HOF (Hospitality and Friendship) HOUSE
After learning that a longtime friend in Korea had lost his wife, I felt compelled to be with him in person. During the tumultuous week leading up to his wife’s passing, we had spoken twice. After she had passed into eternity, I also knew that I wanted to avoid the funeral crowd, so I called to ask him when would be a good time for a visit. A week later, I was on a plane to Korea to spend the weekend together.
After I landed close to midnight, he picked me up, and we drove to Hongseong in Chungcheongnam Province, where he and his late wife leased a country house, affectionately called HOF (Hospitality and Friendship) house. Upon arrival, he asked me whether I was hungry. After hearing a slight but convincing yes, he made me a bowl of ramen with homemade Kimchi thrown in. I gulped it down, washed up, and went to bed with the electric blanket turned up to the maximum heat.
The next morning, I woke up with the unmistakable aroma of fresh coffee roasting. His excuse was that he forgot to bring some coffee grounds from Seoul home, so he had to roast them manually. We both knew we could not survive without good coffee. Feeling grateful, I gulped that down and immediately went for the second cup. What followed was thin, perfect pancakes with precious maple syrup from Vermont. The memorable story of his visit to the Podunk Vermont town harvesting maple syrup flowed naturally.
Our conversations flowed naturally. Actually, it was mostly him sharing with occasional questions and noticings from me. He embodied what it means to “live the questions,” as Rilke said. Tears flowed too, punctuated with touches of laughter not unlike skittish adolescents, but also like older men being honest to their feelings.
As I opened up the living room curtain first thing in the morning, I finally saw the surroundings. As if the bright sun knew it was not the most welcomed guest that morning, the sun hid behind the panoramic grey sky. There was a sizeable plot of land suitable for farming, but since it was still winter, the ground appeared frozen and looked lifeless and hopeless. In a matter of a few weeks, neighbors will be busy tilling and preparing the land for sowing and planting. Soon, the field will be covered with green and vibrancy of life.
A small hill next to the farmland was covered with bare stick-figured trees, but the impressive pine trees still maintained the forever green with the backdrop of the deep, sad grey. Birds did not get the dreary grey memo, though, as they sang throughout the day. With no nearby manmade noise to drown out nature’s sound, birds were having their field day. Then, the fine misty rain fell as if to console my friend and me. The rain mimicked the slow falling snow. If one had not watched the ground, anyone would have mistaken the rain for snow.
Someone observed, “When hearts listen, angels sing.” Perhaps the angels were disguised as birds cheering us on as we sat, talked, and listened, interspersed with long silences in between. Over time, the words we chose became more intimate and sacred, which allowed us to go deeper into the depths of our souls. It was as if we were listening to each other’s souls rather than to words being spoken. Alice Fryling offers an insight worth pondering in her book, The Art of Spiritual Listening: Responding to God's Voice Amid the Noise of Life.
“Prayer is at the heart of listening to others. As we listen to others, we are also listening to God. We are praying as we are listening. We are praying that the one we are accompanying on the spiritual journey will be strengthened in the inner being and rooted and established in the love of God.”
I would surmise that listening to others and God attentively is the same listening that equates to prayer. As my friend listened to himself and put words from the depth of his soul, he began to find strength in his inner being and discerned what and how he needed to live without his wife right next to him for the first time in a long while. In his own words, he recognized that a new chapter of his life was opening up before him. Cautiously and with hope, he responded with a yes to God’s invitation based on the love of God. In the background, birds were still singing, cheering him on. So was I.
