“SEOUL” + MESSY SPIRITUALITY
Two weeks ago, I was told that my dad has entered the last stages of his life. He had two major cancer surgeries in the last two years and has fought valiantly. He just turned 90 earlier this year. That puts his birth year at 1930. He has gone through the Korean War and the aftermath, which my mind cannot fathom. I was told that his father (my grandfather) passed away when my dad was 18 years old. That would have been two years before the War. As he was the oldest son (with 7 other siblings), the responsibility of taking care of the family fell on him. He did everything under the sun to provide for his extended family, including running multiple businesses (he once told me his dream was to be a medical doctor—knowing my dad, he would have been a good one). His last and biggest business attempt was to build and run an underground shopping center right in the heart of Seoul. That was in the early 1970s, when an underground shopping center was a brand new concept. Now, Seoul would not be Seoul without the ubiquitous underground shopping centers. The business failed spectacularly, which forced my parents to move to the U.S. in 1977.
Because my dad was taking care of the extended family (and living with them) by making income, my mom had to accept the main role of running the house with at least a dozen people at any given time. When I was born in 1963, my grandmother was living with us as well as well as my grandmother’s mother-in-law. So that’s 4 generations under one roof. Not to mention a dog or two thrown in the mix…
When the news came to me that our family would be moving to U.S., I was naively excited thinking about the new opportunities and possibilities. It was sort of like a hitting the reset button. Let’s just say I was not thriving in the Korean education system. But that story is for some other time. After we moved, as was the case for most immigrant families, both of my parents worked and worked hard. This meant that my sister (who is 4 years younger than me) and I were alone during the day to fend for ourselves until my parents came home later in the evening, 6 days a week for the most part. I was probably too emotionally immature to know what was going on inside of me at the time. I simply was too busy with my own life and stuffed my time with friends and a new-found freedom.
In hindsight, I realize that I desired intimacy with my parents, which rarely came to me. This is by no means an indictment against my parents and I am sympathetic to their surroundings and contexts they were in. I have no illusion of harboring bitterness and resentment toward my parents. I know they loved me the best way they knew how. And I felt that love. They simply didn’t have the bandwidth to care for my needs (which I didn’t know I had) growing up in Korea as well as the early immigrant years.
As an Enneagram 7, one of the tell-tale early childhood experiences is neglect. My parents did not reject or neglect intentionally. Thus, the way I coped was to think of possibilities and options in the future. One of my driving needs has become to avoid the pain of not having intimacy by putting my mind to work and to work overtime.
Even now, at the end of my father's life, I see myself desiring intimacy with my parents. While I know that the intimacy I seek is mine to own (and is colored by my own ideas of intimacy), I am accepting things as they are without judgment and condemnation. I think I know the danger of seeking to fulfill my desire for intimacy that results in imprisoning my parents with my expectations of them. To turn the table around, I am also painfully aware that my idea of intimacy is filtered by my own experiences or lack thereof and how my children experience and desire intimacy from me may or may not meet their needs. So welcome to the broken world of Chong…
I am reminded of Thomas Merton’s penetrating words…
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Yes, I accept my parents’ love without my filtering and drive for my own needs. Our blinded internal needs can easily suffocate others to fit into the image and reflection we create for our own benefit. The lesson I am grappling with is… while I come clean with my own brokenness, I dare not force others to fill my selfish needs. Ah… and to do this without self-condemnation while experiencing the “permanent climate of divine kindness” (John O’Donohue’s definition of grace). This is messy spirituality at work.
