I’m not good at small talk. So I got right to the point.
“Dad, I need to see you.”
“Okay.”
“And, Dad, if it’s okay with you, I need to see Carolyn, too.”
There was a pause.
“All right. When?”
“Can it be over Christmas break?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, see you soon, Dad.”
What had just happened? I took a deep breath and didn’t know how it would all turn out. Yet I was confident I was doing the right thing.
I’m sure my dad was wondering what the heck was going on. Out of the blue, after months of avoiding him, I had suddenly called him. He probably assumed I was going to spew a torrent of blame, criticism, and pent-up vitriol at both of them.
When I flew home at Christmas and went to Dad’s place, I resolved not to expect him to apologize. I needed to do my part to repair this fractured relationship; whatever he decided to do or not do was on him.
I took a few deep breaths in my car. Went to their condo door and rang the doorbell.
They greeted me at the door and invited me to sit down.
In the kitchen, we situated ourselves at a small table next to the wall with three chairs. Carolyn sat to my right and Dad to my left. They both looked anxious and curious. I looked at my dad and I don’t know what happened, but tears started flowing instantaneously. Where were these tears coming from?
“Dad, I’m sorry. I haven’t been a good son to you. Please forgive me.”
Dad appeared shocked. Then I saw his face change from a protective, curious stance to one of openness and tenderness. Then I turned to Carolyn. This was the first time I had ever tried to have a conversation with her. The only time I really looked into her eyes. This was the woman my dad had had an affair with, the one who had taken the place of my mom. I was actually going to talk to her. I took another deep breath.
“Carolyn, I also want to apologize to you for how I’ve acted towards you. Please forgive me.”
Dad wiped the tears from his eyes. His face turned red when he got emotional. Carolyn was tearing up, too, still a bit anxious as she kept nervously looking at my dad and then me.
“Son, I forgive you,” Dad said, then quickly added, “And, son, will you forgive me? I’m sorry.”
“Of course, Dad. I love you.”
As we kept wiping the tears from our eyes, Dad stood up and hugged me. Dad had always been affectionate, so his embrace didn’t surprise me. He was the one who gave big wet sloppy kisses to us kids before we went to bed. It was part of our nightly bedtime ritual as small children.
I had never expected my father to respond the way he did. But I also didn’t expect all to immediately feel right. This was just the first step I had needed to take. When I embraced Dad and Carolyn, I wish I could honestly say that a flood of positive emotion overwhelmed me and that feelings of love and trust all came rushing back. They didn’t.
During the whole flight back to South Carolina, I found myself gritting my teeth, still feeling disappointed in my dad, unsure whether forgiving him in such an overt way had been the right thing to do. But in the end, I felt that I had done the right thing. I guess some would call it the very act of faith. Acting in a way that you hope to be true even when you don’t feel it. Hoping the actions will bear positive fruit later.
I now see the act of forgiveness like the locomotive on a train. The mindful act of forgiving someone—giving them grace for something they could never repay—comes first, like an engine on a locomotive. The feelings follow, like a caboose does after the locomotive pulls it along.
The next few years, I dedicated myself to staying in touch with my dad. I would call him, or see him in person when I could. It was a monthly rhythm. I felt I needed to lean into what was uncomfortable. For years, there were no particularly warm feelings. Yes, years. While I was making an effort, the feelings of judgment and pain still lingered.
The emotional feeling of love eventually came. But it would still take some time for me to see Dad and Carolyn the way God sees them. It’s one of those mysterious things that requires time, pain, repetition, and perspective.
Yet one thing was clearer. For much of my life my focus had been about the shape of my eyes rather than how I personally saw others with love or prejudice. The more I could see the beauty in Dad and Carolyn, the more I was able to love. The more I saw my own brokenness, the more I could love the broken. The more I forgave them, the more I could forgive myself.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 1 + 1 = 3
On my first visit to Korea as an adult, I felt like a long-lost son finally returning home. It was the mid-1990s, and I was among a small group of Korean American leaders who had been invited to visit some of the megachurches in South Korea so we could learn from their models of growth and spirituality. At the time, eight of the ten biggest churches in the world were in South Korea. Large churches in Korea ranged from 30,000 to over 800,000 people. In Korea, whether you’re Christian or Buddhist, religion is a big aspect of your life, embedded into the culture. I couldn’t wait to go to see that, but I was equally excited to visit my motherland for the first time since leaving as an infant.
After getting off the plane in Seoul, I approached the immigration desk. An elderly immigration officer stood behind it, and I handed him my passport. He paused. Glanced at my eyes. Looked back down at the passport. He examined my passport and appeared confused. I knew he was wondering why I had an American passport with Gibbons as my last name yet I looked 100 percent Korean.
“한국 사람이에요?” he asked.
He noticed that I didn’t understand his question, so he asked again in broken English.
“Are you Korean?”
Both his tone and his expression showed his annoyance.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you speak Korean?”
Usually I say, “I know the profanities and the food,” to provoke a laugh so that I can divert attention away from the awkwardness of such a question. It would take too long to give an extended reasoning for my linguistic ineptitude. I wanted to say to him:
Sir, I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the Korean language.
But I knew it didn’t matter to this immigration officer. So I just said:
