with a perfect sensitivity. The great mystery revealed to us in this is that Jesus, who is the sinless son of God, chose in total freedom to suffer fully our pains and thus to let us discover the true nature of our own passions. In him, we see and experience the persons we truly are. Jesus who is divine lives our broken humanity not as a curse (Gn 3:14-19) but as a blessing. (15)

Now that we are in this seemingly silent space before Sunday morn, I can't help but think about what it means for us to dwell on a Christ who suffers for us and with us. Not one who is a knight in shining armor, charging down the streets on a white steed, ready to save us in a grand and triumphant way, but one who suffers with us. This is a Christ who hungers with the hungry children in Uganda, thirsts with the women and children who have to carry water for miles and miles, ails with the children sickened by malaria, dies with the children dying of HIV/AIDS.

Easter Sunday has not been a mystery for us for quite some time -- at least, not like the mystery fraught with uncertainty on that one morning thousands of years ago. We know the story. We can pretend to re-enact the fear, the uncertainty, the anxiety, etc., but we all believe and know what happened. (Come now, how many of us recall that story about the empty plastic Easter egg that symbolizes the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning?)

But for some kids in Uganda, in Africa, in Vietnam, in China, in the U.S., each morning is an uncertainty -- do they die from cold, thirst, malnutrition, sickness? Do they live to see the sunrise? Will there be another morning of light and freedom from death?

My thoughts are convoluted tonight as I write, but I'm struck by the messages about compassion in this book... Compassionate being, compassionate living.... It's not that easy. As I read the section on "Toward New Life," I wondered how many people think that for the millions who are suffering, does that mean God is not compassionate? Or, what if some folks believed that there were not enough people praying for the sick, the elderly, the weak, the dying? What are we saying about God? What are we thinking about God? Are we defining God with our limited human understanding? How dangerous it would be if we started thinking that God's compassion Being is measured and defined by who is rescued and who is not!!

"The mystery of God's love is not that our pain is taken away, but that God first wants to share that pain with us" (14). Indeed. That makes sense to me. It's not that we are unloved if we are not "saved" or "cured" or "rescued". It's not that God is not compassionate to me, to them, to us. It is about how we as the Body of Christ choose to embody Christ in the best way we can -- to be instruments of Godly compassion and vehicles through which Christ's resurrection is seen, felt, experienced, and understood.

To the Gods, by W.S. Merwin

When did you stop
telling us what we could believe

when did you take that one step
only one
above
all that

as once you stepped
out of each of the stories
about you one after the other
and out of whatever
we imagined we knew
of you

who were the light
to begin with
and all of the darkness
at the same time
and the voice in them
calling crying
and the enormous answer
neither coming nor going
but too fast to hear

you let us believe
the names for you
whenever we heard them
you let us believe the stories
how death came to be
how the light happened

how the beginning began
you let us believe
all that

then you let us believe
that we had invented you
and that we no longer
believed in you
and that you were only stories
that we did not believe

you with no
moment for beginning
no place to end
one step above
all that

listen to us
wait
believe in us

- from Present Company, Copper Canyon Press

Triumphant Entry by He Qi

Getting Konnected...

Do you wish you could travel to Africa but couldn't because of a busy schedule? Well, do like me and join the Home Team of Kumi Konnect! This summer, a group from our church in Chinatown will take a mission trip to Kumi, Uganda, to work with the YCVM, and though I'm unable to join the team in person, I hope to live vicariously through this little blog that has just been created.

Visit the shoutbox and wish them God-speed...