Here is the audio of the whole performance, if you'd like to experience it through listening.
THIS I WONDER
- Spiritual Journey of a Wondering Heart
Created by
June 1993
That is a photo of me when I was a few days old.
"This I Wonder - Spiritual Journey of a Wondering Heart" was a live storytelling performance I did on Dec 9th and 16th of 2018. I thought I had to look to my audiences into their eyes and to physically embody my story to tell it right. Though I can't do it on a website, I still want to invite you to have a dialogue with me, and to have a dialogue with yourself. So I created this website with a mixture of texts, audios, videos and photos to tell you a story, my story, and to dialogue with it.
It's a story about
selfhood, community,
denial, acceptance,
conviction, confusion,
belief, doubt
It's the story of my life from my earliest memory in 1993 to the end of 2018,
so it is a history of this self, but also an unfinished one.
And you know, when you get to know someone, it takes more than a few minutes.
So I'd like to invite you to consider give it maybe half one hour or one hour
to stay with me, and reflect with me.
Also, it's not just my story.
You will hear stories of people from different spiritual backgrounds later on.
I interviewed them as an preparation for this project.
Oh, did I forget to tell you it's a story about my spiritual journey?
Sorry if I didn't specify it earlier, and you can still close this website tab if you have no interest in hearing someone's spiritual journey.
What is your earliest memory?
What kind of child were you growing up?
What has changed since then and what hasn't and probably can't and won't change?
Take a minute to think about these questions.
Scroll down once you are ready.
You got your answers?
Great!
The reason why I ask you these questions is because my story starts from my earliest memory and from understanding what kind of person I was and I had always been -
someone who naturally wonders and questions often.
You will see this tendency to wonder and question throughout my life.
At points, I was in denial of this tendency, but can I deny that?
Should I deny it?
question for you
Start of a Wonder
I told this story of my earliest memory on Dec 16 2018,
and it wasn't until January 2019 that my parents found me this old photo of me.
Hear this story and wonder with me.
This process of
self-questioning, self-doubting
and the desire
to believe what I should believe
and
to do what I should do
has
never
changed.
One day, when I was around 9 years old, my mom was driving me home. I was looking to the outside of the window. I saw traffic lights, buses, directional dividing lines on the road.
So I asked,
妈妈，为什么红绿灯要带黑色的小帽子？
“mom, you see the traffic lights, they wear little black caps, why?”
“mom, how does the bus driver know when to close the rear door?”
“mom, how do they decide on how far each dividing line should be away from one another?”
To all my questions,
my mom always had that one and simple answer:
你哪儿来这么多问题
How in the world do you have so many questions?!
So in that car, I wondered again,
I wondered if I shouldn’t have that many questions,
I wondered if I should stop questioning
Should I?
Can I?
End of a Wonder
question for you
"Can you define to me what being a Christian means?"
Has anyone asked you to define the term "Christian" or any terms that you use to identify yourself with?
Have you ever felt like you don't fit into that definition neatly as you or others wished?
It was Feb 7 2013, when I was a junior in college.
I was asked by a Christian friend to define the term “Christian” at a café. She was not only a good friend, but more importantly, my spiritual mentor. I met with her often to discuss questions about Christianity. By that point, I already read the Bible for two years, and did my prayer to receive Christ. Plus I was attending two bible studies besides going to church each week. But she knew the questions and wonders I still had, and so one day during our conversation, she asked me to define what it meant to be a christian. I wondered maybe, I wasn’t enough to claim to be a Christian.
"Can you define to me what being a Christian means?" she gently smiled at me.
I slightly opened my mouth and said nothing for that second. I felt pushed to say something I didn’t want to say. I was scared of where the conversation was going.
She softly smiled at me,
“I was just curious to know what you think the word Christian means to you. Don’t feel stressed.”
I took a deep breath and repositioned myself on the chair, and said,
“I think I know where this is going. But to answer your question, I think the definition is that to believe that there is only one God, to believe that he created the world and loves the world; to believe that he came down as Jesus into the world and was crucified and rose again for our sin and salvation. And Jesus is the only way.”
“mhm, mhm,” she nodded and still smiling, “and do you believe in all of them?”
“I .. I am willing to believe! I’ve been going to church and attending bible studies. Isn’t that enough?”
I desperately looked her and she was smiling.
I continued, “I guess I don’t know. I don’t know what it means to say that I believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, something happened 2000 years ago. How do I believe in it and know it for sure?”
“And that’s okay! It’s okay if you don’t know it for sure now. You can ask God to help you”, she smiled gently.
“But I honestly feel uncomfortable with that question. I feel like you are forcing me define the term Christian and to create two categories, Christian and non-Christian and I feel like I’m pushed to the non-Christian category. ”
“Oh no, I’m sorry if you feel that way. I didn’t mean to do that. But I think it’s important to know where you are at and ask God for help. I’m here to help and I will be praying for you!”
Later that evening, I was supposed to be writing my paper, but I just couldn’t focus.
I was on my knees and crying next to my bed.
“God, why is it so hard for me to believe? I don’t know how long I can keep praying for, for whatever I should believe. Some Christian friends say that non-Christians are non-Christians because they didn’t try hard enough. God, I will try my very best before I give up. I don’t want to be told one day that I didn’t try hard enough. But I really don’t know how much longer I can keep trying and keep praying for.
This can my last prayer...
Please reach out to me before I give up. Please give me faith to believe in whatever I should believe.
Please,
please,
please”
I squeezed my folding hands tighter and tighter against each other, finger against finger.
Tears slid down my face, to my clothes, along my fingers and to the floor.
I felt as if there was a round hole on a thick wall. I would be called a believer if I could go through that hole. But my head was a cube. No matter how hard I tried, my head didn’t fit through the hole. I was banging at the hole. I got scars on my edges.
Still banging.
I backed off a few steps and ran towards the hole, banging even harder,
again and again.
Three months later, on May 8th 2013, I wrote this journal entry.
“Dear Heavenly Father,
I don’t know why but when my pastor was reading that Bible section to me, I cried.
It’s interesting since I really felt like I was making a life commitment to my husband. And this reminded me the analogy of baptism with wedding. Thank you for being so good. Thank you for answering my prayers. Thank you for putting so many Christians to work in my heart when I didn’t know you. Thank you …”
In Chinese, I wrote to myself
“remember that the you in the past had never dare to want to be a Christian. It was God working in your heart from October last year when you had the courage to do salvation prayer. The fact that even though you had been through doubts, questions, and you are still on this journey proves God’s existence and love, again and again. No matter what happens in the future, do not forget that what God did for you. It sufficiently proved his existence and love. Look, the sun is rising again as usual. God is faithful and God is always good. Lord, I’m willing to give to you my whole life. Please protect my heart away from being shaken by the storms. Please clearly show me what to do and how to live my life. I pray these things in Jesus’s Name. Amen”
On June 2, I gave a testimony and was baptized by my local Anglican church. I was filled with joy, hope and faith. And I thought it would be the end of my wonders, questions and doubts.
But it was just another beginning,
now,
as a baptized Christian.
Couldn't help but Wonder
Click to hear the soundscape.
* Sound is loud.
That was the sound I heard every day in the summer of 2016 in India. Trains, autos, rickshaws. It was hot, humid. No air conditioning, no hot water, no cell phone, no entertainments except counting how many bugs my mosquito net collected each morning or be surprised by finding another ant in my hair. I guess people call it volunteering poverty. I signed up for a mission trip to India. I wanted to understand how to help the poor. I wanted to know how to best share my faith with people from other cultures and religions. I wanted to know what’s wrong with Hinduism. But the first a few weeks, I was filled with frustrations, not just because the living condition, but also because I was never able to have alone time, and I was never informed about local religions or was allowed to share my faith.
Until one day, I finally got permission from the team leader to walk around the neighborhood on my own. I saw a little Hindu temple on the street. Like probably this big. I remember it was painted in sky blue color. The fence was open.
I remembered some stories I was told by local Indian Christians.
“Don’t visit Hindu temples. Don’t go inside. One time my team and I went inside to take a look, and when I went out from the temple, I was almost ran over by a car.”
“My sister had good friends who were Hindus, and they always invited her over to their gatherings and offered her food they used in their rituals. She always kindly rejected her friends’ offering. But one time, she finally ate the food her friends offered her. And she went nuts afterwards and never recovered before her death.”
I wondered, should I go in, or not?
I thought, “ I came all the way here to understand Hinduism”, so I took off my shoes, took a tiny step, slightly opened the fence, another tiny step, closed the fence. When I got inside, I saw white tiles on the ground. And then I saw an inner chamber, little statues of the gods and goddesses were lining after one another, probably 30 of them, and I saw a lady wearing sari sitting there doing her ritual and her child around 3 years old was also sitting there. She noticed my presence. I felt sorry and intrusive. But she gently smiled at me, waved her hand as she nodded her head side way, inviting me into the chamber with her. I shook my head sideway quickly, and she knew I’d like to stay where I was at. She smiled, and continued her rituals.
She rang the bell, pour the water from a golden pot into a golden bowl with flowers inside, sprinkled the water to the statues. she was chanting as she was doing the rituals.
Afterwards, she took some food offered to the gods to her son, and the child ate it. And then she turned around, took some food and offered to me, still with that gentle smile.
“should I take it?” I hesitated, but I reached out my hands.
A date, a piece of rock sugar and a slice of butter.
I looked at what I received, these little gifts, full of her prayers and kindness, I smiled back to her, and exited the temple, just the way I entered. With the food on my palms.
I felt warmth.
Maybe it was from the food. Maybe it was my hands. Maybe it’s from somewhere else.
The butter started to melt.
I wondered,
“should I eat it?”
Click to hear the soundscape.
A different day. It was a rainy day. Roughly 1pm in the afternoon. I had been sent out by my team leader to be homeless that day. Two of my teammates and I were out since 7am with only 7 rupees on each one of us.
We were exhausted, frustrated, aimlessly walking on the street with empty stomach. At first, I was scared to greet strangers, but gradually I learned to smile and give a head nod. As we were passing by a slum community, one younger and one older Indian ladies saw us and smiled at us. We smiled and waved at them. They got very excited and invited us to their home. It had corrugated iron sheets as the roof. We took off our shoes and I had to tilt my head to enter.
It was a bit dark inside. There was a home shrine of Krishna and other two gods nailed to the wall in the left corner. A large bed took 2 thirds of the room against the wall away from the door. A TV playing some Indian old drama on the right side. A teenage girl, two younger siblings were inside. They were amazed by us, these other-worldly creatures, the younger ones giggled, the teenage girl was shy but she was the only one who could speak a few English words. Her name was Shampa. Her father also ran over and saw us, smiling at us. The younger lady in the room was Shampa’s mom and the older one was her grandma.
As we were playing with the kids and trying to talk with Shampa, this family all of the sudden got busy. Her father went outside to get us tea and biscuits. Her relatives also came to see us. Someone started to stir fry spaghetti with potato outside of the house on a gas stove. We were overwhelmed by their hospitality and started to feel guilty of our presence. But another part of my heart just enjoyed being there. Playing with the kids and their little tiny hands, watching TV with them. Shampa’s mom and grandma were just there sitting in the room, smiling.
We were about to leave. The family suddenly got anxious and begged us to stay a little longer. Someone in the family ran out and came back with boxes of jewelries. They handed them to us. How could we possibly take this much gifts and love? We were floored by their love, and wanted to do something in return. So I turned to Shampa, and said “prayer?”, I asked her if I could pray for this family. She understood and translated. They were all really happy, and so we formed a circle and I held Shampa’s hand, and prayed a few simple words in Bengali (yisu tomai balobasi) and the rest in English, thanking God for their hospitality and prayed for blessings over them. When I finished praying and opened my eyes, I saw the light in the shrine twinkled a few times. And then I noticed the grandma, she had tears all over her face. I reached arms to her, hugged her, and prayed more. I wiped her tears. I felt love for her. I felt loved by her.
I wondered, what happened during that prayer
I wondered, what she experienced
I wondered, if she had more love and faith than I did
I wondered, if I could count that as God’s presence, when we love and embrace one another?
I came into the summer praying for so many questions.
But instead of answering my questions,
God flooded me with love,
and left my heart with more room to wonder.
Allow Wonder
Since September 2017, I had interviewed a dozen of people from different religious and spiritual backgrounds. Here are three short stories.
light
I took Professor Bachir’s class on Islamic Philosophy last year. I’ll always remember the power and passion he conveyed philosophical ideas in class. One time, he talked about philosopher Al-Ghazali’s idea on the state of fallenness or despair. He said,
wind
I interviewed DeVanté who was a student in the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College last year. DeVanté is American but speaks perfect Mandarin because of his love for China. He lived in China and studied martial arts there and he always wore flowy pants that capture the direction of the wind. He always seemed to take everything at ease. The interview took place in Sakura park last summer.
bird
Rozanne was my classmate in Oral History program. She always had great wisdom and insight to share in class, and I had always felt that she was very spiritually charged. She often encouraged me in my own thesis pursuit. I loved her warm presence.
She is a descendant of the Chickasaw Nation. She wrote her anthropological thesis at Columbia University about her great great grandma whose name is Mourningtree. So she and her daughter went to her great great grandma’s grave to give thanks for letting her using the story for academic pursuit.
bird
Still Wonder
Wonder where does this all lead to? What do I wonder or question?
Watch this video of me acting this last section on Dec 9th 2018.
BIO
Yiyi Zhang holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Brandeis University and two Master's degrees from Columbia University, which are Philosophy and Oral History. She is committed to build understanding and compassion among people through oral history with a special interest in interfaith context.
Yiyi is a world traveler. Besides countries in North America, Europe, East Asia and Middle East, she has also done volunteer works in South Asia, Central Asia and Africa. She is always ready to encounter and be inspired by new people and new stories. She works as a freelance story-teller.