injustice

Lent Day 29: I give up Being Okay

March 17, 2021 — Leave a comment

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Isaiah 58:6-9

I give up being okay. I am not okay with injustice. I am not okay with hate. I am not okay with the lack of awareness. I am not okay with people who are going hungry. I am not okay with those who are suffering. I am not okay with justifying suffering. I am not okay with minimizing suffering. I am not okay with hate. I am not okay with hate. I am not okay that there are people suffering and feeling alone in their suffering. I am not okay with having to take care of your feelings while I’m navigating my feelings. I will never be okay with the things that were not meant to be and I pray that God will give me the patience, strength, kindness, mostly kindness and curiosity, to do something about all the things I find are not okay.

The Effort of Living

February 8, 2021 — Leave a comment

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3

A life worthy of God’s calling requires humility, gentleness, patience and effort to keep the unity by living though the bond of peace. This takes effort. This takes work and heavy lifting. Sometimes who you have to bear in love feels heavier than you have the strength to take on. To live a calling is to choose it in every moment, in every relationship and every circumstance. Within that choice are moments when you choose otherwise; that does not remove your blessing or calling. Each moment and choice is a reminder that there is always a way worthy of your calling, and God encourages you to step in the direction of that bigness.

A word on peace. Peace is not hushing injustice. Rather it is taking action against injustice that seeks to disturb our bond of unity and alignment with God. Peace is not passive. It is a constant recalibration to God’s heart that all of humanity is honored and have access to God. Peace is not smiles and empty sayings. Peace is not the absence of conflict; conflict is a reflection of where we need to come back into alignment with God. Peace is here and not yet. We are constantly living in that tension because this world is not always living up to the calling its been called to exist within.

I pray that we are peace creators and upholders, and when that means we need to step into areas of conflict, dissonance and disturbance, we do that with humility, gentleness and patience. Our hearts desire peace, and if we want a genuine lasting kind that permeates our space and our body, we need to address what is not right and not simply ignore and pretend everything is fine.

A Journey in the Valley

September 1, 2020 — Leave a comment

I was in the middle of rehearsal when the notification of Chadwick Boseman’s death flashed across my screen. In the pause when my heart was on hold, I hoped it was all an error, a cruel tabloid by some evil prankster who had nothing better to do but ruin the world’s Friday night. For a decent, honest, kind hero like Boseman to be taken so soon felt like the purest evidence that life can be so unfair and that death is not right. Death on earth is inevitable for each of us, but it still feels wrong, like it really was never meant to be. Something went wrong. In my culture, death is not the end.

This year has been relentless with its full display of loss, grief and injustice. The black lives taken this year, and the many lost in the past but only now surfacing because we finally believe and care. The hundreds of thousands of lives ravaged by illness, many that could have been saved if it were not for the unjust health care system that disenfranchises black and brown and the poor, and if we didn’t have a president who cared more about his ego than the country’s wellbeing. The Lebanese lives affected by manmade mistakes. The lives upended by natural disasters and climate change. The lives taken because assault weapons are still allowed in public hands. It’s not that death, loss, injustice and grief bloomed this year; we’re just finally paying attention and feeling it in our bones and schedules and social media.

God, what are you doing? God what are you trying to say? What is here to hold and honor, under this blanket of exhaustion, anger, sorrow, rage, depression and anxiety? Why do you often use grief and sorrow to straighten us and slow us down to the present moment, to display the priorities buried in our purpose? What does it mean to experience the fullness of this pain and moment for our own good, for the sake of others, for the sake of the world? What does it look like to walk in power embracing grief and sorrow? Chadwick did that. The greatest leaders who put it all on the line did that. Jesus did that.

It’s been a while since I’ve read the Word. God feels present, but very quiet. The Word feels unpredictable and I’m afraid to open my Bible and feel anger towards voices of past teachers evading my space. But God is present and their still small voice says, trust me, hold the faith, I’ll show you a better way. So, today is a step. Tomorrow will be a step.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:1-4

CBG: Esther

April 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

Moredcai also gave [Hathach] a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law — to be put to deaf, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who know whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.

Esther 4:8-11

You hear a need. You contextualize the need in the system you exist in. You hear that the system you exist in is fallible and unjust. You make a promise to address the need, acknowledging the consequences of acting in such a way within the system. You pause in solidarity with those who are being crushed by the system.

We all exist in this system of patriarchal capitalist money is God. Whether you hate it, love it, use it when it’s to your advantage, that is the system we live in. What does it take to courageously and wisely address the injustice with the system it mind? It doesn’t mean you have to choose between working within the system or outside the system. Radical ways usually exist in a plane all to itself — neither for or against, but completely different.

As an Asian-presenting female that exists in a fairly established black and white tale, whether that is reality, projection or most likely an amalgamation of both, it is wrong for me to stay complacent in a state of white-adjacency or inappropriate to stand merely ally in world of black suffering. What can I learn from Esther?

  1. Who are your people? Who are you affiliating with or grouping with? The strong or the vulnerable?
  2. Who seems to be in charge? What can this person/system do to me?
  3. How has everything that has happened in my life shaped me for this particular moment?
  4. Who do I need on my team?
  5. What supposed necessities do I need to surrender so that I can make room for better?

Prayer: Help me to live in your kingdom while in this kingdom. Help me to see my place in today. Release this lie that I’m in this alone. Help me give up that which is less, which might have served me once upon a time, but now is actually an obstacle. Give me courage and wisdom to stand with those who are forgotten and vulnerable.

Creative: For 15 minutes, put the screens away and connect with the world and with your body.

Brave: Who or what have you been afraid of? How can you challenge it/they?

Generous: Who or what have you pushed aside? How can you bring it/they in?

Day 20: The discomfort of God’s judgment

January 5, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 10-12; Psalm 20

I may never fully understand how God could kill all the firstborn of Egypt. How could he murder all those people, regardless of they were evil or not? How could he cause such sorrow and suffering? Is this how vindication and justice look — unfair and cruel? How do I reconcile the God I believe to hold (kind, forgiving, gracious, patient) with this God who kills children and adult? It’s a sign that calls people to repentance. Is that enough? So we sacrifice a few for the many? Was there no other option? Hm. Maybe this was the only option to free the oppressed? Revenge on the oppressors’ children? I don’t know. It’s part like this in the Bible that make my head hurt and I want to discard God’s actions. If he is good, how can this section be good as well? Someone help me understand!

Of course this all points to Jesus, God’s firstborn. He allows for him to die for the sake of us all. His sacrifice covers any judgment we might have received from God. This aspect of Jesus also seems grueling and hard for me. How can I take from this sacrificial love? Is it literal? Yea… But I think Jesus fulfills more than a blood sacrifice so God no longer condemns us to hell — it’s rather the depths and lengths that God would go to remind us of his love. Kill his son? Hold to his holiness while bridging us imperfect to him? Jesus both holy and able to be with the imperfect. May we be like that!! May whatever we touch also turn good and feel a surge of power and life!