double blogging here. lame, i know.

moobie reflection - by wunbeanie

so i just watched ‘LINCOLN’ at the ritz in old city. and i was on the edge of my seat the entire time – partially ‘coz i was stuffing my face with popcorn, and didn’t want any of it to fall on my lap; partially because i am used to sitting on the edge of my seat (years of piano, orchestra, dentistry…); and partially because i was totally immersed in the movie.
i loved the acting and the dialogue. ahhhhhh. so good!
of course, the entire time, however, i couldn’t help but JUDGE. i judge my confederate brothers and sisters. like, “DUH, slavery is WRONG!… what KIND of bible are YOU reading?”
thank God, those days are over.
except they are not. human slavery is apparently at its all-time high, globally speaking.
and, of course, i always turn into what i judge. or i always notice that i am judging myself when i judge others.
i cringed when i was at my home church yesterday for the holidays – a taiwanese church, taiwanese people smugly knowing that chinese folks would not come to hear a sermon preached in the taiwanese language.
and i cringed when i imagined myself, decades later, thinking about my present day and asking/judging, “what kind of bible was i reading/living, after all?” … i’m trying to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, above all else. i’m trying to love my neighbour as myself. i’m trying to live among the broken, and identify as broken. i’m trying to serve the poor, the orphans, the widows. i’m trying to share my possessions. i’m sure the founding fathers were trying too.
Lord, help us!
merry Christmas!

five months in da hood

currently hibernating in michigan. have some time to sit down. think about some funny and/or life-changing stories, or terrible stories that i have to think about with humour in order to better cope with the brokenness of humanity.

ok.

verbal vomitage to come.

Writing for blogs owned by Daves

Recycling posts here...

I received invites from two bloggers named Dave (one in Delaware, one in California) to write about the location where I live. I’ve been meaning to sit and write, since it’s good therapy. Who here doesn’t need therapy? Therefore, I figured this would be an opportunity to kill multiple birds with one stone. This use of metaphor has nothing to do with my disdain of birds, or my love for Chik-fil-a’s spicy chicken deluxe sandwich.
Today, I voted for the first time in my neighbourhood. I walked 6 blocks, about half a mile, at dimly lamplit 6 p.m. to get to my polling place.
People tell me I shouldn’t walk by myself in the dark in the city, let alone, the inner city. People often express concern for my safety, and occasionally express anger about my move to North Philadelphia. One of my justification attempts is: “Well, it’s not like I’m walking around by myself at night.” Oops.
I walked towards the entrance and someone handed me a flyer: “HOW TO VOTE DEMOCRAT: PUSH #2 STRAIGHT TICKET”… something like that.
Flashback to 2008 – my family’s first time voting as U.S. citizens. I went to vote with my mom. She was peeved by my Obama t-shirt. At the front of the line, I gave her a hug and said, “Do the right thing, Mama!” She pushed me away and responded with a shameless, “Aiya! Stop campaining in my face! That’s illegal!”
Back to 2012, I looked at the flyer, then looked at the woman. SMH. She asks, “Do you know how to vote? I can tell you if you don’t.”
I’m not sure if she wants to tell me HOW to vote (Democrat), or how to use the electronic voting machines (read the instructions on the machine and follow them).
For a moment I forget why I am living in the community and almost say, “Why the hell would I choose to live here if I weren’t a Democrat?!?!” And even though Republicans get on my nerves sometimes, I am indignant at how one might feel alienated or judged if they were registered at this election site. Meanwhile, I’m also feeling defensive towards her hypothetically assuming I didn’t know how to use the machines because I’m Asian and maybe couldn’t speak/read English.
So, I didn’t end up voting straight ticket, partially out of spite at this flyer, partially because the electronic machine was so much easier than the bubble sheet I had to fill out 4 years ago in Michigan, while living the dental school life of constantly filling out bubble sheets to the point of tears.
A few hours later, as I write this, I am annoyed at myself – for being inconsistent between what I say and what I do, for not wanting to be labelled or typecast based on my life decisions or group identities, yet wanting to label myself, and for letting go of my primary identity and prioritizing an identity that I normally don’t prioritize. I think this is what makes it difficult to [live in and] write about my experience in ‘da hood. I want to discover and articulate generalities about cultural behaviour, because maybe understanding will make me feel more in control, but I can’t even predict my own thoughts and reactions half the time.
As mentioned above, therapy is needed. Hopefully, if I can keep this writing thing up, I will be more sane, while perhaps appearing more insane to you, poor reader.
And maybe I will also have better titles for future blog posts.

can't run can't hide

recently re-read through this blog.

i've been in kensington 3 months.

i laugh at my previous post of hoping to have a dramatic change in my social life by relocating to the hood. i had hope of becoming a morning person. i had hope of being more focused. of being less spread out. of being less social. of having deeper but fewer friends.

hm... change must start on the inside. change is only from God.

i tried to change myself by changing my circumstances. i was hoping that no one would call me to hang out since i was in the hood. i thought my life would be easier if no one would call me if they needed a place to stay since i lived in a 'dangerous' neighbourhood.

ha. ha. ha.

what's been happening is that it seems like more people are calling to hang out. or even just showing up at my door. more people are visiting whether to spend time, or out of worry, or to catch up. more people are asking for a place to stay, whether to need a place to stay, or because they don't like that i'm staying here by myself in a dangerous hood. it's even harder to say no to social things. i'm waking up way later because i can make it to work door-to-door in 6 minutes. i'm staying up late trying to plan to try to plan to try to plan how to get all the home renovations done.

okeee. so i can't change myself by running away. some things are perhaps just inherent w/ my personality and how i've been conditioned for ministry. i surrender. and i embrace it. this is how God made me. no need to be uptight about things.

so, this new attitude is helpful. i'm enjoying all the visitors more. i am learning to say no to more things and to set aside time to rest. i am trying to be more intentional with spending time w/ others. i'm okay with having a zillion people in my life. i can't control that. and the less i try to control that, the less stressful life becomes.

speaking of internal change... my prayer for kensington is not that the dilapidated homes will be made new, or that the abandoned lots will be all turned into parks, or that rich developers will come and nice-i-fy or gentrify the hood. that would be superficial change. my prayer is that the people of the community would see their worth as God's people, that they are not trash, that they are empowered by the Holy Spirit, and not disempowered by society, that they are called to work whether they have 'real jobs' or not, that they are called to take care of each other and love their neighbours, that they are to raise their children according to the ways of the lord, that they are to honour their parents.

once this identity change happens, then people will start picking up the trash, people will start going to school, people will start picking the lice outta their hair, people will eradicate their bed bugs, people will stop killing each other over drugs, people will stop abusing their family members, parents will quit letting their kids skip school, sugar will stop poisoning people's bodies, i won't have to do any more root canals, and we can be functional together.

on failure

one patient was telling us about her 12 yr old daughter. rolls her eyes. "i gotta take her to WIC later today."
me: "wait. the women and children thing?"
patient: "yup."
me: "wait. for you? or for her?"
patient: "she's 5 months pregnant."
me: "your daughter? isn't she 12?"
patient: "yup." rolls eyes. pauses. then BURSTS INTO TEARS. "i feel like such a FAILURE."

umm.. intense moment alert! i gotta calm her down so she's not as anxious when i pull out her molar. good thing both my assistant and receptionist happen to be in the room too.
"no!" they console her. "these things happen!" (in their world, it's more common. but it doesn't really happen in the world i came from.) "the important thing is that you are there for her now. you are going to support her through this, because she is going to need your help." they encouraged her.

patient: "yes, she is going to finish school. i'm going to help as much as i can. i'm sorry. i felt like a failure before. but i think i've gotten over that. my mother put things into perspective for me. i mean, at least she's not out on the streets doing drugs or selling her body."

we prayed for her not to be scared about removing her tooth, and then prayed for her family. i took out the tooth and had to plow through the rest of the crazy day. most of the time i do not feel like a dentist. WTH am i doing. anyway....

with the job that i do, i think a lot about humanity, this world, the human condition, what's biblical and what's right, what are man-made definitions of life, and what are God's kingdom definitions of life...
sometimes i see mothers who are so amazing and awesome. they can raise multiple children the exact same way. maybe 4 of them turn out 'successful'. and then there's one 'black sheep'. so what happened here?

often in the community where i work, i see mothers who might easily be considered 'incompetent'. some openly love their children. some clearly do not love their children. sometimes it's hard to tell who loves and who doesn't, because our world has such as skewed/diverse/non-biblical view of what love is. some people may think that love is buying their kids candy all the time; perhaps because they want their kids to be happy, rather than healthy. and some are clearly just overwhelmed and find that is the only way to get the kids to stop bothering them.

i thought about my patient's statement. that she says she doesn't feel like a failure anymore. that "at least she's not doing [insert something 'worse' than being pregnant at age 12 here]" 

BUT, what do you tell the mother who does have a child on drugs, or a child who is selling his/her body? are they failures?

thankfully for the whole world, the Gospel says that we are ALL failures.

i know that may sound like bad news. but to me that is such good news.

that God sends his son Jesus. that Jesus leaves heaven to come to a jacked up world. that Jesus doesn't just die for people who try hard, or are 'good enough', but he dies AND LIVES for everyone and anyone.

the six minute commute

walking down G street this morning i witnessed a little boy wearing a leather jacket, prolly about 7 or 8 yrs old, maybe 3 foot 10 inches tall, walks out of the corner store, spots one of his buddies across the street, points to him and nods his head as if to say, "yo", then calmly and cooly walks down the sidewalk sippin on his capri sun.

later today...

walking back to work after lunch and i glimpsed the thug walking behind me, ubiquitous young man of colour, prolly 21-23, wearing warmups and sneakers, into his music w/ his earbuds in the ears.

typical music in the hood is rap or hiphop or bachata or some spanish love ballads.

to my surprise he starts belting, "maaaaajesty, maaaaaajesty" pause.... "maaaaajestyyyyy" pause... "your grace has found me just as i am"... pause "maaaajesstyyyyyy"...

he was pretty out of tune. but it was pretty awesome that someone is singing a new song in the neighbourhood. i was tempted to fill in with the lines that he didn't know well enough to sing along ("empty handed but alive in your hands...") or perhaps start harmonizing... but i didn't want to invade his moment of personal worship.

that song always reminds me of junior year praise night skit when we used to have transparency projectors and did a silhouette skit of the crucifixion. yeah!!!

laugh at least once a day.

i would like to laugh at least once a day. i think i always do.

today i extracted #17 on E. he was super scared and needed his gf to come in the room w/ him for moral support. after the injection, he exclaimed, "ayeeee!!! this is why i don't go to the dentist!!!"

and then i made fun of him for having multiple tattoos and cannot handle a 27 gauge needle. and his gf laughed. we only make fun out of love.

after the tooth came out, he was impressed, "that's it?!"

me: congrats, it's a boy!
gf: hahahahaha
me: just kidding.
gf: wow, that's so small.
E: lemme see it!
me: size doesn't matter here.
gf: hahahahaha.
me: would you like to see it?
E: lemme see!
gf: he's beautiful!!!!
me: hahahahaha
E: eeeewwwww!!!!!
E: eeeeewwwwwwww!!!!!
E: eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!
E: EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
me: you just said 'ew' four times in a row!
gf: hahahhahah
E: lemme keep him!!!
gf: HIM?!!!
assistant ty: what's his name?
me: hahahahaha
E: his name is toothy!
ty: hahahahhaah
me: you can have it but we gotta clean it first.
E: yessss!!!!
gf: gross
me: are you going to make a necklace out of it?
E: yessss!!!!!