Breaking Intersectional Stereotyping, Ha Na Park, Sept 30th, 2021

Breaking Intersectional Stereotyping (“MisogynAsian” Racism) 

Rev. Ha Na Park  (The United Church of Canada)

Spoken at Breaking the Shackles of Racism Conference, hosted by Islamic Social Services Association of Manitoba, on Sept 30th, 2021 

 

It was early Spring in Winnipeg, 2016. I attended a conference with the theme of Understanding the Transgender Community with my husband and two kids. My hair was fully black without a single gray hair (5 years ago), long, and tied in a ponytail. With two kids, five and ten years old, there was little time for ‘styling’ my hair; the best way to keep it was by pulling it back and tying it tight. If my hairstyle made me look younger than I was, or more feminine than I felt, that was in the eye of the beholder; it was simply what I did to keep my hair under control. At the conference, I met a transgender gay man who came as a guest speaker with his husband and two kids; I was immediately intrigued. I sensed that he might have a key to understanding the question I had been holding inside for years, since high school. I went to him during the lunch break, and asked my long-unspoken question. He looked at me and said, “You may be a non-binary gender.” I had never heard of the term. “Non-binary?” I googled it, and ta-dah! I joined the world of myriad non-binary gender identities (labels) shining like stars. 

 

After a number of sleepless nights of searching website after website to learn about gender identities and labels, I found my identity. It stood out to me quite obviously: “Agender.” healthline.com says that agender is defined as not having a gender. Some agender people describe it as having a “lack of gender”, while others describe themselves as being gender neutral. Genderless. What agender means to me is that gender is a foreign concept to my body. Gender has never been necessary to understand myself, my feelings and my relationship with the world. However, the world put me in the check box of what gender I am, with only two options, in binary terms, of girl or boy, of woman or man. Growing up, gender only confused and disappointed me by assigning me with gender roles and gender-based expectations: “That’s not your place. Go to the girls’ side, and act like a nurse, not a doctor.” “That’s not where you should stand. Only boys can join the ritual. You stand with aunts.” “No, we do not put a girl’s name in our family’s genealogical record book.” “You can’t be a priest – that’s for boys only.” “Young Samonim (the honourary title for the wife of the ordained minister husband in Korean), we love you. You are a smiling angel.”

 

As an agender person, it is a burden to fit myself into this world with the wrapping of something that is not myself, called “gender”. The limitations of a gender-driven world meant that I had to undergo the painful process of experiencing what it is like to be dictated to by the will of others, marginalized in a patriarchal family and church system, trapped by predetermined roles and being unable to fully express myself.

 

In 2006, on the airplane destined for Vancouver International Airport, leaving Korea, holding my infant son in my arms, I prayed. “Creator, let me struggle to be the Sun again, the path of wholeness. I became the Moon which shines only by reflecting another’s light. Let me be an authentic person in my new path in Canada.” 

 

The reason why I am sharing with you my story of coming out of a patriarchal culture, coming out of an assigned gender, in this conference (where I am supposed to talk more about racism) is because WE are from it. I cannot speak for all East Asian/Korean immigrant women - not everyone shares the same monolithic experience. But, in order to speak about racism in the way that I have experienced it, I must start with my story of coming away from a patriarchal society. I have earned my understanding of how patriarchy affects and impacts me and other racialized women by living under its rule. I know how it operates systemically, culturally, and very specifically on our daily lives, because it was, and is, my life. Canada is not a pure land, free from patriarchy, championing higher women’s rights. It has taken me a decade since I came to Canada to understand that. It was a very slow process to realize, pinpoint, and name the character of my personal lived experience. Racism and sexism come at me together. As an Asian immigrant woman, a female international student, a newcomer Mom with two children, who looks different and speaks differently, patriarchal assumptions from others have always been in the air I breathe, as Ha Na with black hair in a pony tail, regardless of whether I was a tired mom or an energetic young minister, whether I presented myself as a Christian minister or was just entering Superstore as a random customer.

 

At church, it was obvious from the beginning that the United Church, a mostly White Church, wanted male ethnic ministers. At least, I felt, the church was more interested in recruiting male racialized ministers to leadership (perhaps with the hope of diversifying the leadership). I, on the contrary, was not given the same exciting and curiosity-driven invitation to serve the church. At that time, (I was in my early thirties) I did not understand the metrics by which my potential, my competence, my style, and my personality were seen and measured by the existing church leadership.

 

A White retired male minister verbalized his doubt, “You? Will be a minister in the United Church of Canada?” A senior White female minister who served at a top-rank church in downtown Vancouver ignored my greeting, as if no one was talking to her at the lunch table. Some fellow-students talked among themselves in a small group during class as if I was an uninvited observer, with no opinion to offer, no insight to share. In the meantime, I saw my male racialized colleagues receiving invitations to join groups, engage in resume-building tasks. When I got my first full-time position in ministry, I later realized that I was called because I team-matched well with my counterpart — a senior White male minister who was called at the same time as me. When I left that congregation, the higher-level church staff informed me, “You were called, because you were cheap!”

 

In those days, my denomination, the United Church of Canada, was beginning to expand our vision of Intercultural ministry. Increasingly, more people started to talk about racism and white privilege. Racism was a useful tool to help us understand why some of us experienced certain things in certain ways, but just talking about racism ignored the full picture. The United Church of Canada’s best-intentioned talk about racism was missing the talk of sexism, gender, patriarchy - they more or less separated these topics from the conversation on racism. I was dismayed. Why are we not intentionally centering racialized women’s experiences of struggling both with racism and patriarchy – two things that crash on us simultaneously in their intersection? Patriarchy in the church was the elephant in the room… Everyone tiptoed around it, but no one wanted to talk about it.

 

That’s why I wrote on my Facebook page: “We are racialized because we are women; we are women, because we are racialized.” 

 

I wrote that just a few days before six Asian American women and two others were killed at a spa in Atlanta last March – with the police describing the actions of the young, White killer as, “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.” 

 

My experience and observation over many years has shown me that the Anti-Asian racism experienced by women is different in many ways from that which is experienced by their male colleagues, and it’s minimized even more than racism against Asian men. Why does the racism experienced by racialized women seem to be considered a secondary subject, a specialized topic, categorized and highlighted only when “intersectionality” finally squeezes into the talk? Does the experience of racialized women fit better in gender studies, not race relations? Why is it that racialized men are considered to be the default, and therefore, the standard, when talking about race in general? 

 

Racialized women experience double discrimination - as women and as racialized people - and they are treated differently: overlooked, disrespected, because of double marginalization. “We are racialized because we are women; We are women, because we are racialized.” This is what I say to people to help them understand. Some might believe that Canada has already passed the age of patriarchy, and moved on - advanced, compared to the rest of the world. Still, patriarchy affects our experience most sharply when we are racialized, and also women. Our experience is different from that of White women. Our experience is different from that of racialized men. I am impacted by patriarchy, here in Canada just as in Korea, because I am racialized. 

 

Now, think about racialized women who are immigrants - racialized, newcomer women who speak English as a second or third language, who learned English after coming to Canada, or in adulthood. Now you have a triple barrier. Race, Gender, Language. The voices, perspectives, hopes, and work of racialized women should be more central to our work - why aren’t they? That is the question that I want to ask.

 

In 2017, I was having a very difficult time. I was going to be laid off. Due to financial stress at the church, the church couldn’t afford to keep two full-time ministers any more. Around that time, I knew I was ready to step away from my fears: not fitting in. The cost of being truly authentic. Over the years, I had tried to fit in the mostly White Canadian church, by being not-too-Korean, not-too-much of all the pieces of my authentic self. Those fears were not just self-doubt – I remember, one day, a church member telling me, “We don’t want to hear the self-discovery story of our minister.”

 

‘If trying to fit in does not make me safe’, I thought, ‘I will come out of it.’ I had my hair cut. Razor double-short cut. Some loved it and said I looked like a pixie; at a grocery store, clerks called me Mister. Sir. A child at a swimming pool asked: Are you a girl or boy? The haircut immediately made a huge, unexpected, difference in my life. It wasn’t just the satisfaction of the haircut fitting my authentic self as an agender person, but the fact that this mere physical alteration changed how others treated me, at church, at Sephora (a cosmetic shop), everywhere I went. People were more friendly, came up to me right away and asked what I needed, smiled and offered me an immediate welcome. What is happening? I’m the same East Asian, married mother, with the same accent and the same self-esteem – and yet, the world sees a different person.

 

Through a haircut, I had discovered Intersectional stereotyping. 

 

Intersectional stereotyping operates on perceptions about the intersection of multiple identities (gender, race, class, sexuality, dis(ability), etc). Intersectional stereotyping predicts that certain combinations of attributes (i.e. Asian, young, immigrant, newcomer, feminine, non-binary, masculine, motherhood, language, class, etc.) lend themselves more readily to perceived suspicion, assumption, and judgement than others. Scholars note that groups at these intersections are often overlooked, and in overlooking them, we fail to see the ways that the power dynamics associated with these categories reinforce one another to create interlocking systems of advantages and disadvantages that extend to social, economic, and political institutions. Intersectional stereotypes are the set of stereotypes that occur at the nexus between multiple group categories. Rather than considering stereotypes associated with individual social groups in isolation (i.e. racial stereotypes vs. gender stereotypes), this perspective acknowledges that group-based characteristics must be considered conjointly as mutually constructing categories. What are typically considered “basic” categories, like race and gender, operate jointly in social perception to create distinct compound categories… as a “specific” set of stereotypes that are “unique” to the compound social group — here, with me, East Asian Immigrant Women. (Links: ) 

 

When you actually google “stereotyping” you will mostly find blogs which explain about the practice of stereotyping, focusing on what is going on in the minds of those who impose stereotypes, and their subsequent harm, on others.

But I am more interested in finding the research that tells me the psychological impact, the harm, being done to those who are stereotyped. To me, the psychological, spiritual impact - shame, anxiety, anger, depression - from being placed constantly on the receiving end of intersectional stereotyping - is one of the shackles of discrimination I hope to break.

 

When I am intersectionally stereotyped, I feel like I am a nail and a hammer hits me into the ground one more inch each time to feel: 

 

invisible

unengaging

uninteresting 

unimportant 

dismissable 

 

not possessing the leadership, skills, talents, (and language), to be treated and thought of as equal to those around me.

 

I have told you some of my stories, because stories and reflection can help us to understand how gendered racism and intersectional stereotyping affect Asian women when it is directed towards/against them. I followed the path towards my wholeness by leaving Korea, where the binary gender patriarchy harmed my sense of existence.

I left one patriarchy behind, only to find the patriarchy I wished to leave for good still affecting me, wrapped in the same box as racism.

 

When you open the box, there are always two things inside, racism and patriarchy, and more, in it; you cannot choose which one you will get – you always get them both. I hope my message can help shift the centre of learning and discussion on racism from the male-default talk to include patriarchy and misogyny. Racism and Gender, in the same sentence, not two. Racism and Gender, in one word, to imagify and verbalize two concepts - gender and race - in one word, such as “MisogynAsian”. We, collectively, need to challenge and break the shackles of institutional and structured gendered racism which, today, I call you to think about in the label of intersectional and patriarchal “mysogynasian racism.” 

Q. I wonder if some of you would benefit from coining your own terms following these examples of misogynasian, misogynoir (the specific hatred, distrust, prejudice, directed toward Black women), transmisogyny (the intersection of transphobia and misogyny), around your lived experience?

Sermon: A New Name for LIMBO (Joel 2:23-29), Sept 19th, 2021

Scripture: Joel 2:23-29

Reflection: A New Name for LIMBO

A friend of mine had a clock which she carried in her backpack. I do not know if she did it for the entire school year, but at least that’s what she told the children at Children’s Time during service one Sunday. “What’s special about this clock?” she asked. “You might notice that it looks a bit unusual. This clock is missing the hands! You know -- the long and short pieces that point to the numbers to show us the time. What good is a clock that doesn’t tell time?” 

 

She continued, “But it does! This clock tells us that it is … now. In our Bible stories, for God, it is always… now. And now… is when God is with us. My not-so-regular, not-so-ordinary, not-so-useful clock in my backpack is actually a very special tool. Whenever I hear someone ask, “What time is it?” I smile and know that it is always now.” 

 

This morning, I would like to talk about the time that is now. 

 

”What time is it?” 

“Now!”

 

(This story is originally from worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com)

Since the start of the pandemic, most things I tried, we tried, especially for and with Immanuel ministry and community, have been rather unprecedented, (like a clock with no hands), requiring a steep learning curve. The first time I heard the expression “steep learning curve” was from the Board chair of my previous congregation. I asked him, “How did the reference check go?” He was just called for a reference check after I applied for a position, while still remaining in the congregation. I feared falling in limbo, with no where to belong after I left the congregation. I still appreciate how the chairperson did his best to make sure my transition was smooth and secure. He answered, “Ha Na, I explained to the interviewer that you have had a steep learning curve…” The interview and reference check did not go well, and I did not get that position. Since then, I never liked the term, “steep learning curve.” I am not sure if I understood the nuance of what steep learning curve could mean. It meant to me that I was not fully prepared, equipped enough, at the beginning, and so had to learn a lot, and, as a result, managed to make new, significant progress over the years. It also meant to me that the challenge ahead was higher than my capacity at that time. It took me years to master skills and experiences to climb it up. 

 

This week, I double-checked the usage of steep learning curve to make sure I understood the meaning of it more accurately than from the disappointment I had at that time. My friend Google told me that, in colloquial usage, a steep learning curve means the knowledge in question takes longer to learn. It is a metaphor that rubs against a common concept that going up a steep hill is slower and more arduous than going up a long, shallow incline. In a real-life application of the term, though, a steep learning curve actually implies that there is an initial period of fast learning — even higher learning. (Show the graph.) See the blue graph. This means that the learner is making a rapid progression over a short period of time. The learner is mastering the skill or task quickly. On the contrary, the red graph displays what a learning curve would look like if the learner was having a slow and difficult time to learn the skill or task. The curve would actually appear to be shallow and long.

 

With this information about the learning curve model, I now see that a steep learning curve actually implies a positive connotation. I would like to commend all of us that we, as Immanuel and in other areas of our lives, have gone through the steep learning curve which surviving in a pandemic requires in order to keep our lives moving on, giving care, staying safe, sustaining connection, still sharing the adventure called life with the significant people in our lives, in changing, unpredictable, varying circumstances. Over a relatively short period of time (one and a half years) we almost (almost!) mastered how to adapt, adjust plans, hold on to hope, even when hope seemed more a matter of faith, than a matter of fact.

 

We certainly have made an impressive steep learning curve together, as a community, as a society, as a homemaker, as an elder, as a student, as a teacher, as a front-line worker, and so on. However, we still might feel like the present time, the “now” of here, is like a clock without hands. Now is, even after the significant rapid progress, as challenging as it was at the beginning of the pandemic. We fall in limbo. In contrast we have endured so much, mastered so much, sacrificed so much, achieved so much, the pandemic reality is still here with us, it lingers on abashedly, and still rules our lives. Daily news still hits us over and over with deepened complexity, unwanted warnings and reminders to keep our heads-up. Our reality is still going up a long curve. The time of now is a limbo, an edge, a boundary, which makes us so very tired again. As is often jokingly said, we are getting tired of getting tired, weary of waiting, of false hope, and of a delayed happy ending, limping in limbo.

 

Limbo. This is the word that originated from a Catholic theology (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the border of hell or heaven). It means being in an uncertain, undecided state or condition. It is an intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place. It can even imply a place or state of imprisonment or confinement. Limbo is a state of being caught between two stages, unclear of what will happen next.

 

A steep learning curve, followed by a limbo that still flattens us merely to exist, is not the best combo in which we would like to find ourselves. Here’s a question: What would the Living Scripture tell us, when we look for the ways for faithful, spiritual grounding while going through a limbo state? I find that this September is interesting. Even though we usually see the lowest numbers in attendance before people return from their cottages and travels, I have been thinking that this month is particularly liminal and low. I wonder if we might feel like, ok, we are feeling done with the pandemic, done with zoom. And in-person worship is on our radar now, being planned. Then, even so, we are not there yet. The future appears to us as something perhaps probable, not certainly possible… We slip on the ice of limbo. 

 

At this point, I hope to direct our attention to the prophet Joel who says, “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your elders shall dream dreams, and your youth and children shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. (NRSV, a few wordings revised)

 

The following study comes from Wil Gafney (www.wilgafney.com). The prophet Joel writes this in response to an ecological disaster, a plague of locusts that exceeded their regular breeding and feeding cycles. The prophet calls for a community, a collective liturgical response, to the catastrophe. ‘What happened is related to not just me, you, or you, but all of us together.’ The prophet calls everyone: all the people in general, then specifically the elderly, children, breast-feeding babies (and their nursing mothers carrying them), bride, bridegroom, and all the clergy. The plague of locusts adversely affected the agricultural and economic well-being of God’s people; but they were not the only ones affected. The earth was denuded of vegetation and the animals were starving. The prophet Joel describes the failure of grapevines, wheat, barley and palm, fig, apple and pomegranate trees. The community loses all of the seed for the next harvest. The starving animals wander about desperately seeking pasture that no longer exists.

 

All the people are called to fast and weep and beg God to reconsider their plight. And, their intercession is transformative; in the following verses, God promises to evict the locusts and reseed the ground with olives for oil, grain for bread, and grapes for wine. 

 

God says, “fear not!” 

 

Then come the opening words of our lesson:

 

“Children of Zion, sing-and-dance-for-joy and rejoice in the holy one our God…”

 

God has already begun to restore the earth, and with her the agricultural, economic, and nutritional being of God’s people. The promise of rain, bringing with it sprouts of new grain, grapes, and olives in abundance… after the locust infestation and subsequent agricultural and economic collapse. 

 

“Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your elders shall dream dreams, and your youth and children shall see visions. …”

 

You might laugh, in disbelief, if I suggest a new meaning for limbo: LIMBO as “Let’s IMagine BeYOnd”.  What could be the faithful, strange response to the catastrophe of the impasse to come out of the cocoon - - the Covid Cocoon - -, being stuck in the two different stages that have never been written in our biological, social, theological genes.

 

I am not suggesting each of us should become a think tank and propose a big scheme of social change after the Pandemic. Still meaningful, it is my hope that we adhere to God’s promise and Words. The prophets and their steep learning curves are our faith genes. These are the expressions of the ancient times, and yet, always pointing to “now” in our times, too. They are the hands of the clock of faith. In my friend’s backpack, the clock without the hands still shows that it is always now. “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. … In those days, I will pour out my spirit.” 

 

May we be drawn to these ancient words of prayer in our times of limbo, Let’s IMagine BeYOnd. Fear not. have faith and prepare with hope - - God is with us now and God will still be with us now. 

 

Keep watch, dear Christ 

with those who wake, or watch, or weep this day,

Tend the sick,

give rest to the weary,

sustain the dying,

calm the suffering,

and pity the distressed;

all for your love’s sake, 

O Christ our Compassionate Healer. Amen. 

 

(The author of this prayer is Jennifer Henry, on her Facebook)

Hymn:  VU 567    Will You Come and Follow Me

Sermon: Open the Roof, When it is a Barrier (Luke 5:17-26), Sept 12th, 2021

Scripture reading: Luke 5:17-26

One day, while Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting nearby (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. Just then some men came, carrying a paralysed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.’ Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, ‘Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven you”, or to say, “Stand up and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the one who was paralysed—‘I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.’ Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today.’

Sermon: Story writing beyond the boundary 

 

On the first day of school, I dropped the kids off at 8:20 AM and hurried home. I ate breakfast, made a quick cup of coffee, and turned on my laptop computer. It was time for my long-anticipated Zoom meeting with Yujene. Officially, she is a ministry candidate, currently looking for her internship site in the United Church of Canada. Personally, I consider her my colleague - a minister who has probably more years of ministry experience than I do, as a volunteer or paid staff in churches in Korea and Canada. Due to the patriarchal barriers in Korean churches, she was not ordained before immigrating to Canada. I had offered to assist Yujene with her preparation for job interviews. Last month, Yujene’s family moved from Saskatchewan to the Niagara Falls area. Her family had been looking for their new home where both my friend and her husband would work in separate churches in the same region. Her husband chose a church in Niagara-on-the-Lake with the hope that Yujene could find a student ministry site nearby. Yujene’s family visited us this summer on their road-trip to Ontario.

 

That morning, Yujene and I reviewed the ‘signature story’ she wrote about herself. Jennifer Aaker (Stanford Business Graduate School) explains, ‘Everyone needs a signature story. It’s a story that, after you tell people, people who listen to it somehow look at you differently. And the most powerful signature stories are those that take the audience where you want to go. For many of us, there’s a gap between how we see ourselves and where we are going versus how others see you and where you are going. Story is the most effective way to close the gap. The story brings other people along on your journey.” I hope that my friend’s signature story would take her interviewers (next week!) straight to the bull’s-eye of her experience and vision, past any bias or expectation they might carry at the start of the interview…

 

I know very well the bias I used to be conscious of (especially in my early ministry years) about how others saw me — someone who was a younger woman, mother, wife, and Asian. I remember needing to project a more dynamic character than the combination of the above descriptions before each job application and interview. I used to feel, often, that until I made a speech, in the pulpit, I was treated like a box in the corner of a room which few people would get interested in, checking to see what’s inside. To close the gap, or open the box, I needed to make things “strange” as the people in today’s scripture reading say at the end, “We have seen strange things today.” 

 

In today’s reading, all those in the story actually did see strange things that day. Not only did Jesus speak the words that the religious authorities at that time considered to be “blasphemies”, the paralyzed man “Stood up and walked” home. And there’s one more strange thing in the story. While Jesus was teaching, some men, unable to find any way to bring their friend to Jesus because the room was so full, went up on the roof, removed several tiles from the roof, and lowered their paralyzed friend, with his bedding, through the hole “Into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus” (V 19).

 

Who would want their house’s roof, even if just a few tiles, to be taken off? Regardless of what material the roof was made of, it would be an outrageous, unthinkable way to treat somebody’s home! But – that’s what the community who advocated for the paralyzed person did. The community wrote a new signature story, in faith, for their friend who needed to come through the roof to tell their needs, to be visible, to exist in a real public space, and to show who they really are. In today’s story, the message is clear: healing must be accessible and achievable and no one should be left in the background – or on the roof. Perhaps, the paralyzed person themselves was the one who initiated this act of risking faith, daring hope: open the roof, when it is a barrier. 

 

I asked Yujene, “Could you write a signature story, and share it with me?” I hoped that her signature story could create a life-size hole on the roof and let her come out of the landscape, into the crowd, in front of Jesus. What is in her deepest heart that would become a shareable vision? A meaningful story invites hearers to meet the storyholder in dynamic multiangles. Here’s Yujene’s story: 

 

“Every Child, Every Where. This is the slogan of UNICEF. I watched the ads many times, and the words bothered me every time and dragged me to be a nurse in the end. I wanted to be a part of the group who cared for those who were in need. I dreamed of medical volunteering and went to learn nursing. I declared the Nightingale Pledge at the graduation ceremony of nursing college. “I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly … I will devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.”

 

I devoted myself to the people who needed care. My first call as a nurse was in the ICU. I often thought about the concept of healing when I faced many seriously ill patients there. To be healed or cured, it strongly needs both spiritual care and physical treatment. Whenever the medical team determined that treatment was impossible or recovery difficult, the patients leaned on God or their faith. I witnessed that it really helped and some patients healed. Even if patients did not recover, their end of life was more comfortable and peaceful. I wondered where the power came from. Then, I dreamed that I would study theology and learn how God’s justice and love come into the lives of others and myself, and bring healing and transformation.”

 

Later, she added some comments: “When I first met the patients, especially children in the ICU, it was a reality beyond my boundary. These people, very ordinary, were not in the usual landscape of my everyday life. When I met them, I needed to step out of my comfort zone and truly meet them in their needs. I like ministry because when I try to meet others, share care and affection in faith, these ordinary people like me become very special, outside the boundary of my familiar world. I hope to share this vision of ’Beyond the boundary’ with the congregation I apply for to share my gifts.” 

 

Yujene’s words, the introduction of her signature story, invited me to reflect on my own experience in ICUs. How often I lost what words to say, how to respond. I stuck to one principle while handling my feelings of insufficiency quietly inside: “Ha Na, to be present matters. If I cannot find perfect words for love and beautiful prayers for peace and comfort, at least I have come to listen well.” To me, visiting Seniors’ Homes has been ‘the beyond of my boundary’ where I meet ordinary people and they become special. Bill Hickerson could be my mentor. However, I felt anxious every time I parked my car at Tuxedo Villa. My mind was busy while I was walking through the maze of the hallways to figure out how I would greet him and say hi and ask how are you today. But once I met him, I enjoyed the entire half an hour so much that it would turn into one hour before I knew it.

 

A Senior’s Home is a ‘strange’ place: while I get lost in the beehive-like building with many numbered rooms, I pass by some seniors with dementia or other challenges. All of the eye-contact or inability to make eye contact evoke some strangeness. Foreignness. Even fear about all the ways time can change us. Then, I remind myself that it is important to remember that care and healing ministries integrate boundaries and make fear and familiarity meet to still find God’s justice and love in both worlds. Writing a signature story and bringing healing ministry into a Seniors’ Home’s hallways and rooms both involve coming out of the familiar world, opening the roof of bias and division, and going into the middle of the crowd before Jesus. I pray that my friend Yujene stretches her wings of ministry and shares her gifts in the ministry of ‘Beyond the boundaries’ in the right place where she can serve her people the best, with joy and her signature “I like it. I can do it.”

 

With practice, prayer and reflection, we live out the signature story of faith with the wholeness of ourselves, stepping beyond our boundaries, moving into the crowd, in front of Jesus. We glorify God in faithfully strange things, in the family of all things.

 

Hymn:  VU 619    Healer of Our Every Ill

Wedding Sermon with Mary Oliver’s Don’t Hesitate (Sept 5th, 2021)

Readings:

Don’t Hesitate,     Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Scripture Reaidng: Song of Solomon 2:10-13 

Arise My Love 

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. 

Message: Love what it loves! 

When I asked Contessa and Phil at our marriage interview, “Why do you want to celebrate your union in God’s blessing?” (It’s a “traditional” Christian question for a marriage interview) Contessa told me, “We have considered you as part of our family. The question means to me that we would like to have Ha Na’s blessing.” Well, I thought, that’s a very meaningful thing to hear, and a great priority to have: God’s blessing delivered very personally through someone you trust. I am ever so grateful and happy for this request. 

 

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. … Very likely you notice it when love begins. Anyways, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” 

 

“Plenty.” “Joy’s plenty.” I like to pronounce the word plenty. Producing that initial plosive consonant between the lips. It invites me to think of plenty, imagine abundance, feel it, touch it, embrace it. Something plentiful. Something very lovable, admirable, achievable, and plenty of it. This plenty in front of me. In front of you. Around us yesterday; around us even now. That will be our future. Immanent: already present. And it’s plenty: Joy. 

Love. 

Trust. 

Anticipation. 

Vision. 

 

These exciting gifts are so fitting for this blue, high, and luminous September sky above us. This plentiful fulfilling joy blesses all of us who gather this afternoon as we surround Phil and Contessa with our love and prayers. To celebrate their joy - Phil and Contessa’s plentiful joy - platinum joy. We are here to honour, uphold and treasure the beautiful covenant in marriage of Phil and Contessa, in their “Yes, I do” in trembling, yet confident voices. The sky is their sea, where the stars guide the sailor’s way, shining brightly, like myriads of outstretched blessings.

 

Phil and Contessa are here to affirm to us all, “Yes, we are ready to continue to sail in our vessel. We set a sail to welcome God’s inclusive love, the winds of bountiful Nature, with renewed vision and anticipation for our future. We hold each other’s hands, lock our eyes upon each other, then turn our gaze together to the horizon we have yet to explore. We have promised each other: Rather than follow the busy pace of the world’s clock, we will make our own slow rhythm, sailing at the wind’s speed, connecting and reconnecting ourselves heart-to-heart, step-to-step. We will project our hopes and dreams on the open sail for everyone to see! The vessel we journey upon will be big enough to welcome family and friends. Our love and trust are plenty. Our joy of building family is plenty!”

 

Contessa and Phil, it’s a privilege and honour to say my personal blessing for you (in the words of another of Mary Oliver’s beautiful poems: Wild Geese).

 

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

 

Dear Phil and Contessa! You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

 

(Shout) Love what it loves!  Be like wild geese, wise sailors! 

 

We, with the blessings of God’s inclusive love and the whole creation, wholeheartedly celebrate your sacred union through marriage. Open your strong, sturdy, smart wings and your will to love and to be loved with your family! To build and find your home in the family of the universe’s plenty! 

Music 

Sermon: A Meditation on Gentleness (Isaiah 11), Sept 5th, 2021

Reflection: A Meditation on Gentleness 

Scripture:  Isaiah 11

 

   The wolf shall live with the lamb,

   the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

   and a little child shall lead them. 

   The cow and the bear shall graze,

   their young shall lie down together;

   and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 

   The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

   and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 

   They will not hurt or destroy

   on all my holy mountain;

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

   as the waters cover the sea.  

Today, I would like to share a reflection with you on gentleness. 

 

Jesus’ beatitudes include the one about the poor and the meek: 

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” 

 

The prophet in Isaiah sings that the holy one “shall decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” 

 

In Hebrew, gentleness is expressed as “navah” which means one who is humble and low.

 

In the world, we witness so much of what is opposite of gentleness: violence, war, crime, hate, massacre, genocide, retaliation, … 

 

What is gentleness? How can it be an “attribute of God”?

 

My hope is that a meditation on gentleness will offer all of us a new perspective. When we care for one another (which we call pastoral care/congregational care), gentleness is probably the primary virtue, the element of faith as we give and receive care. 

 

I have been inspired by Power of Gentleness by Anne Dufourmantelle. (Show the book cover.) 

Dufourmantelle begins her book with the quote “Gentleness is invincible” (Marcus Aurelius).

 

“Gentleness is an enigma. Taken up in a double movement of welcoming and giving, it appears on the threshold of passages signed off by birth and death. Because it has its degree of intensity, because it is a symbolic force, and because it has a transformative ability over things and beings, it is a power.

 

A person, a stone, a thought, a gesture, a colour… can demonstrate gentleness. How do we approach such singularity?” 

 

“Life places gentleness within us originally. We would think to grasp it from the source — a child sleeping soundly, the sweet taste of its mother’s breast milk, voices that soothe, chant, caress — 

 

We guess it to be elsewhere, in the movement of an animal, the rise of darkness in the summer, the truce of a battle, the meeting of a gaze. We recognize it from the bedside of the dying, their gaze that calmly passes through their feverless agony, but even there it won’t let itself be grasped… 

 

We perform acts of gentleness. We demonstrate gentleness. We soften the end of a life, its beginning…”   

 

 

When we offer care, when we take the role of caregiver, the proper language of communication for care would be gentleness. Gentleness is not just an attitude, but the concrete way of communication.   

 

Have you ever watched Youtube videos or Facebook posts that show how some animals offer care, not only for their own young ones, but also in adopting other species: A famous one is the sheep Albert and the elephant Themba. (After 6-month-old elephant cub Themba was orphaned and left by her herd, the workers of Shamwari Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa decided to save her life. At first, Albert the sheep was a little aggressive toward this stranger, but later his heart melted and he became the baby elephant’s friend and mentor.)  

 

  

(In Kenya, a little baby hippo was saved after being isolated from his family during a severe tsunami. The 650-pound cub was given the name Owen and was placed in an aviary with a 130-year-old turtle named Mzee. At first, Mzee didn’t like its new neighbor, but later, and for two years, Mzee became Owen’s mentor. 

 

The lioness Kamunyak (’blessed one’) adopted about 6 oryx calves after she killed the mother of one of the cubs during a hunt. The lioness couldn’t breastfeed the weak calves so she called on humans for help. She let them feed the babies under her guidance. Unfortunately, the lioness couldn’t protect all “her calves” from being attacked by another lions’ pride.

 

These images and stories were never featured enough, or at all, in the documentaries I grew up watching on TV. Now I understand that what we believed about the lives of animals was largely human projection and conviction that the survival of the fittest and the law of jungle are “natural.”

 

The chapter I find very interesting in Power of Gentleness is where the author explores animality. Think about those moments. The beginnings of animals and humans. Without care, does a newborn survive? Doesn’t it need to be protected, surrounded, spoken to, thought of, or imagined so it can truly enter the world? What does it become without gentleness? The study of early attachment indicates that the baby’s body, like that of the animal, retains in memory all the intensities (and all the deficiencies) that have been lavished upon it. Any serious attack will endanger, now or later, its capacity to survive. 

 

It was May, 2006, and I was so excited to welcome Peace, my first child, to the world. Everything on the shopping list - cloth diapers, breastfeeding pillow, baby clothes, blankets, toys - was all purchased and ready to use. I arranged the best midwife in Seoul and had a wonderful home birth. Mom stayed with us for the first week caring for Peace and I, and then went back to her home. On the first morning of being alone with my baby, without my mom, (Min-Goo was gone to his work) my newborn Peace who was lying on the bed soundly sleeping, woke up and started to cry. I watched him, not knowing what to do. A few minutes passed. Peace began to cry harder and louder. I panicked, ‘What’s wrong?’ I studied what to do each month during the 9-month pregnancy, but I didn’t really prepare for baby care after the child was born! I almost called Mom at her home and Min-Goo at church to say they should come back. ‘Baby is crying! I don’t know why and what to do!’ I was almost frightened. Now the baby was crying very loudly and he was upset! In an instant I lifted up the baby instead of lifting the phone. It was a miracle/mystery to me. The tiny, tired, frustrated Peace stopped crying in one sec, in my hands. In the air. I held him close to me. All of a sudden, he was so calm and peaceful. We both were awe-struck by this sacred strangeness. That was the most wondrous moment for me for a long time. 

 

Care is a ground-breaking and human history/or earth history way of survival and sustenance. It curbs the disease, closes up the wound, alleviates pain, calms the cry. 

 

Dufourmantelle continues, “Those who work with very premature babies know this, who are fragile but also have astonishing resilience, may be due to the fact that a word, an act, have been given with tenderness.” 

 

A year ago, one of our members told me a story: a Choir member was sick and alone for days and Eileen went to visit her. As if it is just so natural to give care, Eileen wiped her friend’s face with a warm wet cloth, talked to her, and thereby consoled her soul. It is our animality, humanity, spirituality to know how to care for others. Gentleness as “care for the soul” (Patocka) is still making up the world. 

 

When we offer care, or take the role of caregiver, the essential and profound way of communicating our intention is through the intensity in gentleness, the intimate connection to our animality. It reaches our basic needs of safety, protection and healing. 

 

I wonder about what God’s animality is like. We are created in God’s image. Then, God must have something like our animality, the mother mammal’s warming and cleaning her young by licking and feeding and protecting them. How does God’s tender animality touch our needs? 

 

I believe God’s primary language of communication, including God’s body language when God offers care, cares for me, cares for you, cares for the creation, is gentleness. It wouldn’t mean only that God does not use coercive power. Or, God talks in sugar-coated words and spoon-feeds us, as if we are babies permanently. Rather, genuine gentleness, and therefore its truer power is, the intelligence of courage. Gentleness embraces the other’s vulnerability with a higher degree of compassion than simple care. It’s not just the intention of love, but cultivating love through mistakes and saying I’m sorry. Such gentleness changes the world politically too, as it is the same element that helps build respect and equity between the couple. Gentleness crumbles hierarchy and discrimination.

 

Lastly, I would like to close this reflection with questions: 

 

• How would you use the power of gentleness in the situation in which you and someone you care for find one another as wolf and lamb, leopard and child, calf and lion, cow and bear, lion and ox? 

 

• What would be helpful when you wish to give/receive/share care with them with the key of gentleness?