ahumblemusing

[ahumblemusing]

Pendulum Swing in the Asian American Landscape (Part 1): Lunar New Year, Meaning for a Removed Generation, and Forward Progress

Feasts upon feasts of delicacies, firecrackers, gilded lion and dragon costumes, red on red covering the walls, doors, and windows, superstitious practices, a deep cleansing of private space, and of course lucky money in red envelopes we call “Hong Bao.” The list of signs and symbols that sentimentalized Lunar New Year for me as a kid, growing up in my Chinese household, was endless. 

For my parents, and the many immigrants who share in their story of resilience, Chinese New Year was a time of reminiscing the past and envisioning the future. It was a time of remembering our ancestors. It was a time of celebrating the rich roots of the Chinese culture, the triumphs of our people throughout the course of history, and a time of deep spiritual and philosophical inklings. It was a time when a collectively-inclined culture saw collectivism at its best. A time of fairs, festivals, and food all over the enterprised Chinese microcosms (Chinatowns) all across the major cities of America - from San Francisco to New York to Los Angeles to Seattle to Chicago, and more. Even more so, it was a time of immediate and extended families. Memorized phrases of blessings would be exchanged to one another. We didn’t dream up of our own futures, but we allowed others to wish a future filled with health, prosperity, and success upon us. The New Year felt like a time of mutual commission. Different from New Year’s resolutions, we were not sending each other forward to achieve in and by our own strength; we were wishing upon one another a blessing to be received if fate should allow. It was a time infused with meaning.

For a generation removed, the signs and symbols are all still there. The only difference is that we have superseded the meanings appropriated to the colors, the firecrackers, the tangerines, the gatherings, the costumes, the blessings, and the “Hong Baos.” For the generation removed from their ethnic culture, the superstition is no longer still there; the spirituality has become redirected, redefined, or simply suspended to cessation; the history has been supplanted. For the second generation of Chinese Americans (or American Chinese) all of these signs and symbols are imprinted by the resilience of our parents’ immigration story. The cuisine, the language, the values and customs, even their superstitions now remind us of the cultural DNA of those who raised us in a foreign land. Story grounds Lunar New Year, and not only for the Chinese; but for Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

February 8th, 2016 marks a significant year for Chinese Americans, and many other Asian American tribes. New York City, the city with the largest population of Chinese when counted in summation of each of the five boroughs (486,463 as taken by the 2012 Census Bureau), has officially given the school system a day off, therefore acknowledging Lunar New Year as a significant holiday, to be observed by students of every race, tongue, and culture. From the days of the Gold Rush, to the Chinese Exclusion Act, to Japanese Internment, even to this present time, the Asians of America in each of their microcosms all across city centers have fought, tooth and nail, to be recognized on a level playing field in a white majority culture. We’ve succeeded in achieving education (1 in every 2 Chinese American holds a Bachelor’s degree in America), we’ve succeeded economically (the average income of a Chinese individual in America earns $72,000, much higher than the income of the average American), and our race has been given the sobriquet of being the “Model Minority.” We make up 5.8% of the total American population (according to 2011 Pew Research) and are the fastest growing racial group in America. 

For the story of Asian Americans, passed along in signs and symbols, to be observed, exchanged, and celebrated across the masses is a statement. Even if it is just in one city out of thousands. Our society, called post-modern, that values stories so remarkably, and is grounded in a multiplicity of narratives and meta-narratives, exalts our story. Once recognized but not societally observed, we are on the map. We are making strides. We are stepping into leveled ground.

Yet there still is one caveat. Are we called “Model Minority” because we’ve been able to make strides in our own skin, celebrating our culture; or have we clothed ourselves with a more exalted skin of a majority culture? Have we refused to grieve at the warning signs that our rich ethnic culture might be going extinct in America? Have we chosen the tragedy of renouncing our shame-based culture in exchange for a mass-produced and institutionally affirmed white culture? 

On one end, we are certainly American. We have been exposed to general principles of relativism and pluralism in an increasingly diverse context with people anchored in a complex web of authoritative figures, ideologies, and scripts. We have been fed thought patterns of consumptive individualism and healthy individuality. We have internalized ideas of racism, more in some locales and lesser in others. We were raised in comfort, even for those in the least comfortable circumstances (the Portland homeless community has a choice between regular soup kitchens and vegan soup kitchens - I mean, seriously?). We have been raised indoctrinated to be materialistic in both mainstream music and media. We were raised in democracy. 

All that to say - we are different from our parents.

Yet, there is an urgent need to preserve our ethnic stories to preserve our culture. There is a need to preserve the signs and symbols, in the language, cuisine, and customs of the past generation. Their story is our story, our story are our children’s stories. The generations do not become truncated at any point. Our identities are rooted in what we’ve been given; whether we like it or not. Our physiological and biological makeup has been passed. We are Chinese, or whatever other kind of Asian you might be. To preserve our stories is to preserve the body of Christ, in the rich vision of the eschatological community given to us in Revelation. It is to prevent us from self-inflicting the body by disabling an arm or a foot. God, himself, has made a place for each nation and tongue in the consummated congregation, and he calls us beloved. 

We are now in this historical juncture, pioneering the culture of a novel community with a hybrid identity. We are in a juncture in which the time is ripe for cultural preservation, but it isn’t just going to fall onto our laps. We have to cease it.

In the midst of such a time as this, we have also been met with a setback. More to come on this in Part 2.

[ahumblemusing]

Photos: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had visited Chicago many times prior to 1965 to build support for the civil rights movement, but in January 1966 he captured national attention when he moved into an apartment on Chicago’s West Side to protest ghetto conditions. 

Later in the summer, King participated in marches into all-white neighborhoods that drew angry crowds. The Chicago Freedom Movement marches were part of a campaign to desegregate housing, end slums and address other social problems. 

After King’s assassination, Chicago erupted in rioting and looting.

[ahumblemusing]

Speaking Out on the Current Controversies at Wheaton College

In recent weeks, many have asked why more Wheaton College faculty have not spoken publicly about the recent controversy surrounding the college’s actions against our colleague, Dr. Larycia Hawkins. To some outside of higher education, the relative quiet of our faculty has seemed to suggest either fear or agreement. There are indeed some who fear reprisal – not only those who don’t defend Dr. Hawkins for fear of administrative and board action, but those who don’t defend the institution for fear of alienating many colleagues. There certainly are some who disagree with Dr. Hawkins. There may be some who agree with the administration’s decision to place her on administrative leave and ultimately to initiate termination proceedings. (It is important to note that disagreeing with Dr. Hawkins does not imply agreeing with the administration’s actions.) But I don’t believe these reasons account for the low volume of the faculty response.

Speaking for myself: I have not spoken publicly about the affair until the past two days. I have fielded a barrage of questions from friends, acquaintances, and professional associates (family mercifully spared me from this conversation during holiday visits). I have written letters of concern to the college administration and to our faculty representatives. But I have kept most of my commentary “in-house” and none of it has been public.

My reasons for keeping this conversation in-house until now are neither fear nor agreement. Though John Fea has written that it’s possible “no one at Wheaton College is safe,” I don’t fear whims or witch-hunts. There may be many reasons for that. Some may say that I’m constitutionally defective in my sense of fear. Some will say that because I’m a white male, I have nothing to worry about. And perhaps I rightly trust our administration and board, even when I think the college has done something wrong. In any case, no – it’s not fear.

Neither do I agree with the recent decisions of the administration. I have no doubts about the care with which our administration has approached this decision. I understand the weighty fiduciary responsibilities that characterize the work of our senior administrators and board – indeed, of all in such positions in higher education – and I am grateful for the seriousness with which they take those responsibilities. I have experienced first-hand their responsiveness to some of the broader issues associated with this matter, as well as their concern for other faculty who at first found themselves in circumstances similar to those of Dr. Hawkins. But I disagree.

Until now, I have kept my statements private because faculty have access to mechanisms of objection, protest, and change that are not available to external constituents or students, and are only of limited availability to staff. I have been inclined to focus on those levers of change, especially as those mechanisms will be the most important ones as long-term conversations about governance, process, and institutional identity continue well after personnel matters are resolved. Moreover, I have been waiting for more information, and for more of it to be public, before commenting. These kinds of posts work better when everyone has access to some of the same information. Until now, access to information has been highly differential. Many, perhaps most, commentators, no matter the side they’ve taken, have been sorely uninformed. (While some pieces on this issue have been good, most have ranged from uninformed to vicious, with occasional undeserved and truly vile comments aimed at Dr. Hawkins or the college administration.) At this point, Dr. Hawkins has supplied to the public a copy of her response to the administration’s theological concerns.  (Someone has also leaked a copy of the Wheaton College memo to Dr. Hawkins, notifying her of the concerns she was asked to address.) So when people ask me what I think about her response, I can now respond without divulging any private information. Indeed, you’ll find no information in this post that isn’t already public and widely discussed somewhere else. You’ll just find my take on that information. Just as importantly, if people want a common starting point, Dr. Hawkins’ publicly available statement can serve better than most other sources. And given that the supposed inadequacy of that response is the ostensible rationale for her not being reinstated from administrative leave, the public release of the response is a pivotal moment.

Having read in its entirety the theological response offered by Dr. Hawkins (not to mention some of the other materials associated with the case), I find myself unable to give an account of its shortcomings vis-à-vis the Wheaton College Statement of Faith. Dr. Hawkins’ response indicates a number of innocuously controversial positions of the sort that any faculty member might espouse without running afoul of the Statement of Faith. By “innocuously controversial,” I refer to the fact that our work together is already marked by a benign – perhaps even beautiful – diversity of and disagreement about theological positions within the bounds of the Statement of Faith. It seems to me Dr. Hawkins’ positions fit this description quite nicely.

Dr. Hawkins holds a specific view of the Eucharist that may not be shared by all members of our community, but is certainly shared by many whose conformity with the Statement of Faith rightly remains unquestioned. Moreover, she has not neglected the “vertical” or sacramental dimensions of the Eucharist in her response (and it was not clear that she culpably neglected that in her Facebook posts or media interviews, either).

Dr. Hawkins has also given a more than adequate account of her description of Muslims as brothers and sisters, avoiding any soteriological implications and grounding that firmly in our common humanity and her African American heritage. While I do not share Dr. Hawkins’ African American heritage, I affirm it and find this appropriation of it completely innocent of the charges brought against her. I find common uses of “brothers and sisters” – whether grounded in our common humanity, common experiences, or common locations – to refer to others who do not share identical religious heritage unproblematic and do not believe there are theological grounds to deny the validity of those uses. Moreover, I am not convinced that there are no biblical grounds to which one might appeal on this point. New Testament scholars debate the referents of multiple passages that use that language, and while the reference to Eve as the “mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20) may refer to the her descendant’s participation in and fulfillment of the covenant, that is not an incontrovertible position. Indeed, the idea that Eve is so called by virtue of being the first female ancestor of all humans appears to be a widely held interpretation. If one holds to that interpretation, then the application of sibling language to other human beings, regardless of religious tradition, is warranted. For a number of reasons, then, I personally would and do affirm the use of “brothers and sisters” language to refer to people outside of the church, without soteriological implications, and I do not see how any portion of the Statement of Faith can be interpreted to exclude that position.

The objections to Dr. Hawkins’ statements about Muslims and Christians worshipping the same god have taken center stage in this debate. Having read Dr. Hawkins clarifications on this point, I likewise find myself unable to identify their inadequacies. To be clear, I would not make the same argument that Dr. Hawkins makes, but I do believe that her position is within the bounds of evangelical orthodoxy. Indeed, while my answer to the question might be described as “a complicated ‘no’” – much closer to and more sympathetic with a “complicated ‘yes’” or a “yes and no” than it is to a simple “no” – I am not persuaded by suggestions that this is a simple question. I seriously doubt that appeals to the Trinity, to Christology, or to the self-sacrificial love of the Christian God, as important as these are, can do all of the work necessary to answer it in a sophisticated way (though it’s worth noting that Muslims find the first two irreconcilable with Islam). Many of the conversations that attempt to answer this question are exercises in futility because the terms, including such basic matters as what it means to be the same or different, are inadequately defined. As philosopher Lydia McGrew writes, “it’s going to come down to how important one thinks the various similarities and differences are” (that’s in the comments section of this post). (For other posts with which I am somewhat sympathetic, if not entirely in agreement, see McGrew’s brief note here and the three links under “Those who think the question is too complicated to offer a quick and easy answer” here. Notably, even Edward Feser, who gives what can be described as a “complicated yes” answer in a post disagreeing with McGrew, seems nevertheless to reinforce the claim that we are too vague about what we mean by “important” or “crucial” differences.) Given that most interlocutors in this debate have not indicated what sameness and difference mean or how important various similarities and differences are, and when they do they are often arguing with someone who doesn’t agree with them on those basic terms, then in most of these conversations, the answer is indeterminate. More importantly, though, there is no common understanding of what sameness and difference mean, or how important one thinks various similarities and differences are within Wheaton College. Therefore, a range of answers to this question – including complicated “yes and no” answers – would seem compatible with the Statement of Faith, and I believe that Dr. Hawkins’ position on the matter is no affront to the identity of the college or to its governing documents.

A number of other issues – including governance, process, and institutional identity – have also arisen in the course of this affair. I will leave most of those aside. While there are more or less widely shared norms and expectations for governance and process, there are no publicly accessible documents that can serve as the starting point for conversation in the way that Dr. Hawkins’ publically availably theological response can. Moreover, issues of governance, process, and institutional identity will no doubt be discussed long after personnel issues are settled, and they are necessarily entangled with a number of other aspects of institutional life. Those will be long-term discussions, and faculty have access to prescribed mechanisms for addressing those issues.

But I will briefly address two of those issues:

The standard to which Dr. Hawkins is being held is that of “theological clarity” in embodying the identity of the college and Statement of Faith. It is immensely important to recognize this. Faculty may hold various controversial positions within the bounds of the Statement of Faith. The more complex those positions, the more they demand a sort of clear articulation – otherwise, they invite misunderstanding. The standard of theological clarity is not, in and of itself, problematic. But the operationalization of that standard is fraught. (Adam Laats’ commentary on this is good, if slightly overstated.) Is the same level of nuance, subtlety, complexity, and elaboration required of everyone? Or, given the insistence that theological clarity is particularly important when we participate in various movements and initiatives, is the same level of nuance, subtlety, complexity, and elaboration required regardless of the political, social, and cultural affinities of those movements? Has the college itself transparently offered faculty and other constituents the same level of nuance, subtlety, complexity, and elaboration that now seems required of us?

Several news articles have referred to earlier encounters Dr. Hawkins has had with the administration. That these encounters happened is publicly accessible information. The precise nature of those encounters is not. But one encounter is described as a confrontation over the appropriation of black liberation theology and/or Marxist theory in a paper written by Dr. Hawkins. I was not there, but I have been asked directly about Marxist theory and black liberation theology on several occasions since that news broke. All I can say on that point is that neither liberation theology nor Marxist thought is monolithic, neither is in and of itself an affront to the Wheaton College Statement of Faith or prima facie evidence of a transgression of the statement. In fact, I have drawn on Marxist thought in multiple papers and cited leading black liberation theologian James Cone in a Wheaton College chapel talk last year. I have not been challenged on transgressing the Statement of Faith. That is a good thing, and it is my typical experience of the Statement of Faith. Read that again: That sort of freedom is simply my normal experience of the Statement of Faith, a Statement that Dr. Hawkins has warmly and repeatedly affirmed. In other words, I would be at a loss to explain how appropriation of either black liberation theology or Marxist thought would set one at odds with the Statement of Faith.

So with regard to the current situation, to the extent that the inadequacy of Dr. Hawkins response is the rationale for not reinstating her from her administrative leave, I am convinced the decision not to reinstate her was entirely misfit to the circumstances. To the extent that the initiation of termination proceedings emerged from that impasse, then I disagree with that step, as well. As far as I am concerned – and barring the release of information to which we currently do not have access – Dr. Hawkins should be in the classroom when the semester starts on Monday. When my class begins on Tuesday, I will be wearing my regalia in an act of embodied solidarity with her and with any colleagues troubled by the current sense of instability and ambiguity.

I will close with this: Someone asked me yesterday how the events of the past month affect my own relationship with Wheaton College. “I’m an alumnus,” I said, “and I’ve taught here for ten years. I have more than enough reason to love the college even when it lets me down. And loving it sometimes means helping to get things back on track when they go off the rails.” I hope for a resolution that reinstates Dr. Hawkins and initiates a transparent conversation about identity, governance, and process.

[ahumblemusing]

On New Year’s Resolutions

It is that time of the year. The time when people set wishful goals for the upcoming year that is kept only for the upcoming 2 months. The time when people want to make changes to their physical bodies. The time when people try to cure their one-dimensional view of themselves by taking on unconventional hobbies. The time when people look for fresh starts maybe in one way or another to undo or erase what was done in the past. To compensate. The time when people set abstract idealistic goals that are not practical; practical goals that have no kernel of idea behind it. 

Or for others, the time of the year when everyone is setting New Year’s resolutions and so to abide by the counter-cultural vein running through their bodies, they go against the grain, spitting out their discourse and exaggerating their diatribes on the vanity of New Year’s resolutions.

It is the time of fireworks in the sky, shindigs with friends, and drunk drivers on the road. What a time, eh?

I wanted to write a short post on New Year’s resolutions (I am, in fact, pro-NYR) so that this year won’t be like last year. We all have trouble, for those who do, writing New Year’s resolutions. We never seem to possess the motivation to follow through. We ignore what we committed to because deep down, we had anticipated our failure sometime around when our resolutions came to a halt. So in a way, secretly, we have a sense of pride that we made it through the two-month period. And at the closing of the year, we then reflect about whether or not these resolutions actually transformed us for the better. We conclude with a resounding ‘NO’, and we go forth our unsuccessful formula of creating resolutions once again. Round and round we go on this delightful merry-go-round, but eventually the excitement just gets a bit prosaic. It’s redundant. So how can we make resolutions?

1) Decide to commit to a year.

First, lets formulate the identity of our resolutions. These resolutions need not go down the drain as 1-2 months stints. A change in our lives that take place for 1-2 months is no internal change at all. If I had on my resume a job experience that took place for 1-2 months, it would barely be glanced over. I can work out for 1-2 months and would have noticeably changed not one bit. I can vow to be patient for 1-2 months, but that most likely would not carry over to a life of patience. That would be our legalism speaking to us. I’ll do it to satisfy my need to change, but not enough to actually become changed within. I will do just to do, but not actually to become. If you decide to commit only for a short period of time, you might as well not.

2) Choose a resolution that is worth committing to.

Often times, people will choose to go to the gym or choose to take out certain foods from their diets. Other times, people will choose to add to their lives hobbies they would have never, in their right mind, decide to take up. And I’m not saying that these are poor choices. What I am saying is that you should know how that is transforming your personhood beyond just your exterior. If you’re choosing a resolution because you want to be perceived differently to other people, what you’re also choosing to adopt is a greater sense of superficiality or a thicker mask. Choose something that changes you within. Are you working out to be healthier? Commit to being healthy. It’s a more substance-based goal to follow through with. Other disciplines such as your diet will naturally follow. Are you trying a new hobby so that you could be more open to new things? Commit to openness and do not just stick to what is familiar to you. It’s a more substance-based goal. Get at the focal point. Look at transformation within and not just a change of skin.

3) Set practical goals.

This goes hand-in-hand with the prior point. You can set practical goals to change your exterior, but it might not be substantial enough to follow through with; but you can also set abstract goals for inward transformation without being practical enough. When you want to change in character, you have also to ask yourself how that can happen. Say you’re a very peeved person and want to be more patient or more open to preferences not your own; how can you become more opened? Every time you are peeved, you can choose to ask yourself whether you’re peeved because someone did something wrong or if they just said or did something you did not prefer. If it is the latter, you can go forth and reflect about why you had a single preference so that next time, you wouldn’t react so petulantly. Practical goals has always to accompany the ideas, but ideas should always precede practice.

4) Make your resolution few and specific, not many and vague. 

If one is a resentful fellow, chances are, they do not resent anything and everything done to them. They cling on and count as unforgivable specific acts that have caused him/her particular trauma. If one is gaining weight unwanted, chances are that not every weight-gaining food is affecting the person but only certain foods. We can fool ourselves into feeling productive by increasing the number of resolutions, but quantity does not usually suggest quality - though it does occasionally. We are being most productive in ensuring quality to our resolutions if we can pinpoint that we are specifically resentful of people who do not recognize and affirm our giftings or if people were using discriminatory rhetoric in their speech. We can be the most resolute when we realize that an overloading of sweets and not carbs are the cause to our weight so that we don’t waste our efforts cutting out carbs while we continue to consume our triple-decker strawberry cheesecakes.  That is my two-cents. Happy New Years y’all.

[ahumblemusing]

Here is a thing we are most likely to forget. A man's writing is himself. A kind man writes kindly. A mean man writes meanly. A sick man writes sickly. And a wise man writes wisely. There is no reason to suppose that this rule does not apply to critics as well as to other writers. One might go farther into the effects of personal life on criticism. It is reasonable to suppose that the reviewer privately unloved will take a dim view of love; that the childless critic will be intolerant of children; that the failure will hate success; a bachelor be cynical of marriage; the tired and old find youth and enthusiasm intolerable; and the conservative be outraged by experiment.

John Steinbeck on Critics - from a Writer’s Viewpoint

[ahumblemusing]

Then a man who had been in college with me got me a job as a workaway on a ship to San Francisco. And he didn't have to urge me, either. The city had beaten the pants off me. Whatever it required to get ahead, I didn't have. I didn't leave the city in disgust - I left it with the respect plain unadulterated fear gives. And I went back to my little town, worked in the woods, wrote novels and stories and plays, and it was eleven years before I came back. ... Now there may be people who move easily into New York without travail, but most I have talked to about it have had some kind of trial by torture before acceptance. And the acceptance is a double thing. It seems to me that the city finally accepts you just as you finally accept the city. Born New Yorkers will not know anything about this and I don't know whether they are lucky or unlucky. A young man in a small town, a frog in a small puddle, if he kicks his feet is able to make waves, get mud in his neighbor's eyes - make some impression. He is known. His family is known. People watch him with some interest, whether kindly or maliciously. He comes to New York and no matter what he does, no one is impressed. He challenges the city to fight and it licks him without being aware of him. This is a dreadful blow to a small-town ego. He hates the organism that ignores him. He hates the people who look through him.  And then one day he falls into place, accepts the city and does not fight it anymore. It is too huge to notice him and suddenly the fact that is doesn't notice him becomes the most delightful thing in the world. His self-consciousness evaporates. If he is dressed superbly well - there are half a million people dressed equally well. If he is in rags - there are a million ragged people. If he is tall, it is a city of tall people. If he is short the streets are full of dwarfs; if ugly, ten perfect horrors pass him in one block; if beautiful, the competition is overwhelming. If he is talented, talent is a dime a dozen. If he tries to make an impression by wearing a toga - there's a man down the street in a leopard skin. Whatever he does or says or wears or thinks he is not unique. Once accepted this gives him perfect freedom to be himself, but unaccepted it horrifies him.  I don't think New York City is like other cities. It does not have character like Los Angeles or New Orleans. It is all characters - in fact, it is everything. It can destroy a man, bit if his eyes are open it cannot bore him.  New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theater, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy. I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than any place.

America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (An Autobiographical Journal), John Steinbeck on his becoming a New Yorker

[ahumblemusing]

Excerpt from Sermon - December 19, 2014

As we approach Christmas, in this season of Advent, I’m still mulling through some of my thoughts. I hope to write a post on Advent soon. While reflecting, I have revisited some of the sermon manuscripts I’ve written in the past two and a half years. My heart was filled with both hope and meaning when reading this Christmas message I wrote almost exactly a year ago, tailored to youth in middle school and high school. Here is an excerpt:

“The Lord had led me to read through all the minor prophets during this December as we approach this time when Christ descended onto the earth as a baby in the manger. I believe that for us to depict the time approaching Christmas as anything less than darkness would be a huge flaw we’d be committing. Just like the time from Good Friday until Easter, the times before Christmas were dark times. The only difference is that this darkness did not last through a weekend. It lasted through centuries. It lasted through 4-5 kingdoms reigning and falling. Our patience indeed is tested during the month of December before we’re able to open the gifts under our tree, but it is no test in comparison to the patience required for the Israelites before the birth of Christ. Through reading these minor prophets, the image that it gives us of the state of the nation of Israel is this: people did not worship the Lord their God, but instead turned to their own gods. Through the minor prophets, the Lord confronts Israel about many things, but I will not talk about those things. Instead, I will speak on the result of these consequences. I think Habakkuk’s prayer reflects the emotional turmoil of this nation. God, you had promised us this and you had promised us that – and yes, I understand that there needs to be punishment because you had spoke of those as well, but what about mercy? God, you brought us through this entire process with trials, with hope, with promises, with fulfillment, and with further tribulations; and now having gone through this, you are taking away seemingly all that you’ve promised? I’m scared, I’m confused, why are you doing this and how long? Look at this prayer!  

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines,

The produce of the olive fail

And the fields yield no food,

The flock be cut off from the fold

And there be no herd in the stalls,

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

He makes my feet like the deer’s;

He makes me tread on my high places. 

All that the Lord had promised to be signs of his promises fulfilled were being taken away from them! Those promises guided their entire ancestry from generation to generation to generation! That was all that they lived for. All that they live for is being slowly stripped away from them. They no longer have reason to live besides one teeny-tiny miniscule reason. At the end of each prophetic book, the Lord tacks in at the very tail-end that he will not be angry forever, but will eventually deliver them forever. He will bring to them a kingdom with no end. Imagine that. I think the best way to think about it for you all is this. Through all of your Christian life, it seems like you live for that one emotional moment of faith – youth camp. That is when you feel like your circumstances with the Lord is the best. You are the most satisfied. Those doses of emotional high are sufficient to last you until the next year when you realize that the Christian life is worth it because of this single most glorious moment of an emotional rush. For the Israelites, they lived centuries without any youth camp. Centuries without that emotional high. Centuries when circumstances were not in their favor. Centuries without sensing the presence of God. Centuries when all they had to hold onto was that little portion of scripture tacked on at the end of each prophetic book that says that the Lord would eventually deliver them. Eventually, but when? They only had the promises to go by. Emotions were not driving them. What they knew the Lord said about his deliverance drove them. The history of the Lord’s faithfulness drove them. And so Habakkuk’s prayer ends with trust in the Lord.  

Those were the centuries of darkness and sorrow of the Israelites. So this is a message about contrast. Light is not bright unless darkness is dark. Joy is not magnificent unless sorrow is deep. Even now, if you were to think with me of your deepest sorrows – those moments you were the most heartbroken – they are the moments you are most tempted to give up or accept failure. By the time we get to our next story, in Luke 2:25-35, many had already stopped looking for the Deliverer. Just a short study on the history of Israel and their culture through those years of colonization would have told you that people had given up hope. More than 550 yrs. had passed since the beginning of their dark ages. They were able to go back to their land, but they were never able to claim it for themselves because of Roman rule. But Simeon here, a man of old age, held on. He really is a very random character making a very odd appearance to show a very slight silverlining. It says here that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, which means that he couldn’t die until he saw the easy of the sorrows of his people. The Spirit devoted his life to complete faithfulness in the midst of a wailing people. The question was echoed through the entire land. How long oh Lord? Simeon knew that though he lived in such a spiritual desert, the floodgates would open before his death. He knew that he would see the end of their sorrow. And when he did, 550 years of drought had ended. 550 years of ongoing sorrow. 550 years of never-ending grief. 550 years with no emotional rushes. 550 years when all they had was the word of the prophets speaking deliverance. Joy had finally come.”

[ahumblemusing]

Humanizing Sixteen Shots

The outrage broke out. The video that was promised to be released shortly after the reelection of Mayor Rahm Immanuel had finally come out. It was Tuesday afternoon. In the following days, protests were organized to march the streets to stomp and shout across the crowded shopping mile of Chicago. They stampeded into some of the most famed stores. Their voices would be heard. And depending on what you chose to hear, it was an emotional sequence of days. When the storm had seemed to take its pause, the religious leaders stepped onto the platform for their voices to be heard.

 It was a gloomy day that ushered in a misty, chilled night. A rally of people had coalesced to gather in front of the Chicago Police Headquarters in the Southside of the city. The word had gotten out, passing through all of cyberspace to reach any church leader following this unfortunate case of LaQuan McDonald. Sixteen bullets had directly penetrated the body of this 17 year-old stealing radios from pedestrian vehicles by a police officer who claimed to be doing his job. Sixteen shots at point-blank distance. The teenager was side-peddling away from the squad of police officers who had cornered him. He had nothing more than a pocket knife in his hands. Side-peddling away. All of a sudden, a click, a pull, a bang; and repeat. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Sixteen shots. Sixteen shots.

 The cars consolidated in the parking lot of Progressive Baptist Church on 37th and Wentworth. The colossal stadium, home of the White Sox baseball team, was towering over a lot that, on Monday nights, would normally be empty. Tonight, headlights had glared from the left to the right, illuminating the dark spaces of the night; illuminating the boundaries painted in which each vehicle fit perfectly into; illuminating the order. In the frigid cold, with the intermittent rainfall starting and stopping, the spiritual forces of the church were seen marching over, step-by-step, almost in rhythmic form. The stragglers profusely searching for their parking spots that they might not be left behind. That they too might march with their comrades, whether that be to praise or to shout, to pray or to weep. A trotting over the bridge, feet clapping, raindrops flapping as they hit the surface of a multitude of umbrellas, arms linked, dialogue exchanged, as people pressed forward. Finally, the police station was reached; the crowd began to accumulate. The stage had been set, the people were prepared. It felt like the experience of Elijah before the hundreds of Baal prophets. We didn't need to come to fight or to bruise, to beat or to scar; there were no weapons. There was only belief. There was only faith. A desperate people who knew that only Almighty God could be the solution to humanity's deliverance from such surreptitious sins as racism and discrimination.

A small podium was set up for each person who would step up to lead segments of prayer. To anyone standing a few rows behind the center, this podium was unseen. The person in the middle would almost be made out as one floating in the air by some sort of heavenly force, and ascending as the prayers began to echo. Each segment was two to five minutes long. Sign posts carried by a line of people were very visibly shone next to the podium.

 TO KNOW JESUS IS TO KNOW JUSTICE.

WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE? DO JUSTICE, LOVE MERCY, WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD. (Micah 6:8)

LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN LIKE WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE AN EVER-FLOWING STREAM. (Amos 5:24)

 It was not only the young radicals or the African Americans who wanted to represent their own race. Everyone was there. There were youth as young as high school still carrying backpacks, there were college students of Caucasian descent, of Asian descent, of Hispanic descent, there were young couples of all ethnic backgrounds, young parents carrying their babies to nurture them in the emblematic roars of justice, there were middle-aged folks leading the charge who weren't so young that they lacked charisma and weren't so old that it was all squeezed out of them. And lastly, there were seniors of every racial descent in our midst, making their presence felt, some with raspy, squawky voices and others raising their signposts high in silence. And as the first preacher ascended into the eye of this very spiritual hurricane, he made it loud and clear. We are here because of unity.

 Section after section, we prayed. Anything from prayer for the McDonald family, to prayer for our police officers who so sacrificially serve us in our city, to prayer for justice to thoroughly sweep through the offices of the police department and our institutions. Each pastor and leader brought their own personality and their own kind of charisma onto the podium of intercession. Some prayed with earnestness, others prayed in resounding power, others prayed out of their very palpable anguish and lament, and yet others still out of a deep repentance. The strands that fabricate the state-wide church community, a community marked by its segregation, had come together to link hands; to stand side-by-side. It was a force to be reckoned with; a force not deprived of beauty; a force not deprived of substance and meaningful content.

 And yet, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. There were those in our body who were suffering. Spouting out from the corners of the rally was a shout demanding for justice, demanding for more fanatic prayers, demanding because what we articulated in our intercessions was just not enough justice for 50+ black individuals killed in 2015. Attentions were turned whilst the prayer leader continued his or her prayer. The atmosphere was filled with confusion as we listened to this racketeering man. And as he was heard, we heard the tears in his heart, and sympathy washed over us like bath water. How could he be blamed? Within the caverns of his soul were pains that were incomprehensible. We were hearing more than just the words he shouted. We heard the meaning behind it. More than hope existed in this space, more than desperation, and more than unity. Grief existed in this space, and it had to be acknowledged.

 This man had his few minutes to cry out during the rally. It eventually came to a halt. But it was not over. Following the rally, we saw a small group with him standing tall in the corner of the crowd carrying a poster with the 50+ faces of those who had been murdered this year. This man had the spirit of lament of Jesus in Gethsemane and the charisma of a 1960s civil rights leader. Can you all not see?! These are the faces! They are taking away our kids! They are breaking our families! Why can't you see?! Arms flailing, voice unrelenting, feet stomping, fists clenched, teeth grinding. This man could not bear the reality. This man could not bear the patience required before justice comes. When will justice come? Will it come? His body began to descend as I watched about 250 pounds of a man fall to his knees onto the wet concrete ground. Prostrate. His inquisitions seemed to redirect from the people as his audience, 

to himself, 

and then to God. 

It was never a question we could answer. He knew that. It was never directed to us. He knew that. His fists pounded onto the ground. Again. And again. And again. These are the faces. Where are you God?

 Simultaneously, as the prayer rally was over, on another side of the crowd, protests broke out before the police officers in the forefront of the Chicago Police Headquarters. Shouts of anger. Shouts of resistance. Shouts that could not be suffocated any longer. Sixteen shots and a cover-up. Sixteen shots and a cover-up. Sixteen shots and a cover-up. People screaming into the faces of police officers. Police officers cringing in angst because they knew not what to do and when it would stop. In that space, everyone, even the police officers, probably knew that something was wrong with the picture of a 17-year old African American kid shot point-blank sixteen times.

 And lastly, all the while, we began to hear the singing of hymns. The sound of hope. The songs of praise. The recognition of a God in our midst who have promised us that there would be prosperity in our cities. A hope and a future. Who call us to be one with one another just as he and the Father are one. Who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, steadfast in love. Who would hear the cries of his people who humbles themselves to pray. Who will heal their land. Who has spoken and will do it. The melodies of the people rose like incense. With the harmonies of anger, of lament. That was actually a harmony of dependence.

 Spotlights of fluorescent lighting brought the entire scene to sight. The shadows of the people marked the concrete ground and the brick walls. The shadows scaled alongside the walls of the police station, scaled along the streets. The closer you get to the light, the greater the shadow becomes, I heard a preacher say once.

 We began to make our way back to our cars, rain still drizzling, night still as dark as ever. But maybe, just maybe, a little less than when we first arrived.

[ahumblemusing]

Wrestling with the Interim while Unemployed

I have realized that it’s been a while since I posted something substantial, something reflective. Truth is, writing can take quite a toll on me, but it’s always worthwhile. So here is an attempt to continue this discipline of writing, believing that it is a lifelong task the Lord continues to beckon me towards practicing.

I have finished a youth pastor tenure that had lasted over 2 years -- more to come in regards to some of the positive takeaways on church ministry, cross-cultural ministry, Filipino culture, etc. I am currently in a transitional season that feels quite turbulent. This transitional season is happening in my hometown, in the city of Chicago. I am currently unemployed, am making a career switch to a field I have no resume base for, and my 1.5 hour long-distance gap with my girlfriend just became 13 hours and 830 miles. The hope is that in a matter of months, none of these things will be my reality any longer. But I’m not sure what the process will look like, I’m not sure how long it will take, and I’m not sure what internal struggles may arise as I attempt to cling on to what I believe to be the direction given to me by God himself. I am in an interim stage. The stage of the in-betweens. What us Christians may call the already-but-not-yet. These micro-interims can lead us to understanding the macro-interim that we live in before Christ comes. Christ ushered in an interim once he died, was raised, and ascended to the heavens, leaving us with the Holy Spirit. He does not consummate the interim until the day he returns. Resurrection has been fulfilled, the work of the cross is finished, hopes have been laid out like a blueprint for his people, but we still experience the perennial ensnarement of the effects of sin. We are left wondering, “why?” and “how long, oh Lord?” We hold on to very substantial hopes with very real, manifested assurances, yet with what seems to be an impending concretization. Glory has been revealed. When will glory be established? It can feel like a stage of paralysis and directionlessness. It can become quite confusing. And as I have walked through about 1-2 weeks of this interim, here are some things I think we who walk through this valley need to keep in mind.

1) A secured, unfulfilled reality, suggests an indelible hope.

Application after application, resume after resume, cover letter after cover letter. No responses. You would think that working in the youth ministry would have prepared me for the process of unemployment. The work-to-results ratio is incomparable. The work has been done, the virtual documents have been sent out. It is floating somewhere out there in distant spaces. How they are being managed, whether or not they are being assessed, and how it is being considered is inconceivable to me. If there was no narrative of hope, and the world was ordered in such a way that I achieve in accordance to the work of my own bare hands; with no resume base, with a degree completely other from the work I’m trying to apply to, in a competitive field, the odds are against me. 

If we were in this world, with no blueprint of hope, no narrative suggesting that this toilsome life of darkness is to lead to a sweet consummation, this stage would be difficult. We would continue on in our regimented schedules in accordance to how the world is ordered until our numbered days finally come to an end. And all that production, for what? In order to flourish the coming generations only so that they could live in anxious toil until they meet death face-to-face and fall into the same oblivion that we ourselves could not avoid? Are we living for life or for death? Can any temporary beauty be beautiful if no longevity exists? If death was to win in the end? For us to equate living with enjoyment and comfort while it lasts is for us to perpetuate the farce death has created for us. Continue to live temporarily pretending like the fullness of life does not have to include longevity. At the end of the day, if death was to come, death will still be victorious. But the content of this stage is quite different. It is not empty of meaning, but quite full. It is not directionless, but we are headed somewhere.

The very reason why I made my exit out of my youth pastoral role was because I believed that God spoke. God gave me direction. And God gave me assurance of direction in proceeding confirmations. Repeatedly, the words of Psalm 23 was given to me by the word of the preacher, from articles read, from my personal readings of the word, and from the songs of the worship leader. “The Lord is my shepherd... he makes me lie down in green pastures... he leads me on paths of righteousness... even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death..” The Good Shepherd of the sheep has spoken. Our destination is guaranteed. Paths of righteousness fulfilled by the blood of the lamb. But to get to the destination, we will meet scorching wilderness with narrowly paved roads that prevent us from diving into deep, rugged chasms of death. There will not be much in the interim that will scream out still waters or green pastures, unless we seek the face of the shepherd, hear his voice, and trust his word. So I continue to search for jobs, continue to send resumes and cover letters. I continue to tap into my small amount of savings, and continue to struggle through dating long-distance. All of which seems like minor struggles in comparison to the many atrocities going on in our world today in our macro-interim. Insecure circumstances in the present, but a secure word of the future. And that is what we have to hold on to -- the word of the Good Shepherd who has written out the narrative of redemption with an indelible hope yet fulfilled. I don’t know how we will get there, but I know where we will be.

2) Living under a post-fulfillment, future reality is dishonest.

I am currently unemployed. If I started spending my money as if I made $50,000 a year, that would be a problem. I cannot apply for a gym membership that costs $50 per month, I can barely pay for my own meals lest pay for a friend’s meal, I cannot be so lavish in purchasing Christmas gifts this year, and I cannot start throwing my money into random recreational gadgets. I also cannot spend so much time investing in the city of New York, and my communities in New York, just because I know that is where I will eventually settle. 

Often times, we as Christians look so far ahead into our post-fulfillment realities that we forget we aren’t there yet. We begin to condemn our Christian brothers and sisters around us for spending too much time speaking about film, the arts, and the culture of our society. We try to ration out our times to talk mainly about Christian stuff rather than secularism. We condemn the overuse of social media, and really anything else that is not the saving of souls, the ministry of worship, the exposition of the word, etc. The work of building bridges and sanctifying culture is done by the Supreme Sanctifier through the agents of reconciliation/sanctification. Yet instead, we live in Christian isolation in our demarcated heavenly communities, interacting with unbelievers only if they’re willing to let us evangelize them. The intentions are great, and I commend them. But if I lived as if my budget was greater than it actually is, I won’t magically have a bigger budget. If I lived investing in people 830 miles away from me, it would not magically become convenient or localized. And if I lived in the interim pretending like the beautiful yet broken world outside of the church is nonexistent, it won’t mean that we’ve passed on from it.

The future is bright for us, but the interim is here so that the work of redemption could be done, inviting multitudes into the great illumination that is to come.

3) Brokenness in any context is real and enduring, so invest in where you’re placed, whether or not it is where you would prefer to be, 

When I drove into the streets of Chicago last week, I began to notice, street by street, the minuscule changes that had been made. Everything had generally stayed the same, but the city was gradually becoming unfamiliar. Roads were being renovated, poorer neighborhoods were being gentrified, and new, glamorous restaurants had replaced old, dingy, local stores. When I stepped onto my front steps, I had noticed that the well-polished Dodge that used to claim the parking spot in front of my house was no longer there. My neighbor Angel and his wife who lived in the basement next door, who I used to make small-talk with while they lounged outside on warm summer days, was no longer there. They had moved. Is this still the Chicago that I knew? The unfamiliarities overwhelmed me with languor. My excitement for Chicago became paralyzed. It is not what I thought it would be.

The Israelite exiles of the Old Testament felt the same way when they were stripped of their promises of descendants, nation, and land. They were taken in to the foreign powers of Babylon. run by a tyrannical polytheistic king, who made them subservient to his own legislation. The prophets had written accounts after accounts of their exilic experiences. But not one raconteur had spoken more appropriately than the prophet Jeremiah:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile, from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do no decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 

It is a call to stay present in the midst of unfulfilled hopes. It is a call to look around you and invest in your context. The Christian hope does not leave us when expected circumstances do not play out. The Christian hope does not leave us if the process we walk through is undesirable. The Christian hope anchors us in turbulence and continues to transform us so that our transformed selves could leave ripples in our societies. The nature of grace that transforms is that it also expands in territory. It fills the spaces yet unfilled and aims to change thoroughly the people and places that comes into contact with it.

We are called to invest in where we are placed. It is not a call only for those who are residing in their contexts for long periods of time, but it is a call to all. If you are there for 10 years or if you’re there for a day. Invest in the welfare of your convenient spaces. Invest in the cities you are present in. Allow the Supreme Sanctifier to breath sanctification out through your hands and feet. 

I believe myself to be in this city only for about 2 months. This city is unfamiliar to me. I am dealing with my own personal struggles. And my selfish desire is to speed up this process to arrive at my unfulfilled hopes. But the Lord has required of me to seek the welfare of this city. To learn about this city. To have conversations about this city. To pour into the people of this city. To join in the mission of the churches in this city. To add to the diverse culture of this city. And I am constantly saying, speak Lord, for your servant is listening.

4) Do not allow the interim to convince you that your life is in disarray; just because you have been made more inevitably aware of your lack of control, does not mean your life needs to renounce order for disorder.

This has been the most difficult part of this micro-interim. There are days and moments in which I have felt that because I’m not at the promised reality, that my life is in disarray. I have sunk into the mentality that just because I have not control, my life is not ordered as it is supposed to be. And for someone as Type A as I am, where the clothes in my closet needs to be color-coded, the books on my shelf needs to be alphabetized by the author’s last name, and the files on my table needs to be categorized and in chronological order, it can become quite the struggle. 

My schedule was regimented. I woke up at 7am in the morning to cook both breakfast and lunch, I went to the office for a set number of hours per day, I went to the gym 4 times a week. I cooked dinner every night. I went grocery shopping every week and a half. I did my laundry every 2 weeks. I kept all of my work and living spaces clean. I never woke up past 9, even on the weekends. I made my bed every morning. These days, I have been tempted to surrender all of these things. Heck, I don’t even remember the last time I shaved.

All that to say, I am tempted to be convinced that life’s order always has to include employment or financial security. I am tempted to be convinced that life’s peace has to be peace like a placid lake rather than peace like a rushing river. I am tempted to be convinced that because I can’t choose a color-coded, alphabetized, and chronologically categorized life, that my life is in disarray. And in the midst of this disarray, I am tempted to let loose all the practices of order that I once kept in my life. 

Are these not the same temptations we have when it comes to our macro-interim? We hope to order the world in a sort of proverbial order. We hope that in world, everyone has a conscience; that everyone runs by a sort of moral framework. We hope that political figures always seek the welfare of the people in its cities. We hope for the thread of peace and societal harmonies and racial reconciliation to be in the order we had always been admonished to implement. But when war breaks out, when we hear of cases of money-laundering, or when we see scandals like Ashley Madison, we also are tempted to let loose our moral standards as well. We see and read of the overwhelming brokenness within our societies and we begin to acquire fatalistic attitudes as well.

Hopes may not be fulfilled - as if my current reality - but order lest not be renounced. We should not let the mirage of disarray fool us to think that our ordered lives need to be deteriorated. We can continue to read the Word, to reflect, to grow. We can continue to practice life maintenance and be invested in people. We can continue to take steps to stay healthy. And we can surely still color-code our closets. Those regimented practices need not be jettisoned because financial stability has taken a bit of a turn. This pause, this interim, is not disarray, but is staging us for further order and greater redemption that is to come. 

Let’s continue to learn, grow, serve, and live into who we are as we wrestle with the interim.

[ahumblemusing]

We have seen that empires maintain their sovereignty not only by establishing a monopoly of markets, political structures and military might but also by monopolizing the imagination of their subjects. Indeed, vanquished peoples are not really subjects of the empire until their imagination has been taken captive. As long as they continue to have memories of life before exile, and as long as they harbor dreams of social reality alternative to the empire, they are a threat to the empire. Their liberated imagination keeps them free even in the face of violent military repression. And until that imagination is broken, domesticated and reshaped in the image of the empire, the people are still free.

Brian J. Walsh & Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire

[ahumblemusing]

...the great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them -- not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone.

C.S. Lewis, John from The Pilgrim's Regress

[ahumblemusing]

If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance.

Pope Francis, Speech in St. Patrick’s Church, September 24, 2015

[ahumblemusing]

The function of imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange; not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders.

G.K. Chesterton, The Defendent

[ahumblemusing]

The gospel is fact. The life, death, and resurrection of Christ, it is settled. So perhaps our call is not to convince people of its reality, but to instill that reality with a sense of something wonderful. A “Hmmm” or “That’s new” are important first steps in a culture in need of vision.

Sharon Hodde Miller, Pope Francis and Our Call to Evangelize the Cynics

[ahumblemusing]

A Holy Displacement: Our Yearning for Home

A few years ago, I was able to take an academic trip to Israel, Turkey, Greece, and Italy -- we covered Israel and Greece fairly thoroughly, while in Turkey, we only visiting Istanbul and Ephesus, and in Italy, we only visited Rome; but that is besides the point. Our professors called this a pilgrimage because we were not simply going on vacation, but we were returning to places on earth that was closest to our spiritual home. Places where heaven met earth. Places where God incarnate walked. Places where the history of promises and fulfillment was experienced. Even though we had never gone to any of these places before, it was an experience of returning to our roots. And though I believed it to be a pilgrimage partially, since it was stimulating for my mind in understanding the sacred lands of my faith, there was a part of me that didn’t believe it to be a pilgrimage. It felt too comfortable to be a pilgrimage.

A friend and I chose to memorize Hebrews 11 together during this pilgrimage and it reminded me back to the story of Abraham. He was called to leave Haran in order to go to the land that the Lord would lead him. What a confusing command. He packed his bags preparing himself for a journey with no return. He could only bring a certain amount of necessities in order that he would not be overburdened during his travels. Who knows how long he would be travelling for until he reached this place that the Lord was leading him to? He walked by faith, not by sight. He slept in tents, wherever he felt it would be appropriate for him to build a tent. That is the life of pilgrimage. It isn’t nice and fancy. It isn’t comfortable. But it is exactly what the life of faith is supposed to be. Some of our most exalted biblical heroes were the most quintessential pilgrims. Abraham, for one; Moses; who exited Egypt to wander in a desert until his death, dying in a location he had likely never been in his life; Jesus, who said that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head; and Paul, who very likely spent more time travelling than at his home base in Antioch -- which wasn’t even his original home. These thoughts dominated my reflections during my time in Greece. In many ways, I was on a pilgrimage; but yet at the same time, I was not. And the story continues.

I traveled for two weeks after this academic trip, trekking through Italy and Spain. These were weeks wherein I experienced some of my deepest insecurities. I did not know the geography, the transportation system, the language, the people. I had no Christian community because I was only travelling with one other friend during this time -- multiple days in which we chose to split up and explore different things. I often times got lost. I had no family. I had to carry all my bags on my back while lost and in dirty clothes. I didn’t feel comfortable spending my parent’s money in extravagant ways so made sure I spent frugally. Everything felt unfamiliar. I wasn’t poor, but I definitely felt homeless. The biggest question on my mind was why? Why am I feeling this way? Why are my insecurities creeping in so much? And as I unraveled my convoluted emotions, I decided on this: I felt insecurities in the unfamiliar because my securities were in what was familiar. So the solution could have been easy. My home in Chicago was the familiar place wherein I felt the most secure. I can just stay in Chicago forever. But even my physical home was fleeting because I knew that my heart yearned not for just a physical home, but for the rest that I can find in this idea of home. For the first time, I was wrestling with a feeling of displacement. Where do I belong? Where will I find rest? Where is home?

I want to answer three questions in this post. 1) Why our longing for home is only made genuine when we leave the homes of our youth, 2) Why our feeling of earthly displacement should be considered holy, and 3) What, then, should be considered home while we are on this earth.

1) Why our longing for “HOME” is only made genuine when we leave the “homes” of our youth.

When I was in my youth, by the grace of God, I was led to a church community. I accepted Christ at a young age even though my parents had not raised me a Christian. I found a life of freedom from sin in this church community in southside Chicago. My life was constantly kept accountable. I learned of love -- that it was patient, kind, it does not envy, that it does not boast. I learned of considering another’s interest as greater than my own; a kind of selflessness. I learned of service -- that if Jesus would wash his disciple’s feet, then why shouldn’t I? I felt that I had been stripped of my old self in so many ways, and that I had walked into such newness. But I had been deceived during this time of my life and I did not discover that deception until I left home. Christ was my constant during this youthful season of my life. I was turning from hatred and learning love; I was turning from anxiety and learning peace; I was turning from self-centeredness and learning selflessness. And while all this time I praised God with my lips, acknowledging him as the reason for the rest I found in my soul, my heart was set on another. A second constant that was in my life simultaneously. A constant that was more tangible to me, that also gave me rest. That constant was my home, Chicago.

When we are not intentional about pursuing what is eternal, our hearts will naturally gravitate towards what is more tangible. It is easier. It is easier to laugh at what is funny, harder to have joy. It is easier to see that a tree is green or a rose red, harder to look for beauty. It is easier to feel happy, harder to feel satisfied. When I had finally left, what I began to realize was that love was not love and patience was not patience. I began to realize that it was all sentimentality. Emotions and affections that I had attached to a world that I had always known. A world that never changed for me. A bubble of which I had never tried to burst. Sentimentality can be life-giving because the emotions that things, places, people, and memory stirs up for us gives us a sense of our humanity. But it has to be recognized for what it is: Emotions attached to a past we could never recreate again; emotions that was gifted to us as a grace for a certain space and time, unique to that space and time. Sentimentality is fleeting in and of itself unless it leads us to joy. Sentimentality, if not recognized to be this, can kill us. I did not learn love because of love, nor selflessness because of selflessness; nor rest because of rest. I was affectionate about love because of Chicago. these things I found myself attached to was conditional to Chicago. And when Chicago was no longer faithfully present, faithfully constant, faithfully anchoring me; I knew I had to cling to Christ.

Sometimes we secure ourselves in things we never even knew we secured ourselves in because we’ve never known a world without that security. Only when we leave the “homes” of our youth, can we finally strip ourselves of every transient thing that we’ve known - whether people, place, or thing - and finally discover whether or not we’ve learned love for love, truth for truth, and peace for peace. Only then would we know whether or not we find rest in the transient homes of our youth, or if we find rest in eternity with Christ.

2) Why our feeling of earthly displacement should be considered holy.

Once we set our hearts on this promised eternal home in the heavenly city, we begin to see ourselves on a journey of endless pilgrimage back home. And it actually sounds kind of despondent, seeing that the average life expectancy of a person in the United States in 2015 is 78.8 yrs old. That is almost 80 years of feeling displaced; 80 years of feeling like you’re in a place that you’re not supposed to be; 80 years of restlessness in a place of transience. And although displacement would normally be considered a negative thing, here is why we can be assured of our feeling of displacement.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says in the latter half, “also he has put eternity into man’s heart…” In Revelations 21, John speaks of his vision of the eternal city, describing eternal rest as a place where “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore”. And the great St. Augustine confesses in his autobiography, “Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you.” C.S. Lewis says also, “If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” We were made for eternity. We were made for eternal rest. And any good experience of rest on this earth is merely a taste of what it will be when we are established in his glory. We were not made for transience. But yet all of that in this world is exactly that. Transient. The earth itself is physical. Everything in it is a thing that is nothing more than evanescent. The tension that we, in our humanity, feel of being made for something that is everlasting, but being a place where nothing tangible can possibly be described as everlasting, is real. Our feeling of not being in the place where we belong is real.

On top of that, as we look around, it doesn’t take the most perceptive person to be able to conclude that there is endless brokenness in this earth. We are in need of love, but hatred dominates our experiences, and observations of another’s experiences, with hatred. We seek justice, but injustice, inequality, and corruption dominates our world. We desire to walk in selfless humility, but everywhere we look, people are living lives of self-preservation, individualism, and personal/family-centered consumerism. Our world seems to be in shambles, contrary to what we hope for in our vision of shalom and wholeness. Knowing that this brokenness is contrary to the rest in the eternal city, we are compelled to feel displacement. And this displacement is pure, though it feels discomforting. Because we were never made for a broken world of disease, death, and darkness; but of healing, life, and a divine illumination.

3) What, then, should be considered home while we are on this earth.

I’ve asked myself this question for quite some time now. If my home is in heaven, the dwelling place of God, in which he has prepared me a room, then how can I have any sense of home while journeying through this 80-year displacement. If I should not find my rest in anything tangible but simultaneously transient in this world -- if I should not find my home in a certain city or town, with a certain group of people, or even in the objects of sentimentality like the room in which I’ve grown up in or the spaces of my 4-year university -- how can I have a sense of home while journeying through this 80-year displacement? Where can I rest? How can I have rest? My word to you is, it is possible.

I return to the things that I’ve learned from my youth, in which I’ve initially taken merely as affections conditional to my sentimentality. When we free ourselves from places, people, and things, we learn to set our eyes on love as love and peace as peace. We are able to find a sense of rest and home in the spaces of where love dwells. We find our sense of home in spaces where peace, justice, humility, goodness, kindness, and truth dwell. We are able to make our home by setting up in our spaces, not objects that create ambiance or furnishings placed perfectly in creative interior design - though these things are nice too - but in making room for love and peace. When we are able to invite people into our homes so that they could cast their burdens on us in their grieving a lost loved one, or when a space is created when people can feel free to be who they are in all of their brokenness and goodness. When a space is created for open discussions of politics and culture and economics in such a way that is inclusive, other’s oriented, and redemptive. When a space can be created for sinners to come and confess and receive grace in their times of need. We are both able to find a sense of home in every space on this earth that can be infiltrated by love and joy and peace, and we can create a home that is unconditional even of our own blood-related families, as long as we things like love, joy, peace, faith, and hope in those spaces.

God gives us the grace of offering glimpses of eternity by these peppered pieces of perfection, here and there. And he shows us that in whatever space we can find these things, there we can find home. It frees us from the worship of things transient in our natural posture of sentimentality, and moves us towards pursuing the real thing. That is home.

[ahumblemusing]

For most of human history, the erotic images have reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images' power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked woman are just bad porn.

Naomi Wolf, The Porn Myth on the modern-day affects of pornography on men 

[ahumblemusing]

salamat po

From the moment I stepped off the plane to when I stepped outside breathing the thick air in the Manila atmosphere, I've not stopped hearing this phrase. I was picked up by my friend RJ and his tito Jun - that is uncle in tagalog - and we were headed to his humble abode in Paranaque City, within the vicinity of the Manila Aquino Airport. I heard it spoken that night into the following morning when we were picked up by his ninang Menchie - godmother - who gave us a short sightseeing tour around the city. We stayed overnight with her household and onwards to Daet, Camarines Norte the following morning. Through the many pit stops we made along the road, driving uphill and downhill through the tiniest towns with the most beaten shanties, from Jollibee to Jollibee, I heard it spoken. Cruising through meandering roads for hours, cradling through lush valleys, we arrived to Daet. And there, we continued to hear it spoken. And here, I was enlightened to how definitions aren't the only thing translated between words and phrases but cultural meaning; connotations. Salamat po.

 I'm really only going to highlight two things out of fear that my post would become prolonged, irrelevant babble, to which my posts are susceptible from time to time. I learned a thing about language itself, and another about the particular language of tagalog. First, I learned that what becomes lost in translation from language to language humbles us to mystery. And second, I learned that this language -- tagalog -- in this specific phrase of salamat po, has shown me both meaningful, sincere gratitude and ontological connection within a collectivist culture.

 1. What is lost in translation in language humbles us to mystery. I was exchanging my currency from U.S. dollars to Filipino pesos. And after waiting around for a few minutes as they were shuffling the bills, counting and recounting, to make sure it was accurate. They slid a sheet a paper across the table to show me their calculations so that I could be ensured I wasn't being duped. I took a casual glance, slipped the paper back over and nodded my head. I honestly didn't care whether not I was duped as long as it appeared to me as the general amount I was supposed to get. 1 U.S. dollar converts to about 44.8 Filipino pesos. As they handed me the bills, in my attempt to speak the language of the people, I said salamat po. Immediately, I hear conversations with the phrase salamat po thrown in left and right between the persons handling the money. Giggles also were sounding in response to what was said in a language I did not understand. As I was walking away, I wasn't sure what I said that humored them. I was a bit embarrassed. Did I say something wrong? Did I say it with the wrong intonations? Did I express it inappropriately with a lack of gesticulation? Growing up in an immigrant family, as a 2nd generation American-born Chinese, I realize that language is significant. To learn a language is more than just learning words, definitions, semantics, and form. It's more than just learning a system of patterns for reading, writing, and speaking. It is learning a culture. It is learning values and priorities. You learn that good morning in the chinese is translated as early wake because the Chinese are a disciplined people; and good-bye is translated into see you again because people are closely connected. You learn that the Chinese speak in proverbs that are both metaphorical and story-centered in order to teach a life lesson or moral. It is because the Chinese are a virtuous people who are always learning, intending to live life orderly and rightly. They do not use gentle intonations or physical expression to care for people, but instead they use their service. Likewise with filipinos, the language also seems to come with a culture. I was never able to figure out what exactly they were laughing at, or what exactly I had done that got lost in translation, but it led me to this point here. I want to learn. I'm not sure that I will ever understand that moment, just like how I don't know that I'll ever understand other lost-in-translation moments that may come during the rest of my time in the Philippines, but I'm okay with that. Because being lost in translation shows me that there will never be an end to my learning of this one single culture. There will always be another thing. I can love this culture because I see it as beautiful without having to have mastered it. I can appreciate it and the people within while living in the mystery that there are parts I just have not and maybe even will not comprehend while in this life. But because of its beauty that I admire and its bigness that humbles me, I continue to pursue the mystery. If my goal is complete comprehension, I will shrink in confrontation of its vastness; or maybe I'd fall into pretense. But if my goal becomes learning and acquiring truth, then the vastness will only lead me to a more invested pursuit. What is beautiful isn't only what can be known, but the quality of its never being able to be fully known. So it is with Jesus. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word spoke words to us, proclaiming himself as fully God (and fully man). He was fully revealed in the flesh, but is not fully known to us. 1 Corinthians 13 says that now I know in part; then I shall know fully. And it is that which is lost in translation of the revelation of the Word to us -- his mystery -- that moves us in our pursuit of beauty more, not less. It humbles us to a place in which we know that there is always more to know; that curiosity cannot end. And for us, because there is always more to know, there also is always room to grow. 2. In this particular language, salamat po or thank you (with measured respect) has shown me a meaningful, sincere gratitude and an ontological connection within a collectivist culture.

Salamat po is the equivalent to thank you in the English. But it seems that there is much more. There is a measure of respect to this particular thank you. And it is said by a people who live in a culture with only one highly developed/industrialized city. It is said by a people of whom slums, and shanties are more of a common dwelling place than it is rare. It is said by a people who do not abound in the resources of steel and glass, but builds shelter with sticks, wood, and tin. It is said by a people who are characterized by both physical poverty and a spirit of poverty. It is said by a people who, even if they were not poor as individuals within this society, they knew they were poor as a people group; a people who their needs and is not ashamed to live acknowledging need. It is both a posture that refreshes me and a circumstance that grieves me. It is an intriguing, paradoxical matter, how it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as said by Jesus in the gospels. How one that is exceedingly clothed with a manifold material blessing also becomes least likely to receive a gospel that saves while the one who is deprived of that same blessing is more likely to receive this same gospel. Thank you in the states is much more casual. The phrase is much less respectful; respect isn't particularly a value that is highly held above the rest in our culture. The phrase confesses much less need, suggests much less gratitude than it does courteousness and good manners. And out of a culture of the rich, why would their thank you's suggest need? If they were not going to receive the object given by one person, they could have gotten it from another. I've become increasingly convinced while I've been here that the two things - a spirit of gratitude and a spirit of poverty - are one in the same. Almost held synonymously. And so it isn't that a thank you from the U.S. is not infused with meaning. The meaning is in a practice of decorum; to be proper. But salamat po's meaning comes in the sincerity of the gratitude that the denotation of the phrase actually suggests. It confesses need; that their life has been added to. Now what is the ontological connection of a collectivist culture? Within a culture that lives by the ideologies of individuality and capitalism, the exchange that happens between person saying thank you is an exchange of objects owned. It is an exchange of something external. It is almost like a bartering of goods. It might even seem very impersonal. Within a collectivist culture, it isn't so detached from person-hood. It is not just an exchange of things. It seems in the phrase salamat po, there is an exchange of a person's being. When one gives or serves, they are exchanging to the other person a piece of themselves. It is because they cannot see society where each person is fundamentally disconnected and defined by economic class. When we see Americans, we see with a vision of relativity; each American is different from person to person. But when they see Filipinos, they see the Filipino people as a whole. They are connected as persons. And they give not only necessarily of what they have, but more significant of themselves. There seems to be something incredibly biblical about this. Christ came down not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He didn't come down to give us salvation as if it was a thing he owned - some object apart from himself - but he came to give salvation that could only be found in himself. He gave us healing, he gave us gifts, but most importantly, all of these things he gave us in him and through him. And by him, all things exist. He told Peter during their foot-washing session that if Peter did not allow him to give him physical cleansing, Peter would have no part with him. It was about what he could give; but more ultimately, it was about the giving of himself. The giving of his being. Connecting his being with our being.