I was incredibly lucky and privileged to receive the covid vaccine from the hospital where I work. I’ve posted my journey through the vaccines, including the side effects and how it went.
The first dose had one sudden side effect which passed quickly.
The second dose had an unexpected side effect which also passed quickly.
It has now been nearly two weeks since my second dose, and there are no side effects at all.
Please feel free to ask me anything.
If someone tells you their experience with depression, doubt, racism, sexism, abuse, classicism, trauma, grief—it’s because they trusted you. Maybe they told someone else and got laughed off, shut down, invalidated. Their voice was cut off. So they came to you with hope, at a risk, heart open.
Sometimes when I am weakened, grieving, or depressed, the response I get is complete disgust. There is something vile in the human heart that feels revulsion at “weakness.” There is some terrible urge to look at a wounded person and say, “Stop that, don’t cry, be strong.” I think part of the reason we do this is that we’re so afraid of our own vulnerability, we despise seeing it in others.
The same too when we see anger. Anger can be abusive, yes. But underneath rage is often pain. To lecture an angry person to “calm down” will only injure the injured. When we’re most angry in our wounds, the most healing response is to be angry for and with, not at. To shame a person for their emotion is to shame them for being human.
I think there’s an urge to preach advice at hurting people because it feels powerless not to say anything. But tossing advice on an already hurting person is to give them a burden on top of their burden. Out of good intentions, we tend to impart information or theology or logical points to ”fix” them—but when you were wounded, what did you need? More words? A sound argument? I-told-you-so? No. The best gifts I received in these moments were presence and silence. To bear the load together.
When someone opens up with their painful story, it’s important what you do right then. You’ll be one more person who turns them away, or you’ll be the one who opens a door. Your ears can save a life. You can be the miracle they were praying for.
You more than matter. Black lives are beloved, cherished, dignified, and bearers of the Image of God. It is a truth denied but it is no less true.
My friend “Shayla” (who gave me permission to share her story) was telling me that after the hundredth video of a Black person beaten in the streets, after one more citation of false facts and stats, after one more demand to “just work harder and get off welfare and quit drugs,” she had the terrible thought, “Maybe they’re right. I’m not human.”
After so many racist messages and images, it can become impossible not to believe, “I’m not human.” Or, “They’re right.”
The internalized trauma of racism is crushing. Day after day, the Black community is denied their lives, art, beauty, voices, stories, truth. Even when we know these racist messages are not true, they have a way of creeping in, suffocating, infiltrating our beliefs.
It cannot be overstated how much the trauma of racism deteriorates a soul. Trauma has a way of saying, “I am what has happened to me.”
I say as a chaplain but also as a human being: I have seen so many kinds of grief, but to believe your skin makes you deficient is one of the saddest, most haunting pains of all. It sticks so hard. It kills. It takes a thousand times more work to restore wholeness than to tear it down.
I will always be on the side of the wounded. I will do all I can to be part of that thousand steps towards wholeness.
For me, to say Black Lives Matter is a starting point to recognize the full worth of Black Lives. In Korean, the phrase Black Lives Matter is “huhg-in-eh seng-myung-un so-joong-hapnida,” which means Black Life Is Precious. I will continue to say Black Lives Matter, but even more, precious and worthy—not just worthy of protecting, but also having inherent worth.
If you are burned out, traumatized, overwhelmed by racist messages and images, please know the truth: you bear the Image of God. Your worth is not in what you’ve done or how you’ve been treated. It may be hard to believe today, but you are loved. I am with you and for you. As much as I love you, the Creator loves you infinitely more.
— J.S.
If you’re always serving, it’s easy to lose your own voice and identity. Those in mental health work, hospitality, church ministry, or those who simply just listen all the time don’t always get to process their own thoughts and feelings. This can be exhausting and infuriating.
Emotional labor is the cost you pay when you feel one way and act another. Many of us who serve have to smile, nod, never flinch, never judge, and always get along. How do we keep our own voice while serving others?
I go over Ring Theory and how we can process our emotions safely. We need room to be ourselves as we take care of others.
— J.S.
I never want to politicize, moralize, or spiritualize someone’s pain.
I am always on the side of the wounded. Where there is loss, I am for the bereaved. Where you are hurting, I want to bring healing. Anything less is making us less human and not more.
It would take only a few seconds to consider the other person’s pain and perspective and point of view. That has the power to heal. The only cost to empathy is losing bigotry, self-righteousness, and pride. Empathy is that good.
It should never be on the wounded to explain their pain, defend their injury, or to forgive over and over the injustices that never should’ve happened but keep happening. Even if your hurt is not my hurt: because you’re hurting, I hurt too.
I want to empathize first, to listen first, to grieve first, and to be angry and to weep alongside. Not lecture, lessonize, or minimize. I don’t want to add burdens, nor demand explanations, nor kick you while you’re down. I want to crawl down there with you.
I cannot understand the hasty, vicious speed by which real hurting people are turned into talking points. I don’t mean the platforms for justice. I mean the ones that degrade and deny. I cannot understand the evil scorn and jeering and mockery: there is no honor in desecration, but only violence to the soul. And while I do not believe we must be forced to give our opinion all the time—so often the silence is chilling, and apathy can be the most destructive force of all.
May I never lose sight of the wound and the wounded. May God forgive me for when I wasn’t listening, for not getting it right. Above all, I must grieve. Through tears, prayer, and action, I grieve with you.
— J.S.
#AhmaudArbery
Happy day, friends! My book The Voices We Carry is officially released.
The Voices We Carry is about wrestling with our voices, such as self-doubt, people-pleasing, trauma, grief, and family dynamics, and finding our own voice in world of mixed messages. I talk about my hospital chaplaincy, what I learned from patients at the edge of life and death, and giving a voice to those who have been silenced—those like you and me.
The month of May is also Mental Health Awareness Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. My book talks about the challenges of both. I believe that the more we can share our stories and make room for our many voices, the better we become.
God bless and much love to you, friends. Thank you for allowing me to speak into your life, faith, and journey.
— J.S.
The Voices We Carry is published by Northfield of Moody Publishers.
#MentalHealthAwarenessMonth
#AsianPacificAmericanHeritageMonth
My book comes out on May 5th, in just a couple days. I’m grateful to so many.
I believe that no one is a self-made person. People enter our lives, whether for a second or a season or decades, and they support us. But perhaps more importantly, they speak into us.
I want to thank two people in particular. In grade school, I had a teacher that I’ll call Ms. Macklin. After we did a short story assignment, she took me aside after class and said, “You need an agent.” At first I thought she said, “You need an Asian.” Maybe she was telling me I needed an Asian friend, since I was the only one in the entire school. But she explained, “A literary agent. You know, to get your work published. It has to be published.”
Before this encounter, I had always wanted to be a writer. I had carried around a notepad since I was five or so. I wrote stories about the ducks at the local pond, especially about this one duck who had a lopsided wing. I made up an entire conspiracy about how the town was polluting the water and causing the ducks to be sideways. The twist: the ducks were fighting each other, and it was the violence that caused them to be lopsided (and yes, they eventually united to stop the pollution too).
Ms. Macklin believed in me. It was really the first time someone had commented on my writing. It put the bug in my ear: “It has to be published.”
In community college, I met Professor Marcus, who preferred to be called Rocky. She smelled like potpourri and was fond of wearing trench coats, probably made of hemp. She took me aside after class (this is a common tactic apparently), and told me, “I say this to everyone but I only mean it once in a blue moon. You have to be a writer.” Rocky coached me. That entire semester she poured into me: how to write, edit, edit, edit, simplify, clarify, amplify. It was hard. It was wonderful. Like an education at Hogwarts. What a gift she was.
Ms. Macklin and Professor Rocky are still a part of me. Their voice, the gentle way they corrected me, their kind way of saying hello when I entered. I was a lonely kid a lot of the time. But they made it bearable. And they made me a writer. Just thinking of them, my heart swells. Where would we be without the people who look us in the eye and with total confidence say, “You, you got the stuff, you got what it takes, and you, I even like you, and I like what you bring into the world” …?
I’m thankful. So thankful for the teachers, leaders, mentors, counselors, therapists, parents, random elders at the airport, the security guards who paused to chat, and the man who helped push my car out of the road after an accident in the rain: each of you made me a writer. I hope I spoke into you even a fraction of what you spoke into me.
I’m thankful for you. In a world such as this, you have been strength and beauty.
— J.S.
Once I had this friend who was embarrassed by my laughter. At the movies, he would literally shove my shoulder to tell me to quiet down. At first I just stopped laughing around him. But eventually I stifled my laughter around everybody.
That same friend couldn’t believe it when I was sad about something, or hurt, or not enjoying myself. I was being a downer, I guess. I was interrupting his life.
We went hiking once and he kept telling me to smile. “Why don’t you laugh?” he said. He knew I had lung issues and breathing problems. But he wouldn’t slow down for me, not for a second.
We’re not friends anymore, but here’s the thing: I don’t think we were ever friends. He wanted a customizable, checklisted, wishlisted type of robot that met his every whim. That was all. He couldn’t imagine another person with needs beyond his own. And I was happy to cater to him. There was something about his bully-like authority that I was attracted to, as if I got strength from his domineering. But no, we were never friends. I was his rug, his lapdog.
I could be mad at him, but I’m guilty of the same thing. Sometimes I don’t understand a person’s fears, dreams, and goals, and I judge them for it. I don’t get their hobbies or the movies or music they like or the fact they love quinoa and kale. Mentally I belittle them for being them.
We do this with mental health, gender, race, culture, their stories: it’s as if we withhold permission for people to feel hurt about the things that don’t hurt us. “It’s never happened to me, therefore it never happens” is the most destructive lie that destroys connection.
But I want to get it. I want to get your fear, anxiety, pain, your worries and heartaches and shame. Your whole story. To really listen means that another person’s story is more important than my own right then. But that’s how we grow. That’s how we heal. That’s how we find laughter, loud and free.
I’m sorry I didn’t listen earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you. I want to. I want to hear you, and by hearing, fully see.
Good Friday to you, friends. My publisher sent my books early for me. It’s incredible and surreal to finally hold my book in my hands.
My book launch team is still open if you would like to help support the book release. You get an advance copy of the book, giveaways (like art by Red Hong Yi), Q&As, and live video chats: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceswecarry
You can also preorder my book here, which releases May 5th: https://www.amazon.com/The-Voices-We-Carry/dp/0802419895
God bless and much love to you, friends. All peace and grace be with you.
— J.S.
[Thank you, awesome team at Moody Publishers.]
Hey friends, I did a video with my publisher Moody Publishers to talk about COVID-19.
I go through five points: How to approach the pandemic from a chaplain’s perspective—dealing with our fear, with each other, and with ourselves—and I directly address those who have tested positive for COVID-19 or have lost someone to it.
I hope even a single sentence will help you through this time.
(Also, this might be the first time you’ve heard my voice or seen me in video, I apologize in advance.)
God bless and much love to each of you, friends.
— J.S.
I’d like to think I’m not a fearful person. But I am. I never look like I worry, but I do. A lot.
This week I made the mistake of very publicly bringing up my fears about coronavirus in the workplace. I don’t mind catching the flu, but my wife is pregnant and the flu can adversely affect our baby in utero. I said some uncomfortable things in front of coworkers, when I’m supposed to be the calm voice of a chaplain.
I was not helpful. I probably incited panic and anxiety. I apologized for my behavior. Maybe the fear of being a dad in our current world really got to me. It was still not a good look.
I’m trying to balance the fear we‘re experiencing versus being calm, safe, and rational. I want to validate our anxiety without letting it consume us. I want to be vigilant, but not so on edge that I’m scaring everyone else. I want to say “God is in control,” but also run screaming and lock every window. It’s a tough, strange balance.
We’ve seen where the fear can take us: there’s been multiple racist assaults against Asians, blaming them for the pandemic. We’ve seen misinformation about drinking water and eating garlic and avoiding packages from China. We’ve seen the ugly finger-pointing of political leaders using the panic for vote-bait, promoting xenophobia and catering to the worst leanings of their base. And everyone—including me here—has some take about what to do, how to be, what to say.
I’m trying to stay cool. To be both cautious and optimistic. It’s hard. It’s scary right now. I keep thinking of raising a daughter in this world and how I’m so incapable, unsure, uncertain, lacking the wisdom to say the right thing, to be a pillar when she needs me. I hope I can be strength for her even when I have so little of it in myself.
I’m trying to validate fear without giving into it, to let fear ask questions and seek wisdom and move towards compassionate curiosity, rather than hate or rash decisions. God be with us, who navigates our fears, who hears our worries, who gives us wisdom amidst division, who offers us a peace like no other.
— J.S.
I saw Parasite / 기생충 in a packed theater with a diverse crowd. Looking around, I never could’ve imagined a day in the States when such an audience would watch a movie in my language, with my people, telling our stories.
It really meant a lot to me. I have to tell you why.
I remember in middle school when someone assaulted me while yelling “you ch_nk yellow belly.” Someone shoving me in a hallway telling me to go back to where I came from. Multiple times someone would squint their eyes, do their version of an Asian accent, pose at me like Bruce Lee, all while high-fiving each other. Having to endure that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, being told it was “art.” Someone in my college history class telling me that Korea needed to be nuked, and “it doesn’t matter which one.” I remember when my dad’s business was spray-painted with a swastika. I remember inexplicable rage when some kid yelled “your dad killed my dad in the war,” and his dad picking him up later after he was sent to detention.
Art, music, film, books: these things have the power to take away our fear, our bigotry, our assumptions. They turn masses into individuals. They turn cartoons into real people. For someone like me, I have to prove daily I am a real person. For art to put my story into public consciousness is allowing me more room to breathe, to exist.
A part of me wishes a movie like Parasite could’ve been accepted earlier. Seeing a face like mine on a big screen has an immense affect on how we see each other. But more than that, a good story, like the one in Parasite, makes us more human. Hearing more stories makes us better, more whole, more gracious. We need diverse stories, and good ones.
During the movie, I looked around. Seeing so many faces enraptured by a powerful story, taken in by faces that looked like mine, I wept. Certainly I wept because the movie was incredible. But I wept feeling something I never had before: a kinship with strangers. Humanization. The image of the divine, seen and known.
After the movie ended, we all sat in our seats for a while. Collectively, our breath was taken away. And collectively, we were sharing breath. Maybe I’m making too much of a movie. I suppose it’s a silly thing to weep about. It only tells me how long I have been deprived of such connection. These stories, they’re important to tell.
— J.S.
This was posted on my Facebook here and Instagram here.
Baby Park, arriving in July. Rosco is about to be a big brother.
We tried for almost ten months. Relatively I know that isn’t long. It felt long. Thank you for your prayers, kind messages, and rooting for us all the while.
In the early days of finding out, we were at an Olive Garden (a fancy night for us) and the hostess asked, “How many?” I accidentally said, “Three.” Hostess looked at my wife. Wife looked at me. I looked at the hostess. She became one of the first to know. Thank you, hostess, for upgrading us to a booth.
— J.S.
Five years.
It wasn’t easy. We nearly called it quits our first year. I’m so glad we stayed. I’m so glad it’s you.
Trauma does crazy things to your brain: cognitive gaps, inexplicable phobias, silence and shut down. But the soul is so resilient and capable. It has a way of healing around good people, safe communities, and the chance to be heard. Given the opportunity, we get up again.
— J.S.
If you’ve grown up in the same town long enough, most people assume you’re the same person you always were. They can’t see past the past version of you.
I wonder a lot: Are we doomed to our former selves, time-stamped to who we used to be? Will the things we’ve done and used to do always drag at at our heels, a permanent anchor?
There are days I keep imagining what other people are saying about me. I imagine a room full of them shaking their heads. “A chaplain? Who’s he kidding? I know who he really is. He’s not the guy he pretends to be. Nobody like him could change.” It keeps me up at night. I mentally argue with them until I’ve finally proven I’m not that same guy. I’ll spend hours inside my own head explaining my side of the story and why you need to know I’m not a bad person and that I’m sorry for the person I was before.
But you know, no one may get to hear your side of the story. No one might believe you’ve changed. Even when you do the right thing, you’ll be accused of wrong motives. And you are still accountable to the wrong you’ve done, as much as others are accountable for how they’ve wronged you.
But there is a grace that says you are different now, and the old you is dead. Buried. No longer you. Maybe no one will know you’ve encountered the kind of grace that has not just changed you, but made you completely new. Your trauma, your guilt, your past, your labels: they’re taken in by grace, by a love that sees in whole and stays. Imagine that. The world may call you something, but you are more. You are new. You are always more.
— J.S.
You are loved.
You might have heard that a million times, but it’s no less true.
You do have a Creator. He is with you. He is bigger than your situation and closer than your deepest hurt. He’s not mad. He is cheering for you and rooting for you this very second. He’s okay about all the things before. He sent His Son for that very reason.
You can put down the blade. You can throw away the pills. You can quit replaying those regrets in your head. You can quit the inner-loop of self-condemnation. You can forget your ex. You can walk away from the things and people that destroy you. You can resolve your conflicts right now. You can sign up to volunteer at that shelter. You can have the courage to stand up for justice in the street, in your office, in your home. You can forgive your parents. You can forgive your children. You can draw boundaries and say no. You can go back to church. You don’t have to sit in the back. You don’t have to prove your worth to the people you’ve let down. You don’t have to live up to everyone else’s vision for your life. You’re finally, finally free.
You are loved. I am loved.
As much as I love you, dear friend, He loves you infinitely more.
Believe it. Walk in it. Walk with Him.
God is in the business of breathing life into hurting places.
This is what He does, even for the least likely like you and me.
Hey friends! I’m excited to announce that a few months ago, I signed a book deal with Moody Publishers. I’ll be under their imprint Northfield Publishing, which also publishes the bestseller The Five Love Languages.
My book will be called The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voice in a World of Clamor and Noise. I talk about wrestling with different voices including self-doubt, people-pleasing, trauma, grief, and family dynamics, and finding your voice amidst mixed messages. The book is also memoir-ish and goes through my journey as a hospital chaplain, my strange Asian-American upbringing, and constantly questioning if I’m wearing pants right now.
Along with my wife, parents, and brother, I’ve dedicated the book to my dear friend John Edgerton, who passed away a couple months ago.
I recently met the Moody Team in Chicago and they’re a fantastic, spectacular, and absolutely dedicated group of people. (I also got them to do the wow face.) I felt truly loved and heard. While they work with hundreds, even thousands of people, they spoke with me as if I was their one and only client. It’s not something you can fake. I really appreciate their push towards diversity and that they’ve given me the freedom to write with my whole self, no holding back, with the ugliest parts of my story. They championed and advocated for authenticity the whole way. I’m glad to be partnering with Moody and I can’t wait for you to read the book.
The release date is May of 2020, just nine months away. Be on the lookout for a launch campaign, for podcast and radio interviews, and for free content.
God bless, friends, and much love to each of you. Thank you for being a part of the journey here.
— J.S.
The other week, a shooting took six lives and I thought, “That’s not too bad.” I immediately felt sick. Because this isn’t normal. It isn’t okay. And I don’t want to get numb, desensitized, detached, withdrawn. I don’t ever want to get over the anger and grief of how “normal” this has become—whether it’s thirty, six, or one.
It’s a national habit to look at the death toll, but shootings really destroy lives twice. At the hospital, we regularly receive GSW (gunshot wound) patients through the ER. Many survive. Sometimes, surviving is worse. The trauma of it. The nightmares. To witness such a thing is a lifelong wound. The death tolls are horrific, but the mental and emotional toll is just as destructive. I’ve been up close with GSW victims and families—and I can’t watch the news with neutral disinterest. I can’t watch movie violence the same way. I will never get the smell out of my nostrils. When you sit among people with bullet wounds, you see most political “dialogue” for what it really is: fear, cowardice, pomp, rationalizations, and self-aggrandizing, all which speak past the victims instead of for them. I hope I’m not doing the same thing. Please tell me if I am. Please tell me what I can do.
I don’t know if anything will change. Again. It seems hopeless. But I want to grieve angry. I don’t want to calm down. I want courage. And compassion. And champions who will make waves so that something will change. God, keep us loud. God, give us strength.
— J.S.
One look at the news and it’s easy to get cynical. It’s easy to give in to pessimism. It’s understandable, given our daily trauma, the terrible headlines, and our disappointing leaders. It’s tiring. But often the world is the way it is because too many of us have accepted the way it is. Pessimism has always been a sport for sidelines. I’m afraid that the detachment of pessimism, as fun as it is, is often just laziness.
No, simply “thinking positive” doesn’t make things better. And it takes momentous effort, decades of sweat and tears and rallies and voices, to move the needle towards real change. That has to start with you. With me. With believing that change is possible. With our little corners and small platforms and unseen podiums. With believing that even ancient institutions like politics and the church and social attitudes can be completely transformed.
Optimism doesn’t only see how we are, but who we could be. I want eyes that see that far. The way ahead was lit by others who dared to hope. Change happened by those who first believed it was possible. So we must carry the light for those coming next. We are the next. We can’t go down without a fight.
— J.S.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain 