David Kitani
Lincoln Heights
O God, my God, why…
are Asian Americans treated as perpetual foreigners no matter how long we’ve been here, blamed and shunned like a distasteful disease, and our hurts unheard? As disposable erasable aliens – our women as sexual objects, our men as inarticulate eunuchs, our elderly like trash to be pushed aside on the street?
Experiencing…
this invalidation and dismissal
has made my life…
muted with little value or voice at the table.
I feel like…
I am invisible and my existence doesn’t matter, like speaking into the wind, like laboring in someone else’s dream, like a railroad track to be traveled over.
**I confess any way that I, my people, or my ancestors have participated in…
swallowing whole the American dream, no matter the cost. Playing the role of dutiful servant to the dominant powers to be used against slaves in the field and orphans on the border, in hopes of being recognized by forgetful masters, to get a piece of the pie…when this pie has been corrupted and rotting since its inception – made and baked through theft and exploitation, trails of tears and bloodied backs, and served up as ones own manifest destiny.
In my anguish, I cry to you…
forgive us for our complicity for the benefit of our own expediency. Help us to change course before it’s too late. And may others see us too as a needed reflection of your Body, Our Maker, that made us for so much more than this.
But even though I am brokenhearted, I remember this about you, my God…
that you are the God who hears and sees. You reward from the rooftops what was done with faithful service in secret. You welcome any who know they need you and that with you alone is the greatest feast where no one who comes to the table is made to feel like they don’t belong.
Be near to me, Jesus. Encircle me with Your…
Voice, value, and vision now and forever.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Psalm of Lament template by Lisa Adamovich Engdahl
Please feel free to use this template (marked in italics) to help you unearth and name our pain, in the process to heal, and to restore.
**Added line for me not to be stuck in a victim mentality but to own my part in brokenness.