Faith & Life

The Strikeout King Who Became the Home Run King

The ball a pitcher throws at 130 to 150 kilometers (80–93 miles) per hour reaches a batter in 0.4 second. It takes about 0.2 second for the batter to catch the ball trajectory and swing his bat by intuition. The ball that a batter exactly hits on the sweet spot of the bat crosses the fence, flying in an arc with a ‘penk’ sound. It’s a home run, the centerpiece of a baseball game. The sweet spot is the optimal point that makes a ball go far and fast to the direction the batter wants. The point where a round ball touches a round bat is a mere spot. But a home run hit in harmony with all the conditions…

Characteristics of Outstanding Athletes

The weightlifting hall suddenly becomes silent as if the time stopped. The athlete gives a loud shout and lifts the barbell with all his might. The light indicating success switches on, and the buzzer rings. There is a loud cheer from the audience, and the athlete is overwhelmed with great joy. What’s the secret for weightlifters to lift huge barbells? James Clear, an American author, asked weightlifting a coach about the characteristics of outstanding athletes. He replied that one of the characteristics is to endure the boredom of training--constantly repeating the same motion over and over again. Sometimes, athletes lose motivation and feel an impulse to quit their training, but instead of getting caught up in negative emotions, they seek…

A Perfect Cradle

Aristotle thought, ‘The egg in the belly of its mother bird is soft but it becomes harder when it comes out and touches the air, so that it will be less painful for the mother.’ But the egg is covered with hard eggshell even from inside of its mom’s belly. The eggshell is hard enough to bear the weight of the mother bird, but also soft enough for the young to break it to come out. The main component of the shell was calcium carbonate. When it is time for the eggshell to be formed, the mother bird searches for food made of calcium carbonate by her instinct. The fine pores (air holes), which spread over the eggshell, allow oxygen…

Though Invisible

On the day of the cleanup, the sky was covered with clouds, contrary to the weather forecast that it would rain. I was worried that the cleanup might be interrupted by rain, but the clouds shaded off the burning sunlight and made a cool, pleasant weather. We did our cleanup in my village. I was wondering why we chose to do a cleanup in my village. Street cleaners frequently clean my village, and flower beds are well taken care of; it seemed unnecessary to do a cleanup. I was also somewhat anxious that our members, full of the sense of volunteerism and active in participation, might come to the village in a large number, making it the sea of orange…

Im Mi-ran from Incheon, South Korea

Spiritual System That Speedily Achieves the Salvation of Mankind

The use of GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) has sharply increased over the past few years, and IT companies are making more investment in it with greater interest. GPU is used in various fields such as predicting climate change and cryptography by making an analysis of big data, and it is pointed out as a system that will actualize autonomous vehicles. As its name suggests, GPU was made as a supplementary component that manipulates computer graphics. Technical developments were made on GPU in such a way that its computer power gets enhanced for faster processing of graphic quality which gets more complex and complicated as days go by. The powerful computing power of GPU optimally performs particularly in the field of…

Adjust the Volume of Your Voice

Sounds affect your emotions. Sounds pleasing to the ears like nature sounds let you relax, while car horns and mechanical noise make you frown and increase your stress. The same goes for human voices. Laughter, singing, and compliment make the other person feel good, while angry voice, irritating words, and complaints make the listener feel unpleasant. So why don’t you volume up when you speak ear-pleasing words that have a positive effect on each other, and volume down when you come to high words carried away by negative feelings? A saying goes, “Happiness looks into the house full of laughter, and misfortune looks into the house with angry shouts.” This month, adjust your voice volume properly to invite happiness to…

A Person Who Finds Hope

A man and his son were lost in the desert. The two men were worn out after wandering for a long time under the scorching sun. They ran out of water and were parched. “Father, if we keep going this way, we will fall.” “We’ll find a village if we go a little further. Let’s bear up a little more.” The father encouraged his son, helping him walk. After quite a while, a grave appeared before them, who were walking endlessly. Terrified, the son shouted, “Look at that grave! Someone must’ve died after wandering around as we do!” However, the father said with relief. “No, there is no grave where there is no man. The grave is a sign that…

Fruits Borne by Mother’s Words of the Water of Life

In the Czech Republic, many people came to Zion after hearing the voice of Heavenly Father and Mother through the 2018 short-term missions. Among them, I would like to introduce the story of one brother. Andel was the place that always came to mind when choosing a preaching field. Andel is a Czech word meaning angel. Probably because of the name, it always felt like our brothers and sisters are there. Our expectation of meeting our heavenly family there increased day by day, especially after hearing Mother’s word that there are brothers and sisters like jewels in Europe. One very cold day, we finally had a chance to go to Andel to preach. As soon as we got there, we…

Mun So-yeong from Guatemala City, Guatemala

Other Parts but One Body

Taste is one of the five senses that people have. However, your sense of taste alone cannot recognize how food tastes. When you chew food, its flavor is transferred to the pharynx between the mouth and the nose and you can sense the flavor; it’s because the sense of smell plays an important role. This is why you cannot taste properly if your nose is stuffy. It is not only the sense of smell that affects taste. Chromatist Nomura Junichi wrapped the same canned coffees with each different color such as red, yellow, blue, and brown. Then he asked people to drink them and asked about their taste. 73% of the participants said that the coffee in brown-colored can had…

A Joyful Trip

A daily life information magazine conducted a survey on the “type of people whom we don’t want to go on a trip with.” According to the survey result, “people who blindly follow,” “people who always complain,” and “people who are strongly self-opinionated” ranked high on the list. Nobody would ever like a companion who shifts responsibility onto others without making any effort to navigate his way at an unfamiliar place or complains about everything without tolerating any variable. It is also not easy to go on a trip with those who are very self-opinionated about where to go and what to eat. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”Novelist Marcel Proust…

When You Pray Earnestly

My life has been completely changed after receiving the truth and being baptized at the age of fifteen. Since my behavior was not like before, everyone around me said, “You are so different nowadays.” Even though my friends, family, or relatives asked me, “Where are you going?” or “What is going on?” I didn’t give them any answer. It was because I was afraid of being ridiculed if they found out that I attended the Church of God. However, after studying the prophecies of the Bible fulfilled without missing the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen, I couldn’t just sit back anymore. I started to deliver the precious truth, which I shouldn’t keep only to myself, to…

Rakesh Kumarakunta Rathinam from Puducherry, India

“Because I Am a Mother, Too!”

A 5.4 magnitude earthquake hit Pohang, Korea, in November 2017. When a postpartum care center was shaken by the earthquake, baby beds with wheels began to roll around. The mothers who had been resting in maternity ward ran frantically toward the neonatal unit, and the staff in the nursery quickly held several beds in their arms to protect the babies. Those who saw the scene later through the CCTV video praised the proper reaction of the staff. A member of the staff who was on the spot that day said in an interview. “Of course, I was scared, but I just thought I should protect the babies because I am a mother, too.” In January 2014, a ten-year-old elementary school…

How to Get Away from Worries

When you go on a diet, you would want to eat more food, and when you want to forget a memory, it would remain more vivid in your mind. When someone tells you not to do something, you would want to do it more. What is that? Daniel M. Wegner, a former professor of psychology at Harvard University, separated students into two test groups and gave different instruction to each group. The first group was instructed not to think of a polar bear, and the second group was instructed to think of a polar bear. The result was that the first group thought of a polar bear more often than the second group thought of it. In the 1970s, a…

The House Shines, So Does My Mind

“What is a real hassle among all housework?” “What is physically the toughest housework?” Gallup Korea questioned Korean housewives on domestic work and found that cleaning ranked no.1 for both of the two questions mentioned above. In a nutshell, house cleaning is recognized as a tiresome work and a hassle. So, people would have ever wished that someone else has already cleaned up every nook and corner of the house when they return home or imagined that someone would suddenly appear and dust off the shelves, sweep the floors, and mop until everything shines while they’re resting. A strong detergent that removes dirt by just a gentle rub, a disposable damp house cloth, a vacuum cleaner that takes in fine…

Thinking from a Different Angle

There was a restaurant at the entrance of a famous mountain with its beautiful scenery. When the cold winter came, the number of hikers had been decreased and people rarely visited the restaurant. One day, a welcome guest came. He was a teacher of the restaurant owner, who came from far to see him. “How have you been? Is your business going well?” “As you see, there is not a single visitor. I’m so distressed.” “How was it in last autumn?” “I was very busy as the restaurant was crowded with people coming to view the autumn colors of the mountain.” “Then, how was it in summer?” “It was full of summer visitors thanks to the vacation season.” “Really? How…

Instead of Waiting for a Time and Opportunity

While I often visited my aunt to preach the gospel, I came to have a good relationship with one of her friends. When I found out that our offices were near each other’s, I suggested that we have lunch together. Her character was so gentle and nice. When we talked about this and that during lunch, I sensed she had curiosity about the spiritual world and God as well. As the Passover drew near, the university students in Zion organized a Bible seminar and I invited quite many friends to the seminar, but among them, she was the only one who gladly agreed to come. She seemed to enjoy the seminar, saying that the presenters did a good job. After…

Wei Wei from Philadelphia, PA, USA

Whoever and Wherever

One hundred million people around the world take this medicine a day, and 60 billion of this medicine gets taken every year. It was the best selling medicine in 1950s; as a result, it was recorded in the Guinness World Records and got included in the first-aid medicine kit for Apollo spacecrafts. The long-term use of this medicine, which is effective for alleviating fever, pain, and inflammation, is helpful for preventing cardiac infarction and stroke. There is an anecdote that says that one prominent American doctor prescribed one pill of this medicine to Boris Yeltsin the first President of Russia when he suffered from heart disease. If you place this medicine inside a flower vase, it makes flowers wither less.…

Mom-Cooked Meals

‘What should I eat for dinner this evening?’ This is what lingers in my head from the moment when I leave work until I enter the kitchen. Since I changed my job and started living alone, I had to invest my time in what I had not put much weight on. One of them is cooking for myself. One evening, I couldn’t eat till late. I didn’t want a good feed or the same side dishes I ate the day before. I looked through the cupboard for anything to eat, and found a can of stir-fried kimchi. A simple and easy-to-eat menu just came to mind. It was kimchi fried rice. I wanted to enjoy a delicious dish, so I…

Kim Jeong-ha from Anyang, South Korea

A Lioness That Regretted Her Hunting

Even for the lion, the king of beasts, the predominant predator of the food chain, it is not easy to hunt. It’s because herbivores are always on alert, and when a predator approaches them, they recognize it soon and run away for their lives. So, wild lions are hungry more often than they are full. One day, a lioness, which was successful in hunting in the Madikwe Game Reserve in the Rep. of South Africa, showed an abnormal behavior against instinct. After a chase, the lioness bit the neck of an antelope and stopped its breath, and began to satisfy her hunger. Then she found something in the stomach of the antelope, and pulled it out with her mouth and…

The Law of the Minimum

There are occasions when plants that seem to be in excellent environments at first glance do not grow as expected. Justus von Liebig, a German botanist and chemist, found out through his studies that plant growth may slow or even stop because of the scarcest amount of a nutrient among essential plant nutrients. Considering that nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are nutrients necessary for plant growth, no matter how rich phosphorus and potassium are, if nitrogen is insufficient, the plant will no longer grow after its nitrogen is all used. This is called the “law of the minimum.” On the other hand, the plant will grow if you make up for the deficient nutrient through fertilizer. Look back on yourselves when…