"the heaven was shut up three years and six months" - Sadness and Anger of the Poor

Tokyo Downtown

Sadness and Anger of the Poor

One of the most impressive thing I have recently encountered is a composition of a primary school boy.

It was written decades ago or immediately after WWII and included in a book compiled by a notable educator and published around 1951.

At the time, Japan was not fully recovered from the devastation of WWII.  And people living in local villages in mountainous areas were still poor, except a case that timber industry provided them with stable incomes.    Besides, traditionally villagers in mountainous areas had been poor because they had not enough agriculture fields to grow rice, the staple of Japanese agriculture.

So, they made wood charcoal to sell it to people living in the plain who could grow, harvest, and sell rice and other crops to earn reasonable incomes.

The family of the boy was also poor.  His parents made charcoal, too.  But the boy knew that a cooperative association in the area bought charcoal at lower prices.  Therefore villagers opted to bring the product to villages and towns in the plain by themselves rather than sold it to the cooperative association.

The boy went down mountains to help his parents carry charcoal.  Then he saw his parents were looked down on very coolly by residents in a village in the plain.  But no matter how coolly they were received, his parents and other charcoal vendors from the mountains begged and adjured arrogant people to buy any of charcoal they carried in over a long way.

The boy felt anger.  People living in a village in the plain with sufficient paddy fields treated his parents and other poor vendors of charcoal as if they had not been the same human beings.  But he knew any money earned in this business was precious for them.

In sadness and anger, he wrote this hard practice of his parents and other villagers living in mountains.  Those people in towns and villages with plenty of rice fields were the same human beings and they were not especially rich.  They needed cheap charcoal for their living.  But they never hid contempt to those poor vendors from mountains.

As time went by, even Japanese people living in very local areas came to use coal, oil, natural gas, and electricity in a full scale for energy they needed in households.   Today charcoal is not used in any local families in Japan, though some restaurants use it for special cooking.  Such discriminatory treatment to poor charcoal vendors must have been long forgotten in the Japanese society.

Before WWII, there were many peasants in Japan who cultivated leased rice fields.  On the other hand, land owners enjoyed very rich life.  This social structure in farm villages was almost unchanged since the era of samurai before the 19th century.  And these land owners occupied politics in local areas.  Politicians in Tokyo had strong ties with these local rich men.  Though all the Japanese　men 25 years or older had a voting right, only land owners had money to run for election in local areas.

But when the Empire of Japan fell after WWII in 1945 and the US military occupied Japan, emancipation of farming land was enforced.  It was because Americans thought that leaders of the Empire had been strongly supported by local rich land owners.  To eradicate the root of the Japanese militarism, General MacArthur and other American generals thought they had to free Japanese peasants who had become strong soldiers of the empire.  American rulers probably wanted to be trusted by ex-Imperial soldiers for success of their occupation of Japan.

Accordingly, most of land owners lost their paddy fields.  Peasants got the field they had long cultivated almost for free.  This measure had a revolutionary effect in the Japanese society.  One of the reasons for success of American occupation of Japan after WWII was this emancipation of farming land.

But the drastic measure after WWII applied only to agricultural land owners in the plains but not to those who possessed mountains.  Or lands in mountains were not targets of the US-led emancipation of farming land.   Mountain owners in Japan could preserve their wealth and estates.  Therefore, villagers in mountainous areas were left poor.

Probably, villagers in the plain felt they were no more desperately poor as before.  But they didn't feel compassion to those living in mountains.

Success in economy of Japan in later years hid many ugly aspects of the Japanese society.  Factories were built in every local area; people in mountains together with those living in the plain could go and work in those factories to earn enough money.  But there might be still such marble hearts in Japanese people, though such cool attitudes to the poor is universal and can be found in any society in the world.  In this context, Japan is not exceptional.

But the sadness and anger the boy expressed in his essay must be also universal.  The poor really need love of God, since they cannot be loved by the rich and even by the lowest level of the rich.





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Luk 4:24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
Luk 4:25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
Luk 4:26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

"his fame went throughout all Syria" - Bamboo Field Fight Avoided

Haneda International, Tokyo

Bamboo Field Fight Avoided

Before WWII, in Japan there happened a very interesting incident involving schoolboys in a seaside town in the deeply green Kii Peninsula, some 200 km south of Kyoto, facing the Pacific Ocean.

Primary schools in villages and towns in the region customarily held together a big sports festival on the shore of the ocean every year.  On this occasion, school boys were expected to carry flags of some sorts with poles made of bamboo sticks.  Some children went out to fields for themselves to find suitable young bamboos.

One boy of the seaside town knew that there was a nice bamboo field in a small mountain behind an old samurai-era's castle.  He specifically found a suitable young bamboo there days before the sports festival.  He was determined to take it for himself.

Then, a day before the great sports festival where not only school boys and girls but also their families came to enjoy, the boy and several of his friends went out to the small wooden mountain to collect bamboos.  They were all equipped with small knives.   The group led by the boy, who had already checked the bamboo field days before, ascended the slope surrounded by grass and trees.

But in the bamboo field, they happened to meet a boy who belonged to other primary school.  This boy was tall and looked tough.  And, this other-school boy was not a stranger to the group of boys.  He was well-known as the boss of kids in his school.

The other-school boy somewhat embarrassed said to the group of the boys that he also had a right to take bamboos there, though the area belonged to the school district of the group of boys.  The arrogant other-school boy justified his act by telling that children of his school in a mountain area often played in the castle and were also familiar with the place.

But the boys of the seaside town didn't feel so friendly.  The attitude of the other-school boy was challenging.  His words were poignant.  So, the boys talked back, saying that the place belonged to their school district, so that they had a right to take bamboos they liked but children who belonged to other schools should not be allowed to take bamboos there.

Then the intrepid other-school boy showed his knife and insisted that he had also a right to take any bamboo he liked, since there were examples of activities over the boundaries of  school districts.

At this moment the boy who led the group realized that the offensive other-school boy had one particular bamboo in his mind and the bamboo was just the same one he had already chosen.  He though that this situation was dangerous as there were no adults around.  Nobody would stop their fighting with knives.  His side included several boys, but the other-school boss of kids looked so tough.  Some of them would be hurt badly.

The leader of the group of the boys then started to speak, "OK, first you take one bamboo you like.  Then we will take our bamboos.  You must not impede our work."

The other-school boy with his dangerous knife at the hand accepted the idea, and other boys from the seaside town agreed, too.

And, just as the leader of the group had thought, the other-school boss boy cut and carried away the young bamboo he had beforehand planned to take.   But the boy could find other nice bamboo.  He was satisfied with it.  Besides, his wisdom could help him avoid a bloody fight, though he didn't tell the incident later to any one.


Later the other-school boy was transferred to the primary school of the seashore town.  The leader of the group of the boys and the transfer boy became good friends, though other boys rumored that the transfer boy was in fact expelled out of his old school due to his too much violence.

And one day the leader boy asked the ex-other-school's boss boy how he had felt in that bamboo filed.  The new friend confessed candidly that he had also realized that the young bamboo he had wanted had been also the one the leader boy had wanted.



Before WWII, in local towns in Japan, it was a common custom that boys sometimes carried knives to cut plants or for any other purposes.

Today, of course, no primary schools all over Japan allow pupils to carry or use knives at any time without permission from teachers.







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Mat 4:24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
Mat 4:25 And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.

"let him hear" - What are Japanese?

Around Tokyo

What are Japanese?

Before WWII, there was one country in the world that had a popular election system where males 25 years old or more living inside its mainland had a voting right, could manufacture the world largest worships and 10,000 fighter planes of the world class, and had even started nuclear physical study with cyclotrons.  But the country was in Asia without being ruled by western colonialists.   What was the country, China or India?

Before WWII, China was in a large-scale civil war without modern government and industrial bases.  They imported weapons from Europe, Russia, and America.  India was colonized by the UK.

It was Japan.  This non-European and non-Christian country could carry out modernization of the society, establish modern government, and realize its industrial revolution.  Till 1860s, Japan was ruled by the samurai class whose symbol was the sword.  Samurais closed the country since the early 17th century except minor trade with China and the Netherlands.  But after a regime change among the samurai class through a civil war in 1860s, the winning samurai camp set up the emperor as the modern monarch of new Japan while abolishing old custom of the society, which is called the Meiji Restoration, since the era was called Meiji and thus the emperor was called the Meiji Emperor.

In this context, Japan was the only non-European nation that could successfully adopt and apply western culture, science, and technologies.  But a vast majority of Japanese didn't accept Christianity.

So, before WWII, there was only one Asian nation that had modern industry and political system with the military power that could be ranked within top five nations in the world.  It is Japan.  However, this country did not become a Christian country.  Therefore, Japan proved that Asian people did not need to accept Christianity to establish a modern and westernized nation.  In this context Japan is unique.

Following Japanese success, Chinese, Koreans, South East Asians, and even Hindus, Muslims, and South Asia Buddhists started to get independent from western powers to become modern nations.

Even today, Christians in Japan account for only a few percent of its people.

But how do Japanese regard Christianity and Christians?

Japanese think that whether one is a Christian or not, he is the same human being as others, namely mostly Buddhists and Shintoists.  If Christians believe only one God, his mind set and ethic are similar to others.  But, it does not mean that non-Christian Japanese deny the one and sole God who created the whole universe.

Most of Japanese or most of non-Christian Japanese think that the whole universe might have been created by the one and sole God.  But, they think it doesn't change anything in their daily lives if they believe anew such God or continue to believe other Buddhist and Shinto deities.   If there is Heaven for Christians, there must be paradises for Buddhists and Shintoists.  And the story the Bible tells looks too remote for Japanese due to a big difference in environment.

Japanese have never felt necessity to rely on Christian creeds and tenets.  Their peace of mind can be obtained through their spiritual mind work supported by Buddhism and Shintoism.  In this world and in the world to come for them, Japanese find no need to become believers of Christ Jesus, since their traditional spiritual culture is sufficiently deep and rich.

But Japanese don't doubt Christians about their sincerity in pursuing spiritual truth.  They appreciate the splendor of the European culture and art cultivated by Christian traditions. Sometimes they are really enchanted with the Western Christian culture.  So, actually there are many Japanese artists, scientists, scholars, etc. who have become part of globalized Western culture.  

Nonetheless. among Asians Japanese are the people who are the most remote from Christianity.  It is very ironical.  And, most of Japanese are indifferent with the principle of Christianity.  They can rationally understand it through western culture and art.  But, it is true that 95% of Japanese are totally indifferent with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Western nations, including the US, etc., had found a very exceptional nation in Asia before WWII, which is Japan.  And after WWII, other Asian nations, including China and India, are following the industrial success of Japan.  Yet, Japan is unique in that it is an Asian nation that does not understand Christianity (and Judaism or Islam) the most in Asia.

Accordingly, most of Japanese cannot explain what they are.  Because there has been no need to explain what he or she is among Japanese in Japan for more than 2000 years of its history as a nation.  Japanese have no custom to explain what they are in a manner that Europeans and other Asians would do.  If you can understand God, you can explain what you are even in the case that you deny God.  You have to stand before God alone and you have to explain what you are to God.  But Japanese cannot even dream such a situation.  "We are as we are, which should be understood by others without using words."  This is a Japanese tradition.

But, of course, nothing is unique before God.  God must be familiar with Japanese.  So, Japanese don't have to explain what they are to God, in my opinion.  Japanese are forever Japanese, if they believe God like other Christians in Europe, America, Africa or Asia.

Prince Hirohito and his wife, Princess Nagako, in 1924

(Later Emperor of Showa who led the Enpire of Japan in WWII)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito

Anyway, you will never be asked in Japan: Are you a Christian, a Judaist, a Muslim, a Hindu, or Buddhist?  Japanese understand you are a human being, the same as a Japanese, if you have any percentage of Neanderthal DNA.



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Mar 4:23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

"for salvation is of the Jews" - Existence of Rich People

Tokyo Subway

Existence of Rich People

The value system has to be changed.  This is the core of teaching of Christ Jesus.

The more you have money, the more you are disliked by God.  Therefore, the poorer a man is, the higher his spiritual status is.  The richer a man is, the lower his spiritual position is.

Christ Jesus also clearly stated that a man who wants to be a leader must become a servant of others.  It means that leaders should not enjoy better things than others have.

In this world, there is a common notion: a man with strength or ability will naturally become rich as his strength and ability are highly appreciated in society and he will receive big money in return to his service to society with his strength or talent.  Accordingly, being rich means having respectable strength or power, and thus rich men should be respected, they think.  But this value system is wrong.

Christ Jesus said that being rich for any reasons cannot be justified.

According to what Christ Jesus said, if any rich man has compassion, sympathy, or love to the poor, he would give money to them.  And if a rich man's love to the poor is large enough to be accepted by God, he would give all his money and thus he should be as poor as poor men in society are.

Existence of rich men is anti-Christ.  Wealth should not be occupied by rich men.  Money rich men have should be distributed among the poor.  This is the teaching of Christ Jesus.  That is why rich men are enemies of God.

Conversely, a man who cannot make others poor or endure to see unhappiness of poor people cannot become rich.  If you always take care of poor people around you, you cannot become rich.  By sacrificing others or neglecting others, some people become rich.  Without such a disposition, they cannot accumulate money selfishly.

As God is love, such rich men are hated by God.  This is one of essential teachings of Christ Jesus.  Accordingly, if you believe and fear God, you would abandon your wealth.

It means that rich men are not afraid of God as much as they are afraid of losing money.  So, it is natural that God is angry at rich people.  But why wouldn't God destroy a man who has become rich as soon as he becomes rich?  As God doesn't destroy rich people, they belittle God.  Why can God bear such a situation?

There must be some rules.  And Satan guides rich people so that they are not immediately destroyed by God.  Rich people never say loudly that God is nothing, but they rather enjoy their rich life without challenging God.  Very cleverly the rich are enjoying their wealth sometimes as if they were afraid God, so that God lets them alone while they are alive.

However, Christ Jesus said to accumulate wealth in Heaven.  A life is a time given by God in which a man has to accumulate wealth in Heaven.  Until one's death, one has to continue to accumulate wealth in Heaven.  But, he is given freedom to accumulate wealth in this world.  This exercise of one's freedom is assured by God.  That is why one can be rich in this world, though such a man will be rejected by Heaven.

Every problem in this world is a result of existence of rich people.

Specifically, as long as rich people exist in the Middle East, Europe, and America, Islamic terror will not be eradicated.
  








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Joh 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me" - Traveling Germany in 1938 to 1939

Tokyo

Traveling Germany in 1938 to 1939

Soseki Natsume (1867-1916) is the greatest author in Japan.  He contributed to foundation of standards of modern written Japanese  that is completely different from literature of the samurai era that ended in the next year Soseki was born.

He is still one of the most popular and loved authors even today.

He had one female follower who also became a novelist.

Yaeko Nogami (1885 - 1985) was the pen-name of a novelist in Shōwa period Japan.


Nogami was born in Usuki in Oita prefecture as the daughter of a wealthy sake brewer. She was taught at home by private tutors, including Kubo Kaizo, who introduced her to classic Chinese literature, classic Japanese literature and taught her the art of writingtanka poetry. She met the novelist Kinoshita Naoe, who persuaded her to enter the Meiji-Jogakkō, a Christian-orientated girls’ school in Tokyo. While a student in Tokyo, she metNogami Toyoichirō, a student of Noh drama and English literature under Natsume Sōseki. They were married in 1906, but she continued to work towards literary recognition. Her first published work was a short story Enishi ("Ties of Love") in the literary magazine Hototogisu in 1907. 

In the 1910s, Nogami submitted poems and short stories to the mainstream literary journal Chuo Koron, Shincho, and to the feminist magazine Seito, and gained a substantial following with fans of the proletarian literature movement. She maintained a correspondence with fellow female writers Yuasa Yoshiko and Miyamoto Yuriko, with whom she shared the sentiment that literature must serve a purpose towards increasing morality and social activism. 

As the Japanese government turned increasingly toward totalitarianism and it appeared that war was inevitable, she and her husband traveled to Europe where they witnessed the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and ominous signs that would lead up to World War II. They returned to Japan prior to the outbreak of WWII, and she concentrated on her writing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaeko_Nogami

Yaeko Nogami's husband was assigned to teach and study in the UK as an exchangee in 1938 when WWII was about to outbreak.  Yaeko followed her husband to travel to Europe.  One of her sons was at the time in Europe: a literature teacher in an Italian university (he later became an Italian literature professor in the University of Kyoto).  The couple sailed from Japan on October through Hon Kong, Sri Lanka, and Egypt to Italy and Europe.  They also traveled France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Spain, and England.

Then WWII started.  They were forced to return to Japan across the Atlantic Ocean and the United States.  She dropped by Hawaii that had not been attacked by the Japanese Imperial Navy.

Her report of the journey was published in Japan after WWII.  Even today the book is highly appreciated as a record of Europe observed by a Japanese woman (at the time she was in her early 50s) immediately before WWII.

She saw reality of European colonial rule in Asia till she reached Egypt while sailing through South Asia.  Asians were poor and suppressed by arrogant Europeans.  But, in Egypt the scale of the pyramids overwhelmed her.

She most loved Rome.  She wrote many about her observation of Rome.

But what impressed me is the following: Yaeko Nogami visited Munich immediately after a big Nazi conference.  She saw many Hakenkreuz flags on the streets.  She saw Nazi's memorial facilities guarded by a machine-like soldiers.  But she didn't mention any shadows of the Holocaust.

What impressed her was color.  She realized that Germans like black and red.  She was also strongly impressed by difference between France and Germany.  In Germany she couldn't enjoy delicious foods.  But in Paris she saw a female vendor in a humble shed-like shop taking a delicious meal with wine, meat, and other dishes.  But in Germany, even town people were taking humble foods, which so looked to her, a kind of elite Japanese woman.

In a train running between France and Germany. she met an American engineer working in Germany.  She asked him whether German villagers were poor or rich.  The American answered that they were neither rich nor poor.  She wanted to ask his opinion about the coming war in Europe but she refrained as other people were in the train.

In Spain she was shocked to see war-torn streets still so vivid after the Spanish Civil War.  But she praised a Spanish young girl who had a good sense on clothes, as she tried to lean about Japanese kimono.  Yaeko Nogami was also highly impressed to see a great raised aqueduct in a Spanish city, which was built in the era of the Roman Empire but was still used.  She compared the structure to the pyramids of Egypt.

In London, she saw every woman walking with a dog.  It is also interesting that in London and Paris she saw no sense of the imminent crisis of the coming horrible WWII.

However, more important is that the Japanese female author with experienced observing faculty could not realize that something horrible was going on with Juadaists in Germany.  The shadow of the Holocaust was completely hidden from her.  Even a well educated Japanese traveling in Germany couldn't realize Nazi's hideous attacks on Judaists, so that it is natural that no Japanese in Japan at the time even dreamed of the occurrence of the large-scale persecution of European Judaists.  Behind the German color of black and red, unthinkable atrocity was going on.


In New York, she felt a kind of fear of the night in the city.  Subway trains looked dangerous at night.  Cab drivers looked so violent.  Even pretty women in New York looked mean. But she drove to the suburbs in Boston with her Japanese friend in America to see remnants of a cottage Henry David Thoreau once lived in woods.  His book had moved her when she read it when she was young in Japan.

Finally she dropped by Hawaii on her way from California to Japan.

Yaeko Nogami heard a story of one daughter of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii.  The daughter was truly American in a sharp contrast to a Japanese girl who came to Hawaii as her father, a manager of a Japanese bank, had been transferred to Hawaii.  The second-generation immigrant girl could not understand a class-oriented superiority the Japanese girl was enjoying.

Then she returned to Tokyo on November 1939.

One year and one month journey around the world of Yaeko Nogami immediately before WWII was so interesting.  She herself realized that her report of the journey would be valuable to her contemporaries and later generations.  But what she didn't write was so significant: she didn't observe Judaists in Germany while she could not realize true meaning of the fact.

Yaeko Nogami
(http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%8E%E4%B8%8A%E5%BC%A5%E7%94%9F%E5%AD%90)




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Joh 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Joh 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

"the things which we have seen and heard" - In the Beginning Squares Exited and then Circles

Around Tokyo

In the Beginning Squares Exited and then Circles

When the universe or space was created from vacuum energy about 13.7 billion years ago, there must have been no energy in forms we know today.

Probably, at the beginning no energy took a form expressed with the inverse of square of distance, 1/(r x r).  For example, each of gravity and electromagnetic force works inversely proportional to square of distance.  Their range of activity is expressed with a sphere.  But on the sectional plane it is a circle.  But, without such force, the space doesn't have to be divided into spheres, or a plane doesn't have to be divided into circles.  The original space must be divided into squares.

(picture source: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/tsurushuu/200902)

An area of a square is obtained as A = R x R where R is a side length of an elementary square, many of which must have filled the plane of the original universe.

But as time went by, though in a moment of some minus 30th power of 10 of a second, the above mentioned types of physical force were generated some 13.7 billion years ago.  Then the original space probably came to be divided into spheres, or the plane into circles, as its meta-structure.

An are of a circle is obtained as A = pi x R x R.  Here "pi" was generated.

So, pi symbolizes meta-power that generated gravity, electromagnetic force, and other similar physical force from original energy.  With this meta-power, the sectional plane of the universe came to accommodate such physical force.

Pi is more a symbol of the past mode-conversion of the plane from square-divided to circle-divided in the original universe than the ratio of a circumferential length over a diameter.

Therefore, pi can be obtained from the following formula:
(pi) x (pi) = 6 x { ( 1x 1) + (1/2 x 1/2) + (1/3 x 1/3) + (1/4 x 1/4) + ...(1/r x 1/r)...}

The left hand side means an area of a circle with a radius of a square root of pi.

The right hand side stands for an infinite sum of squares, each of which has a side length of a reverse of an integer, with the coefficient 6.

An infinite number of small squares, each with a radius of a reciprocal of an integer, got together to form a circle with a radius of a square root of pi.

And then, elements of the space of the original universe came to consist of circles and spheres where the said physical force can work with its effective range indicated by a reverse of a square of a distance (R).

 Force = Q/(R x R)

Q: a coefficient for gravity, electromagnetic force, etc.


For this reason, pi is the overwhelmingly major component of any mathematical or physical formula we can discover in this universe today.  Spheres and circles are just embodiment of power of pi.

A new bible might begin with:

"In the beginning squares exited and then pi..."



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Act 4:19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
Act 4:20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
Act 4:21 So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done.