Patrick's Intern Speech

Good morning Friends,

There is a certain format that these kind of speeches adopt. One’s life is presented as a consistent story in which every event is a step in a narrative that culminates in the present. Myself, I was actually born in a Quaker meeting house. My mom was in silent worship, and I just came out. When I went to college, I majored in FCNL with a minor in working for Alicia. And here I am today.

I wish I could present such a cohesive story about myself for you all. My life doesn’t lend itself to that kind of teleological narrative. Rather, I think of how I ended up here at FCNL as a constant process of seeking and finding—with some “finds” becoming essential truths and others only momentary passions.

I was born in Camp Lejeune military base in NC. My dad was a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the time. I like to joke that he’s the culmination of all the stern dad stereotypes: a stern Asian father, a devout catholic, and a former Marine drill sergeant. My mom was studying at Duke to be a business consultant.

We moved almost immediately after I was born and never really stopped. My dad started a couple of degrees at Harvard, divorced, and eventually met my stepmom who is a Quaker—silver hair, glasses, and all. We moved first to Boston, then to Cambridge, Seattle, New York, then a big move to a rural village in China, Seoul-Korea, back to Boston, Indiana, and then to North Carolina. Then I went to Haverford college in Philadelphia and now I’m living in Maryland. Altogether I moved 17 times.

It’s hard to build a neat story out of your life when you’re always moving. The characters in your life are always changing and never stick around for long. Instead, you build markers. These markers are the object of the seesaw of seeking and finding that I spoke about earlier. They are the signposts in the story I tell to myself about who I am.

The first of these was my experience living in China. Me, my dad, and my stepmom traveled from our suburban Seattle house into an old style family compound in a small village in Southern China. We didn’t have potable water, working toilets, a shower, or so many of the things that most folks I know grew up with. I was homeschooled by my parents and spent most of the day chasing after the village animals and getting up to no good with the other village kids, none of whom spoke English. This experience is, strangely enough, one of the first things that I truly found. China. It’s been something that has fascinated me since my time there. Something about the culture, the language, and the people has so uniquely drawn me in and refused to let go. I maintained this “find” through my school days and into college where I minored in Chinese and majored in history with a focus on China. I spent a summer teaching there and helped to produce a documentary with my Professor called Broken Pots, Broken Dreams about the rocky and not universally beneficial transition to a market during gaige kaifang—the period of reform and opening in the 1980s during Deng Xiaoping’s rule. It’s something I continue to be interested in today, and is likely going to be a part of my career in the future.

The second of these is the thing that I consider a much more real find and without a doubt the most true discovery that I will ever make. That find is my faith. I grew up mostly as a very angry atheist as I believe many others raised Catholic did. Then one year my mom suggested that I attend FGC Gathering in Blacksburg, Virginia. It was in the summer after 10th grade. Back then I was about this tall and about this wide. I expected to go and to be utterly bored out of my mind. I was completely wrong. I found an incredible community of Young Friends there who cared for me and loved me in a way I had never experienced before. It was an incredible experience growing close to these people, and unwittingly to God. There was a moment during that gathering that I cannot describe but that anyone who has had a direct mystic experience with the light can instantly understand. It was the “infinite ocean of light and love” that Fox wrote so beautifully about. This joy has become a central facet of my life—it sustains me, defines me, and continues to push me forward. And it is the thing that has led me to FCNL.

I honestly don't know yet whether my work at FCNL will be a defining presence in my life. Although I am thrilled and amazed by the work that I have the opportunity to do at FCNL, I haven’t yet discerned whether my gifts are best used here or whether they are destined to be used elsewhere. But although I have not yet discerned, I am committed to the act of discerning—to following the bliss that a spirit led life entails.

This inner light, this inner joy is the reason I want to work for peace. It’s the thing that prevents me from being discouraged in these trying times on Capitol Hill. That’s my two cents to add to this conversation: that in trying times we should allow God to nurture us and help us to quietly bend the arc of history towards justice. And hopefully—and it pains the cynic in me to end a speech like this on such a warm and happy note—it will also bend our hearts towards joy.