English Compass - bringing christian fellowship to korean americans

 

When I was a missionary in Laos, you went to the store and there was one brand of soda, with 3 or 4 flavors.  Not too hard to pick one.

 

Once I returned to America I went to a supermarket to buy soda and it took me 10 minutes to decide.  What flavor?  Diet Coke?  Diet Pepsi?  Zero?  No fructose corn syrup?  The ones on sale?

 

I finally settled on grapefruit-flavored Fanta.  But lately, this obsession with having lots of options has made me a bit wary.

 

I recently went to a film festival to watch a Korean documentary about a woman with a spinal disorder (she's only about 4 feet tall) who marries a man who is born deaf and blind.  Undoubtedly, they didn't have any other options.

 

In the beginning of the film, the audience is silent, saddened and full of pity for this tragic couple.  She communicates to him by tapping the Korean alphabet onto his fingers.  

 

As the story progresses, you can see that their life isn't really depressing at all.  The audience, once silent with pity, is cooing and laughing with the couple.  Things are so normal to us, is a moment of eureka for him.  She pulls him into the foaming waves of a beach in the middle of winter, and he's so shocked.  He stands there, shoes full of water, feeling the ocean wind blowing on his face.  In the middle of the woods, she cups her hands to show him how the leaves are shaped, and mimics the crunchy noise that they make.  He reaches up to caress the leaves, rubbing them against each other.

 

One of the most striking moments of the documentary is when their bedroom light bulb goes out.  It provokes a mini crisis, because she's too short to reach the bulb, and he's deaf and blind.  They try to put her on piggyback.  The bed is wobbly and they fall.  Then, she tries to tap instructions onto one of his hands, while with his other, he tries to remove the burnt-out bulb.  Finally, they remove it and with great exertion, manage to install the new bulb.  They hug each other and exclaim,  "We've succeeded!"  The audience cheers.  Something so mundane, so ordinary, so boring to us, is a source of such joy to them.  We don't pity them anymore for their handicap, for not having options, for their lack of freedom.  In fact, we're jealous of them, because they have something we don't.  

 

After 2 years of filming this couple, the director decided to name his documentary, Planet of Snail.

 

At first, the title seems offensive.  So you're calling Young-chan, the deaf and blind man, a snail, huh?  A snail is a rather pitiful creature.  It moves so slowly.  The only sense that it can use is touch.  And in a way, Young-chan is like a snail.  He lives alone in this strange planet, in which he can only use his sense of touch.  Things are slow, simple, and boring.

 

In order to communicate with our planet, he has to use all these instruments:  the braille keyboard, the walking stick, the tapping language.  

 

But what if it were the inverse?

 

What if instead of him coming to this planet, you had to go to the planet of snail?  

 

To get there, you'd have to limit your options.  You might need to turn off your iPad and iPhone.  Turn off your Wi-fi.  Shut off your TV.  Power down your gadgets and apps and games and blogs - all that flashy stuff that overstimulates your senses.

 

Because God lives in the planet of snail.  He's trying so hard to touch us, but we're moving so fast, our lives are so complicated, our entertainment is so exciting, that we can't even feel him.  If God came down to touch you right now in the middle of your busy life, would you even notice?  Could you hear Him saying, "Hey, you!  Can you hear me?  I want to talk to you."  No.  Because you've got too many options.  God is a barely-used little app that gets lost amongst your Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Twitter, email, texts, etc.

 

You really want to hear God's voice?  Well, you need to limit your options.  You need to handicap yourself.  You need to take a trip to the planet of snail.  Because God is trying to speak to you through His Word and through His Spirit.  He's been trying to for a long time now.  Maybe tonight, you'll actually try to hear His voice for the first time.  

 

Just two minutes can't hurt.  Stop what you're doing.  Take a deep breath.  Close your eyes.  Plug your ears.  Listen and perhaps you can feel ... God....  Speak....  To....  You.

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Pastor Chris Choi is the youth pastor of New York Central Korean SDA Church.