I gaze ecstatically at the varnish of light green leaves spreading like waves on distant mountains. The majestic world of life is there. Even if you don’t think of Lao-tzu, who said, ‘The mysteriousness of the valley that does not disappear is a distant female, and the gate of a distant female is the root of heaven and earth’, the mountain embraces and nurtures many lives. However, fine dust and yellow dust disturb our eyes looking at the mountain. As the drought continues, the foundations of life are collapsing due to wildfires that have occurred everywhere. The laments of those who lost their homes spread as suppressed shouts. The trumpet warning of climate catastrophe has already sounded, but people across the river are calm as if they are in disbelief. The desire for more consumption and a convenient life overwhelms the sense of public responsibility to solve the global crisis.
Kim Ki-seok, Pastor of Cheongpa Church
People run to survive on the battlefield of desire, so they don’t have time to look around. In a world where trust in the community has collapsed, what governs people is the principle of self-reliance. The negative conviction that there is no one to trust in the world pushes us into the obsession to make our own safety devices. Even after making several layers of security devices, people tremble with anxiety. Anxiety takes space away from us. There is no place for humor and cheerfulness. A mind that has lost integrity is sharp. You stab yourself and you stab others. People who are caught up in resentment and aversion to others are more likely to fall prey to agitation. Anxiety about isolation leads to forming a gang.
Religion, which should point the way history should move, is failing to do its job. Rather, it serves as a factory of hatred, conflict, and division. Religious people who should respect differences and lead history to a larger world through understanding and tolerance become hostile to each other and curse each other, unable to endure minor differences. When self-assured religion is immersed in the solvent of lust for power, the smoke of madness rises. The smoke blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, truth and lies, public interest and private interest. Hölderlin’s words, ‘The crowd likes market values, and servants only respect the stronger’ come with a big resonance.
Now is the time for purification. Robin Wall Kimerer, an American plant ecologist and author, says motherhood is very important to her. <향모를 땋으며>In the book, Kimmerer tells an anecdote about how she left Kentucky and set up a house in the suburbs of New York because she wanted to be a good mother to her children. With her children, she built a fort on a maple tree and went on a picnic to the top of the hill. Then she set about making a long-neglected pond into a swimming space. The pond was covered with algae and waterweed, and sludge formed from algae, lotus leaves, and fallen leaves was spread like a blanket on the bottom.
Whenever I had time, I would use a rake to clear the waterweed, scrape the bottom of the pond, put it in a cart, and carry it away from the pond. It was a daunting task to carry soybean gravel with a pail, pour it onto the sandbar, and supply clean water to the pond. It took 12 years to transform the pond into a swimming space. In a way, it could have been foolish work. However, the meaning of the past labor is summarized in these words. “Being a good mother means teaching her children how to take care of her world.”
Perhaps these virtues are what those who dream of a better world need. Only faith that does not give up and deep love for life are the source of strength to overcome the years of endurance. A good world does not come by itself. Those obsessed with visible results are doomed to despair.
Poet Na Hee-deok accepts as his calling as a poet to connect shattered dreams in a world overflowing with impossibilities. It seems like an impossible dream. Still, it was something he had to do, so he decided to become a ‘possibilityist’. He sings this in a poem called ‘The Possibilityist’. “It doesn’t have to be a big light/ Flickering like fireflies/ About the light and darkness we couldn’t reach/ About the discrepancy/ I’m trying to write at least with drying ink.” The blinking of a single firefly does not brighten the world. However, when numerous fireflies flicker, the world suddenly turns into a dream space. If there are more people who dream, we can move the lever of history. Not because I can do it, but because I have to do it, so I am determined to become a possibleist while relieving the despair that fills my heart.