finding contentment in limits

For the knowing

I don't really like long days of silence and solitude. Correction: I don't even like one day of silence and solitude. For someone's whose instinct when life happens is to call someone and tell someone--good news, bad news, surprises, joys, angers--a whole day with no one to tell is lame to me (not to everyone, I know). Truth is, I do my best with people. My best ideas come when I'm talking out loud, I often figure out who I am in the company of those who know me best.

But the reality is that as much as people are good for me, it's easy to wrap my life around them. This week I found myself in that quiet but persistent urge for approval again, even in matters as dumb and subtle as wanting to defend my bookshelf because I'm not reading the "right" authors. I am wondering my position at letting women teach the youth but not the adults, of leading devotions and applications but not interpreting and preaching the word. I have in my hands my performance review of a job that takes deep heart and serious spirituality but I know if I'm going to do this for years more my roots had better sink deep, deeper than they are now.

And even with these specific needs and issues aside, I need to let my Creator speak. Spaces where I just be, where no one else speaks, hears or knows me remind me that, while my life is woven into the community around me, it is, at its best and at its purpose, fully centered around God. And in the middle of career decisions, resurfacing goals to please and perform to those around me, and awareness of doubts of who I am, no other voice will be more important.

So here's to silence. I know better than to set expectations for that day. But at the very least, I know that I need this.

New Clothes

What are the scripts I follow? The role I'm born into, a narrative handed to be at birth: the words and roles for the youngest daughter and the little sister, always looking up to someone older with more experience. I might be the most responsible and capable in the room, but I'll downplay it or at least not draw attention to it. The lessons that tell me never to be proud of myself, to wait and let others praise me. The training to see critique first, and maybe a sliver of success. The script I've been given puts authority and pride in a confusing gray area, mixes confidence and arrogance so I can't tell them apart and am afraid to show one in case it's misinterpreted as the other.

It takes practice to hold back the lines I've recited my whole life, and to replace them with ones that I still feel unsure about. My supervisor says I am not allowed to say, "I don't know what I'm doing" anymore, as it undermines my own authority and just reinforces my own self-doubt. So I stop. But even if those six words don't come out of my mouth, I find my insecurity wanting to creep out in other ways: I want to double check my instincts with my supervisor in the room even when I'm the one leading, I am tempted to speak in hesitancy and doubt instead of confidence and direction. I want to remind everyone that I am new, inexperienced, and figuring it out.

But I hold back, even if it means the five hour meeting is filled with choices of what to say and what to hold back. Say my decision, hold back my hesitation. Say my instinct, hold back the need for affirmation. Say my plan, hold back my doubt. There are many places for feedback, discussion, teamwork and collaboration, but I can create those spaces well as a leader. This is practice, this is discipline, and it makes me more aware than ever of my lack of confidence. Who would have thought?

Last summer I told a staff director that the influence and authority I found myself with felt like new clothes. New clothes - they fit, they're right, they're good, they're needed. Still, it takes some getting used to. It might actually fit perfectly, but it doesn't mean that the for awhile, I will still be very aware that I am wearing my New Shirt when I put it on. But like a perfect-fitting shirt, I will choose to wear the leadership that is made for me and that fits me well. New shirts are good things.

Home

It's been awhile. I checked my archives: With the exception of last month, I wrote at least one post a month for the past three years. Which means this two-month gap of not blogging was the longest I've gone without writing. Not even a draft, not even a written-but-unposted piece.

There is a lot I could write about in absence: the continuing journey of voice, ethnicity, and ministry; D at long last entering his last month of school; his job offer and the short-lived hope of not being long-distance; the slump of post-Mark Camp-is-the-school-year-over-yet? and finding energy to keep going amid that; etc. etc. etc.

But today, I will write about home, Sacramento-home, specifically. This blog has had its share of displacement angst and even its own "transition" tag, chronicling my move from Stockton to here. And while I've been here for two years come August, and as much as I love Sacramento as a city, it wasn't till two weeks ago that I really found a home. Long story short, I moved in with two friends from church and everything changed. The rest it's given for my heart, my subconscious, my emotions is amazing. I didn't realize how much I had wound up in a year and a half of non-ideal housing. I never really relaxed in that first condo I lived in, as differing values, life stages, and resentment built up into angst. The room I rented for six months was in a house that was never really mine, and I always felt like talking to my housemates then was making small talk with women who would never understand my lifestyle.

I think our lives of following Jesus involves some level of displacement. But these days, I am so grateful for God's grace that says, "Not right now." That says for this next season, let your heart rest and feel at home. Settle and unwind and find comfort in your physical dwelling. Another day, you will be on the move again. Another day, you will be placed in a place you don't fit. Every day, remember that this world is not your home. Yet for now, right now, grace comes in the form of a home-space, a physical belonging. And I don't know how to explain it to anyone enough, because I think it takes feeling never-quite-at-home for a long period of time to really, really appreciate home.

Home is a lot of things. It is having a place where the chopsticks and spoons belong, instead of having your Chinese soup spoons be awkwardly put on the counter because your roommate doesn't know where to put it. It is having a shelf for board games again, instead of stacking then in a box that has to move to different corners of the your room as you shuffle it around. It is actually unpacking every box, finding a place for each thing and finally throwing out the items without one instead of letting it all sit in a box you shuffle through as needed. It is finding the compromise in chores, groceries, and sharing instead of inwardly rolling your eyes when someone else's preference trumps yours. Home is no shoes inside the house. Lots of rice in the pantry but also pasta and canned vegetables. A sauce cabinet with Lee Kum Kee, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chili oil and sesame oil but a spice cabinet with cumin, cinnamon, and Lawry's. Walking with your roommate to your friend's house two streets down. Carpooling to church and offering your home-cooked leftovers. Home is eating at the dining table and wanting your roommates to join, it's leaving your door open all the time and not trying to avoid your roommates.

Sometimes, you best know something by what it's juxtaposed against (can you even use that word like that?). These days I'm realizing how little everywhere else felt like home now that I have this to compare it to. And I'm so, so grateful for the grace in this season and moment.

my exodus from apa

The three days of our APA Conference were beautiful. While the roles I played on the planning team felt relatively minor, watching all the elements fall into place as we moved, executed, planned on the spot was incredible. I sat there on Saturday night in the dimmed room and thought, "This is more than I had even hoped this conference to be." I remind myself that God can succeed our expectations multiple times over, and I'm also in awe of Matt's leadership and vision that was bigger than mine.

I took the past two days off, and it kinda still feels like APA was just yesterday. A majority of my thoughts continue to center around it, partially as I think and dream for next year (that deserves a separate post), partially because it was just a damn good weekend and maybe the most solid thing we've offered our APA students.

Now that my body has enough rest (read: slept in without an alarm two days in a row) and my room a little more sanity (read: I finally cleaned), I'm ready to pick up campus work again. Unfortunately, after five days of being off campus I'm a little disoriented: following up the first week of new student outreach with a second week full of conference details leaves you a little confused by the third week. How do I pick up where I left off if the momentum for the semester hadn't even started? Am I re-starting now, except that we're already three weeks in? 

And just as I was getting ready to settle into bed, a solid, present sadness hit me. Two days ago, I loved, hugged, and said goodbye to my APA family. And tomorrow, I wake up and walk back into the world of explaining and calculating and code-switching and speaking up. Where my values don't always line up with my teammates, where I've chosen to translate and speak and fight and care over and over again...where I walk as the only Asian-American staff on a staff team in a fellowship that is predominantly white. 

I remember this sadness last fall, as I left the comfort of my friends and peers at Area Time and walked into my daily life where I am not quite as understood. I didn't think this would reoccur. But as I think about the myriad of things I loved about the weekend, it comes hand in hand with what I say goodbye to as I step back onto my campus. The innate and elegant servanthood of our community, always watching out for other people, whether it means bringing out extra chairs or offering a refill of the bottle. The fact that many of us were tired but not once did I hear a complaint or regret. Our honor and respect for elders and our investment in the younger generation.  How we watch out and make space, even if it's just physically for people in chairs or tables in the crowded dining hall. Our standards of excellence. And so many, so many hands always ready to help, always ready to serve. 

I could apologize and be understood. I could speak in facts and directness if I wanted to, but I could also tell stories and examples and not worry if the listener got the main point. I didn't have the question floating in the back of my head, "Does he get what I'm trying to say here?" So many words from up front made perfect sense--our speaker Jonathan spoke to a life of in-between and never settling...that, my friends, that is my life right now. Nate's spoken word pierced in so many levels, so many ways, and I've listened to and read the the pieces over and over again and there is comfort in someone speaking straight. straight to my experience. Bianca and Mary step in and make a seminar for the APA Women, and while an itty bitty part of me feels as if I have failed in not having one prepared (I tried, but a few things fell through), another part surges with pride because these girls, these women are my sisters. And our prophetic voice will speak loud and clear, and I am so proud to call them my peers and my sisters. 

And I carry this pride, I carry this love...and I walk back to campus and I feel alone. As the staff team asks, "How was APA?" how will I choose to respond? The weekend was powerful and many left embracing their ethnicities and cultures, and here I am feeling tired of standing alone. Fighting to love who I am and still partially hating that it sets me apart, that on this team I am still different. This team which loves students yet awkwardly I've ended up in the most trusted relationships with the students of color. And as I stare at a rigid agenda and fill out another evaluation, I also realize there are some missing values here. Ones of relationship and harmony that make me sense guilt and shame in certain situations, certain situations where I feel forced and awkward to move on but hey, something about efficiency or intention or whatever mis-matched value and I guess it's time to go to the next bullet point. 

I leave my APA family where we have just begun airing out our brokenness, our hurt, our idols. This weekend we called our students to choose to live in between dichotomies but right now, I'm not ready to straddle that line again. 

Right now, in photos

 The Dream Team. It's a slightly-conceited name, but word on the streets is when Steve was stepping into his supervisor role as Natalie, Harrison, and I all started our intern year with InterVarsity, he said something along the lines that this was the dream team of interns he would enjoy leading.

Somehow, that name has stuck, as has our friendship. None of us could have imagined that we would be together at National Staff Conference in 2014, dreaming big about how God could transform our students to become world changers. We started together as undergrad but have since spread to different campuses, and it's not likely we'll end up in the same city together anytime soon. Still, we dream together, process together, love together.

I went over to Harrison's yesterday for company as we both did work. I called Natalie for dreams for APA, for personal struggles, for friendship.
Friendship is a gift.

We've been having these discussions with my mom about what's teochew and what's not (I'm realizing hoe I've failed to keep all the Chinese foods/cultures/dialects apart...), and in a mildly eye-opening conversation, it turns out my favorite noodle dish ever is distinctly teochew after all. Tell me, how did I go all 25 years of my life thinking it was "just Chinese", as opposed to a specialty from my mom's regional culture?

I made it again this week and it was delicious: the beansprouts, the garlic, fish tofu, fishballs (the bokchoy isn't typical in our family, but I decided I should have some greens)...

I first learned about shin&shin at Asian American Staff Conference when Shin Maeng was invited to be the artist in residence. I spent part of an afternoon with him as he chatted up a storm and explained the intricacies of the drawing, drawing out meaning in every little icon and space. I stared at the prints, wondering if I should by an art piece in a year where budget was so tight. I didn't.

But graciously, all the staff were gifted a print from this lovely duo at the end of staff conference. When they announced it, I knew this deserved a good frame. So last night, I bought the nicest frame I've ever paid for. One might think that as a photographer I would have better frames, but I've always leaned towards cheap ones, received nice ones as gifts, or given my best away to others. But real art deserves good presentation. I walked the aisles of the store multiple times, picking up one, putting it down in favor of another, repeating until I settled on one. And when I got home and got the print in the frame, it was perfect. I found myself drawn to it several times since: the bright mat and dark wood highlighting the colors and giving space for the details. I realize that there's a way my eye appreciates this presentation and wish everyone could see it too. I can't stop staring at it.

I'm incredibly grateful to Shin and Sarah for listening to the spirit and creating such prophetic pieces (and I love that they're Asian-Americans). And I'm grateful that someone in IV nationals chose such a beautiful, meaningful gift for the staff to receive. I receive it with joy and gladness.

On Prayer

Pray Big and Pray Bold: Sunder Krishnan from Urbana on Vimeo.

Natalie and I were talking about prayer a few weeks ago, and it dawned on me that this talk from Urbana 09 was a big turning point in my prayer life. This talk was such a reality check about our approach to prayer, but woven into it were practical bits as well. After this talk, I decided to cut crap out of my prayer, to stop filling my prayers with words I churned out from routine. Through Sunder's example of jobless John, I realized the empty regurgitation of most of my prayers. This part is tricky to write about because there is nothing inherently wrong about the, "Thank you for bringing us here", "Thank you for freedom to gather because we know not everyone in the world can", etc. But for me, I realized I felt obligated to pray these things...and I didn't want that to be the case. So instead, I started opening my prayers with the sovereign character of our God. To this day, my prayers are still marked as such: in times of suffering, I call on a God who suffered alongside with us; in times of sickness and pain, I call out to the ultimate Healer. In times of confusion I remember he is a God that gives peace. I take a few sentences to remember who God is and what scripture says of Him. This sets up my prayer, and the request that follows sits under His character and His sovereignty.

I think this talk challenged my priority on prayer and my belief that it works, that we are invited to create with God and engage with the world through prayer. When we were still at Urbana, there was an afternoon where Natalie and I sprawled on the floor in the prayer room and talked about Large Group, ministry, and life. I challenged out loud - If we really think prayer is fundamental to our ministry, how do we orient our times/lives/meetings to reflect that? I recall that being the discussion that we would move our prayer/devotion time to start our meetings (we called it "First thing") instead of haphazardly throwing it in our closing. In hindsight, what fun and how powerful it was to make that change as a student leader (in many ways, Steve's sabbatical that semester really was a gift).

It's hard to remember the other changes I made four years ago. But if I think hard, I also remember challenging myself and Natalie to find scripture that paralleled our prayers. I don't remember the situation, but I remember asking, "Well, where can we find that in scripture?" We flipped through the New Testament to glean from whatever was prayed back then. I think that was the year I first loved Psalm 24, my favorite psalm to pray before large group because of how it rightfully puts the King of Glory in his place, prays for our clean hands and pure hearts, and then calls for the gates to be lifted up.

As I've rewatched it a few times over the years, there is much more to learn from it. For one, my prayers and motivations are not exactly done in light of God as Sovereign, Creator, Revealer, and Worker, as Sunder highlights as the four corners which set up the character of the God we pray to. I must also remember that prayer changes us - that if every time we pray we remember the character of God, then over the years, we are bound to be transformed. This is the prayer life I want to have - one that engages reality, one that worships our God, one that changes my life.