2013 Review and Reflection

Happy new year!

Below are some of the important things occurred in my life during last year that I want to express my deepest gratitude to God, my family, and all my friends and mentors.

My Study and Academic Work
This is the fifth year and also the last year of my doctoral program at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). A year ago around this time, I was still working on my dissertation proposal. After some hard work, my dissertation proposal was finally passed in May in the Doctoral Council, with the help from my committee members (Professors Judith Berling, Philip Wickeri, William O'Neill, SJ, and outside reader Edmund Chia) and schoolmates who gave me valuable comments and advices. I feel gratitude for their encouragement and comments. It was a long process and I experienced some challenging moments. This process allowed me to know better about myself and be aware of the care and love of many people. Several professors and schoolmates who were not on my committee also gave me valuable comments as well as spiritual support. I must give thanks to them. The topic of my project is : Towards an Ethic of Solidarity and Reciprocity with the Marginalized: Catholic and Confucian Social Ethics in Dialogue. I will demonstrate the importance of integrating virtue ethics approach into social ethics and employ the migrant women issue as a case study. Now I am writing my dissertation and it is half way through. I plan to finish the whole draft by this April so that I can defense and then go back to Hong Kong in summer, starting another stage of my ministry and life journey.

Apart from preparing the dissertation proposal, in the first half of the year, I was busy at teaching and writing papers. In the spring semester, I co-teach a seminar course “Faith in Human Rights” with Professor Marianne Farina at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, with the GTU Newhall Award. To get this award, I have to apply with a mentor professor and submit a course topic with preliminary syllabus. I gained valuable experience in learning to be a teacher and a mentor for the students. Prof. Farina herself was also a great mentor to me. Every week before class, we met and talked about the class for half an hour to an hour or even longer, from lecture to discussion questions to assignments. She also concerned about my own study and gave me lots of support and concrete advices, especially when I revised my dissertation proposal.

In March, I presented a paper in a conference on Catholic Social Theory in Taipei, hosted by the Catholic Fujen University. The presenters were from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau. I met some teachers and friends that I haven’t met for a long time. When I came back to Berkeley after the conference, I was invited by the Asia Project of GTU to present my paper on “Women Migrant Workers in Hong Kong: A Catholic Ethical Response” in their monthly Green Tea Conversation. In both occasions, we had good discussion and got good feedbacks that inspired me to further explore the issue.

A year ago when I attended a meeting, I met an editor of an academic journal Intercultural Human Rights Law Review and she mentioned about this journal. I thought that one of my papers fit well the overall theme of the journal, so I submitted my paper to the editorial board. After some revisions, my article “Human Rights in China: Examining the Human Rights Values in Chinese Confucian Ethics and Roman Catholic Social Teachings” was finally published in volume 8 of the journal in August. When I received the hard copy of the journal in November just before the Thanksgiving Day, I felt so happy. It was just the right time and the best gift for me for Thanksgiving. This paper was originally a final paper of a class. Then I expanded it to submit to a paper contest at GTU and won the prize. I feel grateful to all the professors who read and gave comments on my paper at different stages.

Although I am far away from Hong Kong, I always pay close attention to what happen there and think about how to integrate the social context in my academic work. I try to contextualize whatever I write for my papers, whether it relates to theories of justice, or human rights theory, or Confucian ethics, or Christian ethics. I also try to share what happen in HK with my friends here. Many things occurred in HK in the past year. Although I could not participate directly, I felt my heart and mind was close to the people there.

My Ministry
Apart from study, I involve in a social ministry, giving massage therapy to the marginalized once a week in the Tenderloin area in San Francisco, through the Care Through Touch Institute (CTI). The few places I usually give massage are the Tenderloin Self-Help Centre, a women/men shelter, and the Gubbio project at the St. Boniface’s Church. I also volunteered for the Project Homeless Connect several times a year. All Christians are called in different ways to follow Jesus. I feel I can experience Jesus in this ministry and to be a disciple of Jesus, following his footsteps of serving and caring the poor and bring healing to others. This ministry makes me more humble and more caring to those who are in need. I hope I can find some places to continue this ministry when I go back to Hong Kong.

In early October, I learnt Reiki treatment with other massage practitioners. Since then, I have integrated this gentle hands-on healing modality into my care through touch work and have offered Reiki treatments to myself and others. Each treatment is a time of prayer and contemplation for me, a time to remember a friend in need and put my intention into action, a time to be an instrument of God’s healing for another person. I feel gratitude to offer Reiki to the recipients and listened to their stories. Many of them also feel supported by having someone to address their problems through this healing modality. During the Reiki sessions, Jesus the comforter, very often, is my spiritual guide who tells us, “come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.” All of us are overburdened in different ways, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We need to take a deep rest and be healed so that we can be in peace again.

The massage practitioners of CTI formed a care community and gather monthly to share our massage experiences, spirituality, and other aspects of our lives. This community is like a faith sharing community which put our faith in action, integrating spirituality and ethics in this ministry.

Keeping a Balanced Life

At the beginning of the year, I had a few days retreat in Hong Kong. My spiritual director advised me that I need to pay attention to various aspects of my life apart from study, so as to keep healthy. I can’t agree more and I also try to keep a more balanced life. Thus, apart from my study and ministry, I try to keep my time of praying, doing exercise or walking/hiking, enjoying sunshine and leisure activities (usually listening to songs/music and watching movies, sometimes visiting art museum) in balance. I also meet my spiritual director every month to share about my experiences with God and my spiritual life. Moreover, I develop my interest in doing artwork/handicraft work, starting from learning pysanky egg-painting and dying from my friend Becky a few years ago.

During Lent, I was invited by my friend Jeanette to host a pysanky egg-painting workshop for her parish in Fremont. This was also a fund-raising function for supporting the youth who would attend the World Youth Day. This was the first time for them to experience this Ukrainian spiritual tradition. All of us enjoyed very much.

During summer, I attended a series of art workshop organized by the Pacific School of Religion. Each time a different instructor showed us to do artwork through a different medium. I attended four or five times and learnt some skills in expressing myself through art. I take doing art work as a kind of spirituality. I also like the idea of making some artworks for friends as small gifts, as a sign of friendship and sharing some of my thoughts.

During the long holidays, I traveled two times with my friends to relax. I went with some Hong Kong friends in May to Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. In August, I went with another friend to Nevada. Travelling with good friends is always an enjoyable experience. Sharing in the trip can deepen friendship and make me become aware of the presence of God in the amazing creation and people around me.

Support from My Family and Friends
I feel grateful to my family, especially my sister Sandra, my friends in Hong Kong, the U.S. and other parts of the world, and my mentors and spiritual directors, for their love, encouragement, and support when I am far away from home. In Berkeley, some of my good friends graduated and left. I also have to work hard to achieve the goal of oral defense in this year. I also knew some new friends and we organized an end-of-the-semester celebration cum farewell to Izak's family in May.

Last year, I went back home twice, from Dec 2012 to the beginning of 2013 and also in March after the conference in Taipei. I spent time with my family and old friends, and attended Jodie's baptism in Easter vigil. Their love, concern, and friendship really touched me. All these are precious gifts for me from God.

When I look back my experiences in 2013, I feel so full of gratitude, and resonate with St. Paul’s words in the letter to the Ephesians:

“ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Wish you all have a joyful and blissful new year!

Mary