This is a traditional Korean game. I think it is mostly based on luck. We threw up the wood sticks and how they landed told us how many moves I team go to make on a game board. The ladies really got into it. They are so comptetitive with each other! It was great. It was fun to hear them speaking in Korean when they got mad at each other or voiced their competitive feelings. I didn't understand the words but I understood the tone!
Christine Pohl in her book, "Making Room" writes, “At the personal level, hospitality communicates to guests and strangers that they are valued; respect and recognition are expressed in giving someone our full attention.” “…it is very unusual when someone gives focused attention to a needy stranger outside of a paid relationship. Giving a stranger full attention communicates that he or she is interesting and worthwhile; we pay attention to the people we value.”
Reflections on reading and an experience:
I wanted to stay at the retreat house to work on editing a paper. I needed a quiet place where I didn’t know anyone and there was no internet. Besides bringing my computer and book stuff with minimal clothes I put hardly any thought into the week. I didn’t think about appropriate clothing and I didn’t think about bringing western style snacks just in case I didn’t like the Korean food. I guess this week had great opportunity for disaster. Yet it was quiet the contrary.When I first met the sisters I felt mortified. Talk about feeling like I had little dignity. I arrived in “short” gray shorts, a white athletic style tank top and running shoes. You know my usual. The sisters were covered from head to toe. They wore gray dresses down to their ankles, stockings, long sleeves and of course the hat that covers almost all their hair—back and front—and thankfully leaves their faces unveiled. I was definitely underdressed. When we went to the mass the next morning I felt a little ashamed. I was the last to arrive to the van full of sisters waiting only for me, I was in shorts and a t-shirt, and we were going to a parish church. I didn’t have anything else to wear and I didn’t even know this was what we were doing. When we entered the service all the women had on white head coverings similar to a wedding veil. (they were not nuns) Of course I was the only without a head dressing and the only one dressed so casual. If only I would have brought a pair of pants! I was thinking I’d be lounging around and working on my computer and not about being proper culturally for worship times.The ladies never shunned me for my clothing. They were always kind and never let on that I was some kind of let down. Their kindness removed my shame and gave me a sense of dignity. They just let me be me. And they even convinced me to stay with them for the holiday. Friday was Korean Thanksgiving and it is on par with American Thanksgiving with regard to its familial importance. Not only did they give me dignity but they one up-ed it by making room for me on the most important day of the year, shorts and all.My experience in Korea as an English teacher is quiet different. Almost all my relationships with Korean people are based on what I can give to them; the English language. Even my Korean friends often start out because I speak English and they hope that by spending time with me they will also learn English. Of course in time they become more interested in me than in what I can offer them but it still is about English at first. So I’m an English object. I feel the weight of this on a daily basis. I miss relationships based on mutual wanting to get to know each other not because of how the other will benefit by me but because of valuing the other.My words really can not do justice to how these ladies made me feel this week. It was time full of “awe” and full of “oh my gosh” and full of “this feels so different”. I’m not used to feeling so valued for nothing else but “I’m me”. I’m not used to having people curious about me for anything else but my language. It wasn’t about English at all. In fact they so wanted to teach me. They taught me a lot of Korean. They taught me how to make yogurt from scratch. They taught me a new Korean game. They taught me about Kimchi. They taught me, obviously, about hospitality and welcoming the stranger.These ladies embody hospitality. I know what is meant by the quote Pohl uses from Calvin, “the Lord shows (her) to be one to whom he has deigned to give the beauty of his image.” These ladies didn’t value me as an English teacher; they valued me because I was one sent by Jesus to participate in their life for a short time. No question, I met Jesus this week in four Benedictine sisters. In meeting Jesus through them, let me tell you, “I want to follow more closely.” I think if I were to meet Jesus in person, face to face, for real, I’d also not have the proper words to describe my experience. This week I got a good taste of what that day will feel like.
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