I may be the last generation to live a life filled with inspiration, a life given by the unique characteristics of humanity.
We may be the last generation to experience the universe and life through biological and transcendental senses, cosmic consciousness and mythical narratives.
The stories here are the nutrients of a rich life that the last human being ate and grew up with.

- From the introduction

*The Bible didn't just teach my mother Korean.
It taught me the values ​​of what is right and the important truths of the world.
…Mother knows how we should live and where we should find our way as human beings.
We know that such things do not occur through the process of evolution by chance, but within the principles governed by God.
Because the eyes that read the Bible, not the eyes that read letters, have been opened.
…My mother’s body has built a faith that never cools down, just like a long-tempered iron pot that cooks warm, oily rice.

--- p.17

*Modern society has lost the personal depth of connection with the world and things.
In this era of lightweight, disposable items like mass-produced disposable containers, this era of kitsch dominated by impersonal materiality, my father, who cannot eat beef carelessly, suddenly feels like a wise man.

--- p.30

*Yahweh God says to Moses on Mount Horeb, “Take off your shoes.”
It means to give up your position.
I've lived my life excreting so many words to defend my position, I hear the sound of a wall crumbling in my heart, in front of Jeokmokdang (寂默堂).

--- p.36

*If healthy lactic acid bacteria cannot proliferate in a place where human dignity has disappeared and other types of bacteria take over, the person becomes unattractive.
In these shabby times, I really miss that person who used to smile brightly like a radish head rising above the furrow and say, “What’s wrong, are you okay?”

--- p.40

*Numbers eat away at the human soul.
Religion perceives the world and existence through intuition and insight, not numbers.
If religion is infected with numbers, it is the end of the world.

--- p.46

*Those who cannot see the pain and cries of humanity on the cross cannot see the image of God.
If you cannot even fathom the Son of Man, how can you fathom the Son of God?

--- p.57

*We exist by talking and we exist by being talked about.
Stories are perspectives on people and the world, and events.
An image that is not spoken of is just a portrait of the dead.
Alleys are a human-made gaze and a network of events.
That is why the feeling of existence becomes richer when standing in an alley.

--- p.66

*The church at night was a place where my mother could cry out loud to her heart's content.
The idea that God dwells there, that if you pour out your heart and soul to Him as if you were meeting your own mother, He will listen, made the church a good place to cry.
The church at night was a place where mothers cried.
--- pp.83-84

*The chapel, empty at night, is like a plain of Yodong, a good place for the poor and lonely to cry out loud.
If the church can be called a temple, it is because it is the bosom of God, like the plains of Liaodong.
A sanctuary is a place where a person can enter the deepest part of his being, throw himself into it, and cry.
And the woman who cries in the sanctuary for others called family, her name is Mother.
--- p.84

*We are not meaningless beings living and dying like microorganisms on a dusty planet in space.
A 'person' is a dynamic being in the vast universe with no end in the abyss of existence.

--- p.97

*I realized that only those who leave can see and speak the world with a new grammar.

--- p.113

People who are sensitive to the problems of the times and humanity are prone to being shot in the heart.
My sensitivity to the world is so intense that I feel pain intensely and sometimes my heart stops.
…
The prophets of the Old Testament, especially the prophets Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah, who wrote in the 8th century BC, were people who responded sensitively to the problems of the times and humanity.
They are people who looked at the oppression of power and social injustice with a cool head from the perspective of God's justice and cried out against it.
In their voices is the soul of a lonely poet and the heart of a suffering prophet.
I can feel the heartbeat in their voices, and also the pain.

--- p.118

*In that sense, we can say that heaven is a country that you can only go to after becoming wise.
It is a country where people who have gone through the process of being reborn as mature human beings go, a country where people who believe in Jesus and become wise go.

--- p.124

*Even if the world becomes blinded by money and goes mad, a poet must survive with his sanity until the end.
Even if the pastor embezzled the church's funds and passed them on to his descendants, the poet should have remained pure until the end.
Only then can the poet's language be imbued with divinity.
The poet is a prophetic beggar, and the poet's words are the language of the divine beggar.
Only a poet can heal a sick world with the purest words in the world.
But not everyone who writes poetry is a poet.
Any young person who can see the world with a prophetic sensibility and shout out to the world with a noble soul is a poet.
--- p.131

*Under the pouring stars, under the many indecipherable signals, we live an indecipherable life.
Life is full of indecipherable mysteries.
--- p.132

*What allows humans to remain human until the end is to acknowledge their own contradictions and limitations.
…religion begins with the awareness of human imperfection.
In particular, the church is a community where imperfect beings gather together, reveal human frailty, and bow down before God in sacrifice.
And it is a community where imperfect beings reveal their contradictions and limitations, embracing and healing each other.
The church is not a community built on mechanical precision created by computers or robots, but a community where spiritual algorithms operate, where flawed people embrace, heal, and mature one another.

--- pp.149-150

*We look to eternity from this meaningless fleeting moment on Earth.
Eternity is not a concept of time, but a concept of timelessness and anti-time.
In eternity, past, present, and future exist together.
The sensibility to feel the simultaneity of time, that is the sense of eternity.
Our sense of eternity and time comes from our intuition about the Creator of the universe.
So the Bible calls the feeling of eternal time faith.

--- p.154

*Faith extends its tentacles beyond the limitations and contradictions of today toward eternity.

--- p.154

*To avoid being overwhelmed by the space and time of the universe, we must not lose our sense of eternity.
The Hebrew sage, known as the Teacher of Wisdom (Qoheleth), calls that feeling 'a heart that longs for eternity.'
If I had to put it in one word, it would be 'faith'.

--- p.155

*I don't trust humans.
I despair of humanity.
Humans are simply beings who need to be saved.
So I believe, I do.
God….

--- p.162

*The humanity and world that Jesus hoped for and emphasized was not one of domination by force, but of solidarity through coexistence and peace.
A nation created by those who have power but have given it up, those who do not use the lives of others for their own gain, those who are filled with understanding and compassion for others, and those who know how to embrace others deeply and practice tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation is called the "Kingdom of God."
--- p.177

*Faith is the process of finding lost emotions.
Emotion is a legacy of faith that can heal modern people who live in poverty, calculating distance from the world with tension, anxiety, and impatience.
…when the roots of my being are deeply rooted in God, the energy that rises from the bottom is moving.

--- p.182

*When we make God a means of our blessing, it becomes an idol called God.
When we encounter God with emotion, there is an abundance of existence there.
--- p.182

*Emotion is another name for awe.
Anyone who is not moved by this world does not fear God.
When the exclamation and emotion of “O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth” springs from the very roots of our being, we can enjoy the abundance of our being like a tree planted by streams of water.

--- p.184

*Jesus is the image of God who gave up being God and entered into a relationship with humans who were full of sin.
Relationships must break my self, which exists as a particle.
To break God's divine nature and become human means to abandon God as a particle for the sake of relationships.
Yes, that's right.
God is relationship.
It's a good and beautiful relationship.
The Bible calls that relationship 'grace.'
Grace is the gift of forgiveness that grants forgiveness even when there is no basis or qualification for forgiveness.
Grace is the heartfelt love of a father toward his children, poured out without limit for the sake of the relationship.
Jesus Christ died not for the particle of me, but for my relationship with myself.
--- p.188

*The core teaching of the law, ‘love of God and love of neighbor,’ is another expression of this trembling and resonating.
Faith is trembling and resonating.
There can be no trembling or resonance in those who lack understanding and empathy for the world and their neighbors (people), who cannot empathize with others, and who pour all their energy into pursuing their own interests and success through mechanical thinking.

--- p.204

*When we believe that the rising sun is not a scientific phenomenon caused by the Earth's rotation, but rather a daily grace bestowed upon us by God, our lives and existence can experience a rich resonance.

--- p.204

*People don't die because they don't have money, nor do they die because they're sick.
Because this trembling and resonance has disappeared from within people, they are drying up and dying.
…we are dying of thirst, trapped in cold calculations and selfish success narratives.
Faith is what creates a resonance box, allowing trembling and resonance to occur within us.
Faith is emptying myself so that resonance can occur in my life.
Faith is the resonance of being.
--- p.205

*There is a God within us who embraced humans, who have many sharp and pointed edges that could prick and wound us if touched with bare hands, and loved them to the end, shedding blood.
We call him Jesus.
He is a god wounded by love.
He is a god in human form who shows us how painful human beings are and how painful it is to love them.

--- pp.208-209

*Loving a human being is the most painful thing.
Yet, Christianity testifies that there is a God who loves humanity.
Love hurts.
It hurts the most when you love.
If it is human destiny to love, then Jesus tells us to love.

--- p.209

*Spirituality sometimes ignites a fire in the heart.
For those who have God's justice in their hearts like burning coals, hot anger may arise and burn their hearts.
The human yearning for others is the love that God has shown through the prophets in every age.
Therefore, the spirituality of the closet, which turns a blind eye to the unjust society and power and is unable to express anger, wears the mask of hypocrisy.

--- p.217

*Love is not a psychological cushion made of emotions as sweet as cotton candy, as soft as marshmallow, and as warm as a mother's heart.
Love is power and ability.
Unable to stand by and watch violence inflicted on a loved one, he clenches his fists and glares straight ahead.
Love is when you strike first at a bad guy who rushes at your loved one.
Love is a cry of justice that pulls out a safety pin and throws it powerfully at those who mock and curse those they love.
Didn't Jesus love us so much that he cursed us with curses like, "Hey, you little bastards!"
--- p.230

*Love without anger is not love.

--- p.231

*It didn't take long for my mother to realize that what the church taught her in the name of Jesus was not the teachings of Jesus, but the doctrines and worldview of Western Christianity as an institutional religion.
…I felt like going to church would lead to more sins, so I didn’t go, even to the point of driving nails into my mother’s heart, who was a good believer.
But unfortunately, I became a pastor.

--- p.240

*I wish people would look at the stars in the night sky instead of just reading the Bible at church.
It's easy to become a fool if you only look at the Bible.
Fools fall into the delusion that they alone possess God.
So we confine God within the bars of letters.
When we look to God as the stars in the night sky, our lives become richer.

--- p.247