Life is endlessly suprising. I've spent the past six weeks living and working at a Christian social services organization, an environment I never thought I would find myself in. Few experiences in my life have required me to give up my conceptions of myself and of the world as this has. And right in this letting go, this giving up of old conceptions and habits, lies great joy and freedom.
When I first started coming to Sunday Worship at the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown (PCC) as a part of a research project, I never expected that I would end up living at (Donaldina) Cameron House, a Christian social services and youth ministries organization which was founded as a mission branch of the Presbyterian Church, a few months later. I had grown comfortable with the Christian environment at PCC and when the opportunity for a job at Cameron House came up, I was genuinely excited about living in a spiritually grounded place. Several months after the initial decision, I am still grappling with the consequences.
I felt welcomed and accepted from the beginning, so I can't say I really have felt uncomfortable, but the sheer unfamiliarity of the situation bears a certain psychological weight. This weight is not really a burden, but it tranforms my mind, my emotions, my sense of self.
The first week was the biggest shock. In my current position, I am responsible for the care, leadership, and training of ten high school volunteers, who in turn lead a group of about 30 3rd and 4th graders in day camp activities, including games, songs, crafts, devotions and field trips. In the first week, my task was to train the high schoolers to be effective day camp leaders. My main teaching experience was co-teaching a sophmore health class once a week, so I was poorly prepared to teach seven hours each day. My lesson plans were pretty shabby, and I struggled to earn the respect and trust of the leaders. But I can think of no better way to learn to be a better teacher. By the end of the week, I finally felt like I knew what I was talking about, and in my mind I pretended I was ready for the first day of camp.
The kids were actually a whole different story. They are an energetic, easily distracted, and highly likeable bunch. For the past five weeks, my interaction with them has been limited, but highly rewarding. During the day, my main responsibilites are to attend to first aid situations, encourage the leaders to stay on task, and work out discipline issues with the kids. This last bit has been especially challenging, and has forced me to call upon all my resources, which, as it turns out, mostly consist of other people. I have learned greatly from consulting with my peers and other co-workers, but I found the most important resource in dealing with a kid who struggles to cooperate or follow the rules is the kid himself. Most of the time, the kid knows the solution more than I do, and the best course of action is to let her find it for herself. I find this requires more patience, trust, and open-mindedness than I possess, and thus I am forced to grow.
The living situations teaches me a great deal as well. I notice that whatever bad, unhealthy, or otherwise unwholesome habits I have at home have tended to disappear when I live in close promixity or cooperatively with others. I can't say I do the dishes, make lunch, clean up after myself, or take out the recycling very often at home, but when I'm at Cameron House I do these things without even thinking. I really love this part about living with others, and it fills me with more energy and vigor than I have at home. Furthermore, I'm living in the city, where everything seems close at hand, and in Chinatown, a district of which I knew very little of before this year. It is an amazing feeling to wake up and walk out the door and myself in a local temple or in a local church, places that once seemed so far away.
There are other aspects of my life here that equally rewarding, but a great deal more confusing, because they relate to two parts of my identity, my race and my religious practice. As an organization that almost entirely serves Chinese Americans, Cameron House represents a very different environment from the one I have grown up in. At Cameron House, I am not particularly aware of my own whiteness, but I certainly notice when another white person is present. I really have no idea how others change their behavior around me because of my race, but living here forces me to reexamine my own perceptions about race. The answer that comes up for me, time and again, is that I judge people based on their ethnicity very often. I can't claim to understand what it is like to be in the racial minority in American society, but I feel I have a better sense of how ingrained racism is in our society and in our collective consciousness.
The spiritual side of my experience at Cameron House continues to shake and stretch me in new ways. Living in a Christian community where Christian values are appreciated, and to some extent, practiced by young people is inspiring to me as a Buddhist. From my experience at PCC, I have grown comfortable observing and participating in Christian spirituality. What is confusing and unsettling (though ultimately rewarding) for me is that at Cameron House, I am expected to teach not only Christian values, but also faith.
During the first week, I led prayer frequently with my high school leaders. Some were clearly not interested in prayer, but followed along anyway. I also pushed my leaders to do more devotions (activities and lessons drawn from the Bible or Christian spirituality) with the kids, and I worked with them frequently to develop and deepen these devotions. With my red, sunburned skin, plaid shirts, and Texas Rangers hat, I sensed that they thought of me as a "Bible thumper," which, I concede, is a pejorative label. Whether or not this was true, I still did not feel entirely honest propagating Christian teaching to them while hiding my Buddhist practice. Last week, I had a conversation with my high school leaders about this, and I heard a general sigh of relief from them that I was indeed not trying to convert them to a form of evangelical Christianity.
Nevertheless, prayer and devotions are something that I now love, and I have a deep respect for the Christian life. I don't identify as a Christian, but in full honestly I would still say that I am a Christian. I take the life of Jesus as an example of how to live a life of compassion, devotion, and peace-- in this sense I am a Christian. This doesn't mean I am less of a Buddhist, but it does mean that I realize that labels such as "Christian," "Muslim," or "Buddhist" are less important than we make them out to be. During this summer so far, my intention has been to help the kids and the leaders in their spiritual growth and development, whether it be Christian or agnostic or otherwise. I want to instill in them the joy of life, the beauty of the nature, and a sense of graditude for all that they have been given, whether they see God in their lives or not. As I move into the final two weeks of the program, I hope and pray that their lives may be filled with happiness.
