God With Us--Week 2 KENYA edition

The sun is rising in Nairobi, Kenya, and I am sitting on the bed in the guest bedroom of the house where my friend Reba lives.

I can't believe I'm in Africa, 10 years after first wanting to come.  My senior year of college, I dreamt of visiting refugee camps and envied friends who got to do mission or medical work on the continent.  I had gone to rural China 2 summers in a row, but I wanted to experience more.

Instead, I stayed in the U.S. to complete a music therapy certification and learn how to be a helping professional in my own country, and rather than escaping certain American social realities that seemed overwhelming at age 21 (notions and perceived impositions of class, gender, sexuality, status, etc.) by going abroad, I have gained a lot by figuring out how to navigate my own version of meaningful American adulthood in the last decade.

I did visit the U.K., as well as Taiwan and Singapore, in 2013 and 2014, but in terms of "getting outside of Western civilization" -- well, this trip is the first time since a wonderfully freeing summer in China, fifteen years ago, that I've ventured out.  My heart is open, and my mind is free.

On the plane ride over, I had a meditation on sin.  Social sin, of which our flawed human systems reek.  Cultural sin, which self-perpetuate without intentional interventions.  Relational sin, which creates conflict between friends and definitely between lovers.  And personal sin, which is the death of me save for Jesus' work.

I've kept up with the Lent readings so far, but I may not write about them here for a while.  Week 2 has been filled with long conversations with 2 INTJ (-ish) friends--one has been said to be an I N T/F J, and the other tests as an I N/S T J--and I love both enough to feel towards them what one might for lovers--so between all the chatting and traveling, the writing will have to take a back seat.  But God is with us--in Kenya, and with God's people around the globe--just as God was in biblical days.  We live in a God-soaked world, and I can't wait to sponge it up!

God With Us--Week 2

The theme for the 40 Days of Faith is "God With Us."

Today, we read about God being with Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:1-20.

Can I just say that I have loved the Old Testament ever since I was a child?

I'm a sucker for stories, and I think narrative speaks more profoundly than doctrine.

I've always marveled at the agency that Hannah has in this story, even in a social structure where, as the notes point out, "the men in Hannah's life tell her to be behave and to be happy."  Oh, how often I have heard sisters in the faith say, "I just need to have more faith" or "I just need to be more content."  Very rarely are Christian women told that they can ask God for anything and aspire to a full life that transcends boundaries both physical and circumstantial.  And while it is true that suffering is a given in our life, we also have a God to whom we can pour out our hearts--full of longings, disappointments, even frustrations--in a manner so raw that, like Eli, others may even think we are drunk.  (I sense a theme here: at Pentecost, the disciples were also thought to be drunk.  How many of us Christians are willing to pray so fervently as to make others feel uncomfortable?)

The reflection for the passage is as follows:
God speaks through the deepest desires of our hearts, where we long for growth, change, connection, and a fuller life.  We've invited you during the 40 Days to name one of these desires and pray for it every day.  Today as you do so, ask God to speak to you about what aspects of your desire God shares with you and wants to fulfill.  Like Hannah, are there ways you can find peace and worship God even when you're not yet sure how God will respond to your prayers?

Hannah is not afraid to bargain with God.

Jacob is not afraid to wrestle with God.

I've done my share of wrestling with God.  Perhaps I'll try bargaining, not just for myself, but for the people in my life.

40 Days of Faith--Day 7

Ruth 1:1-18

I wrestled with this passage about six months ago.  Here it is again.  The Lent devotional interprets the narrative thus:

"Ruth begins with a series of epic tragedies.  Insecure economic conditions force a family of four to migrate to a foreign land, where both sons grow up to marry foreign women.  Afterwards, the father dies, then both sons also die, leaving three widows alone, with no children.  In the culture and economy of the Ancient Near East, childless widows were by definition destitute.  The elder widow, Naomi, hears the economy back home has rebounded and plans to return, hoping to find help and mercy from her hometown relatives.

Naomi reacts to tragedy with bitterness.  She takes it as a sign that God has abandoned her.  Orpah takes Naomi's advice to start life over, abandoning both Naomi and Naomi's god for a happier future elsewhere.  Ruth, though, has hope in her circumstances despite all odds.

Despite Naomi's current bitterness, Ruth has seen something in Naomi and in Naomi's God that draws out of her both love and loyalty.  Ruth makes what the Ancient Near East would recognize as a covenant.  It's a solemn promise, at the level of seriousness and sacredness that we see in marriage vows.  Something in Naomi's or her late husband's lives or in the stories they told about God has given Ruth optimism and hope that life will go well for her if she stays loyal to this God."

The reflection to go along with this passage says:
Faith can be nourished by experiencing God in another person.  Think of someone you deeply love, respect, or otherwise admire.  What do they seem to know about God that you would like to experience?  Ask God to experience this yourself.  What about God does this person reflect to you?  Express directly to God that you love that God is the source of this goodness.

Destitute and despised.  That is a fear I have.  I don't want to end up destitute and despised.

I care a lot about stratifications of power dynamics and am always hyper-aware of what notions of class and status run through the fabric of society and its smaller microcosms.  Thus, what is "good" at Yale Divinity School is different from what is "good" at The Newman School.  What my friends at Bible Study Fellowship in San Gabriel value is different from what my Elm City Vineyard friends strive for.    Thus, I can never win in the comparison game.

What I do tend to do is to drive myself crazy over these endless mental aerobics.  I'm sure to crash and burn if I keep this up.

Pastor Steve at Reservoir and I spoke on the phone this week, and we also exchanged a facebook message.  I have always admired the ease with which he seems to navigate his spirituality.  There is a lightness with which he moves, yet he is a strong and prophetic voice in a forward-thinking and Jesus-centered movement that seeks to engage fully with today's society while remaining faithful to the essentials of faith.

I want to be like that, and the fact that this kind of leadership exists give me hope--and an example of faith.  Whoever knew that I would be able to look up to a straight white male after all my theological education at Yale?

40 Days of Faith--Day 6

Exodus 32:1-14

"Years later, Moses has indeed led the Israelite underclass out of Egypt, and into the desert between there and Canaan.  But wouldn't you know it, change is hard?  Exodus and the following books describe the ups and downs of a group of people trying to form a social identity and stay on a mission even when distracted and delayed.  This passage is one of many moments in that drama.

Why in the world would people want Aaron to 'make gods' for them?  One, Moses has been gone for a while, up on a mountaintop praying to God on behalf of the people.  The absence of leadership has made people anxious.  Also, there's an impulse to center their lives on something they can see and control, rather than a personal God they can't control and can't directly see.  The scriptures call this idolatry--looking for security and protection and identity in things that we can control but don't in the end bring us much security or protection.  They argue that this habit of people and cultures is a leading factor in human disappointment and misery."

I am guilty of idolatry.

When life disappoints me (usually in periods of waiting or lack of visible leadership), I turn to "lesser things" out of my need for control.

Letting go of that control is very hard, but I can't continue in this journey of faith if I don't.  This morning, I wrote in my journal: "Lord, I don't have the faith to walk forward in this journey with You, but I've also come way too far to turn back!"

40 Days of Faith--Day 5

Exodus 3:1-12

I'd recommend visiting the link that I shared in Day 1--the notes for this Lent devotional are really good!

They are too long for me to copy and paste, but I'll quote this particular bullet point today:

"Moses' encounter also leaves him with a sense of calling, direction, and purpose.  On the one hand, like Abram, Moses has a calling to do something very much in keeping with his life circumstances and history.  He is a Hebrew child who intimately knows Egyptian culture and leadership--who better to negotiate the Israelite exodus out of Egypt and back to Canaan?  On the other hand, Moses finds the task overwhelming.  He is assured, though, that God will be with him in the task."

Moses and the burning bush--another one of my favorite encounters between God and human.  A friend and I talked about Moses' call to leadership the other day.  His mother "played the system" in order to save his life (he was put out onto the river for the Egyptian princess to find), and he was raised in a place of privilege, but eventually had to come to terms with his real (Israelite) identity. 

I can relate, and so can my brother, I imagine.

Our mother avoided putting us through the public school system in order to raise us with a bilingual and Christian household and curriculum.  We were exposed to people and philosophies that many of our Asian American counterparts were not.  Our parents really stepped out of the box when it came to the churches we attended growing up, so we know how to relate to many kinds of people.

It's rather lonely, though, to be so connected to one's heritage (I am much more fluent in Mandarin than most American-borns, and I can talk to my parents about pretty much everything--from theology to sex to current events--whereas many of my peers have surface-level interactions with adults) AND so able to code-switch between various settings and social circles.  Inhabiting liminality necessitates a kind of "mavericking" that entails independence over interdependence, it feels.  Versatility is empowering, but it is also lonely.

During one of the very first chapel services I ever attended at Yale Divinity School, in which a drum and fife were used in a processional, I heard God whisper into my ear, "You march to the beat of your own drum." 

That encounter with Divine calling set the tone for my time at Yale, and I never felt pressured to conform to larger systems.  Instead, I operated subversively within the system, at times, and sought to transcend it.

The child of a professor, I have never felt intimidated by academia, even though I know I'm not the smartest one there.  I feel most at home in the University setting, and every day that I have worked at a job in the "real world," I have longed to go back.

Later on in Moses' story, he has to rather awkwardly and painfully sort out who he really is.  (He kills an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave; later, when he tries to break up a fight between 2 Hebrew slaves, he gets flack for it--"Are you going to kill us like you killed the Egyptian?")  Moses has an ethnic identity, but he also has a cultural one.  He was born into the Israelite community, but he  was never a slave like "the rest of them" and probably adopted much of Egyptian palace culture.  (Sometimes my brother and I have been called "whitewashed" by Asian American peers.  I wonder if Moses faced similar accusations.)  Ultimately, it is his spiritual identity that allows him to integrate all of who he is to become a leader, but such things take time.

I have always longed to find a partner who could relate to being a "third culture kid."  (This term is usually used for missionary kids who've grown up abroad, but I'm co-opting it to apply to anyone who's been forced to constantly code-switch all their life.)  My brother has said the same thing before.

Sadly, such people are hard to find, and instead, I've had to learn how to share my views and experiences with others (who want to be close to me) in order to help them get on the same page (emotionally, spiritually, mentally, logistically).

Ultimately, my identity is found in God, who has promised to be with me in the journey. 

And who is this God? 

The God who said, "I AM who I AM."

Now isn't that the biggest identity-conundrum of them all?

40 Days of Faith--Day 4

Genesis 32:22-32

Reread this passage slowly, trying to imagine yourself as Jacob.  How does it feel when you are attacked?  What does this wrestling look and sound and smell like as it continues through the night?  What do you think when you wonder if this is God?  How does it feel that God insists you accept your own weakness?  What is it like to be blessed, to be told you are known and that you can struggle with God and live to tell the tale?

After the reflection, ask if there's any question or yearning you have to ask God over these 40 days.  Consider making that your prayer about what you want God to do for you.  What would it feel like to "wrestle" with God over this prayer?

I blogged about this passage earlier this year.  I am a chronic wrestler of God, and let me tell you--God keeps comin' at me.

What I need to focus on this season is to accept my own weakness and perhaps struggle a little less.  I'm still going to pester God about what I'd like God to do for me, though...

40 Days of Faith--Day 3

Genesis 22:1-19

Name something you used to think about God that you no longer think is healthy or accurate. Ask God to continue to give you a true and accurate belief about and experience of God.

Pray that your church will help you and many others develop a true picture of God.  As you and others seek to hear God's voice during this season, pray that you'll listen well and discern wisely, sorting out false pictures of god from the true and good God revealed in the person of Jesus.

We read this passage in theology class last year, too.  Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, to be exact. 

I love the interpretation given by our devotional: that Abraham thought God wanted him to kill Isaac, based on the culture he was in, in which gods required child sacrifice.  God has to intervene before he does something destructive and teaches him a healthier view of God. 

This has been so true of my life.  Raised in a conservative Christian home, I grew up with so many rules that were constructed about what it meant to live a godly life.  Many of those false ideas were shattered in my 20s, when I learned more and more to walk in freedom.  Christ wanted my entire heart, not my (own ideas of) perfect obedience.

There is still more to come, I'm sure.  It will take all of eternity to fully know God!

Jesus' incarnation is the reason we can know God.  Sadly, so many Evangelicals see Jesus only as the reason we are saved, but He wants so much to be a part of our every day processes.  He wants to know how we are feeling; He wants us to tell him our dreams;  He desires to redeem us even now--the Cross was not an over-and-done-with deal.  Will you open up more of your heart to Him today?

40 Days of Faith--Day 2

Genesis 16:1-16

Hagar's story tells us God sees and hears us fully, sees all the hard things in our lives, is glad to be with us in them, and can do something about them.  Start with your current setting--the room you are in, the clothes you're wearing, etc.--and say to yourself, "God sees this brown chair.  God sees my blue sweater, etc."  Then name to God one challenge in your life.  Naming the various aspects of this challenge, say to yourself that God sees and hears each one of them.  Tell yourself God is glad to be with you in this.  Then ask God how it is that God understands how big this is to you, and how God can help you.

Name a large problem your city or country is facing.  Practice the above exercise with that issue as well, telling yourself God sees and hears this and is glad to be with you and your community and nation in this ask.  Ask God how God understands how big this is to the people involved and ask God to help them.

Two years ago, I wrote a theology paper about the story of Hagar.  It was fun to revisit this passage today.

Can I also say how I love that Pastor Steve Watson, the writer of this devotional, uses "God" to refer to God--rather than the gendered pronoun of "Him"?

Now back to the prompt:

God sees everything that goes on at The Newman School.  God sees that today, I am doing the jobs of three people: Director of International Student Advising (my position); Dean of Administration (a position above mine); and Administrative Assistant (a position below mine).  Thank goodness my practicum student is on spring break, otherwise I would have to supervise her as well.

God sees each kid that is here and the stories behind every person breathing in this building.

God sees the people in my life that are not quite in a fulfilled place in life.  God cares more about their fates than I do, and God assesses their progress differently than the world does.

God sees Boston, in all of its hierarchical splendor.  It is a well-ordered city, which also means that one has to be subversive in order to have agency.  It is Catholic, which means people are respectful but stoic.  It is freezing even in March, which means you've gotta be tough to thrive.

Truth be told, I hate Boston most days, even as I'm making a decent living here.  God sees, and God cares.

In other news, I am feeling less drained than most days from work, even though I'm doing three people's jobs.  This is because I have not been stuck in small talk with my co-workers.  I hate small talk, and sometimes the way my co-workers stand around and talk makes me want to scream, "Let me leave so I can do my job.  I'm damn good at what I do, but I'm not here to make friends while I serve my purpose!"

God sees, and God cares.  And God's probably having a little laugh about how feisty I am =)

40 Days of Faith- Day 1

Blue Ocean Faith Network is doing a devotional for Lent.  Reservoir Church is participating in it.  I am along for the ride.  You can find the materials here: http://www.reservoirchurch.org/sermons-stories/40-days-of-faith/

Day 1: Genesis 11:27-12:9

We don't experience God in a vacuum, but in the context of our familial and cultural inheritance.  Consider one of the following--an unfulfilled dream or your parents or any ancestor of yours, or a current challenge in your life story.  Ask God if God has any promise for you in this context.  Sit quietly for a few moments, and take note of whatever you experience.

My mom was born to be an educator, from being Class Head throughout her schooldays, to getting 2 master's degrees (piano performance and library science, with the vision of doing music education in Taiwan), to teaching at a Chinese school in New Jersey, to homeschooling her 2 kids in California, to teaching piano in every life stage...

My dad is a professor who has to teach classes at the university but prefers to do research.  My mom has dreamed of starting a bilingual school that also offers music lessons.  Both parents have taught Sunday school at church ever since I could remember.

Mom's health and marriage got in the way of most of her dreams.  I'm healthy and unmarried, and I have always seen myself as more of a helping professional than an educator.  Ironically, I am now working in the education sector, using skills I learned from the helping profession.

I don't know God's plans for my mom, but I do know that He has disappointed her several times already.  He has disappointed me, too, and yet we still believe.  May our belief be counted unto us as righteousness.

In other news, I watched Spotlight on Sunday afternoon.  This is a film about my city.  It speaks about religious infrastructures that house and cover up wrongdoings, and it portrays the persistence of those outside religious systems who expose its filth.

I'm beginning to understand why I feel the way I do in Boston.  Much of it has to do with the spiritual atmosphere, which deeply affects sensitives like myself.  I can never turn off the prophetic side of me, which senses things that lie both under the surface and above the clouds, in the heavenly realms.  Part of Lent entails asking God to work in our city.  I'm looking forward to seeing Boston with new eyes.

Over dinner, I watched an episode of American Housewife, in which the protagonist realizes at the end of the show that she is living in a town she dislikes (the culture is all about rich and skinny, and she's neither) but that her presence serves to be an example of what it means to be different.  I can relate, and I want to be able to be my full self in an environment that threatens to kill the qualities I value most: creativity, individuality, and spirituality.

Lord, you brought Abram on a physical journey that reflected spiritual processes.  May I build alters and pitch tents as I follow you each step of the way!