Pre-Advent message, 2018
Rev. Ha Na Park, Immanuel United Church, Winnipeg
On Dec 1st, everyone is warmly welcomed to our annual Pre-Advent Dinner. We have a fun plan for all who attend to have an opportunity to listen to one another’s Christmas stories. I hope these personal stories from our own childhoods will lighten our hearts like candlelight.
Now, the following story of mine is not about Christmas, yet this story speaks to me of the hope which, as we sing in VU 220, “shines as the solitary star.”
A week ago, I recalled some memories of my mom, and pondered friendship and "touch" in the context of a little piece of Korean culture that I have missed deeply in the past few years. I would like to share this story with you in this Newsletter, as my Advent message.
Last week, I remembered two events which I never thought of as being related until I was reading about one psychological theory: CEN (Childhood Emotional Neglect). But once I could understand these events as two interrelated episodes, I saw what I had been missing deeply for a very long time.
Childhood emotional neglect (CEN) happens when a child’s feelings or emotional needs are under-responded to by a parent or caregiver. These moments of neglect could be subtle, invisible and unmemorable, but they may affect how we feel, or don’t feel, certain things, even when we become an adult. Some of us grow up with the long-term effects of CEN and may even suffer from a constant feeling of ‘running on empty.’
When I was in Grade 8 (in Korea), I withdrew from school for one year due to a health issue. I was one of the highest-performing students at school and had just had my first (and last) accompanied piano performance with a Japanese young adults Orchestra in a nice concert hall in the city. While I was trying to fulfill many goals, I was successfully meeting everyone’s expectations, but didn’t really look after my emotional needs - no one in my family did. One day in March, I felt nauseous and experienced shortness of breath and low energy; these symptoms continued throughout that year. In the meantime, the left side of my body, from my leg to my face, became numb. As a result, I couldn’t walk.
While I was on that one-year break from school, my mom and I went to the swimming pool as often as we could. I swam alone, while my mom, who couldn’t swim, watched me. I always liked water; whenever I immersed myself in the water, I regained my energy. Right after swimming, the circulation of my left leg improved, and I could walk for an hour without limping at all. In that year, not only did I swim regularly and take Oriental medicine every day, I also got an assessment in a mental health hospital as well as several psychological and medical tests, including an MRI.
One day, my mom and I were walking down the street after swimming. As usual, I was linking my right arm with my mom’s left arm, slightly leaning on her. Then, my mom tried to ‘unlink’ my arm from hers, gently pulling my arm away, saying, “Ha Na, the doctors told me that you might have a ‘dependence’ issue. You need to try not to be dependent on others, even when you are walking”
I took her advice. I don’t remember what my feelings were at the time. It was a ‘subtle, invisible, unmemorable’ rejection. I think, after that, I didn’t try walking arm-in-arm with my mom.
Where I grew up, girls, young women, and especially mothers and daughters walking arm-in-arm was so natural. That was what we always did; most of the time, my friends would link their arms with mine, and if they didn’t, I would. That’s what close friends did, and how we showed our friendliness, affection and support for one another. Even in high school, some friends would still link arms and expect others to do the same for them.
A couple of years ago, long after I left Korea, I began to miss that physical contact which in Korea we call “Skin-ship”, which was so natural among friends — holding hands, walking with arms linked, standing very closely to each other, sharing that close space. These touches were considered to be something ‘essential’, expressed in friendship.
A few years ago, living in Winnipeg, I began to silently wonder, what do I miss? I have a Korean friend, a few years younger than me, who I met in a circle of local Korean ministers and their friends. After one Thanksgiving dinner, where we had a celebration at the park, she walked close beside me and linked her arm with mine. Inside of me, I wanted to respond naturally to her sweet gesture of intimacy and friendship, but my body was very rigid, like a stick or a rock. I was unhappy about my stiffness and wondered sadly if I had become too accustomed to Canadian personal boundaries to enjoy her friendly ‘skinship’.
I had almost forgotten about all these incidents, until this past summer, when I went to a big outdoor water park with my mom. My mom, now a Grandma, enjoyed swimming so much with her grandsons and me. (She took swimming lessons in her sixties to overcome her fear of water.) When there were only two of us - my mom and me - walking together, in swim suits, side by side, talking and laughing… I thought, “Oh, I can’t waste any minute of this precious time. I want to show my love for her.” and reached my right arm to her, linking it with her left arm. And I said, “Mom, I am so happy that we are swimming together and you swim with the boys. I missed walking arm-in-arm with you. That’s what mothers and daughters do in Korea all the time, even when they are shopping… I envy them doing it because we are far apart in Korea and in Canada. I love you.” Saying that, and after a couple of minutes, I gently unlinked our arms. However, I was very happy that I linked arms with my mom for a minute, and I hoped that my mom felt the same.
What I had been missing, emotionally, for a long time was the natural Korean way of being close to each other among friends, allowing each other to physically touch by linking hands and arms, because it was how we showed, “You are my friend.”
This Advent, I invite you to imagine God as Mother (or Friend, Father, Sister, Brother, Aunt), understanding God as the Ground of Being-in-Relationship.
As we wait for Christ to be born, I hope that we may be able to take some time and ponder our deep spiritual and emotional needs that wait for our care and attention and Christ’s visit.
It is natural for us to experience a certain level or a certain kind of emotional and spiritual estrangement from God, either long-term or temporarily, and for us to endure the “dark night of the soul”. But remember, in even the darkest night you are not totally alone. The stars in the sky are the crown that dignifies you.
God has never left you alone. God is the Ground of Being-in-Relationship.
One important aspect of spirituality is that it helps us to learn that real and true relationships are based in mutuality: needing and being needed by another. Nobody lives alone; everyone is sustained by others. I can say something to you only when you listen. I can respond only to what you ask me, or tell me about.
Need is the soil of life, from which relationships blossom.
The role of spirituality is that it helps us to walk with our arms linked with God again.
(I use the verb *walk and *"arms linked" here with the critical reflection on the ablism embedded in this metaphor.)
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