a path forward

I was first introduced to God at a Korean-American church inside Big T Bazaar, a strip mall in Texas where my parents owned a beeper store. I was six, my older sister seven, my mom pregnant with her third child. My parents were trying for the third and final time to have a son. I remember her round pregnant belly and that she constantly had cravings for Church’s fried chicken and watermelon. We could only afford to buy treats like that on special occasions and arguments about money often led to my parents throwing things or hateful words at each other. Big T Bazaar was in Oakcliff, a primarily Black neighborhood in South Dallas. Most of the mall’s stores were run by Korean immigrant families, like ours, who sold everything from strongly-scented hair oils and FUBU tall tees, knock-off Reeboks tightly wrapped in clear plastic, and custom gold grillz. The busiest days at the mall were always at the middle and end of the month, synced up with wage pay periods. My parents’ store would flood in with customers coming in with thick stacks of cash to pay their monthly bills in person or to treat themselves to an upgraded beeper model or a fresh case change.

I spent my days at the mall with my sister, zigzagging around the mall’s corridors, peeking our heads into familiar shops owned by other Korean families, looking for other kids to play with. We’d spend hours at the mall’s pet store where the primary attraction was the shop iguana and Shar-Pei. I’d run my fingers over the dog’s heavily-creased face and body, pretending the folds were speedbumps as he’d pant and squint happily at me. During the hot summer months, my sister and I would fight over who got the job of wiping in between his folds where he could develop rashes from overheating.

On Sundays, my mom would get together with several other Korean shop owners in a small room next to the mall manager’s office where they’d hold a Sunday service. We’d climb up the creaky carpeted steps and into a small windowless room with low-ceilings and brown wood-paneled walls. Stackable metal chairs with cracked vinyl seats were lined up in neat rows and the grown ups would motion us to sit down and by the looks on their faces, we knew to sit down and be quiet. There was no pulpit so the pastor would stand just a few feet away from us, reading excerpts from the Bible he held in one hand. With his free hand, there’d be a lot of wild gesturing, his voice crescendoing often to an almost intolerably loud volume. At times, his impassioned voice talking about the need to make sacrifices to be seen as good in the eyes of God scared me. I’d sit in silence, counting down the minutes until the service would be over, when someone would bring out a box of donuts and a pitcher of orange juice made with a tube of Minute Maid frozen juice concentrate.

As I got older, we joined a large Korean-American Presbyterian church in Dallas and we’d go every Saturday and Sunday. Saturday for youth group night and Sundays as a family for Sunday service. I tried to feel God’s presence at church. Sometimes when we’d all stand in unison singing hymns, I thought I found him there in the sound of synchronized voices. The harmonious music would warm my body from the inside out, the lyrics sounded so hopeful I wanted to believe them.

But mostly I dreaded Sundays because the likelihood I’d piss off my mom and things could get physical were very high. Within the confines of the church walls and the pressures of its social stage, it’d become abundantly apparent to my mother that I was not a good Korean daughter. I didn’t have the thin body or pretty face she had expected. No amount of straight-As or 1st place medals at piano competitions could change the shame I’d see wash over her face when one of her friends would tell me for the hundredth time that I was fat and maybe I wouldn’t look so bad if I would just lose some weight. Most injurious to her was my attitude that she found disrespectful and stubborn. She wanted me to be a demure, deferential girl, bowing to and serving my elders with a gracious smile. But something in me refused to take on these customary expectations. I wanted to be free to be me, to be American with all the ease and coziness that seemed to come with. I wanted to walk into a kitchen that smelled like warm chocolate chip cookies with a mom that would hug me and tell me she thought I was wonderful. I wanted to hear the loud laughter and clinking wine glasses of a happy family gathered around a Thanksgiving table, with a big turkey and piping hot macaroni and cheese. 

My refusal or inability to take on the role of a perfectly behaved Korean daughter in front of her peers at church would awaken the anger-beast that I knew lived inside her, sometimes dormant but easily stirred. The car rides home would be torture. I’d see her enraged eyes look at me through the rear view mirror and I knew it would be bad when we got home. I’d watch the minutes go by on the digital clock on the car’s dashboard, knowing how many minutes I had left until we got home. How many minutes I had left before my body would take a beating. 

It’s ironic how many hymns and sermons I’d listen to at church that centered around God’s mercy. There seemed to be a promise that being a believer meant this omnipotent force was on your side. I believed it. I’d pray at night, asking God for his mercy to help change who I was. Change me into someone with more willpower so I’d stop eating so I could become thin and socially acceptable. Change me into someone who was more obedient that would do as my parents asked so I’d stop provoking them to hit me. Sometimes the prayers would happen during a beating and I’d pray to God to help make it stop. I’d feel my dad’s swift kicks land on my stomach or feel a golf club rap the back of my legs and I’d squeeze my eyes tighter, praying harder. Afterwards in my room alone, I’d pray to God to help me leave this place, to let me die during my sleep so I didn’t have to face it all again in the morning. 

It’s now many years later since that time in my life when I’d search for God and his mercy at church and in prayer. I know I won’t find what helped me survive there. Prayers for help were left unanswered, rage-filled parents remained unchanged, my looks and attitude have stayed the same. Horrible, senseless acts of cruelty and selfishness happen all the time, often to those most undeserving. Accepting that fact and releasing the idea that I or any great deity have any real control in preventing life’s injustices continues to be a difficult but necessary pill to swallow in adult life. 

Instead, the search for how one survives life’s atrocities and hardships has brought me to another kind of faithful practice. The practice of noticing, giving, and receiving acts of kindness. Kindness is the thing that keeps hope alive, a unifying force that extends beyond any labeled boundaries. Kindness is what reminds us of our power and humanity, reminds us of what’s real. Kindness is the refusal to harden when life has been hard to us, the choice to remain soft, vulnerable, and open. Kindness brings us together and gives us the strength and resilience to get through what seems unbearable to get through alone. Kindness is what allows us to belong to one another, to cherish what it is to be human, to make mistakes and still be accepted. In the face of so much uncertainty and chaos in our world today, the answer is not in the hands of some external force outside of us, a savior who can come make it all okay. Instead life requires what has always been true and what nature models for us every day. To press on, to boldly bring light into a dark world with forceful and unrelenting repetition.