Reflecting on Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay, and Tyre Nichols

This is what I shared with my church on the morning of Sunday, January 29, 2023: As a staff, we felt it important to talk more directly about last weekend’s shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay among the Asian American community, and then the release of the videos showing the murder of Tyre …

Lament

From Sunday’s liturgy at Christ City Church; May 29, 2022. I am so tired of waiting.Aren’t you,for the world to become goodand beautiful and kind?Let us take a knifeand cut the world in two—and see what worms are eatingat the rind. Langston Hughes When hard things happen, when suffering shows up, when loss lingers, when …

Guns and racism

Feeling tired and heartbroken again in the wake of another spate of shootings, the latest on Wednesday in Dallas at a Korean salon and on Saturday at a grocery store in a predominantly Black Buffalo neighborhood, which were racially motivated, and at a Taiwanese church in Orange County yesterday. When I moved to the US …

What is the Church’s task today?

Kaj Munk was a Danish playwright and Lutheran pastor, martyred during the German occupation of Denmark. He was killed by the Gestapo on this day in 1944. His words ring true for us today as they did seven decades ago: What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: “Faith, hope, and love”? That sounds beautiful. …