That next morning in Busan, after a night of sleep, I woke to a voice that echoed in my chest like a heartbeat: I would become an educator who changes people’s lives. The message was so vivid that I began to research my options. Since I was a music major, I learned I would need to take another entrance exam to transfer into the education department. Years passed, and that prophecy became reality—I became not just an educator, but a professor in a graduate school of music therapy, helping people change through music.
Having gained a passion for fasting prayer, I went to the Gadeok Prayer Mountain on December 28 of the same year and prayed for a week to be transformed. I hated my thoughts, my appearance, everything. I prayed earnestly to become someone like Joseph in the Bible, but no change seemed to happen. Years later, during my son’s high school summer break, we were talking when I suddenly exclaimed in shock: “Yohan! You are the very person I so longed to become. You are the answer to my desperate prayer!”
A Journey Toward Change
While working at Metro State Hospital, we had a Vietnamese patient who repeatedly assaulted staff and fellow patients. The doctor prescribed Thorazine 250mg to sedate him, and he would spend all day unconscious in bed. Seeing him like that filled me with compassion. “He's still a human being... how can we leave him like an animal?”
I began by placing a Coke—his favorite drink—near him. At first, I had to leave it 2–3 meters away, but after about three weeks, I could place it beside him, and eventually, I could even hand it to him directly. Until then, no one dared to get close because of his size—he was a former boxer—and he would wave people away. It took about three months to reach him.
One day, as I walked past him talking with a Vietnamese staff member, the staff later came into the nurses’ office and told me what he said: “He is a good man.” Shortly after, he was discharged and returned to society. That’s when I realized—when someone truly feels that you care about them, they change. The staff called it “The Miracle of Metro.”
From Aspiration to Impact
Every semester, around 800 students attended the 15-week music therapy special lecture, and the average acceptance rate for the graduate program was 10:1. The students who entered were filled with pride—when music therapy was mentioned, they were passionate to the point of foaming at the mouth.
From the moment they entered, we read together the “Music Therapy Mission Statement for Personal and Global Transformation,” and at every gathering, we would shout, “Korean Music Therapy—A New Beginning Always!”
At one graduation ceremony, the father of a student from Ewha Womans University’s French literature program approached me. He wanted to donate 10 million won to the school. He said he had never seen his daughter study with such joy and was deeply grateful. Many students were transformed, living vibrant lives through music therapy.
One autumn, I visited Nobl County in Yongin to encourage our interns. I sat in on a graduate’s therapy session. After the session, many participants lined up to thank me: “Thank you, Mr. Moon, for teaching music therapy and making it possible for her to share it with us.”
I believe that this is true across all music therapy settings. Even today, I’m sure there are many people I’ve never met who are finding peace through music therapy.