vision and mission

The vision and mission statements of organizations read like sound-bytes filled with platitudes. For example, this is vision and mission statement of Homeboy Industries:

Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community

Maybe that’s not a platitude, but it seems to be present in the vision and mission of every organization that helps disadvantaged populations.

In spite of how trite these seem, it always makes me feel more settled when I can find the mission and vision of an organization on their website. I think a similar feeling arises when I read the profiles of people on Coffee Meets Bagel for instance. You get  a 30 second elevator speech of what something or someone is about. The core of what they are about, as there’s so much more to them.

All this to say, I was curious as to what my vision and mission statement(s) would be if I had one. Well, I do have one and here it is:

Vision: A world in which everyone is authentic to their true selves, where no one has to hide, where there is freedom from enslavement to sin.

Mission: Striving to make unwelcome people feel welcome by meeting them where they are at and giving them space to be their true selves–ideally as a reflection of the gospel.

I suppose I deviate from that from time to time, but it’s the core of what I am about.

Given my vision and mission, it helps that I have the following traits:

• I am interested in almost everything
• I enjoy it when people share their emotional state with me
• It’s natural for me to have tons of questions to ask
• I tend to like observing people and what their relationships are with other people

Anyways, I’m pretty excited about how God made me. I’ve learned much about myself in my mid-late 20s, something that I completely had no interest in doing prior to that. Has been interesting.

<3 working here

Today I got to sit in on a meeting about gentrification. I’m so used to discussing topics in the isolated silos of academia that it shocked me a bit that I was now discussing an issue with community organizers who were present because they  wanted to make real changes in their communities.

I tended to play devil’s advocate more and one lady seemed like she got very annoyed at me. I realized that I cannot be casual with my words because I’m talking to people who are dedicated to their work because of their convictions/history/story. Maybe I should have just stopped talking but I think it was good I was there. Change doesn’t happen in isolation, but with engagement. And maybe it was good that they were learning how to engage with a sheltered and quixotic pseudo-academic like myself.

My Brother’s Keeper

I sat in on a My Brother’s Keeper meeting today downstairs. My Brother’s Keeper is a White House Initiative Obama launched in September of 2014 to ensure that all boys and men of color stay on track (ie, stay in school and get jobs). There was some crazy stat that 90% of black boys who drop out of school end up in prison in LA County. I can’t remember the stat exactly but there is absolutely a correlation between being a high school drop-out and rolling through the pipeline to prison if you’re a person of color in a low-income neighborhood dealing with the inter-generational effects of poverty.

As I’m reflecting on all of this, I see that my fellowship payments were applied this last week and my tuition is covered. In fact, my tuition has always been covered through my parents and through fellowships. I am a social welfare recipient of the highest order. People have been investing in my education since birth and if I ran the world, people would be investing in EVERYONE’s education since birth.

I can’t stand living in a society where people are denied opportunities and fall into the prison pipeline because of factors outside of their control. They all the more need to be invested in. God, don’t let me turn a blind eye. Let me strive always to be my brother’s keeper.

coffee meets bagel

ive been resisting using coffee meets bagel or other online dating apps because I don’t like the idea of saying “we met online”. it reminds me of my middle school-high school years of logging into aim and meeting strangers using the question a/s/l  (age, sex, location). 

but I suppose this is a fair medium given that I  haven’t been meeting many eligible bachelors otherwise.

in any case, I made an account just to test the waters. I find it difficult to shop around for men by their photos because I’m not physically attracted to them until interacting with them…well, unless they are brad pitt in twelve monkeys…except he is mentally insane.

pursuit of holiness

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. (2 Timothy 1:9)

I was listening to my friend explain to me that the reason his relationship with his ex ended was largely because of the sex. He was new to it and she was an expert. It wouldn’t work out because he couldn’t please her if you know what I mean. I asked him how important the sexual element was while scoffing to myself that something as shallow as sexual intimacy could make or break a relationship. Now reflecting back, I think it’s equally scoff-able that I had sought emotional intimacy in relationships and that emotional intimacy could make or break my relationships.

As I’m asking myself what the purpose of dating relationships is, I need to be reminded that the purpose of life is intimacy with God, which I think is another way of saying holiness: we are to “be holy, because [He] is holy” (1 Peter 1:15).

The end aim of dating relationships should thus be, holiness – and, not as I previously desired, emotional connection and life-exploration. I still think those are important but the “make-it” and “break-it” hinge upon whether the relationship is leading towards holiness or away from it. the end.