This spring, on Palm Sunday at dawn, my father‑in‑law, at the age of eighty‑one, was called home by God. We comforted one another, saying it was a blessed passing, and tried to send him off to heaven with joy. Yet losing a parent—no matter how old the child may be—brings a collapse of the heart and a profound sense of loss.
On the morning he passed, my husband had just finished leading the early‑dawn service at church when he suddenly clutched his chest in pain. Worried, I urged him to go to the emergency room, but he insisted on waiting a little longer. He pressed and tapped his chest as the pain continued.
When we returned home, we found a message on the answering machine: Father had passed away from a heart attack at the hospital. My husband had not yet heard the news, but his body had already begun to ache from the breaking of that deep, physical bond between parent and child. I realized anew how true it is that parents and children are one body.
After the funeral, my mother‑in‑law asked us to come help sort through Father’s belongings and see if anything important needed attention. As I stepped into the apartment where she would now live alone, I felt an unexpected awkwardness, as though the place had become strangely unfamiliar.
Mother‑in‑law laid out several notebooks Father had kept since immigrating. They were not store‑bought notebooks but handmade ones—old calendar pages and the blank backs of advertisements glued together with rice paste, lined carefully by hand. In them, he had recorded every Sunday sermon title, Scripture passage, and weekly attendance numbers from church—without missing a single week for years.
He had also written down each time he completed reading through the entire Bible. The count stopped at thirty‑nine times as of last year. And then there was one notebook filled with his prayers—page after page of tiny, earnest handwriting, each word written with the full sincerity of his soul.
“Almighty and eternal God! You hide Yourself beyond my sight, You dwell beyond my knowledge. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, Your ways are not my ways. Yet You breathed Your Spirit into my life, so that my heart might seek You and my soul might love You…
Though I hesitate in all things and fail in many, Your hand upholds my life. The eternal God is my dwelling place, and Your everlasting arms embrace me…
When I buy something, let me live as though I possess nothing; and when I have nothing, let me live as though I possess everything…
Though I cannot do the good I desire by my own strength, if I do any good, it is because You work within me and give me power…”
We could not tell whether these prayers were his own compositions or copied from somewhere. But what mattered was this: every day, Father wrestled spiritually through these long prayers, drawing closer to the Lord with each passing day of his life.
Ironically, during his lifetime, Mother often scolded him for not praying enough or not reading the Bible diligently. Yet now we discovered that, with a childlike purity of heart, he had quietly tended his soul—meditating, praying, and keeping his inner life sharp and sincere. Only now did his children and grandchildren understand and give thanks.
As the family discussed how to preserve his belongings, they decided that I should keep Father’s prayer notebook. I accepted it with deep gratitude.
People leave many things behind when they depart this world. And through those traces, they remain forever in the hearts of those who loved them. While Father‑in‑law was alive, I never truly understood him. But now, at last, I feel I know him—and I find myself wanting to walk the pilgrim path he walked, without shame.
The precious prayers he left behind come to me like a fragrant breeze at my window, drawing my heart closer again and again.
올 봄, 종료주일 새벽에 향년 81세가 되신 시아버님께서 하나님의 부름을 받으셨다. 호상이라고 서로 서로를 위로하며, 천국가신 아버님을 기쁨으로 환송하자고 하였지만, 막상 부모를 잃는다는 것은 자식의 나이가 많건 적건 간에 너무나 큰 무너짐이며 상실이었다.
시아버님이 돌아가시던 새벽, 남편은 교회서 새벽예배를 인도하고는 갑자기 심장이 아프다며 고통을 호소하였었다. 나는 염려가 되어 병원응급실로 가기를 권유했으나, 남편은 좀 기다려보자며, 계속되는 아픔 때문인지 한 손으로 가슴을 누르기도 하고, 두드리기도 하였다. 그런데 막상 집에 돌아와 보니, 시아버님이 병원에서 심장마비로 소천하셨다는 소식이 전화통에 남겨져 있었다. 남편의 의식은 그 사실을 알 수 없었지만, 이미 그의 몸은 아버님과의 육신의 작별로 인해 아파하고 있었던 것이었다. 부모와 자녀가 한 몸이라는 말이 새삼스럽게 경험케 되었다.
장례가 끝나자, 시어머님께서는 아버님의 유품을 정리하는데 와서 중요한 것이 있는지 봐달라고 하시었다. 이젠 홀로 남아 여생을 보내실 어머님의 아파트를 들어서면서, 왠지 낯선 감이 들 정도로 서먹해졌다. 시어머님은 아버님이 그 동안 이민 오셔서 써두었던 여러 권의 노트를 우리 앞에 펴놓았다. 그 노트들은 대학노트가 아닌, 해가 지난 달력들과 광고지들의 빈 뒷면을 밥풀로 부치고 줄을 그어 만든 공책들이었는데, 거기에는 수년동안 나가시던 교회 목사님의 설교제목과, 말씀, 교인 제적 수를 한 주도 빠짐없이 꼼꼼히 적어두셨다. 또한 아버님은 그 동안 읽으셨던 성경통독의 횟수도 하나 하나 써 내려가고 있었는데, 지난해로서 39번이라는 숫자에 가 머물러 있었다. 그리고, 아버님의 기도가 적힌 한 권의 노트였다. 그 노트에는 한자 한자 정성껏, 아버님의 심령을 바쳐서 쓰신 기도문들이 깨알처럼 매일 적혀나가고 있었다.
“전능하시고 영원하신 하나님이시여! 주님은 나의 시야밖에 숨어 계시고, 주님은 나의 지식밖에 계시 오며, 주님의 생각은 나의 생각과 다르고 주님의 길은 내 길과 다르나이다. 그래도 주님은 나의 생명에다가 주님의 영을 불어 넣으사, 나의 마음으로 주님을 찾게 하셨고 나의 심령을 기우려 주님을 사랑하게 하셨나이다… 나는 비록 만사에 주저하며 또 일에 실패한 자로되 주님의 손이 나의 생명을 안찰 하시고, 영원한 하나님이 내 처소가 되시고, 그 영원하신 팔로 나를 안으심을 감사합니다… 내가 혹 무엇을 살 때에는 아무 것도 없는 자 처럼하게 하시고, 내가 만일 아무 것도 가지지 못했을 때에도 모든 것을 가진 것처럼 하시옵소서..내가 비록 하고자 하는 선을 내힘으로 행하지 못하나 만일 내가 선을 행한다면, 그것은 주님이 내 안에서 역사 하시고 또 나에게 능력을 주시기 때문입니다…”로 쓰여진 기도문들은 아버님이 직접 쓰신 것인지, 아니면, 어느 누구의 기도문을 배껴쓰셨는지는 알 수는 없었다. 그러나, 시아버님은 매일 이러한 장문의 기도문을 갖고 영적인 씨름을 하면서 남은 여생을 주님 앞으로 가까이 가기를 주저하지 않았던 사실이었다. 사실 아버님이 살아생전 어머님으로부터, 기도도 잘하지 않고 성경도 잘 읽지 않는다고 구박(?)받으셨던 분이었다. 그러나, 아버님은 어린애와 같은 맑은 심령으로, 늘 묵상가운데, 하루의 정리된 기도를 가지고, 그 분의 영혼을 늘 예리하게 관리하셨음을 자손들은 비로소 알고 감사케 되었다. 온 가족들은 아버님의 유품을 어떻게 관리할 것인가를 의논하다가, 아버님의 기도 노트는 내가 관리하는 것이 좋겠다 하여, 소중하게 보관케 되었다.
사람들은 이 땅을 떠나면서, 많은 유품들을 남긴다. 그리고 그 남긴 삶의 흔적들을 통해 남은이들의 가슴에 영원히 남게된다. 시아버님이 이 땅에 계실 때에는, 나는 진정으로 그 분을 알 수 없었다. 그러나, 나는 이제냐 그 분을 알 것 만 같고, 아버님이 걸으셨던 순례의 길을 나도 부끄러움 없이 걸어야겠다는 다짐이 서게된다. 시아버님이 남기신 소중한 기도문들은 내 마음의 창가에 천리 향이 되어 자꾸만 다가온다.
It’s all right to be anything— every shape, every form. Creativity in the sky teaching us how to change without breaking.
A body walking toward peace, like waves spending their own force, like a symphony rising without a single center. A world leaning toward equity— strength learning restraint, weakness discovering lift, a shared music finding balance.
The conscience of the ordinary stirs awake, recognizing what has always been there— greatness folded quietly into common hours.
We remember what Hannah Arendt named: evil without spectacle, evil doing its work politely, efficiently. But listen now— ice breaking open, a thunder moving through us, shockwaves traveling outward, loosening what was frozen.
Something shifts inside the human mind— from reflex to reflection, from fear firing first to intention taking the lead— a turning from amygdala-driven reaction toward the steadier work of the prefrontal will.
Justice asks for light. For laws that breathe. For order with a pulse— like a painter’s initials hidden inside an eye, truths waiting patiently in plain sight, daffodils insisting along the curb.
And then— a thousand birds rise at once, a living current rewriting the sky, fluid as breath, warm with the closeness of beating hearts. They turn and fold together— clouds with intention— each shielding the other, fear losing its aim.
It’s all right. Life presses hard, seals the road— and still something flows, still form remembers how to break through.
A famous face tilts slightly away, seeing without staring. Cold sharpens the air, storms gather— yet the birds lift, past dread, past permission.
Darkness cannot hold the sound. Spring arrives loudly. Birth always does— a firecracker of love cracking the silence open.
Ah— a world we did not predict. A season new to the tongue.
Can you hear it— human dignity rising together, not finished, not flawless, but unmistakably alive?
Olympians on Milan–Cortina ice and snow, a thousand birds take flight— edges flashing, bodies carving light, energy braided with skill, beauty sharpened to precision.
They rise from frozen ground, from breath and muscle and resolve, finding height where gravity insists on limits. Each leap answers pressure, each turn widens the sky.
Against the cold, they learn freedom. Against the weight of expectation, they spread their wings farther still— flying not away from the world, but fully within it.
Here, on white silence and bright steel air, they reach the highest place— and from there, they fly widely, uncontained.
Drip, drip, pressing me down an inch at a time onto the earthen floor.
Life that begins in soil climbs its stems, rides the blazing sun through leaf and branch, and rises.
When it gathers, grows heavy, it descends again to nameless leaves, hiding in the soil, passing its seasons like a breath, until it rises once more through roots, through mist, through spring water.
Lying in my small tent, I feel the red handful that has returned to the soil below.
Deep in the forest is the depth of night. This is how I became friends with the earth: above the clouds, below the soil, searching for God.
In the end, what is strong will endure through gentleness.
Daily Sauntering 
You must be logged in to post a comment.