BayUP Day 47: Staff Debrief

I've changed. I know it.

The world that I once knew and lived comfortably in is now a hostile environment- exposed dissonance everywhere. How do I give honor and credibility without exploitation and sexification? How do I communicate mutual conversion without charity?

I fear the silence of my voice with the weight of these lessons and truths.

This summer, I learned about God and justice. But could I even do this experience justice?

Lord, help me not to forget:

     the necessity of lamenting
     the beauty of perseverance
     the hope of dreamers
     the cost of resilience
     the dignity of voiceless
     the responsibility of privileged
     the faces of oppressed
     the need for change

If Shalom is to be brought to this city- then bring it.
If systems are to be overthrown- then do it.
If lives are to be forever changed- then change it.
If justice is to be our narrative- then send me. send us.

Believe in Oakland.
Believe in the hope- that God is big enough
Believe in the trust- that these pearls are never wasted.
Believe in the truth- that God has more for us beyond this summer.

Messy. Untidied. Incomplete.
Shalom to this city.

God made me mixed and He made me mixed up

Raw
Pain unspoken
Unrecognized

Jesus, I'm broken and it's still raw. She's dark already?! Filipino, Chinese, Hawaiian, Vietnamese You're not really Japanese. We don't want mono-racial people there. Right side Japanese, left side Chinese. Prove that you belong. Don't mess up everything we have worked for. Wear stripes to make your skin lighter. Do you speak? You're the reason my language is dying. 

What are you?! Not enough.


Doubts can force us to sidestep pain- coping, but not really healing. 

"There's no pain so cutting,
No battle as in vain
As the constant battle
to avoid the pain" - Justin McRoberts


Loneliness

I don't belong to either group. I don't feel whole because they lower their expectations of me. I'm torn between 4 worlds, looking for 1 home. Not even other mixed people can fully understand and know my experiences and pain. I will always feel unknown.

Tension of privilege and rejection leads to isolation and loneliness, leaving us powerless. 

I'm looking for affirmation and acceptance. I'm afraid that this place- even this safe place will reject me too. Then who will identify with me? Who will understand my pain? Who will walk with me on this journey to wholeness?

Do I have to prove that I'm mixed enough?

Welcome Home

We have a choice to invite God into our whole ethnicity and pain. 

Invitation. Invitation into my pain, life, and mixed experiences. Invitation into full healing, understanding, acceptance. Invitation to be fully known by the Father who created me- the one who intentionally made me this way. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't random. It is beautiful.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new


You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us


Forgiveness
Healing
Letting go

Letting go of holding onto pain to prove that I belong here. Releasing my parents from the expectations that they should've known. Forgiving them for the misunderstanding turned rejection. Accepting the Yonsei experience of being cut off from a culture. Lamenting a nation's history of racism and injustice that shamed, hated, and forced my family to forget. Crying for the brothers who just want to be one- to choose even at the sacrifice of the other. Repenting of using a relationship to feel whole- to be white instead of half. Recognizing the fears of bringing these pains and brokenness to all relationships- to never being known even in the closest intimacy. Combatting lies with truth that loneliness and pain don't have to remain.

I believe God can heal me. I believe God sees me whole- fully me. Japanese and Chinese, He created me. In His image, I was created. Fully both.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. 

When we stand in front of our maker at the end of the Ages, I will be mixed.

Too Close to Home

I come home after a night of games with grown up friends in Stockton, to find this: shattered glass next to a car I don't recognize. Is this what I think it is? Whose car is this?
I go into 'ok I think I should do something about this' mode. Ring the downstairs doorbell. Call Lauren. Should I call the cops? Why aren't they answering? Katherine isn't home. Should I knock on the neighbor's door. What time is it?
When I see 2 people walking down the street- students. Maybe drunk. One guy carrying a skateboard, and another carrying a Commerce street sign. Oh great, really?!
They find their car window smashed and something taken from the back seat. And with a stolen street sign in their hand, they call the police...oh Stockton. oh Pacific students.

Part of me doesn't know what to think. This is normal, this happens here. They could have been smarter- they probably left something in the back seat to steal. They deserved it. Should I have done more? Even if the victim was a thief, should I have intervened? I went up the stairs, slightly appalled and confused.
This is my home space. This is where I park my car. This could have been me. When does the fear of not feeling safe in your home affect you? What do you do when sometimes you feel helpless? I don't want to write this off because it wasn't my car or my house. My best friend reminded me that I don't have to. Validated in this being too close to home.

In the daytime, with a roommate back from home- safer, apathetic, distancing...still

Preparing for Urbana

1 of 3 voices. I am 1 of 3 Asian voices out of a team of 20- going to be heard and seen through words and movement on stage at Urbana. It is both an honor and a great responsibility.

It wasn’t until a conversation with my mom that I started to realize the weight of this position. When we go to these conferences, we look for people who look like us. Like us.

Because when we see people like us- in front, on stage, speaking, acting, dancing…it means something more. It means we can do likewise. It means we can be heard. It means someone is representing our voice. Giving permission to speak, to externalize what’s inside. It means others feel the same way. It means God knows. God knows and understands us.  

So when Kim, a Vietnamese Candian, and Min-Soo, a Korean Canadian are on stage. They are representing me too, a Japanese and Chinese American. Every time they make people laugh, cry, sing, dance, see God through their art…they are representing us. 

Our voices on center stage at Urbana. 

Epiphany in Repentance

Funny how going through Mark 1 for the 3rd time reminds me of lessons I should have learned the 1st time. I guess it sinks in more when you actually teach something.
So we wrote the definition on the board: repentance means to turn 180 degrees. I knew that the 1st time. But the 2nd year I learned that repentance was more than just being sorry. King Herod tried that but he never fully took the next step of turning. Now today after the 3rd time, I realized that I haven't turned the complete 180 degrees. Somewhere in the middle I got stuck (past the sorry part but not past the despair). I thought I would never learn my lesson if I moved on quickly- that somehow by letting go of this weight of my guilt and shame that I would sin again (as if I could control my desire for holiness by reminding me of my failings).
But God taught me today that to complete the turn (turning away from sin) I must turn towards Him. Jesus doesn't leave us in despair and self-hatred. He ends w/ hope and freedom. I have been denying my hope and freedom because I thought that's what repentance was. No! Confession and repentance have power through Jesus' sacrifice- He rose from the dead to give new life and hope. Repentance is hope.
Complete the turn. Find freedom.

The Day After

I now know why I felt so far from you. I did it.
Self-inflicted, completely conscious disobedience.
Sin- selfishly choosing away from You to please myself.
But I do not feel pleasure. I'm left alone and disappointed, wondering was that worth chasing after?
To choose sin is to push myself farther from the Perfect You.
To feel the consequences of despair and abandonment.
To become numb to the voice calling me back to You, as I run farther and farther away.
Forget.
Do not remember.
Dive deeper into this grave I've made for myself. Let me suffocate in the earth. Let me waste away besides the rocks and worms. No one will have to bury me after. My tears will water the plants above and I will sleep deep in the darkness.
Good night.

Chosen
My eyes fly open.

Beloved
Oxygen fills my lungs.

Known
I look around the abyss for the source: a small light overhead blinding, but mesmerizing.

Worthy
I find my arms pulling me upwards, past the rocks, worms, roots...higher and higher with my heart quickening and my lungs filling more easily.
I break the surface and feel the warmth of the light.

Daughter, I've been looking for you and calling out your name. Why are you covered in mud when I have determined to make you clean? Remember and never forget how much I love you, how much I delight in you. 
I turn around to see the man behind me, running. And even though he is from a long way off, I can hear Him panting, sandals slapping the dirt beneath. I'm thrown off balance as He throws His arms around me and kisses me on the head.

Natalie, you're home

Rhetorical Questions

Dear Grandpa and Grandma,

How did you do it? How did you pave this road for your family, for your people? How did you stay silent when anger is so justified? What shame did you feel? How did you suffer? How could you not be hurt by the country you belonged to-the only country you knew? How did you lug that one suitcase-everything you could carry?

What if I let you down? What if I mess up everything- everything you worked so hard to achieve? I've gotten good at acting white- adapting the way I act so they wouldn't notice that I'm different, so they think I belong, so they could have a good opinion of us.

But now I'm being told to embrace who I am. Stop adapting, start sharing. They tell me that God made us specifically this way. Asian. But something inside me hurts to think this way. It unravels everything you did!

Would you be proud of me if I were to fully embody being Japanese, Chinese? Would you want me to embrace this culture? Or would you be afraid too? Afraid I'll be rejected or labeled. Afraid people won't love me for who I am. Afraid that it's still too soon.

This summer, a white man asked me how I learned to speak English so well. How did I learn to speak English so well?! My grandparents and great grandma were born here. My family has been here for 120+ years. Both my grandparents fought for this country in WWII. My parents only speak English. I am on avg 3rd generation. I was born here. I grew up here. I've been to China once. Japan zero. I root for USA in the Olympics. I am a natural born American citizen. So how did I learn to speak English so well?...

Maybe wait another 120 more years.