Monthly Archives: June 2015

Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God

Was it because I dispatched my husband at the 11th hour to buy a peach pie rather than making a fancy casserole for the church’s potluck lunch? Was it because – if truth be told – I never had any intention of breaking a sweat over any kind of casserole – fancy or plain? I’m not sure for which of my many sins I was being punished, but this Sunday I learned that Jonathan Edwards was absolutely right:

We find it easy to tread on and crush a Worm that we see crawling on the Earth; so ’tis easy for us to cut or singe a slender Thread that any Thing hangs by; thus easy is it for God when he pleases to cast his Enemies down to Hell.

It was “Worship in the Courtyard” Sunday. After the service, there was a bounce house, a potluck picnic, and even a magician. We marveled at the bountiful feast spread out by the hospitality committee. A long table was groaning under the weight of all the elaborate salads and casseroles that people had lovingly prepared with their own hands. My daughter was especially impressed by the watermelon cut out to look like a frog whose mouth contained a beautiful medley of fresh fruits, and she took pains to point it out to me. I nodded nonchalantly, trying not to betray the guilt I felt as I thought of the “store-boughten” pie I had furtively snuck onto the dessert table. I gorged myself on the feast others had brought, heedless of “the arrows of death” which “fly unseen at Noon-Day.”

It was time for the magician’s act. Like any true introvert would, I picked a seat in the very back row, right on the end of the aisle. About half way through the show, the magician’s wife and assistant asked for a volunteer. I gazed benignly around at the many hands shooting up all around me. Obviously, my own hands stayed firmly in my lap.

Almost every natural Man that hears of Hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own Security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do; every one lays out Matters in his own Mind how he shall avoid Damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his Schemes won’t fail…He don’t intend to come to that Place of Torment…

“The woman in the back row with sunglasses on her head.”

I swiveled around in my seat to see which poor sucker had volunteered.

There was no woman in the back row with sunglasses on her head. Except for me. The magician’s assistant skewered me with her gaze and nodded vigorously as I pointed weakly to myself with a questioning, hangdog, really-can’t-you-see-that-I-am-dying-a-thousand-deaths-look.

Oh! then what will be the Consequence! What will become of the poor Worm that shall suffer it!…To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable Depth of Misery must the poor Creature be sunk, who shall be the Subject of this!…when God beholds the ineffable Extremity of your Case, and see your Torment to be so vastly disproportion’d to your Strength, and sees how your poor Soul is crushed and sinks down, as it were into an infinite Gloom, he will have no Compassion upon you, he will not forbear the Executions of his Wrath, or in the least lighten his Hand; there shall be no Moderation of Mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough Wind…

I slunk up to the front and then this happened:

This is but a mere snippet of the “exquisite horrible Misery” I endured.

When you look forward, you shall see a long Forever, a boundless Duration before you, which will swallow up your Thoughts, and amaze your Soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any Deliverance, any End, any Mitigation, any Rest at all; you will know certainly that you must wear out long Ages, Millions of Millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless Vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many Ages have actually been spent by you in this Manner, you will know that all is but a Point to what remains…

I sought comfort in the gaze of my husband who sat in the audience. What I found was my very own phone held aloft, recording every moment for posterity. My husband was holding my phone, grinning maniacally from ear to ear as he witnessed my torment.

How awful is it to be left behind at such a Day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoycing and singing for Joy of Heart, while you have Cause to mourn for Sorrow Heart, and howl for Vexation of Spirit!

There was one person who pitied me. Later, as my son and fellow introvert watched the video my husband had recorded so gleefully, he literally averted his gaze and said, “I can’t watch! I feel so sorry for you! I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

At least one person in our family is not going to roast in hell for all of eternity.

*You can read the full text of Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God here.

Kings and Queens

I sent an email to my mother the other day, asking her to ask my dad for clarification of our lineage for my Last Day in Seoul post. You may be wondering why I would be emailing my mom, when it’s my dad who had the answer I was looking for. My dad is a brilliant man, but is completely flummoxed by anything more technologically advanced than his beloved yellow legal pads and fountain pens. He has never typed a single word of his gazillion books by himself. He has never once had his own email account…Oh hang on, I totally take that back. The man is a freaking genius! 

Getting no response, I ended up writing a very generic description of the facts as I remembered them in my post. Yesterday, my dad used my mother’s account to finally send a message back to me. I’m guessing she probably typed it up for him as he dictated it to her. In it, he outlined our ancestry in painstaking detail going as far back as, no joke, 247 AD. It was all dryly factual, perhaps with the exception of his recounting of the well-known legend of our ancestor Alji, who “as a baby came out of a Golden Box, which was found in a tree.”

Here’s an excerpt to give you a general idea:

King Kyung Soon, the last king of the Silla dynasty had three sons. The first was called Prince Ma Eui, who…became a Buddhist monk and left no children. The second son was Prince Kye Rim and he was named Grand Duke of Kum Seung and is the first forefather of our branch of Kims. My father was the 36th generation of Prince Kye Rim…My mother was the 17th generation of Admiral Soon Shin Lee of the Lee Dynasty, the well-known admiral who defeated the Japanese Navy of 350 warships with 13 fishing boats at the Noryang Battle…

At the end of my dad’s very long message was this editorial comment:

Adrienne, what is most important to us and to your children is the fact that we could all become like Kings and Queens. If we live and behave as decent human beings, we will be recognized as Kings and Queens. 

Love, 

Dad

Happy weekend to all you Kings and Queens out there.

Lazy Gardener

I love gardens, but I don’t actually love gardening. My mother once saw me recoil in horror at the sight of a grub and said scornfully, “Hmph. What kind of a gardener are you?!” A theoretical kind of gardener is what I am. I don’t believe in watering or coddling my plants…that would require too much time in the steamy, scary outdoors. Twice I’ve had to go on a course of antibiotics for Lyme Disease after getting bitten by a tick during a weeding session. When I put in a plant, I give them a little pep talk, “You’ve got to be tough to make it around here. Let’s see what you can do.” And then they’re on their own.

When I first moved to the house we’re in now, I planted a New Dawn rose and a Clematis Jackmanii at the base of our deck. I sat back and waited and waited and waited some more. The New Dawn rose bush grew spectacularly – the lush green foliage was studded with the most evil thorns you could possibly imagine, but not a single rose grew for many years. I regretted ever planting it and the thought of having to battle the thorns to take it down filled me with dread. Peering into my yard as she ministered to her impeccably manicured all-white Vita Sackville-West inspired garden, my neighbor (who happens to be a Master Gardener) would tut.

“Those roses are never going to bloom unless you fertilize them,” she would call over to me.

Fertilize? When I don’t even water my plants? I don’t think so!

It doesn’t always work out so well, but this time, sloth wins the day:

Goal!

Soccer season is coming to a close. I got to watch my daughter play one of her last games of the season this past Saturday.

She’s got a powerful boot:

which she likes to deploy on goal kicks:

Here she is realizing that she just scored a goal from her goalie box with her signature move:

That’s my girl.

 

Being a jerk to my husband

What happens when a dog-lover marries a dog-tolerator? This:

On the way home from Tennessee last week we stopped for lunch and spotted a little pen set up on the grass with a litter of Jack Russell Terrier pups for sale. Obviously, we had to go over to admire the puppies. We were just going to look at the puppies, and maybe just pet them a little. But then I picked up this sweet little girl with two perfectly round spots on her back, and I fell madly in love. How could I not? She rolled over onto her back and fell asleep in my arms as I petted her soft little belly. I really, really wanted to take her home, and I’m pretty sure she really, really wanted to come home with me. I knew my dog-tolerating husband would be less than thrilled if I came home with a third dog, (to the say the very least). I imagined the shock and horror on his face as I walked in the door with my new puppy. Could I do this to the man I love, my husband of eighteen years, the father of my three children? I sent him a text:

Nah. But I could just mess with him a little.