Ever since I went to Divinity School, I have sent out a Holiday newsletter around Christmas, New Year, or Thanksgiving each year. When my friends started getting married, having kids, and buying homes, I would receive their newsletter updates each year. I decided that single students also could (and should!) do the same--because each person's yearly joys & sorrows are worth remembering.
We are just a little over halfway through this year, but it feels appropriate to take stock of 2020 already, simply because of the year it's been.
In January, I asked 30+ friends to pray for 40 days, starting on my birthday, for my search for a life partner. Each friend signed up on a google spreadsheet, and I let them remain anonymous by simply filling in a color. I was blown away by how colorful the spreadsheet was and felt that the 40 days was a season of healing and connecting with friends I've made over the last 15 years!
By the end of the 40 days, I had gone out on a date with a very eligible bachelor, with many common professional and personal interests--and also enough differences to make things interesting. On February 14th, we had a 4-hour dinner, where we got to know each other and talk about our future aspirations. Exactly 4 months later, on June 14th, we met up again in person, this time for a 7-hour dinner with a great view of the city. Things in Los Angeles had just begun to open up, and this was my first time eating out since sheltering in place, as I had largely stayed at home. He has since then moved to Portland for work, and is really enjoying his new life there! We are still in touch, but due to professional considerations, will not be able to take things beyond friendship for another 2 years.
During the pandemic, I felt like my homeschooled upbringing, introverted temperament, and student lifestyle had already prepared me to stay at home and work remotely and independently. In fact, I felt a surge of productivity, as the pressure to go out and do things was taken away, and all that I could do for the world was pray and donate masks.
From March to June, I continued working 3 part-time jobs and taking full-time classes at Claremont School of Theology. I taught music lessons on Zoom, interacted with seminary students online, and helped the Orange County Interfaith Network produce 3 Virtual Roundtable Discussions (now on Youtube!) and a podcast series. I had an average of 3-4 Zoom calls a day, and each week, I also caught up with various friends and friend-groups. At one point, I was spending 25-30 hours on Zoom each week, between personal and professional calls.
In June, things shifted. George Floyd's murder brought a new wave of social awareness towards centuries' old systemic injustices, and the impact today. I worked with a diverse group of friends from my Yale Divinity School days to host a virtual vigil for George Floyd, run a Zoom clinic for protestors, and publish an article on Black Lives Matter for a theological blog in Germany. Throughout the next few weeks, I had several intentional discussions with diverse friends from all sorts of backgrounds, about how we are all being affected by this national conversation.
In July, I received a new job opportunity with the Center for Healthy Minds (based at the University of Madison-Wisconsin), and am now a consultant for their app (you may hear my voice in some of their upcoming meditations)! I also learned that I would have a unique opportunity to complete my chaplaincy training at Southern California Methodist Hospital, where the spiritual care department created a paid residency just for me. This means that I will be able to not only become a board-certified chaplain while finishing up my Ph.D, but that I will also be able to be trained to become a chaplain supervisor in the next few years.
I have never prayed hard for career opportunities, and yet during a time of pandemic and economic crisis, job opportunities have continued coming my way. I have been praying for marriage ever since I was a little girl, and that blessing has not yet arrived. We don't get to choose which areas of life we are blessed in, but if I could trade some of these jobs opportunities for prospective partners, then I would! All joking aside, I am so blessed to have an education and vocational trajectory that allows me to give to the world with my full self. I would love to share that life with a committed partner on top of that.
The only other piece of news is that the Huang family has been going through a pretty rough season, but we believe therapy will help us continue to work through difficult dynamics and patterns. My parents are doing well, and staying active, and I spend quality time with them each week. (As you may guess, my relationship with them is not the issue in our family dynamic.) All of us have managed to stay safe and healthy throughout this challenging year, and for that, I am most grateful.
Friday, July 31, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Confessions of an Introverted Outlier
I don't know if I ever was an Evangelical.
My parents got saved at a Chinese Baptist church, the first in their lineage to convert, in part because as new immigrant parents in a foreign land (where they had come for graduate school), they were seeking Truth-with-a-Capital-T in how to raise a child (me) in ways that both transcended and integrated their Taiwanese and American cultures.
When I was 4, they switched over to a mostly white Congregational church, and 3 years later, a Chinese Pentecostal fellowship, which was very house-church in feel and spiritual heritage. 3 years after that, we moved on to a multi-ethnic Charismatic church, where the leadership consisted of 7 married couples of all races, and where the wives preached as often and as powerfully as their husbands. I saw miracles, healing, and all sorts of Holy Spirit things--it was called the "Toronto Blessing." But I always preferred to worship in stillness, even with all the activity around me.
Throughout these church experiences, there was a thread of Conservative and Fundamentalist homeschooling culture that ran strongly in my nuclear family. I was homeschooled for 8 years of my life, which is highly unusual for someone who looks like me, living in a very Asian-American-populated school district. So, wherever I've gone, and even around others who look like me, I've always felt like an outlier.
As an introvert, I learned to observed people, and as a woman of color, I learned to code switch in order to make whomever I was with comfortable--adopting turns of phrases and mannerisms that suited whatever context it was.
Fast forward to my teen years: we attended an Asian American Evangelical church, and in college, I was actively involved in a fellowship with Southern Baptist roots. Things fell apart when I was 25 and about to get engaged with a wonderful human with a strong church community. I began to have mystical experiences, and to feel both highly uncomfortable and also very at home in our fellowship (which was, like in another part of my life, a house-church-and lay-led group).
This was not a new feeling, and has been the case all along. In fact, the first time I "left" church and God was at age 17. Then again at 21. Then again at 26 after leaving that church community and relationship. Then again in my early 30s, after seminary and another almost-engagement with another wonderful human with a strong church commitment.
During seminary, I was part of a Vineyard church (where I met this wonderful human being) and felt called to be a "bridge" between black students and white students on campus. Every day, I went to chapel services that were much more ecumenical and liturgical than my Sunday church. I often visited other churches on weekends as well.
During this time, I felt called to confront evil with radical love and first became "woke" during that time. I often shared that I was willing to follow Jesus wherever he led me. Some days, now that I'm looking back, it feels like Jesus led me right to the gates of hell and back.
Honestly, if it were not for black pastors and theologians whom I looked up to, I would have felt even more disillusioned with an American Christianity that has been so complicit in racism and misogyny. I also felt very triggered by language that referred to God in exclusively male language.
Currently, Journey On is the most "Christian thing" I am involved in. Many days, it's actually easier not to identify as a Christian, and to sense the vibes of the Universe rather than pray to Jesus. This may sound a bit funny, but I'm being quite serious about it.
While in certain seasons, I really saw myself as the Bride of Christ, as part of the wider Church, and resonated with and had mystical experiences around the phrase, Your Husband is Your Maker, seminary (both my master's and now my doctorate) has radicalized my views to the point where God is not male, God is not all-powerful, and Jesus can be interpreted as an idol in certain contexts (according to something called Process Theology). So as you can imagine, that has messed with most of my prior and powerful and personal ways of being spiritual.
Prior to pandemic, the only type of church service I could stomach was Unitarian Universalist. I was a part of contemplative groups at my seminary where Jesus was not necessarily a part of the experience, explicitly at least. In one of those groups, we witnessed a healing miracle with a woman who just for so many years could not have any breakthrough in a Christian setting. This opened my eyes to the fact that spirituality was so much wider than faith.
During pandemic, and during these current times of awakening and reckoning in terms of systemic and racial injustices. my interfaith work has been my vehicle for expressing my convictions--I have found participating in and planning interfaith prayer vigils to be powerful and meaningful. I get chills when I hear prayers from other faiths and I feel my full self in that context.
I would say that Jesus was my way in to the contemplative. During childhood homeschooling days, my dad taught us how to meditate using the Book of John. The Psalms helped me process feelings in the presence of God. And as a Pentecostal, I learned stillness and the Spirit through prayer meetings.
I feel closest to God when I serve as a Chaplain. There, I do not get triggered, and I can pray with and for patients in whatever their love language is, even if it is much more Christian or Evangelical than mine. I also sense Divine presence strongly with patients who do not claim any sort of spirituality beyond their own humanity.
So why am I here, in Journey On? The initial impetus was my friendship with Grace and Dave, and my introverted preference for Zoom. As someone who in other spaces interacts primarily with people of color, this is also where I have meaningful friendships with a majority "white" community. Certain cultural aspects and lingo still feel familiar, from my Vineyard days, so in a way it's somewhat of a comfort zone for me. And it's probably the most "Christian" thing I do...and the most explicitly Jesus-centered part of my life.
Those of you who have prayed with me may know that I still do it, I still believe in it, and I still invest in it within a community. But when it's just me at home, I do the contemplative, and Jesus is not necessarily (explicitly) at my side. The God of the Universe is so much more present to me than the Jesus of Christianity. She seems much less fraught and more compatible with other ways of being, outside religious frameworks, even the progressive ones. I can't seem to access Jesus without being around Christians. So perhaps that is why I am here. This, for me, is the last frontier before leaving not just Christianity, but Jesus himself.
(Written in preparation for sharing my story at a steering team for an online contemplative group that meets every Wednesday--and plans every other Tuesday. I will be reading this on 8/11/20)
My parents got saved at a Chinese Baptist church, the first in their lineage to convert, in part because as new immigrant parents in a foreign land (where they had come for graduate school), they were seeking Truth-with-a-Capital-T in how to raise a child (me) in ways that both transcended and integrated their Taiwanese and American cultures.
When I was 4, they switched over to a mostly white Congregational church, and 3 years later, a Chinese Pentecostal fellowship, which was very house-church in feel and spiritual heritage. 3 years after that, we moved on to a multi-ethnic Charismatic church, where the leadership consisted of 7 married couples of all races, and where the wives preached as often and as powerfully as their husbands. I saw miracles, healing, and all sorts of Holy Spirit things--it was called the "Toronto Blessing." But I always preferred to worship in stillness, even with all the activity around me.
Throughout these church experiences, there was a thread of Conservative and Fundamentalist homeschooling culture that ran strongly in my nuclear family. I was homeschooled for 8 years of my life, which is highly unusual for someone who looks like me, living in a very Asian-American-populated school district. So, wherever I've gone, and even around others who look like me, I've always felt like an outlier.
As an introvert, I learned to observed people, and as a woman of color, I learned to code switch in order to make whomever I was with comfortable--adopting turns of phrases and mannerisms that suited whatever context it was.
Fast forward to my teen years: we attended an Asian American Evangelical church, and in college, I was actively involved in a fellowship with Southern Baptist roots. Things fell apart when I was 25 and about to get engaged with a wonderful human with a strong church community. I began to have mystical experiences, and to feel both highly uncomfortable and also very at home in our fellowship (which was, like in another part of my life, a house-church-and lay-led group).
This was not a new feeling, and has been the case all along. In fact, the first time I "left" church and God was at age 17. Then again at 21. Then again at 26 after leaving that church community and relationship. Then again in my early 30s, after seminary and another almost-engagement with another wonderful human with a strong church commitment.
During seminary, I was part of a Vineyard church (where I met this wonderful human being) and felt called to be a "bridge" between black students and white students on campus. Every day, I went to chapel services that were much more ecumenical and liturgical than my Sunday church. I often visited other churches on weekends as well.
During this time, I felt called to confront evil with radical love and first became "woke" during that time. I often shared that I was willing to follow Jesus wherever he led me. Some days, now that I'm looking back, it feels like Jesus led me right to the gates of hell and back.
Honestly, if it were not for black pastors and theologians whom I looked up to, I would have felt even more disillusioned with an American Christianity that has been so complicit in racism and misogyny. I also felt very triggered by language that referred to God in exclusively male language.
Currently, Journey On is the most "Christian thing" I am involved in. Many days, it's actually easier not to identify as a Christian, and to sense the vibes of the Universe rather than pray to Jesus. This may sound a bit funny, but I'm being quite serious about it.
While in certain seasons, I really saw myself as the Bride of Christ, as part of the wider Church, and resonated with and had mystical experiences around the phrase, Your Husband is Your Maker, seminary (both my master's and now my doctorate) has radicalized my views to the point where God is not male, God is not all-powerful, and Jesus can be interpreted as an idol in certain contexts (according to something called Process Theology). So as you can imagine, that has messed with most of my prior and powerful and personal ways of being spiritual.
Prior to pandemic, the only type of church service I could stomach was Unitarian Universalist. I was a part of contemplative groups at my seminary where Jesus was not necessarily a part of the experience, explicitly at least. In one of those groups, we witnessed a healing miracle with a woman who just for so many years could not have any breakthrough in a Christian setting. This opened my eyes to the fact that spirituality was so much wider than faith.
During pandemic, and during these current times of awakening and reckoning in terms of systemic and racial injustices. my interfaith work has been my vehicle for expressing my convictions--I have found participating in and planning interfaith prayer vigils to be powerful and meaningful. I get chills when I hear prayers from other faiths and I feel my full self in that context.
I would say that Jesus was my way in to the contemplative. During childhood homeschooling days, my dad taught us how to meditate using the Book of John. The Psalms helped me process feelings in the presence of God. And as a Pentecostal, I learned stillness and the Spirit through prayer meetings.
I feel closest to God when I serve as a Chaplain. There, I do not get triggered, and I can pray with and for patients in whatever their love language is, even if it is much more Christian or Evangelical than mine. I also sense Divine presence strongly with patients who do not claim any sort of spirituality beyond their own humanity.
So why am I here, in Journey On? The initial impetus was my friendship with Grace and Dave, and my introverted preference for Zoom. As someone who in other spaces interacts primarily with people of color, this is also where I have meaningful friendships with a majority "white" community. Certain cultural aspects and lingo still feel familiar, from my Vineyard days, so in a way it's somewhat of a comfort zone for me. And it's probably the most "Christian" thing I do...and the most explicitly Jesus-centered part of my life.
Those of you who have prayed with me may know that I still do it, I still believe in it, and I still invest in it within a community. But when it's just me at home, I do the contemplative, and Jesus is not necessarily (explicitly) at my side. The God of the Universe is so much more present to me than the Jesus of Christianity. She seems much less fraught and more compatible with other ways of being, outside religious frameworks, even the progressive ones. I can't seem to access Jesus without being around Christians. So perhaps that is why I am here. This, for me, is the last frontier before leaving not just Christianity, but Jesus himself.
(Written in preparation for sharing my story at a steering team for an online contemplative group that meets every Wednesday--and plans every other Tuesday. I will be reading this on 8/11/20)
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