After sending off Christmas—the day we had prepared for and awaited so long—and as we look back on the few remaining days of the year, I pause for a moment to catch my breath after months that felt breathlessly busy. Over the past year, the knots of life were tied in many ways: meetings and partings, love and resentment, struggle and overcoming, attention and indifference, ignorance and insight, anguish and joy, conflict and peace, discouragement and courage, sorrow and hope. Some knots were tied neatly and beautifully; others ended up rough, uneven, and misshapen.

John Milton once wrote, “Time has wings and flies back to the One who created it, reporting in detail how we have used it.” So the knots of our time have already been carried up to God.

There were so many things I meant to do—this and that—and yet the unfinished tasks piled up on my desk like a small mountain, waiting to cross into another year. As the saying goes, those who use time poorly are the ones who complain it is too short. I often wondered, Why does time pass so quickly? I even developed the habit of sleeping with my watch on, afraid of losing a single moment. But time has wings; it never rests, not even for an instant.

In the midst of fleeing hours, instead of cultivating true words and beautiful thoughts, I sometimes let worthless rumors and empty imaginings overgrow like weeds. I ask forgiveness for the days when I did not even know who I was and fell into despair. There is perhaps no greater misfortune than living without knowing oneself. If I am proud and careless even toward myself, how can I be grateful and humble toward my neighbors?

I am no longer young enough to boast of youth, nor am I yet an elder who has lived the whole of life. But before the swift wings of time, I find comfort and hope in knowing that Someone walks with me—like the morning star, like the ferry waiting for a traveler crossing the river at dusk, like a lighthouse shining in the storm. The Lord takes my trembling arm and says, “As I have been with you, so I will be with you tomorrow. Do not fear. Obey, and let us go together.”

Departure is not merely departure. It is not simply farewell, nor parting words, nor a benediction. It is the crossing of a threshold— the moment when one life reaches its summit and moves beyond.

Thus every departure is also a beginning. It says, Good‑bye, and at the same time, Hello.

It is the meeting of a new dawn beyond the dark clouds of parting, beyond worry and unrest. That dawn is born in beauty and brightness of many colors, yet it is shaped—conceived even— by the lingering clouds of yesterday still knotted within our farewells.

Beginning and ending intertwine in the moment of dawn. The moments of our lives spread their wings and move from here to there, from one person to another, from one task to the next— departing, arriving, weaving, unfolding.

Ending and beginning, being and becoming— these are the places where we dwell in God. Believers call that place the Holy Communion. — Dwight Judy

Farewell to the old year, welcome to the new. I wait for the coming year in the arms of the Lord.

– WanHee Yoon, Parsonage Letter, 2001