I worked one of the hardest hospital shifts I’ve ever worked in ten years. I accompanied a physician to tell someone their entire family died. I’m not okay. They’re not okay.

Author & Chaplain @jspark3000.bsky.social discusses Western’s fixation on rushing grief when it’s often a lifelong process. After my brother’s death, I was only given 3 bereavement days, and it took a toll on me which led me to leave my job. Follow my Substack for more! #griefandloss

I'm excited about this episode that I did with Korean hospital chaplain and author, @jspark3000.bsky.social . We talked about intergenerational trauma, memorializing those lost to v*olence, and Black and Asian solidarity. Really enjoyed chatting w/him. open.substack.com/pub/randykim...

“The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price.” — Mahmoud Darwish

Just sharing on my birthday, I applied for a master’s in counseling program and I got accepted. 😊🙌 It was really a long shot as I’ve been a chaplain for eleven years but thankfully I was accepted just three hours after the interview. My hope is to be both a chaplain and a therapist. 🫶🔥

“Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1962)

People not in the Epstein files: - drag queens - transgender athletes - librarians - Black journalists - “radical leftist scum” - hungry family needing SNAP benefits - workers on strike - the cast of Sesame Street

This comment still rings true: “First they came for the journalists and I did not speak out because no one knew what happened.”

Keith Porter Jr. was a 43 year old father of two, he was beloved by his coworkers and customers at Home Depot, he was working on a documentary for people of color in San Bernardino and how they coped with the pandemic, he was raising funds to support battered women.

My patient’s last words on her deathbed with dozens of family with her: “Take care of all of yourselves. Please be united. I can’t do it for you anymore.” 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

Breonna Taylor was a paramedic and then an ER Tech and PRN, she worked up to 15 hour shifts and was on the frontlines in 2020. She was 26 years old, the first grandchild of her family, a godmother, loved to play board games, www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...

Any therapist or clergy or educator who cannot speak up against f*scism and only remains “inspiring” is unqualified for their role. You cannot self-help your way out of state-sponsored violence any more than you can rearrange some thoughts to cure trauma.

The ICU nurse Alex Pretti, murdered by 🧊, was also working on scientific research to help prevent recurrent C. diff, a very common infection in hospitals. His research would certainly improve and save many lives. Alex is third here with his colleagues. www.vacsp.research.va.gov/CSP_2004/CSP...

I will never believe that protests are just “virtue signaling” or “performative.” Many of these protests are also actively blocking I*E, breaking up any forms of militarization, sheltering and providing for at risk families,

There is no safe or sane world you can give “better training” to armed militarized federal agents who clap after k*llong a man filming them, masked N*zi wh*te supremacists, cosplay cowboy colonizers who teargas six year olds,

A racist once told my mother to her face that she was stupid because of her accent, my mother said “I can speak two languages and I’m smart in Korean. So that makes you stupid AND racist.” Bringing that up again for reasons.

I grieve every elder and mentor and leader that ever I trusted who signed off on this f*scist admin. That grief hurts. It’s an angry and exhausting grief. I believe they’re being deceived and I won’t give up on them, but I can’t be safe with them in the same room.

You cannot claim you are pro-life if you claim you are pro-ICE.

“History weeps as it retraces the parabola.” — Yi Sang, 1910-1937, Korean poet and revolutionary under colonial rule

I’m learning that the real ones have always been real ones. And if they messed up, they always apologized, made amends, dug deep, did better. That’s what real ones do.

I’m very honored & happy to be interviewed by @npr.org to share about my hospital chaplaincy work & why it’s so hard to talk about death, dying, & grief. NPR has always been my dream interview. Thank you to the amazing team who made me sound smarter than I really am. 🫶🙏 www.npr.org/2025/12/22/n...

J.S. Park helps patients and their families cope with death every day as a hospital chaplain. He explains what to expect as a person is dying, and how to reckon with uncomfortable feelings about death. n.pr/3MQXhKy

My heart is with every soul who did not make it through this year, every child and mother and father and sibling buried under rubble, every family detained and separated and starved, every student l*nched or k*lled in another preventable sh**ting,

“Financially devastating but morally exhilarating” goes so hard.

I’m grieving so many people I had trusted as elders and mentors and leaders, but showed themselves as g*nocide apologists and viciously against immigrants and children. I have hope for them, I won’t give up on them, but I cannot go with them, and I will not find safety with them in the same room.

One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential

Beautiful interview with @jspark3000.bsky.social How to cope with 'death anxiety,' according to a hospital chaplain www.npr.org/2025/12/30/n...

I just finished writing my third book and I’m proud and happy to say that not a single word of the book was generated by AI. Neither were my other books. I also disabled AI search on my browser so I had to dig into the results any time I searched through them. This is

“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.” — Andor, season 2 ep 9, Senator Mon Mothma

What I learned from how children were treated through Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Palestine, church abuse, antivaxers, child labor, the Epstein files, is that no elected leader is going to save us. We are the ones who have to keep us safe. From them.

It’s the guns. And it’s unchecked power. And fomenting bigotry. And lack of action. And enabling monsters. And demonizing victims. And cult allegiance. And gloryifying violence. And turning away.

“They have no shame, do they? They don't even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that's the final humiliation.” — Andor, season 2 ep 7, Senator Dasi Oran to Senator Mon Mothma

You would have been sixteen today. Miss you everyday, Rosco. ❤️‍🩹🐾

Shout-out to every person still creating and writing and drawing and singing and choreographing and building and sculpting and imagining in this anxious and overwhelming time.

I wonder how the good folks at The Onion are doing after they saw the Pantone color of the year, but seriously on top of everything else I’m praying for them right now.

Does anyone else avoid AI videos and click right out of them? I try to avoid AI videos as much as I avoid scrolling any type of reels feeds because, well I don’t know how to put this exactly, but it just feels wrong for my brain.

My book on grief is on sale today for only 1.99 in ebook. This is the lowest it’s ever been. 🫶❤️‍🩹 www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CD...

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” — Arundhati Roy

“People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.” — James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)

I’ll never forget reading this the other day: “Faith without works is dead children.” 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨💔

“I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.” — Toni Morrison, The Nation, Mar. 23, 2015

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” — Toni Morrison, The Nation, Mar. 23, 2015

I don’t think we need conspiracy theories anymore. It’s just all out in the open for everyone to see. We’ve been had, run, and fleeced at every turn.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but here is my conspiracy theory: I’m not sure Kimmel was meant to be canceled. It seems like an intentional false flag to “reverse course” and give us enough yield to relax. They know boycotts can be fickle.

“People are afraid to be pried loose from their ignorance.” — Maya Angelou, “One on One,” interview with Greg Jackson (1983)

I hate that one day I’ll have to explain to my children this entire era of American Christianity and its absolute absurdity and hypocrisy. I hope I’ll get to explain it in past tense.

I saw this comment recently and it still rings true: “First they came for the journalists and I did not speak out because no one knew what happened.”

I have been at hundreds of deathbeds and I have never once expected anyone to mourn their abuser. There may be rage, or relief, or a long exhale. But there is zero obligated sorrow for someone who embodied tyranny and suffocation over a family for years, for a lifetime.

After you have wounded me, I make a choice to keep my humanity by seeing yours. I will not allow your desecration of me to desecrate how I see me or you.