Worship Stations @ the Asian American Equipping Seminar III

For the closing chapel service at the ISAAC - Fuller Seminary Asian American Equipping Seminar III (March 20, 2012, in Pasadena, California) we used Travis Auditorium to set out three worship stations:

1. "Release," by Olga Lah (click to see the very excellent narrative by S. Edward Yang). This was a full-scale art installation, which served as the visual focus of the worship space.

On getting my first copies...

A few pictures, and some reflections below:

Unpacking the box that took eight years to arrive . . .

Waterwind Papercuts

Waterwind Conference, March 22, 2003, American Baptist Seminary of the West, Berkeley, California

Papercutting works and workshop by the superbly gifted Alice Helen Masek. She approaches papercutting as both a liturgical art and a spiritual practice.
www.papercutters.org/author/alicehelenmasek
www.psr.edu/news/psr-alum-reveals-spiritual-artist-everyone















The "Water of Life" tryptich was a fully stunning backdrop in the chapel, which was our main gathering space.

The materials are simple: backdrop paper, X-Acto knives, some colored cellophane, tape, and fishing line. The biggest challenge seems to be in the design, deciding what is light and what is shadow, what is outline and what is fill.

Alice suggests cutting more than one copy at a time if a piece will be on extended display. It's fairly trivial to cut multiple sheets at the same time, layered on each other.

"Teaching the Cambodian genocide to a new generation"

Click here for an excellent KPCC (Public Radio for Southern California) story on younger Cambodian Americans learning about their parent's and grandparent's experiences in the Killing Fields and now in Long Beach, California. Features Prach Ly, one of the first Khmer rappers. Audio, video, and transcript.

So, what would it take for the church to be a place to bring such memories, to honor them, to meet Jesus in them, and to find healing?

www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2012/05/02/5895/cambodian-genocide-new-generation-video/

Elizabeth Chhom - "Grey to Knew"

Elizabeth Chhom performing her song, “Grey to Knew,” about her mother's wartime suffering and despair in Cambodia, and turn to Christian faith:

Shared at the annual meeting of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada,
meeting at First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, July 2008. Note the Khmer fabric decorating the lectern.