Pretty much right beside my apartment building sits the Ohtawara Catholic Church. I guess I'm not much of a Catholic, because I never visited, and only did so reluctantly after I received a phone call from the parish saying that they had received some of my mail by mistake.
Padre Bernard Hiyamizu Yoshimi is a member of the Order of Franciscan Monks living and working in the Buddhist-dominated culture of Japan. The Padre is a thick-set gentleman of average height (5'-8") with a full head of black hair with a few strands of grey that belie his 65 years. He has bushy eyebrows that peek out from behind his tortoise-shell glasses.
As with most holy men I have met, he has a cherubic smile. I think he senses I'm not afraid of him. I think most people he sees are afraid of him because of who he works for, and that makes them uncomfortable. It also makes him feel uneasy because of the suffocating effect his presence can have, though he wouldn't admit to that when I asked him later.
It was a strange feeling as I watched him grind the beans to make a strong pot of coffee. He asked me all sort of impersonal questions about my life in Japan as he served me some cheesecake. Between mouthfuls of delight, I began to chat with him about his life.
"I was born on Goto Island. It's a tiny chain of islands two hours to the West of Nagasaki," he began. Immediately my ears perked up as some quick mathematical calculations would have put him near the second atomic blast in his 17th or 18th year.
"You're right. My family moved to Nagasaki city when I was 12. I was there when the bomb exploded. I wasn't in the actual destruction zone of the bomb. I guess it was sheer luck or God's will that I was far away to have ben spared the nightmare," he says catching himself.
"But the next day (August 12, 1945), I went down into the city to help the injured."
I tried to study his face, but it gave no clue--I wondered if it shook his faith in God. However, I promised myself I would not get into a religious discussion with him.
It suddenly dawns on me that he walked into a city a mere 24 hours after it had been bathed in radioactive fire--and it was still burning--to help the injured.
"Well," he pondered whimsically, "you have to remember that no one knew how dangerous it really was. We knew people had very bad burns on their bodies, but we didn't know the atomic bomb would cause lingering death so many years into the future.
"So I went into Nagasaki and stayed there for weeks."
I hesitate to ask him about his own health, so he asks for me. "Am I well? I'm 65-years-old, and I'm happy with my life and with God." I wanted to ask him about what he saw, what he felt, but he sat there with such a grim resolve that I knew he was suppressing something. I just met the man. Best just to leave well enough alone.
In October of that year, he went east to Tokyo to enter the priesthood. He said he had reached that decision when he was 10-years-old, but it took many years of pleading to convince his parents of his calling.
I asked him if he had ever felt any prejudice for his religious preference - after all, here in Japan, the nail that stands up gets hammered down--conforming is expected.
He said he had never felt it, nor had his parents. He supposed his grandfather may have, because that was around the time of the Meiji Restoration. Not everyone embraced the views of the foreign visitors. His grandfather did when he converted to Christianity.
As a young monk, he soon had his own parish in Nagasaki. Now after 41 years in the priesthood, he lives in a small, rural city named Ohtawara, which literally translates to: big-rice field-field. His church is always full with his small flock of about 50 people (including my friend Tomura-sensei of Wakakusa Junior High School). He said he did hope to add me to his flock. Perhaps his desire to talk with me was to measure my mettle--just as mine was to measure his.
It was then that I thought about doing a few more of these 'interviews' for some future project (this blog). Divine inspiration? The Father wasn't saying. He just sat there and giggled.
My talk with Father Bernard was not interesting for the things he had done while under his contract with God, but rather what he did prior. Hearing, feeling and seeing an atomic mushroom and then walking into it to help people makes him far more interesting than the labels of religion.
It showed me the measure of the man.
Somewhere opening up my mail,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by Stevie Nicks.
PS: The photo above shows the memorial in Nagasaki when on February 5, 1597, the locals killed 26 visiting Jesuit missionaries who were attempting to spread Christianity in Japan. The memorial was constructed in 1962 and contains 26 life-sized bronze statues.
