Giving Ourselves Grace - Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of Second Grace LA

As I write this, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has just been murdered.

America is a violent place, it always has been, and senseless violence like this killing is too common, so common in fact, that a school shooting was happening in another city at the same time. It's hard to believe sometimes that there's a better America out there, waiting for us. In my short life, Kennedy, King, and countless others have been shot and killed for holding unpopular opinions. Most of us say this violence has to stop, but fewer of us act to make that possible. What do we do now? Will it be different this time? I invite you to practice Radical Hope and Radical Love around gun violence. It doesn't need to be this way.

The article below was almost finished when I heard the news, but I think it still carries the message I want to share. We must become practitioners of these practices and stand for an end to gun violence and a better place to call home.

In peace,

Paul

Over the past month, we've talked about the power of Radical Hope and Radical Love to create the world we're working for.

Today, I want to talk about how I keep these practices fresh and how to make hope a habit.

Radical Hope and Radical Love are the most powerful change agents in history, and can and will prevail over whatever negative situations we find ourselves in right now.

This isn't denial, this is affirmation. When we practice these principles, we can stand in the midst of pain, suffering, and misunderstanding, and change the world by our very presence.

This power requires us to witness the worst behavior in people and love them, the worst actions of our society, and stand with hope for a better future. When thoughts of hope become habitual, you will remain calm in the face of danger, hopeful in the face of despair, and loving in the face of hatred. You might have met people and wondered how they bear up under the challenges facing them; that's what these practices are all about. When you meet someone who is practicing Radical Hope and love, you might not recognize it right away, but regardless, you benefit from their presence, whether you know it or not.

One way that these practices present themselves is in service to others, and the best expression of this is called Radical Hospitality.

The Birth of Radical Hospitality

In 2014, in the creation of Lava Mae, I was part of a working group defining what Radical Hospitality meant in our work. We didn't invent the concepts of Radical Love and Radical Hope, but we were intentional in how we could apply them to effect change in the way we delivered services.

I became a Radical Hospitality evangelist, practicing it on the streets with our guests and sharing those experiences with schools, churches, and professional organizations across the U.S. I've carried that message everywhere I've been since then, talking with service organizations about how to apply these principles to improve their guest/client outcomes and their employees' job satisfaction.

And I'm nowhere near the best example of putting these principles into action.

I have watched people I worked with perform acts of kindness that have left me speechless, acutely aware of my own inability to respond with such selfless love. I've had to learn to forgive myself, to give myself a little grace for being human, and today I want to discuss how being more aware of receiving and witnessing grace can help us navigate dark times.

The Twelve Daily Actions: A Spiritual Foundation

Recently, I shared the story of the Twelve Daily Actions, the compact spiritual tool I've used over the past 37 years to get me through most emotional barriers. For the first 5 years, I left that packet of papers on my nightstand and read it at the start and end of almost every day. At some point, all those words were locked into my memory, and I left that dog-eared sheaf in a file drawer. The actions those words required of me became habitual, maybe even written, but always available to me.

My most outstanding spiritual achievement? I've been able to reduce the time that elapses between facing a challenge and looking for the spiritual solution.

And this year has served up plenty of challenges.

The people I work with most, those who are still unhoused, have challenges piling up all around them: there's still no housing, the agencies and programs that serve them have been largely defunded, and if you are undocumented, or LGBTQIA+, the law has not just turned its back on you, it has put a target on your back.

Programs that support people experiencing domestic violence, substance use disorder, an array of mental health challenges; those who face racism, sexism, and religious persecution have had their rights diminished or removed.

So, what's the way forward from here. What are the solutions available to us?

Take Care of Your Health First

If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, that would be the rational response. It's been like this all year for me and many of my friends. Stepping back has been forced on me a little bit with being stuck at home, but it's also given me a chance to take care of myself more than I'm used to.

There's a line I like from one of my spiritual books: "Make sure your own house is in order, since you can't give away what you haven't got." I don't know a better way to say it, I need to take care of my health, my home, and my work life before I can share what solutions have worked for me. Otherwise it's just theory and I try to not waste other people's time with my theories on how they should act. I've been preached to enough to spot someone who isn't speaking from their own experience.

When I get too tired or frustrated, compassion fatigue sets in. This is when the actions I take ring hollow. This is when I can't be a good employee or a good boss. This happened when Wardo was killed, and I left that job because I didn't know how to go on with that level of pain. I retreated and took a couple of months to recover enough to take the next action, creating SecondGrace.LA.

This happens to my peers too, and we try to support each other, aware that there's a high turnover rate in our business for a reason.

The Power of Forgiveness

The solution I was taught is to look for my part in any of the circumstances I find myself in. The biggest danger I face in practicing hope is having expectations for how other people should behave. That's usually the core of the pain I'm in, and the path out of that pain is forgiveness.

Emmet Fox has a great exercise for forgiveness, and it works well for me, so I take out a sheet of paper and go through that process. Then I'm free. That's a brave thing to say, but I lose the resentment instantly. Sometimes it's taken away so suddenly that I don't notice until, some time later, something reminds me of that person, or that pain, and it's just a sad memory. The source, the pain itself, is completely gone.

Understanding Moral Stress

Another aspect of unmet expectations is moral stress—the anxiety we feel when we can't fulfill what feels like moral obligations. When you know someone needs help and you can't provide it, when policies prevent you from doing what you know is right. When you watch good people suffer because systems are broken.

I've experienced this countless times. Watching someone I care about get sicker on the streets and feeling powerless while they wait months for housing. The look, either dismay or resignation, when I have to tell someone I can't help them get whatever they need.

The solution is never to face this kind of despair alone, and my friends are never surprised when they see me cry. I turn to them often, several times a week in fact, and over many years, I've built a group of friends who I can call any time of the day or night. This is the accomplishment in my life I'm most grateful for, and all I had to do was show up and learn to tell the truth.

From Trauma-Informed to Healing-Centered

One of the first terms I heard when I began this work, after 'lived experience,' was 'trauma-informed care.' This entails creating a treatment plan for someone based on their specific challenges. I've talked about Trabian Shorters 'asset framing' approach before, and this is one of the core principles of what Dr. Shawn Ginwright calls "healing-centered engagement."

Like asset framing, this approach "moves beyond 'what happened to you' to 'what's right with you' and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events."

This is also one of the core principles of Radical Hospitality, and this shift matters for us as much as for the people we serve. Healing-centered engagement "has an explicit focus on restoring and sustaining the adults who attempt to heal youth—a healing the healers approach."

This approach is essential because treating ourselves first is not selfish; it's the key to staying fresh, engaged, and useful.

Learning Human-Centered Design

I first heard ideas like this when we were starting Lava Mae. All of this owes much to Human-Centered Design, as taught by the Stanford group, IDEO.

Taking the IDEO Human-Centered Design course on Coursera is the easiest way to access this foundational concept. I've done it twice now, to stay fresh. It's free, and I recommend this to anyone who wants to learn how to stay 'people-focused' in their service delivery.

Moving Forward with Grace

Years ago, long before I started this work, I was moved by the lyrics of Nick Drake's song "Fly" and the concept of asking for another chance—a "second grace." That phrase stayed with me through decades of life changes, and when it came time to name my nonprofit, I knew it had to be SecondGrace.LA. The idea that we all need and deserve second chances, that grace is something we can give ourselves and each other, became central to everything we do.

We belong to each other. The person sleeping under the freeway belongs to us. The volunteer who shows up every week belongs to us. The case manager's burnout belongs to us. We are family—not because of DNA, but because of Radical Love.

You are not responsible for solving homelessness single-handedly. You are not responsible for fixing broken systems overnight. You are not responsible for everyone's story ending the way you hope.

You will succeed by showing up with love, treating every person with dignity, and doing your part while caring for yourself well enough to keep doing your part.

We belong to each other. And we do this work from love.

In love and service,

Paul

Resources for Self-Care and Support

Additional Reading

  • Ginwright, S. (2018). "The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement"

  • Neff, K. & Germer, C. (2024). "The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook for Burnout"

  • SAMHSA. "Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services"

If your organization needs training on trauma-informed care or healing-centered engagement, contact SAMHSA or local training organizations specializing in these approaches.

Connect with Second Grace LA:

Letters to the Housed, CommunityPaul Asplund#RadicalHope, RadicalHospitality, Love, CompassionFatigue, Forgiveness, MoralStress, TraumaInformed, HealingCentered, GraceComment