Day Four, Asian Theological Summer Institute

What thoughts do I have as I am sitting on an airplane, flying back to the west coast? I am honored, humbled, and blessed for the opportunity to attend the Asian Theological Summer Institute. It was fascinating to sit in a room with new and established scholars listening to the future of theological research from Asians and Asian Americans. I'm excited for the church catholic, and while theological education has entered tough times, I am waiting in eager anticipation for the future of Asian and Asian American theological scholarship.

Identity was further played with today with Dr. Eleazar Fernandez's presentation. I'm still digesting what he presented, because it was pretty darned intense. It leads me to wonder about listening to multiple narratives in a greater story, and am I listening to other narratives? What narratives am I not hearing? Yet again, questions of identity pop up...

I had an interesting conversation with one of the mentors at the conference. He asked me about the purpose of my FTE project. I told him there were a few reasons why I came to build this project. Part of this project is an opportunity for me to network within my denomination. I haven't been Lutheran all that long, and I'm still wandering about trying to find relationships with denominational leadership, particularly Asian and Asian American leadership. While I know people in northern and southern California, I want to know educators, pastors, and lay leaders. I want to know their narratives in the greater ELCA narrative.

One of my more formative classes in Spring 2011 was a systematics class in Asian American Theologies taught by Dr. Joanne Doi. In that class, I acquired a vocabulary that was more appropriate to my social location. I had read different types of liberation theology, reading books by Justo Gonzales, Gustavo Gutiérrez, James Cone, and Delores Williams, but there was something about their vocabularies that didn't quite fit my situation. There was a resonance, but at the same time, there was not a complete comprehension. It was somewhat of a disjointed connection. In Dr. Doi's class, I questioned one of the readings with a heavy reliance on Black Liberation Theology; while there were some common threads with talking about an experience, they were very different lived experiences. Dr. Doi mentioned that there is a need to look to others to start building a vocabulary, pushing and pulling with words for a comparative experience, but not the *same* experience. Then yesterday's conversation with Lucia started to hit home as well: we need to learn the voices of others to better understand our own voice. The sense of borrowing was also brought up today, which reminded me of using the words of Black Liberation Theology in my Asian American Theologies class. And of course, when it comes to borrowing, who really owns knowledge? 

Part of this project is also learning about my own identity. In speaking with Dr. Rajashekar, I didn't really think about my identity in the United States until joining a church. I never thought about my sense of being until being in a greater church population. But when I joined the church, I received some odd comments that made me think about the appearance of my person. I didn't question my relationship with God in Christ, but I did start to question my relationships within a church community. I also noticed the physical appearance of my person when my husband and I visited India. It was odd realizing that I married a Caucasian man three years after our marraige.

I was wondering about what the ELCA calls "Multicultural Ministries" and how it worked. I thought of the Office of Multicultural Ministries as a nebulous cloud somewhere in the distant land of Chicago. The FTE project gave me an impetus to contact the office to make connections with the staff, but also to see what was actually going on in this ministry.

My time at ATSI was so valuable. I now have a better idea of interview questions I plan to ask my subjects in the coming weeks. While this is a formation experience for me, it's also a chance for me to interact with new people in the ELCA, talk about "Multicultural Ministries," and see four out of the eight ELCA seminaries.

This post is more like a stream of consciousness. I have pages upon pages of notes from ATSI that I need to sort through, look more in depth at the comments and questions I had concerning common threads I experienced. I need to sit and think about what I've heard and what I've experienced. I also need to continue through my personal discernment process, especially concerning theological education.

I wish all of the doctoral students blessings as they enter the writing process and look forward to hearing about their work. I also want to thank the ATSI mentors for their words of wisdom and their encouragement. It was wonderful to meet the people behind the essays and books I've read.