Blessing of the Godwits Text by Rev Ahn

"Our life is a journey like this bird. All creatures have their journey in each of their lives. It is our time to reflect on our lives before their departure for a long journey to Alaska via Chinese Yalu river and Korean west sea. We can know from them how we can take the long journey. There should be hope and purpose. There should be a destination. 

They cannot talk to us in our language, but they can tell us about the important things for our lives that we have to know. In this situation, they show and remind us about the the importance of the word “relationship". How have we regarded our relationship with our partners, family, brother and sister, relatives and friends? What do we need to have a good relationship? It needs mutual understanding, forgiving, accepting and so on. We can acknowledge the strong unity of their community by their flight; understanding each other, helping each other and, having hopes for each other. 

Have you ever thought about how much agony they feel while flying long ways; escalating pain in their wings, conflicting in their mind and disappointed by lost family members during the time of flying?

By knowing more about them, they give us more meaning in our lives. 


We need to learn from these birds.


They are our friends. Giving hope, dreams and love. They fly together, fly high and fly long. And, we can learn from them living together, living high and living long. 

One another thing that we can be encouraged from them is that they know the time that they need to stay and leave, and they know the place where they need to go through their lives. But we sometimes don’t know about those things and miss and forget. 

It is not only the time for blessing them. This is a time to be blessed by them.  


I would like to recommend that we can bless each other at this moment. I ask that we follow the lead of these little birds and ask us to encourage each other, when we meet the hard times and situations and when we are completely exhausted by the scorching sun and turbulent storms, while we fly on our journey in our lives. 


Let us fly with them and have the hope- like them- and live, like them, with good relationships with each other."


Text by Rev Ahn delivered at the Farewell to the Godwits, March 2015.