Greetings from Seoul!
Spring is the wonderful season when we‘re surrounded by new leaves and flowers, reminding us of our faith in the risen Christ. This spring feels particularly bright because it contrasts so sharply with the resurging numbers of new COVID-19 cases around the world. Issue 50 of the Kukmin Daily newsletter carries the story of a believer’s creation of visual meditations. Another story raises awareness of the need to pay detailed attention to the needs of persons with disabilities, particularly those who are visually impaired.
Discarded copper wire transformed into crosses for meditation
172 crosses made from discarded copper wire were on display in the 6th floor lobby of Incheon‘s Gyesan Church (Rev. Kim Tae-il) on March 21. Kukmin Daily met the artist, Deacon Lee In-yeong (photo), who was in the midst of final preparations for the Passion Week exhibition, held from March 24~30.
Deacon Lee started making crosses in 1995. During the Lenten season that year, he was nursing his father, who was in the hospital with a hernia. As he went back and forth in the hospital room, an image suddenly came to him of Jesus bearing the cross as he climbed up Golgotha hill, and he asked himself, “Shall I try to make a cross?”
“Fortunately there was a lot of discarded copper wire in the car factory where I had worked,” he said. “It was wonderful to see images that had only existed in my mind, become real figures, and that led to my making more works.” His meeting with those copper wires on their way to the trash, has been transforming them, one after the other, into cross works.
He has also used copper wire to form images of the Last Supper and of Jesus washing his disciples‘ feet. Another of his figures shows the moment when Jesus was hanging on the cross and the Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear. The multivarious works he has created number more than 800 now. And they have received a good response. “I did not initiate this work to make money, so I’ve given the crosses to acquaintances and donated them to places that need them,” Lee said. “I believe it is due to the many people who have cheered me on, that I have been able to continue making them all this time.”
Some people have slipped him money, saying they absolutely had to buy a work. “When I sell crosses, I donate all of that money to mission,” Lee said. “When these crosses made of discarded copper wire are used for mission, it is as if a believer repents and is being used by the Lord, which makes me feel thankful.”
When inspiration comes to him, he makes a sketch, which is the pattern for creating the work. He has no separate studio, but makes the crosses at his desk, spending anywhere from one week to as long as two months on a particular work.
Deacon Lee said he likes Psalm 18 verse 1: “I love you, O Lord, my strength.” But he avoids writing Scripture on his works, so as to allow viewers to meditate freely. He explained, “I meditate on Jesus‘ suffering as I make the crosses, but I’ve come to know that they contain within them Jesus‘ deep love for us.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is even harsher for the visually impaired
The calamitous COVID-19 pandemic is not impartial. Though worse for vulnerable groups in general, it is especially cruel to those with disabilities. Kukmin Daily visited Siloam Welfare Center for the Visually Impaired (Kim Mi-gyeong, director) in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, on March 23, to learn about the serious difficulties caused by the pandemic to those with little or no vision, difficulties that are largely unknown to the rest of us. The Center attracts more than 300 visually impaired persons on an average day.
Standing in the building‘s elevator, one sees the same anti-bacterial film covering the push-button panel as found in other elevators, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but this panel has an added layer of small number stickers in Braille.
Director Kim explained, “Elevators originally have Braille on their panel buttons. But when COVID-19 hit, many of those panels were covered up with anti-bacterial film. In the process the Braille became inaccessible, making elevator use even harder for vision-impaired persons, who already are challenged by the very act of going outside. Siloam Welfare Center has raised this as an issue, and some government and public places have added the Braille stickers, but most apartment buildings around the country have not yet done so.”
Another complication was explained by Nam Jeong-han, director of Siloam Center for Self-Reliant Living. “Due to COVID-19, even neighborhood restaurants have reduced their staff, as kiosks with digital-touch food-ordering systems have been set up for no-contact service, but visually impaired persons cannot possibly use those… We are requesting that at least, like banks‘ ATMs, such facilities should be equipped with earphones and recorded directions enabling use by the vision-impaired, but because they were set up in a hurry, there has been a lack of care for people who cannot see.”
Secretary-general Noh Hyeong-ji of Siloam Welfare Center said, “In addition, the government has had trouble finding personal care attendants to assist visually impaired persons who fall ill with the coronavirus and are moved to residential care facilities… After gradually widening their radius of movement outside of their homes, most of them are now being forced by COVID-19, extending into its second year, to stay cooped up at home again.” This imposes a heavier burden of care on parents and other protectors, and “corona blues,” caused by isolation and depression, has reached a serious level.
Siloam Welfare Center was established in 1997 by a group of activists led by Rev. Kim Seon-tae, former staff of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK Tonghap)‘s department of mission for the visually impaired. Under COVID-19 restrictions, churches may not hold congregational meals or small-group meetings, but they continue to provide food support (side dishes to go with rice) for the vision-impaired. Another fortunate development is the expansion of “untact” volunteer services, such as the labors of young volunteers who work in their own homes to help produce books in Braille.
박여라 영문에디터 yap@kmib.co.kr