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I met Joon at the close of the first meeting for worship at the retreat center. The assembly of people break the silence by shaking hands and greeting their neighbors. I shook hands left, then right, and then turned around and held out my hand to a Korean man with graying hair and slightly hollow cheeks. He returned my smile and softly but firmly clamped my hand between both his large hands (smooth skin over past callouses), and shook it with great gravity and gentleness. His handshake and smile were given with the depth and the consideration you reserve for your lifetime friends; I felt that he liked me unconditionally. Something deep and fleeting passed between us. Without having said a word he was a friend to me and I was a friend to him.
 

Throughout the rest of the year, Joon and I always greeted each other with tremendous warmth even though we never spoke much; perhaps it was shyness on my part, or perhaps neither of us felt a need to waste words reiterating what we already knew.
 

Joon speaks very slowly, partially out of unfamiliarity with spoken English but largely out of a need to say precisely the right thing. He is usually quiet, but when he speaks, people listen.
 

Granted, it takes a while to learn how to listen to Joon. In a class on Quaker writers, Joon's commentary was invariably insightful and referenced a tremendous body of literature and ideas, but he delivered his thoughts outside the cadence of normal conversation. He would slowly deliver a sentence and then pause. A long pause. Without a trace of impatience or embarrassment, he searched for the right way to structure his next point. He would refer to notes in front of him, write a word down, smile, and then speak the next sentence.
 

If it were any other person wrecking the train of conversation, it would be annoying; but we learned to accept and enjoy Joon's contributions. It is a rare pleasure to hear somebody speak without a plan and yet think through everything he says, completely un-self-conscious and with great dignity.
 

My best friend Will shared post-dinner pots-washing duty with Joon and would often jokingly complain that Joon was forcing this chore to be the heart of Will's daily contemplative practice. Since I washed pots after lunch, I could empathize.
 

When we first started our chores at the retreat center, it was suggested (with the slightest suggestion of ironic humor) that we not think of the chores as an unpleasant obligation, but instead as another opportunity for spiritual growth. The program residents went so far as to quote some famous writer describe transforming the mundane task of dishwashing into a great life-affirming exercise by luxuriating in the sensations that are normally lost when you put your mind on autopilot – the silky sensation of pressing your arms into warm, sudsy water, the pleasure of seeing debris detach from a plate, observing the ebb and flow of dishes in the dirty pile stack.
 

That's all well and fine for washing dishes, I suppose. It's much harder to find peace and serenity in washing pots. I guess if ours had been a Catholic retreat community, washing pots would be the contemplative chore reserved for Jesuits. A vast pile of bowls, pots, gigantic cast-iron skillets, and pans would accumulate in the course of cooking for sixty-plus people, and it was our job to scrub every bit of crusted, burned cheese or chicken grease from the corner of each pan without breaking anything, bashing ourselves silly, or taking from now until Kingdom Come. The cleaning and disinfecting sinks are crammed into a corner, so you face the complex challenge of reaching into a deep sink and lifting thirty pound iron pots filled with water up two feet to balance on the edge of the sink while you yourself are bouncing on one foot, wedged between a table, each other, and various hanging implements.
 

Each pots-washing team develops is own particular rhythm. My group was fast and furious, taking delight in its carefully structured plan of attack on grease and particularly efficient bowl stacking order. I hacked at dirty spots and skimmed over clean ones. I wielded a wicked piece of steel wool, a mean sponge, and when occasion required it, a brutal pick.
 

I couldn't imagine what the job would be like working with a methodical, deliberate man like Joon.
 

"Chuck my man, Joon is ssslllloooowwww. Slow, slow, slow," Will ranted. "Sometimes he spends five minutes cleaning a pan," and here he pantomimed the precise movements of a man methodically following a pattern that was guaranteed to rub steel wool in every possible direction over every square inch of the pan, "but he really takes pleasure and pride in it, so I can't really say anything. Some days it drives me nuts, some days it's relaxing. Some days I'm there for an extra twenty minutes."
 

One day I substituted for Will and experienced that which is Joon washing pots. He stood at the end of line, where the heaviest cleaning takes place. As anticipated, he took great and equal care with every item that he touched. Joon wasn't slow, exactly; his every movement was quick and precise, there were just a lot of them. He approached the job with solemn good humor, simultaneously recognizing his rate but maintaining a serene dignity that made the idea of cutting corners, like not scrubbing an obviously clean area, unthinkable.
 

Towards the end of the year, Joon was asked to share his history and spiritual journey with the community.
 

He prefaced his history by talking briefly about his experience with Christianity. He encountered Christian teachings when he was in his late teens. It was a source of great comfort when his parents, and then several of his friends, died peaceful but prolonged deaths. Since then, "I've always tried to keep Jesus Christ with me." He tried being a preacher for a while, but found that it didn't suit him because he wanted to encourage depth in himself and others, not push a particular set of dogmatic ideas on others. So he entered academia and started teaching at the university.
 

It must have been a heady time to be a teacher. The corruption and militarization of following the Korean war seemed to draw to a close when the despotic president Rhee was ousted by nationwide protest. But the power simply shifted into more subtle hands that gradually used the excuses of stability and capital to justify clamping down on potential dissent. Academics, mistrusted for their role in student movements and liberal leanings, were arrested one by one.
 

Joon and his wife were thrown into prison for unknown crimes, to serve a sentence of unknown length.
 

The first few years were his hardest. The prison wasn't terrible as such things go – he had enough food and the guards weren't sadists – but the mind-crushing isolation, lack of stimulus, and atmosphere of shame wore him down. He missed his wife terribly.
 

He found refuge in contemplation. He used the long, quiet mornings to delve into the spiritual struggles, doubts, and communion that are unique to each person, but accessible to everyone. I think it was during this time that he discovered the kernel of quiet spiritual dignity that made him impervious to loneliness, isolation, and mockery. It gave him both great purpose and patience.
 

As Joon points out, it was not enough for the government to remove academics from positions of influence, it also wanted to 'rehabilitate' them to believe the correct pro-military, pro-capitalist, pro-democracy (where democracy is defined as the one Democratic Republican party) ideology. The prison wardens wanted to crush these men and assure themselves of their own righteousness. They didn't crassly beat the prisoners, but rather applied more subtle appeals to innate desires for dignity, for having an authority you can respect and trust, and for being respected.
 

One day, all the political prisoners were gathered. A simple bargain was proposed: those agreeing to confess their crimes of communism and moral corruption would receive better treatment, and those who refused would be isolated and would certainly never leave the prison.
 

Joon wanted to stand with those would not confess to false crimes as part of a campaign of humiliation, but thinking of his wife, confessed.
 

There's more than one way to take a stand. He proposed to the head guard that he lead a Bible study group for the unrepentant men. Since the narrow strain of Christianity known to the political establishment encouraged respect for authority and opposed to communism, Joon was granted a two-hour weekly meeting.
 

Joon led the men in Bible study, with a particular emphasis on the new testament. He taught the men that Christ was a poor man who was spat at by the rest of society for taking radical stands on equality and class structure. He preached the importance of an individual's moral behavior, and the possibility of a personal mystical connection to a higher power. Some causes are worth dying for, but if we are righteous our story will be told to inspire others. Joon also touched on key -- and equally selective -- portions of old testament scripture; Psalms about enduring injustice, prophets declaiming the wickedness of nations that crush their poor, and above all else, a world-view in which we are responsible for loving one another and loving the god who loves us.
 

In short, Joon didn't preach the God of the Bible, but pulled from the text a subversive message of self-empowerment. He was throwing a lifeline out to these men by letting them know that their suffering had meaning, that the prisons and guards and oppressive governments were in the wrong and the men deserved respect for their uncompromising stand. For their part, the men (who weren't necessarily Christian) discussed their imprisonment and isolation with one another, masked in Biblical terms.
 

Joon was very much aware that if anyone vaguely aquatinted with Christianity caught wind of his particular species of Bible study, he would be shot. When asked about this, Joon just shrugged. "I half-expected them to find out and shoot me each time I went. But I knew it was what I had to do."
 

On the rare occasions when the dozing guard in the corner of the room fell conclusively asleep, Joon dropped all pretenses and quietly and urgently reported on the life of the prison and passed political rumors and messages to the men.
 

After ten years, Joon was unexpectedly released. But his wife was still in prison. Joon didn't know where, he didn't know if she was still alive, he didn't know anything at all.
 

Eventually, a prisoner who had been in the same prison as his wife contacted him and told him that she was, to the best of her knowledge, still alive. She also told him where in the prison, roughly, she was being held.
 

He and his friends were powerless to do anything. They couldn't send letters, they couldn't just speak to the warden, and they didn't have any powerful political allies.
 

So they sang. Once a week, they gathered on the hill closest to Myong Sook's cell and sang her favorite songs. During the rest of the week, Joon worked to organize student protests and publicize holes in the new political system, in particular the vast number of unjustly held political prisoners.
 

Eventually Myoung Sook was released, and she and Joon were reunited after a marriage interrupted by 13 terrible years. When they finally saw one another, he told her that he had sang against hope that she would know he was still there for her; she had heard the songs, and had hoped against hope that they were for her.
 

Our retreat community held a half hour of worship each morning. We met in silence and stayed in silence until someone was moved to speak. I enjoyed feeling of groundedness that came from meeting for worship, but frequently begrudged its early hour. In my world, contemplation should be restricted to a reasonable timeframe, like between 11am and 8pm. It certainly shouldn't start before the first cup of coffee has had a chance to shake hand with the brain.
 

One day in meeting, I was feeling particularly sleepy and hazy when Joon stood up and announced, "I just took a nap."
 

My fuzzy attention snapped to focus. This was a peculiar thing to say in worship. You're not supposed to announce that you're asleep while ostensibly praying or meditating; it's one of those embarrassing things that happen but which everyone agrees to tastefully ignore. But Joon had just said this in his typically solid, pondering, unembarrassed manner.
 

"I love taking naps during meeting for worship." He paused. (I loved the way he delivered lines that were both deadpan comedy and also serious). "I've not been able to really sleep for the past," he paused, counting, "twenty years. When I was in prison, I had nightmares and was lonely. And then I was an activist and was always busy fighting for important causes, and was too busy to rest. And then I came here, and I can finally relax. There are no more battles to fight, at least not right now. Recently, I felt so peaceful in meeting that I let myself take a nap, and when I woke up I said to myself, 'Joon, now you can finally rest.' Sometimes… sometimes it's good to just sleep, and sleeping in meeting can be the best sleep."