Letters
from 31 October to 6 November 2005
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'The
other end of the telescope'
Your
message last week talked very clearly about the mix
of cultural traditions in America and, indeed, around
the world. Certainly I experience that here in the
[San Francisco] Bay Area. However, regarding the
whole world now being neighbors due to communication
possibilities nowadays.
I
was struck by your statement "Whilst
Jesus was quite clear in his exhortation to 'love
your neighbour as yourself', his explanation of who
might be our neighbour was to our mind less clear."
May I suggest that the explanation given by Jesus in
the parable called the Good Samaritan is perfectly clear — but
looks at the question from the other end of the telescope:
rather than looking at who might be our neighbor, He
tells to be neighbors to those around us in need.
Your
readers have probably responded to the needs of the
victims of Hurricane Katrina, but how many of us
have responded to the need of victims in the Pakistan/Kashmir
earthquake? A thought for pre-Advent preparation
. . . Yours in Christ, Stephen+
Stephen
Bartlett-Re
(hospital chaplain)
San Francisco, California, USA
31 October 2005
'How
much clearer could the Lord have been?'
While
I greatly appreciated the thoughts on the fusion
of culture, I was somewhat astonished that the
writer struggled to comprehend Jesus' instruction
on who is our neighbor. Surely the parable of
the Samaritan where the Lord picks a protagonist
from an almost the same, but different enough,
religion to cause violent, hateful reaction in
his audience; from another country (and if you
think Samaria is close, it is faster to fly to
Lagos than it is to walk from Jerusalem to Samaria);
and from the wrong class. He then goes on to
use that person to teach his oh-so-religious
crowd to behave as God would expect. Surely this
is instructional to us all, whether conservative
or liberal.
Our
neighbor is the one that we most despise or who most
despises us, whether for racial, political, theological,
or class grounds and we are called to love them whether
we agree or not. How much clearer could the Lord
have been?
Richard
Griffith
St Mark's, Gulfport
Biloxi, Mississippi, USA
spaatz1228@hotmail.com
1 November 2005
Loving
your neighbour as yourself
Father
Daisuke Kitagawa came in 1967 to Seattle to attend
General Convention. It was in the time of racial
turmoil in the USA. Taking
note of the tenor of the times, he said, "One of
the best ways to overcome racial tensions is for
people of different backgrounds to meet and really
get to know one another." He
did that all his life, as well as introducing people
to our Lord.
Father
Dai and his brother, Father Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa,
were born in Taiwan (it was known as Formosa in those
days). They were both educated in Japan (Kyoto and
Tokyo). They both came to the USA for additional
education and training in our seminaries and in various
dioceses and congregations. Their plan was to return
eventually to their native Japan, but with the outbreak
of WW II their lives and geographical venues were
completely altered as they were caught up in the
US internment of everyone of Japanese Ancestry.
In
1942, the Rev. Dr. Daisuke Kitagawa was the last
Priest to be at Seattle's
St. Peter’s Japanese Mission before members
of his congregation — including himself — were
sent off to the "relocation centers" set
up in American military camps all over this land. He
wrote an account in the Register of Services at St. Peter’s
Church of the visit of Bishop Reifsneider on the
occasion of the last service at St. Peter’s
in the spring of 1942. His
brother, The Rev. Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa, similarly
was incarcerated.
Father
Joe came back to Seattle when the Japanese Americans
were allowed to return in 1945. St. Peter’s
Mission Hall became a temporary hostel for the returnees
because during their evacuation and relocation other
people had come to live in their dwellings in Seattle
to work in the war effort during their absence. Now,
while they were looking for new living quarters they
were camping out in the Parish Hall
and Father Joe helped them.
After
he left Seattle, he helped to set up a "St. Peter’s
Japanese congregation" in Chicago, where some people
from Seattle and Los Angeles had settled after they
could leave the wartime camps. Father
Joe was to serve as an instructor of Comparative
Religion, and eventually to become the renowned Dean
of the University of Chicago Divinity School.
When
the Reverend Daisuke Kitagawa left the internment camps,
he went to Minneapolis where he taught US soldiers
the Japanese language because the war was still going
on. Then he went on to college work at the national
level of our Church, and then to the Division of
Studies at the World Council of Churches, Geneva.
He made numerous travels to Africa. Instead of talking
in demeaning ways about "underdeveloped countries",
he spoke rather of "areas of rapid social change".
Such
were the touches of Christian love, human compassion
and sensitivity that he brought to bear in his pastoral
ministry and service among high and low, the powerful
and downtrodden.
The
Reverend Timothy Makoto Nakayama
St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle
Seattle, Washington, USA
frtim@yahoo.com
31 October 2005
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