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This podcast is an avenue to dialogue about the totality of the food experience. Everything from gardening, to preparing, to eating, to hospitality, to the Lord’s Table, with an eye toward how this act that we all have to engage in helps us experience the transformative power of God’s love and what it means to be human.
The Biggest Table--Episode 09 (Kathy Khang)
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Andrew Camp: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Biggest Table. I am your host, Andrew Camp, and in this podcast, we explore the table, food, eating, and hospitality as an arena for experiencing God's love and our love for one another.
And today I'm thrilled to be joined by Kathy Khang. Kathy Khang is a writer, speaker, and yoga teacher.
She is the author of Loving Disagreement, which was awarded the 2023 Book of the Year by Inglewood Review of Books. She's also the author of Raise Your Voice, Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up, and Alabaster Guided Meditation, Psalms Volume 1 and 2. She's also a contributing author of More Than Serving Tea and Voices of Lament.
Kathy is also the board chair for Christians for Social Action, co host of the Fascinating Podcast, and president of the Northwestern University Asian and Asian American Alumni Club. A former newspaper reporter in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kathy also spent more than two decades in vocational [00:01:00] ministry where she focused on leadership development and training leaders in diversity and justice.
She holds a bachelor's of science degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She is based in the North suburbs of Chicago and blogs at kathykhang.Com is on threads, Instagram, and Tik TOK as mskathykhang and posts at facebook.com/kathykhangauthor. Thanks for joining me today, Kathy.
Kathy Khang: It's like, wow, is that me? Yeah, I guess it is.
Andrew Camp: No, so no, I really appreciate this. Once I saw your book was awarded that Book of the Year by Inglewood, and I'm a big fan of Inglewood and Chris Smith, um, I picked it up immediately and really loved the work you and Matt did in the book. But before we dive into the book, we'd love to hear what was the role of food and hospitality in your life growing up?
Kathy Khang: Oh, goodness.
So, um, I would say I remember [00:02:00] lots of smells and food and gatherings of family and friends, particularly folks we knew through church. And so hospitality was abundant. However, it felt different because it really wasn't around my friends. So I was a child in the seventies and eighties and Korean food, Asian food was still considered stinky and suspect.
And it is so fascinating to me to see the rise of not only. Asian American culture, but specifically around Korean culture, so like K dramas, K pop, and Korean food, like Korean barbecue, um, seeing [00:03:00] influencers, white influencers, making kimchi. and posting videos about it. That just blows my mind. I'm so confused around that.
Um, and so when I think of hospitality, I think of for me growing up a hesitation because there was so much stigma around what we ate and the. Unfamiliarity of what we ate, and then I think a lot of immigrant children, and I know a lot of Asian American children of immigrants, we talk about how our ice smelled so our ice makers.
Um, one, we don't, we don't use a lot of ice. We don't drink drinks with ice, but when we did use the ice, it smelled of garlic because our food had so much garlic in it and we kept garlic in the fridge and kimchi in the fridge. And so when I think of hospitality growing up, it was very much an open door.[00:04:00]
To people we could trust.
Andrew Camp: So yeah, so you've so what I'm gathering you're saying is within the Korean American culture there was an open door, but within your friends at a school around white There was much hesitation and even maybe isolation For you.
Kathy Khang: Yeah, I, I think that there was a lot of hesitation because, um, we were the first family of color in that elementary school that we knew of.
And, um, and there was a lot of teasing and there is a lot of bullying. And so there was a lot of uncertainty. And isolation and confusion. That was not my experience prior to moving in second grade. We had been in the city of Chicago. So that was a very different experience of hospitality. That literally was an open door to friends from, you know, the [00:05:00] Philippines and Greece.
And I still remember how every home smells different. And we love that. That was very normal. But moving to the suburbs was very like, ugh.
Andrew Camp: As you've then reflected on your journey as a child and being an immigrant, where, where do you continue to see food as an arena of, of hope and restoration?
But then also where, where does food still, and the table, where is it still used as a means of isolation and boundary keeping?
Kathy Khang: Sure.
Um, I think, uh, for me and our family, so my husband and my three children, especially when the three kids were growing up, we were surprised at how excited and willing they were around each other.
our food. And, and so our, our [00:06:00] table and hospitality grew out of their lack of fear and lack of that teasing, that experience. And so my kids all took in a thermos, the different soups that I would make and Their friends would smell it and go, Oh, that sure smells and looks better than my sandwich. And so we made sure that when their friends came over and we made sure that the hospitality we showed was Abundant it was always of course, you can have your friends over.
Of course, they can come and stay Was to make as normal our family's hospitality and food experience to the other kids. So it was always about offering and explaining that we don't understand why everybody doesn't have a rice cooker that [00:07:00] sings. Everybody should have a rice cooker that sings. That should be the normal experience of children.
Um, and always offering food. Like, do you want to try this? If you don't prefer it, that's totally okay, but this is what we're having. Um, and we found that that was, uh, a way to expand. Our hospitality and our hearts, as well as open people into our homes. Um, now in adulthood, we try to make sure that food and the table is not an isolating experience.
And really what that has meant for us is to learn about the needs and desires of our friends. So instead of the, you know, the ethnic food. conundrum. It has been becoming good friends with people who are vegetarians or vegans and realizing, Oh, that that's a whole nother [00:08:00] experience. So how do we make our table welcoming to them?
Andrew Camp: Right. Yeah. Um, and even in your book, you mentioned just the role of community, you know, of the fruit of the spirit, that the fruit of the spirit isn't for me individually, but it's for the good of the community, which was such a great love. I loved that perspective, um, and challenge, um, for me. And so, yeah, it just sounds like.
As you think about the table, the table becomes more of what's good for the community and not just for me, um, you know, and then what I also loved in your book as we transition to your book, because I was just reviewing it this week for the podcast and just was challenged a new and a fresh, but it was what I was reminded looking through it was.
There's a lot of sitting and discomfort when it comes to the fruit of the spirit. Can, can you talk about that? Cause I don't usually think of discomfort when I think of the fruit of the spirit. I think of warm [00:09:00] fuzzy feelings. Oh, sure.
Kathy Khang: And I think that that's probably how a lot of us. were taught about the fruit of the spirit, right?
Like literally pictures of fruit. So, um, because the fruit of the spirit is moving us towards community and the good of the whole, the flourishing of the whole, that means we need to get out of our kind of individualized thinking, which is very. Dominant in the West, especially in the U. S. Culture. It's very much about my comfort, my care, right?
It's called self care, not community care. And so, um, as we were writing about it, I could not help but think that, yeah. Everything about this life is sitting comfortably in the discomfort in exploring and having hard conversations about why does this make you comfortable [00:10:00] as a white man and what could that cause discomfort for me.
And that conversation is never, it's never going to be an easy one. Um. And unfortunately, it's not one that we foster in the context of a church or a Christian community, right? It's always like, Oh, we love each other because we're one in Christ without actually wrestling with the issues. That spark the great things that we read about in scripture, right?
Like why do we care about the widows? Well, because somebody was ignoring them.
Andrew Camp: No, and you even mentioned in an early chapter about that just because you welcome somebody that you know people of color or You know women into your door doesn't mean they're actually welcomed. Welcome, you know, right You know, there's a distinction between an open door and a seat at the table [00:11:00] Table.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and so how, how then do we use the fruit of the spirit? To invite more people to the table
Kathy Khang: well, you know as somebody who? Felt like I couldn't invite people to my table because it smelled or looked different but also You know kind of writing this This wave of interest and curiosity around my culture, it is adjusting my table, right?
It is, it's adjusting my table, um, and a literal physical table. So we, we have a hand me down table in our kitchen and, uh, without a leaf in the kitchen, it comfortably sits, seats six people. Mm hmm. Which is just one more than our actual family. Um, with all of the leaves in the [00:12:00] table, we can squeeze about maybe 18.
Okay. Um, which means to do that, we have to move the furniture in the other room out of the way. Hmm. And we have to pull tables that don't match or pull chairs that don't match from all over the, the house. And I don't have. 18 place settings. And so it's a mismatch. And so that's how I think about, um, allowing the fruit of the spirit to change the table and to change what we bring and to change the actual table.
It's not going to be a magazine layout. My home is never that, but I think that sometimes I felt like that was the image that we wanted, that the church wanted to present. It's a very beautiful Neat, aesthetically pleasing table. Um, [00:13:00] and when we pull out every single leaf and grab every single chair available in the house, it is not.
It is not aesthetically pleasing, but it is beautiful. It is chaotic. It is where do we put all the food? Can we squeeze somebody here? We ran off out of forks. So we're going to grab the plastic forks. Um, do you want chopsticks? You don't do chopsticks. We'll grab you an extra fork. Oh, we ran out of cups. So that is how I envision the fruit of the spirit is, um, it is not.
It is not beautiful in the way the world says is beautiful. Hmm.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. No, that's a great image of, you know, it's not, the fruit of the spirit is not beautiful in how the world would define beauty. , There's so much there just to think about. Um, so then what, and what you were saying then also ties back to, to [00:14:00] how you guys even opened the book of, we're not called to be civil.
Per se, you know, and there's this idea that the fruit of the spirit is this civility or nicety. Whereas your table you just described is chaotic or, um, mismatched. Um, and so then what, as you know, we're in an election year and nobody, my wife and I, we're not excited about this at all. And so there will be these calls for civility that, you know, we think about.
And so just based on even what you said, how, how do we move past civility? And into this chaotic beauty that you were describing around the table.
Kathy Khang: It's so interesting to me because I find civility exhausting. I don't know about you. I find it exhausting. Because there is a lot of like, holding back and pretending that, um, everything is fine when Nothing is fine.
And so one [00:15:00] invitation there is, can you have honest conversations with just a handful of people? You don't need to have all of the honest conversations with everyone you come across right away. That that is not what Matt and I are asking or inviting people to, but I think that even in our close friendships in our families, especially we hear this a lot, um, this dread around.
holidays because you don't want to talk about politics or religion is if you can't have those hard conversations with the people you say you love the most. I don't, I honestly don't know if we have any hope. Um, but it is that it is that civility is as uncomfortable as is having these hard disagreements and loving disagreements.
And so are you going to pick and choose? And [00:16:00] I would say that the invitation to any Christian is to choose the loving disagreement because that is what God invites us to. Um, and what does that look like? It looks like not picking the holiday dinner table because maybe that's not the most conducive to real hard conversations.
But picking and choosing wisely and maybe intentionally setting time to have some of those conversations because it's an election year and there are things that are at stake.
Andrew Camp: No, for sure. And two, I think as You know, I reflect, you know, on my own journey and the discomfort I have and the desire for civility versus, you know, real meaningful conversation is, I'm always afraid of saying the wrong thing or that relationship will be broken.
Um, and you point out that, [00:17:00] you know, in the book, intent doesn't. minimize harm. And so how, how do we do this well in a way that I know I'm going to say something wrong at some point, but then how do I have the courage to still lean in, um, as a white middle class male, um, in this world.
Kathy Khang: You need to be okay with being fully human.
Right. And, and so, I mean, you think that that's like, oh, well, yeah, duh. But somewhere along the line, we have forgotten to honor the humanity of one another. And so, um, for me, it is a level of frustration when, um, non, Non people of color are so [00:18:00] fearful of making mistakes that they choose to pretend to be perfect and never learn the art of apology and repentance and repair.
And so, you know, instead of thinking of it as, I'm afraid of making a mistake for all of us to frame it as. I am going to enter fully into my humanity with humility. Mm-Hmm. , we all make mistakes. How do we then approach the other person, people, community and say, yeah, I, that was a bad, that was a bad one. I am so sorry.
Here is what I've learned. This is my mistake I have a lot of learning to [00:19:00] do. How can we repair? this relationship. And I have to tell you, I have seen that so few times. It makes me so sad, so sad and disappointed.
Andrew Camp: Yeah, no, the embracing of one's humanity and, you know, that we're all in this together, but also,
yeah, that we can be okay with each other's frailties and humanity, but that doesn't then gloss over the real harm that people of color have to endure. Or minorities experience, and I think that's where it's really it can be challenging. Sure.
Kathy Khang: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I, um, I've been in this. Quote, unquote work [00:20:00] for 30 years and, um, I, I am so surprised at how particularly white people are so afraid of having their actions labeled as racist.
And my response has been, I recognize that that can be a hard, uh, Label, not that you are a racist, but that your action was racist and that hurts. Can you for 30 seconds sit with the hurt and harm done to the person on the receiving end of that racism and know that that is. And so I do think that there's something missing, particularly in [00:21:00] the church and the willingness to sit in that pain and discomfort.
You know, we're headed into Lent. So I'm seeing all of these ads around like, Oh, journey with us, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and I wish we could sit. in that Good Friday pain and uncertainty for longer than a weekend. Yeah. Right. Right. Because even that, yes, that is, you know, the, the cycle and calendar of the church is that, um, it really is.
Great that people want to jump into Lent, but really it's that uncertainty and pain and discomfort of Good Friday and, [00:22:00] um, and so I think for white listeners, that's an invitation for all of us. It's just that some of us have to live in it longer than you do, right? Right? And, and that the impact, yes, is.
Much more than your intent, but also if we don't cling to the hope and belief that there is Forgiveness, then I don't know what we believe in as Christians And you may not get that forgiveness from the person that you have harmed and we have to be okay with that, right? Yeah, we have to be okay with that that we can't make everything.
Okay. Hmm
Andrew Camp: And that there is not even just sitting at the Good Friday, but sitting in the uncertainty of [00:23:00] Saturday. You know, sometimes we don't know. Yeah. Yep. What, you know, where resurrection is going to come from. Right. Or even if resurrection will happen.
Kathy Khang: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I, I want to believe, I think Matt out of the two of us is more hopeful.
I want to believe that in that tension and discomfort is where the fruit of the spirit also comes in, is that then we can sit with patience. And kindness and goodness, even when things don't turn out our way. Right.
Andrew Camp: Cause there, I don't know. Hold on. I'm trying to gather my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, cause what you just said is sitting in that discomfort will then bring out [00:24:00] the fruit of the spirit. And yet, in my tradition, growing up in the white evangelical church, like, the discomfort was never part of the fruit of the Spirit, like, it was, the discomfort is in the works of the flesh, not in the fruit of the Spirit.
Right. Whereas, your point of view is actually, the works of the flesh actually may be more comfortable than the actual fruit of the Spirit. of the spirit. And, and it, go ahead.
Kathy Khang: No, go ahead. Well, and, and even that I think is part of the, um, the confusion and where I sit. So I, I have been in white evangelical spaces for a long time as well.
And currently I'm kind of adjacent still in, in the U S you can't get away from it. Is this disconnect between the fruit of the spirit and the flesh? Like how does the fruit of the spirit actually. Live [00:25:00] out in our lives. Well, that has to incorporate our flesh that has to incorporate. Like you said, the table is not just a metaphor.
It, it is an actual table and hospitality isn't just in our soul and spirit. It's actually physical. And so. Um, I, I think why white evangelicalism has always been so confusing to me is that it always ends up happy. Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Yeah.
Kathy Khang: It always ends up happy for an individual or maybe a small community, but never for the whole because we can't move there.
We can't move to that discomfort. And so, um, I, I, I do believe that very much the discomfort of my growing up experience, my childhood, the [00:26:00] tradition of the Korean immigrant church, the history of Korea and the peninsula and the divided country, um, that fully informs my spirit and my body is that it's not always going to be a happy ending.
And yet, yet. I'm still invited and have the wonderful opportunity to say yes into walking into the fruit of the
Andrew Camp: spirit.
Yeah. Like the fruit of the spirit has to be an embodied, lived out posture. Like you just said, it's not a metaphor. It's not pie in the sky. Right. Right. And you're a yoga teacher. So how has teaching yoga then helped you embody and embrace this embodiedness that I think it has? Yeah. We're hesitant to sometimes embrace, right?
Kathy Khang: Um, [00:27:00] I, uh, started practicing yoga in my late thirties, and it was just an excuse to get out of the house because the kids were young. I did not think I would be a yoga teacher, so I went through the training really to write about the experience, especially as a Christian, because there is so much movement around that.
Like, Christians cannot do X, Y, and Z. Um, and so for me, uh, being a yoga teacher and practicing yoga, I have found that it actually connects me much deeper to, uh, the Holy Spirit and being able to be present for other people who are very different than I am. So when I teach, I don't know who in the room is a Christian or not.
I don't care. I don't know about their, uh. political stances. Um, all I can do is see what I see. And what I see [00:28:00] are people from all walks of life, different body types, different ages, um, different races and ethnicities. And what the invitation for me as a teacher is to set, you know, that metaphorical table that allows everyone to connect With their bodies and that has made me much more empathetic and in tune with what my limitations are and where I have more flexibility than other people to be mindful of that when I cue something to give people the freedom to do or not do.
Whatever I'm queuing and that in turn has been such a good practice for me out in the world Because it's the same thing. I cannot assume I know everything about a person based on what [00:29:00] I see And so how can I, even I, as a woman of color, still approach people with, um, empathy and an understanding that they are fully human, just like I am, and I come with assumptions, just like they do, um, and I I want to believe and have been given feedback that, yeah, my classes, even though they were hard, are, um, accessible and, um, one of the.
Best compliments piece of feedback I got from a client recently was it was even before class started She just came over and she's like you just have this energy about you And I want to thank you for that like I want to come in and I want to see you and I [00:30:00] thought You know, I don't know if I got that kind of feedback as a professional Christian in professional vocational ministry, right?
Um, I don't know how many pastors or former pastors out there just got people who interacted with them regularly saying, you know, I don't know what you do, but gosh, there's something about you that is so welcoming. And, and so I would say for me, that embodied practice. And what I bring as a teacher is I'm bringing the fruit of the spirit that embodied practice Challenges me to be that person to a group of people who do not know Anything else about me like they don't know this side of me
Andrew Camp: No, right.
Yes And so you're you're there just to welcome them and to yeah and to create a space in [00:31:00] which they can then be born present Yeah. Um, to their own bodies. Yeah. Uh, you know, and I love that phrase you use that, you know, it's hard, but it's accessible. Um, which I feel like that's such a apt metaphor for this cultivating this fruit of the spirit that it's not easy, right?
But it is accessible. Uh, and so how, how do we, how do leaders or how does anybody then help, you know, make it accessible, but don't, we don't water it down. Yeah. And make it the toxic positivity that you, you rail against, um, or you speak against in, in the book as well. Oh,
Kathy Khang: I definitely rail against in other places for sure.
Uh, you know, a lot of it is what Matt and I wrote in Loving Disagreement, which is we also touch on the things that we struggle with and have failed at. [00:32:00] Have talked a lot about why there were certain chapters certain fruit of the spirit that we wanted to write about and why we didn't want to write about others, which was like, this one's really hard for me.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. Uh, and the crazy thing is. As Christians, I don't know why we think this is optional, um, and why we think that this should be easy when there are so many other phrases we gleaned from scripture that say, oh, this is, you know, life of a Christian is hard and challenging.
So why do we think that this is going to be anything else? Um, I, I, and I also don't know why hard is bad, right? Yeah. Right. Hard is not going to be bad. Challenging is not bad. Failure is not bad. [00:33:00] And again, I think it's part of the myth of the United States and American culture is that it is all good and it's only good if it succeeds in creating something.
Um, Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, it's just failure, and we have to learn from it, and when we don't, we recreate it. Uh, so, you know, for your listeners, it is, it's hard, but accessible, and it's human. It's, it's being human. I don't know why we think that everything is supposed to be easy.
Andrew Camp: You know, because if you think about a normal fruit tree, it takes years for it to even start to bear fruit. Yeah. And yet, we think the fruit of [00:34:00] the Spirit is in. Easy, instantaneous,
right, once we become Christians. Yes,
Kathy Khang: yes. And, um, and, and I don't have any fruit trees cause I live in the Midwest and, um, I could grow apples. We have, we have apple trees in the back, but what we learned is that we don't have the right other kind of apple tree so that it, you know, it, the, it, the cross pollinization kind of thing.
Um, and. So I have friends in California and they talk about their neighborhoods where there are like so many fruit trees You can just like grab fruit off the sidewalk Boggles my mind, but I believe them That that hard work again is not about your [00:35:00] individual. I get my orange, right? It it's for the community.
It's for the whole and and I think a lot about Again, that metaphor and the reality of the table is that my parents and their generation of immigrants, um, the work and sacrifice they did was not easy. It was very hard, but it wasn't just for themselves. It was for me and my generation and my kid's generation.
And so what is that? If not love, you know, what is that? If not patience. What is that, if not perseverance? And so I, I do think and want to invite all of your listeners, like life is not supposed to be easy and it never [00:36:00] has, even for people of privilege and there's a glossing over that. And so if we think to the reality of life, how can we really look back and see the fruit of the spirit, um, and how we need it, how we need it.
Andrew Camp: No, for sure. Yeah. That's a good reminder that life's never been easy. Although I think so much of modern culture invites us to think of life as, and wanting life as easy everywhere or easy always, you know, um, or, you know, grocery stores, you can just go, if you live in a place where you have grocery stores, you can just go and grab whatever fruits and vegetables you want.
At any time of the year, you know, including strawberries in the dead of winter when yeah, yeah, you know, that's not how life works. Usually, [00:37:00]
Kathy Khang: no, it isn't. It isn't. And again, going back to community, maybe, you know, for me and you, our lives have been easy in that way. But again, it's not just about us. No, right.
It's not just about us. And so if we are actually living in the fruit of the spirit, we look beyond and go, Oh, yeah. It's not been easy. No, not easy.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. Cause you also, you, you guys, when you were talking about peace and Shalom, I think the white evangelical world loves, but then misses the point where you say like Shalom is for everyone.
And that might mean. Some hard change or some discomfort on those in power. Yes. Um, which I, I was like, Oh, that's such a challenging thought because, you know, when I was working at a church here in Flagstaff, we talked about Shalom a lot, but never in what we need to give up in order to make [00:38:00] Shalom accessible to everyone.
Right. So what does that look like then, or what, how does that inform our practicing and our embodiedness?
Kathy Khang: Um, so I'm, I'm giggling because I think of like, well, what, yeah, what are some of the practical things where it's either giving up or recognizing, choosing not to participate in? Um. I had had one at one time fantasies of living in Arizona.
I love Arizona. Um, but then we started reading about the water rights and the fight over water and how here in the Great Lakes. We're okay. Yeah, eventually we're going to see a bunch of you all want to move into this cold weather because we have so much water and I thought, I don't want to give up my water.[00:39:00]
And I think that that's probably the thought of folks in more arid. Communities like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to have to stop watering my grass. I don't, I want to be able to put down whatever I want in my yard. I want to keep that public pool or my private pool open, right? All of those types of things.
And so I think in reality is, um, needing to stop and think about where our comforts are actually hurting the whole, um, big and little things. Big and little things. Um, so some little things that sound ridiculous, like we have been composting for two decades. And uh, that has been a practice that we have taught our kids and their friends.
So their friends all grew up knowing you put all of the banana peels in that little silver container. Now, is that going to [00:40:00] change climate change? No, not my one little thing, but it has been the mindset. That shifted us completely to how we buy things, where we throw away, what we reuse, how we recycle. Um, uh, I regularly make it a practice to go like several months and I don't buy anything new.
Except food, right? Right. And, and people are like, well, like, what else would you be buying? I have to avoid target. I cannot go to target because, oh, I need that. No, I don't need this. Nobody in my family needs another pair of socks. So I think it's big things like that. And then little things like that. And big things.
You said it's an election year. Um, I think one of the discomfort things we need to give up is being civil. I think we need to have some hard [00:41:00] conversations with people who differ from us, have differing opinions about politics and policy. Right. Because there are so many things at stake. Hmm.
Andrew Camp: What are those things at stake?
You know, as you, as you look at the election as a woman of color and you know, what are those big things for you?
Kathy Khang: I think, um, voting rights have been chipped away at for the last several years. I think civil rights have been chipped away at. Um. Some listeners may disagree, but I think abortion rights, abortion care is health care for women, whether or not you personally would choose or want to have, it is health care and, um, and I think, uh, issues and concerns [00:42:00] around the border, immigration and migrants.
That we would allow people to drown at the border and say that is okay, says a lot about our understanding of humanity. And so whether or not we agree on the politics, I think, um, as a Christian, we need to have those conversations with people and ask the hard questions. Are we, are we okay with, um, the death penalty and testing new ways to kill people?
Are we okay? I think those are the things that we're, we, what is at risk is our understanding of humanity.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. And whether we will embrace the Jesus way or polarized me first mentality that [00:43:00] wants what's mine or to grasp and hold on to power, right. And even the illusion of power. Yes. Yeah. You know, which was never theirs, ours for the There anyway, it feels like, um, you know, and so no, that's, that's huge.
And I think just the fruit of the spirit and cultivating this idea of the fruit of the spirit for the love of the community helps us begin to, to think through what those loving disagreements, um, can be in this election year. Yeah. Um, you know, cause you also mentioned that truth telling you, you and Matt mentioned truth telling is not a fruit of the spirit, whereas it seems like white evangelicals are, you know, and, and maybe it's broader, but you know, we want to tell the truth regardless of what, how it feels or how it's received.
Right. Um, and, and so what, what place does truth telling then have? [00:44:00] As we cultivate the fruit of the spirit.
Kathy Khang: Um, it, it isn't a fruit of the spirit. And so what is our priority in our relationships and, uh, right. And I, and it's so funny because a couple of years ago, there was a big wave of like, speak your truth and, you know, live your truth and we had entertained even for raise your voice, some, some title around that idea of truth telling.
And, um, And I, I believe that white evangelicalism hijacked this idea of being the only bearers of truth. Uh, I come from a reporting background and really the goal there is not about truth. It's about facts, right? And, and so your truth and my truth can differ, but what are the facts? [00:45:00] And what's hard there is that as a person of faith, sometimes you don't know all of the facts.
And so you just have to have faith, right? So where does truth telling come in the fruit of the spirit? It comes last.
It's that is not the front end goal. And, um, and, and I, I think that part of. My church experience, especially in the white evangelical spaces, was very much, that was the tip of the spear. We're speaking truth. Speak truth to power. Um, forgetting that we may actually not be. The ones who have the whole picture, um, and so, you know, truth telling is there.
I think that there is a place, um, [00:46:00] I just had a conversation with somebody who was like, you're a reluctant prophet. And I was like, I don't like that. I don't want to be a prophet, right? Cause there's a, there's a lot of the truth telling aspect to that. Um, but I don't lead with that. No, I don't lead with that.
And so as Christians, what are we leading with? We should be leading with spirit.
Andrew Camp: Thank you. As we begin to wrap up, um, a question I'd like to ask guests is, you know, and you've touched on it, but you know, as we summarize sort of, I guess, what is the story you want the church to tell?
Kathy Khang: I want the story to be about the flourishing of everyone, not of the [00:47:00] select. I want it to be the flourishing and the care of everyone and not just who's convenient.
Andrew Camp: Amen. Uh, no, thank you, Kathy. Your words have challenged me, you know, but also encouraged me, you know, and that's your book. You and Matt's book is, it's definitely worth a read in this year, just cause I loved. That it was co written and that you guys bounced ideas off of each other, expressed where you have failed, where you struggle, you know, and presenting a loving disagreement through a book, um, what is possible, um, for the church.
So, no, thank you, um, for this time, um. You know, and a few things before we wrap up, I like to end with a few fun questions in rapid fire [00:48:00] and have had, it's fun to hear different people's responses. And so what's one food you refuse to eat?
Oh,
Kathy Khang: um, there's not a lot. Yeah, there's not a lot refused to. Eat, um, raw meat, like a pâté. I've done a pâté, but, yeah. Okay, that's
Andrew Camp: fair, yeah. And then on the other end of the spectrum, what's the best thing you have ever eaten?
Kathy Khang: Oh gosh, that is so hard. Um, the best food memory, how's that? Cause I can't pick one best thing.
Um, I always think about the kimchi jjigae that my dad would make an offer to me late at [00:49:00] night. And that's the joke in our family. Like everybody else would say no, but I would be like, okay, I'll eat it. And so I think of those late nights and that kimchi jjigae as like the best food because it was With beautiful intention and impact
Andrew Camp: and for those of us who don't know what is kimchi jjigae
Kathy Khang: Yes, kimchi jjigae is so kimchi the fermented cabbage the side dish of my people Once it has fermented kind of past its peak, you can still use it.
And it's used in this stew. And there are different variations of it. You can add all sorts of different things. Um, but that's what kimchi jjigae is.
Andrew Camp: Okay. Awesome. And then finally, among chefs, there's a conversation about last meals, as in, if you knew you only had one last meal to enjoy. [00:50:00] And so if you knew you had one last meal to enjoy, Kathy, do you know what that would be and with whom you would share it with?
Kathy Khang: Oh, that's so ridiculously hard. Okay. So I would want to share it with as many of my, like, immediate friends and family. And it, it would be, it would be a Korean meal. It would be a small bowl of rice with like a bazillion side dishes, which is the great thing about a Korean meal is that you don't have to pick.
It's just a bunch of side dishes and my dad's kimchi jjigae.
Andrew Camp: Of course. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, um, for this time, Kathy. Um, it's been a real joy and a privilege, um, just to hear your heart, um, in person versus just reading it. Um, and so thank you, um, for this time. Thank you. Yeah. And if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing it with others.
Thanks for joining us on this [00:51:00] episode of the Biggest Table where we explore what it means to be transformed by God's love around the table and through food. Until next time, bye.