“Dandelion”

Posted on July 27, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

Today I complete my seventy-seventh year upon this generous earth,

and I receive the day as one receives morning light—

without deserving it, yet full of gratitude.

Yet while I rejoiced, another birthday was unfolding beyond my sight.

Somewhere near Vladivostok

an old Korean family gathered wild dandelions,

not to celebrate life but to preserve it;

after seventy years of exile in Uzbekistan they had returned,

only to discover that home itself had become a stranger.

Others remained in Central Asia,

while descendants of those sent

long ago to the sugarcane fields

of Mexico and Cuba

still carried Korea

as an invisible homeland

flowering within the heart.

I salute them all!

For every diaspora knows what the dandelion knows.

Its root descends into darkness

without complaint;

its countless seeds surrender themselves to the free winds of heaven;

its leaves heal without boasting;

it asks neither fame nor applause,

only another spring in which to bloom wherever it has fallen.

So let me also be a dandelion.

Not seeking greatness,

but faithfulness;

but rootedness;

but the quiet grace of giving life

wherever the Creator has scattered me.

Water finds the lowest place

and becomes the sea.

Nature is complete simply

by being itself.

So perhaps the life

rather be also the simplest—

much perfect at every moment,

the meal shared with one’s beloved,

the child’s song across the ocean,

the brother’s laughter,

the blessing of friends,

the ordinary day received with little hand wave and moments of smiling.

This is my birthday.

This is everyone’s birthday.

The birthday of every exile

and every pilgrim,

every forgotten soul

and every hopeful child,

every wandering seed

carried across history by unseen winds.

O Creator,

thank You for these seventy-seven years.

Let me live and die as one small dandelion:

deeply rooted,

freely scattered,

quietly healing,

always turning my face toward Your everlasting Light.

— TaeHun Yoon, July 7, 2026 (Revised on 7/8/2026)

No photo description available.
May be an image of ocotillo, grass, nature and twilight
May be an image of flower and grass
May be an image of dandelion
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“Meeting After a Quarter Century Passed”

Posted on July 27, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

This afternoon,

the children of the mockingbirds

gathered on the backyard fence,

speaking all at once

as though they knew

someone precious

had come home.

Two little puppies

rested upon the grass,

their breathing

slower than the summer wind.

The weather forecaster

spoke of possible floods.

He did not know

one had already begun

within my heart.

After twenty-five years,

Rev. Tim Riss

sat beside the table from me.

Between Newburgh

and Knoxville,

between the North

and the South,

between yesterday

and today,

there had never been

such a long road.

Yet friendship

remembered the way

without a map.

We spoke

until lunch

forgot itself.

Our words

walked into valleys

where younger pastors

still waited,

where conference rooms

were filled

with hope and uncertainty,

where churches

were never buildings alone,

but hearts

learning to become

the Body of Christ.

Tim carried

the weight of bishops,

districts,

pastors,

and congregations.

I carried

the prayers

of local churches,

hospital rooms,

and veterans

whose silence

often preached

better than sermons.

Different assignments.

The same Shepherd.

He thinks

with remarkable clarity,

Linguistically includes Latin and Korean

with eyes of transparency.

I feel

before I understand.

His voice

is a quiet stream,

in wisdom.

Mine,

a hillside waterfall.

Yet God,

who delights

in harmony

more than sameness,

once called us

to stand together,

caring for those

who were answering

their call

to ordained ministry.

There we learned

that every candidate

was more than a file,

every elder,

every deacon,

more than a title,

every life

another page

of God’s unfinished Gospel.

Looking at him,

I smiled.

The rounded face.

The shining head.

The years

had become brothers

before we did.

“My pastor in spirit,”

I said.

“My brother in spirit,”

he replied.

No bishop

could have ordained

a deeper bond.

Now he journeys north again,

through Asheville,

toward home.

I remain

beneath the Tennessee sky,

already missing him.

Perhaps

the mockingbirds

will greet him

when he reaches Newburgh.

Perhaps

the Easter lilies

will carry his quiet voice

into my garden

next spring.

Perhaps

this is how

God teaches us

that distance

is only geography,

never love.

Our strength

grows lighter.

Our steps

become slower.

But gratitude

ripens

like late summer fruit,

sweetest

when the branches

begin to bend.

The North

and the South

are no longer directions.

They have become

two chambers

of one grateful heart.

He travels

toward tomorrow.

I travel

through remembrance.

Both of us

are walking

the same road—

toward the eternal home

already growing

within us.

This evening,

the mockingbirds

still sing.

The puppies

still sleep.

The rain

may yet come.

But another flood

has already blessed the earth—

the overflowing grace

of seeing

a beloved brother again.

And today,

I am

among the happiest

of God’s pilgrims.

— TaeHun Yoon

July 21, 2026

Tim’s wife: Genie Abrams, is the author of few novels, a former journalist and public-relations director for a variety of local, statewide and national nonprofits. She served a term on Newburgh, NY, city council member but is out on parole, and was the Poet Laureate of Newburgh from 2022-2024. She published her poetry in “Pretty Nearly All Natural.”

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“Living in the Well”

Posted on July 27, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

—while in conversation with Rev. Tim Riss

There are those

who spend a lifetime

living inside a well.

The sky above them

is neither false

nor complete.

It is simply

the measure

their eyes have learned.

To know

the boundary of one’s vision

is already

the beginning of wisdom.

The tragedy

is not that we see too little,

but that we mistake

our little

for the whole.

We give

a single name

to a field of wildflowers,

yet each blossom

receives the morning differently,

each petal

remembers another rain,

each fragrance

carries an unrepeatable hymn.

We say,

“These are leaves,”

while every leaf

writes its own scripture

with light,

wind,

and time.

Who, then,

truly lives

inside the well?

The one enclosed by stone?

Or the one

who has traveled the world

yet believes

he has seen enough?

Both may stand

beneath the same heaven,

seeing only

what certainty permits.

I have learned

that peace does not begin

when one culture

judges another,

nor when one tradition

claims the higher ground.

Peace begins

when we hear

the violin

welcoming the bamboo flute,

when ink

bows before watercolor,

when mountains

share their silence

with the sea.

Nature has never argued

about superiority.

The forest

lets oak,

pine,

maple,

and wild grass

drink

from the same rain.

Beauty

does not erase difference.

It gathers differences

into harmony.

Perhaps

the Creator hid truth

like light

passing through stained glass—

one sun,

many colors,

none sufficient

without the others.

So I pray

not to escape the well,

nor to condemn it,

but to keep enlarging

the circle of wonder

until every flower,

every culture,

every human face,

becomes another window

through which

the infinite beauty of God

quietly enters.

— TaeHun Yoon

July 21, 2026

P.S. At one point, we reflected on the striking contrast between Donald Trump and St. Bernard — a vivid pairing of pride set against humility

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“Peace with Justice”

Posted on July 27, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

Peace is not the silence left behind by exhausted armies.

Peace is justice learning to breathe through human hands.

It is the widow who no longer fears the night. It is the child who falls asleep without listening for sirens. It is the stranger welcomed before becoming a refugee.

Every budget is a confession.

It tells us what we worship, what we fear, and whose future we are willing to purchase.

The world spends its treasure for stronger weapons,

while heaven asks whether we have learned to strengthen the brokenhearted.

No nation can secure itself forever has collapsed within its own gates.

The Strait of Hormuz holds the world’s attention.

Markets tremble. Ships hesitate.

Yet history has never been healed by the movement of warships.

The greater voyage is the one from suspicion to trust, from revenge to reconciliation.

Gaza still counts its mornings with tears.

The West Bank waits beneath the weight of uncertainty.

Lebanon remembers explosions long after the smoke has vanished.

Every ruined home asks the same question:

Who will rebuild the human heart before rebuilding the stones?

The Korean Peninsula still carries an unfinished sentence.

Seventy-three years have passed since guns fell mostly silent,

yet peace remains unsigned in the conscience of the world.

An armistice is only a pause.

Peace requires Imagination greater than fear and courage greater than memory.

Soon August returns,

bringing Hiroshima and Nagasaki

not as history alone, but as prophets whose shadows still stretch across every generation.

The mushroom cloud ever belonged to one nation.

Its warning belongs to all humanity.

Weapons cross borders with astonishing ease.

Hopes till waits for a passport.

How strange that death travels first, while mercy must stand in line.

Yet I have seen

flowers breaking through cracked pavement,

neighbors sharing bread across old divisions,

former enemies learning each other’s names,

church bells ringing louder than distant artillery.

These, too, are signs.

Not spectacular.

Not celebrated on evening news.

But they are the quiet architecture of God’s kingdom.

The Church must never become comfortable inside silence.

Its calling is older than every empire,

to stand where suffering has been forgotten,

to speak before fear writes another law,

to kneel before God so that no one must kneel before violence.

Justice without peace becomes another struggle for power.

Peace without justice becomes another name for surrender.

God calls us to hold them together,

as rivers meet the sea,

as mercy embraces truth,

as Christ stretches out both wounded hands

to gather a broken world

into one beloved human family.

– TaeHun Yoon, July 24, 2026

(After reading “THE PEACE WITH JUSTICE PORTFOLIO JULY 2026” by Colleen Moore,

Director of Peace With Justice

General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church)

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For WanHee’s 73rd Birthday

Posted on July 27, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

Seventy-three years—

and still
you teach the morning
how to bloom.

Your hands
have painted love
into our home,

your heart
has turned ordinary days
into grace.

Each day I give thanks to God.

Long before we met,
He prepared someone
so beautiful,
so kind,
so gracious,
and so lovely
to walk beside me.

In you,
God has given me
a life of comfort,
of blessing,
and of quiet happiness.

For this,
my heart overflows
with gratitude—
every single day.

Thank you
for walking beside me
through every season,
sharing every joy,
and carrying every burden
with love.

May God’s light
continue to shine upon you,

and may your life
keep flowering
with joy,
peace,
gentleness,
and quiet beauty.

Happy 73rd Birthday,
my beloved.

With all my love,

TaeHun, July 17, 2026

https://www.facebook.com/wanhee.yoon

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“Beauty of Gyeongbokgung Palace”

Posted on July 23, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

The deepest beauty of Gyeongbokgung
does not rest
in painted eaves,
weathered pillars,
or roofs
that lift themselves
toward the Korean sky.

Neither is it found
only among ancient pines,
where the wind
recites forgotten dynasties,
nor in the careful hands
that once measured
wood and stone
into harmony.

Its true beauty
dwells within a people—

a people
who remember
what flames could never erase.

Kingdoms collapsed.
Palaces were consumed.
History bent
beneath invasion,
division,
and the long labor
of grief.

Yet the first design
never vanished.

Hidden beneath ash,
it waited
like a seed
sleeping through winter,
holding within itself
the memory of spring.

So the phoenix returns.

Not because
it has escaped the fire,
but because
it has learned
that fire
cannot destroy
its original song.

Stone rises again.
Gate follows gate.
Courtyard answers courtyard.

But what has truly returned
is not architecture.

It is the quiet courage
of a nation
remembering
its own face.

At Hyangwonji,
the moon lays
its white silence
upon the water,
as though heaven itself
were reading
the ancient heart of Korea.

At Gyeonghoeru,
where earth
offers its reflection
to the sky,
the unseen spirit
of the people
walks among the columns,
gentle as evening light.

Simple,
yet inexhaustible.

Radiant,
yet without pride.

Tonight,
across the Pacific,
another moon
rises over my home.

Its silver path
crosses oceans,
mountains,
and the years
until it arrives
within my heart.

Then I know—

distance
has never measured
the homeland.

The homeland
lives wherever
memory remains faithful,
where love
still bows
before its beginning.

For the greatest palace
is never built
of cedar,
granite,
or gold.

It is raised
within the human spirit—

where hope
survives every ruin,
where beauty
is reborn
from faithful remembrance,

and where,
like the eternal phoenix,

a nation
rises again,

bearing light
for generations
yet to come.

— TaeHun Yoon
July 23, 2026 (Edited)

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“When the Earth Cries Out”

Posted on July 15, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

(For Joan Sebastian Guerrero, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and all whose names become prayers)

The earth cried out before anyone spoke.

Before the reports were written. Before the questions were asked. Before explanations searched for words that could never mend a shattered morning.

Joan Sebastian Guerrero, twenty-six years old, left home to earn another day’s bread.

Like countless others, he carried no weapon— only work, only hope, only another ordinary Monday.

Yet somewhere fear had already loaded its weapon.

The streets of Biddeford had not prepared themselves for mourning.

The sea kept breathing against the rocky shore.

Gulls circled above the harbor.

Morning opened its quiet hands.

Then, without warning,

another human life returned to the heart of God.

Only days before, another name—

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo—

had entered the same painful silence.

How many names must heaven remember before the earth remembers what every human life is worth?

Borders divide nations.

Fear divides neighbors.

But the image of God bears no passport.

It crosses every language, every race, every line drawn by human hands.

I think of the Psalmist:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

Near enough to gather a mother’s tears.

Near enough to hear the trembling voice of a frightened immigrant.

Near enough to stand beside those who no longer know whether tomorrow will welcome them or wound them.

The Church must not stand at a safe distance.

Our calling has never been to explain suffering,

but to enter it.

To pray where others curse.

To embrace where others reject.

To speak truth where silence protects injustice.

To love until fear loses its authority.

Perhaps

this is how the kingdom of God still comes—

not with louder voices,

not with stronger weapons,

but with ordinary disciples

who refuse to surrender compassion,

who keep opening the doors of welcome,

who continue lighting candles even when darkness appears endless.

The earth still cries out.

The blood still cries out.

The Holy Spirit still groans within creation.

And Christ,

who once carried His own cross through the violence of an empire,

still walks beside every wounded traveler,

calling each by name,

until justice flows again,

until mercy embraces truth,

until every stranger finds a home,

and every tear is gathered

into the everlasting peace

of God.

– TaeHun Yoon, July 14, 2026

May be an image of smiling and lake
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“The Morning Houston Forgot the Moon”

Posted on July 13, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

It was my birthday.

The morning came
as every birthday morning comes—
light entering quietly,
birds rehearsing
their ordinary hymns.

Yet far away,
over Houston,
another morning
lost its way.

Houston—
the city that once
lifted human footprints
toward the moon,
the city that taught children
to look upward
with wonder,
forgot,
for a moment,
the sacredness
of the earth beneath its feet.

A white work van
crossed Magnolia Park.

Nothing remarkable.

Only working men
carrying their lunches,
their tools,
their unfinished dreams.

Among them
rode Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

For thirty-five years
he had lived in Houston.

He built houses
where strangers became families.

He raised three sons
who called America
their own home.

His hands
left no monument,

only roofs against the rain,
walls filled with laughter,
doors opening
to another tomorrow.

Then,

within a few brief moments,

the ordinary morning
was broken.

A stop.

Confusion.

A gunshot.

Dust rising.

Voices trembling.

One father
did not return home.

Somewhere,
a son heard
his father’s desperate cry
through the small window
of a phone.

No child
should inherit
such a memory.

I do not know
every truth
of that morning.

But I know this.

Life
does not belong
to those who carry authority.

Life belongs
to the One
who first bent over dust
and breathed.

Only God
creates life.

Only God
holds its final breath.

Every law
must kneel
before that greater law.

Otherwise,

justice becomes noise,
strength becomes fear,
and power
forgets
its own humanity.

I think
of immigrant hands.

Hands
that harvest fruit,
pour concrete,
hang drywall,
care for the elderly,
prepare our meals,
clean our schools,
build our churches.

Quiet hands.

Faithful hands.

America
stands upon them
more than it knows.

Lorenzo—

your name
is no longer hidden.

It walks
through Houston.

It is carried
by those
who refuse silence.

It is spoken
in prayers,
in marches,
in tears,
and in the quiet hope
that truth
will not remain buried.

Freedom
is not simply
crossing a border.

Freedom
is leaving home
for work
and returning home
to those
who wait at the table.

Justice
is not revenge.

Justice
is truth
walking patiently
until mercy
finds every wounded place.

Even now,

another Voice
echoes across history:

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”

The cry
from Golgotha
has never disappeared.

It still rises
where innocence suffers.

It still waits
for hearts
willing to listen.

Yet beyond the cross,

morning comes.

The stone moves.

The garden breathes again.

The Resurrected Christ
still walks
through fearful cities,

calling every nation
beyond fear,
beyond hatred,
beyond revenge,
toward love.

Perhaps
that is America’s
unfinished journey.

Perhaps
that is Houston’s
greater moonshot—

not reaching
another world,

but learning
to cherish
every life
in this one.

And may July seventh
be remembered,

not only
as the morning
Houston forgot the moon,

but as the morning
when many hearts
began again
to remember

the image of God
shining
within every human face.

– TaeHun Yoon, July 13, 2026

No photo description available.
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“Coming Home”

Posted on July 12, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

Thirty-eight thousand feet above the earth, feel like as in the Heaven,

the airplane glides through a white silence.

Clouds drift beneath me like unwritten letters.The wing bends gently west to east, stitching continents together with a silver thread.

Canada fades. Alaska loosens its grip. Russia passes beneath like an old dream half remembered at dawn.

And somewhere ahead—

Korea.

Not merely a country, but a pulse beneath layers of time.

A tiny life crosses decades.

Life continues without asking permission from absence.

My thoughts arrive before I do.

The solemn breathing of Brahms’ Requiem rising through a concert hall.

Ancient palaces standing between memory and glass towers.

The restless trains of Seoul carrying millions of stories through the veins of the city.

Fifty years have passed.

The town of my childhood has vanished into highways, apartments, and names I no longer recognize.

Yet disappearanceis not the same as loss.

My mother’s voice remains.

They live in a country no map can display.

Half a century folds inward like the closing pages of a beloved book.

Below me, mountains gather in silence.

Rivers remember their direction.

Roots wait patiently beneath stone and pavement.

Distance becomes memory.

Memory becomes prayer.

And deep beneath history, beneath nations, beneath the noise of every age,

A voice crossing a thousand years, calling from the shore between myth and homeland.

Soon the wheels will touch earth.

Soon I will step again onto the soil that formed me.

Home is not a Place waiting at the end of a journey.

Home is the light carried within the traveler.

It crosses oceans. It survives years.

It sings through every departure.

And at last,

it brings us back to ourselves.

– TaeHun Yoon, June 1, 2026

May be an image of aircraft, cloud, fog and twilight
May be an image of Angel Oak tree

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“The Day After Election”

Posted on July 12, 2026 by TaeHun Yoon 윤 태헌 尹 太憲

Some won.

Some lost.

But dawn arrived

without choosing sides.

The buses breathed along their routes.

Shop doors opened

to familiar streets.

A farmer touched the soil

still holding yesterday’s rain.

A mother set bowls upon the table.

An old man watered tomatoes

leaning toward summer.

And the people remained.

Not as winners.

Not as losers.

But as people.

The election passed.

Life did not.

Children still hurried to school.

Workers still carried lunch pails.

The market still exchanged

its small hopes for another day.

And somewhere,

beneath all the speeches,

dreams resumed their quiet work.

People are heaven.

The old mountains knew this

before flags learned to wave,

before numbers filled television screens,

before victory and defeat

borrowed the language of eternity.

People are heaven.

Yet heaven is not a wishing well.

The seed cannot demand spring.

The river cannot hurry the sea.

The heart must become spacious enough

to receive what descends from above.

Too often

we ask for harvest

with unbroken ground.

We ask for peace

without reconciliation.

We ask for justice

without sacrifice.

Forgetting the heaven within,

we lift our empty hands upward

while keeping our hearts closed.

We ask heaven to serve us.

Yet heaven has always chosen

another road.

It walks through people.

Through tired hands.

Through neighbors sharing burdens.

Through strangers learning

to become neighbors.

Through the unnoticed holiness

of daily bread.

Sometimes discipline grows weak.

The dove forgets the wind

and seeks only comfort.

The eagle forgets the sky

and follows the noise below.

Words lose their roots.

Truth becomes an echo.

Freedom becomes a slogan.

Justice becomes a banner.

And heaven falls silent.

Not absent.

Only waiting.

Waiting beneath the noise

as a spring waits beneath stone.

The mountains remain.

The wounded remain.

The unfinished work remains.

Tasks greater than mountains

stand before us.

And the road ahead

is long.

Long as history.

Long as repentance.

Long as hope.

Yet tomorrow morning

the farmer will return to the field.

The mother will prepare breakfast.

The old man will water his garden.

Children will laugh.

Neighbors will meet.

And heaven,

having rested among ordinary people,

will rise again

in their footsteps.

– TaeHun Yoon, June 5, 2026

May be an image of train
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