#jeff chu

[queerpyracy]

When Tristan and I got married some years ago, my parents didn't attend our wedding. My mother wrote to say they couldn't, for theological reasons. The week of the ceremony, she emailed to say she was praying for good weather. Then, some months later, she emailed to ask if she could come visit us in New York. Actually, that's not quite accurate. She wanted to know whether I might like her to "come and cook a dinner for you for your birthday." She hadn't been to visit in years, not since Tristan and I moved in together. She'd met him only once, and that meeting had been incredibly awkward. Food is the language my family speaks when Cantonese, English, and Chinglish all fail us. We can say with food what we can't with spoken words. As a kid, on the too-common occasions when I got in trouble with my dad at the dinner table for talking back, my grandmother would just spoon another favorite dish onto my plate. This is how she showed her solidarity. This was also her diplomatic way of suggesting that I just shut up and eat. [...] Food is the thing we can always talk about when we have nothing else. If I'm at a loss for something an always ask her what she and my dad have been eating. And I can always ask--genuinely, because I always want to know--how to cook a particular dish of hers. Through food, my mother says things she can't in words. Sometimes a box will unexpectedly arrive on Tristan's and my doorstep. Inevitably it's packed with food: cans of abalone she has brought back from Hong Kong; dried scallops and dried mushrooms she worries I am too cheap to buy myself; preserved ginger, which is good for expelling gas and soothing coughs; bags of dried apple slices, made with fruit from a friend's trees, which she has sent regularly ever since I told her Tristan loves them. When my mom arrived in New York to cook that birthday meal first things she did was to pull a gift out of her bag: an antique pair of ivory chopsticks. Everyone in our family has a pair, inscribed in red with our names. These were for my husband. My mom told him it was my job to figure out where to get the inscription done. I reminded her it was also her job to help me come up with a Chinese name for the white boy. Years later, I can tell you, she still hasn't. But we have those chopsticks.

Jeff Chu, Good Soil

[aprilthewriter]

Best Books I’ve read so far in 2022!

Because at this point, I've already read so many this year that making an end-of-year post, especially taking the books I'll be reading for grad school later into account, would be ridiculous (and if you're wondering how I've already read over 10 books this year: I've been reading very avidly because I need to get through all the books on my shelf before I move to Seattle this summer, 'cause I want to travel as light as I can. I had so many books that piled up during college and my service year that I finally have been able to get through in the past year).

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth: This story is about a lesbian growing up in Montana with her conservative aunt, and how when she is found out, she is sent to a "conversion therapy" school/camp. It's actually the first LGBTQ fiction I've ever read, and the writing in it is so incredible--the character development of Cam as she deals with grief, the relationship dynamic between her and Coley, the dynamic she has with the friends she makes at the camp, and gosh, the final scene…I devoured this book, could not put it down.

Nobody Knows My Name *and* Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin: These are two books of essays by Baldwin. Some of them were difficult to understand, but that was because the literary works he was talking about were things I had not read. I liked his essays about Paris the most (quelle surprise!); he talks about how he found his identity as an American while he was abroad.

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman: This book includes one of the best articulations of the social location of both Jesus and Paul that I have ever read (Paul could have used his status as a Roman citizen in good standing to get out of prison--but he didn’t). The book speaks to how Jesus was marginalized, one of the disinherited, a Jewish man in Roman empire-occupied territory, what this religion of Jesus has to say to disinherited people in the modern day, and how Jesus' life and teachings can help us to avoid falling into patterns of fear, deception, and hate.

Dear Church by Lenny Duncan: Although this book is addressed to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, much of what he says can be applied to the United Methodist Church as well. The mainline church needs to stop focusing on the narrative of decline and start thinking about the good work we can do, none of this scarcity garbage. We need to work on genuine anti-racism efforts and reparations, and Duncan offers detailed practical advice on how the church can start to do that. While giving many critiques and pointing out hypocrisy and injustice, Duncan also speaks to why the church still draws them, why they love it.

Outdoing Jesus by Doug Pagitt: This is a book that, by examining Jesus' miracles in the book of John and his words that we would "do greater things than these," exudes hope for what humans are capable of. Sure, we can't turn water into wine, but we can help provide clean water through new technology. We can't make new food appear out of thin air, but we can choose to have a mindset of abundance instead of scarcity. We can't bring the dead back to life, but we can work towards liberation for those who are on death row in prison. We, like Jesus, can treat all people with dignity and empathy, and remove all barriers that keep people from participating in the community of God (like when Jesus healed people, because oftentimes they were unjustly denied entrance to the temple because of their conditions ).

To Bless the Space Between Us by John O'Donahue: A book of blessings by the late Irish poet, rooted in Celtic Christian spirituality. They are beautiful and I hope to be able to actually use them as blessings--when I get to my place in Seattle, I'll use the "New Home" blessing for sure. At the end of the book there are also these beautiful poetic essays about the art of blessing and the history of blessing in Celtic culture.

Walking Towards Cordelia by Eleanor Anne Dote: Gifted to me by Ellie in preparation for my podcast interview with her, this book tells her incredible story of coming to terms with her transgender identity and her resilience in the midst of many life struggles and challenges. She also writes about her brave work of talking with evangelical pastors about her story.

Does Jesus Really Love Me? By Jeff Chu: This book not only displays Chu's incredible skill as a journalist, telling the stories of people all over the theological spectrum on his yearlong trek across America (he interviewed Pastor Fred Phelps…the courage to do that, I can't even imagine…), but also reflects on the complexity of his faith journey as a gay man.

Salvation on the Small Screen? By Nadia Bolz-Weber: Some people think NBW's first book is Pastrix, but it's actually this wild journey of a book. She was pitched by a publisher to watch Trinity Broadcast Network (think Paula White, Joel Osteen, and very late at night, teen Christian programming) for 24 hours straight. And she did it! She brought some of her friends along for the ride, taking hour slots to watch with her (her parents covered a half-hour slot so she could take a shower, so technically she watched 23 1/2 hours). Her commentary is her usual lovely sarcasm, but also turns inward to critique herself and her faith tradition when she sees there are similarities between them and the televangelists.

I've also read poetry books this year, and although I enjoy it, I'm not good at talking about poetry, so I'll just list the titles: A Portrait of the Self as Nation by Marilyn Chin, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry (edited by Rita Dove), Poetry 180 (edited by Billy Collins), and Poems of Paris (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series)

[iirulancorrino]

Rachel Held Evans, Wholehearted Faith

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

hey!! just wanted to recommend the book "does Jesus really love me? : a gay Christian's pilgrimage in search of God in america" by jeff chu, as well as the episode of the podcast 'of friends like these' called "let's create messy coalitions" where he's interviewed and answers questions and talks about his family and sexuality. it was so lovely and inspiring!! he's a married gay man and basically on his spiritual journey he went from being a journalist to that plus being in seminary :')

Ooh thank you, I can’t wait to check those out!

I found the book here, and the podcast ep on this webpage. 

[holy-ghost-heretic]

[queerpyracy]

To name the soils that you come from is to acknowledge that you were not self-made, because there is no such thing as a self-made human. It places you in the context of an ecosystem. It confesses that you are a creature--simply, someone created by forces beyond you--which is to say reared and scarred and sanded and formed. It admits that you are not some nebula floating in the ether but that you have roots and are inescapably interdependent with the world around you. It's laughable to me that the verb form of the word "soil" somehow came to be associated with filth, given how necessary it is for life. The Jewish and Christian creation myths describe humankind as having originally been made from soil. The Ojibwe say the same, as does one Chinese story--yellow clay, of course, shaped by the nimble hands of the goddess Nuwa. Soil can be denuded and degraded, and it can be nourished and amended. This, Nate told us, was our work to do at the Farminary--both literally, with the help of our compost pile, and figuratively, as we tended to our own spiritual lives. Together, we'd study the soils we came from, and we'd examine the growing conditions we were creating for others, and ourselves. Soil teems with so many lifeforms that help feed us. Scientists estimate that just one teaspoon of healthy topsoil can contain ten thousand different species of microbe--bacteria and protozoa, fungi and viruses. Without soil we wouldn't have so many of the things of modern life, including glass (sand), pottery (clay), and Scotch (peat). In this seminary class, we'd carefully examine the soils of our lives, identifying where we had flourished and where we had struggled. What characteristics had fostered our growth? How could we recognize poor spiritual soil?

Jeff Chu, Good Soil

[queerpyracy]

In the Bible, the wilderness never seems to belong to anyone, at least not in the long term. Armies might try to conquer the land, and colonizers might build their citadels. But in the ancient prophecies, nature serves as a patient agent of justice, ever ready to reclaim the bricks and turn them back to dust. The old oracles that warn of hyenas taking over a military tower or owls and ostriches finding places to nest can be read as warnings to humankind: Don't see yourselves as more powerful than you actually are. Don't think your structures are more permanent, your systems more resilient, than they actually are. "Mine" might be one of the most dangerously alluring words in the English language. We guard our possessions jealously. We seek deeds and titles to houses and cars, showing off what we've earned. Our societies celebrate the self-made billionaire, rarely examining the lie of independent wealth. After we sold our house and moved into a seminary apartment with a lovely little balcony overlooking woods, Tristan and I discovered the freedom of not owning the place. In exchange for our (heavily subsidized) monthly rent, we had precious few responsibilities beyond the electric bill. If something needed fixing, we went online and logged a request. A maintenance worker would show up within a day. Tristan found work at the indie bookstore in town. Make no mistake: It was still a job, one that came with some of the minor annoyances of customer service. But there, also, he felt the ease of lessened authority. There were no emails to answer, no work to take home with him at day's end, no burdens to be carried through the night and into the next morning. The farm, too, had never been mine and could never be mine. While I might be able to find belonging there (sometimes) and while I felt a growing sense of responsibility to tend it well, it could never belong to me. Fidelity could never be mistaken for ownership. To emphasize what's mine can be to underplay the importance of what's ours. The temptation toward self-sufficiency, self-importance, and indeed self-absorption is age old and universal; hence all the detailed rules and strikingly specific regulations about how to treat one's neighbor, not just in the Torah but also int he holy books of so many religions and the writings of so many philosophers. The idea of self-sufficiency can be such an alluring trickster. One day the previous fall, we had a surplus of produce on the farm, and I went around to some of the seminary offices, asking secretaries, deans, maintenance workers, and cleaners if they wanted any green beans or tomatoes or peppers. "They're from the Farminary!" I said, feeling like a door-to-door salesman. "They're free!" While a few people were delighted, I was surprised at how many responded with skepticism. Some looked askance at my overflowing basket; were there signs of rot in the produce? Or they quickly brushed me off, as if I'd insulted them by asking if they wanted free vegetables. "I don't need any food," one said, looking at me as if she wished she had a door to shut in my face. "Okay," I replied. Though really, I wanted to say, Do you know how sweet these tomatoes are? And these lunchbox peppers? They're delicious. I couldn't find enough takers, so eventually I left the produce on a table in the library's cafe, with a sign that said, "Free! Help yourself." Maybe when nobody else was looking, someone would take them.

Jeff Chu, Good Soil

[iirulancorrino]

Faith gives people language and stories with which to draw meaning from their experiences, to see their lives as part of a larger narrative of wholeness and healing. At its best, faith teaches us to live without certainty and to hope without guarantee. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for," wrote an anonymous biblical author, "the conviction of things not seen." At its best, faith teaches us to take risks.

Rachel Held Evans, Wholehearted Faith