A prodigal son

Dear friend,

On Sundays, J and I load up the 2yo in his stroller and take the N-Judah train down to Sunset and 43^rd where, tucked behind a gas station, you’ll find a little church. It’s not much to look at, a concrete building at the end of the N-line that offers English and Chinese services. Outside the sanctuary, there’s a hallway for teenagers to mill about in, and at the end of it, a little nursery for babies. Seventeen years ago, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I had grown up going to exactly one of these Chinese churches, concrete buildings Chinese families in the late 2000s would drive to from all over the tri-state area. Back then, it was the only place I ever saw so many Chinese people in one place. I remember it so well: braces, lace-trimmed camisoles, parents chattering over dinner in the cafeteria, teenage boys playing football after Sunday school at sunset in the parking lot. Seventeen years later, across the country, it’s hard to believe I somehow found my way back.

I wouldn’t say I was devout in those days, but I was good in the way that children are good, because they do not know how to be anything else. There were many years in between then and now that I was not. GK Chesterton says that if you do not believe in something beyond the world, you’ll worship the world instead, and moreover, you’ll worship the strongest thing in the world, and in my world, that was money. After I moved to San Francisco, for most of my twenties, I lived in a group house, where my friends and I were single-mindedly dedicated to the pursuit of becoming rich. The pursuit of wealth became the defining value system we lived by: we considered those richer than us to be our superiors and ourselves, in turn, to be superior to the rest of the world, exempt from the rules that applied to plebeians. These were days when my mother said she did not recognize me. Even in retrospect, it’s painful to remember the ways in which I thought and acted. We said we’d rather be the general of the Wicked than foot soldiers of the Good. Later, I realized that’s what Satan declares in Paradise Lost: that it’s better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

As it turns out, there’s a reason why the Bible says you can’t serve two gods. Everyone I knew in those days was constantly thinking about money — wanting more money, pretending to be on the verge of money, embarrassed of how little money they had. Around people with money, we all turned into groupies, sniveling and craven, debasing ourselves to score a ride on a private plane. Much, much later, I read a quote from Elbert Hubbard that said we are not punished for our sins, but by our sins, and I was punished very thoroughly indeed. I remember those years that my poor values peaked as being truly, profoundly miserable. Constantly antsy, constantly competitive, constantly envious, even of my own friends. Everything was a scarce resource to be fought over: money, connections, business opportunities. When I would go home, I would just sit there at my mother’s kitchen table and stew in misery I could not explain.

I can explain it now. How miserable is it to believe only in the hierarchy of men? It’s difficult to overstate the cruelty of the civilization that Christianity was born into: Roman historian Mary Beard describes how emperors would intentionally situate blind, crippled, or diseased poor people at the edges of their elaborate banquets to serve as a grotesque contrast to the wealth and health of the elite. The strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must. Gladiatorial games transformed public slaughter into entertainment. Disabled infants were left to die in trash heaps or on hillsides. You see why the message of Christ spread like wildfire. What a radical proposition it must have been to posit the fundamental equality of all people: that both the emperor and the cripple are made in the image of God.

After we got married, J suggested that we start going to church again, and this time, something stuck. I had always been interested in and moved by the Bible, but somehow, throughout years of Sunday school, I had missed its main point. Perhaps I couldn’t have grasped its main point when I was young. Young people are often moral relativists, and when I was young, I had never encountered evil and did not believe it existed. Once I had gazed upon evil, I could not deny its existence. Therefore, I could no longer deny its corollary, which was good, and the distinction between the two as proof of the existence of God, who is perfect. Only once you have acknowledged the existence of good and the fact that you have irrevocably fallen short of its standards, does it make sense that someone must pay. In turn, only once you’ve accepted that someone must pay, can you appreciate the redemption offered by Christ.

When you’re a child, you take for granted everything you’ve been given. When you have your own children, you understand the sacrifice that propped up your entire world. That’s why I used to hate the story of the Prodigal Son: I never understood how it was fair for the father to heap love upon the son who went astray instead of the son who did everything right. Now I think: who could possibly identify as someone who did everything right? Yet there’s something easy, too, about choosing to be a Foot Soldier of the Good, a burden lifted by surrender of the ego. I still want to do right by my investors and employees, of course. I still want to make my family proud. But the pressure is off. When envy gnaws at me, I think of the George McDonald quote, that I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature I could think of; “for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”

At church, our first order of business is to drop the 2yo off at the nursery, and if we’re lucky, he’ll kick and scream just a little before he calms down. If the train is on time, we’ll slip into the sanctuary in time to catch the end of worship. Seventeen years ago, at my old Chinese church, every service started with Amazing Grace, the classic hymn about redemption: I was once lost / but now am found. Two weeks ago, at communion, I heard the worship team at Sunset sing Amazing Grace for the first time since we started attending. The sight of the congregation standing to those familiar words brought a tear to my eye. So many Asian Americans over so many generations in this city that I call home: raising children, worshipping God, finding community, striving for the good, and celebrating the radical equality of all men before God. And of course, praising the good news: that it’s never too late to come home.

Your friend,
Eva