Dear members and friends of the Fellowship,
On October 11
the Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo celebrated its 50th year of holding
meetings (now once a month) in English with speakers, discussions and
cultural events in the Unitarian tradition of inquiry, friendship and
concern for social justice and world peace.
We had 30 people sign the
guest book with Doreen Simmons our oldest member present and Gamini
Chadrasebera (inter-faith proponent visiting from Colombo, Sri Lanka) as the
participant who had come the farthest.
After opening remarks by the
moderator Peggy Kanada, we enjoyed two pieces played wonderfully by the
young cellist Chris Gibson.
The Rev. Yoshinaga Kazumasa,
of the International Buddhist Congregation ( Rissho Koseikai) offered the
opening invocation prayers, and daimoku blessing in the Buddhist Lotus Sutra tradition.
We followed with remarks
about the life of Betty Parker (who had just died in July 2015). She with
her husband Bill had supported the fellowship for decades. While
passing around photos we shared memories including of our moderators: microbiologist Mary
Louise Robbins (left in 2002) and William Parker (chair for a second time
2003-8) as well as long time contributors like Chuck Roberts (d. 2013),
We observed in memorial a moment of silence.
The Rev. Gene Reeves
(Unitarian minister/teacher and former dean of Meadville-Lombard Divinity
School at U of Chicago, long time participant in the Fellowship, as well as
scholar and translator of the Lotus Sutra and one of the founders of IBC) spoke
about the history of the Fellowship.
He talked about the
fellowship's first chairperson, Kenneth S. Woodroofe (1909-1993), whose
memorial service he helped to lead at Ikkoen, Kyoto. He mentioned about the
ties of the fellowship to the few active Japanese Unitarians (now gone)
like "Free Religion" Imaoka Shinichi (d.1988) and Universalists
like Chiyozaki-sensei (d.2003) and the Dojin (Universalist) churches, at
Meijirodai (where the fellowship met for a couple of years while Int
House was rebuilding) and Kitazawa.
The MC added Robert Manley's
story of meeting his wife to be Yoko at his first Fellowship meeting back in
1975 (they were unable to attend from Yokohama).
She also related some of
the information that the Rev. Nezu Masuo recently had written to us--
about his early memories of the fellowship and ties of the founder of Rissho
Koseikai, Niwano Nikkyo, with Unitarians like American U
Association leader Dana Greeley dating back to the 1970's and 80's.
These connections of
inter-faith cooperation and friendship continue to enrich our fellowship
to this day--and RK members joined us for the anniversary, including
several who had studied under Unitarian programs in the States.
While we did not have time to
dwell on the biography of our first recorded chairperson (from1968), Woodroofe,
we offered on this occasion reprinted copies of his small book of essays
"What is Religion About?" (also now available on our web site) which
includes short accounts of him in the preface and afterword.
His motto, "Live,
love,learn and laugh."
Doreen Simmons, Stan Yukevich
and Chuck Olson spoke briefly about their participation in the
fellowship.
Flowers were presented
to thank the moderator who had (almost) no words for the surprise honor.
After some thoughts elegantly
presented by Paul McCarthy we heard from several speakers at recent meetings
with a social action focus.
This included Tom Eskildsen on
JummaNet and his work for often persecuted tribal or minority peoples in
Bangladesh/Burma and Kathy Matsui on NARPI's successful reconciliation and peace
workshops this summer in Mongolia and plans for next summer in Taiwan.
Pauline Reich spoke
about finding in Tokyo only our fellowship as a community to support her
beliefs and activities as a progressive, feminist Jew and included
memories about when she lived in NYC and knew Unitarians and
Buddhists working to help refugees.
Finally, the Rev. Suzuki
Katsuji talked about suddenly seeing a golden carp leap in
the pond near the Koseikai Great Temple this morning on his way to our
gathering. He took it as a sign of congratulations and encouragement
(perhaps from Kannon Bosatsu) to our Unitarian Fellowship.
He urged us to continue
to work for issues especially nuclear disarmament and led us in a prayer for
world peace.
In closing, Father William
Bulson from nearby St. Alban's Anglican church with little preamble gave us the
Lord's Prayer, which resonated for many of us with an unexpected modernity by
echoing our themes of social engagement, forgiveness, and gratitude in our
individual searches for spirituality.
We all made a contribution to
the event, but Takamatsu Yasuyo and your moderator made larger donations to the
Anniversary fund.
Everyone is welcome to donate
even now something extra, especially towards the book reprinting costs and
future programs.
Peggy Kanada, moderator
