I’d rather be a witch
Without a family
Solitary but lovely
With no one to claim
Not even one to lose
Than be a materfamilias
With no sign of tenderness
Not even a hint of softness
As if it were a mark of weakness.
I won’t belong to a matriarchy.
Tag: story
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On my own
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Live, Die, Repeat, Repeat…
Life is still beautiful, even if it deceives you. I wanted to find the Church’s stance on reincarnation and, above all, what the Bible said about this seemingly endless shapeshifting until the purification of the soul is complete, so to speak. What about the Christian belief that we live only once and have no return of life?
According to “A Concise Dictionary of Theology,” reincarnation is the belief or metempsychosis (“animate afterward”) that the soul preexists its embodiment. After death, the soul exists in a ghostly state before animating one again, a body of the same in a different state, which sounds a lot like a demon or malevolent spirit possessing the body of the living. It is this very belief in resurrection and official rejection of the preexistence of wandering souls without corporeal substance that denies reincarnation itself. By maintaining an endless series of chances, the doctrine of reincarnation reduces the seriousness of God’s grace and, most importantly, human liberty exercised in one life that is ended by once-and-for all death.
Furthermore, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, death is the end of man’s earthly pilgrimage. When the single course of our earthly life is completed, we shall not return to other earthly lives as “it is appointed for men to die once” [Hebrews 9:27]. Christianity defends the duality of the body and the soul. However, reincarnation defends dualism that both beings exist separately and that the body is simply an instrument of the soul; existence by successive existence as an altogether different body is repeatedly assumed each time one recycles life. Thus reincarnation denies the idea of the resurrection of the body, as evidenced by the resurrection of Christ, and most primarily rejects the Christian doctrine of salvation. Therefore, there is no reincarnation after death.
I feel much better now than before. While I succumbed to the belief in reincarnation, I couldn’t accept the thought of my present life as punishment for my wrongdoings in my past lives. To think that I have to live in a miserable state of discipline until my subsequent due recycling puts me on the verge of lunacy in the form of murderous headache for which I recently found myself in the ER. Viktor E. Frankl, the survivor of concentration camps during World War 2 and the founder of Logotherapy, urged us to trust that there is meaning in suffering, which helps us lead to our purposes in life. Samuel Johnson, one of the most significant 18th-century English men of letters and the author of A Dictionary of the English Language, describes life as progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. Forget the arguments about the religious dogma dictating an institutionalized belief for mass mind control. Or it so, then so be it. After all, reincarnation is also another offshoot of mysticism developed into religious thought. Then I will follow the light that gives me a sense of hope. And for this reason, I proclaim that my body and soul are inseparable and that I live only once, and that’s it.
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a story of a plain girl – one
It came again. The premonition that it won’t work and that she has to find out another job looms large in my daily life. She thought this time would be different. She believed this time was a tide in her affairs. But then the curse returned, and demons and ghosts appeared with Pan’s fanfare.
Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking Slow and Fast, voiced that the acquisition of skills took three elements: (1) a regular environment, (2) adequate time to practice, and (3) rapid constructive feedback. While the first element fits the requisite, the other ones do not relate to her situation now. The young associate whom she closely work with bypasses the other two elements only to show his disapproving acceptance of no more mistakes and rash disappointment in her performance of work. It has been over a month now since she started working, but my hopeful expectation to succeed in right her ship seems to be at stake because, once again, she is unlucky with partnerships with other people, especially at work. The associate is short of temper and not ashamed of displaying an ingratiating attitude toward the department manager. He knows that she is inexperienced in drafting legal letters and agreements, but the past mistakes conditioned him to regard me as a good-for nothing woman who fumbles and appears to be servile. Now she has lost her faith in the people she is working with. She should find and secure a better job before the probation period ends.
She deserves to work in a suitable environment where she is treated well, taught with patience and understanding, and appreciated for who she is.
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shapeshifter
One leap into the starry air
Beneath the visiting moon
When ghosts begin to roam
This world of sense everywhere,
She lands with paws and meows
With a mask from a ghost paddler
A cat wandering in night’s delight. -
In the lotus flower
She walks toward the end
An inch closer, eyes closed;
Then one leap into the air
She vanishes into the water
Where no fate can stalk her
Care about the world no more
But the king and the lotus flower
To forget the memories forever.*Author’s Note: This poem is based on the Korean folktale of Shimchung about a girl who throws herself into the sea for 300 sacks of rice to be offered to Buddha so that her blind father can regain his eyesight. The Sea Emperor sends her back to land in lotus flower, and her father can see. Contrary to the popular perception of the story as extolling the virtue of the daughter’s filial piety toward her blind old father, I see it more as the girl’s good-heartedness that touches upon the universal heart.
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Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands – book review
What we know as history takes a winning and popular side reflecting mass psychology because a winner writes it, and it is our human nature to win. Perhaps that is why the glare of Florence Nightingale eclipses the brilliance of Mary Seacole. Written in 1857, Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands is a vivid autobiographical touchy-feely account of one remarkable Mary Seacole who resisted herself being invisible and manifested her existence with a story to tell.
Seacole was a healer and entrepreneur born of a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother. Her medicinal knowledge and business acumen distinguished her from her contemporary peers. They often showed discrediting and unappreciative regard to such achievements and her person, not least because of their bias. Seacole identified herself as a British with pride and patriotism, especially when confronting Americans whom she observed to be egregiously racists with unruly behaviors. She took pride in feminine propriety and cultural sophistication, which made her look audaciously flamboyant to those who determined to ignore her virtue, one of whom was Florence Nightingale.
In the wake of the Crimean War, Seacole was imbued with the flames of patriotism and humanity to volunteer for Nightingale’s nurse corps. However, Nightingale and her nurses kept refusing her aspiration, calling her intention dubious because they suspected her setting up the famous Seacole’s Hotel at the battlefield by providing sensual comfort to soldiers with her women employees. Her noble courage and abundant charity were unreciprocated in non-institutionalized racist 19th-century zeitgeist that paved the way to systematic 20th-century scientific racism. It perceived non-white women as no more than sexual subjects of imprudence and passion. Being dark, Seacole was not seen for the flame of Nightingale’s candles.
Had it not been for Nightingale, would Seacole have been regarded as the angel of the Crimean War? Or was it because of Nightingale that Seacole became known? I think that would be harsh undue judgment for both great women. It would be a typical social dynamic of praising one to the detriment of the other. Yet, I believe Seacole deserves recognition for what she did and who she was worth noting. To me, Seacole embodies Queen Elizabeth I’s Tilbury Address that though she might have a woman’s body, she had a king’s stomach and heart. That says it.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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