A New Start

It's 2016, and I'm glad.

2015 ended in much stress, confusion, and recuperation.  The end of the semester was pretty brutal. My Community Life Coordinator position became quite political during the final week of classes, due to racial tensions on campus.  I who had tried so hard to stand behind other students of color in solidarity and advocacy ended up in the thick of accusations and misunderstandings.  The immense pressure came from people I considered good friends and was directed towards my co-coordinator and I, who must walk a thin line of being student-peers while also acting as leaders with some level of administration-granted responsibility and authority.  It got so bad that we, huddled on the couch covered in blankets one night (a collective fetal position of sorts), seriously considered resigning from our position- was it really worth being so stressed for our final semester in Divinity School?  And was it fair that we (rather than administration) stood first in the line of fire from anger that really should be directed at larger systemic issues and longstanding traditions?

My personal community really came through for me during that time.  Friends offered every possible form of support - during a busy time of semester- and made me feel so loved and appreciated.  Fellow Pentecostals at the Divinity school rallied around me in prayer and even fasting.  My spiritual director and church homegroup listened to and with me as I tried to figure out what I could have done better.  My parents supported me over the phone from thousands of miles away.  Professors offered extensions, and my supervisor (the Dean of Students) told me several times, "I've got your back."

All of that got me through, but what I really longed for was to feel or hear something directly from God.  But he chose to speak to me through human friends, and for me to receive unconditional love from fellow mortals.

Right before I came home for winter break, I wrote a 10-page play in which I unleashed, creatively and somewhat abstractly, my thoughts about the whole incident.  It was a dystopian drama in which death and destruction occur.  It was as if I needed to give birth to a symbolic representation of the problematic binary (a chasm created by Black and White, in which I as a minority was simultaneously tangled and excluded--and most certainly stranded) before I left New Haven.  I took my leave of Yale on December 20th, happy to go home, and caught a cold on the plane ride over.

While I was recovering, I got an image one day of a phoenix rising from the ashes.  I took it to be a sign of hope for the coming year, and I recorded that image in a colored pencil drawing.  I have always been able to recover from tough times, and I had every confidence that it would happen again this time.

Last night, I attended a New Year's Eve prayer meeting with the prayer team of my home church (that I attended in LA during the time before Divinity School).  It was a boost of spiritual strength that I needed.  And today, I finally felt God speak to me.

I was reminded of a phrase from Scripture that says, "I have set my face like flint," which someone had shared with me during my sophomore year of college.  I looked up the verse in its context and ended up reading the entire chapter:

Isaiah 50

This is what the Lord says:

“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce
    with which I sent her away?
Or to which of my creditors
    did I sell you?
Because of your sins you were sold;
    because of your transgressions your mother was sent away.
2 When I came, why was there no one?
    When I called, why was there no one to answer?
Was my arm too short to deliver you?
    Do I lack the strength to rescue you?
By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea,
    I turn rivers into a desert;
their fish rot for lack of water
    and die of thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with darkness
    and make sackcloth its covering.”
4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue,
    to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
    wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
    I have not been rebellious,
    I have not turned away.
6 I offered my back to those who beat me,
    my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
    from mocking and spitting.
7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
    I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
    and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
    Who then will bring charges against me?
    Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
    Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
    Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
    the moths will eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord
    and obeys the word of his servant?
Let the one who walks in the dark,
    who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
    and rely on their God.
11 But now, all you who light fires
    and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires
    and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand:
    You will lie down in torment.


I couldn't have asked for a more reassuring message with which to kick of 2016.  I'm ready to go again, and I'm going to be even tougher and unstoppable than before.  My conscience is clear, and I walk forward with even thicker skin than before.