Month: May 2017

Hiatus.

Hey dear friends: I’ll be taking an extended break from social media, for at least a couple weeks. I’ve been so extremely fatigued and sometimes unbearably cranky. I kindly and somewhat selfishly ask for your prayers, amidst all that’s happening in the world.

I’m still working on my book on depression. I’m hoping to have it ready by the summer. If you’d like a free digital draft when it’s finished, please email me your email address and I’ll send it to you. The only thing I ask in return is you’d write a review on Amazon when the book is out.

pastorjspark@gmail.com

Be blessed and love you, dear friends. God and grace be with you.

— J.S.

https://www.amazon.com/J.S.-Park/e/B00NZ70FDW

Whose Interpretation Is It, Anyway?



“Because the Bible says so.” Okay, but whose interpretation? Yours? Mine? From the era of the Crusades? When they were burning people at the stake? When it was used to support slavery? What if we have different conclusions? What if we’re both wrong?
— J.S.
#discussion #discuss


Photo by ThoroughlyReviewed, CC BY 2.0

“I Demand Your Platform.”



I’ve seen plenty of posts demanding that “public voices” speak up on relevant social issues, condemning the silence of celebrities, clergy, authors, and your average everyday “inspirational blogger”—as if that silence was tantamount to the injustice itself.

I absolutely agree that we must speak up. Silence and passivity only perpetuate the status quo. I believe in the right—the gritty necessity—of protest and picket signs, that we cannot sit idly within the isolated concerns of our own four walls. Yes, silence is the abetting accomplice to injustice, and I do expect more from bigger platforms, from those who have the golden reach of influence.

On the other hand, I wonder about the overly hasty speed in which we comment on issues which are still unfolding. I wonder how many half-informed people are writing too quickly to get clicks and views and attention and to catch the heat of the moment. I wonder if there’s a way we can both raise our voices while learning more from every side of our widening divide. I wonder how we can slow down in crisis to be with the hurting rather than continually superimpose a think-piece for yet another grand, eloquent, self-promoting manifesto. (The irony is not lost on me that I’m probably doing the same thing here.)

And I have to wonder why we demand so much from public voices to speak on these things, as if we are waiting to be told what to think, or to validate an already preprogrammed opinion. Maybe those voices indeed have the power to change things—but so do we, regardless of the size of our stage, starting with ourselves and the people in the room. Maybe those voices are more informed than us—but so we, too, can invest and saturate in the stories of others, and then think for ourselves on how to build bridges and dialogue.

It may be physically impossible to care about everything all the time, much less expect others to care about all the same things you do. We have room to be passionate for just a few crucial things in our short little time on earth, and to each their own, passionately, not with a flashy, trashy headline that’ll be forgotten in a week, but by the accumulative power of a trained marathon, learning as we go, listening to other voices as we find our own. I cannot speak for you, but with you. And if you and I are to be a voice for the voiceless, maybe this means stepping off the stage and passing the microphone to those who are not heard.
— J.S.


Photo from Rob, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

My Friend Won’t Forgive Me for My Depression


Anonymous asked a question:

My roommate used to be my best friend. However, I became incredibly depressed from last year until about a month ago, and that severely strained our relationship. Even though I don’t believe I should apologize for everything that happened (because I was depressed), I have a bunch of times and asked her for forgiveness. She has yet to say to me “I forgive you” and hasn’t ever apologized for the things she did to me. I don’t understand how a “Christian” friend could treat me like this.

Hey dear friend, I’m sorry this happened, and I’m with you: I’ve wrestled with depression for a lifetime, and I know how it can take us over and make us irrational and out of our minds. The harm we do is not intentional and not our fault. And I know how awfully insensitive the general culture can be towards your depression, from ignoring it to mocking it to offering all sorts of wrong theories on how to get “cured.”

Now, I have to say the very difficult truth, and I’m saying it entirely with grace and empathy and love for your situation as well as my own. I say this attempting to balance my heart for you as well as for your friend.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that your friend is not obligated to forgive you. As much as she tried to stay, she also has every right to leave. She’s not obligated to apologize, and if you’re holding her apology to a “Christian standard,“ that’s rather gaudy and even malicious. This sounds cold and unfair, but to expect every single person to stay through our mental hardships is to ask them to be God, and is almost just as burdensome as enduring depression itself.

Both pop culture and church culture might teach you a romanticized, whimsical way to “always be there for someone,” but it’s never that easy. Dealing with a depressed person (like me) is exhausting and draining, and it requires a help far greater than many of us can give. Not everyone is built to endure these sort of things. I don’t blame them: my depression is so severe, I cannot imagine who’d be left in its wake.

I’m sure you never meant to hurt your friend while you were depressed, but she was indeed hurt, and she is not required to still be your friend, your confidant, or your companion through your journey. Your friend is not your therapist. Your depression and mine are not some “quirks” to be glossed over. Most likely, our depression will ruin many, many more friendships. I wish friends would stay, but so often they don’t, and I’ve come to make peace with when they won’t.

Consider the words of famed journalist and professor Andrew Solomon, who has written the definitive work on depression called The Noonday Demon, and who himself suffered a depression so severe that he tried to contract HIV from male prostitutes to kill himself:

“Depression is hard on friends. You make what by the standards of the world are unreasonable demands on them, and often they don’t have the resilience or the flexibility or the knowledge or the inclination to cope. If you’re lucky some people will surprise you with their adaptability. You communicate what you can and hope. Slowly, I’ve learned to take people for who they are. Some friends can process a severe depression right up front, and some can’t. Most people don’t like one another’s unhappiness very much.”

Our depression certainly takes us hostage and hijacks our brains into doing things we normally wouldn’t do, but please allow me to dispel you of the romantic notion that everyone must stick through “thick and thin.” Movies and TV shows can make mental illness look quirky and appealing, but in real life, it’s nearly impossible for my friends to endure with me when I fall into depression. It’s intolerable and insufferable. While it’s true that we are not ourselves when we’re depressed, the injuries we have caused are still very real, and it is our friends’ choice to draw boundaries when they feel unsafe around us.

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