As a Korean adoptee, one of the longest journeys to reconciliation that I will walk is in my relationship to South Korea. I see each return-trip as another small step in my journey to figure out my sense of belonging to both a place and people. As of the writing of this piece, I am only one-week into readjusting to the U.S. from a half-month trip to Korea. In this most recent iteration of return, I visited the National Museum of Forced Mobilization Under Japanese Occupation. I had no idea what to expect but the feeling inside the museum was extremely similar to that of the Holocaust Museum or the African American History museum; museums that memorialize the dead and expose the cyclical horrors that created the need for such places. I stood in front of a three story wall filled with old photos of Korean liberation activists, families, children, Korean men conscripted by the Japanese Imperial Army, young couples, farmers, and everyone in between. As my friends wandered an exhibit, I pulled off to the side and stood alone at the bottom of this cascade of photos and wept. I cried both for the inconceivable suffering of the people highlighted by the museum but I also cried for all of the Koreans in diaspora who continue to live with no access to this history or who come from families desperately trying to forget this painful history. I was moved to tears by a desire for these generational memories to be generative rather than painful. 

Generational trauma is a hot psychology and socio-anthropological topic these days. My friends can all rattle off the multitudes of impacts generational trauma is having on their lives. However, we are often less aware of the healing ways that we can engage our generational memories for change. Inherited trauma is the presence of felt impacts of socio-political or interpersonal scar tissue, whereas generational memory is more the inherited sense of how we’ve survived, thrived, lifted one another up, and created meaningful change through our lived realities. To me, generational memory is the ability to tap back into our ancestors’ full range of experiences rather than only naming the near annihilation that we’ve experienced.

The Easter Vigil is a labor of revering and remembering the entirety of our spiritual heritage with God. It is a chance for us to intentionally slow down and remember the “very good” creation that we originate from and to which we are reconciled to through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The Easter story is not just the linear “start” to something entirely new. Instead, it serves as a turning point where we are invited to return to our truest roots & be open to using our generational memories to live in a new and right relationship with God, neighbor, and creation into the future. In a time when the world seems uniquely horrific, it would benefit us all to tap into our generational memory that we are a people of relationship and liberation. The Bible and those who are guided by its ancient and sacred word come from a heritage of resistance and generative revolution. 

Western Christendom has largely become satisfied with its generational amnesia; a forgetfulness that has erased Jesus’s legacy of radical social and spiritual revolution. Many of our churches, councils and boards, seminaries, and parochial schools have all bent their knees to the powers of the Empire. “Politics doesn’t belong in church” has become a convenient slogan to keep LGBTQ, BIPOC, and women’s issues quiet while many churches still choose to praise & pray for government bodies and the military. Somehow, this sentiment flies entirely in the face of stories like Esther who was thought of as potentially too “political” to canonize. If they haven’t bent their knee to injustice, then they often acquiesce to hopelessness and despair. But we must answer the call to stay awake. Stay awake beloved children of God. Gather your generational memories.

I wiped my tears from my cheeks & lifted a silent prayer of gratitude for every face that stared down at me from the wall. I left the museum vowing to remember and honor the generations of Koreans before me who persisted despite the horrors, who rose up against despots, who declared their independence, and who resisted the Empire. The reconnection to my ancestral memories empowers me to do a new thing and I believe that’s the power of the Easter Vigil’s journey from creation to salvation.

Photography has always been a simple spiritual practice for me. The intentional formation of tangible images that will one day be memories is beautiful and healing. It’s why I have eight Google accounts, so I can keep getting more free Google Photos storage space. I have aphantasia, and thus cannot form mental images or memories. Photography is the only way that I can memorialize what is in front of me. 

If you are able, I would invite you to go into your neighborhood or be on the lookout within your daily life for something that catches your eye. Perhaps it’s a sign that was just so perfectly placed to make a good joke or speak to a thought you just had. Perhaps it’s a flower that had been struggling to bloom, but has now burst forth in all of its created beauty. Perhaps it’s a sticker or poster left by a stranger that speaks to resisting a great injustice in your region. It could be anything that catches your eye and reminds you of your belonging to the people and story of God. 

What image might bring back your generational memory of belonging to creation & liberation?

What reminds you of your very goodness?

What sparks energy inside of you for the good work of reconciliation?

On the outside, I may look like a silly millennial who needs to Instagram everything, but the truest reality is that I am a silly millennial who needs sacred images as a touchpoint back to the story of Christ.