I am an ethnic Chinese born and raised in Malaysia. In matters of religion, my family likes to have "all our grounds covered", so to speak, so that when it came to the big question of "what happens after death?" we made sure we won't fall through the crack. We are a very practical family. Amongst all the rich choices of rituals, tradition, mythology, and yes, even superstition, we picked and chose what worked for us as a family and as a member of the larger Chinese community living in our adopted country. Some of these practices were long discarded by our motherland, but fiercely adhered to by us migrant Malaysian Chinese as a way of connecting with one another, with our ethnicity and of holding on to our identity.

So my family practiced a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We adopted Buddhism's sacredness of life by relinquishing meat two days a month, on the new moon and the full moon of each month. We couldn't do it all year round, but two days a month is, to use a Malaysian slang, "OK-lah." We practiced Ancestral Worship by keeping an altar in the home with regular offerings of fresh flowers and fruits, a burning oil-lamp and the burning of joss-sticks and paper money on certain days of the year to keep our ancestral spirits happy and well-supplied with spiritual equivalence of our own earthly material needs. This included paper replicas of servant girls and cooks and chauffeurs to serve our dead ones so that they may live in style in the other world.

My journey from this traditional upbringing to becoming a UU Evangelist went through a period of assimilation. I was married fresh out of high school to a British volunteer who was then serving as my physics and math teacher in Malaysia. I immigrated first to England, then to the US. There are many paths to assimilation. The choices one makes along the way determine the point of arrival. The first and most important is learning the language. This wasn't a problem for me since I was already fluent in English. My problem was to develop enough confidence to speak it so that native speakers could understand me. The first few years of our marriage presented a big adjustment for me. Some people thought I was stupid because of my accent and because I was taking too long to formulate my answers.

There are other paths to assimilation, some good and some bad. The bad ones include adopting the kind of religion that requires you to check your former beliefs at the door. They also include buying into the American dream of owning your own home, cars, and electronics in all sizes and shapes, and of fraternizing with the elite through a membership in a country club with tennis and golf lessons for the kids. Somewhere between the golf course and the tennis court, many have lost their way and given up their identity and heritage. They turn into bananas - yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

I first heard the word "Unitarian" in 1976 from a Taiji student of mine who was a member of the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos. This was back when transcendental meditation was the "in" thing. I was comparing Taiji as a meditation in movement with transcendental meditation and this student said to me, "Oh yes, we meditate in our church." This intrigued me. What kind of church does meditation? She said, "Unitarian Church." I said, "Never heard of it." I looked in my Chinese-English dictionary and I couldn't find a translation of the word.
Talk about miracle! I heard the word for the second time that week when I met a young woman at the Newcomer's playgroup who also attended the Unitarian Church .When I indicated an interest, instead of giving me an earful, she simply called up the church office and put me on their newsletter mailing list. Through reading the newsletter, I followed the activities of this church for several months before attending my first service.

This was a service about Amnesty International. It blew my mind. Back home in Malaysia, I grew up without political freedom. As students, we were told to avoid any involvement in politics. Our job was to study. Leave politics to the politicians. Accept the status quo. Don't rock the boat. You'll be OK. Try to make trouble? You'll mysteriously disappear and rot in a jail somewhere. Here I was flabbergasted because here's a group of people whose passion was to free political prisoners in third world countries! I never knew about Amnesty International. I suddenly felt this connection of humankind for one another, that there are people here in the free world who care enough to fight against injustices in the world. I never knew of a church that would take a stand on human rights issues. I had thought that all one does in a church was to sing hymns, praise the Lord, pray for one another's salvation, and put money in the collection basket.

After that first service, I returned again and again. The more I found out about Unitarian Universalism, the more it fitted. I particularly appreciated the use of science and reason to explore and to determine for oneself what is the truth, what are myths, what to accept and what to reject in building one's own unique theology. I didn't have to take everything on blind, unquestioning faith. Another aspect of Unitarian Universalism that makes me feel special as an Asian American is the emphasis on cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. I didn't have to check a part of me at the door and to pretend to be who I wasn't. My ethnic differences were not only accepted, but they were affirmed and upheld. People were interested in what I had to share: I teach Taiji and Qigong, I taught Chinese cooking classes, I bring ethnic foods to our potlucks, I even share my language with those who were interested. I am often consulted about Taoist and Buddhist practices and readings, and asked if I thought the translations were accurate. My opinion mattered. This not only gives me pride in my culture, but it also encourages me to dig deeper into my own heritage, to find out more in areas where my knowledge and expertise are lacking. It helps me to look at my heritage with fresh eyes. In particular, I found myself appreciating the great subtlety of the Chinese written words. All the strokes and the dots forming each ideogram used to be taken for granted, but now each stroke and each dot takes on greater meaning in the way they fit into one another to give the total picture. Each character is a painting all onto itself.

To paraphrase the words of Rev. Tom Owen-Towle from the essay "The Enduring Center of Unitarian Universalism" from his book "Freethinking Mystics with Hands" :

"I'm a mystical humanist with naturalistic leanings and receptivity to disclosure of the divine. I meander comfortably amid the Confucian-Taoist motifs and stories of my heritage. My religious vision is tempered by existentialism, grounded in earth-centered spiritualities, aligned with the wisdom of Western tradition, especially Judeo-Christian, and bathed in trustful agnosticism."

Blessed be.