In Love With Time

One of our well known poets, Sister Claudia Lee Hae-in, writes in the Seoul Bulletin of her spiritual love of time. She begins each day with her new gift. 'Time' follows her through the day and urges her to love. Sister was diagnosed with cancer a number of years ago and continues the struggle.

Recently she had  some guests who came to the convent that she knew from the time she was in middle school. She had to go to her album to see the faces that had changed so much over the years. When a sick sister comes back to the mother house for rest, she recalls the appearance of the sister many years before in good health, and is overcome with a heavy heart.

When her readers see a picture of her taken from a  book during her youth and see her now, they are often taken aback, and express this disappointment;  she becomes confused. Not rarely after some thought, either to save face, or driven by necessity, she hears words similar to:  " I don't know why, but now I feel that I can be closer to you than ever before." These words enter deeply into her. 

All of us are changed by time, and nothing can stop it; we can learn to accept and embrace the change and find peace. She doesn't look into a mirror often, but when she does she sees the wrinkles, the white hair and realizes with force that she is old. In the refectory or the chapel when she looks around and sees the younger members of the community she reflects on the passage of time. Changing her thoughts from discontent and lament, to the future thanksgiving and joy is the wisdom gained from life. Therefore when she is tempted to blurt out: where in the world has the time gone, she pauses, and remembers how thankful she is for the time that she has. 

Unexpectedly she says, she is in the afternoon of life, but she is thankful looking forward to the precious time ahead in which she has been given the opportunity to love and is excited by the expected joy. She falls into a swamp because of laziness, and  struggles but she is determined to make the effort to prudently use the time that she has been given with all the strength available.

She is walking along the road of life and giving thanks. She will laugh again, forgive, and prays that she can continue to walk the way of a trainee, and  continue to love the time that will be given.

Getting older she will be living with the  weight of fear, there is nothing that she can say. Sadness, joy,  love and hate, she hopes that she can meet it all serenely...With the passage of time the book of wisdom comes to her daily.There is no need to go to the book case, for wisdom comes to her and gives her joy.The longer she lives the more thanks for the time she has been given. This has become her song.