MIA

i've been fairly MIA recently -- it's a busy season. i'll e-mail, call, write, or hang out with you soon!

From the New Yorker

Marie Howe

The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday.

An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout

breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.

Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and

hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them:

shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if the Star Market

had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in

with the rest of them—sour milk, bad meat—

looking for cereal and spring water.

Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car

in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have

been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept

out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands

and knees begging for mercy.

If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought,

could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?

grieve

As I was talking with some students today, I realized something about Asian American ministry. One guy, a junior who had just become a believer, was talking about how his home church went through the harsh process of splitting into two. Though I have not gone through a church split personally, I'm not naive about this fact and have heard about many sad stories on many individual occasions. But, for some reason, I had an a-ha moment today: this is why my students cry "unity!" We've been scarred by the brokenness in what should have been our most reliable and dependable relationships, namely in our families and in our churches. If a young person is growing up in an environment where church families and friends have bitter, irreconcilable conflict, how can that be healthy? If the only solution to a church board fight is to split, how is that forming our own conception of commitment and reconciliation? No wonder we are so conflict avoidant.

I feel sad for Asian church life, and for all of the kids who go through such great divorces. Splits get so bad that families command their children not to be friends with other families - we're talking Montagues and Capulets. I have even heard of one church splitting up to twelve times. It's sad that a large percentage of my students have had to see this growing up. I was wondering why unity and one-ness was such a large part of our campus fellowship rhetoric these days, and I think I may have found my answer.

God must be weeping over the church. The one people that was truly reconciled (at the expense of his son) to Himself haven't truly understood what reconciliation means. We need your help and healing; we haven't fully grasped the greatness of your grace.

everybody! everybody!

ms. julia kuo has been recently featured in this artist's blog: http://myloveforyou.typepad.com/my_love_for_you/2008/02/julia-kuo.html
yay!

book club

i'm a new member in a book club! so far, we've read kurt vonnegut's cat's cradle and e.m. forster's short story "the machine stops." i've enjoyed being a part of it so far, but i'm still in the process of feeling it out. i was never great in my english classes (though i was okay in my soc courses) when it came to speaking up and even now, i have to gather my courage before i express myself. all these unspoken thoughts end up piling up and up in my mind, and when i finally do speak, it just all dumps out. maybe its the introversion. probably not. its probably the pride, fear, and "asian syndrome." i think it will become easier as i get to know the members and as i stop thinking "what could i possibly say to follow marc?"

next: gilead by marilynne robinson.