Missionaries to Japan over centuries have studied and taught about the spiritual condition of Japan. Today’s western secular societies have adopted Zen and other natural spiritual practices from Japan for decades. I am not an expert on spirituality or mission to Japan, but I learned one thing from living in Thailand at the time of tsunami and from sending relief workers to tsunami recovery sites in different countries at that time. When such massive natural disasters hit, spiritual quests rise from all corners of society and we find ourselves often without adequate answers.
After spending the first night in Fukushima, I got up this morning with much confidence to start the journey. As the temperature dropped closed to 1 C with wind and rain, my body started shivering. We headed to Iwaki, a coastal city located around 30 to 50 KM south of Fukushima Dai-chi. We first went to see areas affected by the tsunami. We could clearly see high water marks on the buildings (close to the top of second floor) that survived the tsunami, otherwise the area seemed like an empty ghost town with some broken houses. The cleanup work was already complete, and a few businesses have reopened with hopes for their customers’ return, but many houses were empty as residents left in fear of radiation.
I got out of the car and walked along the embankment in the thought of my friend Carole who was killed by the tsunami in Phuket in 2004 and others killed by the tsunami in this neighbourhood in Iwaki. One has to think of the final destiny of our fragile human life faced with such power of nature. I went into a house that was still remaining with only one corner of the walls broken open. I entered the room through the broken wall and found a piece of sculpture and art supplies, and a few books on a table that seemed to have shifted around by waves. I found “The Return to Yaskuni Shrine” on the top of the stack of books.
Yaskuni Shrine is a Shinto temple dedicated to Japanese deceased soldiers and military leaders during the Second World War. I do not know who lived in the room or if he or she is alive or dead, but all I could tell was this person was in deep soul searching as you can see the hand was reaching out for help on the picture.
Japan’s effort to modernize the nation began in the Meiji era of mid 19th century and it was an effort to copy the modern Enlightenment of Europe. "Spiritual endarkenment" continued while the nation economically developed through their much praised virtues like diligence, orderliness, group-oriented mindset and so on. Do Japanese people believe all these deceased souls gathered around the shrine or gone back to the Mother Earth? Or as some Christians outside Japan have criticized, were they punished by this multiple disaster as God’s judgement? All I can say is the Bible tells us more about God who suffers with the afflicted than his judgement over his creation, and he loved enough to die for such a sinful world.
With my heavy heart I returned to the car, and we headed to our next destination; Global Mission Chapel, a church that is now serving as one of the city’s major relief operation coordination centers. With volunteers from all over Japan, we headed to a nearby evacuation shelter set up in a local high school gym. Mostly elderly people were sitting around kerosene heaters and some of the evacuees went back to clean or fix their homes during the day. There were no children in the shelter as young families with children left for wherever they could put children in school. Having lived in the shelter for more than a month now, they were used to seeing volunteers. This afternoon was scheduled for foot-washing and companionship to elderly people as these evacuees are without any facilities of shower or bath (by the way, if you don’t know how much Japanese love bath, it’s time to google for yourself!).
There were no signs of distress or trauma on their faces. Thankfully I had been educated well by my colleagues in Tokyo about the special characteristics of people in Tohoku region: their resilience and independence from the long history of living in harsh climate of the north. They even prepared a little eatery to thank the volunteers.
A total recovery of humanity.
That’s what Tadao Ando, a famous architect, calls for the Japanese society to take action to build a post-disaster society, as Midori reads a newspaper clip to me. “For the last few decades our society built economic wealth but we gradually lost our true wealth of humanity,” says the architect. He urges his country people to rethink the whole education of people for a new humanity of creativity, ingenuity, love for community and harmony. We do hope and pray that people of Fukushima will rise up beyond the tragic disasters and against fear and uncertainty of future. It is only possible to recover and sustain the lasting wealth of humanity only by the true source, the Creator God.
Hi Soohwan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a witness there.
conrade