The People,
Pilgrim's Progress
The spirituality of a natural scientist
ntroduction
The first time I read John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress was in high school, when it was a highly recommended classic among the world literature canon. When I picked it up again, I was at the age where I couldn't read without relying on a magnifying glass. I went to church and believed in Jesus, but the fear of death was still there.
As I watched Christian cross the river of death with Hopeful in John Bunyan's The Pigrim's Progress, I realised that death is not the end of our lives, but the journey to a new life. As I lived through the panoramic passage of seventy years, I realised that the Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress was me.
The story of how I, a Christian, went to study in Germany to become a biologist, and the beautiful house where the Christian of the Pilgrim's Progress stopped for a while, was my pilgrimage. As a biologist, working on The Project of Stork Reintroduction, I always praised the gracious Lord who created all that is good and true. Unable to compete with the frenzy of digital gaming and the pet industry, the marketplace of vanities that has taken over the cinema, YouTube, and the internet, I had to close The Project of Stork Reintroduction, and I was devastated. But as I followed the Christian pilgrimage, I was reborn as a person with heavenly hopes.
In the Bible (Mark 5:28-34), a woman with a hemorrhagic disease touches the hem of Jesus' garment and is immediately healed. Jesus says, "Your faith has saved you." That salvation happened once and for all. If there is one thing I hope and pray for, it is to be able to touch the hem of Jesus' garment while painting the characters in The Pilgrim's Progress in watercolour.
As I read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, I thought of the characters in Pilgrim's Progress - Obstinate, Pliable, Sloth, Presumption,Formalist, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Talkative, Mr. Save-all, Little faith, Truth, and Hopeful. While staying at the Pilgrim House in Gapyeong, the only one of its kind in the world, I was inspired by the figures in the Pilgrim's Progress sculpture there and began to paint. Hanji-watercolour was first taught to me when I studied abroad in Germany and saw the work of expressionist artist and watercolour master Emil Nolde (German 1867-1956). It's as if I became Nolde's AI (artificial intelligence) and had already studied over 6,000 of his works. Of course, the difference between me and the AI is that the AI cannot have faith, but I have faith that the Lord is within me with the assurance of salvation at the touch of the hem of His garment.
The first thing I saw when I was born was my father, mother, and my family. As I grew up, my friends and relatives, my neighbours, and the animals. The people I have met are too numerous to count on my fingers. In my young adulthood, the person who changed my life dramatically was John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.
He was born in 1628 in a small village called Elstow, near Bedford, England, the son of a poor tinker. He learnt the tinker's trade from his father and married a woman who came to him with only two books. He first came to know Jesus while reading the two devotional books that were his wife's prized possession, and was so moved by the Reverend John Gifford that he was baptised (christened) in 1653. He then began to witness to the gospel with an irrepressible zeal. When Charles II suppressed all religions other than the state church in 1660, he continued to preach, and was arrested and imprisoned for three months. In defiance of an order never to preach again, he was arrested again and imprisoned for 12 years until 1672. It was during this time that he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress.
As a Christian, I'm going to meet the characters in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and I'm going to do it with a stork that has been my companion for half my life. I loved my neighbours with the stork, and they loved me and the stork a lot. Of course, there were times when they led me into the valley of the shadow of death. The river of death, which a Christian in the twilight of his life must cross, is just around the corner. Before that, I climbed Mount Inwang, the mountain closest to where I live, every day, and watched the Rufous Turtle Doves, Carrion Crows. I have my last goodbye conversations on this planet called Earth with coots, magpies, blackbirds, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, kestrels, buntings, cicadas, and ants. Because of Him, who sent me to this earth to make love to storks and talk to animals, I am living by grace from God, born again, with the river of death in sight. My life so far has been a tremendous gift. I no longer have to live a bleak life that always seems to have a dark cloud hanging over it, because the Holy Spirit of life in Christ has blown in like a mighty wind and dispelled all the dark clouds in the sky. I sing and shout! And I give praise to God through Jesus the Messiah.
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About the Author
Shi-Ryong Park (PhD): He is a professor emeritus at Korea National University of Education, a member of Saemoonan Church, and currently serves as a supervising professor for KBS's Animal Kingdom. As a natural scientist, he has written many books, including 'Where Storks Can't Live, People Can't Live' (Moksoo Bookstore), 'The Unfinished Story of Life' (Gomseomari), 'Storks - Flying in Nature' (Jisungsa), 'Drunken Elephants Are Increasing' (Woongjin Publishing), and 'Animal Behaviour Stories' (Jaum and Moum).
Potrait of the Author
