Too Much for Words

My "I" is beginning to get uncomfortable with how public blogging is making my "F".

I write poetry every now and then--bad poetry that no mind should ever read

but poetry nonetheless because it expresses what I feel in less direct ways.

When blogging has turned to venting…

I think it's time to hibernate from cyberspace and start putting words on private paper.

I started a new poetry journal today, one where I can express the frustrations that don't have patience for proper words.

There is power in poetry, and poetry is powerful.

Rest awhile, little blog.  You've made it to 55 posts, so go take a vacation!

A Taste of Eternity

Have you ever laughed so hard you cried?

I have.  Many times.

But this past Friday, I experienced for the first time what it's like to laugh so hard and so much that your chest muscles are sore the next day.

On Friday, I took a midterm and welcomed my parents to New Haven.  (They are visiting me for Fall Break!)  On Friday evening, I was invited to 2 house parties, and I brought my parents along.  Not only did friends make an effort to make them feel at home, but they also shared the wonderful gift of humor.  By the end of the night, all of us were doubled over laughing, slapping our thighs, and nearly crying from the hilarity of it all.

Both parties were made up of a diverse and international mix of friends.  Self-deprecating humor and affectionate jokes bring people closer, and that night, I felt like I was hanging out with my spiritual and intellectual family.  Some of the things said were so funny that I almost choked with laughter.  I now know that it is possible to die laughing, simply because you can't catch your breath!

Heaven will be composed of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  Our world is so fragmented, and it truly weighs me down when I think of the oppressive racial and cultural barriers humanity has erected for itself.  Thank goodness for tiny glimpses of what things will one day look like.  Thank goodness for the taste of eternity I got on Friday.

I look forward to laughing all the day long when I reach the Other Side.  And I'll know I'm there because my chest muscles will be used to it, and I won't be sore the next day.

Introvert Heaven

Coming from Los Angeles to New Haven can be likened to the ascent from purgatory into heaven.

Finally, I am surrounded by introverts who give me space!

Living in Los Angeles can be so draining for an introvert.  Everyone is so friendly and loves hanging out at all hours.  But when I'm there, I feel guilty for not being more social, and my defenses are often up.

"Hey, are you doing anything tonight?" a text reads.

Unless I'm feeling especially spontaneous or social, I will tend to reply: "Hmmm….I kind of made plans already...." (with myself--I have this wonderful book that I'd like to read tonight).

Generally, I'm still more accustomed to making advance plans, at least 24 hours before something happens.

Call me cold and heartless, but that's how I roll.

Imagine my relief when I found that people at Yale are courteous but not especially friendly (yes!  people are finally giving me space!  haha, in fact, a little too much space, perhaps?).  The friends I have made are content to only text me very occasionally or chat with me only if they run into me on campus.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate it when someone wants to have a full-on conversation with me over text?  Talk to me in person, or send me a long email.  It's super draining to have to keep texting you back!)

Perhaps because my defenses are finally down now that I'm in New Haven, I've become more susceptible to the few instances when people do intrude on my space.  And I've become even more aware of how much of a proud introvert I am.  (I know--that sentence can be construed in more than one way.  Feel free to interpret it however you wish.)  When someone like me approaches introvert heaven, the purgatory that took so long to escape appears all the more terrible.  Cigarette smoke is more offensive in the Swiss Alps than in New York City, right?

I'm sorry.  I sound so mean.  Extroverts are wonderful people.  And the world would not be the same without them.  But right now, for the first time in my life, my modus operandus is the social norm, and I don't constantly have to worry about engaging with a social framework that rewards extroverts and pressures introverts to conform.

Divinity school is a season of my life when I can celebrate my introversion without being thought of as antisocial or strange.  I'm sure gonna enjoy it, because it ain't gonna last forever!

Just Because I Look Like You...

…does not in any way mean that we think or act the same.

Welcome to Familiarity Breeds Contempt Part 2

Even though my hometown is notoriously Asian, I have always had friends who did not look like me.  While several of my good friends are Asian-American, and while I find it important to identify with people in America who look like me, I also have some critiques.

Personal Space:

I'm an introvert.  I'm an Americanized Asian.  I value personal space.  So don't text me every day, and don't invite yourself into my space without permission.  And please don't touch my stuff without asking, especial if it's my violin!  Thanks.

Courtesy:

Yes, I may speak your language.  But when someone who doesn't speak Chinese is with us, please speak English.  I find it rude when you exclude someone on the basis of language.  (I so appreciate the German and Korean students here at Yale.  They always try to speak English if I'm around.  And if ever they start speaking among themselves in their native language, they always apologize).

Just because I look like you does not in any way mean that I automatically think or act the same as you might.  Get to know me a little better before you become so familiar as to merit my contempt.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

It's always the same scenario.

I walk into a Chinese church as a first-time visitor.  I am able to read the words on the screen during worship, and I can understand the sermon.  Thanks to my upbringing and the diligence of my mom, my Chinese is pretty fluent, despite being born in America.

At the end of the service, during introductions, I am greeted by adult members of the congregation.  A few exchanges produces the same sort of reactions from them:

1. "Wow, your Chinese is so good for someone born here!  It's much better than my son/daughter's…"
2. "I hope you are able to come help our church with your musical/bilingual/theological background!"
3. "You look so young!  I can't believe you are already __ .  Wow!"

I have many bones to pick with Chinese people.  This includes people of Chinese heritage in America as well as people in Taiwan whose ancestors were Chinese (as differentiated from the native people of the island).  So let me explain what bothers me about the above statements:

1. Thanks for the compliment, but please recognize that I can't take the credit for this.  Credit goes to my mom, who insisted that I know the language and be able to communicate with her in Chinese.  Even though her English is quite good.  The fact that so many American Born Chinese speak broken Chinese is the fault of their parents, and I think that's a tragedy.

2. If you think that the biggest incentive for a visitor to come back to your church is so that she can serve your congregation, then you're wrong.  Do I even need to explain why?

3. If you are surprised that I look younger than my age, keep it to yourself.  Do you think I'm oblivious to the fact that I look young?  If you're trying to compliment me, I'm not taking it as such, so just stop.

All right.  Enough complaining against Chinese in America.  Let's talk about people in Taiwan.

It's always the same when I go back to Taiwan:

1.  "What, you play soccer?  Aren't you afraid your thighs will get thick?"
2. "Don't get a Ph.D.  You'll never find a husband if you do that."
3.  "The last time your brother was here he said this, which was so interesting!  And wow, he posts things on Facebook that shows he has opinions about things.  That's great!"

Clearly, my conception of what a modern woman can be is a little different.

1. What's wrong with having some muscle?  I'm sorry if my legs look thicker than Taiwanese standards of beauty, but I'd rather look healthy and strong than skinny and weak.  At least I won't topple over if the wind blows!

2. Well, too bad then.  I'll just do without the husband!  (How happy are you married people, huh?)

3.  I love my brother, and this point isn't an attack on him but rather an attack on what people's comments about him reveal about their views on men and women.  I refuse to accept that my brother has more entitlement to opinions than I do simply because he is male.  And if your entire conversation with me is going to be about him, then I'll show myself the door.  It's a very sick society that believes a woman's job is to stay thin and look pretty and that it is only respectable for a man to have an opinion and voice it.

Believe me, there are things about American society that bother me too.  But if I'm going to criticize, I'll start with my own people.  Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.

Why Divinity School?

The short answer to the question, "why did you decide to go to Divinity School?" is this:

I don't have a formal academic background in religion, and I'd like to have one.

I have a pretty rich experiential background with religion, and I'd like to learn the language with which I can articulate my thoughts on those experiences, and to process those experiences "in community"--whether that be in the classroom, over lunch with classmates, or through books I'm reading.

When the desire to explore seminary was beginning to take shape, I was on a quest to locate myself within the geography of the Christian landscape of America.  This meant taking into consideration my particular ethnicity, gender, personality type, and spiritual giftings.  It meant sorting out my theology and the practical implications thereof.

I have had several fallouts with Christian communities in the last 8 years.  Sometimes it had to do with issues of integrity in male spiritual leadership that I witnessed (dishonesty, sexual harrassment, power-mongering), sometimes it had to do with not feeling the freedom to exercise my spiritual giftings and being dismissed because I am single and because I am intuitively attuned to things not easily articulated before skeptical ears.  In any case, I have had trouble finding a community in which I can truly speak what's on my heart.

To be fair, not all of my experiences have been as negative as they may sound.  In my most recent phase of life in LA, Hope Christian Fellowship, Bible Study Fellowship, and a local women's Scripture Memory Group were all wonderful things.  But some of the most emotionally invested seasons of spirituality of my 20s have ended in relational devastation.

Ironically, those experiences usually start out as smooth sailing.  I connect quickly with leadership and participate in fellowship as candidly and as prudently as I know how.  At first, I do feel that freedom to be me and to express my spiritual side in the way I feel called.  Eventually, however, something always develops that seems to increasingly oppose what I'm about, and then male leadership will do something to discourage or mute any voice that I once had.  A period of disillusionment usually follows, and then I must work up the energy to try again.

Currently, good things are happening in my spiritual life, and I'm grateful.  God led me to a church in New Haven very quickly, and pretty soon after that I settled into a weekly Home Group.  Things feel right, and I'm getting the spiritual support I need.

The words I speak in fellowship do not feel less valid because I am a woman, or because I am Asian.  Men in the group, both married and not married, listen to what I'm saying, just like I listen to what they are saying.  Women in the group, both married and not married, value my thoughts and my words, just like I value their thoughts and words.  There is a joy that comes with being vulnerable and honest, with allowing others to speak from the depths of their experience (both of God and of life) without feeling intimidated or insecure.

Too, I've found solid friendships at the Divinity School where similar feelings of "safeness" are there.  My "Ministry and the Disinherited" class has become the basis for several friendships--men and women  who listen with their hearts as much as their minds.  Roadtrips and study sessions have become opportunities to converse at length with friends about theology, personal history, and future inquiry.  I have been blessed to find people here who are kind human beings that happen to be at Yale.

If you are reading this post, I hope you feel encouraged that if you keep searching for it, answers will eventually (sometimes at an agonizingly slow pace) begin to become available to you.  And while community takes work and initiative on your part, it could also be a simple matter of location and timing.  As in, don't blame yourself if you're not connecting with the community (or lack thereof) that happens to be most local/accessible to you.  Don't be discouraged if you are stifled in your giftings and longing for deeper fellowship, but don't be okay with it either.  Dig deep into your Source, and allow Him to refine you in foggy or dark places.

At some point, He just might bring you into the kind of community your heart so desires.

My current season is an unexpected blessing, one that I'm not taking for granted.  I also know that it can be taken away or dissolve sometime down the road, and that ultimately the only thing that I can count on is my relationship with Christ.  In the meantime, my quest has reached a "resting point", a safe spot where I can replenish myself and have fruitful give-and-take with others who are also staying temporarily in this place, this New Haven to searchers and seekers of faith and meaning.

種族歧視

我常常覺得華人很有種族歧視。

來到美國，就是想要成功，不會想到別的種族的事情。Ferguson 發生後的禮拜天，我去了一家中國教會。講道當中連一次都沒提到這件事。我一點也不覺得奇怪，因為在美國的華人似乎本來就不太在乎這種社會問題。只要自己好就夠了。

我常聽華人女生說很希望能嫁給白人，才能生出美麗的混血兒，也有人說混血兒特別聰明。再說，來到美國，嫁給白人，應該會有些好處吧！

但是若是與其他種族結婚，或做朋友，就不太一樣咯！我還聽過華人說，如果跟黑人結婚，生出來的孩子不知道要長成什麼樣子！

想一想，這種態度好嗎？

Story of my Life

According to Myers-Briggs, I am an INFP*

Sometimes I think my lot in life is just to be people's listening ear.  The story of my life is that I am often the receptacle of someone's external processing.  There seems to be an invisible sign on my forehead that says, "Tell me your problems".  Even as a child, adults would tell me things, so I quickly became precocious--or had pre-existing precocity reinforced by an inordinate amount of adult interaction.  I was more comfortable among my elders than my peers.

During elementary school years, I spent most of my time around a mom and a brother who were both extroverted and opinionated (translated into my introverted perception as not being self-conscious enough and often offending others), so to compensate, I learned how to be a people-pleaser.  I learned how to smooth over rough places and to diffuse conflict and tension.

Because my environment very much favored extroversion, I learned how to act like one.  The results it that, in social settings, I know how to flit around from group to group, making small talk and banter and relating to many kinds of individuals.  It's a social skill I've been blessed with--and one that I've honed over the years.  I am a natural listener and a people-pleaser who has learned how to be a bridge between different groups of people.

The thing with being a bridge, though, is that people walk over you in order to get to the other side.

Do I resent that?  I don't know.

What I will say is that something good better come out of the listening and bridging that I do.

At YDS, I have a certain amount of fluidity that allows me to not be pegged into a category of a specific social group.  Seldom do I hang out with the same people on a consistent basis.  I have loose friend-groups and also individual relationships, but I see myself as a free bird who flies solo but not alone.

The story of my life is still being written, and today's blog post is just one narrative that I have constructed to make sense of it all.

*Read one of the many descriptions of personality types here: http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html.
And if you're curious about what you might be, take one version of the test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Who Am I?

In the context of Yale Divinity School, I am a MAR Comprehensive who worked for nearly 5 years prior to coming here.

My degree is a Master's in Religion, with no focus, which means I can pretty much take whatever classes I want--an amazing thing when one is at a place like Yale!

My course load for this semester:

Introduction to New Testament Interpretation
Transitional Moments in Western Christian History
Ministry and the Disinherited
In the Face of Death: Worship, Music, Art

and I'm auditing a course at the Music School:

Music, Service, and Society

Each of the 5 is a "favorite" class.  I'm learning a lot from each one, and I'm also drawing tons of connections on my own between them.

After Yale, I'd like to do some kind of work with dying people and their families.  That could mean becoming a chaplain, but it also doesn't have to.

I'm also very open to the possibility of pursuing a Ph.D, but at this point, I don't really know what academic interests I have.  It's rather exciting to not have pegged myself in a category just yet.

So, for the meantime, I'm really enjoying this Sabbatical of sorts from the Helping Profession (although I certainly miss having an income), and I'm also enjoying the Comprehensive nature of my academic life.

Process and Interpretation

So this morning, sitting in my Introduction to New Testament Introduction class, I wondered: "What if someone's only interpretation of me came from my blog posts--what would they think?"

Blogging is just one of the ways I process life.  The most raw manner that things get processed is through self-talk or prayer, the internal dialogue that runs through my mind in any given moment or reaction.  Most days, I also journal, which is a good way to put thoughts on paper without worrying about any of them being seen.  I also draw, and sometimes the nonverbal processing works much more quickly than trying to put things in words.  I enjoy discussion sections for my classes, because they allow me to process the material with my classmates.  And at lunch today, I had a wonderful conversation with some friends born in Guatemala, Germany, and Jamaica in which we processed our views on America.

Many of my processes come and go with no tangible record, and yet something from each processing session makes its way into my development.

The early church had to process theology and experience in both written and oral ways, depending on who you were and what your role was.  As we study primary texts in Divinity School, we miss out on so much of what was happening in the spiritual subconscious of early Christians, and what records we do have are surely only a snippet of the picture.

Processing often goes hand in hand with creation.  When I start scribbling on paper to process emotions, I am also creating a piece of art.  When I speak my thoughts to friends around the lunch table, I am creating conversation.  And when I journal, and definitely when I blog, I am creating a paper trail of my experiences and memories.

It's interesting the things that I choose to blog about.  I've been noticing that even though my mind is always drawing connections between material from each of my 5 classes, I rarely put those thoughts in to writing.  In fact, I don't think I've even shared about any of the classes I'm taking, even though they are what take up most of my time!

Perhaps that will happen in blog posts to come.  In the meantime, learning is definitely a process, one that I've longed for and one which I'm so happy to be engaged with.

Trees in the process of changing color.  Once they peak, the leaves then begin to fall off the branches.  Perhaps our thoughts are most interesting "in the process", and once we've "arrived" at a conclusion, we're really just settling for something less vibrant and colorful.  Just an idea to process...

Reset

We are entering into Midterm Season here at school, a rush of assignments and exams before Fall Break arrives.  The past 2 weeks (since my last post) have gone by in a blur, filled with ups and downs.  I've had so much fun (and expended so much energy) bantering with friends that the next time we saw each other, we had nothing more to say and could only smile.  I've had enough interactions with one individual to get into conflict--and then to have conflict resolved.  Overall, it's been exhausting.

One Friday, I decided to take a break from schoolwork for an entire day.  I drove up to East Rock, a nearby overlook, and enjoyed a solitary walk in the woods.  The start of Fall was beginning to show, and I soaked up the golden sunlight filtering in through the foliage.  The next day, the weather happened to be warm, and I spontaneously took 2 friends to a local beach and did my run there.

And then, 3 days ago, I suddenly had this crazy urge to drive out of Connecticut to catch the peak foliage in New Hampshire and Vermont.  I worked hard all afternoon and evening on Friday, skipping soccer practice and studying until 11:30 pm.  I pushed myself to finish assignments on a rainy Saturday.  And on Sunday, accompanied by a fellow introvert, I drove 4 hours away to hike Artist's Bluff in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  We swung 30 minutes west to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to have late lunch at Anthony's Diner and to visit the Maple Museum and Dog Mountain.  And we got back to Connecticut just before 10 pm, ready to face a new week.

I was exhausted but refreshed.  It did me good to get away, and the foliage was beautiful.  Now, I just have to make it through this week and next week before Fall Break, and then I can push "pause" on school for a week and then hit the "reset" button for the next portion of the semester.