Why I Cried at the New Community Conference

I want to be vulnerable with you and share some of my story. I want to share what breaks my heart and what gives me hope. I want to let you know a little bit about the pain I carry and how I feel God is using it in my life to bring me closer to Christ as I plod along, seeking God’s dream. And I want to start by telling you why I cried in Kanuga at the New Community Conference.

But before I go further, I need to explain why I’d start my initial post on this blog with a story about an Episcopal Church conference in North Carolina. I know that many of us have felt traumatized by institutional Christianity. Some of us no longer identify as Christians. And some of us are what Phyllis Tickle calls “re-traditionalists” and have joined or remained in the institutional church. There are many different experiences and I wanted to write something more general that could appeal to everyone. But as I wrestled through this, I realized this particular experience at the conference was something I couldn’t escape writing. Hopefully, this particualr experience will be a doorway for a broader conversation.

The New Community Conference is created for Episcopalian persons of color. Here is how it is described on the Epsicopal Church’s website: “This gathering of Asian, Black, Latino/Hispanic and Native American clergy and lay leaders will provide a safe place to share hopes and dreams, needs and concerns, gifts and ministries, suffering and joy in the context of being the New Community.” I was invited to be one of a handful of panelists during one of the panel discussions. We each had eight minutes to speak to the hundreds of people gathered around the theme of “Youth & Young Adult Ministry in the Ethnic Community.” I didn’t have much experience with the topic specifically, so I decided to share some of my experiences as a young Episcopalian of color in a mostly white denomination and context.

I started off by sharing some painful stories as a person of color in a mostly white context. Then I began talking about the worship service from the initial night of the conference and started to get choked up. I tried to get my bearings because I was in a large gathering of people and I had the floor. I was nervous because of all the people there, including the Presiding Bishop along with other Episcopal church leaders and officials. I tried to stop the tears, but the more I tried, the more they came.

The room became quiet. I could sense everyone becoming still, while I was trying to get myself together. But at this point, my emotions were overwhelming me. This was a full-out cry. My shoulders started to shake, and I felt the hand of another panelist touching me to comfort me. I don’t know how long it lasted, but there was a period of time where the only sound heard in that room was my tears. Someone yelled out, “We love you, Jamie.” The crowd clapped their hands to show their support. Someone else started singing “Jesus Loves Me”. A lot of the crowd joined in. They were lifting me up, giving me time, understanding groans too deep for words. At that moment, deep emotions were being brought up in me from the past. I’d like to share two stories with you that informed the emotions I felt on that panel, while I stopped talking in the microphone and dropped my head to cry.

When I was a seventh grader in an almost completely white middle school, a boy turned around and told me I was a dumb Korean and I wouldn’t understand what he and his friend were doing. Later that year I was walking to a spot where my mom usually picked up me and my brother after school. An eighth grader was walking by, a big and intimidating one that I had never spoken to, and he brought his scrunched up face close to mine and growled, “Stupid Japanese.” I am thirty one years old with children of my own, but when I pass a group of young white men, I still fear the shame and violence of being racially slurred by them. This fear is real, visceral, and something I experience on an almost daily basis in a mostly white context. It is also a fear that I carry in the church.

Later on in life, my wife and I moved back to our hometown and were looking for a house to rent. We found one we liked and the renter gave us a tour. He asked us if we liked it, and we told him we wanted to live there. This is what he told us, “Well, I’m really glad y’all like it and I want y’all to rent the place. I already told another family they could have it, but I’ll let them know it isn’t available anymore. He’s black. She’s white. They have a couple of kids. I’m just not comfortable with that.” We didn’t rent that house.

I have had many experiences like these, more than I want to remember. The same is true with my friends who are persons of color. But I can’t tell you how excruciatingly painful it is for me when my white sisters and brothers in the church deny or won’t acknowlegde the painful realities of persons of color. It is devastating for me when I see a white sister or brother in Christ voice their disdain for “political correctness” when me and my sisters and brothers just want to stop being hurt. It isn’t a political conspiracy or a power grab; it’s sisters and brothers of color sharing the truth of their lives.

Having said all of this, I want to get back to the reason I cried during my talk. Before I lost it in front of everyone, I was sharing how the worship service from the previous night reminded me of the scene in Revelation where every tribe, tongue, and nation worshiped around the throne of God. I was shedding these tears of joy and longing, because I saw a glimpse of heaven the night before with all of my sisters and brothers of color participating and contributing in the worship of God. It was a heaven where other people looked like me, a heaven where I wasn’t afraid, a heaven where I was heard. For a brief moment, I saw God’s dream.

That is why I cried at the New Community Conference.