나누는 삶

 선한 씨앗을 심으면 선한 열매를 맺습니다. 남을 위해, 이웃을 위해 봉사의 씨앗을 심으면 내가 거두지 못하더라도 나의 후손이든 후손의 후손이든 반드시 거두게 되어있습니다. 이 땅에서 거두지 못하면 하늘나라에서라도 거두리라 믿습니다.

작은 노력이, 작은 희생이 한 알의 밀알이 되어 다른 이들에게 용기를 주고 도움이 된다면 그보다 더 보람된 일은 없을 터이지요. 나만 잘 먹고 잘 산다면 무슨 재미가 있겠습니까. 함께 잘 살 수 있는 기틀을 만들고 서로 밑거름이 되어 질 때 살만한 세상이 되지 않을까요? 

북한 당국에 잡혀 12년간 노동형을 선고받고 있던 언론인 유나 리(Euna Lee)와 로라 링(Laura Ling)이 극적으로 풀려났습니다. 이들이 가족 품에 앉기는 모습을 보면서 잔잔한 감동을 느낄 수 있었습니다. 애태웠던 가족들, 걱정해준 이들이 안도하며 감격적인 상봉을 지켜보았습니다.

이 일이 있게 되기까지 정부 간 많은 협상이 있었으리라 생각됩니다. 어쩌면 유엔의 도움도 있었겠지요. 끈질긴 노력이 결실을 맺은 결과임이 분명할 것입니다.

기억하고 싶은 것은 빌 클린턴 전임 대통령의 역할입니다. 이전에 모든 협의가 되었겠지만 기꺼이 자신의 시간을 희생하여 두 사람을 데리고 나오는 모습이 아름다웠습니다. 비행기 트랩에 올라 문으로 들어서는 두 여인을 맞이하는 광경은 감격적이었지요. 클린턴은 2007년 '주는 삶(Giving)'이라는 책을 발간하기도 했습니다. 책에 쓰는 것으로 그치지 아니하고 실천하는 모습이 보기에 좋았습니다.

내가 가진 귀한 것들을 조금이나마 나누며 살 때 진정한 기쁨과 보람이 있지 않을까 싶습니다. 

<Paying posthumous honour to long-lost hero>

After surviving the Holocaust as a child, Israel Meir Lau spent decades searching for the man who saved his life.

That journey ended with an Associated Press report about a recently discovered Nazi document confirming the identity of the 18-year-old who shielded him from German gunfire when his concentration camp was liberated.

In an emotional ceremony yesterday, the Holocaust memorial Lau now chairs posthumously granted Feodor Mikhailichenko Israel's highest honour for non-Jews.

"He was my childhood hero. A man with a huge soul and a heart of gold," said Lau, 72, a former Israeli chief rabbi.

Lau said Feodor stole and cooked potatoes for him, knitted him wool earmuffs to protect him from the bitter cold and lay on top of him as gunfire erupted when Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated on Apr. 11, 1945.

At the time, Lau was an eight-year-old boy nicknamed Lulek.

"Feodor, the Russian, looked after me in the daily life like a father would for a son," Lau wrote in his 2005 autobiography.

After the war, Lau lost track of Mikhailichenko and despite many efforts could never trace him again.

Mikhailichenko had returned to Russia where he became a prominent geologist. He died of cancer in 1993 at 66. But his daughters, Yulia Selutina and Yelena Belayaeva, confirmed their father often spoke lovingly about Lulek.

Last year, Lau invited both daughters to his home in Israel. There, he introduced them to many of his eight children, 50 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

"I told them, `All of this I owe to your father. If it wasn't for your father, none of them would exist.' I looked for him for decades and I never forgot him for a single day."

Selutina teared up yesterday as she accepted a medal on her father's behalf. She said her father never forgot Lulek and travelled to Buchenwald a year before his death seeking information about him.

(Source: Toronto Star Wednesday, August 5, 2009 page A8 by Aron Heller Associated Press)

 

<'Nightmare of our lives' finally over : Journalists freed from N. Korea enjoy tearful reunion>

Two American journalists held captive in North Korea since March endured meals of rice with rocks, more than four months of isolation and the constant fear they would be sent to a gulag.

Facing sentences of 12 years hard labour for illegally entering the country, they were allowed only sporadic contact with each other, let alone the outside world. Then, suddenly Tuesday, they were brought into a meeting with none other than Bill Clinton, who helped win their release and flew home with them for a tearful reunion with their families.

"We could feel your love all the way in North Korea," an emotional Laura Ling said. "It is what kept us going in the darkest of hours and it is what sustained our faith that we would come home."

Ling and Euna Lee sobbed and embraced their husbands and Lee's 4-year-old daughter, Hana, in the Burbank airport after a 91/2-hour flight from Japan. It was the last stop following their release from North Korea after an unusual diplomatic rescue mission.

'KNEW INSTANTLY'

In a voice shaking with sobs, Ling recalled how their time in captivity came to an abrupt end after she and Lee were summoned to a meeting and found Clinton there.

"We were shocked but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end, and now we stand here, home and free," she said.

Neither woman offered details of their treatment.

Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, are reporters for Al Gore's Current TV. They had been working on a story about the trafficking of women when they were arrested. The pair were granted a pardon Tuesday, following talks between Clinton and North Korea leader Kim Jong Il.

They arrived at Bob Hope Airport at dawn aboard a Boeing jet owned by Steve Bing, a film producer, friend of Clinton's and contributor to Democratic causes.

Clinton was hugged by Gore as he stepped off the plane. He didn't address the media.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Clinton will brief the national security team on what transpired.

He reiterated that Clinton did not carry a message from President Barack Obama to Kim. "If there wasn't a message, there certainly couldn't have been an apology."

<Source: Toronto Sun, Thursday, August 6, 2009 page 26 by Robert Jablon, The Associated Press>