Archive
All of our stories arranged by publication date
May 30, 2023
How Mestizaje Segregated the Philippines
A Theological Engagement with Sony Corañez Bolton’s "Crip Colony"
By Yanan Rahim Melo

Are we addressing the ableism that persists in our churches? Ableism is a sinful structure that is oppressively rooted in colonialism. Ableism is something many of us need to call out, struggle against, and continuously unlearn.

November 3, 2022
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
By Jonathan Chan

Faith is as much lived out as it is believed. The fruits flow from the spirit. Amidst the knotty, conceptual, theological questions that belie questions of conversion and syncretism, I felt compelled to think about the history of Christianity in my own family, one where the sense of a paradigm being overturned is fully present.

September 1, 2022
Poems by Jonathan Chan
By Jonathan Chan

A selection of poems from Jonathan Chan.

May 5, 2022
A First Impression
Reflections on God, Creation, and Humanity
By Julie Yeeun Kim

I do know that for all the ecological devastation we are experiencing, and which is increasingly heightening, there is not nearly enough concern and conversation among Christians about it. Creation care is an essential part of how Christians live their identities as creatures made by God and as stewards to care for the rest of creation.

May 3, 2022
A Recipe for Abundance
By Lu Han

What is enough? When can we slow down, dare to rest, or think about something beyond providing for ourselves? This scarcity mindset seeped into my early attempts to understand faith. The gospel was good news, but how could I trust its permanence?

April 19, 2022
On (Not) Losing Kapwa in Translation
By BJ Gonzalvo

Kapwa is a word that begs for something more than just a literal Tagalog-to-English translation. Just how does one unravel a word that deeply undergirds the Filipino cultural psyche, a core value that is inextricably woven into the fabric of our Filipino identity?

April 4, 2022
To All Those Who Care
By Karen Mac

Contemporary Christian culture often teaches us to be generous with our time, our resources, our possessions. We are told to give and give and give until it hurts, or until we have no more left to give.

March 17, 2022
Planted in a Wound
By Natalie Louie

Sometimes I wish to be something other than me, a fledgling that grows steady as the sun when it rises up in the morning from its quiet rest.

March 10, 2022
Learning from Trees
By Philippe Lazaro

Climate change will be the historically defining issue of our lifetimes, and I’ve gotten to see things unfold up close.

March 10, 2022
On the Road with Sages and Saviors
Unexpected Roots and Unexpected Life
By Easten Law

Amidst this raging pandemic, I wondered what my roots were made of? If I am cut down, will I begin to decompose or will my life find other ways of springing forth?

February 4, 2022
A Tug on the Threads Between Us
By Cindy J. Huang

In some ways, this end feels final, and in other ways, it feels like a semicolon, the uncertainty of the direction of our relationship hovering in the air like a dandelion in the wind. Maybe one day one of us will be ready to reach out to mend the broken threads ... or create new ones. 

December 17, 2021
Jubilee
By Jessica Gapasin Dennis

What is the proper response to the sacrifice of all those who came before me? Who decides when it is enough?

November 19, 2021
Sacred Endings
By Dawn Chow

The word "goodbye" can hold love, gentleness, peace, and goodness even amidst sorrow and ache.

November 19, 2021
Grieving An Ambiguous Relationship
By Annie Li

After my grandma’s death, I found myself in this place of ambiguity. I didn’t lose her at the moment she died; rather, our relationship gradually waned as I grew up in the U.S., linguistically and culturally distant from her.

November 11, 2021
Taking it All Off the Altar
By Ophelia Hu Kinney

When we excuse and celebrate the violence of the cross, we risk excusing and celebrating the violence that happens to our kin and to ourselves. And when we decry the violence of the cross, we make room to decry the violence that happens to our kin and that happens to us.

October 28, 2021
Finding Refuge in our Converging Histories
A Hmong Reflection on the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
By Kong Mong Yang

That Vietnamese and Hmong Americans see themselves in the Afghans resettling in the U.S. is not surprising. From experiencing the atrocities of war to learning English, and everything in between, we can articulate some of the feelings that Afghan refugees may be experiencing.

October 7, 2021
Tale of Two Hauntings
By Maika Llaneza

My spirituality today is still ever-evolving, but I am each and both and all my ancestors at the same time. I think this is indicative of our world and how, even with our differences, we can learn so much from one another and live peacefully side by side.

September 30, 2021
Mao, Me
By Boen Wang

You haven’t heard of Henan, Xinyang. People in China haven’t heard of it. Xinyang was the epicenter of the famine — something like 12% of the population died. It’s also my dad’s hometown.

September 23, 2021
Money, Eros, and Spirit Revision
By Xeres Villanueva

The journey of freeing myself from the money ghosts and even befriending them has been like a spiraling staircase. I may be walking up or down the stairs and still uncover layers. It has not been a straightforward ride. It has required shifting and de-conditioning my sense of self before being motivated to seek out money mindset therapy and financial literacy work that does not reinforce prosperity gospel, bootstrap mentality, binary thinking, or economic injustice.

September 16, 2021
Walking the Path of Marigolds
Extending Hospitality to the Dead as a Hospital Chaplain
By Jordan Aspiras

When I started embracing loss, death, and grief more openly, I found myself feeling a sense of freedom that I did not know before. I was suddenly more available to my own grief and the grief of others. I learned to be gracious with the me whom I have left behind.

September 9, 2021
My Creatures and I: Loving the Girls I’ve Been
By Serena Lee

One way to think about the impact of trauma is to consider the impact accidents have on a car. If a car crashes, it will most likely require fixing. Repeated crashes will most likely lead to even greater issues, not only externally, but also internally. Even if the car can still run, it’s likely that without intervention, its capacity to remain functional will be limited and quickly depleted.

September 2, 2021
Journey to the Midwest
By Jennifer Duann Fultz

“Journey to the Midwest” is a retelling of my father’s immigration story in the style of the classical Chinese novel, "Journey to the West".

August 26, 2021
I ain’t afraid of no ghost
By John "Enger" Cheng

We all have experiences that are difficult to name or even remember. Memories that we consciously or unconsciously try to bury.

August 26, 2021
The White Lady
Ghost Stories and the Power of Colonial Storytelling
By Yanan Melo

Spanish and American colonizers brought whiteness upon our lands. Today, whiteness lingers as a ghost, and many Filipinos struggle to see beyond it, cursed with an inferiority complex that strives for the white ideal — an ideal that can never truly be achieved.

August 12, 2021
Wholly Woman, Holy Human: Part Two
By Hatty Lee

What happens when metaphors and rhetorics about the female body, in service of male control and desire, become literal?