Ora Et Labora

This famous Latin phrase means Prayer and Labour.

It summarizes Benedictine Monastic spirituality and its impact on the western civilization for the past 1600 years. Prior to Benedictine monasticism, Eastern orthodox monasticism viewed the commitment to Jesus as devotion to an ascetic, spiritual life away from the civilized world, alone out in the desert where you encounter God. That is what we know as the life of desert fathers and mothers in the first five centuries of the church history.  Ascetic monastic life was a symbol of following Christ in suffering and detachment from the power and corruption of the religion of Constantinople.  

St. Benedict of Nursia (AD 480-547) wrote the Rule for his followers and began a different kind of monastic life, a communal life devoted to prayer to the heavenly father and study of Scripture, and manual labour on earth. The monastic life was not only connected to heaven, but also depended on the earth. By getting their hands dirty and relying on what the earth produced and dedicating their life of prayer and study, they left a legacy of abundant spiritual and material wealth for the generations that came after them. Benedictines accidently became the leaders of Western civilization and cultural and scientific inventions. (They invented eye glasses, clock, and beer, and many more. There are famous artisan craft beer brands using the methods developed by ancient Benedictines!)

Benedictine monks take land and stability seriously: wherever they are placed, they are there for the long haul. Stability is the most profound foundation for whatever Benedictine monks did for God and for their neighbours and in creation. For Benedictines, cultivating the land was a form of prayer as much as prayer was a form of labour, as they called prayer “divine office.”

Why does this matter to Fukushima? 

Many of the evacuees from the 20 Km evacuation zone around Fukushima Daiichi began to return to their homes, many others decided not to return. Yet, many more, mostly young people and families with young children, left Fukushima for good. As of the 2017 census, about 7000 people returned to the reopened area in the evacuation zone. That’s roughly 10% of the population before the disaster.

A nuclear power plant and its surrounding communities were a symbol of power and money, of materialism and consumerism of our culture today. But the 20 km zone surrounding Fukushima Daiichi, has become a man-made desert in the 21^st century. That is Futaba district (consisting of 6 towns and 2 villages shown on the map) today. 

Since I met Rev. Sumiyoshi for the first time in April 2011 he has been serving the disaster stricken areas in various ways with his unbending vision of "Gospel (fukuin) for Fukushima, Happiness (kofuku) for the people of Fukushima, and welfare (fukusi) of Fukushima." The common concept in all of this is "fuku" in kanji, which can be translated to happiness. Every time I visit him and his wife at their church, they share with me the unique ways God has been leading them to serve the people in Fukushima, beginning with the remarkable encounter with Jesus in Rev. Sumiyoshi's dream soon after the disaster (click here to go to the story in April 2011) 

Through the last seven years of experience and trials and errors, Rev. Sumiyoshi has gained wisdom and built a network of pastors, theologians and other Christian leaders for ministry and accountability. He is now moving forward with a new season of ministry, especially with an inviation to start a prayer house, which will eventually become a local church in Tomioka twon, just 10 km south of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

This time Rev. and Mrs. Sumiyoshi invited me and Midori to visit the prayer house and join them in the repair work. The neighborhood was not located on the coast and was protected from the tsunami. But it was badly affected by the earthquake; we could see the empty lots in what used to be a typical Japanese rural town with high density housing. 

View from the second floor of the house

View from the second floor of the house

Front yard of the property: Empty garden

Rev. Sumiyoshi explaining the vision

   "Our vision is to repair the house by the hands of volunteers who are sent by God. Our plan is to rely on God's flow and do whatever we can to obey him. I am glad that you got to go join us in the labour today!" Rev. Sumiyoshi showed us around the property and the vision for each room in the house. Then we prayed for the work we were about to do and Rev. Sumiyoshi joined the three men fixing the roof. These men were pastors who were too busy in their church ministries to do any "manual work." In today's church life, pastoral ministries such as teaching, preaching, and pastoral care, have become everything that one's congregation needs her pastor to fill, but that doesn't seem to include manual work. This is not simply a phenomenon in Japan, but in many other places the gospel has become truncated to a gnostic, spiritual message only. 

Three pastors fixing the roof

Midori, Mrs. Sumiyoshi and I got to dust and clean whatever that was not broken by the earthquake. While we were cleaning the house, we discovered many shamanistic charms hanging in the rooms, also hidden between the roof and the ceiling. The powers of the earthly gods couldn't protect the house or the people in it from the earthquake. As we were taking those charms down, we prayed not only for physical cleansing, but also for spiritual cleansing of the house and its neighbourhood. 

That night, my hands were tired after dusting and cleaning, and my throat was sore after inhaling the dust gathered for seven years. But my heart was filled with joy after seeing a vision that testifies to a powerful God when the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached through the work of hand fixing a roof and cleaning the dust and cobwebs.

Caring for Our Common Home

This is an urgent plea from Pope Francis, written in his second letter to the Roman Catholic Church called, Laudato Si, which means "Praise be to You," quoted from St. Francis of Assisi.

The official letter is found in this link: https://laudatosi.com/watch.

Here's also a link to a short video summarizing the letter, posted by Catholic Aid for Overseas Development (CAFOD) in the UK.

The Catholic sisters I met in Naraha and I had a good chat about our common faith in Jesus and common call to care for creation with Laudato Si and the wonderful Christian conservation organization, A Rocha International (www.arocha.org), which I became involved with in recent years.

Earth is not a resource for us human beings to consume and waste as we wish. It is our common home and home for all creation. We, humans, selfishly have hurt it for so long, but we are the only creatures that are given the gift of conscience and moral will to repent and change the course of our action. Caring for God's creation begins with a renewed mindset.

Can AI (Artificial Intelligence) save the labour crisis in Fukushima?

Here, meet the newest maître d in Fukushima! His name is Peppa. He greeted us at the sushi bar today in Koriyama and guided us which table we were supposed to sit.

Many young people left Fukushima after the disaster and Fukushima has been rapidly aging, faster than most places in Japan.

A big question is where and how should the electricity be produced to operate these robots? The problem is complex and there is no black and white answer. 

Ministry of Presence

April 12, 2018 - Naraha town 

“What skills do you have?”

That was the question repeatedly asked to the sisters who wanted to rent a house and start a community in Fukushima back in 2015. After a long and hard year of waiting, through a connection made at a local parish, the three nuns could get a rental house and register themselves at the local town office in Naraha at the end of 2015. “Why did you move here?” was the question asked by the town office clerk who received the forms filled by elderly sisters.

The Sisters of Visitation is a Catholic order in Japan that was established in 1915 with a mission to visit and offer hope to those who are in pain or suffering. Four sisters from Kamakura convent near Tokyo went to Miyagi soon after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Three years later when the situation settled, they didn’t want to go back to Kamakura. They started searching where in Fukushima they might continue to serve. When they heard the restricted zone (20 km evacuation zone from the Daiichi nuclear power plant) would soon start opening up, they explored the possibility of establishing their community somewhere along the coastal lines of Fukushima. But the door did not open for them quickly.

“We do not have any skills. We are not useful people. We are catholic sisters.”

Realty agencies and civil servicemen, whoever they met, all alike not only gave them a weird look at their grey religious habits, but gave them cold unwelcoming answers. They did not possess useful skills for recovery in this post-disaster almost-empty town.

The sisters started going out to temporary housing complexes in ordinary clothes, not in their religious habits, to serve evacuees with tea and snacks, and simply to be with people who lost their homes and families. Their friendly smiles, and peaceful presence, which was present week after week, month after month earned the trust and opened the doors to the hearts of hurting people. Gradually they made friends, and people started recognizing them on streets near their community house, in their habit. And now some people even started visiting the sisters at their house.

“We are here to visit people and offer friendship. But most importantly, we are here to pray. Pray for hurting people and pray also for the suffering creation. We pray for reconciliation of all things.” Says Sister Fujiwara with a big smile. She may seem useless in unbelieving eyes, but possesses a smile that no human skill can force to break in another human being’s face. She does not have money or power to sign a big real estate contract, but offers inner peace from the Creator God that no money can buy. 

Sister Teru Fujiwara

Sister Akiko Okawa explaining their farming as away of self-reliance

Seven years after the disaster, most foreign NGOs have left and foreign mission support has long gone in the forgotten land of Fukushima. But this small community of four sisters continue to visit their suffering neighbours with the hope and joy of Christ.

Sister Fujiwara, Sister Juvencia from East Timor, sister Yuko Matsusaka and Sister Akiko Okawa
standing in front of their community house (left to right)

Being Missional: Shining the Light in the Darkness

April 11, 2018 - Minami Soma

Back to Fukushima this year, alone with Midori. I miss coming with a team of people to encourage the forgotten people of Fukushima, but I am also enjoying this opportunity for me to sit with pastors and their church members leisurely and to listen (through Midori’s careful translation, for which I am forever grateful!) to their stories unhurriedly.

After my very first visit in 2011, this is only the second time to visit Fukushima in April as my annual visits had taken place in March in the previous years. Though most cherry blossoms have already ended in most parts of Fukushima, the colorful spring blossoms seem piercingly beautiful in contrast to the bags of topsoil piled high in the fields. 

Abandoned area

Empty field after topsoil was removed.

Recently cultivated area after topsoil was removed.

A little over 100 km distance took us over three hours to arrive in Minami Soma from Nakoso by train, bus and then train due to the high level of radiation still found around the Daiichi nuclear plant. As Midori and I were walking around the town to find a place to get some simple lunch, we discovered the town still looked pretty much like a ghost town, like a couple years ago when we stayed overnight. Not a single human-being walking on the sidewalks, and only cars pass by occasionally in the midday small town traffic.

“Yanagisawa san!” The front window rolled down from a car across the street, and the familiar face smiled at us. Mrs. Ishiguro waved at us as she slowed down the car to wait for us to get in. “No one walks in this area, so I was curious when I saw two ladies walking from a distance, and then I realized I knew the familiar faces!” She took us to a recently open store where we could buy hot lunch boxes and rushed to their house, which is also their church, Haramachi Bible Church.

“What things have been happening lately since we saw you last year?” I asked as we didn’t want to waste any time during our short visit before making the long train-bus-train journey back to Nakoso in the evening.

“We started an Ayako Miura book club that meets once a month at the public library in the town centre.” They meet at the public library to make it non-Christian friendly after a failed attempt to start it in the church. 7-11 people showed up so far each month and 20 some people showed up when they held a seminar with a literature expert as a guest speaker.

“Ayako Miura (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayako_Miura) is a famous Japanese female novelist, whose works convey a biblical worldview that is well understood by ordinary Japanese people. We want to serve our neighbours by creating a social event like this because there are very few opportunities to enjoy culture or entertainment for a quality time here,” said the newly ordained Rev. Ishiguro (Rev. Ishiguro’s wife) spoke to us with her great big smile.

 The church is also trying to have an open church occasionally by holding more seeker-friendly services. They want the church to be a non-threatening, friendly place where people can come and find friends.

Minami Soma is a rapidly aging city because most young families left after the disaster. The city was under a voluntary evacuation order soon after the disaster and many who evacuated during that time have not come back. This house-church run by a husband-wife pastoral team had two lonely years right after the disaster when the Sunday service meant only the two of them to worship. But now the church has been steadily growing in the last few years and now they are trying to meet the needs of the neighbors by holding public events.

Rev. Ishiguro in front of the public library

This is a church that knows her mission to be present and shine Christ’s light in the darkness.

"What ifs" won't return the lost 2557 days (7 years and two days)

For the first time in several years, I am in Vancouver this March. Normally I would pay my yearly visit to Fukushima this time of the year, coinciding with the 3/11 Triple Disaster anniversary. I find it hard to call it an anniversary, but there it is. With a plan to visit Fukushima in April, I am home reading online news about Fukushima instead of visiting friends there.

I imagined that the echoes of the triple disaster would gradually disappear from media even on these anniversary dates now that seven years have passed. But I was surprised to see a news article (click here) which mentioned some scholarly reports saying, "The evacuation was a mistake." 

There have been countless arguments about Fukushima issues right from the day one, seven years ago. About the level of radiation risks, about how far people must evacuate, about how long they must wait, about how soon they could return and to what level of restoration and so on.

2557 days have passed since the triple disaster in Fukushima. For more than sixty thousand people from Fukushima, that's how long they have carried the stigma of evacuees. More than half of that number of people are still wandering with lost hope, not just lost homes and possessions. It is not easy to get an accurate count on how many more people left their homes in Fukushima voluntarily and unofficially. But in the first year of the disaster, the number was over a hundred thousand.

Since the very first visit I took in April 2011, I've met people who have pointed out how wrongly this triple disaster recovery was unfolding ever since the official recovery began in Fukushima almost a whole year after the disaster. Now we hear a voice of ivory tower saying that the evacuation was a mistake. Grassroots people knew it, but they had to follow the voice of authority. The people of Fukushima did not have a voice back then. Only one in two people who were forced to evacuate returned to their homes. Where are the rest? Do they have a voice now?

Questions arise if the evacuation was indeed a mistake. What if these people had all stayed home, would they have recovered better? What if there was another tsunami and earthquake, would people then have evacuated or stayed? What if, what if, what if.... We do not have answers.

We can't return to those evacuees the precious 2557 days that they have lost in evacuation even after monetary compensations have been made by TEPCO to those evacuees. But perhaps one thing we can do is to remember the big mistake and not repeat it. Now is the time to think about the present moment and future.