By Kim Heung-sook
Three weeks ago, I went for a walk. The wind was chilly yet fresh, allowing me to savor the strange, delightful sensation stemming from the shriveling of my body and the wild pumping of my heart. My forehead began to warm at the end of the walk and I am still paying for enjoying myself though for a very short while.
As a result of drinking of all sorts of tea, and among other things, my body has become rounder and heavier. With my weight gain, I am afraid that I am losing what small number of friends I have. I had received some calls and written invitations for yearend get-togethers, but I had to cordially reject them all because of my condition.
However, on the upside, I not only realized my physical limitations but also found the time to look back upon the past few months, on both personal and national issues.
The nation's professors have recently chosen "自欺欺人 (자기기인)," meaning ``deceiving oneself and others," as the Chinese letters that sum up the passing year, but I came up with a simpler word ― ``waste."
The greatest waste I could recall was the killing of 32 people at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, the United States, in April by Cho Seung-hui who also wounded many others before ending the worst shooting spree on campus by committing suicide.
Three months later, 23 Korean Christians were held hostage in Afghanistan. A pastor and a young man were killed; the others were released and came back home amid ensuing rumors that their freedom was bought for a great sum of money.
Topping the year's wasteful incidents was the leak of over 10,000 tons of oil into the Yellow Sea off Taean County in early December. Millions of sea creatures and plants were wiped out in the worst oil spill ever in Korea, and others are dying in the polluted areas.
Hundreds of thousands of people have rushed to the coast to help remove the oil on the coast, but it is unknown how long it will take for Taean to recover its once beautiful state.
Doomsayers see signs of a collapsing world in all these affairs and step up evangelical campaigns on streets and subways, waving cross-shaped pickets and calling through microphones for repentance and devotion to God.
I assume, however, that they know people, not God, caused all the wrongs and that God has nothing to do with the problems or solutions.
Some fear that the doomful voices would grow louder in the next five years in Korea under the leadership of a famous Christian. President-elect Lee Myung-bak is a presbyter attending Somang Church in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul.
He attended the church on Dec. 23, the first Sunday after his election, causing a serious headache for his bodyguards and forcing beggars to leave their usual business locations.
A couple of days later, Lee named Lee Kyung-sook, a fellow believer and deaconess at Somang and president of Sookmyung Women's University, as chairwoman of his transition team.
The appointment surfaced the much-touted ``Somang connection'' and some observers wonder if the President-elect is going to rekindle public criticism he caused in 2004. In a Christian meeting, then Seoul Mayor Lee said he was offering Seoul to God. He also said that Seoul was a city ruled by God and its citizens were God's people.
Korea already abounds with factors that foster division and conflict and the last thing she can endure is a leader who adds to the chaos. The President-elect is hoped to take heed of religious pluralism that has characterized this country for a long time.
If Lee wants to ask for God's help to bring ``success" to everyone as he pledged while electioneering, he'd better consult Matthew 6:6 first: ``But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
I hope he won't be too obsessed with ``success." Having lived through a year marked by wastefulness, Koreans now may consider success to be a lack of waste. In any case, I wish him the best of luck. To my readers, have a happy and healthy New Year!