Dear Friends,
This week the world acknowledges the tragic anniversary of 1945 bombing of Hiroshima (August 6th) and Nagasaki (August 9th) On Sunday, August 5th our gospel from John speaks of Jesus as the “Bread of Life”. As Christians, we cannot help but ponder: “how can we who believe so deeply in the presence of Jesus in Eucharist have failed so abysmally to recognize the Christ in all humanity?”
In many ways, we here in the United States have been blessedly protected from such profound devastation. Tragically, we now have the memory of Sept. 11th, and the atrocious visuals which will live in our hearts forever. But even these images pale when we listen to the experience of our Japanese brothers and sisters on this planet: One survivor of Hiroshima writes of what he witnessed:
“The appearance of people was . . . well, they all had skin blackened by burns. . . . They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn't tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. . . . They held their arms bent [forward] like this . . . and their skin - not only on their hands, but on their faces and bodies too - hung down. . . . If there had been only one or two such people . . . perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met these people. . . . Many of them died along the road - I can still picture them in my mind -- like walking ghosts.”
According to U.S. estimates, 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing, 140,000 were injured many more were made homeless as a result of the bomb. Deadly radiation reached over 100,000. In the blast, thousands died instantly.
Fujie Urata Matsumoto, a survivor from Magaskai, shares another scene:
“The pumpkin field in front of the house was blown clean. Nothing was left of the whole thick crop, except that in place of the pumpkins there was a woman's head. I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. She must have been from another part of town -- I had never seen her around here. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. . . . She had probably looked square into the flash and gotten her eyeballs burned.”
The bomb over Nagasaki took the lives of 42,000 persons and injured 40,000 more.
As we gather in prayer this week, and remember this heartrending history, let us pray for the wisdom to find creative solutions to conflict that do not annihilate or in any way, diminish the other. It begins in our hearts and our homes. If we are not at peace within, and do not do the work of generating peace in our own lives, we cannot be makers of peace in the lives of others. If we are to be ‘bread for the world’ we must knead loving kindness into every breath we breathe, word we speak, action we take.
We invite you to journey with us in prayer at The Spirit of Life Community. Through our time of prayer and sharing together, we work together to grow in our self-understanding and in our relationships with God and with God’s people. We celebrate the gift of our faith and the responsibility that is ours as followers of Jesus Christ. It is our prayer that what we as a community experience in our praying together will overflow into the rest of our lives, making us more fully human and more ‘whole’….holy! We invite you to join us in this endeavor and journey with us as we seek to grow in our love of God and to grow in our capacity to be living expressions of God’s loving peace and justice in our world.
Wishing you peace in your hearts,
Blessings,
Jean & Ron