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Text Box: “Nurturing Hope” By Rev. Won Heo

Text Box: (Ed. Note: The following is one of the theme topics given By Rev. Won Heo at the 2003 Ethnic Ministries Coordinating Committee’s AGM. Rev. Heo, accompanied by his wife, Angela, plus their young son, Joshua, spoke at our September 15, 2002 Sunday Service). ************************************* After finding God in a tree in the face of a rocky cliff, the seed of hope was planted inside me. I was determined to nurture this seed of hope and realize its scope in my ministry and in my daily living. I realized that there is incredible creativity, wisdom, love, beauty and the life that is longing to be expressed. I wondered how I could be one with the flight of God’s eternal spirit. By, chance, I picked up a book called, Zen in the Art of Archery in a used bookstore in Edmonton for $3. The book was written by a German philosopher who lived in Japan in the 1920’s to practice Japanese archery or kyudo. One amazing incident from the book involves shooting spirtually which involves not aiming. The man simply could not understand the concept and after fruitless and frustrating months of practice, challenged his master, “If you can shoot without aiming then, you should be able to hit the target blindfolded.” Rather than rebuking the student, the master decided to humour him and told him to come back that night.When, he returned, the master was drinking tea and after a long silence, they went into the practice hall. They turned out the lights in the target area and the master shot once. By the sound of it, the student realized that it had hit the mark. And so did the second shot. When the student went to retrieve the arrows, he saw that the first one had hit the bull’s eye and the second one did the Robin Hood and hit the first arrow and the two were adjoined. The master replied,” You may think that after all the years of

Text Box: shooting that the first shot was a lucky shot. That maybe so and I won’t deny that. But you cannot deny the second one. Either way, I know that it was not I who shot it.” In the end, the student realized that he was a vehicle through which something or some force was shooting through him. What really peaked my interest was this connection to the concept of sin. In the New Testament Bible which was originally written in Greek, the word sin, which is hamartia borrows the term from archery which simply means “missing the mark.” I was interested in how I can be one with God’s will so that I can hit the mark as I live my life each day. It dawned upon me that learning kyudo was the most important thing I could do with my life and if I did not go to Japan and learn this art then my life would not be complete. So with great hope that the risk we were