Reflective Writing and Poetic Musing by Condemiang + Stories About the World

In human relationships, inner compatibility—rooted in true sustainability—is a more essential element than appearance or sensory attraction. Love may begin with the senses, but I believe it is ultimately sustained by inner strength.  It’s difficult to precisely define what it means for two people to “go well together” in a relationship. Does it mean their appearances match? If so, we inevitably imagine a handsome man and a beautiful woman. Looking back on my experiences in my twenties and thirties, I often evaluated a person’s worth based on superficial, sensory satisfaction—qualities that appealed to my tastes or were rooted in material aspects such as social status or wealth. But what we really need to look deeper into is “inner compatibility.” Inner compatibility cannot be bought or sold, imitated, or decorated. Of course, someone who possesses both sensory appeal and inner compatibility would be ideal—but meeting such a person is an uncommon blessing. If “sensory satisfaction” ...

What made me feel a bit sad while reading the Thread was that it felt similar to when I watched shorts. What I’m seeing, hearing, and eating right now is probably what my future self will look like—but the world is dominated entirely by these very short clips and reads that have no narrative. It feels like we’re heading toward a world where building something step by step from the beginning is almost impossible. A world where everyone is just waiting for a meal that’s already been cooked.

I often ask myself: What role should faith play in society today? And how free is the church from the logic of capital? In his classic work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , Max Weber shows how the devout lives of early Protestants—especially the Puritans—helped give birth to the modern capitalist spirit. What was once a “calling” before God gradually transformed into relentless competition; asceticism and self-discipline became virtues of productivity and profit. But was that ever the true heart of faith? To the progressive believer, this book becomes a mirror of our spirit. A century ago, Weber warned us of the world we now live in. “We are living in an age of soulless specialists and heartless hedonists.” How painfully accurate that feels today. Knowledge without spirit. Pleasure without compassion. If this is the face of our capitalist culture, then what should the church look like in response? Living faithfully before God must not become living efficiently befor...

As we walk, we see countless ants and insects. Has the law of nature—or divine providence—configured time and space in such a way, even relying on coincidence, so that we might not step on them? *** Once again, we seek to ask Jesus for the way. In order to find answers to existential questions encountered in the journey of individual life, and to the various issues of the political, social, and economic realities in which we live, in order to discover clues for resolving the real challenges facing church communities and the ecological crises on both local and global scales, we turn again to Jesus in search of a way. This endeavor will be carried out by re-reading the records that transmit the memory of the historical Jesus’s life and thought. Therefore, our task will engage in discussions within the scholarly context of historical Jesus research—concerning its methodology, sources, achievements, and limitations. Our re-reading of Jesus is a critical undertaking. We aim to read the hist...

1. Let us part ways with things we will regret the moment we grasp them. But will we be able to gracefully manage the persistent turmoil that will continue to rise and fall countless times? Let us withdraw hatred. Hatred is an act of peering into my own consciousness. And when I peer in, those things will also gaze back at me.   2. Those old people are our past.  You, who walk ahead or behind me, side by side—are the present.  Those children are our future.  An old age awaits them in proportion to the wise care invested in them.  It is not enough that I alone am satisfied.  Money will not protect you. 3. A single ripple upon that river. For a moment, it carried the glow of the setting sun to my eyes—and then disappeared. Whose life might that have been? 4. It seems like a place that has neither the confidence, nor the ability, nor even the interest to maintain social order by relying on the autonomy and conscience of its members.

1. Prices keep rising one after another, layoff news continues to spread—and with the bitter cold returning, a chill wind blows through people’s hearts. 2. May this be a year of understanding, embracing, covering faults, forgiving, and loving without end. 3. There is a price to pay for maturity. We only hope the time it takes is short. How long we have endured,  holding our longings close to our chest. The feeling of sinking deep into the abyss. The first path is always unfamiliar,  and feels endlessly long.  But still, music stays right where it is,  watching over me, comforting me. 4. Under a shaded wall,  a young boy sits.  He quietly gathers the sound  of piano drifting over the wall from the neighbor’s house.  “The Maiden’s Prayer.”  Forgetting even his hunger,  he lets the sounds  gently pile up in the glass jar of his clear soul.  After some time,  he slowly turns back to...

Life may appear to be an endless succession of events, but in truth, it is a garment woven from people. The true substance of our lives lies not in the events themselves, but in the people within them.   Each person is a strand of yarn, and it is through the knitting of relationships that these strands are bound together. Life, then, is a garment crafted from countless human threads. While I may choose which garment to wear, its texture and color depend entirely on the people who comprise it. We often believe our present selves are the result of our own thoughts and choices. But that is merely the outcome of our selections—not the whole of who we are. The more friction and abrasion there is, the more the fabric wears thin, and sometimes, it tears altogether. Yet this garment shields what we wish to conceal, and it protects us from the cold and harsh winds of the world.  One who possesses many garments well-suited to the seasons of life is truly someone who has lived fully. K...

This year, “Autumn” left a little later than usual. Following behind, “Winter” arrived with a feisty temperament, sprinkling snow throughout last week. It wasn’t heavy, more like a teasing flurry—until Saturday the 24th, when it poured down all at once, as if Winter were making a grand entrance. The leaves on the fence trees were unusually persistent this year. Perhaps due to Autumn’s late departure, they seemed caught off guard by Winter’s sudden greeting. It wasn’t just the fence trees—other trees clustered around the neighborhood were the same. "The leaves hadn’t fully fallen yet."   Last Christmas, I had strung LED lights around the eaves of our house. Something about that season always lifts my heart. My wife and I had hung them together, hoping to bring a bit of comfort to close the bleak, oil-crash-stricken year of 2019. The lights stayed up well into February 2020. Joseph, our neighbor across the street, passed away in March 2018. This past March marked his second...

Stories of  Little   Happiness – 01 In this place, there are only about thirty days a year—or sometimes even fewer—when the temperature rises above 25°C. So even when winter has passed, we don’t necessarily tuck our thick clothes deep into closets or drawers. Sometimes, in May or even September, mad flurries of snow still pile up. Still, taking out clothes of different thicknesses, shapes, and functions with each changing season brings a small happiness—a kind of quiet excitement. Even though they are the same old clothes we’ve worn every year, they feel like a fresh find when seen again after a long while, offering a little thrill as if we’ve acquired something new. As winter rounds the corner with a determined stride, there is a certain sense of relief in gathering those heavy clothes once more. That simple act is enough to lighten the burden of having to embrace a long, cold season. My little happiness is found even in old clothes, even in the freezing winter.

Should it rain...... The backs of people you often see while walking down the street—they carry thoughts like melted candle wax, and in none other than their own figures, they see cars, the street, the road, and others. Why do people's backs look so lonely? Whether it's clear or cloudy or rainy, the faint and worn-out light in a corner of the city is not even enough to draw a single space of my own. Why does your back look so lonely? Whether it's clear or cloudy or rainy, you carry your weary shoulders through a corner of the city. Sometimes, even a metasequoia tree is nice, or even a common plane tree—if it's decorating above your head, walking that road from which no one knows when you'll return could be a good thing. If it’s a rainy day, even better. If you are with someone who will cover your side full of window scars, then even without an umbrella, you will s...

The day after the loud, crashing rain poured down, under the scorching blaze of the sun that replaced the rain, the sky was so clear and beautiful, as if mocking the world. After finishing work, I rushed out of the office and struggled to get to the Han River as quickly as possible, but the heavy streets of Seoul, crowded with people and vehicles packed in like crates, did not allow freedom of movement. Inside the car, I was in anguish, watching with a heavy heart as the golden sunset wilted away. I like the center. Not leaning to either side—and sometimes, only once in a while, leaning slightly this way or that—that kind of taste. But now, the bridge that would hold such balance must be too dangerous, right? Sweating profusely, I hurried along to Banpo Bridge. The beautiful sunset had already passed… And yet— The traces of the sunset mixed with the clouds and the sky, and the clumsy decorations...

Where have all the trains gone? Those massive bodies that once thundered down the rails— their roaring presence is nowhere to be seen. — A car's thought — Where have all the cars gone? Those swarms that once flooded the roads day and night— their restless wheels are nowhere to be found. — A train's thought —

The spire towering above, and the cross— they no longer meet the eye with ease. Soaked in the shame of sins past, present, and countless still to come, committed in the name of "Holiness," O crimson cross, you dare not show your face while the sun still shines. Not with Your blood, but with the blood and tears of those You longed to save— those frail ones to whom You gave vision and mercy— you are stained, O cross. The days when the first place of life was truth—are gone. Gone are the dreams, the philosophy, the fervor. What remains is a hollow shell, lodged within the fourth, the fifth place of life— fitted to myths long drawn, and crude prophecies patched together. Will He come when even the final sliver of truth can no longer lift its head? The spire towering above, and the cross— even scouring the sky, they cannot be found. And in the nakedness left behind by all that has been stripped in the name of “Reason,” O white cross, you do not return—even af...