The Visible and Invisible Stranger | Loving The Stranger Among Us With Guest: Shayani Ann Turko

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:00:00

This is Journey with Care. We're in our series, loving the stranger among us.

Wendi Park [: 00:00:09

Well, welcome to Journey with Care. We're in our series, loving the stranger among us. And today, we're diving into a topic that may make you think twice. Sometimes we can be pushing away people without even realizing. And today, we're gonna be talking about a very important topic about visible strangers and invisible strangers, And I've got the perfect guest with me today, Shayani Anturkko. But before I introduce today's guest, let me tell you about my friend, Phil. So maybe you're a business owner or nonprofit leader or navigating some really complex financial challenges. Well, I've got some good news for you.

Wendi Park [: 00:00:43

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Wendi Park [: 00:01:25

So when you think of finance, think of Phil. Alright. Now let's get back into the conversation. Shayani and Turco, welcome to the podcast.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:01:34

Thank you, Wendy. It's awesome to be here.

Wendi Park [: 00:01:37

We're in the series, Loving the Stranger Among Us, Where we get curious about loving the Stranger Among Us. And today, we're gonna focus on the visible and the invisible stranger. And when I was thinking about this topic, I thought, You know, my friend, Shayani, I'm sure she has something very valuable for us to talk about right here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, Shayani?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:01:59

Absolutely. So I am an artist mom creating and writing out a presence. When I say creating out a presence, I specifically am talking about the presence of Jesus. So over a decade ago, I had a major life situation where I faced burnout. It was a culmination of the challenges of immigration and acculturation and terrible winters that I was never used to. And you were there when these things were happening. We were in the same church. Right?

Wendi Park [: 00:02:38

I remember when you and your family arrived in Canada. We were very much part of the leadership of the church when you came. Yeah. And your 1st winter, that was tough. Sometime we would view home after in the snow. It was Yes. Tough.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:02:54

years after we met. In: 2009

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:03:56

And so I found myself I got a invitation to go to a young adult's Sabbath retreat at Saint Benedict's Monastery. It used to be in Manitoba, in West Manitoba. And, there, They introduced me to the art of going really slow and being in stillness and silence. You know, I come from all this chaos of burnout when everything is raging for attention, and it's desperate attention. And I come to this space of absolute stillness and quietness. I heard the voice of the holy spirit very clearly saying, I'm going to invite you to something different through rest and going slow. So in the silent wing, there was In a very forgotten corner of the monastery was the art room, and I found myself in that space. And I was Stuck spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and I was breaking down and weeping, and I picked up art stuff.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:05:02

And as I created, I began to hear myself adjust to as the beloved of Jesus. And I received in the next few days, it was a silent retreat for a few days. And it silent retreats It shock your system. Right? It shocks you from the chaos. It brings you into the reality of God's pace, Which is way slower than ours.

Wendi Park [: 00:05:28

So, Shayani, you and your family, you came from Sri Lanka. How many years ago was that?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:05:34

That was about 17 years ago.

Wendi Park [: 00:05:39

Wow. Has it been that long already? Wow. That's great. And so we've known each other for that long then. That's incredible.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:05:46

Yeah.

Wendi Park [: 00:05:46

And so your journey, which is beautiful that you met Christ, you met the Holy Spirit in those spaces, and art has been a very instrumental part of your life as a professional in art and also as a mom, and you have created this dreams in between spaces. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:06:08

Yes. So it was at the silent retreat that I began to realize that I'm invited to a Space of creativity and rest. And I was actually called to be an artist. And that kind of acknowledgment means I had to let go of the aspirations that a lot of immigrants come when they change their country of residence when they're over 20 or when they're adults. Because we come to Canada As adults, we make that choice because we want to improve our lives, and becoming an artist, Choosing to be an artist was absolutely counterintuitive. There was no way I was able to tell my parents that I'm going to be an artist. Right? But that's how I started because I could not separate that invitation to rest in creativity, I started to create. And as I created, I began to create intuitively.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:07:13

And as I created, I found myself in between 2 realities. 1 in the spirit, 1 grounded in this humanity, this incarnational reality. What happened in that journey as I painted more in the presence was I began to be more present to myself. I always say that when we're in presence, we become aware of our presence. And that went full circle, and it came to well, if I'm like this and the more I got to know myself, The more open I became to others. So I'm talking about a gut level Ability to listen and being present to others, that's where the strangers come in.

Wendi Park [: 00:08:03

And I I read on your website on the dreams in between spaces, you you say here listening and giving voice to oneself and others are the 1st acts of justice. That was powerful to read that. Could you tell me a bit more on that?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:08:17

You know that commandment, love the lord thy god with all your heart, and then say, love others as you love yourself. I absolutely believe that most of us do not love ourselves. And if we do talk about loving ourselves, we think about spa dates and Spa nights and things that are very superficial and doesn't go deep. So that thing about loving As you love yourself, as you listen to yourself, your capacity to listen to somebody who's different, Who is outside of your experience, it expands. So there is this biblical truth that gets activated when you rest and also when you create. Because what happens is when you combine the 2, When you rest and you create when you create, your defenses go down. Most of us when we are encountered with something that is Absolutely outside of our comfort zone, different. Not even something that rubs us the wrong way, but something that's completely How do Faye even thinking? We get defensive.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:09:30

We have these walls come up. We have filters come up. We have Screens, positive and negative and neutral. They are natural things. We call them screens in communication theory. Everybody communicates through screens and filters, and these are natural things. That's how we make sense of our world. But when we create, Our gods are not in a attack mode.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:09:56

You know, you've heard that meme, read that meme, or seen that meme Where you say, listen not to make a response, but listen to hear somebody. Right? That happens when you have practiced not being threatened when you listen.

Wendi Park [: 00:10:11

Yeah. Throughout this series, Loving the Stranger Among Us, we've been talking about different ways we need to listen to each other and also the whole idea of the love based brain that allows us to reason. It allows us to listen. It allows us to connect with people. But when we operate out of fear, when we operate out of this inhibition, We're not actually allowed in our brain. They can't cooperate at the same time. Let's talk about visible strangers for a moment. We're gonna get into the invisible as well.

Wendi Park [: 00:10:43

But visible strangers, when we talk about visible minorities in Canada, It's referred to technically as any persons other than Aboriginal people who are nonwhite in color. But I think for the purpose of this conversation here today, we could also expand this conversation to marginalized individuals in a crowd who are obviously different From the majority white culture. It could be, like, maybe somebody visibly in a wheelchair Or somebody with a hijab, different religion from the majority predominant crowd. Maybe somebody visibly queer. I would also add as a woman leader among majority male structures. These are all visible differences that we can see. Oh, You're different. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience getting off that plane and living your last 17, 18 years here in Canada.

Wendi Park [: 00:11:41

As technically that visible minority, what has that experience taught you?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:11:48

It took me 24 hours to go from being a majority in the majority in my own country, And I wake up, and I'm a minority. It took me 24 hours to have my world go upside down. I did not question my privilege. I did not question my entitlements. I did not question any of my existence, My identity, none of it was challenged or questioned when I was back in Sri Lanka to a certain extent. Because Even then in my country, I was still a person with a disability, an invisible disability, but that really made my life harder. But coming to Canada, I suddenly realized I am the foreigner. Right.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:12:36

Like, I am the foreigner. I have this story. I was working as an office assistant in this company, and my colleagues were both white males. And I was just talking about foreigners, you know, and I was talking to them about white people as foreigners. And they stopped me and said, Oh my gosh. I'm the foreigner. Right? Like, that's like, oh, wow. Right? You know, those were not difficult Conversations, but it opened my eyes.

Wendi Park [: 00:13:06

I've had some friends and actually family members say I didn't realize I was brown or I didn't even realize I was black Until I came here, they made it evident, you know, that, oh, this is who I am.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:13:18

Yes. I think it's like You become aware, self conscious. Right? Like, your you become aware of your skin. And it's not a comfortable thing. I have some friends who are white, and I sit with them. And I've I'm very intentional with what I tell them, but I've told them That when I'm with you, I'm not aware of my skin. You see me so deeply. You see me.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:13:45

You hear me. You hear me.

Wendi Park [: 00:13:48

What makes you feel heard in those moments? What makes you feel seen and valued? What makes you feel safe in those moments?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:13:55

I feel heard when I have space to speak my story with all my accents and bad enunciation. When I came to Canada, that was one of the biggest problems was that I Didn't enunciate properly. Right?

Wendi Park [: 00:14:14

And that's a matter of interpretation, though, too. Right? Yes. What is proper?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:14:19

Proper. Right? Like, this is the British training coming out. Right? Proper. So yes. So that was just Always a standard, like, even in Sri Lanka because we had the post colonial experience. And the English was the language of, like, Power. Right? It was absolutely a language of power. So, therefore, this idea of proper.

Wendi Park [: 00:14:43

How about in the church? How do you feel belonging, or how do you feel that you've been othered in different ways?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:14:52

One of the biggest challenges I've had in connecting with people As a Christian, right, coming to Canada, already a Christian, was this A sense I got of the unequal power balance, where Christians here would look at these other Christians as less than people who needed to be taught, whose roots are heathen, who have been saved by missionaries.

Wendi Park [: 00:15:29

You're talking about colonization. Yes.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:15:33

And also that Missionary sort of we are missionaries. We are the children of missionaries. You come from heathen cultures. We have deeper roots. Somehow, there was an unequal balance there. It's, we know more than you because as we come from a Christian country. So that was not taken into account the history of Jesus with all of us. The history of Jesus that has gone into not just 1 generation in my family, but 2 generations Where my grandmother who was a Buddhist from a very ancient Buddhist family, she was boarded in a Catholic school, Not against her will, but because her family had problems.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:16:23

She was boarded. They paid for her boarding, And she wasn't forced to convert. But on her 18th birthday, she sat in the chapel, and she heard God call her and said, you are mine. You follow me. And she left her For family and her heritage as a first born and all the status and the symbols and the rights, and she just turned. And before she died, she said, no matter what you do, do not forsake God.

Wendi Park [: 00:16:54

That is just Absolutely beautiful. So the Holy Spirit was working in Sri Lanka in your family. They met you there in your culture, in your context Long before you came and suffered through the snow of Winnipeg

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:17:09

Yeah.

Wendi Park [: 00:17:09

And I ventured to say you probably don't wanna feel like a project when you come here.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:17:14

No. What challenges me still is this sort of we know better than you. We have deeper roots. We have a ancient history, but that's a whole thing that Paul talks to Timothy. Don't let anybody make Just because you're young in the faith, and we came you know, the last shall be first. Right? That's why he said it. Right? Like, Because that history makes to nothing. Because, you know, he said to his people, you call yourself children of Abraham, but I can produce children out of these rocks.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:17:49

Right? So that history is good, and it's commendable, but it It doesn't give you credibility. It's that living walk right now with me that matters.

Wendi Park [: 00:18:01

And when they said, who is my neighbor? And he was referring to the the good Samaritan as the example. He didn't use the Jew of the Jews is the the poster child of good neighbors. He used the other, the marginalized, the one that They sort of felt they had more power over in society. He's like, this person served and do like them, Which is quite powerful. We could talk a lot more on this, but I want to also cover the invisible stranger. We've dabbled in it a little bit. But When we talk about the invisible stranger, we're referring to the things that may not be obvious to know in a crowd. Those invisible differences, I can't know If I'm not in a trusting relationship with that person, they might even look like me.

Wendi Park [: 00:18:46

I might assume they are like me. They think like me. But There may be things under the surface that they're feeling estranged from me because of my actions or my Attitudes are my assumptions that I'm making of people. So, Shayanie, what are some things that might be invisible To most, that estrange others.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:19:09

Mental illness is one of the big things. Yes. Poverty. Poverty is another thing. History of abuse and trauma, a huge thing. And I would like to Particularly say postpartum depression, and I would like to say miscarriage. Those are invisible. You don't wear the scars.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:19:29

And I'd like to talk about a little bit about miscarriage in the especially in the church context. There is this celebration on Mother's Day, And there is this mothers in motherhood, and I have had a miscarriage. And it's the emptiness of not holding your baby, right, yet knowing that you are a mother.

Wendi Park [: 00:19:52

And you you feel othered in those moments.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:19:55

Yes. Absolutely. Because you have nothing to show. And this expectation of proving yourself as fruitful, where you don't have to prove yourself, it will show. Right? It is not something you go around proving.

Wendi Park [: 00:20:12

I also know of individuals who cannot feel safe in a church, for example, because of their past, they've had an abortion. And, yes, we love life. However, when there's an anti abortion rhetoric happening and that is bad, Will they come forward as being embraced unashamed before Christ to the body of Christ? It's very difficult. They feel like they cannot Come and belong in a crowd that does not embrace it. And I'm not saying we have to agree with it, but can we create Friendships. Can we be good neighbors to people who have trauma, who are same sex or queer in different ways, and they're struggling through some things. And yet if we have this anti rhetoric, we have instantly shut off those relationships. It's no longer safe.

Wendi Park [: 00:21:06

No matter what we believe or what Background we come from, it's not about all being cookie cutter Sri Lankan or cookie cutter white so that we can create belonging. It's actually what you said earlier, Listening to ourselves, understanding who we are, and also listening to the other, being able to embrace the other person made in the image of God.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:21:27

And that's what I think that rest and creativity does it. It nurtures your heart to hear your own cry, which is Absolutely vital so that you can hear another person's heart behind a particular rhetoric. One of the foundational principles of western culture is rhetoric, speech, debate. These are the values of Western culture, and I'd go back to Greek culture from which Western culture came directly influenced. I think in the 2nd letter of Timothy, Paul says, don't get into unnecessary debates. Don't get into these debates. So there is this almost anti Greek value theme. If you have eyes to see, you would see that Rather than understanding Christianity from a very Greek, Western, Eurocentric perspective, because Christianity is not white.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:22:26

It is not Western. It has gone through these channels. We thank God that it went through channels through our cultures, But it is not founded on these cultures. We are coming from a very Middle Eastern culture. Our values are, And Jewish culture is not about debating. They choose story. It they choose listening. They have this thing called sitting Shiva, which is I talk about it in my podcast.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:22:57

It's about Sitting with somebody who is grieving, and the practice is you do not speak. And when I had my miscarriage, I had in the spirit, I saw Jesus in my imagination, in my restored imagination. I saw him Just coming and sitting with me, he said nothing to me. There was silence. There was honor in silence. But to sit in silence, you have to have peace within, and I think that's what rest and creativity give. It mitigates fear, it makes a way through the fear, and that's what I've discovered as an artist mom creating in the presence. And It's just seeing the Jewish roots of our heritage and understanding it's way beyond the things we say.

Wendi Park [: 00:23:49

And I wonder based on what you just said here, if we can truly see the person in front of us, if we aren't able to sit in silence Without the rhetoric, if we can just be present with people. There's so many examples of Jesus being present with people, Allowing that alabaster jar to be broken and the perfume to be poured out, being with that person with leprosy, sitting with that woman at the well Yeah. Being present to see the person.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:24:21

I think that because creativity mitigates a lot of Fear. We can allow Jesus in us to come out more than our fear, than our prejudice, than our ingrained cultural biases. These are natural to me as someone born in Sri Lanka and someone who is a Canadian. Now I do have biases. I have prejudices. I was ingrained. I was raised with them. And when you rest and you create, I have seen, Wendy, People with different walks of life.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:24:55

I had a group of people from the United Church. They invited me to do an art workshop. And I did an intuitive art workshop where I taught them how to rest in the presence. And, you know, I'm not a person who has walked or will walk in the United Way Theologies or whatever, But because they had art shows and they're open, and I went in and I'm like, I'm curious too. I'm here for the art. I wanna see what you're doing. Right? But there were so many people from different walks of life, LGBTQ, different races, and different experiences and ages and able-bodied and non able-bodied, and I did this workshop. And as we created, Out of what was most salient to us, we became less self conscious about the things that rile us right up.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:25:53

We began to listen instead this chaotic, crazy, hamster wheel drive of always, What's my neighbor doing? Who's saying what? What are they thinking about me? And it's all this outward gaze, we started to lick inward. Right? And we quieted ourselves down. And as we quieted and created and became and we gave ourselves permission and grace to create, Those differences, they didn't disappear. They were suspended. And I think my definition When I do intuitive art is, allow yourself to be present to grace, and I define grace as the suspension of judgment. Even for a brief period, allow yourself to be angry. And if that is salient to you, let's paint that. So this tenderness towards yourself, absolutely, it's not selfish.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:26:50

It's a commandment. It's not this hedonistic self gratification focused self love. That is not what we are talking about, but this kindness. Love is kind.

Wendi Park [: 00:27:03

And when I can be myself and sit with myself and be present with Jesus With myself, my whole self, the things I'm proud of, the things I'm angry about, the things that I am confused about. But when I can fully be present And be in the presence of Christ with that, I feel like there's just a an ease in allowing other people to be themselves. There's a sense of Safety. When we all do our inner work rather than making oh, they they think different than me or they behave different than me. Therefore, I don't know if we can sit at. Could we all just sit at the table

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:27:38

Yes.

Wendi Park [: 00:27:39

In our differences? Could we sit at the table with our differences, and can Jesus be at the head of this table?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:27:44

Yes. Because when you are in that space of safety, creativity, and rest, and you give yourself permission to be you, Maybe you have never had the permission to express your anger at something that happened to you. Maybe for myself, it was, like, the anger I felt Being othered in a church when I couldn't produce a baby in full term, and I allow myself to feel that. What I receive in the presence of Christ is incredible love. Love changes The playing field. Mhmm. And, again, there is this kind of love. Oh, we we we know that.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:28:25

Right? Like, that's the thing I'm talking about Harking back to what I said, like, this culture, this Western Christianity is self assured in its knowledge, or we know Christ. To know about Christ and to know Christ are totally different things. So when I came to Canada. One of the biggest challenges I had in the church was I was talking about my lived Daily testimony and encounter and of hearing him and my testimony, my everyday testimony. And they were talking about 20 years ago, this is how I met Jesus. And then somehow you met Jesus, you talk about in Galatians, you Started in the spirit, then, you know, stay in the spirit, but somehow it became that love, that honeymoon. That love just got, It waned, and rhetoric stepped in. Theology stepped in.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:29:23

Laws stepped in. Oh, this is how we think as if we are Christians. Oh, this is what We can love and we cannot love. Right? Like, I'm not saying one way or the other, but we put in rules and behaviors and Proper ways of being instead of being.

Wendi Park [: 00:29:41

Yeah. At Care Impact, we have an academy that trains churches in trauma informed care. And one of the principles there is looking beyond the behavior, looking beyond what you see in front of you. You may have an assumption of what is going on. I've been told, for example, I have some neurodiversity in in some of my kids, and I've been told when they were little that, Oh, this is a sin issue. When there was clearly diagnosed things, I'm not excusing, every child needs to be nurtured and raised up. But, honestly, they were othered in that case, and they don't want to step foot in a church. It grieves my heart, and I don't think any volunteer or Pastor meant anything by it.

Wendi Park [: 00:30:23

They were wanting the best for my children, but they certainly knew that they were not welcome as neurodiverse Children who had issues with the sensory needs that they were asking for to be met.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:30:38

I think Kierkegaard said this. Intentions, everybody can have them. But having intentions doesn't mean that you know Christ. Good intentions. There is a saying. Right? Coker guard also said that. Good intentions. Anybody can have that.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:30:53

It's it's not that what matters. It's a life you live and being present. Right? Being present to your pain, being present to Christ's love for you in that pain. You know, he said, if you forgive, you can forgive. If you would receive love, you can love. But how can you receive love when you're not coming to the table to sit at the table with Jesus who doesn't wanna talk about your church. He wants to talk about you. He wants to talk about your pain.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:31:22

You he wants to talk about the abuse you went through, and he wants to tell you that he was there with you. And how can you be present to the trauma of othering And the marginalization, when you have marginalized your own heart and you won't give space for it. Last year, I lost a friend. It shattered me. And the Lord told me, you need therapy, you need trauma counseling because your Pain is getting in the way of you seeing and hearing me, and you have to get through everything that is hurting you Because you need to know, my love, because you can hear my love right now.

Wendi Park [: 00:32:00

Yeah. That's so good. This has been a lovely conversation. I know we have to wrap up Pretty soon here. But what advice would you give our journey with care listeners in how we can Love others well, like, the visible and the invisible strangers among us. How can we love well?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:32:20

Slow down. Rest. Isaiah: 30:15

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:32:39

And he will teach you what's on your heart, and he will make you soft for your neighbor So that they will not be conscious of the color of their skin or their marginalization in your presence. Because when you're with Jesus, you are not conscious of your brokenness. You're only conscious of how loved you are. And as the church, we have that gift in us, but we need to tap into it. It's not about theology. We are well Steeped in theology. It's not giving us salvation. What is giving us salvation is rest and repentance.

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:33:20

Slow down and create.

Wendi Park [: 00:33:23

Well, thank you, Shayanie, for coming and spending this time with this beautiful conversation as always, and thank you for sharing your heart. How can people follow you?

Shayani Ann Turko [: 00:33:33

I'm on Instagram, and, my social handle is dreams in between spaces art. I'm also on Pinterest and Facebook. So if you want, you can follow those links.

Wendi Park [: 00:33:47

Alright. Right. Let's keep loving the stranger among us.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:33:52

Thank you for joining another conversation on Journey with Care. We're here to inspire curious Canadians on their Path of faith and living life with purpose in community. Journey with Care is an initiative of Care Impact, a Canadian charity dedicated to connecting and helping the whole church to journey well in community. Visit our website at journey with care.ca to connect with Care Impact, find the latest updates On our weekly episodes, details about our upcoming events, meetups, and information about our incredible guests. You can also leave us a voice message, Share your thoughts and connect with like minded individuals who are on their own journeys of faith and purpose. Thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends. Together, we can explore ways to journey in a good way, and always remember to stay curious.