Entering the Debate

Is it wrong for me to not write Christian poems? Is it okay that I don’t always write about God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit? Should I try to explain the Gospel in every poem I write?

These are questions I have asked and continue to ask myself as I explore my interest in writing. As a Christian, I believe God does everything for a reason. But for what reason did God give me an interest in writing?

From a personal experience, some Christians have told me that I should only be writing “Christian poems”. I didn’t even know what that meant. But they were telling me to write poems explicitly about God. They would tell me that God gave me this gift of writing and if I wasn’t using it to tell people about God, that I was wasting my talent. Steve Turner in his book Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts sums it up like this, “The arts, we [Christians] were told, could be ‘used.’ They could be ‘effective tools for evangelism’” (17).

Which I agree, the arts can be used as an evangelistic tool. But I believe that art can be so much more. What if arts could be harnessed in a different way? Steve Turner continues on in his book to write:

I don’t believe every artist who is a Christian should produce art that is a paraphrased sermon. A lot of Christian art is for the sake of art. But because art is also a record and reflects the questions and anxieties of the time, I would like to see contributions that reflect a Christian understanding of that time. I also would like to see them in the mainstream arts rather than in the religious subculture…I am saying it because debates are taking place in cinema, painting, dance, fiction, poetry and theater on issues where Christians have something to give, and yet they are not even being heard (21).

I think it is true, Christians are not being heard in these debates that are taking place. In part or in whole, Christians have willingly bowed out of these debates. Isn’t it high time that some Christians enter into these debates about culture? Society? Life?

Where are the Christians who are willing to engage with non-Christians? As I have been wetting my feet in the NYC poetry scene, I have noticed that there seems to be a divide. There are pockets of Christian artists and creatives that have workshops at churches or discussions in small groups. And there are pockets of non-Christian artists/creatives slamming at venues, touring the galleries, or dancing in studios. There is no intersect. There is no dialogue between these two groups of people that both enjoy, love, and create art.

For example, I have been going to poetry slams off and on since I have moved to NYC. Poets perform poems about hardships, death, cancer, love, broken homes, 9/11. The gamut is endless. Doesn’t God, and by extension Christians, have something to say about some of these things? Yet when I go to these slams, I assume that I am the only Christian in the venue.

Not to say every Christian artist needs to go out and make friends with a non-Christian artist. Or that every Christian artist needs to stop making “Christian art”. But God being a holistic God, maybe He wants some of us Christian artists to build, paint, write bridges to non-Christian artists in the city.

What Needs to be Written?

On the way to the subway I walk by the Apple Store
and I ponder what the poet said last night…
“the things you are too afraid to write,
are the things that need to be written.”
But how can they be written when my hand quivers
every time I try to put  my fears to paper.
My thoughts are interrupted
by brown fur in the corner of my eye.
I am walking by a window display of teddy bears at FAO Schwartz.
I am transported to my childhood room
with a couple friends of old.
My teddy bears were soft and cozy against my face.
Their fur tickled my ears
as I used them to muffle the sounds
of my parents’ verbal bouts
as they reached the second story of the house.
They helped me as I forced myself to sleep
to dream that the fighting would
Stop. Stop right here
I’ve divulged too much.
I’ve let you in…
in the subway car people always try to sit one seat apart.
Keeping strangers at arm’s length
and that’s what I do with my poetry.
I protect the paper
I regulate the amount of ink used from my heart’s inkwell
to charge the pen.
Until the flow of people on the train remind me that
My thoughts of her come and go
What I did wrong, what I could have done.
She was my first love
and I screwed up.
I bridled my tongue like I bridle my pen,
I’m afraid that she will be the the first
in a wake of the same mistakes.
Secretly afraid I will be alone
reliving the same regrets.
Like the man holding the doors
I hold back my emotions.
The brakeman’s voice comes in over the intercomm
“You are holding up the train.”
The train to vulnerability, to honesty,
to truth.
To writing what really needs to be written.
But I won’t get there on this train
and it’s going to be a long commute,
I will just have to wait for the next connection of pen to paper.
By Jayson Choe

Why is it so hard to be (emotionally) honest? I don’t know about you, but for myself it’s difficult to be authentic with people. Both in my writing and my personal relationships I find that I emotionally censor myself. I, and probably many people out there, never want to honestly answer the question “how are you?” Or sometimes I never want to tell people what’s really going on. Even people that I am close to.

And I think it’s time for this emotional censorship to stop. I began writing poetry because I was an angst filled teenage that needed an outlet. But how is poetry supposed to be an outlet if I am not willing to be forthright on paper? And that’s where the above poem came from.

I desire to be more sincere since I have moved to New York City. Many people have told me and I learned for myself that in a city of millions, you can still be lonely. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be adrift alone amongst a sea of people. That’s why I want to be more vulnerable in my writing and also with people around me. And maybe, just maybe, you could use the some of the same.

An Interesting Article: “Do Colleges Redline Asian-Americans?”

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Happy Lunar New Year! i just returned home from two back to back feasts…one of the perks of living so close to our families. So much for eating healthier this year. But, as a friend tweeted: “if you need to re-evaluate your new year’s resolution, now is the time – Chinese new year is tomorrow!” I’ll be back on track…Monday. I still have to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

A quick update on what’s been going on: Praise God for an awesome time at the Epic East Coast Conference only a few weeks ago. One of the highlights of our weekend was our Day of Outreach, where we sent the entire conference out onto various campuses and locations in Philly to get into spiritual conversations. As a conference we were able to initiate 122 conversations, get into 84 spiritual conversations, give 56 gospel presentations and lead 8 people to pray & receive Christ. Yah God!

Since it was MLK weekend, one of the tools we used on our Day of Outreach was a Martin Luther King Jr. survey that one of our staff created. The first question to this survey is “You may be familiar with the famous quote on the front of this card [the "I have a dream" quote above]. Do you think Martin Luther King’s dream has been achieved?” I was surprised that many of the people I personally surveyed said that they think for the most part, his dream has been achieved.

I was reminded of that quote again when I read this article in The Boston Globe: “Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?” The article essentially says that Asian-American students “statistically, have to get higher scores than others to get in.’’ Some other interesting points (taken from “The Week”, which summarized this article):
* Children of Chinese, Koreans and other immigrants from the East earn good grades, shine in extracurricular activities and outperform other ethnic groups on standardized tests.
* That record of achievement has produced a backlash in the country’s colleges, which have quietly instituted an “Asian ceiling” in admissions.
* Yale, Darmouth and Harvard appear to be taking steps to limit Asian-Americans to between 15 percent and 20 percent of students.
* According to Princeton sociologist Thomas Epsenshade, top colleges practice a kind of reverse affirmative-action policy, requiring Asian-Americans to score an average of 140 points higher on SATs than other students.
* It’s understandable that colleges want a diverse student body.
* In a nation where success is suppsedly based on merit and performance, punishing Asian-Americans for their drive and intelligence “feels deeply unfair.”

I still have to process my thoughts on this issue, but I thought I’d throw it out there and begin the conversation. On a somewhat related note, this article captures why I personally decided to serve full-time in Asian American ministry. Growing up, I always felt like I was running on a “success treadmill”: I had to get good grades on my SSAT to get into Stuyvesant (a specialized Highschool in NY that both my brothers attended), had to do well on my SATs and be involved in lots of extracurricular activities to get into Cornell, and then had to fill my summers up with internships so that I could get a good job (read: high paying and stable, not necessarily something I was passionate/cared about) after college. Living on a treadmill always left me feeling anxious, exhausted and constantly fearing failure.

Reading this article is confirmation of the senseless stress and pressure many Asian families put on their children to do well academically. My personal dream is that one day young Asian-Americans would not be forced into a mold of what their families think success looks like (graduating from Harvard?), but truly enjoy the process of discovering who God is and whom He created them to be.