Daily Sauntering

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, (Revised on 7/8/2026)

• Unedited

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

How quietly
joy entered the house.

Before I awoke,
my wife had already arranged
a birthday card
written with the handwriting
that has accompanied my life for decades,
beside roses
she gathered from our own backyard.

The table became an altar.

My youngest son
came early,
leaving a box
of my favorite doughnuts
without asking
for anything in return.

Love,
I have learned,
often arrives
before the one who receives it
has opened the door.

At noon
my wife and I
shared a simple meal
at a nearby restaurant.

Nothing extravagant.

Only another chapter
of the long conversation
called marriage.

Returning home,
we were welcomed
by another miracle of our century.

My second daughter,
holding my grandson,
appeared upon the small glowing window.

Across hundreds of miles
they sang,

“Happy Birthday.”

For a few moments
distance forgot itself.

Soon afterward,
another gift arrived—

from my eldest daughter
and my son-in-law—

nuts gathered
from many places,
a thoughtful charger
for the telephone
through which our voices
continue finding one another.

Even technology,
when touched by love,
becomes sacramental.

Then my elder brother
called from Texas.

His laughter
still carried
our childhood.

He reminded me,
with the affection
only an older brother possesses,
what foods
old men should now eat.

So the day continued.

Greeting after greeting.

Friends.

Church members.

Relatives.

Companions
who have walked beside me
through years
too numerous to count.

Each blessing received
called forth another blessing returned.

The hours
flowed quietly,
like water
finding its own way
toward the sea.

Yet joy
never belongs
to only one household.

While I celebrated,

somewhere
near Vladivostok,

an elderly Korean family
walked into open fields,

gathering wild dandelions,

not for beauty,

but for tomorrow’s meal.

Seventy years
after being driven away
to Uzbekistan,

they have returned
to the land
their ancestors once called home.

Yet home
has become another foreign country.

How does one celebrate
a birthday
when memory itself
has no permanent address?

Others remain
in Uzbekistan,

keeping Korea alive
only through lullabies,
old recipes,
family names,
and tears
their grandchildren
may never fully understand.

And across another ocean,

the descendants
of those who departed
for the sugarcane plantations
of Mexico
and Cuba

still carry,
deep beneath successful lives,
a homeland
that continues flowering
inside the heart.

Diaspora
is not merely migration.

It is the soul’s
ancient instinct
to return.

Perhaps
that is why
the dandelion
has become
one of God’s quiet teachers.

Its root
travels downward
without complaint,

searching
for hidden water.

Its countless seeds
trust invisible winds
more faithfully
than certainty.

Its leaves
heal wounds
without announcing
their medicine.

It asks
for no applause.

It competes
with no flower.

Still,
every spring,
it returns.

Perhaps
this is greatness.

Not success.

Not recognition.

Not monuments.

Only
the quiet courage
to keep living,
to keep giving,
to keep blooming
where God
has scattered us.

Today,
I was happy.

That happiness
needed no explanation.

Water
always chooses
the lowest place,

and there
becomes
an ocean.

The forest
never envies
the mountain.

The stars
never compete
with dawn.

Creation
is complete
simply
by being itself.

Perhaps
the deepest beauty
is never extraordinary.

It is found
in the unnoticed moment,
the ordinary meal,
the familiar voice,
the backyard rose,
the child’s song,
the brother’s laughter,
the friend’s blessing,
the faithful hand
that still reaches
across the table.

Today
is the most beautiful day
I have yet been given.

Not because
it is my birthday,

but because
I discovered again

that every birthday
belongs
to all humanity.

To every child
just beginning.

To every elder
still remembering.

To every exile
still longing.

To every pilgrim
still walking.

To every dandelion
whose seeds
the Creator
continues sending
into the winds of history.

O Creator,

thank You

for allowing me
to live
as one small dandelion—

rooted deeply,

scattered widely,

healing quietly,

and always
turning my face
toward Your everlasting Light.

— TaeHun Yoon, July 7, 2026

나는 드디어 서울 남산에 올랐다.

처음이다.

평생을 그리워했다.

남산은 그렇게 새롭도록 나를 맞고 있었다.

수억년을 기다리면서.

이성계가 도읍을 한성으로 옮기며 나라의 중심이 되였다.

참으로 아름답다.

아무리 높은 현대식 고층 건물도 병풍처럼 둘러싼 고즈녁한 산들 품에 묻혀 있다.

마치도 소란스런 대 도시의 소음들이 바다 밑 바닥에 가라않아 있듯이.

그렇게 나를 맞고 있었다.

어서 오소, 나의 벗.

어찌 이제야 왔는가?

그 수 많은 세월의 풍파를 견디며 준비해 둔 마음, 참으로 풍성한 가슴이야 내 어이 모르리요.

시리다 못해 이제는 프루른 숲에 묻힌 그대의 가슴, 그 어느 시절엔가 어느 나라의 정기로 그대 심장에 대못 박아 피 눈물 흐르던 시절이 얻그제고, 대포로 그대 정수리 흩어버린 날이 어제로고.

아! 그런 강물의 흐름을 몇고비 넘어, 어미 등에 엎혀 겨울강 건넌 날이 어제런가!

남북으로 흩어져 헐뜯어도 피속에 흐르는 사랑 어찌하랴.

형제는 싸우며 자란다는데!

남에 나라에 흩어져 품싹 팔고 생명바쳐 일군 나라, 이제는 측은즉심 어려운 이웃나라 보살피며 나가보세!

대동세상 일궈보세!

팔각정 마당에 오늘도 사물놀이 한마당 덩실 덩실 더덩실!

남산 촟대 끝에 높이 오르니 알라스카, 스모키 마운틴, 멕시코, 브라질, 모두 모두 눈 앞에 모이네! 뉴질런드, 아프리카, 유럽 그리고 아시아…

이젠 남산에 모두 모여, 평화와 번영의 다음 천년의 삼족오가 되여 알바트로스로 날아보세!

윤태헌 2026년 6월21일

– For Changchun Methodist Church, 120 Years

A clear stream
runs through the world,

not with noise,
not with power,

but with the patience
of water
finding every thirsty root.

On a Sunday morning,
the prophet speaks again:

“These waters flow toward the east…
and wherever the river goes,
everything shall live.”

And suddenly
Ezekiel’s river
crosses a century
and arrives here—

to Changchun,
where prayer first gathered
beneath humble roofs
in the summer of 1906.

Before towers,
before crowded streets,
before the rush of students
and the glow of screens,

there was a spring.

A handful of believers.
A gospel carried westward
from Jeong-dong.
A dream that faith
might take root
among new homes
and dusty roads.

The river began there.

I remember another stream.

A child bending over clear water,
chasing minnows
through sunlight and stone.

The creek seemed endless then.

Yet life carried me
through distant lands,
through years of ministry,
through departures
and returns.

And after the long road,

I find myself again
standing in the water.

Not in that childhood stream,
but in the broad current
of the ChangChun River,

where memory,
history,
and grace
meet together.

The river has grown wider.

Its source remains unseen.

Yet it still carries
the same living water.

For one hundred and twenty years
this church has stood
beside that clear stream—

through occupation and war,

through rebuilding and hope,

through generations
of students,
workers,
mothers,
fathers,
pastors,
and dreamers.

Here prayers were whispered.

Here tears were received.

Here young voices
heard their calling.

Here weary souls
found a place to rest.

And the water kept flowing.

Today,
I hear another witness.

The final breath
of John Steinbeck
gathered into three simple letters-

Soli Deo Gloria.

Glory to God alone.

The river does not praise itself.

The stream does not drink itself.

The water moves onward,
giving life
wherever it goes.

So may Changchun remain
a clear stream
for the city and world.

A river for the weary.

A baptism of living words
for generations yet unseen.

And when another century arrives,

may those who stand here
still hear beneath every hymn,
every prayer,
every sermon,

the sound of living water

flowing from beyond our limits,

because He came,

and still comes,

beyond every boundary,

bringing life
wherever the river flows.

— TaeHun Yoon, on Sunday 6/7/2026

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 in S. Korea