The Vitamin L Diary: My Happy Light Isn’t Enough

In October I shared with you, my dear readers, how I had not been feeling quite up to the task of life, having trouble sleeping (night sweats, which means waking up drenched despite the fact that the house is 60-degrees because we should all be SLEEPING), and wondering if this was what being in my mid-40s was going to be or if this was the depression trying to get some more of me. I had a good chat with my PCP (primary care physician) who took a blood draw before upping any meds. Lo and behold, I was anemic. THAT WAS IT! No more giving blood for a few months and iron supplements, which mess with your bowels so there was all that, but I was relieved and hopeful that I wasn’t crazier.

But the anemia is being managed and the iron is back up so I can donate blood. I’m still not feeling quite up to the task of life. I exercise. I drink lots of water and one (fine, maybe two) cups of coffee. But lately it has been HARD to get out of bed or to stay out of bed. Thanks to my cellphone I can answer lots of email in bed, but that, in addition to the inexplicable weightiness in my soul and mind, has been messing with my sleep. Migraines. Forgetfulness. Anxiety over big and little things.

Those of you who have bouts of depression or are clinically depressed know what this “feels” like. It’s not always a sadness or a dark cloud. Sometimes it’s a numbness or an irritability. Sometimes it’s all of it.

My happy light isn’t helping. Yoga isn’t helping. Praying isn’t helping. Sleeping isn’t helping. The wine I drank during a weeknight isn’t helping. Journaling isn’t helping.

And then this inexplicable sadness that makes you want to stay in bed, cry for no reason or for all the reasons, the sadness you wouldn’t want anyone you love to have to carry, hit my own child. So of course I know the truth and the lies about genetics and blame. Nature and nurture. Freedom and stigma. I know it. I live it. Please let this cup pass from my children, God. Please. I would take a double dose if it meant we could make it skip all the generations.

We are not defeated. We are tired. I am tired. I am clinging tightly to Psalm 139, and I’m headed back into therapy. I am tired, but I refuse to let this define me, stigmatize me. Even if it means being tired. I am grateful for a network of friends and, even better, friends who are colleagues, with whom I have been honest with.

So I’m writing this to encourage and remind any of my dear readers who are feeling an inexplicable sadness that you are not alone.

YOU
ARE
NOT
ALONE

Don’t be afraid. Reach out. Tell someone. Anyone. Call your doctor. Your pastor. Your friend. Your neighbor. You are not alone.

The Vitamin L Diary: Words We Are Afraid To Speak

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“Sweetness, the only thing that has power over you is what you can’t say, even to yourself.”

—Hyacinth to Phaedra in The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson

Every six months I am supposed to see my doctor to make sure I’m doing OK, that nothing in my medical history has changed, and to give voice to things that I am afraid to think about and talk about out loud. She asks me about my mood, my sleep, my level of activity. I tell her I am doing great, that I am fine, that nothing in my medical history has changed. “Can I get my flu shot while I’m here?” I ask.

And then she asks again how I’m doing with the Vitamin L – my daily dose of Lexapro. It has been six years.  Six year since I was able to release the words, the pain, the confusion, and the power of fear by saying out loud what I couldn’t imagine saying even to myself.

“I think I am depressed.”

So on this particularly dreary October afternoon my doctor waits for me to answer honestly, to say to myself and to her what I’ve been afraid to even think about.

“I’m afraid the depression is getting worse.”

I’ve been so tired. Tired like I could sleep the afternoon away tired. Tired like maybe the back and neck spasms I was having for weeks tired. Tired like maybe my high pain tolerance is catching up to me tired (and by high pain tolerance I’m talking waiting to go to the hospital until I was about 8 cm dilated with Child #1 and #3 because I thought it would get worse). Tired like that migraine knocked me out tired but not just that day tired. Tired like I might not get out of bed tired.

The weird thing about depression is that most days I am not wandering around my house looking like there is a cloud hanging over me or hunched over as if the weight of a heavy robe has engulfed me. Depression doesn’t always look like those pharmaceutical commercials that always involved drawings and the color blue. I work out 3-5 days/wk. I get together with friends. I read books for two book clubs. I try to spend quality time with my sons but I really suck at video games. My husband and I have sex if and when we aren’t falling asleep the minute we hit the bed, which isn’t often but also none of your business how often. I smile. I laugh. I make myself laugh. I write. I laugh at what I write. That doesn’t look like depression. But, yes, I am feeling exceptionally tired these days despite, or maybe because of, the fact that I have a child in college contemplating her career in the arts, a child in his junior year of high school who is just starting to understand why we’ve been so parental about grades, and a child finishing middle school who doesn’t need to worry because it’s middle school. Yes, there are unexplained aches and pains that won’t go away and maybe that’s just because I turned 45. Yes, I may spend my days wearing varying combinations of my yoga pants and three sweatshirts because I work from home and I actually do go to yoga class, but that isn’t the depression. None of that is the depression.

Unless it is.

And that is what I am often afraid to think about, afraid to say. Which is probably why that appointment every six months is a good idea instead of an endless supply of Vitamin L with no check-in, no one waiting for me to be honest or at least give me a chance to be honest.

Every six months I have to remind myself that the truth will set me free only if I am willing to walk in the truth. Even if people judge, even if my sisters and brothers in faith judge or don’t know what to do with my truth, Jesus doesn’t judge. He says to me, “Daughter, your faith and trust and courage and Vitamin L have set you free. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

So earlier this week I went to see my doctor, got my flu shot, told her I was fine, and then once again broke the power depression has over me and told her the truth.

The truth is that very few people around me understand this Vitamin L thing and the depression and the anxiety. I don’t want people tiptoeing around me. I want people to ask me how I am doing but not in that weird “How ARE you doing?” sort of way, but I also know that the stigma is complex, deep, and ingrained. Depressed people aren’t supposed to be normal, right? How could I possibly go to power yoga, write, and bake cookies if I am depressed, right? Depression is a mental illness, and people with mental illnesses do horrible things like gun down innocent people (well, actually it’s usually younger white men who go on shooting sprees and are then casually labeled “mentally ill” so I’m off the hook). People with a mental illness are crazy, right? How can a Christian be depressed and take medication for it, right?

I told my doctor what I was afraid to say to myself.

“I’m tired, and maybe it’s that I’m 45 and the cumulative exhaustion of life is catching up to me but maybe it’s not. Maybe the depression is getting worse?”

Maybe. Maybe not. But every day I take my Vitamin L, every six months I see my doctor; each time I have the chance to say words I’m afraid to say but know in my heart are true.

My faith has healed me. I go in peace. I am freed from my suffering.

 

Read Between the Polls, What Will We Remember?

Dear Readers,

Where were you 14 years ago?

I was 37 weeks pregnant with my youngest child. I had dropped off my oldest at kindergarten and returned home with the toddler. I can’t remember if my father called me before or after I had already turned on the television only to catch video of the second plane crashing into the north tower. I remember standing there on the cold white ceramic tile in the kitchen wondering if we were going to go to war, wondering if I should go pick up my daughter, wondering if friends in New York City were alive.

Within hours I would hear the deafening silence of the skies – not a single plane in the sky – and the eerie stillness as businesses and offices closed early.

My father called again.

“KyoungAh, you didn’t apply for citizenship yet did you. You should get your citizenship,” he said. “You don’t know what will happen now.”

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Friends and strangers, pundits and the average Joan need to stop saying the polls don’t matter. Polls matter. If they didn’t matter, even this early in the election cycle, no one would conduct polls, report on polls, try to interpret polls, try to predict the future based on polls. We need to stop pretending that a certain candidate’s bluster is just for show and his growing popularity is a sideshow.

It’s not. I think we want to dismiss it because it’s easier to avoid the truth rather than dealing with reality.

Racism and sexism, and a particularly insidious variety of both, is what is popular and resonating with the average American voter of a particular political party’s persuasion. We can keep trying to ignore it, pretend that what he says is just “him” and not a reflection of what real people are actually thinking. His numbers have grown despite the fact that his foreign policy amounts to nothing more than “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.”

Read between the polls. I don’t believe his supporters are stupid. I believe they hold racist and sexist beliefs and values, and as a Korean American woman I am not surprised at his growing popularity because we have a history of pretending our racism and sexism isn’t really racism and sexism.

Sometimes we call it patriotism.

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Today is the 14th anniversary of 9/11. It was pouring rain earlier this morning, and now through the billowing clouds the sun is shining through. My social media streams are full of #NeverForget along with somber, thoughtful accounts of where people were when they heard the news. There are images of the two towers, the new tower, and flags.

It’s important to remember. As a Christian, a person of faith and religion, it is important to remember, to know not just history for facts but for themes, story arc, tradition, and lessons learned. Sometimes the facts point to something bigger, usually a pattern of how God is present and His faithfulness is beyond what we see or saw in the moment.

We cannot be people who forget but today I am wondering what do we remember from the aftermath of 9/11 and what do we need to remember. Have we remembered some of the details and forgotten (perhaps conveniently) others? Have we forgotten how in our fear and anger protecting America and Americans and “our way of life” also meant turning our backs and sometimes turning against some of our fellow Americans even here in America? Have we remembered only being attacked, and forgotten attacking a country we would later find had nothing to do with 9/11?

I had forgotten about my father’s request I apply for citizenship in the weeks following 9/11 when planes returned to the skies and shopping malls reopened so that we could show those terrorists they hadn’t won by shopping. I had forgotten because as a Korean American woman with fair skin and flawless English-speaking skills (I’m still learning to speak American, though) I rarely get pulled aside by the TSA. I had forgotten because my husband also is a lighter-skinned Korean American with flawless English-speaking skills, and we attended (and still do) a Christian church.

But I think my father called me, specifically to talk to me about becoming an American citizen, because he remembered something I did not, saw something in between the political posturing and patriotism. He saw how America was defining itself again. We might never be a “real” American but papers can’t hurt.

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As we remind one another, particularly on this day, to #NeverForget I want to encourage us, my dear readers, to remember. History has a way of repeating itself.

 

These Things I Know For Certain. Maybe.

I knew I would cry.

This year dropping off the oldest at school for her second year took on a different level of planning, and in the end it was a mom and daughter road trip to Long Island.

I knew the drive would require a new level of stamina and patience. Fourteen hours and 850+ miles is a lot even for the two of us. I knew we would laugh and sing and eat and need some time to decompress from being with each other non-stop. I knew we would both need our alone time. I knew the last two nights we would be sharing a bed.

I knew it would be difficult to say goodbye, despite knowing in my heart of hearts she is exactly where she needs to be doing what she is meant to do learning things she must learn away from the safety net (bubble?) of her home and family. I knew we would do some last-minute shopping so I could leave knowing she would not starve to death. I knew I would want to do whatever she wanted to do just so that we could have a little more time together.

I thought I knew. But I didn’t.

I knew I would be exhausted from the drive and sleep soundly, but I was so attuned to her presence I found myself listening to her breathe and move. In the dark of the night she was a little girl again, taking a nap in her four-poster bed after a full day of kindergarten. I didn’t know she would sound the same. I didn’t know that the sound of her breathing would still keep me awake, just like it did when we she was an infant and we were paranoid first-time parents.

I knew moving her into her dorm without the help of my husband would be physically exhausting because even after all of these years dorm furniture remains ugly, heavy, and unwieldy. I didn’t know she would ask for my opinion so often and that she would take my advice to maximize the view. Her room has a sunny window with a great view of Manhattan (if you squint and it is unusually clear); she’ll wake up to that view every morning assuming she opens her eyes. That? I don’t know.

I knew that last day was going to be quiet. We had spent the previous three days in each other’s company, sharing every amazing meal, sharing a room and then a bed, sharing toiletries and coffee. We had spent the summer together learning to be together as mother and young adult daughter. We had not come close to doing all the things, eating all the foods, finishing all the projects we had planned, but we knew we had all summer. I didn’t know the summers get shorter every year mirroring the shortened summer days. I didn’t know that I could be simultaneously excited my sons – in high school and middle school – had finally started school and be utterly annoyed that college classes started two days before the Labor Day weekend when we all could’ve traveled together and said one big goodbye.

I knew saying goodbye is part of the deal, even if it is only until Thanksgiving, but I didn’t know how fast 19 years would go by. I knew I would cry because love, excitement, hope, anticipation, and sadness always do that to me, but I didn’t know she would cry, too.

I don’t know what the year holds for her, but I know she is where she needs to be.

#flymysweet

Grief & Gratitude

Sometimes the expression of an emotion has to catch up to the spiritual disruption. Grief is a very strange, powerful, exhausting emotion, and it didn’t really hit me until I opened my mouth and said the words on the phone.

“Someone very important to me died this morning. He has been my pastor since I was 15,” I said, requesting to be excused from a retreat I was to have attended addressing the connection between body and soul.

How appropriate that in finally saying the words I burst out in tears over the home-going of Rev. Robert D. Goette, good and faithful servant, pastor, husband, father, son, brother, uncle, spiritual father, lover of peanut butter, Bears fan married to a Packers fan, church planter, evangelist, leader, and friend.

Someone said Robert may now find himself bored because there is no one in heaven to share the Good News of Jesus with, but he is healed from the ALS that took him physically away from his family and friends bit by bit over the past 5 1/2 years. He lived longer than doctors initially expected, but that’s Robert.

Robert was a missionary kid to parents called to South Korea. By the time I met him (I was in high school) he was gathering groups of Asian American kids in the Chicago suburbs – mostly but not exclusively Korean Americans – for Bible study and fellowship. He and sometimes a few volunteers would pick up these kids to meet in the basement of a family’s home and meet Jesus in the form of a tall, lanky, blonde, soft-spoken white dude. Yes, Jesus was white in those years but strangely Korean because of his missionary kid experience. Robert had a unique perspective on and personal connection with the spiritual formation of Korean American children and youth – children of Korean immigrants caught somewhere between being the first and second generation in the U.S. also known as the 1.5 generation.

Me.

Robert understood that a generation of kids were growing up in the abundance of America with parents who had just experienced the aftermath of a war – the Korean War – and the political and social turmoil that followed. Robert knew that the language and cultural gaps  would widen, that Western churches were ill-equipped to welcome us (they were happy to rent their spaces so long as we didn’t smell them up too much with our food, which really was superior to donuts and coffee IMHO), and that Korean churches would lose us because of the very gaps caused by chasing the American Dream.

Korean pastors thought he was stealing sheep even though most of us sheep weren’t thrilled to sit in the pews listening to pastors preaching in Korean, couldn’t (or didn’t want to or were never invited to) go to the white church youth groups, or weren’t going to church at all. And I have no idea what his white pastor-peers were thinking as he slowly built the foundation of a church with a bunch of junior high and high school kids.

Surely some people thought he was crazy because junior high and high school kids are not the group church planters are going after. That is not the demographic strategic, trained church planters necessarily go after when dreaming of a strong core. Kids are flaky and unreliable. We don’t have an income let alone our own modes of transportation. We bring and create drama (we were K-drama before it was a thing). We are immature in ways our non-Korean peers were not because we also did not have parents who understood America.

Yup. Robert was crazy.

I’m so grateful Robert was crazy. His investment in my spiritual formation and the formation of a generation of Korean American kids is immense. He understood that my experience as a Korean American child of immigrants was going to mean life and a journey with God would have different turns and curves and bumps and that I would need a place with peers who spoke and understood my heart language – not Korean, necessarily, but a way of understanding and connecting and expressing what our non-Korean American peers could not understand, would never experience, but at some point would benefit from our articulation and expression of it. Robert knew the Kingdom of God needed my generation before most of us cared, and his faithfulness in investing, discipling, mentoring, pastoring, and evangelizing…well, even though it had been a long time since Robert could speak on his own I knew he was still Robert. Even when he ceased to be the senior pastor at Grace Baptist and then Grace Community Church. Even when Peter and I left the church. Even as we stopped seeing Robert and Julie, his wife, on any basis. Even as ALS took away more than Robert’s balance. Robert was still Robert. He was still a missionary, a church planter and trainer of planters, a husband to Julie and father to Jennifer, Emily, and Robbie.

And because Robert was faithful I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Before I knew what ethnic-specific ministry was, Robert and those who believe in Robert did it. They invested in a bunch of kids who grew up to become doctors, lawyers, pastors, investment bankers, traders, and designers. He followed us to Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Chicago – Circle Campus; bible studies on those campuses eventually became Asian American Christian Fellowship chapters connected to JEMS – Japanese Evangelical Missions Society and then later affiliated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Yes, the very organization I work with. See?

There is so much to be thankful for, so much to remember.

Grief is a very strange and powerful emotion. I’m looking forward to being on the other side of it someday.

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Robert was one of three pastors we had presiding at our wedding. He also was the only one who spoke in English, the only one Peter could understand, and the only one who knew me. Robert didn’t mind being one of three. He understood the Korean family/church politics involved in planning the wedding of two firstborns and the son of founding elders of a church. Peter and I have been married 22 years, and we still remember the gist of what Robert said to us about respecting and cherishing each other.

Everyday Dismantling #3

 

 

 

This has been one heck of a week. Confederate flags. SCOTUS decisions on health care, fair housing, marriage equality. Funerals. I am exhausted and as usual sitting in the tension. Dear Readers, do not run away from the tension. Sit in it. Wait it in. Rest in it. That is where Jesus has always been.

So, we return to the question:

What are some practical, everyday ways we can work to dismantle privilege that both are simple, clear things to do and don’t burden PoC (people of color) with the expectation they be our (unpaid) teachers?

The beauty and challenge of the internet and social media is the access and our ability to choose and filter the voices we listen to and learn from. One simple way to begin working on dismantling privilege is to listen to PoC who are voluntarily being your unpaid teachers. We blog. We tweet. We post things on Facebook. We write things that challenge you. We write things that challenge one another. We do not always agree with one another. That is part of the process of dismantling privilege: we must recognize the echo chamber we have created for ourselves. I’m all for being in the company of like-minded people. I find life there. But there is also life and learning by listening to a variety of voices.

This is not a complete list. It’s a start. If you, dear readers, have other PoC to add to this list of Twitter handles, please do so in the comments! Are you, dear reader, a person of color who tweets? Please add your handle to the comments! (And thanks to Judy Wu Dominick for the start of this list, @judydominick.)

twitter

@CSCleve (Christena Cleveland)
@trillianewbell (Trillia Newbell)
@JohnMPerkins (John Perkins)
@NoelCCDA (Noel Castellanos)
@LeroyBarber (Leroy Barber)
@JennyYang (Jenny Yang)
@lisasharper (Lisa Sharon Harper)
@efremsmith (Efrem Smith)
@tanehisicoates (Ta Nehisi Coates)
@DruHart (Drew Hart)
@austinchanning (Austin Channing Brown)
@breyeschow (Bruce Reyes Chow)
@WEB_Ture (Dominique Gilliard)
@eji_org (Equal Justice Initiative)
@profrah (Soong-Chan Rah)
@shaunking (Shaun King)
@thabitianyabwil (Thabiti Anyabwile)
@asistasjourney (Natasha Robinson)
@wirelesshogan (Mark Charles)
@sandravanopstal (Sandra Van Opstal)
@revdocbrenda (Brenda Salter McNeil)
@drchanequa (Chanequa Walkers-Barnes)
@themelvinbray (Melvin Bray)
@seanisfearless (Sean Watkins)
@jeffchu (Jeff Chu)
@foreverfocused (Jonathan Walton)
@iammickyjones (Micky ScottBey Jones)
@nativechristian (Native Christian)
@sepiamutiny (Sepia Mutiny)
@latinotheology (Latina/o Theology)
@latashamorrison (Tasha Morrison)
@zakiyanaemajack (Zakiya Naema Jackson)

Racism is Uncomfortable, Dangerous, Evil

These are uncomfortable times.

Racism, whether it is named or whispered or danced around like the elephant in the room, makes it uncomfortable mainly for white, majority culture people. It also makes some of my kin – highly assimilated, low-identity Asian Americans who do not care to rock the boat at all because a boat that doesn’t rock suits their American dream – uncomfortable. Racism forces the hand of people who want to live in a colorblind world while enjoying the benefits of a racist society. It looks you in the eye and asks, “Are you a racist?”

I am tired of making people feel comfortable.

I didn’t go to my majority white, majority culture church on Sunday because I didn’t want to sit and wonder if the Charleston massacre would be mentioned. I didn’t want to sit silently if the evil of racism wasn’t addressed. I couldn’t bear making other people comfortable by sitting through a service when in my heart I wanted to walk out (that’s how I felt after each of the non-indictment announcements). I didn’t find the nearest AME church to attend in a show of solidarity because I couldn’t bear seeing white people making themselves comfortable by showing up at a black church. These are not comfortable times.

Dear readers, please stay. Sit in the discomfort, even if it is not familiar to you. Sit and don’t wait for someone of color to make you feel comfortable. We are tired.

And read the following piece. It’s worth the time to invest in a little truth.

Dispatch from Charleston: The Cost of White Comfort

“I have reached across the aisle. I have broken bread. I fully believe we all need healing in these moments, and that night, the symbolism was clear: a white person and a black person holding hands in the face of horrific racial violence, singing songs of freedom. What could be more comforting?

But thanks to something I experienced the previous night in Charleston, I couldn’t shake a paralyzing feeling: When black people and white people clasped hands in the arena that night, the comfort wouldn’t be evenly distributed. The healing wouldn’t flow both ways.”

A Guest Post by Leroy Barber: My Dad to Me

Father’s Day is winding down here in the Central Time Zone, but I’m grateful today also falls on the summer solstice. It is the longest day of the year so lots of sun & vitamin D.

From here on out the darkness comes just a little sooner…Kind of like this past week.

Dear Readers, I’m grateful to turn over this little space of the blogosphere to a mentor and friend, Leroy Barber. He has a great story of how two black men, one Latino, and one white man found me wandering the woods near Appalachia.

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I don’t know what Father’s Day is like for you but for me it’s been a place of hurt when I reflect on my dad. It also has become a place of joy as my children encourage and honor me. I am learning to balance the two places and learn. I am the kid who on Father’s Day bought cards for my mom. I am now the guy whose wife and kids lavish me with love.

I have documented well my lack of relationship and anger with my dad, but today as I reflect the anger has subsided, only a twinge here and there remains, which clear the thoughts. The power of forgiveness washes over me, fills my heart, and flows from my eyes as I thank God for relieving me. Thoughts in this space are precious and cleansing.

My dad did two things I can clearly remember. He taught me to work; he would force me up Saturday mornings and daily during the summer to go with him on his construction jobs. Up at 6am to load the truck while he ate breakfast. These mornings helped me acquire a work habit by the age 11 that I would not have had if it were not for him. The other thing that’s clear to me today is kinda weird, but my dad was a tough guy. He had a rule: if someone hits, you hit them back. He meant this. Anytime I found myself in a fight and dad was there watching, I had to defend myself. This made me a pretty dirty fighter, picking up things to hit people so I could end the fight as soon as possible. Two lessons – work and fight – are clear in my head. Dad drove those deep into my consciousness, and both over time have served well.

My present life calls for crazy hours, long weeks, and little time off. I work, and I work hard. I have to work at being balanced in life so that work doesn’t own me but is used to bring honor to my family and to God.

My current life calls for me to fight with and for people who may be vulnerable for one reason or another. I fight for justice, and I fight hard. I have to constantly check motives in this space to make sure I am not reacting to people because they “hit” me. The streets can ruse up fast in me sometimes and picking up the preverbal stick is a temptation to avoid.

So for kids like me, whose dads disappoint, there is hope that one day small lessons, even the ones that are quite dysfunctional, can be turned into something beautiful in your life. My dad left when I was 11 or 12 years old,  and I am now 50, still recovering. Have grace for yourself and others in the process. I am the first to admit it’s not easy, quite confusing and may take a long time to process.

But the road towards healing, starts with forgiveness.

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Leroy1Leroy Barber has dedicated more than 25 years to eradicating poverty, confronting homelessness, restoring local neighborhoods, healing racism, and living what Dr. King called “the beloved community.”
In 1989, burdened by the plight of Philadelphia’s homeless population, he and his wife Donna founded Restoration Ministries, a non-profit created to serve homeless families and children living on the streets. Licensed and ordained at Mt Zion Baptist Church, he served as the youth director with Donna, and as the associate minister of evangelism.
In 2007 Leroy became president of Mission Year and led the organization until 2013. He also served as co-executive director of FCS Urban Ministries from 2009 to 2013.
Leroy is currently the Global Executive Director of Word Made Flesh, an international, incarnational mission among the most vulnerable of the world’s poor. He serves on the boards of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), The Simple Way and EEN, the Evangelical Environmental Network. He is the author of New Neighbor: An Invitation to Join Beloved Community, Everyday Missions: How Ordinary People Can Change the World, (IVP) and Red, Yellow, Brown, Black and White (Jericho).
Leroy has been married to Donna for the past 30 years and together they have five children – Jessica, Joshua, Joel, Asha and Jonathan.

One Church, Many Voices

There is a beautiful liturgy that has been written as part of a movement encouraging churches to all across the country this Sunday, June 21, to participate in the One Church Liturgy written by the Imago Dei Community, as A Call To Worship for the tragedy In Charleston. People have been invited to use it in their churches and I do hope hundreds of pastors will see the liturgy and be moved to change their original plans.

I also read the liturgy and felt moved to add to it because I believe that is what powerful worship does. It moves us into deeper spaces with God and with one another. We are all in different places and spaces in both our spiritual journeys and our journeys of identity. It has taken all of my 45 years to embrace the intersectionality of being Korean, American, female, evangelical. In many spaces, those four identities do not belong together. When you add the layers of personality, skills, talent, and calling…well, let’s just say there are very few spaces that will claim me. When I read the original One Church Liturgy, my fingers spoke my heart because too often women like me, Korean/Asian American women who love Jesus have been told to be quiet.

Kathy, shhh.

So, I added to the original liturgy the names and words that came out and could not be silenced in my heart. This isn’t a better version. It is another version. It is one voice of many, and I believe that is part of the beauty and power and truth of the Christian faith. The Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in unity and yet distinct. Three in one. It is the mystery and the beauty.

My friend Misuzu was the one who encouraged this exercise because she had her own personal movement to action as a result of the One Church Liturgy. I am grateful for her nudging and her words. They are sharp, and they need to be. She and I cannot worship this Sunday without naming the sin that has pushed us to this point. #Charleston wasn’t an act of violence against Christians. It was an act of terrorism against our black sisters and brothers. It was racism in the only way it exists – in violence.

Don’t be afraid to name it, even if it is in a whisper.

Racism.

Do not give the word the power that only belongs to God.

 

ANOTHER VOICE LITURGY

[Leader]

We stand before you today, oh Lord

Hearts broken, eyes weeping, heads spinning

Our black sisters and brothers have died

They gathered and prayed and then were no more

The prayer soaked walls of the church are spattered with blood

They welcomed the stranger and their neighbor with no questions asked

And yet he is enemy at the table, the face of racism, and he turned on them in violence

While they were turning to you in prayer

 

[All]

We stand with our sisters

We stand with our brothers

We stand with their families

We stand with Suzy Jackson,

Rev. Daniel Simmons,

Ethel Lee Lance,

Myra Thompson,

Cynthia Hurd,

Rev. De’Payne Middleton-Doctor,

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and

TyWanza Sanders

We stand to bear their burden in Jesus’ name

 

[Leader]

We cry out to you, oh Lord

Our hearts breaking, eyes weeping, heads spinning

The sin of racism is entrenched and entwined in the history of the American church

The sin of American exceptionalism has tainted the church in America

The sin of stealing a land that belonged to another has been written into our history and into our souls

The violence in our street, the violence we export has come into your house

The hatred in our cities and in our own hearts has crept into your sanctuary

The brokenness in our lives has broken into your temple

The dividing wall of racism has crushed our brothers and sisters

We have allowed racism to change your Son into a blue-eyed, blonde man who helps win sports championships and protects America

Our silence, our apathy, our comfort has been complicit in this evil

We cry out to you, May your Kingdom come, may it be on earth as it is in heaven

 

[All]

We cry out for our sisters

We cry out for our brothers

We cry out for their families

We stand with Suzy Jackson,

Rev. Daniel Simmons,

Ethel Lee Lance,

Myra Thompson,

Cynthia Hurd,

Rev. De’Payne Middleton-Doctor,

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and

TyWanza Sanders

We cry out for peace in Jesus’ name

 

[Leader]

We pray to you today, oh Lord

Our hearts breaking, eyes weeping, souls stirring

We pray for our enemies who often are our friends and families

We pray for those who remain blind to the sin of institutionalized racism and who persecute those who speak out against this sin

We pray to the God in whose image we all were created that we all would see the beauty in black, brown, yellow, and red faces

We pray to the God creator, who saw we were all very good, that we could see that truth in one another

We pray that you would transform our hearts and behavior to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you

We pray to the God of all Comfort to comfort our black brothers and sisters in their mourning

We pray that you would bestow on them a crown of beauty and protection instead of ashes and scorn

We pray that you in time would give them the oil of joy instead of mourning

We pray that you would give them a garment of praise in place of a spirit of despair

 

[All]

We pray for our sisters

We pray for our brothers

We pray for their families

We stand with Suzy Jackson,

Rev. Daniel Simmons,

Ethel Lee Lance,

Myra Thompson,

Cynthia Hurd,

Rev. De’Payne Middleton-Doctor,

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and

TyWanza Sanders

We pray for their comfort in Jesus’ name

 

[Leader]

We declare together, oh Lord

With hearts breaking, eyes weeping and souls stirring

We will continue to stand and cry and weep with our brothers and sisters

We will continue to learn about the evil that has found shelter in our country, in our churches, and in our families

We will continue to make a place of peace for even the enemies at our table

We will continue to open our doors and our hearts to those who enter them

We will continue to seek to forgive as we have been forgiven

We will seek to learn and listen as we have for too long been the experts while being the perpetrators

We will continue to love in Jesus’ name because you taught us that love conquers all

 

[All]

We declare our love for you, our Sisters

We declare our love for you, our Brothers

We declare our love for you, their families

We declare our love for you

We stand with Suzy Jackson,

Rev. Daniel Simmons,

Ethel Lee Lance,

Myra Thompson,

Cynthia Hurd,

Rev. De’Payne Middleton-Doctor,

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and

TyWanza Sanders

We declare our love as one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism

We declare they do not grieve alone today

Playing the Critic: A Review/Reflection on Keys of the Kingdom

photo credit: "T"eresa

photo credit: “T”eresa

What happens when the pastor of a evangelical megachurch in Iowa commissions a mural from a lesbian artist from New York City?

Well? What do you think will happen? Is it a doomed binary between conservatism and liberalism? Is the scenario too contrived and limited to stereotypes? Does religion win? Or fail? Or both? Or does it sound like a bad joke?

Sometimes those are the questions that make for an unexpected date night for me and the husband so despite a blizzard warning set to go in effect around the second act we headed out to see Keys of the Kingdom (now playing at Stage Left Theatre in association with Theater Wit, Chicago, through February 15). If you’re local, you want to support the arts, you like proposing different endings or changes to plays/movies/books, and you have a little cash and time to spare this is one of those shows you might want to catch.

It’s not The Book of Mormon kind of laugh out loud irreverence (actually I am going on hearsay because we have not yet seen that musical) but I appreciated that playwright Penny Penniston thought enough of evangelicals and lesbians to create characters instead of caricatures. Ed, the evangelical megachurch pastor came across utterly sincere if not a little weird in his conviction and faith while being open to the possibility that God would ask him to do something that seemed outside of the rules of conservative behavior. Christians can be weird because some of the stuff we say and say we believe in and do in the name of beliefs can come across as weird. Irene was an artist who also happened to be a married lesbian. Her sexual identity and marriage are important to her personhood but are part of an integrated whole just like I am not “just” Asian American or a woman.

The evangelical v. the lesbian is what I would call low-lying fruit for misunderstandings, politicizing, and proselytizing; thankfully that was not what this play was about. I walked away appreciating that there were things Ed and Irene could not fully explain but believed in deeply enough that they were open to new possibilities, relationships, and risks. If only we could reproduce that in real life a thousand-fold. Imagine what could happen.

The story also touched on how even good intentions can fail miserably, and my mind automatically went to the missteps taken by fellow evangelicals and allies who echo Irene’s line and say, “I was trying to help.”

The response (and sometimes my response)? “That’s what a child says when they make a mess of things.”

In the myriad of misunderstandings, good intentions with bad results, and disagreements we agree will never be bridged but by a work of God, there is grace. I was thankful it made an appearance in this play. I’m hoping to make more room for it in my heart, my words, and my actions.

The play was a wee bit long for my taste, and you could hear noise through the walls (two other plays were running at the same time in this multi-stage theater. I would’ve changed the ending, shortened the play, and allowed for some time for the audience and the actors to interact because I kept wondering if Peter and I were the only evangelical Christians in the audience. What was everyone else thinking? 

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