Maria
Hey folks, Maria here. Before we get into today's episode, we have a correction and an apology to make. In our last episode on anger after Atlanta, I used the term female body in an attempt to describe my experiences of feeling unsafe in certain public situations based on who I am in my body and how I present to the world. After the episode aired, we were very lovingly reminded by someone that using the term female body can present various levels of baggage and barriers to our non binary and trans listeners. By using the term female body, I was participating in language harmful to trans and non binary people. And that excludes trans and non binary experiences of gender based harassment and transphobia. I'm sorry, thank you so much for being gracious enough to call my use of language out and for inviting me and us to do better. We're all on a learning journey together and really hope that this learning experience for us will also benefit our podcast community as a whole. With that, let's get into today's conversation.
Celine
Welcome to resetting the table, expanding imagination around race, place and faith for our collective liberation. I'm Celine Chuang.
Maria
I'm Maria Mulder,
Trixie
and I'm Trixie Ling. We host this podcast from the traditional ancestral unseeded Muskingum Squamish, and Tsleil Wauttuth territory otherwise known as Vancouver, Canada, analysing the land is one way we want to commit to decolonization and begin each episode in a good way, expressing solidarity with the indigenous struggle for rights, reparation and sovereignty.
Celine
Today, we're talking with our friend Kathy Kwan, who works in equity, diversity and inclusion or EDI in Vancouver. Kathy has a background in systems engineering. So her speaking advocacy and EDI work are all grounded in the systemic, how systems affect people. We're excited to share this conversation on Asian identity embodiments and the gift of queerness. With that, let's get into it. Okay, so Kathy, we like to ask this question to our guests and by guests. I mean, we've asked one guest so far, our second guest. So who do you come as today? And how did you arrive? Hmm.
Kathy
Yeah, I would say that I come today with a lot of different intersecting identities. So I'm originally Korean American, but I live in Canada, I identify as queer as Christian as a cis woman. And the thing that I think I've I've started to really, really lean into is the reality that I live in the middle of quite a few tensions. And that's actually a space that I feel most comfortable, that I feel most safe and whole , which I think is also sort of challenging, because I imagine most people don't actually really enjoy living in tension, and that it is actually typically more of an uncomfortable space to be in. But it's comfortable for me because it allows me to actually live into all those different identities that I mentioned, being a first generation born in America, to immigrant parents from South Korea, that is its own sort of middle space. I am children of settlers. I am a settler in the States, and now also in Canada. But it's a different experience of being more recent immigrants and also of East Asian descent. also recognizing the tensions between queerness and a lot of different identities. very obvious one being my Christian identity, comes with a lot of tension and a lot of division. I remember a conversation with my sister who has actually left the Christian faith that we were raised in. And she she asked me actually a number of times she was like, why are you still a Christian I don't understand why you're still a Christian when they reject your queerness and so I've been with on my own own journey of recognizing that I can't actually leave any of those two behind I need to actually live in that tension between these two kind of battling worlds. And queerness and and certainly Korean identity and and also I think often an immigrant identity across different immigrant experiences. There's there's quite a bit of tension there of legacy and names and family and what that all means. I also just think about like my my professional experiences of having a background in Systems Engineering but being actually quite extroverted and people oriented, which is a really awkward experience being in the engineering school at Berkeley were starting a conversation was actually quite odd. And so I, yeah, just being an extrovert in in quite introverted spaces, having a people oriented mindset in a lot of technical spaces, there's also just a lot of tension between I think, the sciences, and so technical disciplines and, and faith. And so, again, all of these different identities that I really am not willing to leave behind. When I moved to Canada, I guess over 13 years ago, I also recognized and was awakened to how different Canada is from the US, even though we share language and a border. And again, I find myself not being willing to and not wanting to, and not wanting anyone to have to leave behind their various identities and experiences that might otherwise seem discrete and distinct and live in tension. So I come today with a lot of tensions in my body, and, and the joy and the beautiful experiences, but also kind of the the tricky experiences and challenges that come on those intersecting identities.
Celine
That was a very poetic, like, cohesive way of introducing yourself? Yeah, I love that. So I'm actually preaching, I'm going to mention the sermon that I'm supposed to preach tomorrow, for the Abbey C hurch in Victoria, just because I think of what you spoke to, it's actually really aligned with the sermon, and maybe I'll link it in the show notes if people want to view it or read it. But kind of like the thesis statement of the sermon is kind of, in a way, the inner way you embody the thesis statement of that of the sermon. And the sermon is about the Transfiguration. Because tomorrow in the Christian calendar, and the liturgical calendar is transfiguration Sunday, and that's when we read and kind of grapple with the story of Jesus, taking three disciples with him going up to a mountain, being revealed in his kind of glorious, both human and divine nature, which is a hybrid nature, in the interpretation that I'm kind of exploring. And that being this partial moment of partial revelation, and then a moment that also speaks to kind of a hole of Jesus's life and kind of a hybrid experience of being human and divine being meeting even where he meets God and this liminal in between space, like on a mountain between heaven and earth. And kind of the, the queerness of that moment is what I'm exploring as well, like, the idea that queerness is, is to be in tension, and a lot of ways that come that comes from queer theory. So the idea of like to queer something being to unsettle something, or to like, ask questions have a binary or a rule or a border, which is more like, I'm getting more like theoretical, but what I mean to say is like, to live in tension and to exist in these many hybrid push and pull, like ebb and flow spaces that you do, I think, is actually very spiritual space. And that's kind of what I'm, what I'm talking about in the sermon is that queer folks and folks who live in these places of tension, and these hybrid identities actually have so much wisdom, so much embodied wisdom to teach us about how to relate to God, how to relate to each other, how to relate to the land, and like the places that we're in. And this is shown in the story, because Jesus actually embodies that. So, yeah, I mean, I say that because I also I appreciate so much of your kind of embodied theology, Kathy, and like, the way that all those identities that you talked about, and those tensions that you live in, inform how you show up to those various spaces, whether it's like work, whether it's church and kind of like, speaking truth in those spaces and begin truth for my own experience.
Kathy
Yeah, thanks. It's a fun place to be also a very awkward place to be, but that's where we are.
Trixie
Yeah, I think, you know, just kind of following with what Celine also said, and what really you are able to put into words I think feelings that I often that tension, right, it's often hard to describe. And I think this season of life, I've really learned to embrace the tension, embrace the discomfort and I think of that place is where I feel like I can be more fully myself. So you know, I don't have to be in these binary categories that often we put ourselves in and I think particularly even reclaiming who I am like as a Taiwanese Canadian, what that means and a settler. I think to fully embrace that is that discomfort you talk about? Wow, that is where I feel like I can connect to more people than ever which is so free, when I discover like who are my people and and be able to Speak into those spaces and fully show up as myself. I wonder, Kathy, how have you been able to kind of embrace the tension in terms of like sense of community? Because I think a lot of this tension work, we can't do it on our own right. And that's what I'm discovering a lot of is actually how other people helped me discover and reclaim who I am to hearing their intersecting identities. So I'm curious, like, who has been kind of journeying along with you, challenging you, supporting you in embracing this tension spaces that you hold?
Kathy
I love that question. I am so uncomfortable, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. Because I realize that, probably over the last several years, I have become more and more aware of the fact that I don't have quote, unquote, my people. And that's totally okay. It makes things challenging in terms of experiencing genuine belonging, or at least not having to try so hard to experience genuine belonging. But the reality is that I want to believe that actually, none of us really can, can do that without relinquishing some critical part of ourselves or forgetting some really critical and alive or dormant parts of ourselves. And that, the more that we actually come into ourselves and make room for ourselves, the more two things can possibly happen, maybe both at the same time, in an ideal situation. One is that there's this necessarily necessary alienation that happens, but I want to believe that it serves then to lead to a more genuine sense of belonging. I'm thinking of, I go to a church called Artisan church in Vancouver, it started out I think it's over 10 years now 10 years old. And at some point, the church, it didn't split it multiplied. So what I mean by that is that it wasn't that we had an argument over the color of the carpet and decided to go two ways. It was that we decided to do neighborhood church in two different neighborhoods. And so to expand our sense of neighborhood church, and to another neighborhood, where a lot of folks were actually kind of coming from to attend our church. I stayed with the first location. And it was a location that ended up, a lot of folks went to the new location, a lot of folks relocated, I want to say three quarters of the church relocated to the new location. And then the the folks who stayed behind, we were kind of a hodgepodge group of I and I, I say in the most endearing way, I think that all of us had, the thread between the lot of us was a relationship with our awkwardness, and an ability to express our awkwardness and live with our awkwardness without too much awkwardness. And, yeah, so I wouldn't go so far as to say that we were diverse, Artisan is a white church, and ethnically, there's no real other way to describe it. But there was more racial diversity at that location than at the location that was much larger. And and then there were a number of other kind of diverse demographic identities that were represented there, whether it was age or stage of life or socio economic. And what was also not coincidental about that fact was that of the the two pastors that stayed with that original location, one of them was a single black woman. And the other three pastors, two of whom went to the new location, were all straight white men married. And so I think, recognizing that we had a person of color, a woman of color in leadership visible to the folks who walked through that door that materially changed how we showed up for one another. And it was this constant, direct and indirect signal to all of us that there was room for us. And we embody that for one another. And it was almost like because none of it there was not a sense of homogeneity of like, this is what it looks like to go to this particular location of artisan it meant that Actually all of us felt welcome, all of us fit in because there was no way for us to create a click, a sense of like this is this is these are the in people. And then we're including we are the includers and then we're including other people, we were small enough and different enough in that smallness, that all of us had this sense of like, yeah, I belong here, because none of us really belongs here. And so all of us does. And I think about that community as kind of like this microcosm of what we could have, if we were all actually allowed, both by ourselves and are our social circles, and by the world, I guess, at the end, to actually be in touch with and express all of those things that make us uniquely us, as opposed to being sort of forced into with fear of being alienated or boxed out or ostracized, to relinquish certain parts of ourselves, and to be sort of pressured into homogeneity? Is that real belonging, I don't actually know. And my kind of, like, idealistic self wants to say, no, that's not real belonging. Others may disagree, but yeah, that's been my experience is that, you know, there have been, there has been a time, many times, probably actually, where I've been trying to find my people. And the reality is that that does not exist. And, and that I don't want to find my people, I want to both see myself in my fullness. And I want to invite others to see the fullness of who I am. And I want to see the fullness of other people, and welcome the fullness of other people. And not just those parts of another person that I'm familiar with, or that I can identify with. And so thereby, close the circle a little bit more. So really hard thing to do, I'm saying this and like, you know, it's not like, oh, I've achieved this impossible task. But yeah, I think having a lot of identities that are representative groups that have otherwise rejected one another, it has forced me not out of my own nobility, but it has forced me to live into this, this other ideal in a lot of ways.
Maria
It makes me think, particularly of queerness, and Christianity. Yeah, just I know, in my own journey, when I was coming out as an older teenager, and I for a while I chose to reject the church and try to find my community amongst the queer folk. And then after about a year of doing that, I realized that I couldn't do that, because there were all of these parts of me that were not being attended to by that particular community. And so I am wondering, I know in previous conversations, we've talked about queerness as a gift to the church. And I am wondering about kind of specific ways that you have seen that in your own context of where your own queerness or other people's queerness has been a gift and an offering and a blessing to church communities and also other communities that may choose to actively reject us.
Kathy
Ah, gosh, gift I? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, I think that there are actually many gifts that queerness brings to the church. The first thing that came to mind, though, and when I I'm kind of like interpreting this word gift, is more into the space of the prophetic is that I get so maybe one way to say it, is that the gift is to inject disruption that is needed by the church. It's injecting disruption into complacency into like an environment of complacency of apathy, of death, of myopia of self involvement of individualism, of idolatry. Each one of those words probably could do a separate podcast on but there are so many ways in which queerness forces if a church is willing, if a Christian community is willing, it forces that community to ask the questions that it has been taking for granted. What is marriage, for example, what actually is it? I certainly grew up in a context where we believed that we were different. But we had in fact subscribed to a socialized understanding of what marriage is. Everything from media and romance and you know, all of those, like finding the one finding Mr. Right and Mrs. Right. And there's this, like one individual out there who was made perfectly by God. For me. It's like, Where on earth did you find that? idea? You found that in the notebook? I see. No.
Celine
And that's a terrible depiction of
Kathy
Yeah. Yeah, you didn't find that Christianity, that's for sure. Yeah, and and so we, or even this idea that marriage is a given, that it is the next step. And you go out and you find this person and you start a new family. And that's, that is the next thing that you just anticipate that, you know, parents like praying over their newborn babies about the husbands and wives that they will you know what it's like, wow, where did you get that idea? Who said that this child would ever find someone, or that that is even how that that person would thrive and flourish. And so conversations around singleness celibacy, a marriage, that whole space of what marriage actually is, it is this picture of like Pleasantville marriage as like 2.7 children, a golden retriever and a white picket fence with your own bathroom? Like, that is so biblical. That is, wow, what a vision of the kingdom, though is these these driveways with your own seven cars and or your own condo with your, you know, 1.5 bedrooms. And it's it's such a strange concept, actually. Whereas marriage, if you think about all of the visions of marriage that are Kingdom oriented, and not just manifest in a particular iteration. It's like, what is the wedding feast about? And it's it is a it is about generosity, and it is about self giving, and mission and generative. There's a generative nature about marriage. And sometimes that generative nature is in that creative nature is in the form of real biological children new life, which is always good. I think, you know, new life, how beautiful. And also, sometimes it is something different. That is not the only way of living out what marriage is, if you think about it in a real theological and robust way of what marriage is, it can it is so much more, than the the Well, maybe it's 1.7, not 2.7. But it's so much more than that. And it is certainly includes that. But it is not only that. Yeah, and I think about what what is sexuality, what what is that all about? Why is it? And so there are so many ways in which queerness can actually force a church to re-examine what exactly it is that we believe why we believe them, not to put them into question and say that the conventions that we've bought into are all lies and should be completely deconstructed, but to actually expand our understanding of what it is that we're up to here on earth. And to actually expand our vision of what it means to live together and to bring about new life and to be a source of creativity of literally like generative creation and a place where things come to be reborn and not to die. Yeah, there's, there's like this expansive nature of queerness that I think causes a lot of Christian folks a lot of fear. There's this like fear of the slippery slope as if God does not is not big enough to handle expansion, as if God is not holy enough to reorient us once we've decided to grow and and that fear keeps us so small keeps us very narrow, and allows us to actually develop these small or sometimes quite large idols within our own communities that we actually place in exchange for God, because it feels safer. And because we then don't have to contend with the real big questions that make us extremely uncomfortable, and actually force us to take responsibility and ownership for ourselves and the decisions that we make. If I just do what my parents did, if I just do what society is telling me to do, if I just do what my peers did next, then I don't have to take responsibility for my own actions, I can just say, that's what we do next. I don't have to really take the time to discern what am I up to? And what decision Am I making? Because I've really taken the time to listen and discern. I can just take all of that out and just do what's acceptable, what's not going to be viewed as other or? Yeah, it's, queerness is bravery. You know, it is an invitation into courage. That is severely lacking, in my at least my experience of church. Yeah.
Maria
It makes me think of I mean, we mentioned this a lot in our previous episode about expansive friendship, but Mia Birdsongs book, how we show up, she talks about how, like, if we're going to relearn how to make family and how to live in community, we have to look at queer people of color, because they are the people who generated creative ways of living well, and healthily with each other. Because they were forced to because they couldn't fit into the boxes of, like normal society,
Celine
or so called normal,
Maria
Yeah so called normal.
Celine
Yeah, I love what you said, Kathy, about queerness, being kind of like a disrupter like something that confronts people with the boxes that they've created, whether around sexuality, or marriage, or God, like all of those things. And I would say, I think you had said, like, if the community or the faith community or church is willing, and I think even if they're not willing, I think queer people just being present or like showing up, is asking those questions like, regardless of whether, you know, those who have institutional power in the church or leadership power, are willing to listen, even like being there, I think, is a questioning of that. So the question for the community is then, are they willing to heed the wisdom that you just kind of spoke to? Are they willing to tune in to these prophetic questions that are asking really about how do we envision what's an envisioning of the kingdom that is, beyond? Yeah, beyond these boxes beyond these containers that we've created for each other and forgotten for Christian community, which, I mean, this is maybe like, a little bit like sci-fi, but I love to think about queerness as being a time travel in a way like that, in that way. It's like, it's bringing the future, you know, into where we are now like, it's and it's prophetic in that way, too, right. Like it's, and it's sacred work. And it's so often regarded as antithetical, antithetical, or in tention, as you said, when that tension does bring forth like life, and it's generative, and it's creative, and it's disruptive, in ways that I think are very spiritual, very Christian, but that's me.
Trixie
Yeah, I love I think what you said, what really hit me is the call to courage that you know, queerness calls us to be brave. And I think if anything more than ever, we need those brave spaces and people in our church, not outside our church as in like challenging the system asking the questions, the systems that we find ourselves, system of oppression and colonization, white supremacy, like this is where I think I'm learning and seeing the bravery and courage of particularly queer folks just speaking up and speaking into the space and, and I'm called to think deeply, like, what is my responsibility? What is our call to action? And, and I think often there's lack of that kind of responsibility and that accountability in the church space. And so I am just encouraged by by you, and we just what you said, Kathy, and that call to courage, because that's definitely much needed in this space of silence and complacency and, and apathy.
Kathy
Yeah, for sure, in a lot of ways, if I really get too far, maybe it's not too far. But if I really start thinking about it from time to time, it makes me actually quite sad for the church. And certainly the Christian communities that I have been exposed to over the years. When when we live in that fear and when we live in those smaller spaces. It actually really constrains our experience of God as well. And And that is a sure way to a smaller faith and to kind of take a page from, I want to say some business books, but it's sort of this idea of like, if you're not growing, you're dying. And there is no neutrality. We're always we're constantly dynamic, there's no static life. And a church is either growing, and not by numbers, right? It's it's either growing or it's dying. And that isn't to say that certainly there are always individuals who are struggling within a church and those who are are growing regardless of that church. But as a general statement, and I, it breaks my heart to think that our fear that we've adopted, and our complacency that we have adopted as, as Christians, is limiting our access to God and therefore limiting our access to faith, and therefore limiting our capacity to actually bring in the kingdom and participate in what's happening. I often think to myself, that God is elsewhere, that God is often not in churches, because God is at work, where the work is willing to be done, and where there is no fear. And right now, I see that outside the church quite often, that God is using others who, whether they recognize it or not, are in lockstep with the spirit, and are doing Kingdom work. And Gods like, oh, look over there, great. Let's go over there. I don't need I don't need the constraints of Israel, I will work wherever, wherever there are my creations that are conducive to the work of the Spirit. There I am. And obviously, there's something very particular and sacred about those who then turn and recognize who is responsible for the work that is being done. And that's the tragedy, right? Is that those who would don't, and those who are in the work can't so it's, it's just this like, strange, Twilight Zone that, that maybe we're always in, but I experienced that in this generation, and this time, in my lifetime. Like, where is God is God, you know, like, we have this amazing history of like, education, starting schools, and like, opening up hospitals and being the hands and feet of God, you know, and and then I'm like, Where is the church right now? We are having battles about whether evolution is real, we're talking about whether marriage equality Can you know, and we have our heads in the sand, completely heads in the sand. And then, you know, I think about the States and those who somehow profess Christianity, but certainly in no way, shape or form actually seem to have a relationship, a real relationship with true faith and the spirit of reconciliation. There's a break there somewhere.
Celine
Yeah, I think for me, it's been helpful to think of like to trace back when looking at our moment now, I mean, in relationship to the church, and all of its kind of inherent histories of both violence and peacemaking of both, you know, being a hand of healing, and also a hand of Yeah, of violence and colonization, and even genocide, like all those things, being both both parts of like, what the church is in the world. And like, I think of what you said, Kathy, like I think of almost like, and there's not just two, but how the church then fits into like two streams, or even like, two ways of being, again, like this is just for my, I like to like visualize things. So I think this, this helps me think of like, the question being, where's the church in how it is maintaining categories, maintaining hierarchy, being static, refusing to change, choosing fear, choosing Empire choosing power, and then on the on, like a flip side or the converse side, like, then where is the church willing to be led by Spirit be led by movement, be transformed and transform others and the world and conditions around the people who are marginalized. So it is kind of like, for all of its inherent kind of contradictions and tensions, just talking about church, because it's a reflection of like people, right people in the church and the history of the church. I think it's for me, it's been helpful to kind of distinguish just for my own self, right, like, here's where the church is like, doing the work of fear and violence and containment and category and, like you were talking about the states as kind of a very Visible manifestation of that, where it's very much aligned with power and Empire and whiteness, and toxic masculinity and all these forms of systemic violence and control. And where is it doing the work of rupturing that of moving to dismantle that, right? And often that's not like, like you said, in church setting. But I think Yeah, like you, like you spoke to you, that's where the spirit is. And so that's like, if the church has a whole complicated, messy and flawed institution, like we're to ask that question as well. How can we change to be aligned with spirit to move towards justice to move towards love? Like, I wonder what radical things would happen. But I think it's also impossible to extricate the church from the institutional power it holds, right. So all that to say, speaking of tensions, right, like the church is, is tension, the church is kind of contradiction. But often, I think it doesn't recognize the tension that comes so, so much part of being being a Christian church, like so often we are given these things as defaults, or as unquestioned, or often like, I've been thinking about the ideas of like people calling for unity, for example making requests for using language of being family across difference, which is important. But isn't the same thing as family members causing harm to other family members. Church is a complicated and contradictory thing. Yeah, maybe I'll leave it there. For as a response to what you said.
Maria
Yeah. And I think it's often surprising, like Celine, when you were kind of articulating the maybe dichotomous way that church can be, I think, often people are surprised that the work of the kingdom, and the disruption, the good disruption, and the good work, is being found at the margins. And that shouldn't be surprising to us. Because
Celine
that's always how it's been. Right?
Maria
Yeah. Like we if we go back to the Gospels, you know, like, the kingdom of God was brought to the margins. And that's where the work has always been done. So why wouldn't it be the case now, 2000 years later?
Celine
Mm hmm. Yep. And also, I love Kathy, what you talked about with people being dynamic creatures like us being creatures of change, and that should form the church and how we change and transform and the church being any kind of faith community to you that were part of or not part of, because I think that reflects to our relationship to, you know, this planet that we live on, and how so much of creation, all of creation is dynamic, and constantly being transformed. And kind of this idea that we have to stay in one place or like, maintain a specific doctrine to be Christian or to be Christ followers or to be people of faith, this idea of separation and being individual and being, I think the word that I recently learned about anthropocentrism being like humans at the top, right, when really, there's so much to learn from, from creation, and from indigenous folks who are much who have always kind of had relationship radical relationship. Well, it's radical to us, perhaps, relationship to land, and to plants and to our non human relatives. But I think that kind of ties in right like that ties in how we then relate to one another. So if we relate to one another, with the understanding that we are dynamic, and we are changing, and we are constantly being transformed, and called to transform, like, just as the world around us is, and like nature and lander, then that also is kind of, if I may, a queering of the idea of static category of hierarchy of rigid doctrine, like all those things that are about containing and about fear. So I'm, what I mean to maybe draw out is like the connection between the idea that we're relational creatures, relational people, and that the earth is relational, like creation is relational. So as we lean into that, that helps us, I think that helps us relate to one another in more whole and more generous and generative ways.
Trixie
I think what you just said, just continue to make me think about what does embodiment look like, right. And I think often my experience in the church in the past has been very much like that detachment, like a lot of ways. There's so much in the head, the doctrine, it's about knowing, right and doing perhaps serving, but not so much like the being and being in relationship to each other, to the land, to our community, to our neighborhood to God. And I think that's kind of what I'm trying to slowly learn to relearn. How do we embody this, who we are and that dynamic intersecting identities that we hold that you often talk about Kathy. I think particularly in the church is it's so hard, because there is that separation, and that separation is kind of almost awarded and affirmed. And so how do we disrupt? And part of that I think is truth telling, you know, I remember you were talking about I often hear peacemaking and Unity and reconciliation, those words that I'm really grappling and struggling with, because we can't use those words without really telling the truth. And I think this is where like telling the truth is about understanding what, what did not connect with us, and how do we embody the truth. And that often the truth hurts. And it reveals, and it reveals all the places that we talked about the tensions, and that part of that is that liberating form of like embodiment of living into who we are and the people we surround ourselves with. I'm wondering, Kathy, I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about how you kind of in your journey of embodiment? If you can talk a little bit more about that? What has that been like for you?
Kathy
Gosh, I mean, embodiment is a really large area of conversation of thought. And so there are, I'm really aware, one that there are a lot of different directions, I could go with that question. But also, because I've had such a small slice of exposure to the conversations around but embodiment, it just makes me so aware. When I use that word, I don't even have I'm aware of how little I have been exposed to with respect to that conversation. But in terms of my own experiences, I think of a couple different things. A lot of it actually, if I can make a shout out to my friend, Hilary McBride, who has done a lot of work in embodiment, probably has many, many leather bound books about embodiment on her shelf that she's read all of. And through my conversations with her through some of the work that she has done. One of the areas that has become very clear to me, also recognizing that there was a stream that was kind of like a concurrent stream, as I was having these conversations and being exposed to conversations around embodiment, I was also doing a lot of work, both personally but also in my communities, engaging these conversations of social justice and equity, diversity and inclusion. And not always necessarily knowing that I was doing that. But it was really really part of a steep growing period a few years back. And because those streams were happening concurrently, one of the things one of the ideas that Hillary introduced me to which I believe comes from another work called Opression in the Body by Christine Caldwell, and Lucia Bennett Leighton, and it's this idea of that the body is actually the site of oppression. So we have these conversations around and have likely heard references to the reality which is violence against black bodies. And it is certainly not to kind of anonymize or objectify black bodies. It is in fact, to say we are our body, we don't have a body we are our body. And that completely changes the conversation. And that our bodies are Yes, physical and the physicality of it also includes chemistry and biology and psychology and all these aspects that are invisible as well. And all of that is our body. And, and our body is who we are, we are, you know, I may have a hand but also that hand is mine. When that hand is me when when somebody shoulder check my shoulder, they haven't just shoulder checked my shoulder, they shoulder check me. Or, you know, if somebody punches you in the face, you're not like, Oh, that's okay. It was just my face. You know, it's like, punching me. And I feel that pain and then I internalize all the psychological effects of that. And so, and then emotionally as well, as we, as we are becoming more and more hopefully continue to become aware of is that psychological effects on us have effects on our physical bodies, the way in which we carry stress, the way in which we carry trauma, and all this whole body of work around epigenetics, the way in which we actually carry in our own bodies, the trauma of generations before us.
Trixie
Yes,
Kathy
So the conversation around embodiment and how it intersects with oppression and systemic oppression, that is a space that we need to sit with for a long time, and that we need to really, really, really, really, really pay attention to as we are in this world that is that has for the last year been awakening in a very particular way. It's not the first time that settler societies or that white supremacist societies have awoken to the realities of systemic racism and systemic oppression in that respect. But you know, there, there's, we are in a wave, and we have been in a wave for this last year, it is particular, and embodiment has to be a part of that conversation. Because we are not just floating brains, because we are not just ideas, we are actually bodies, and all of the effects, so whether it's health, nutrition, violence, and I think of even environmental and climate impacts, certainly COVID you know, all of these things, they affect our bodies, and they disproportionately affect negatively impact the bodies of marginalized people. So yeah, embodiment, when I think about embodiment, it is this critical conversation that needs to be had in order to inform the type of and the holistic nature of our approach to action, and to response and to reconciliation, and to healing. I love the word healing, because it inherently has within it this recognition, that healing, that reconciliation does not just happen relationally. There actually needs to be healing of entire groups of people's bodies. And the long lasting effect of embodied oppression in entire groups, communities of people. So this is just even an individual This is aggregated across relationships. It is aggregated across the effects of substance abuse in communities the effects of domestic violence in communities, you know, it's just like when you when you crack open the conversation on embodiment, it suddenly you can't escape it. Hopefully, you don't escape it. And once you crack it open, you see that the site of oppression is our bodies. And like, at my work, we're having these conversations around, okay? A lot of people because of COVID. And its effect, whether you have COVID or not, it's affecting our wellness, it's affecting our physical wellness, it's affecting our emotional wellness, psychological, social. And wellness has historically this word kind of has these kind of stereotypical wings to it like yoga and cleanses. And it's a very white space, it can be. And now, we can have a conversation about wellness, that is about oppression and embodiment. Like, you know, I want to be like, okay, thank you for your $12 juice. But that is not what wellness is. Let's have a conversation about wellness, in the sphere of how all of these systemic factors are affecting the the bodies of oppressed people. That is a conversation that is worth investing in, that is worth paying $12 for a product, right? It's like, put your money there. And it's like, Yes, great, like juices, fantastic. Lots of research, if it works for you wonderful. But don't let it stop there. That is not what wellness is. Wellness and promoting our health as a society has to focus on, and if we talk about that idea of when you start with the margins, you include everyone, we all win, the further out to the margins, you go, everyone wins. And so let's start with embodiment and oppression. And we all win. So yeah, that's that is I hope that we can talk about embodiment and oppression for a long time, across many different conversations. And not just you know, this podcast and this one episode, but I really, really think that that this is a conversation that needs to continue across a lot of different disciplines and in order for it to really get integrated and how we're responding to our sort of like our anti racist action orientation needs to include this conversation.
Celine
I want to say so many things like I'm struggling to like hone in remembering to breathe. Yeah, my body. Okay, I will say one thing first, which ties in to what you said about wellness. And then I'm going to return to embodiment. I really like that resonated with me when you talked about wellness culture and kind of like this very white woman oriented, consumerist kind of and often individual kind of culture. And in that way, I think it's just in a way white supremacy or whiteness is appropriating kind of parts of embodiment, or like different parts of embodiment that have been in other cultures and bringing them into this kind of wellness culture. But there's something that really like, brought this out for me a moment, an embodied moment, like for me was I was walking into Chinatown the other day, to pick up some snacks from from a bakery that I love. And as I was walking along, one of the streets that is becoming quite rapidly gentrified, which is a very interesting Street, because there's a new modular housing or, or temporary housing development that's also set up on the other side of the street. But there are so many, like clothing boutiques, athletic wear stores, coffee shops that are just kind of springing up on this block. And whenever I'm in Chinatown, I think about the gentrification that's happening, and I don't just think about it, like I feel it in my body as kind of this grief, and this, this sense of heaviness, and also at the same time coexisting, you know, with this, like, the joy and the nourishment, of being in Chinatown, and like feeling a part of myself be recognized by the space that I'm in. So all of that is kind of happening. But I was walking down the street, and this, this white woman walked by me, and she was planning a yoga class on her phone as she was walking. And I just heard as she walked by me, like, oh, and then we'll move into sunrise Salutations, and then after that, and she was just kind of planning this yoga session as she was walking through the street and historical kind of Chinatown, and it just brought, like, it brought out to me how our bodies and being in our bodies, and like embodiment relating to wellness culture, all of that is, is political, and it's about oppression, right? Like her white body, being in Chinatown talking about yoga, taking up space in that way, as you know, vulnerable Chinese seniors are losing their housing or being displaced and are vulnerable to attack. Like that's all happening in the same land that same block and those same blocks, right. And so, yeah, it just really brought out to me like, how if wellness culture or like things that were for embodiment, healing, like yoga or when they're brought into kind of this like consumerist, white centered wellness culture, then they also are often used to kind of gentrify and, and dominate and take up space in an oppressive way. Right. So it's like, let's not do that. That's not what it is.
Maria
And they're often viewed as neutral as well, at the same time.
Celine
Yeah. And the other thing I did want to mention was, I think, Kathy, what you're talking about with embodiment, also ties into Resmaa Menakem's book My Grandmother's Hands, which I think was kind of, I'm not sure about, like, the timeline exactly. But I think the way I understand it, it's often read as alongside trauma informed books, like books about being trauma being in the body, like Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, where all these kind of important thinkers who are also white men were talking about trauma being in the body and rhizomatic, and then said, well, also oppression is trauma. So how do we talk about that being in the body? How do we make those connections? And not just psychology, not just clinical practice, or somatic practice, but also like, I would say, like everyday life, like how do we relate to one another with that in mind and in body? And I think one thing that I really take from what you said about embodiment in general is that when we think about it, it then the scope is so is both so close, and so far from us. It's so big, and it's so small, like everything that we do, that we think about embodiment and oppression matters. Yes, like how are black bodies being impacted by police brutality and police violence that is so important, and it should be a priority in a conversation about oppression and bodies. And also, it also matters to the ways that bodies are impacted by microaggressions by like people saying racist shit and, and how your body responds to that and accumulates that trauma over time. And that's connected. They're not separate, right, like, bodies kind of accumulate trauma and the trauma of oppression and being embodied and learning to heal together. Learn to heal ourselves. is an act of resistance to that. I think it's Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams, who talks about personal change and social change being connected in that way. So. So the quote is, "Without interchange, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters." So that's my Angel Kyodo Williams, who's a black Buddhist, writer, and thinker and embodied practitioner.
Kathy
If I bring this conversation back around to the first thing that we were talking about in terms of queerness in the church, there's something very particular if I think about then also the maybe fear and the myopia aspects, but also, the lack of engagement with certain critical questions of how we are called to be in the world as Christians, this question of embodiment and oppression, I think of embodiment, essentially, as this conversation that we don't know how to have in the, in the church, because we don't actually know how to relate well to our bodies. Mm hm. And so that's a whole, gosh, a whole other space of why is it that we have such a disconnect between our belief and our own bodies. And of course, there's like all this historical kind of philosophical, these historical and philosophical trends that would kind of explain why we have moved away from and why we have distanced ourselves from our own bodies around the tension between flesh and the the way in which flesh is used in Scripture and then the relationship between sex and our bodies, and shame, and all of those things that that have very, very concrete teachings and ideas that have been propagated throughout the Christian church and throughout history. And so there's that whole piece around, okay, there, there are certain ideas that have infiltrated our theology, that have led to an imbalance and in terms of our relationship with our bodies, and ultimately an unconscious rejection of our own bodies. When I think about it, in terms of the impact of that and the ways in which then we are kind of like hands tied behind our backs when, when it comes to actually dealing with and confronting, and ultimately accessing the joy accessing the power and the beauty and the freedom of being connected with our bodies and, you know, genuinely faith filled way in a genuinely connected way to our faiths. That is something that we need. And I do think that queerness is this like, really beautiful entry point into that whole conversation? It's a terrifying one. Again, I think it's one that the church particularly can't deal with sometimes or Christians can't deal with sometimes because queerness can, understandably but also misguidedly, it's like queerness-sex, you know, and it's like, yes, and this is not about an action. This is about our bodies. This is about purpose. This is about trajectory, and embodiment in and of itself, that word is saying more than our bodies, it is saying, all it's asking so many questions about why. It's what is our body for? Where is it going? What is it doing? How is it engaging with the world? How is it engaging with other people? What are all the things that our bodies are capable of as human beings, these wonderful, extraordinary things that we can do in how we show up, if we would just acknowledge the entirety of it? You know, and it's a, it's a conversation, I think that would really release us to a lot of different capacities for the way in which we could show up as communities of faith and as folks who are oriented towards reconciliation and towards healing, I think about this idea of, and these these references throughout Scripture to the body as a metaphor for us, of, you know, references to hands and feet, but also like a body of men and men, like many parts, you know, and there are many references to individual body parts, but certainly references to our bodies as a whole. And if we are the body then how can we be the body without having a relationship and a knowing of our bodies? How can we be the body of Christ, this really tossed around phrase that can start to mean absolutely nothing and will mean nothing if we don't even know what our body is, if we don't have a relationship with the that embodiment idea of this trajectory of our bodies, it just becomes this phrase. And it becomes again static. It lacks the the dynamism that is, again inherent to our bodies as well. Yeah. So again, like I just think about the loss that is, is happening that has happened and also the, the life that can come from this conversation that we were having before around queerness provides to the church and the gift, that kind of uncomfortable disrupting gifts of queerness in the church, and one of those certainly, is to have a more holistic conversation, or maybe the first conversation about embodiment. And then we can also inherently just because of the ways in which queerness has been rejected in the church, and has been oppressed in the church, have a conversation about embodiment and oppression. And it's all interrelated in there. But first, it has to start with, actually, maybe for the first time, but in reintroducing our own bodies to ourselves, of what what we are, when we show up the fullness of who we are when we show up in the real world.
Celine
Kathy, I think you were just like you preached a sermon. Yeah. You wove together on the thread. Like you made a call to action. This is the perfect place to end.
Trixie
Yeah. It's like a mic drop. I feel like if there's a mic right now, this is like, that was power. That was you embodying power. So Wow.
Celine
Thank you so much, Kathy, for taking it home for bringing us back to our bodies for talking queerness with us for going on a journey, really, I think within this conversation, which is so good. So I'm grateful that you could be with us and share it with us. And I guess for as a wrap up for a final question. Do you have any, any other thoughts you want to share for people or anything to promote? Feel free?
Kathy
Yeah, I would just say, if you're reading a lot, if you're engaging with I know that it's difficult to meet with people right now. But there's a lot of good content out there. There's a lot of awful content out there. But if you follow folks, if you're on social media, if you're reading, follow and read folks of color, follow and read, black and indigenous folks, queer folks, they have a lot of things to offer us as a society that we have sorely been missing out on. And I think for a lot of us, we didn't even know that we were living quarter lives and the richness that is there. If you're willing, if you are brave enough to confront your own self and to widen your experience of life. I encourage you to be brave and to be challenged and to really grow and be dynamic in that direction. It's a it's a really rewarding direction to go. And so find BIPOC and queer folks online and and read their stuff and immerse yourself into a new world.
Trixie
Resetting the table is produced by Emma Renaerts and the intro music is by Sunia and Paul Gibbs. If you'd like what this podcast is about, consider supporting us on patreon patreon.com/resettingthetable. We think it's really important to amplify voices of color and we hope you do too.
Maria
For now, Doxia
Trixie
Xiexie
Celine
Thanks and see you soon.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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