It's almost like God decided to play a joke and put a faith-based twist onto Catch Phrase. Part of me wants to swear (ironic huh) that I've never heard these phrases in this game, but I also have to admit I probably don't think twice about it if I'm playing with all staff friends/all Christian friends.
- The phrase "Born Again" left my friends completely puzzled and stuck. Four out of five of them had never heard the phrase "born again", and I found myself quickly piecing together an explanation of what it meant spiritually. (Could have done a way better job at it). Realized some assumptions of the other friend who knew the term had, example given of a drunk Christian who is "born again" when he decides to be a better Christian. Scrambling, but not quite fast enough, to turn this into a chance to share how Jesus resets your life. Could have shared what born again means to me and my life, but I missed it.
- A couple rounds later, Eva was stuck with "Worship." She threw together descriptions about singing, praying, praising, and what you do in church, but couldn't get it. My mind raced through what worship meant in my life and what the word meant to them. I suppose my explanation of, "what you do when you're bowing before an idol" could have poor implications if they translated it to the Christian life of worship. Another lost witnessing chance, it feels.
- Lilia then gets "The Promised Land", which she knows enough about regarding the Israelites for Alyssa to get. But in light of all our Deuteronomy and Numbers reading for this past semester, The Promised Land has such deeper meaning, such promise and expectation for God's relationship to us.
I know I've been praying about being a better witness amongst this group of friends. God, please keep giving me chances, even if it feels like I've butchered so many good potentials tonight.
The other twist in the night is a couple friends feeling like they're very out of their element in the game. One constantly exclaims, "Who uses these phrases?" or "How does this even make sense?" The phrases are foreign, and it takes some translating and convincing to show that each language has its own unique expressions, like the classic Chinese "add oil" for a cheer of encouragement.
Later on during the night, we're on the topic of names. Strange names, weird names, ethnic names, last names and if we'll change them if we're married. We talk about the study where a more "American" name on a resume gets read and called back on a higher percentage than one with a Chinese or Mexican name. My friend concludes, "So better give your kid a normal name, or else he'll be screwed."
Amidst my journey of ethnic identity, something breaks inside and I say, "And by 'normal' you mean...majority American standards of normal." This is poor lingo, an undefined argument, and maybe no one has any idea what I mean. One day I'll learn to articulate things better, to point out the dichotomies we set up between normal and foreign, accepted and rejected. But for today this statement is me clinging to who I am (really, the who group as Asians): I am normal. My middle name Shi-Ching is normal. My sister, born Xiao (first name) Yu (middle name), is as normal as Angeline. Our friend Van's name is normal (did we realize we were excluding here in this discussion? I should have asked her thoughts). Normal does not mean Audrey or Nancy or a name found in a name book. It might be typical or more average.
I feel the need to add a disclaimer, that maybe I don't know the real definition of normal. Or maybe saying who I am and that is okay is different from what everyone expects and is used to--which of those is normal? But what values do we attribute to "normal"--expected, belonging? In this day of a rising minority population, aren't we becoming the new normal?
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