There’s a popular Korean saying that I always heard growing up: “You can’t spit at a smiling face.” I’ve never spat in anyone’s face before, smiling or scowling, but I did notice this: I can never seem to despise someone enjoying a popsicle. 

My father finds it amusing that I keep a collection of walking sticks hidden behind a tree stump near the wrought iron gate to the wooded cemetery where we walk each day. You don’t need it, he is thinking, and even he in his 96th year elects to be a biped, not tri-ped, for as long as he is able.

To his puzzlement regarding my enamorment of shards of American sycamore branches that line our winding way I give the same reply each time: I like the feel of them, both in my hand and as they scrape the road below and make an earthy sound and ground me in creation.

If you have a journalist for a friend, I am sorry. Or maybe it’s just me. My friends can’t enjoy a decent hang-out session with me without me fact-checking their statements, sharing my opinions on every relevant and irrelevant issue, and reminding them of all the dark and depressing issues that they’d rather not dwell on at that moment. Please have pity on my friends. 

I think you’re reading my 1,000th WORLD column on this back page, so it’s time to reveal one trade secret in column-writing: Give readers a sense of security by being in the same place each issue, but give them a bit of insecurity by not necessarily signaling at the beginning how the column will end.

I mentioned last year how pathetic a hitter I was in Little League. I could mention that I was also poor in dodgeball, rope-climbing, or anything else that required agility or strength. But this column is not a search for sympathy.

He appeared to have it all: youth, wealth, standing, pedigree. Sincere and pious, too: a credit to his nation. Still, he came looking and asking, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

My God, my King, my Emperor,
    My all-designing Engineer,
My Rider through the skies, with roar
    And speed and help, my Charioteer,

My Judge, my Advocate, Release,
    My Doom Averted and my Ransom Met,
My Execution and my Peace,
    My Friend, my willing Surrogate,

My wind-borne Life, my Health, my Death,
    My Door to Paradise, my Gain,
My everlasting Lungs, my Breath,
    My final Thorn, my End of pain,

In 2007 I went to work as usual at the seminary café I’d been managing since after my husband died in 1999. I was prepping for the lunch crowd while listening to the radio when suddenly two men came through the door and said I had to leave—right away. The 1898 former gatehouse, former classroom building, former study lounge was not strong enough to support the weight of the bookstore above the kitchen, said the urgent building inspectors. So my meats and cheeses sliced, and my chili and kielbasa underway, I was unceremoniously out on the curb.

I never returned.