St. Lorenzo Ruiz Feast Day

 One of the advantages of using a Catholic publication (Magnificat) for my morning meditation time is the history and fine art that I learn.  As a protestant, my exposure to Christian history, after the death of the disciple John, was whatever happened after 1708 (Church of the Brethren) or later when we joined Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, the dispersion and scattering of Christians into thousands of denominations after Martin Luther (German) and John Calvin (French) in the 16th century. 

On the Catholic calendar today is the feast day of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, and he was born around 1600 and canonized by John Paul II in 1987.  Although some U.S. Christians deny that Christians today are martyred or persecuted for their faith (the largest number by Communists), that's not what the statistics show.  Just because we have the First Amendment to our Constitution in the U.S. and do not feel personally persecuted doesn't mean it isn't happening in Asia and Africa where the growth is the strongest. 

"[He] and his 15 companion martyrs, all members and associates of the Dominican Order, were slain in Japan between 1633 and 1637.  Persecutions stemmed from a 1603 edict by the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu banning Christianity.  From 1623, suspected Christians were forced to tread on images of Mary and Jesus. Those who refused were executed.  The tortures from his period were designed to force the victims to renounce their Faith.  Some Christians did apostasize.  The men and women honored today spent their last excruciating hours with their hearts raised in prayer and hymns of praise." (Magnificat, vol. 24, no. 7, p. 388-389).  

So of course, I had to turn to the internet for more information since my personal library is not much help. His death is just too gruesome to repeat, I don't even recommend that you look it up, but I was struck by the fact he was sort of an accidental martyr.  Although a devout Christian, he really hadn't intended to be a missionary to the Japanese, and got there by accident fleeing his homeland on a homicide charge. He arrived in the middle of a terrible persecution, but his faith and early training held up and endured the most terrible torture. 

Because this group of Christians who were killed in the 17th century were in Nagasaki, one of the bombed cities at the end of WWII, I continued looking through historical material on the internet.  I found out a remnant of the Christians survived, and even had a thriving community in the 1940s.  That area of Nagasaki where they lived was at the center of the destruction and was destroyed.  One Christian survivor of the A-bomb  believes "the war ended because of our sacrifice.” https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2015/10/08/nagasakis-hidden-christians-survive-persecution-and-the-atomic-bomb/

Christian Persecution in the 21st Century - Good News Christian NewsGood News Christian News (goodnewsfl.org)

Interesting perspective on the size of Japan

Today I'm finally reshelving the books on the newly painted bookshelves. I came across a title I'd forgotten--I don't think it is a family book. I may have picked it up at a yard sale. "New World Horizons; geography for the air age," edited by Chester H. Lawrence, Maps by Ray Ramsey. (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942).

The foreward notes that since the United States entered a global war (in those days everyone knew which war you were discussing) they had struggled a bit with geography."Mandalay, Java, Egypt, Archangel, Hawaii, and countless other names have been stripped of their veils of romance and glamor, and stand revealed as geographical realities possessing vital and strategic importance. Screaming newspaper headlines and verbose radio commentators have made the man in the street aware of the existence of these major centers of world conflict. . . " P. 9

This then was a geography for the millions, not the school child. The map of Japan gives me a much better idea of why life is going on as usual in some parts of Japan, while others suffer terribly. From north to south, it is the distance from Labrador in Canada to the southernmost point of Mexico, and east to west, the distrance from New York to Omaha, a sea area of millions of square miles.

And mine has a very good, in tact dust cover, so I figure it's worth about $25.00. The paper is in very good condition--and just about as old as I am.

"If the belief that the Western Hemisphere is safe from military attack is illusionary, so is the theory that it is economically self-sufficient." p. 28

And then sadly: "The United States got a greater fortune from nature than any other country of the world. It has forty percent of the known supply of coal. It pipes two-thirds of the world's oil. Iron is abundant, and furthermore, much of it is close to the surface where it can be mined easily. It has more zinc and lead than any other country . . ." p. 34. Of course, we don't have much dysprosium, gadolinium, and praseodymium--the rare earth elements for computers, cell phones and green technology--and we've regulated our own industries to death. Now China has what we need, sold for a dear price. Thank you, environmentalists.

Standing with the people of Japan

On the golf course. And he understands their culture because he grew up in Hawaii where there were Japanese (3rd and 4th generation Japanese-Americans).

Ah, Mr. President. It's always all about you, innit?

Can't help but remember how the leftist rumor-mill went berserk when President Bush took a few minutes to gather his thoughts when he'd been told about planes being flown into the World Trade Center. I believe that resulted in "the truthers." Or the media when he flew over New Orleans rather than land. Now we have a President cool enough to golf when it looks like the middle east is being torn apart in civil war and earthquakes all over the place plus flooding in many parts of the U.S.A. And still the libs love it. Or this in April 2010

President Barack Obama has played golf 32 times since he took office, eight more than his predecessor George W. Bush - who was mocked by the Left for his fondness for the game - did in his entire presidency.

However, fortunately for the people of Japan, they do know how to handle disasters, and a caller to Rush today who just recently returned from Japan reports they are on the golf course too, and there are wonderful stories of survival ready, when the media stop with the disaster mode.

Fox News reporting on Japan has been outstanding

The Fox News coverage of the 8.9 earthquake and tsunami has been thorough, extensive, and respectful. The poorest segment was when someone from Reuters with an American accent was interviewed live. Either he'd just gotten out of bed, or he hadn't left Tokyo yet, or the script writers were busy elsewhere. More stammering and equivocating than Obama's teleprompter. Whatever his problem, that interview was a waste of air time. But other than that, all the reports have been superior.

Eaten any sushi lately?

Wood print depicting a man passing a strobila of a broad tapeworm. The caption (not shown) said, "The man ate masu salmon. After a time, a strange object emerged from the anus and was pulled out: it turned out to be 2–3 m long." From Shinsen Yamaino Soushi, by Daizennosuke Koan (1850). Illustration at the CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, "Diphyllobothriasis Associated with Eating Raw Pacific Salmon." Link And they do mean emerging.

". . . in the past several decades, regions with endemic diphyllobothriasis nihonkaiense have disappeared from Japan, yet the infection has been perpetuated among urban people who eat sushi and sashimi."

Sort of makes those farm raised salmon look a little better, don't ya think?

Monday Memories--the treasure found and lost, and found again

On Memorial Day week-end here at Lakeside, many families have yard sales (for the most part, we have no garages or basements). Some street corners will have four. So it is fun to walk or ride around and poke through musty boxes or old treasures. I was riding my no-speed bike (now 40 years old) down Third and whizzed past a card table with a few items, and there I saw it--a memory from my childhood. I put on the brakes and turned around.



My neighbor, Mike, and I were probably about four or five years old and poking through the neighborhood trash cans when we saw a lovely (or looked that way to us) brown china tea pot painted with white and orange dots trimmed in gold). We carefully lifted our treasure out, wiped it off, and I took it home to my mother. She turned it over looked at the gold painted single word on the bottom, JAPAN, and told us it had to go back to the trash can. We didn't understand war; we didn't know how to read; both our fathers were in the military. All we knew was that our treasure was something awful to adults. Suitable only for the trash.

I picked the tea pot up from the card table, inspected it--covered with dust with a hairline crack near the spout. The owner came out of the house.
"How much for this tea pot?"
"One dollar."
"I'll take it," I said.I wrapped it in a plastic bag and continued on my bike ride. Later I washed it and showed it to my neighbor, Steve, who is an antique dealer and auctioneer. He confirmed that it was probably a pre-WWII tea pot, maybe 1930s, very common. A dollar, he said, was a good price for a childhood memory. I put it on my bookshelf. It can hold some flowers when the time comes for that.

3805

Never forgive

The United States forgave Japan's war debts years ago, decades actually. But now Guam wants compensation for the occupation by the Japanese, so where to go, where to go. Why--to Congress for reparations of course. It failed last time, but now we've got Democrats in power.

Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo in March introduced the Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act, which calls for federal compensation related to the Japanese occupation of Guam between 1941 and 1944.

Bordallo introduced the same bill during her last term, but it failed to pass. Story here.

It was supposed to come up this morning in the House Natural Resources Committee. Oh, that sounds green! Sure to make it this time. Any shade of green as long as it costs money.

Madeleine doesn't look very ethnic Pacific Islander, does she? Her deceased husband was the governor of Guam. Since 1973 Guam has had a non-voting delegate in the House. They do get to vote in committee, however, and she's a member of the committee to which this was proposed.

HT Hoystory