topic: church....
so if this bothers you, run away.
i grew up in korean churches. i had some good memories and some bad. like a lot of kids that grew up in church, i was very faithful when i was a kid. faltered a little as a teenager. got back on track later in high school.
then college hit me with a lot of things and i grew spiritually a lot for about a year and then lost quite a bit of trust i had in god and his churches the few years afterwards.
i'm still working on reconciling things with god, and going to church wasn't helping... so i stopped going.
then my parents pitched a hissy fit, so i started to lie about going to church. though i lied about going to a non-korean church and made it really clear.
so then they moved on to pestering me about going to a korean church and how i never really listened to them on anything important. i picked my college. i picked my boyfriend. (because that's a bad thing, right?)
so i told them that when i moved to san jose... i'll try to find a korean church.
in college, i tried many churches. usually, baptist, prebyterian and non-denominational. so far, i still feel at home at prebyterian services, though i learned that korean presbyterian churches and non-korean presbyterian are very different. and i don't know if it's a baptist thing or a korean thing or some weird conglomeration of both....
conclusion: koreans really like to hardball you into obedience.
god is doing this to make you grow, so just deal with your hardships.
do not be of this world, you are not of this world. (to the point of being isolationist or patronizing)
it's as though if you enjoy the world at all, you're being less than ideal. if you have non-christian friends, you should feel burdened to convert them. if you have non-conventional ideas about religion, it's wrong.
and just why do you need a korean church anyway? we're all gentiles right? and it doesn't reflect at all what my life outside of church is like. so how is it suppose to help me? i really don't think when god wanted you to show love to others, it meant to show love to other KOREANS and build big buildings.
i can tell you, i can relate well to people who've had bad church/christian experiences. after all, i've been targeted with the same.
i believe in god. i believe in jesus. i'm still trying to figure out the whole holy ghost thing.
mainly i can believe in them because i believe in love and the good in people. this took a hard hit when i was having a really really hard time trusting people and believe that people are good. in fact, i don't believe that people are good, as a whole. i think people can be good and that people frequently choose not to be. sometimes i believe that it's not necessarily the people's fault, that background has a lot to do with it. but i've tired of putting myself in a vulnerable position to help them.
and really... i've lost a lot of faith in people while i was in college.
i'm ok with gay people. in fact, i think they're great. i don't think that they're wrong, abominable, strange, etc... they're people. god loves them. and i will love them as long as they're good (i'm only human after all. i'm not god and i'm not jesus. i will give people benefit of the doubt and give them a chance, but there has been too much cheek slapping in my life for me to turn the other cheek). one of my new good friends is gay and i will personally kick your ass if you say anything wrong to him. but mainly, they're just people to me.
because... SURPRISE... that's all they are.
and honestly, if homosexuality has been around for millennia... i'm pretty sure it's been around ever since mankind has been around... and there probably is a genetic basis to it, considering that for many of these people it really wasn't a choice, they just were attracted to same sex members of society once puberty hit... i really don't think that god screwed up and made these people "wrong" and they have to "change" and become "straight" because that's "normal" or must fear "damnation in hell."
enough said on that.
i'm never been very big on organized lots of things. democrat, republican, whatever. i will pick and choose my ideas. my ideas tend to side with democrat because republican ideas seemed too self-serving. more frequently, i agree with the green party. but i wouldn't register myself as anything (which reminds me, i have to register for voting. if you haven't shame on you. get yourself to a post office now. 
)
anyway... all this is basically me saying: i'm not necessarily conventional or traditional but i choose to believe in some traditions. i'd probably be considered a heretic by many church people. and i can be fairly liberal in some of my ideas.
so this leads to why i have problems with korean churches.
they use guilt to motivate you to do things. and i guess that works for some people, it really really doesn't work for me. it just makes me feel bad.
and years of experiences with my parents show me that all guilt does is breed resentment and struggle.
i've never been rebellious for rebellion's sake, but man... i HATED some of the stuff i needed to do, and i really don't think that was necessary.
any of the pastors i really liked really understood sin and was compassionate about it or had really sinned in their past and knew personally about. like... they knew they were sinful too and everyone was and that love is still the best way to communicate with one another.
compassion and love... isn't that like the 20th/21st century god? but so many koreans emphasize fear, guilt, obligation as the motivating factors to do right things. shouldn't you do "righteous" things because you love god, you study to understand him because he's your friend, and you do good things because it is good and that's what you're striving for? after all, how close a friend can you really be with someone if you have totally different views on key important things in life? isn't that the same issue?
and with good friends, even if you have different beliefs they will still love you anyway.
you love god. you love good. you strive to love the people he loves but hope he understands that you don't want to get smacked around by them all the time. and you try to be good because you know that that's what would make him happy and that that is basically how one's life can be happy.
alternative lifestyles are totally cool. and koreans can be so unimaginative about that.
i am so sick of being told that "art can be a hobby. get a real job." or that i'm running away from the real world by becoming the professional student. or the best one: nothing in this world will satisfy you anyway, you just have to get a job and strive for happiness through knowing god.
i mean... if god gave you this life, isn't it your duty to live it to the fullest, enjoying it and loving yourself because god saw fit to give you this precious life and his son's life to save your own? why would you make yourself feel like it's just a dreary journey to get through to get to heaven?
i mean... it's god's gift to you right? would you like it if someone just tried to "make the best" of your birthday present to them? "oh, i guess that's nice, but i'm really looking forward to that one special birthday when i get the best present of all"??
i mean... i fully believe that god intended people to LOVE life. love one another and make LIFE fuller. after all... isn't heaven all about ETERNAL life?? if you didn't have LIFE to begin with, do you really want an eternal one?
i'm sure that god has more plans for every one of us than any one person can imagine for anyone. after all, i was like 18 going on 30 for a while. and i think i'm getting back to somewhere around 25... no one could've imagined the experiences that i would have. and it makes me wonder why so many people are so perfectly willing to tell you what a good life is and what isn't.
i just think that if people treated each other with love, respect and kindnesss. if they truly knew about their issues, weren't in denial, weren't trying to assert their anxieties on other people. if they truly were humble in their opinions and not so quick to judge each other. if they were able to minimize self-interest in their actions and their words...
life would be so much easier and more enjoyable.
and if i think about this too much it either makes me really pissed off or sad. 
i heard a friend of mine explain his philosophy about life to someone else once... which is a much shorter version of what i just wrote about:
"just keep this in mind. don't be a dick. you know when you're being a dick. you can definitely recognize a dick. and no one likes dicks. so try not to be one, ok?"
