(National) Anthems
Trip to Atlanta
Golf
Rainy Season in Japan
Moss
Linear Measurements
Flag Day
Friday Night Emergency
Accents
Feuds
"Native Americans"
Cardinals
Clay
03/06/02
In churches that have choirs, it is customary for the choir to sing an anthem during the worship service. This word is derived from Greek words meaning "sounding back" for originally it signified a sacred song sung antiphonally, with musical groups singing back and forth to each other. At the present time, "anthem" denotes a hymn of praise or loyalty, and is also used for the officially designated national song of a country. The poem that became the national anthem of the United States of America was written during the War of 1812 with Great Britain in which a 25 hour bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland was unsuccessful and the national flag with its 15 stripes and 15 stars, called "The Star-Spangled Banner" was still visible when a new day dawned. It became a popular song when combined with the tune of an old English drinking song. President Woodrow Wilson ordered it to be played during military and naval services in 1916 and it was officially designated as the national anthem by an Act of Congress in 1931. The poem that became the national anthem of Japan is from an ancient collection of poems and was combined with an ancient court music tune in 1880. It lauds the long reign of a kimi (ruler, emperor, lord, lover, friend) "till pebbles grow into mighty rocks." Although it was often sung during the reign of the militarists, it was not officially designated the national anthem until 1999. In the vision of heaven recorded in the final book of the Bible there is an anthem sung in praise of the supreme kimi, or God: "Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" (Revelation 7:12). (589)
Trip to Atlanta
03/06/04
Every two years at the end of May a meeting of former missionaries to Japan is held somewhere in this country. This year, the meeting was held near Atlanta, Georgia, about 600 kilometers north of our town in northeast Florida, so we were able to drive there on interstate highways in about seven hours. About 150 people attended and we enjoyed meeting many old friends, some of whom we had not seen for many years. Stimulating lectures were given relating to the economic, social, political and religious situation in Japan today as well as historical surveys related to former years. Bible studies and a worship service were included along with hymn-singing in both English and Japanese. One afternoon, we visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum and gained a deeper understanding of important events and problems in the history of our own country. On our way home, we encountered a severe thunderstorm for the final 100 kilometers. Along with the thunder and lightning, it "rained cats and dogs." This expression is rooted in the superstitions of people centuries ago that some animals had magical powers. Witches that were believed to ride in the storms were often pictured as black cats and the Norse storm god, Odin, was frequently shown surrounded by dogs. Thus, when a particularly violent rainstorm occurred, people said it was "raining cats and dogs," with cats symbolizing the rain and dogs representing the wind and storm. From the Biblical perspective, as recorded in Jeremiah 10:13, wind and rain, thunder and lightning are all controlled by God. (590)
Golf
03/06/06
Turning off the state highway into this Penney Retirement Community, two sights immediately attract one's attention. At the end of the boulevard is the church, which may be considered the heart of the community, and on both sides of the boulevard leading to the church is the golf course, which some residents may find more attractive than the church. Golf is a game in which a small hard ball is hit with specially made clubs over a wide area with the aim to deposit it in certain small, numbered holes scattered around the course. The origin of this game is unknown, but it is identified with Scotland, where as early as 1457, it was banned as a threat to archery practice which was considered vital to national defense. There are a number of English words that have specific meanings in relation to golf. The small peg with a concave top for holding a golf ball is called a "tee." This is also the name of the designated area from which a player makes his first stroke. The smooth surface of closely cropped grass around the holes is a "green" and between the tee and the green is the "fairway," often bounded by tall grass and trees (the "rough") and containing natural or artificial obstacles ("hazards"), such as water and sand pits ("traps"). Since land is a precious commodity in Japan, playing golf there is very expensive. It does not require as much exercise as tennis, so I never became a golfer and considered it a sport for wealthy businessmen and politicians. But there may be some truth in the statement that golf is a colorful sport that keeps you "on the green, in the pink and in the red." (588)
Rainy Season in Japan
03/06/08
The irregularities in the spelling and pronunciation of English words is very confusing to students of English, but Japanese is also confusing. There are two different Japanese syllabaries which may be used to write any word. Although the pronunciation of the syllabic letters is always the same, the amazing number of Chinese characters with their many strokes and varied pronunciations are confusing to students of Japanese. For example, this month of June is the rainy season in Japan, which may be called either "tsuyu" or "baiu." And how does one write this word in Japanese? It may be written using the letters of either of the syllabaries, in which case two letters would be used for "tsu-yu" and three letters for "ba-i-u," but it is common to write it using Chinese characters. In this case, the second of the two characters for both "tsuyu" and "baiu" means "rain." Consisting of eight strokes, it is pronounced "ame" when written by itself. There are two different possibilities for the first character in this word. The more common one is a ten-stroke character meaning "plum" or "plum tree" and is pronounced "ume" when used by itself. The other one is a complicated character with 23 strokes meaning "mold" or "mildew," pronounced "kabi" when used by itself. Thus, the rainy season in Japan may be called either "plum rain" or "mold rain" for it stimulates the growth of both fruits and funguses. Depending upon the atmospheric conditions, rain may be either a blessing or a problem, but in Jesus' teaching, recorded in Matthew 5:45, both the sun and rain are evidence of God's blessing upon all people without distinction.(591)
Moss
03/06/10
The formal name of one of the famous temples in the Japanese city of Kyoto is Saihoji. It belongs to the Rinzai branch of the Zen sect of Buddhism. The Chinese characters in this name literally mean "West Fragrant Temple," but it is usually called Kokedera, or "Moss Temple" for the main attraction of this temple is the large garden around it which is covered with moss. This kind of moss is a small, green plant that grows in velvety clusters on rocks, trees and moist ground. The varieties of color and texture of the moss that carpets the ground and coats the rocks and trees in this temple garden make it uniquely beautiful. There is an English proverb, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," which may be interpreted differently, depending on whether "moss" has a positive or negative implication. On the one hand, a person who is constantly on the move and never remains long in one place or at one job will never make much money, but on the other hand, he will not be burdened or hindered by many encumbrances. The word "moss" is also used for quite different kinds of plants. "Irish moss" is a kind of seaweed and the gray, threadlike stems of "Spanish moss" may be seen drooping from the branches of a large tree just down the street from our house. While serving in Japan, we became acquainted with a missionary whose surname was Moss. We met him and his Japanese wife at the recent meeting of former missionaries in Atlanta and they came to visit his sister who lives in this retirement community. On their trip back north, they are visiting graveyards where his Moss forebears are buried. (592)
Linear Measurements
03/06/12
The most logical system for measuring distance is the metric system in which a meter is the basic unit of length and all measurements are related to the number 10. There are 10 meters in a decameter, 100 meters in a hectometer and 1000 meters in a kilometer. And there are 1000 millimeters, 100 centimeters and 10 decimeters in one meter. A meter is considered to be one ten-millionth part of the distance along a meridian from the earth's equator to a pole. Most industrialized countries have abandoned old, traditional units of measurement (which continue to be used in certain professions) and now use the metric system, but some countries influenced by Great Britain, including the U.S.A., continue to make use of a complicated, illogical system of inches, feet, yards and miles. In this system, there are 12 inches in one foot, 3 feet in one yard and 5280 feet, or 1760 yards, in one mile. In this system, a foot originally was derived from the length of a human foot, and according to a legend, King John once stamped his foot on the ground, pointed to the indentation and declared: "There is a foot; let it be the measure of a foot from this day forward." An "inch," derived from a Latin word meaning "twelfth part," is roughly the breadth of a man's thumb or the length of the knuckle of the thumb of King Edgar in particular, but in 1305, King Edward I decreed that an inch should be the measure of three dried barleycorns. Obviously, in those days, precise, accurate measurements were not so important. Times have changed, but nowadays we should also consider the standard by which our daily actions are measured.(587)
Flag Day
03/06/14
In the United States of America, there are no national holidays. Legislatures or executives of the individual states determine the public holidays to be observed in their particular state. The U. S. Congress and the President can only designate holidays to be observed by the District of Columbia and federal employees. Most states, however, observe the holidays so designated. Over the years, June 14 has been observed as Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of a national flag on that day in 1777, but it was not until 1949 that the national government officially recognized it and it is only in Pennsylvania that it is observed as a legal holiday. During the Revolutionary War, the various colonies each had their own individual flags. The Grand Union flag, designated by the colonial armies' Commander in Chief, George Washington, had 13 alternating red and white stripes with the British flag in the canton, but after the war ended, a national flag was adopted. In that flag, the Union Jack in the Grand Union flag was replaced by a new constellation of 13 stars on a blue field. When two new states were accepted into the Union, two more stripes and two more stars were added, but in 1818, Congress determined that the national flag would have only 13 stripes with an additional star to be added for each new state, so now, there are fifty stars in the canton. In some communities, special ceremonies are held on Flag Day. Just as seeing our national flag reminds us of our responsibilities as citizens, seeing the cross on a flag or church reminds us of God's great love for us and our responsibilities as his children. (594)
Friday Night Emergency
03/06/17
Last Friday night we received a telephone call from a lady (D) in an apartment across the street. A man had knocked on her door and told her that while walking his dog along the street a lady (B) sitting on the street in pain asked him to inform her friend D. Feeling she needed help, D called us and I agreed to accompany her to the place where the lady, a friend of D's who also lives in the apartment house, was experiencing a heart attack. B asked us to go to her apartment and get her purse. We tried to do so, but the door to her apartment was locked so we had to go back to her and get her key. We brought her purse and D boarded the ambulance with her to accompany her to the emergency ward of the hospital, half an hour away. I followed in my own car in order to bring D back after the examination and hospitalization. D had been informed of B's daughter's telephone number, so she was called while we were waiting in the hospital lobby and a message was left on the answer machine. Later, when the same number was called, we found out it was the wrong number, so we called the Emergency Ward and got the correct number, which we called and informed her daughter who said she would come. When we were permitted to see and talk with B, we found out that the severe pain had passed but she was still uncomfortable and would await further examination. We informed her that her daughter would be coming and returned to our community, arriving after midnight, about two and a half hours after the knock on D's door. In the confusion in this emergency also, we recognized the providence of our heavenly Father. (595)
Accents
03/06/19
In English, there are words having the same pronunciation with very different meanings, even though they may be spelled the same. Such "homonyms" may include "homophones," which are words having the same pronunciation but are spelled differently. For example, "beet" and "beat," "meet" and "meat," "feet" and "feat" are both homonyms and homophones." In Japanese also, words with different meanings may have identical pronunciations. In some cases, even though the pronunciation is the same, the tone or pitch of certain syllables indicates the difference in meaning. Thus, the difference between the words meaning "chopsticks" and "bridge," both of which are pronounced "ha-shi," or between "paper," "hair" and "God," all pronounced "ka-mi," depends on the higher or lower tone used for certain syllables, but the fact that these tonal variations differ depending on the area complicates the matter. In English, one meaning of "accent" is the emphasis placed upon a syllable in a word, but another meaning is the characteristic pronunciation of a certain region. In the United States of America, there are obvious differences in the pronunciations of people in the regions called New England, the South and the Midwest. Needless to say, the accents of the native speakers of English in England are still different. When those Americans who live in the part of America between Canada and Mexico watch a movie made in England, we sometimes find it difficult to understand the language, but we are thankful that God understands all languages regardless of accents because God perceives the hearts of the speakers. (596)
Feuds
03/06/21
"Romeo and Juliet" is the title of one of William Shakespeare's well-known dramas. It depicts the complications that developed when a young man and a young woman belonging to feuding families fell in love. A "feud" is "a bitter, prolonged quarrel or state of enmity, as between two families, individuals or clans." Because of the feud between the clans of the Montagues and the Capulets, the romance of Romeo and Juliet ended in tragedy. In American tradition, the most famous "feud" was between two families in the Appalachian Mountains, living on opposite sides of the river that separates Kentucky and West Virginia, the Hatfields and the McCoys. It is thought that the feud began in a dispute over a pig, but over the last twenty years of the 19th century, battles between these two families attracted national attention and their names became associated with the word "feud" in the minds and writings of Americans. This month, that feud came to a peaceful end. Descendants of the Hatfield and McCoy families gathered together to sign a truce. Signatures of more than 60 descendants are on the truce that marks an official end to the feud that had claimed at least a dozen lives from the two families. There are many quarrels and conflicts in the world today between people of different nations, cultures, ethnic roots and religious traditions, but if serious, conscientious efforts are made by both sides, a peaceful solution should be attainable. In the New Testament Letter of James, chapter 3, verse 18, we find these words: "Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." (597)
"Native Americans"
03/06/24
When the Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, landed on an island in the Caribbean Sea between North and South America, he mistakenly thought that he had reached the Orient, the "Indies," and called the inhabitants of the island "Indians." Since that time, the generic term "Indian" has been used to refer to native people of the Americas. Although there are three different countries in North America, seven in Central America and twelve in South America, the term "America" or "Americans" is often used in a more specific sense for the United States of America and its citizens. Nowadays, the term "Native American" is often used for the aboriginal inhabitants of this hemisphere, but that also may promote a misconception for there are hundreds of different "Native American" societies in the Americas. One of the most shameful aspects in the history of what has become the United States of America is the conduct toward "Native Americans" by the European invaders of this continent. Members of the largest "Native American society" in the U. S. A. are called "Cherokees" and every summer in the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, a drama is presented which records the history of the Cherokees tragic relations with "whites" from the time of Hernando de Soto's explorations in 1540 to the Cherokees' forced removal in 1838-1839 from their beloved Smoky Mountains to the so-called Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). During that 1,000 mile trip, nearly one-fourth of the 17,000 travelers died along the "Trail of Tears." The title of the drama, "Unto These Hills," is derived from the first verse of Psalm 121. (598)
Cardinals
03/06/26
Among the different kinds of birds we often see around our house are certain North American birds having a crested head, a short, thick bill and an obvious difference between male and female birds. The feathers of the females are brown but those of the male birds are bright red. These birds are called "cardinals" for another meaning of "cardinal" is a red color. This word, derived from a Latin word meaning "hinge," originally denoted something very important, on which something hinges or depends. In the Roman Catholic Church, a "cardinal" is a member of a group of men who have been appointed by a pope and rank just below the pope in their authority in the church. It is this College of Cardinals who elect the pope and they may be recognized by the red hats they wear. One of the well-known American professional baseball teams is the St. Louis Cardinals and I recall an amusing article in a Japanese newspaper about a conversation between a Japanese baseball fan who was studying English and the American priest who was his teacher at the time when the St. Louis Cardinals were in Japan playing baseball and the College of Cardinals was meeting in Rome to elect a pope. The misunderstandings between these two when the subject of "cardinals" came up was more confusing and humorous than usual. "Cardinal numbers" are numbers used to indicate quantity, such as 1, 2, 3, in contrast to "ordinal numbers" that indicate order, such 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Regardless of our color or rank, what is considered of 1st importance in our lives is often reflected in our conversations as well as in our actions. (599)
Clay
03/06/29
Clay is firm, plastic fine-grained material that is used in the manufacture of bricks, pottery and other ceramics. A certain kind of clay is often available in elementary school classrooms for children to play with. Clay is also a surname and Henry Clay was the name of a famous American who served in both the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives and twice ran for president in 1832 and 1844. One of the 67 counties in the state of Florida is named for him. In fact, the town of Penney Farms, in which I reside, is located in Clay County. The English expression "feet of clay," denoting a flaw in one's character that is not readily apparent, is derived from a story found in the 2nd chapter of the Old Testament book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had a dream of an image which had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. When a rock struck the statue at its feet, the statue collapsed. According to the interpretation given by Daniel, a young captive from Judah who became a prophet, the statue symbolized the kingdoms of Babylon, beginning with the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, represented by the head of gold. Other weaker kingdoms would follow and finally a weak kingdom, represented by the feet of iron and clay, would bring about the collapse of the empire. In the 18th chapter of the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, the prophet, Jeremiah, was directed to a potter's house where he was inspired by watching the potter work with clay and realized that nations are like clay in the hand of God, the Controller of human history. (593)