Prayers for Your Thoughts

Hello, and welcome to my blog! Since you’re here, let me explain a little about who I am, what inspired me to start this blog, and my hopes for this space I’ve created.

A little about myself, I’m in my twenties and have been living in Los Angeles for the past ten years. I grew up in a relatively conservative, run-of-the-mill non-denominational church that laid the foundation of my faith. This church was predominantly Chinese and Chinese-American and was like family to me, but had its share of problems (all things I’ll have to unpack in another entry one day). But as I’ve moved away from my hometown and, thus, my hometown church, I’ve grown frustrated with many of the teachings I was taught that no longer coincide with my lived experience of the world. With the exception of my brief fall into the world of mega-conservative evangelical Christianity that is the predatory “college campus ministry” (another story for a later day), my faith has continually called me deeper into progressive theologies.

Now, I can no longer separate my faith from my experiences. I cannot look the other way when my faith is used as justification for systemic oppression, and I refuse to be a bystander in politics as politics inevitably shapes the world I live in. As such, I yearn for my own return to childlike wonder about the world — a time when I wasn’t afraid to imagine changing the world. As I slowly learn to shed the shackles of accepting the status quo, I wish to imagine a world overflowing with the fruits of the spirit, where conversations flow, minds change, and love is the foundation. Each day I that I grow deeper in faith, I feel my mind no longer capable of containing this imagined landscape. Like any good news, it begs to be shared.

This blog is just one way I hope to push forth this world of my imagination. Much like how children learn and grow through playgrounds, my hope is to use this space as my own personal playground where I can push myself to articulate my beliefs, wrestle with them, dissect them, and leave with a deeper understand of who I am. Along the way, I hope these words can resonate with others who feel similarly and, more ambitiously, start the conversation with those who believe differently.

Thoughts beget actions and actions beget change. So let’s pray for our thoughts.