Rohadi  00:00
Hey Tasha, welcome to the Faith in a Fresh vibe podcast. I am particularly excited about this conversation because I feel our books are kindred spirits. Can books be kindred spirits, ebbeling kindred spirit, siblings yet totally their siblings, their siblings, their cousins hanging out at the same, you know, family reunion and bring all of their own book foods and what have a great time. Geez, that actually sounds incredible. Welcome.

Tasha  00:53
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I love that picture of a book, family gathering committee thinking about that now. That's

Rohadi  01:02
a daring if it wasn't still pandemic times, something like that could happen. Yeah. Yeah. Future. That's exciting. That's so exciting. I'm gonna hang on to that. You're right. One of the first questions that I ask all guest as the criss cross through the show is to name the lands, the traditional lands in which you're situated, but also to help situate you know what city town you are in for listeners. So where are your feet touching right now.

Tasha  01:35
So I am in the greater Indianapolis area, and on the traditional lands of the Miami and Kickapoo.

Rohadi  01:46
Thank you for sharing that. I want to jump right into your book, I valued the storytelling that went into it, I could feel almost the connections as you were redeveloping them or finding them a new. Tell me the dream. Again, reflections on family ethnicity and the sacred work of belonging, we're going to talk a ton about belonging. But first off, what a beautiful book, like from art on the outside to the stories on the inside, I'm going to ask a trite question that you've really the audience get it all the time. And it's like the softball question. But also like, Oh, I've answered it so many times. It's not a What compelled you to write this. But were there moments leading up to this book idea where you felt I just have to explore this, or I just have to unpack this. Because something inside of me is ready to burst out. Yeah, absolutely.

Tasha  03:01
And I don't know if that's true for every writer and every story. But, you know, this one and I have shared this before, this is one that I started actually, you know, decades ago, in a college, I'm very old. That was decades ago in a college class, it was a memoir class. When memoir wasn't even really considered a genre at the time, it was kind of a new literary, you know, genre, not that there hadn't been any. But there was an argument about considering it as such, you know. And so I took this class and was really moved by it. And one of the assignments was to, to write or try our hand at memoir, of course, not a whole book, but just, you know, a small project. And so when I sat down to write in that class, all that would come out, were the stories, you know, that my mom had told me, it's like, they were already bubbling up under the surface. And creatively, I couldn't go in any other direction. And obviously, it's also nonfiction. But we were kind of working creatively within our, you know, writing. And so really, I always say, this is when that book started. I couldn't finish it, you know, for, you know, over it was it's been over 20 How many years it's been, you know, a long time since then. And so when I sat down thinking that I had a book idea, and it was more a general book about belonging at the time, but kind of just this book came back, and it was like, now it's time to finish. And so I really couldn't get away from it. So I don't know if I'll write again. I mean, I'll always be writing but as far as blue color, I don't know. I don't know what that will be like, because this one felt very much like it wants to get out and now is the time and yeah, so yes, as cliche as that may sound but it's

Rohadi  04:50
all it's not cliche. That's very true. I'm gonna name drop the one Korean the second Korean author I know of I just finished Pachinko Oh, yes. And and that was a 20 year work, I think 20 plus years. Yeah. To put that together

Tasha  05:08
incredible works. Yeah, it's,

Rohadi  05:12
it took me so long to read that. But when I think of your story, and the first ideas are teased out 20 years ago, like that's not only is that incredible, and fascinating and all those other words, but that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. And you couldn't finish it, because it wasn't time because you weren't there. Yeah,

Tasha  05:39
I hadn't lived a lot of the stories that were going to be added to it. You know, they hadn't happened yet. So, and yeah. They're just in any capacity to finish it, you know, emotionally spiritually, you know, none of that.

Rohadi  05:53
Yeah. Yeah. What, what incredible timing. Yeah. It's funny how those things work out.

Tasha  06:00
It really is. Did you feel like that with any of your books, or just you know that there was something that you had to say, Oh, yeah.

Rohadi  06:07
Oh, yeah. And that's why I scoff. I scuffed Tasha at the notion that this may be the only book that you put out, because there will be another even if it's 20 more years, something that has to come out. You know, it just has been holding it and holding it. And then it comes out as a book. Of course, even if it doesn't make sense now. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait for your next one.

Tasha  06:32
Well, thank you. I'm glad that you've.

Rohadi  06:37
Yeah, like, like holding on. I didn't realize this, it wasn't a 20 year period. But the stories are certainly ones that have taken me 20 years plus to process. But my book was a little bit but my book was totally different. And I didn't really name it or realize it. Until I looked back to the each one of my books has its own note pad. And this this notepad had remarkable on the fringes. That's what it was called. And that was the precursor to what when we belong wound up being Yeah,

Tasha  07:14
so it makes a lot of sense. It's really cool.

Rohadi  07:18
It makes a lot of writing sense. Oh, we're nerding out on right now.

Tasha  07:22
I love it.

Rohadi  07:30
I wonder if you can give us a snapshot of what it looked like. I think folks will be able to capture this. So you don't need to get into the gritty details. But what it looked like to almost, I'm sure you felt like this dissociate from yourself in order to assimilate into dominant culture that was around you. And faith in work in everything in life. Yeah. What was the like holding? will say what it was, like. offer us the snapshot of your story of holding that tension. Yeah.

Tasha  08:17
Yeah, I mean, it didn't start that way. And it was more so you know, as we moved as I encountered the world around me, without knowing that there was this dominant hierarchy, or this, you know, just the ways that white supremacy flowed into everything, even in our living overseas, you know, as a child, I didn't have the history for that, or the understanding, or the language, but you know, we all feel it, whether we acknowledge it. And so, for me, I think and I can't remember, I mean, I have stories, but I can't remember exact pinpoints, but I remember just this kind of moving away from what felt like this safe understanding in our home of being a biracial multicultural home. That was who we were, could I explain it? No. But I could feel it in our home and it felt safe. But then as I moved out into the world, and had a hard time, describing who we were, you know, with words, it was it almost felt like, you know, there was always this opportunity, you know, to try to explain ourselves, like when we moved to Japan, and I was asked something I was explaining I'm an American how that was like one of the first things I learned to say in Japanese, and getting a weird look, not realizing that, oh, I don't look like what someone who lives here is expecting an American to look like and then I would follow it up with but I'm Korean, not but I would say I am Korean, and that also receiving almost as a further explanation. So you know, at a young age, it's like that question of what are you and that expectation of an explanation was already there even overseas. And so I think I can remember feeling embarrassed, you know, as I continued to try to explain and so that, that shame starting to creep in, whether the whoever I was talking to, you know, and intended for that, or was kind or you know about it or whatnot, just feeling that opportunity for shame to creep in and feeling like, I don't want to be in this situation again, like, I don't like this feels. But that was the extent of how I knew I just knew I didn't like felt. And so to avoid anything like that, anything where someone was trying to figure out what I was, you know, just curious out further, and different experiences add on to it, but it was like, you start to feel like, you have to hide some of that. And I couldn't really hide how I looked, but I could avoid situations, you know, and try to do whatever I could to fit in. So and that carried on, no, no. So. And that carried on until, I mean, for a very long time as you read. And I think for a long time, I didn't realize that I was kind of separating, it would only come up when I was in an instance where either someone wanted to come to my house, or someone wanted to do something that would require them to step on this veil of what I could keep contained. And then it was like, Oh, wait, that's not going to work. What am I going to do? And then it was this awareness of oh, I'm like living two lives or, you know, something like that I'm hiding. And I have to face that. So. Yeah.

Rohadi  11:39
You used a word that that's not how I would describe my own experience, because I think it's the season just before this one is season nine is one on mental health and embodiment. So emotions and holding those pieces, and I don't know, I'll blame culture, and patriarchy of why emotions are not my strong suit, until identify them. But you said a couple of times about how you could feel you could feel what was there in the house, but yet could not name? Yeah, you could feel it. Can you just describe that a little bit more?

Tasha  12:27
Yeah. I mean, well, I think as you know, kids, no matter what messaging we get early on, I mean, I think that's how we experience the world is we, you know, our senses, we feel things, we taste things, we have strong reactions to those to those feelings. We're very much in our bodies, you know, without having language for it. And I think so that's what I remember. I remember, you know, I didn't have language for what was happening, or why, why? Why I was uncomfortable, or why I remember turning red, you know, when someone was asking me, and I'm like, why am I turning right? Like, you know, and then later learning, that's a feeling embarrassed and what that's associated with, but I mean, you can't really control those feelings, you know. And so I think that's very much tied to my experience with understanding who I am, you know, and embracing or rejecting that. And so yeah, I wouldn't have been able to explain it then. But I did feel things and I remember feeling things. So that's very real to me very much part of the school journey. Yeah, probably, those feelings. But they were there.

Rohadi  13:36
I appreciate you just teasing out little pieces of that, because that's certainly not, not something that comes out from my story prominently. But it is part of the story if you can, if you have the skill, or even perception to notice, yeah, notice them. That makes sense. Another layer. One of the phrases that I always hear, and especially from the writers who are around the genre that we have written on for bipoc writers, they're all using the phrase in lament of what are you? What are you what are you what are you? What are you it's like that those? They are the daggers that have imprinted onto us, as we have struggled to find space to belong. What was the catalyst then there were undoubtedly many but a moment where you could sense a shift in worldview or perceptions or maybe the whole world turned upside down when you realized that veil had come down and you were able to give have a name to the pieces that were actually calling you to give up something of yourself in order to fit in. Yeah.

Tasha  15:09
So there's, I mean, yes, there were a lot. And sometimes I felt like there were a lot of experiences where there was like a little chip. And you know, kind of like chipping away at all these things that I had used to kind of hold myself together shield myself and, and I talked about being very feely, but for a long time, I held so much, and that I was known to always have a poker face, like I did not cry for years. So anyway, all that to say, I feel like there was a lot of little experiences that kind of chipped away. But but never a huge chunk. But there was an experience, well, kind of a bunch kind of collected together, when I lived in Germany. And I worked for an evangelical ministry at that time. And I met some other biracial Germans, who, you know, a very, I mean, some more biracial, Asian and German, you know, North African, German, and just just a mix. And I remember feeling very drawn to them, and in our friendship, sharing about what it feels like to be to not feel like you fit in anywhere and to be between worlds. And I remember this sense of like, no, there's more than me. And it's not just an American thing, this is like, A, there's, and for some reason, it was so comforting to me, it was so grounding. And then I had this experience where I made this meal. And I think it kind of was an overflow of that. And so to be so far from home, at this really odd time in life, but to be connecting with these people that I never would have expected to feel so close to. So out of the overflow of that, which is this is more of like a celebratory thing. But I remember feeling sure, like, I want to cook this meal that my mom always made that it's like part of our family. And just this desire to share it with not only them, but like my, my co workers, my team at the time, which is so odd. Like that is not that was not characteristic of you know, the years prior to that. I'm just really proud. And so it felt like this kind of turn. And I think it came from that community. But it also allowed me to kind of look back and see us like some of those years of rejection. And just how in that in that moment, I feel I felt so alive too. So I think even coming home to wait and feeling like this feels right, it feels so good to share this food of my upbringing, but me really, you know, people because I hadn't before that. That was one and then I think this is that was like a positive experience, even though there are some sad things attached to it. And then later, as I'm in a mom's group, and I wrote about this in the book, but just having someone tell me, you know, I don't see you as Asian and just feeling just like, I don't want it to be like this anymore. Like, not that I control what other people control what other people say that. I don't want that to be okay. That people say that to me. Yeah, yeah. So and that was another moment, especially like, I had become a mom. And I think it felt even stronger. Like I do not as much as I can. I want to leave my kids towards embracing their whole selves, especially like identity. So yeah, it just felt really jolting. And like, very urgent. In that moment. Breaking

Rohadi  18:47
the cycles. Yes.

Rohadi  18:49
There you go. Have you read a lot of brainy Brown? Have you heard of this? Brene Brown before?

Tasha  18:58
Yeah, I I read a couple of books by her like, years ago, and I haven't read if she's had. I haven't read those. But yeah,

Rohadi  19:06
I mean, like, yeah, I interrogate Brene Brown in my book, because so many people culturally, at least especially white women love them some Brene Brown, and I know that the Her work has expanded since all the different stuff she's done, but it has still struck me as highly individualistic. Okay. And so the question that I asked him in my book was listen, if we're going to talk about belonging, right, is the matter of belonging, really a start and end when you belong to yourself. And what I was trying to tease out was, that is too individualistic, it is too narrow of a definition of belonging. Yeah, to narrow but but you have to do that piece, you have to be able to belong to you. So you have to be not merely okay. But in a space where you want to thrive cooking your own foods for your friends, yeah, type of belonging. But I find it incomplete because it only looks at the self. And it doesn't look at the, I think inextricable pieces which are one of them is a belonging to my people and how they're, it's connected to not only my people as in my parents, my grandparents, but my ancestors before them, my language, my food that encompasses all those pieces. In your journey of belonging, you mean you wove this beautiful story with the relationship with your mom? Where are the pieces where it extended beyond just you? And perhaps the light went on? It, something clicked. And this expensive, but this blogging became far more expensive than just us. Yeah.

Tasha  21:21
I love that you are bringing that up? Because I do I feel like not many people are talking about it. But as you explain that, that has been my experience, it hasn't just been with me. So yeah, that's so important. I would say, you know, I was thinking about that whole experience with the food and feeling alive. And the funny thing is, you know, if I had been with a group of people that rejected that, I don't know how I would, I mean, yes, I would know that I felt very alive in that moment, offering my whole self, you know, in a way that I hadn't before. On the other hand, it was a very positive experience. It was received. There were some people like some other biracial people there that I felt safe with, but then there were there were a lot of others that like this was new for them, you know, all of it. Had they, you know, in some way rejected that, or had it been a bad experience? I wonder how I would look back on it. I mean, yes, I can't deny what was going on with just me, but it was very much tied to the community that I was in. And that embracing of self is very much something we experience with other people. Yeah, and so I mean, even in that way, it was just, you know, me sharing a piece of my mom and me being connected to her. It was also me being connected to the people that I was feeding, you know, it's like an extension of what she did me. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that you would say that, I think for me, yes. Reconnecting with my mom has been, I mean, that's the whole, that's the whole of my book a lot, you know, that belonging with her. And that doesn't mean that it's always feels perfect. But the work of embracing her story alongside of mine has been so important. I couldn't have just accepted myself for what, you know, without that, and that was a lot of interaction. That was a lot of, can you try to teach me how to make kimchi again, can you? You know, I mean, we go back to these things that you probably tried to show me that I rejected that I really want now and not just want like, not just want because I want to listen to you, or respect you or honor You. All of that is true, but I also crave it. It's like, I need that and I need your input and only the way you could give I can't just go about this by myself. I think too, like just connecting with others who feel this kind of diasporic I don't even know if that's a word, but I use it like grief. Those of us that kind of have been cut off from our ancestors.

Rohadi  24:05
Yeah, I'm glad you're bringing this Yeah. Just feeling

Tasha  24:09
again, that grief and lament but also like connecting with others and, like, in that that community, and it's kind of affirmed, yes, we do come from somewhere. We do have, you know, a history, even if those names are unknown, you know, we, you know, kind of taking that Where were you from? And what are you in flipping it, like, in a grounded way like we do. And so, yeah, and yeah, I'm talking a lot but yeah, I think even just connecting with other Asian American women in my community, searching for that, bringing up those questions, creating spaces for us to talk about the those things that's been integral for me and understanding myself and continuing that embrace, you know, I could not just do it alone. In my I can tell in my writing and by myself, I don't. Yeah.

Rohadi  25:04
Yeah, we only take you so far. And it's disjointed. Yes. I wonder if if you could expand more on on the reclamation of of your people, even when you're disjointed, because I think that in your in your history? Yeah. Because I think it is, this is such a crucial space, not only for bipoc, folks, but for everyone, especially, I'm not gonna say, especially for white folks, too, because white folks have adopted whiteness, and in the process of lost their people, what are their ethnicities, their, their histories, their ancestors, and it would go a long way for identity. So you could latch on to something beyond just whiteness, and its privileges, if you found out who your people are, oh, yeah, but at and here's the problem for white folks. But and I also think of many of the writers even on this podcast, who are talking about Listen, the process of reclaiming my people, my ancestors, it's not only disjointed, but is disjointed. Because I do not have and cannot have connections with my people, with my grandparents with my great grandparents, or aunts and uncles. Be it through adoption, be it through colonization and all sorts. How have you bridge the gap? And that's the operative word, that gap when it comes to reclaiming yourself, but your people and culture? How have you bridged worked through some of those spaces?

Tasha  26:49
Yeah, I think first of all, just by being honest about the fact that they're there. I think one thing I've seen and have been tempted to do myself is just this jump of, well, this is my people, so I am just everything, you know, I don't know if that makes sense. But kind of not thinking through what gaps are there, what things do I need to grieve and that it's okay to like, grieve the fact you know, that, you know, when my husband and I, like did a we did one of those DNA testing things. And I there was like, all this information. And I had some information already from my dad's side, my dad is on his paternal on our on my paternal, his paternal side, Dutch and very much, and then there's a lot of British, you know, a lot of a mix in there, but a lot of British Scottish mix in there. So I knew some of it, but there was a lot of information there, I could go back really far. And then on my mom's side, there was nothing there were like two names, and you know, no connections. And I think just seeing it in the little tree online it like just, like broke something in me it was like there was this question of am I actually connected at all, I can see nothing. See nothing there. And so it was almost like there was this either I just drop it. And I don't know, just don't do anything with it. Or I take some time to grieve that the fact that there are these details that are just gone. But also take in what is true for me, like how was I? How did I experience love and nurture, and growing up is all very Korean. And so there's a connection there, but I don't have names to attach to it. I don't have faces. I don't have, you know, all of those things. So I think acknowledging the gaps, grieving them maybe and maybe that those come back in waves and so we have to give space for that. But then, on the flip side, was kind of just taking time to research things like, you know, finding out about Korean holidays, that, you know, we didn't experience growing up but thinking through like my ancestors probably celebrated this Yeah, probably cooked like this, what's one thing I can do to kind of reclaim that in my family line, while also acknowledging that I'm learning it, you know, it's not something that I can just pick up off the ground. I'm, like, learning it trying trying again. So that's definitely been a big process like grief. You know, studying learning, being a learner of my own ancestry, if that even makes sense. And also being okay with not knowing and I think, you know, there's a lot of pain and feeling like, I don't really fit either side. So so be able to even do that. On the the other side of things like yes, I, I, you know, I identify as bipoc I am Korean American and biracial, but I do have white ancestry, and I do have European ancestry. And so even like, thinking through What does that mean? Like? What does that mean, as all those those worlds in my you know, and thinking through the ancestors that probably would have, they would not have been in the same room or they, you know, would have very destructive. So, yeah, acknowledging that.

Rohadi  30:17
How to hold that tension? Well, because at the end of the day, that is you, and you are good. So how to hold the goodness of, of your, of your created beauty? Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you naming grief and loss. And to hold space around that and netiquette can come in waves. Especially, especially when we are disconnected from that relationship. Yeah. I think about my people in my ancestor ancestors in the missing relational connections in some of them we can reclaim in terms of like relationships to land, let's say, Yeah, and I think of my own stories of displacement upon displacement to punk displacement, you know. So there's some connections of reclaiming holidays, as you expressed. But yeah, there's a grief and a loss of and what up? What about the grandfather? I never knew and, and the great grandfather? And what about the great grandmother that I do know? And the history that has shaped and formed me more so? And holding all that and it's tension? Yes. Yeah. That's a beautiful work. And one of the it's the subtitle, but one of the themes of your storytelling is to name the work of finding belonging as sacred. Hmm. Can you give us the I was gonna say, rationale, that just makes it too scientific. When, when it comes to belonging, why is this sacred work?

Tasha  32:16
I mean, I think it was what we were created, you know, to be like that to belong, I'm like, Is that the right word, we were created, and we do belong, we hold it in us. And yet, it is very tied to our connection to others. I think when I look back on my life, it is the thing that has driven me, it's what I've been looking for. Longing for, and, you know, so many of the things that I've done or sought out, even things that I, you know, wouldn't even think are connected to it. But when I look back, I'm like, that's, we all are longing for that, that kind of going back to our belovedness and our belonging. And I think that involves one another to not just, you know, us and God, although it is there is the US and God in there. But, yeah, so I do think it's very sacred, I think it I think when we realize that we're longing for that, and that a lot of that, that drives a lot of us, I think it changes the way we see one another to the way that we approach each other and see one another as other human beings and, you know, others, each other's humanity, and the fact that someone else that we're talking to, or that we are around, is also created to belong and does carry that within as well. So I kind of think just anything that anything that we do, to move towards that reality is, is sacred. It's sacred work. I think seeing that way has just been so seeing that has been so freeing to me, because for a long time, I believed you know, that ministry was certain things in it did not involve anything that we're talking about today. But yeah, it's it's just, it's just changed a lot. Yeah. What do you call it? Go ahead. Sorry. I cut you off. What were you going to I was just gonna say, what does that look like for you? And do you? Is it something that you call sacred or see is sacred?

Rohadi  34:24
I haven't used that. That word, as sacred, but of course it is I, perhaps I have used the word holistic, because like you've named there's this component, and if you've been shaped in forms of, I'll just use my context of evangelicalism and shaped and formed as in the first 20 years of my life, and then now the next 20 of how to get out of that, but the first shaping of gosh, if you just belong to God or belong to God adds family and there's your belonging. And once again that's too individualistic, it strikes me as incomplete. And it's not whole God the great commands are to love the Lord your God. But then it's all sudden, love the neighbor, love the other love yourself, hey, love each other in community like all these different pieces and, and I will even add and to have a connection or belonging to land as well. And if you have these pieces as you explore that communal relationship in relationship that makes a lot more sense. So yeah, I've called it hole but no doubt that that process and that work into all those different intersections is deeply sacred. As you unlock deeper pieces of yourself. How's that? Not sacred? Right? Yeah. We've broached this now. So I wonder if we can trail off now and and speak to the aspects of faith and in what manner your faith has shaped or rather has changed has shifted, in order to come alongside or perhaps you alongside it, a more beautiful way of belonging?

Tasha  36:21
Yeah. Yeah, um, you know, you mentioned are you throughout just kind of learning in those first 20 years of evangelicalism kind of like, we all belong to God, and you belong to God. So it's fine. Like that, you know, what I think? You know, and I think the phrase that I heard a lot, if I ever brought anything up about ethnicity or cultural, you know, I mean, there were times when I tried to bring that up with a woman that prayed with me all the time, who was wonderful, but I was met a lot of times with your identity is in Christ, and that's all that matters. And so, and

Rohadi  36:58
I just spit out my water. I was drinking water. Yeah, it's like, yeah, we've all heard. And it's ridiculous.

Tasha  37:07
Well, and I think it's, it was so hard, you know, because I believed that, but it felt like, okay, that's just like, just a

Rohadi  37:15
piece of you. Yeah, a piece of you was left behind in that process.

Tasha  37:19
Yes. And so I carried that with me for a long time and had this inner wrestling of, I do believe my identity is in Christ. But what does that mean, if the things that, you know, that hurt me the most the things that I think about the most, the things that I wrestle with the most, they all are connected to my relationship with my mom, ethnicity, my, you know, and these aren't things I can bring up, because I just get met with this, it doesn't really matter. But you matter, you know, contradiction. And so, I carried that with me for a long time. And I think I just tried to use it to even silence my own wrestling. And again, my own longings for belonging that were not being met. But I just thought something was wrong with me, you know, you're just gonna, how you go forward. And then again, just came to this point, you know, where I kind of internally and I wasn't necessarily sharing this externally with others that was feeling like, Okay, if this is it, is, I mean, this is not sustainable. If, you know, I'm gonna keep carrying around this wrestling by myself, and keep thinking I'm crazy, and that something's wrong with me, then I can't keep doing this, you know, and, and telling God, you know, talking to God, honestly, like, what, like, there has to be something more than, you know, this thing that I've given up my life for. And this, this, this career path that I'm, you know, I wouldn't have called it this calling that I feel, I am supposed to be living out. And so it was at that point where I think things started to shift. And, you know, in my own times of journaling, when I was really that honest with God, and just kind of pouring out how I really felt, and this kind of was around the same time that I made that meal in Germany, but just really feeling the sense of, okay, if God does love me, I need to know that you know, you love me God, like down into the deepest parts of who I am. And this needs to extend further than just me taking this path this Christian path in my life it needs to extend to my past needs to extend to how I understand my relationship with my mom, it needs to be all of that all of that needs to be welcomed in this you know, journey. And, and really, where I went from there was starting to kind of read Scripture starting to just have these you know, times of solitude, where as like he does like this is it's not just your identities that Christ did. None of that matters. It's the complete opposite And so that's kind of where, yeah, my journey started shifting more just internally, a lot of times of solitude is just that that's where I was journaling, like just all the time. But my relationship with God became very intimate at that point. It changed, everything changed. And I think that's what, that's what I needed, you know, to kind of like, do I really believe this? Like, all these doubts, like, Yes, this is what I'm looking for. And not that I just throw out everything that was prior to that, but it couldn't have sustained me in a life of faith, you know, if it continued in that shallow way. So

Rohadi  40:37
shall shallow Yeah, very surface level. So, yeah. Which is probably indicative to how many Christians are formed. I remember ironically, as saying of my pastor, as a kid that so many Christians have been a Christian like they're a mile long, but only an inch deep. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And, you know, he was, I don't know. But there are a lot of folks BIPOC folks in particular who are hanging on to the inch deep. And, and are at tension. Yeah. When in fact, their liberation, freedom and wholeness are on the other side. On the flip side from only holding identity in one described place, yeah. It's incomplete. That's

Tasha  41:36
such a good way to put it. Yeah, definitely.

Rohadi  41:42
I really enjoyed our conversation. We're out of time. But I'll give you the last word, to let folks know where they can find you, your book. And any other shout out? Yeah.

Tasha  41:54
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Such an honor to be here. And this has been one of my favorite conversations so far. So I don't know if you should say that on the podcast. But yeah, I I'm on Instagram. It's Tasha Joon B. And I have a newsletter. It's Shalom sick notes. On substack. And my book, I think you can find it just about anywhere that books are sold.









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