I once thought I was free—
free to think, free to walk.

Yet not even a single day is ever whole.
In eating, in sleeping, even along the path of health,
there are limits—
limits even to the time that brushes past my side.

Now, upon this Lenten road just begun,

distractions grow without a sound.
Old habits return.
Zeal thins,
and already the fast feels heavier than it should.

So much freedom—
and yet so little truly held in my hands.

Thus the regrets of life gather instead,
and words, leaving the heart, lose their way.

And somewhere within me,
a movement begins again—
not from my own will.

The direction of the soul was shifting my will—
its setting already leaning, before touching bottom,
toward the intention of God.

Entering the dark and damp corridors of lived life,
I walk it—step by step.

Through pain and sorrow, jealousy and desire,
still, like treading a dirt road, honestly, in deep surrender;
setting aside the Song of Songs, taking up Ecclesiastes,
moving forward slowly, scarcely aware.

Walking it.
Will I be able to return again to the Song of Songs?

These are sorrowful days,
aching days,
passing in a hush of quiet unease.

Lately—the forced smile,
the practiced grin,
the borrowed laugh—
who wears them?

You.
And I.

Yet when that day has passed,
will true laughter return?

Will joy find its own voice?
Will smiles spread without effort?

Yes—perhaps we all shall walk
with unguarded faces,
on ordinary roads.

From Texas to Washington, D.C.,
from protests against ICE to the Winter Olympics,
from the Mount of Transfiguration to Golgotha—

And then,
the long road no longer feared,

from the awakening of lost freedom
to a single step toward what is true and made new—

there,
I shall begin.

— TaeHun Yoon