Cheetos

I love the hot ones.

In my younger days, I was so addicted that mom had to hide the bags from me so that I wouldn't eat them before dinner. It was my "cookie jar." I actually searched cabinets, kitchen drawers, closets, and even the garage, but she was good at hiding them... or I was bad at finding them. When I was finally allowed to have some ('some' as in, layout a napkin and mom pours couple pieces out) I would savor and treasure each piece by sucking the flavor dry to the point where I would not have to even take a bite. It was my crack-on-a-stick. The best part was the red fingers. mmm. Even after playing basketball or handball with that lumpy old dirty orange ball at recess that made my hands turn black and smell like sewage, I would make sure to clean off every and any red particle on my fingertips. hmm tastes like iron.

My flaming hot love for cheetos continued on through high school. When I realized that I could buy food at school, and that mom would never know what I had for snack time, I splurged on them like a pokemon splurges on rare candy. My usual 2 course snack in 9th grade was a bag of 99 cents hot cheetos (i just realized i don't have a 'cent' sign on my keyboard...) and a bottle of sprite for $1 or $1.50. I would make sure to buy it right before snack ended so I could have the whole bag all to myself during 3rd period AP Econ. People still asked for a piece or two, but compared to the floodgate of hungry pubescent hands at snack time this was a mere leak in the faucet. Man, I was so stingy smart. This one time some family friends came over and the two siblings each brought a bag of hot cheetI ate them all. Yes, even the children because they probably had hot cheetos in their system already.

In college, I matured and I grew up. Actually, the price matured and went up to $1.29. What's up with that? Messed up is what is up with that. And I barely had enough meal points to survive one school year so I had to cut back on junk food. Instead, I indulged on cheap (pronounced "chip") Korean chips, crackers, cookies, and... instant noodles. I even had instant dduk gook (rice cake). Mmhm. Can't get any better than that unless they make instant pho. Oh wait. I had those too! (btw, instant noodles are great stocking stuffers). But in the end, as much as I love Korean chips (the finger nail chips are my favorite), they can't make my mouth salivate like a $2.59 hot cheetos bag does. Word of the year: Self-control.

Wow. As I was typing in "hot cheetos" for my post label, it did an auto-complete, which means I already have a post dedicated to hot cheetos... that's kinda gluttonus maximus.

Finals week does wonders to my level of creativity. And by creativity I mean ADD.

But I don't believe in ADD.

I miss care packages...

...with hot cheetos.

Obadiah

hello, my name is wookie.

"Look!"

I pointed excitedly towards the playground as soon as I spotted a row of tricycles parked near the fence. Dad led noon and me away into the main office of Monte Vista Elementary School where we waited in big uncomfortable chairs as he filled out some forms and chatted, in sign languish (sign language + sporadic grunts in English) with Vera the secretary. After many more bla blas and blur blurs I found myself standing in front of about ten intensely curious 5 year olds, sitting neatly in individual little boxes drawn on the floor with masking tape.

"Wook."

The secretary introduced me to my kindergarten class, and from there on my memory is vague and dreamy. I do remember riding the tricycle and racing around the track. I remember learning "Bubble gum, bubble gum" (and figuring out how to count cards people before they asked me, "How many pieces do you wish?"). I also remember a kid named Andy McSomething who called me by my kindergarten name up until middle school. We talked about basketball.

This blurry memory fast forwards itself to 13 years later. I remember a friend of mine in college, who invited his suitemate to a Christian club meeting. The suitemate lashed back and told him to stop trying to convert him. And that was the end of that. 1 Peter 4:16 I look back and I rejoice for my friend to the point my heart aches because I see the Father say, "Well done!"

Time tells the tale. I've been blessed with K-12 education and beyond x2. I'm done counting monetary greens. Now I'm being led to greener pastures. Life is moving quickly here and there's no time to even wish for diligence. Hard work comes to those who work hard. There may be trials now and they may only be training for more suffering to come, but Peter encourages me to lift my eyes from the footprints in the sand. He's got his eyes on something way beyond the horizon. Somewhere. Someone.

Rejoice in sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Rejoice. I do not lose hope for His joy is my strength. His joy is my joy. Again I say, rejoice.

Looking back at a seemingly linear flow of events transcended by what we call time, I'm beginning to see past the backdrop of tricycles, bubble gums, classrooms, and diplomas. There's another introduction to be made somewhere over the fence. And I wonder...

Perhaps joy comes when we simply step away from the frame and behold the Picture.

Pleasing Aroma

I'm starting to smell again. It reminds me of my adolescent days. I used to put on this deodorant scent named "Spring breeze." I forgot the brand name though. I learned of deodorants and such in the locker rooms during p.e. I didn't think I needed it because I never smelled, but I noticed that whenever I play Super Smash Bros. (any console) my armpits become a spring of living water (lower case "l"). Sometimes it misses the sleeves of my t-shirt and trickles along my field of eves down to my pants. raging waters!

This one time during a piano lesson at my piano teacher's house my teenage hormones went haywire, or string. I was under a lot of pressure because I had crammed a week's worth of piano homework into 10 minutes right before my lesson. She was testing me on Für Elise for the upcoming recital. So I was pretty much sight-reading the piece, which I am horrible at, and as I nervously fumbled through the first couple measures I heard something drip. Drip... Drip... Drip... When I finally got to a break in the piece and came off my stress high I looked down and saw small puddles in the grooves of the piano chair between me and my teacher (by this point, she saw it too). I thought, "hmm, that's strange." And immediately, my teacher (who knew exactly what was going on) got up and went to the kitchen and came back with a paper towel. "Oh, don't worry, my... previous student... probably spilled some water." She wiped it clean and I didn't think much of it so I continued. Then it happened again. drip... drip... drip. And that's how I created the Southwest commercials. "Wanna get awahell yea."

Drip! You are now free to sweat profusely.



Right now my armpits smell like persimmons that are ripe and in season - the kind you eat with a spoon because it's mushy. I can't stop smelling it. It smells... kinda good. I just might make a perfume that contains the essence of my sweat in every bottle...

I can't stop smelling...

...and I can't stop thinking of how we are called to be the aroma of Christ. (transition: 6/10)

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.
2 Corinthians 2:14-17

Being a pleasing aroma to God means to perfectly submit and surrender to His will because we were created for His pleasure. Sniff sniff. When He smells us, does He smell rancid sin or the blood of Christ that washes our sins away? Would that all my brothers and sisters become fragrances whom God is pleased to spread everywhere. Yet like high quality perfume, this comes with a price. The price of Jesus becoming the sacrifice for our sins puts value to the price of His lovers to become living sacrifices, broken and undone, for God's purposes. This spiritual act of worship is what His people were created for and the perfect act that God has given us to follow is His Son Jesus Christ. As we know, His act of worship led Him to death, even death on the cross.

Worship bleeds out of the ones truly abandoned to God and truly stayed on His Word. "For in the midst of their physical and emotional pain, their loyalty to Christ grows pure and perfect. And in the face of persecutions, their love and worship toward God become all-consuming." The ones who will become this aroma are the ones who will lay it all down to become true worshipers of God. Flowers yield their strongest aroma when they are crushed, and God has more than a crush on His people. Undying love. It will undoubtedly be more difficult, but as Jesus says of Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name" we must pick up our cross daily and pursue our Lover just as He has pursued us. His joy is our strength. His pleasure is our pleasure because we are His pleasure forever.

Aroma backwards = amora = amor a = "love to" in spanish -> "love to" backwards = "to love"
Therefore, aroma = "to love"

thank you. thank you. I knew I should have majored in linguistics.

<3

I'll end with a poem I recently wrote (modified for general audience, rated G):

The Potter has fearfully and wonderfully created
a beautiful jar of clay
And has placed in you the aroma of Christ
which you unashamedly spray
Like a sweet, pleasant perfume exuding the fragrance of life
For me and everyone in Jesus Christ

May you forever be a pleasure to God
Fulfilling the Lord's purpose for your creation
And become a servant of God who embraces every crushed petal
Just as He has embraced your surrender and obedience
as a pleasing aroma unto Him

I want to smell like Jesus!

...please don't quote me on that...

sniff!

Church Activities

We used to make up bad words - words that would hurt the target and satisfy the shooter. Being in a church setting, we had to keep it PG not because we had a choice, but because that was all our elementary minds knew. We bullied 4th graders because we were 5th graders. We bullied 8th graders because two 5th graders made one 10th grader. Our created words were the funniest things to us, and we would ping pong back and forth to see who got the smash hit that would irresistibly cause the ball to, well, have a ball and laugh to tears with us.

"You have a wrinkle-butt!"

"Your face is a butt-crunch!"

Any time the word 'butt' came up, it was automatically too funny to be an insult. But words were only the beginning. We would run around the church and start wars, using old dolls, stuffed animals, and children's books as weapons and chairs and tables as forts. All this would be happening while the adults were eating lunch in the kitchen.

"Yah! needul bahp muguh!" (Hey! You guys food eat!)

We would eat as quickly as possible and then take a box of matches up the hills into the back lot where we would light any animate object (usually insects) on fire. We used to stomp on bees and see their guts spill out (which was usually white and not yellow like honey) and explore the tropical deserts as we endured the pines that pierced through our socks. Then it was time for fireworks. I would buy these tiny tnt looking firecrackers, which were probably illegal, from the Mexican ice cream truck, place it on the playground swings and then light them on fire. "Just like looney tunes!" One time we lit one string and ran to a safe distance, but when the cracker didn't go off for awhile I boldly but cautiously crept up to check ifBOOOM! ... and my face blew up. or at least I thought so because it stung like a bumble bee, or a hornet.

Speaking of Hornets, we used to play basketball on top of the parking lot hill that doubled as a full court with only one basket. Playing ball was tricky because there was a steep 47 degree hill right behind the hoop, as in the pole was cemented into the very edge of the cliff. This made airballs deathballs. If you made an airball then you would have to climb all the way down the weed infested hill (which was waist high) to retrieve the ball as everyone stared you down and let you know how bad you are. That's why I never make airballs now. Three words. Magic Mountain baby.

After all that we, or now I, would get into fights and throw handfuls of rocks high in the air, first as a scare tactic, and then... never again after one of my bullets decided to hit the pastor's son square on his head - instant fruit punch fountain from the think tank. Ohhhh yeaaahh noooo! I got yelled at and then ran out to play again like nothing happened. I did feel bad though. Like bada~~!

But running and playing wasn't all fun and games. We were avid readers as well. There was one Sunday in particular when my friend brought to church Dragonball Volume 42, the last and final and most epic and gg pwnage and long-awaited manga in the history of saiyankind. We hid in the backseat of a car and read through as much as we could before the evil androids caught us saving the world one panel at a time.

When church was over we would walk to each others' houses and play N64 all day long and then watch a video. Sadly, I was rarely allowed to sleep over friends' places (but allowed to have friends sleep over my place. weird. my parents love me.) so the 4 or 5 times that I did, I. was. so. excited! while everyone else was thinking 'eh another sleepover.'

Then I would count down to next Sunday.

Oh and of course I remember the people too, especially the ones we were a nuisance to. I remember Mimi and Gina teacher in particular, the twins who did body worship and bible studies and everything in between. I thought that was how all churches did it - hire twins as ushers, or body worshipers, or offering basketers, or anything that's good in pairs. I heard that back in the days before the internet was in the average household, the twins would listen to Christian radio stations and whenever they heard a new song they would write down the lyrics, learn the piano part, create the body worship, make the transparency for the overhead, and introduce the final product to us on Sunday mornings. Now that I think about the dedication and effort they put into teaching us God's Word I can't help but thank God because I still remember not specific words they said (except 'Oh my peanut!' sorry another story), but their love in their actions and their sacrifice.

When all the "church activities" are done and all the discussions settle down the only thing that's left is His perfect LOVE for me in His Action and His Sacrifice. So take heart my heart. Dedicate once again and even more so to making disciples of all nations. Laugh, but this time give Words of Life. Make war, but this time in the spiritual battlefield. Set a fire, but this time fire up a passion for Jesus name. Read, but this time read and meditate on God's Word. Fight and throw rocks! No, don't fight, pursue after peace. Play, but this time spell check and pray. Visit, but this time go over to each others' spiritual houses. Count down, but this time wait for the Lord and take heart.

Begin to ACT in Love.