Seventeen years ago, I embarked on a life-altering journey. I departed from my homeland, leaving behind my family and friends in South Korea, where I was born, raised, and spent the most significant portion of my life.

My name is Grace, and I am in my third year of the MDiv program. During my undergraduate years, I was involved in campus ministry and that was when I became interested in theological studies and enrolled at Wycliffe College.

A month ago Frederick Buechner died at age ninety-six. During that windfall of years, in which he served as a high-school chaplain, was ordained a Presbyterian minister, raised a family, and worked his unusually enchanted way with words, Buechner wrote a book that I read again each year.

There’s a growing ache at the heart of many of our western societies. Its name is loneliness. And a stream of actors has been calling it out of late: psychologists, pastors, pandemistas, even politicians.

“Stuck at home”

stuck: “mired, glued, compelled, resolutely adhered, halted, saddled disagreeably”

home: “one’s place of residence, domicile, habitat”

How very good and pleasant it is

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We’ve all had enough, it seems. And yet we only want more. Shoulders curled forward, phones in our hands, eyes fixed to the screen, our brains wired to thumb endlessly deeper into the digital matrix: this is becoming the posture of humanity.

I found Jesus a seven-minute walk from Wycliffe College. At first, I could not quite recognize him. Lying on a park bench, thickly covered with an old blanket, he was layered with snow. As I sat down on the bench beside him, though, I noticed his feet.

With World Writers Day having been celebrated earlier this month, and World Book Day (as declared by the United Nations) coming up on April 3, it seems a fitting time to revisit the story of 20th-century journalist, author, and social activist Dorothy Day.