"This Is My Beloved Son. Listen To Him."
As the visions during the night continued, I saw: One like a Son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven; When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, The one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed. Daniel 7:13-14
For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, "This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:17-19
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Piety
An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the Gods. Some stories believe you are granted eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. This makes them popular gifts for special friends and family. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise) and is said to live for a thousand years: That is why 1,000 cranes are made, one for each year. In some stories, it is believed that the 1,000 cranes must be completed within one year and they must all be made by the person who is to make the wish at the end. Cranes that are made by that person and given away to another aren't included: All cranes must be kept by the person wishing at the end. (1,000 Cranes)
Study
Monday, August 6 is sunny and normal in the Northern Virginia suburbs -- not unlike September 11th in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC. People going to work. People going to school. People going to church. Wives kiss their husbands goodbye. Husbands kiss their wives goodbye. Parents kiss their children goodbye. No one knew it was to be the last kiss.
At 15 minutes after eight o’clock this morning, Amber briefed the landscaping crews that would pack up trucks and trailers before fanning out throughout Fairfax, Annandale, Burke and surrounding neighborhoods to complete mowing, trimming, edging, fertilizing, and other duties.
Dr. Bill finished the 11 pm to 7 am shift at INOVA Hospital and was reporting on his patients before heading home to sleep while the rest of Washington worked.
In the kitchen at Anita’s New Mexican restaurant, Les was warming up a pair of breakfast burritos for the folks at Table Seven who were drinking coffee. One black, one decaf with skim milk.
Pulling into the Orange-Silver-Blue line tunnel near Ballston, Jack eased off the throttle of the 7:55 am train out of Vienna to New Carrolton. The folks boarding will pack the trains until people start getting off at Rosslyn to transfer or Foggy Bottom and Metro Center and the other downtown stops that carried the regions GS crowd to their regular duty stations.
Outside the Pentagon, Officer Andrea was directing traffic around two major construction sites to make sure that the cars, buses, and people made their connections.
Greg, a letter carrier in Turnpike Station, filled flats with mail (from first class to parcels) as he began his rural route wanting to finish before the hot afternoon sun and predicted high of 89F materialized. At least WeatherBug did not foresee the next wave of thunderstorms until Tuesday afternoon – even then only a 40 percent chance says WeatherBug.
That is similar to how ordinary the day began 73 years ago on another transfiguring Monday: August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan. The work and school day unfolded. During World War II, Hiroshima was headquarters to the Second General Army and Chūgoku Regional Army. The Army-Marine Headquarters called Ujina homeport. The city boasted large depots of military supplies making it a key center for shipping.
The bombing of Tokyo and other cities in Japan during the war caused widespread destruction and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. However, there were no such air raids on Hiroshima. However, a real threat existed. Fear of the potential was palpable.
As people went about their daily chores, silently, some 34,000 feet straight up, the nuclear weapon ironically called "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima from an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, flown by Colonel Paul Tibbets. It took 43 seconds for the bomb to descend from 32,000 feet to its detonation altitude of 1,900 feet. When it lit up the never-again-normal morning sky, an estimated 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 2,000 Korean slave laborers died instantly. What God created, a single bomb from a single plane extinguished in an instant.
In the time it took you to read that last paragraph, 70,000 souls were extinguished.
Action
Beth and I used to live in the city of Muncie, Indiana when the population was less than Hiroshima. By the end of 1945, injury and radiation brought the total number of deaths to estimates as high as 160,000. Four “Muncie”s. Gone. The atomic bomb killed a hundred thousand people. Survivors wonder why they lived when so many others died.
Today would be a good day to study the full-text of John Hersey’s book prize-winning book “Hiroshima” (a story of six survivors): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
Today would be a good day to plant an oleander bush. It is the official flower of the city of Hiroshima because it was the first to bloom again after the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945.
When planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, the world mourned again. In Hiroshima, a Buddhist monk lit a candle from the still hot embers in the temple. He carried that lamp to the USA and marched it across our nation on foot with many peacemakers. He brought it to the Pentagon where the two disasters joined as one. He carried it to New York City Ground Zero.
He extinguished that lantern in upstate New York. May the peace of those burning embers transfigure our world.
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Light a lantern for transfiguring peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment