Tag: empathy

What Forgiveness Is and Is Not: Seven Rules of Forgiveness


Too often forgiveness is a burden on the wounded. Instead the imperative of accountability must be on the abuser.

When I’m told to forgive, I think about

my math tutor when I was barely twelve years old, who shouted in my face and dug his fingers in my shoulders

a grown woman who beat me for “misbehaving” at a public pool when I was seven

students who randomly assaulted me in school calling me racial slurs

the thousands of hate crimes and murders both reported and unrecorded against POC

the dozens of stories I’ve heard from patients assaulted by their most trusted people.

But I’m told to just let go. “Forgiveness is a gift.”
Is it? How is it a gift to remove this knife from my gut that never should’ve been there? Why is abuse became the abused person’s problem to solve?

Forgiveness is powerful, yes. On the other side there’s freedom. But when forgiveness is demanded of a victim in a bad power dynamic—who benefits? Abusive people and systems often act in a remorseless repetition of violence. It’s that very violence which keeps power and profit.

I have learned it is more wrong
not to be angry at injustice.
Why demand the wounded
to be level-headed, neutral, watch their tone, to grow, be resilient, be the example, take the high road?
Sometimes the high road
goes right off a cliff.

Inside anger
I hear the voice of grief
because the abused person
had their life interrupted
and never asked for an apology
—they needed honor for their dignity.

Here are some of my rules on forgiveness.
1) Forgiveness does not mean friendship.
2) Forgiveness is a daily choice that can take a lifetime.
3) No one can rush your forgiveness, ever.
4) You can be angry while forgiving.
5) Forgiveness does not negate justice.
6) If you have been abused and traumatized, then forgiveness is not a prerequisite for your recovery. To make forgiveness a burden on the abused only enables the abuser. It also mocks the abused. To skip anger is to bypass pain and therefore true recovery.
7) Do not make forgiveness an imperative burden to force a romanticized outcome of “peace,” especially on the abused and oppressed. All you’ll do is guilt trip already wounded people into a false truce.

— J.S.

Who I Speak For


I need to tell you this story.

When I was a pastor over ten years ago, I preached at a tiny conference and afterwards a young woman approached me. She had tears in her eyes, said she was single and anxious all the time and nearing forty years old and had “accomplished nothing.” I hurt for her.

Then suddenly—
I drew a blank on what to say. My seminary hadn’t prepared me for this. And I was scared for her. How would her church reply? Her pastor? Was this place safe? All I could do was process with her, validate her feelings, remind her of her inherent value, pray with her. Was that enough?

After I had met this young anxious woman, I changed two things.
1) I rewrote the rest of my sermons for the week.
2) I vowed to always think of this woman and others like her every time I spoke or wrote.

I knew up to then, to my own shame, I had never preached for the ones in the back row.

How could I have forgotten? I was once in the back row too. But my eagerness to keep “sound” and sound pretty and to please my professors overshadowed grace.

To this day, if anything I say does not speak to the person in the back row, to someone like me or her, it’s not worth saying. I have to remember where people really live. Hope cannot smother or bypass, but must only gently enter.

If our words only work for the well-off, able-bodied, and undisturbed, then maybe we’re
1) only speaking to popular powerful folks,
2) expecting profit from big pockets, or
3) comfortable outside reality.

I have a litmus test when new theological movements pop up. Will it matter to one of my dying patients and their families? Maybe that’s basic and unfair. But that litmus test has simplified and clarified my faith.

I still make this mistake, but always a reminder to myself: If it doesn’t work in the end, it won’t work at the start. If it doesn’t work for the wounded, it won’t make you whole. If it means a lot of arguing and posturing instead of compassion and action, I’m too tired to care. I don’t. Leave it out of the patient’s room and keep it on your platform.

Jesus is with the wounded and that’s where I want to be. Bottom line, dotted line, and end of the line.

Keep me where the people are.

— J.S.

Theology Is Complete with Our Hands and Feet


There’s a classic dispute among psychologists that’s best shown by the hair dryer story. It goes like this:

A woman believes her hair dryer is going to burn down her house. It gets to be a real problem; she’s driving back home twenty times a day. Her work life and love life and social life all take a hit.

Finally a therapist asks her, “Have you thought about just bringing the hair dryer with you?”

It works. When the fear creeps in, the woman opens her office drawer and sees the hair dryer and she’s fine.

Some psychologists see a major problem here: “Nothing was solved! She still has issues! She needs to get to the root of it!” But others say she found a solution that worked for her.

I lean toward the second camp. The problem was real to her and so was the solution. Maybe later she would get to the bottom of things. But until then, she had found a way to make it okay.

The big idea is her story was taken seriously. That was the start of her wholeness. Only when a story is fully heard is there the possibility of connection or challenge or growth.

The thing is: Too many of our injuries are real. It is not merely “in their head” or “their side of the story.” And it is not enough just to believe it happened.

Abuse, racialized trauma, mass violence, systemic failures, misogyny, manipulated power dynamics, and all the mental health issues not seemingly visible—all of these need empathy, but it doesn’t stop there. They also need presence, action, compassion, and a complete reframing of all the ways that things are done. Justice would make things so right that we would never need accountability or to convince others to “believe me.”

It is already hard enough proving my injury is real.
I have the scars to prove it.
But what I need is more than belief,
more than moved hearts, more than speech.

Theology is only complete with our hands and feet.
Psychology can diagnose and make valuable notes, but only heels in the field, in the dirt, bring us hope.
Even with all our treatment and remedies, I still need you to sit with me.
In grief, your advice is probably good, but not as good as being on the floor with me.
May your pain be mine,
and your hopes mine too.

— J.S.


Part of this post is an excerpt from my book The Voices We Carry

I Nearly Lost My Faith Again


I have to be honest. Last year, I nearly lost my faith again.

Like many of us, I was in a bad place. I kept turning to the church for hope.

Online and off, I asked how to deal with the isolation, the loss of George Floyd, and hate crimes against Asian-Americans because of “China virus.” I was angry and afraid. I needed something, anything, to speak to my anxiety.

But the church did not hear my worries. It turned these events into a culture war that I barely understood. The answer for our suffering was apparently self-righteous politics and posture.

I know many churches, including mine, have done good things in this time. Yes, I still love the church, always. But my inbox, comments, and interactions told one story: too many Christians were more offended by my grief rather than listening to it. They couldn’t wait to argue.

I kept hearing, “If you don’t believe ___, you’re not a Christian. You’re deceived by worldly distractions. Quit looking at church, look to God.” When I protested or wore a mask, I only heard, “You’re a liberal leftist Marxist.” I didn’t understand many of these replies. They seemed cold and irrelevant to our hurt.

I waited for reassurance, lament, repentance. But the church fortified its doors and armed itself with conspiracy theories instead. It made persuasive transmission of information as the primary goal. So I prayed and wept alone.

Was I alone? To grieve the evangelical church’s fear of man to call out prejudice, injustice, and misinformation? Or the “both sides have a point” neutrality? Or that King David’s redemption story is extended to perpetually abusive politicians but never to those like George Floyd?

No, my faith can’t rest on people. But that doesn’t relieve my sense of abandonment. Trying to seek God in a church last year was like needing water in a desert but told “those secular people” were withholding it. Where is the water? How long, O Lord?

I hold onto one thing. I keep picturing Jesus’ hands stretched to both criminals on his left and right. It is my one hopeful vision in the desert. A gracious vision for this nation. Jesus reaching for someone like you and me is almost enough for the next moment. Almost.

— J.S.

Not Lectures or Lessons, but Leaning in to Listen


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.

— J.S.

Myth: “Things Are Getting Better”


Yes, statistically, things are getting better. Global world hunger is down, the living wage is up, life expectancy is up, annual deaths from natural disasters are down, number of educated and vaccinated individuals globally is up, and the majority of the world population has electricity.

But when I sit with a patient who has brain cancer, when I sit with a homeless person who has been continually assaulted and lost their children, when I sit with a patient brutally assaulted by authorities, when I sit with a family who cannot afford their loved one’s chemo or surgery, when I sit with a woman who has been passed around the foster system and been taken advantage of countless times—no, I do not quote these statistics.

I do not hold up pictures of cancer survivors shaking hands with their doctors, smiling and posing.

I do not hold up pictures of families in front of their new houses shaking hands with their real estate agents.

I do not say, “Only one percent of people with coronavirus actually die.” Yes, fortunately things are getting better. But I have to keep asking, “Better for who?” Better for chronically ill individuals with no hope of coverage? Better for the elderly in nursing homes who are kept in prison-like conditions? Better for prisoners who are kept in inhumane conditions befitting of war crimes? Better for the Black community who struggles just to be heard?

Better for who?
Better for you and me, maybe.
But better for you does not make it true.

As I sit with the grieving and wounded and oppressed: I dare not quote facts and stats that mock their tragedy.

Because as long as my neighbor is not okay, it’s not getting better.
I cannot rest until we sit in the same shade.
— J.S.


[Statistics largely cited from Factfulness by Hans Rosling.]

I Am Invisible: No One Ever Believes I’ve Experienced Racism

View this post on Instagram

It’s hard and uncomfortable to talk about race—but I have to tell you this story. I’m always saddened and surprised at how much people roll their eyes at it. At how much we’re unwilling to hear each other. It’s why I’m always scared to bring it up. When I share I’ve experienced racism, I’ve been called crazy, oversensitive, dramatic, or a liar. “You’re reading into it too much” or “It’s all in your head” or “That doesn’t happen anymore.” Is it always racism? Maybe not. But without confronting ourselves, there’s no hope of healing and accountability. Then our stuff stays hidden and continues to destroy. In this video, I discuss the two most dangerous lies we tell that prevent us from hearing each other. Whether it’s race, gender, mental health, culture, class, or faith: we all get dismissed in some ways. We need to hear each other more, not less. Real compassion is not comfortable, but confronts the injustice that has been ignored. Compassion challenges us to be better. In particular, it seems no one cares about the Asian-American experience at all. When I talk about it, it’s always ghost town. I am invisible. I know my story is not as hard as many others; I’m generally lucky. But it’s still a lonely thing when nobody hears you—especially when no one believes you. My hope is that even if your story isn’t like mine, you would still hear me, and that I would hear you too. #compassion #justice #empathy #prejudice #race #racism #dialogue #injustice #privilege #poc #accountability #hope #asianamerican #asian #asianpacificamericanheritagemonth #koreanamerican #solidarity #iamwithyou

A post shared by J.S. Park (@jspark3000) on


It’s hard and uncomfortable to talk about race—but I have to tell you this story.

I’m always saddened and surprised at how much people roll their eyes at it. At how much we’re unwilling to hear each other. It’s why I’m always scared to bring it up.

When I share I’ve experienced racism, I’ve been called crazy, oversensitive, dramatic, or a liar. “You’re reading into it too much” or “It’s all in your head” or “That doesn’t happen anymore.” Is it always racism? Maybe not. But without confronting ourselves, there’s no hope of healing and accountability. Then our stuff stays hidden and continues to destroy.

In this video, I discuss the two most dangerous lies we tell that prevent us from hearing each other. Whether it’s race, gender, mental health, culture, class, or faith: we all get dismissed in some ways. We need to hear each other more, not less. Real compassion is not comfortable, but confronts the injustice that has been ignored. Compassion challenges us to be better.

In particular, it seems no one cares about the Asian-American experience at all. When I talk about it, it’s always ghost town. I am invisible. I know my story is not as hard as many others; I’m generally lucky. But it’s still a lonely thing when nobody hears you—especially when no one believes you. My hope is that even if your story isn’t like mine, you would still hear me, and that I would hear you too.

[Thank you to Moody Publishers for sharing this video on Instagram.]

Interviewed by Oleg Lougheed of Overcoming Odds


I was interviewed by Oleg Lougheed of Overcoming Odds. We talked about grief in the pandemic, confronting failure and the consequences of always trying to improve, plus why we shame and shun those who are ill.

On Apple Podcasts / iTunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-do-we-thoughtfully-approach-mental-health-loved/id1292465138?i=1000471867963

Even If I Don’t Get It


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.

— J.S.

I Messed Up. I Hugged Someone.


I messed up. I hugged someone. We’re supposed to practice social distancing, but my friend badly needed a hug. I know I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t help it.
— J.S.

Facing COVID19 from a Chaplain’s Perspective



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.

Tell Your Story Even (and Especially) If No One Listens


I was telling my story to somebody the other day and I got to the various injustices of racism I’ve endured, and he told me, “That doesn’t happen. Not anymore.” I insisted it did, and he counter-insisted, “That’s just something everybody goes through, you’re just injecting race into it.” I tried to tell him about the times someone had physically assaulted me while yelling “ch_nk” or “go_k” or “yellow kid” or “your dad killed my dad in the war,” but he kept telling me, “That’s not that bad.”

So I excused myself from the conversation. I felt a bit humiliated, honestly. This was a guy I really trusted, who I was sure would understand. He was absolutely adamant he was right.

I’ve seen this sort of thing with mental health, sexual abuse, family upbringing, classism, gender, religion—you try to tell your story, and a wall comes up. You get the reply, “It’s never happened to me, therefore it never happens.” And you start to wonder: Am I the crazy one? Is it just in my head? Am I overreacting and too sensitive, like they’re saying?

But then I’ve found those who heard me. Who listened. Who weren’t just treating me like a sad pity project or asking out of voyeuristic curiosity. I’ve found safe people who may not have gone through the same thing, but they can literally become the other. They pause to believe.

I’ve also found those who have walked in the same shoes and skin. Sometimes they thought they were walking alone, against insurmountable forces with no community and zero support—until they heard someone say a similar story and they knew they weren’t crazy. That gives me enough courage to keep speaking, to keep sharing. It’s in the telling of our stories we find healing, and each other. You may be lonely for a while, but you are not alone.
— J.S.

Love Sees a Greatness Even When


I believe that people can change. Not everyone will, no. There are the few who refuse, and we must decide wisely how to move. But holding someone accountable, in the end, is not just to punish them. It’s to see the best of them. It’s to believe in the possibility that they are more than they seem.

Whenever we dismiss someone as incapable of change, we instantly suckerpunch the sovereign grace of God. We are downsizing Him to “those” people and not “these.” Then we’re no longer talking about God or grace or accountability. We’re just exposing our laziness.

No, I do not believe that love enables. It does not pamper or coddle or let off the hook. It’s a chisel that sculpts towards better. And it must contain boundaries, wisdom, and proper distance. But we cannot use accountability as a sledgehammer. It’s not for revenge or holding someone back. Too often we use it as a weapon instead of an aid, as an ends instead of a means.

You know what I mean. I see a person on their first lap of faith and I make assumptions; I see 0.5 percent of a person’s life and somehow predict their future; I see half a story and presume the whole story. But this is a sort of evil that holds back potential, that undermines growth, that destroys a child’s dreams. It’s an ugliness that I’ve experienced from others, who wouldn’t give me a shot, who wouldn’t see past their negative filters and accusations and condemnations, who saw me as a deadbeat nobody with no hope of a turnaround.

But occasionally, love would cut in and open a door. It grew my heart. It embraced me in. Love sees a greatness in someone who cannot see it in themselves. Love keeps no record of wrongs. It hopes in all things, it does not rejoice in evil. It perseveres.

— J.S.

The Three Hardest Words


Dear friend: I know you might have had a picture of how you wanted your life to be, but some terrible tragedy swept it away. We all have a certain picture of how we want our lives to be, and sometimes it gets ripped from our grip and smashed to pieces. Our dreams can get crushed in an instant, no matter how much you’ve planned, with irreversible results.

You might be living in a life right now that doesn’t feel like it’s yours. You might be in a different place than you had hoped for, than you had imagined a year ago, a month ago, a minute ago. Your heart will pull for another chance, another door, another world.

The three hardest words to live with are often: In the meantime.
Yet — in the meantime is the whole thing.
If you’re waiting for your “real life” to start after the heartache, or even after good things like graduation or a wedding or when you get to the big city, you’ll stay in a holding pattern. The time will pass anyway. The tide doesn’t wait.
So I hope you’ll consider starting in the meanwhile.

When a dream dies, it dies. We can mourn. We can pound our chest. We can bleed. And at some point, you can open your hands to another dream. I hope you find it. It might even look a lot like your old one: but you won’t. It’s you that will be new.
You can overcome what’s over, because you’re not over yet.
When the ten count is over: you can count to eleven.
What comes next will not be what you had envisioned. I hope you’ll keep dreaming anyway. I hope you‘ll consider God can do a new thing.
You are free to pursue something new.
— J.S.

Grieve Angry


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.

Don’t Get Cynical; Keep Hope


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.

“God Is in Control,” but What This Really Means


When somebody tells me, “Don’t worry, God is in control,” too often that’s used as an excuse to be passive. When I hear “God will provide,” that usually means, “I don’t want to help.” When I hear, “That’s God’s Will,” that seems to mean, “Better that guy than me.” These are no better than empty “thoughts and prayers.” At best they’re a cowardly cop-out, and at worst they’re abuse powered by false theology.

If God is really in control, that means I have to answer to Him. That raises my responsibility to the highest level. And if He’s in control, He has given us real resources to help. That should be motivation to do more, not less. If I am not in control, then I can’t do it in my strength, but His. That’s good news.
— J.S.

You Can’t Be Too Hard on People


A homeless man once told me: “You can’t be too hard on people. They only know the world they came from.”

I’d like to believe that everyone’s trying their best with what they have in all the ways they know how. Maybe not everyone’s trying their best. But it doesn’t help anyone if we don’t believe the best about them. And that’s my best: to believe we’re trying.
— J.S.

I Hope You Will Hear Me


Eventually I’ll say something that you’ll disagree with. I will disappoint you. I’ll come off brash, inconsiderate, ignorant, and misinformed. Your favorite writer or pastor or celebrity will miss an angle or fumble a point or miss the whole thing. You’ll think, “How could I have ever liked this guy?” We then dismiss and demonize based off one sentence, one phrasing, one particular choice of word. I’ve done it, too. You know, farewell forever.

Maybe it’s for a legitimate reason, and they really did go too far. Then farewell, sure. But I wish we could give a little space for a conversation. Even over coffee. It’s possible this person misspoke because they’re just a person and they don’t always get it right. It could be that they need the patience of dialogue to re-examine what they said, instead of the hasty hate-train that offers no fair exchange. It could be they really didn’t know better, or they just needed a nap.

I want your help. I want to know when I’m wrong – but it’s hard to hear what’s right when everyone is yelling. I want the freedom to make mistakes so that I’m not afraid to learn from you. I don’t want to be afraid that you’ll throw things when I don’t phrase things exactly the perfect way. And really, I’m not sure if you would listen to yelling, either. I’d want the same chance you’d want for you, too.

I know there are some non-negotiables that can never be compromised. I cannot say every “side” is equal or that every platform is good. None of us will ever agree on everything. Sometimes we must part ways. And that’s okay. I just don’t want to judge an entire life over a few degrees of difference. We can disagree and still be friends. Even if we must part, I want to become better from our disagreements, to see what I had not seen before, and mostly, to see you. I will hear you.

— J.S.


I Am With You.


I am with you.
I am for you.
I am sorry.
I love you.
How can I help?
— J.S.