Law Day
Family Tree
A Week
Days of the Week
Cruise
Key West
Nassau

Law Day
06/10/01

     In the traditional Japanese calendar, this tenth month of the year is called “Kannazuki” , which literally means “No Kami Month” . (Unfortunately, “kami” was the Chinese/Japanese word chosen to translate the English word “god” , whether spelled with a capital G or a small g, although the meanings of “kami” , “God” and “god” are very different.)  According to Japanese tradition, this was the month when the “kami” of all the local shrines gathered together for an annual meeting at the Izumo Shrine in Shimane Prefecture, so during that month the other shrines throughout the country were “godless” .  In 1960, the Japanese government declared that October 1st would be designated “Law Day” (Ho-no-Hi), a day to encourage respect for law and for the protection of human rights.  The Chinese/Japanese character for “law” is composed of two parts meaning “water” and “leave” .  The origin of this character is related to the banks or dikes erected around a body of water to keep it from overflowing and “leaving” .  Thus the water was kept within limits (which was not the case when the hurricane Katrina hit the American city of New Orleans last year).  All societies have rules or laws that are expected to be obeyed, with some form of punishment administered to the lawbreakers.  The Bible teaches that all human beings have disobeyed the moral law and are “sinners” who deserve an appropriate punishment, but there is “good news” for those who humbly recognize and confess their sins and seek God’s forgiveness.  (See I John 1:5-10)   (1005)  

Family Tree
06/10/07

     The usual meaning of “tree” is a tall, woody plant that has roots in the ground and branches in the air, but it may also denote a diagram showing a family lineage.  I recently received a request from our granddaughter in New Mexico for information about her ancestors that she needed for a school assignment. To reply, I reviewed my family tree and reflected on the meaning of certain words related to family relationships.  My ancestors came from Germany to this “new world” about 1850, but I was surprised to find that there were already a couple of Barbara Offners before my wife became one.  Then I considered the reason for the use of prefixes “grand” and “great” in relation to relatives.  Grandparents and grandchildren, great-grandparents and great-grandchildren are all included in family trees along with great/grand uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and cousins.  Both “grand” and “great” usually signify something higher, broader or more important than the ordinary and were originally used as polite terms for elderly and highly respected people.  When prefixed to the terms for relatives, “grand” denotes one generation older or younger and “great” denotes yet another generation older or younger.  Thus, my granddaughter is the daughter of my son and my great-grandfather is my father’s grandfather. The word for a grandparent is found only once in the Bible. It is in Paul's Second Letter to Timothy, chapter 1, verse 5, where he wrote: "I remember the sincere faith you have, the kind of faith that your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice also had. I am sure that you have it also."  It is true that the faith of parents is often reflected in the lives of their descendants.  I wonder what kind of faith we are transmitting to our children and grandchildren. (1006)

A Week
06/10/14

     Most modern calendars are divided into years, months, weeks and days.  Years, months and days are natural divisions.  A year is the period of time it takes for the earth to make a revolution around the sun.  A month is the time it takes the moon to make a revolution around the earth.  And a day is the period during which the earth completes one rotation on its axis.  A week, however, is not related to natural movements and there are various theories regarding why it now consists of seven days.  In some ancient cultures, there was a different division of days within a month, but the seven-day week now recognized in most calendars seems to be rooted in the biblical account of the creation of the world in seven days found in the first chapter of the book of Genesis.  “Day,” however, does not always signify a 24-hour period. It may simply denote “a period of time.  Now is the “day” to consider the meaning of ancient stories in relation to the “day” in which they were written.  There are various ways of interpreting this ancient story, in which a “day” is not related to the turning of the earth on its axis.  In fact, it was not until the fourth “day” that the sun was created as one of the “two great lights” in the sky.  This creation story ends at the beginning of the second chapter of Genesis with the explanation that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, which was designated a holy day.  In the Ten Commandments, written in Exodus, chapter 20, Jews were commanded to observe the seventh day as a day for rest and worship.  Today also, Jews observe Saturday as their holy day, while Christians observe Sunday and Muslims observe Friday.  It is also interesting to consider the meanings of the names of the seven days of the week, which will be noted in the next message,   (1007)    

Days of the Week
06/10/18

     According to my English dictionary, a “week” is a “seven-day calendar period, especially one starting with Sunday and continuing through Saturday.”  A “weekday” is “1. Any day of the week except Sunday.  2. Any day exclusive of the days of the weekend” and a “weekend” is “the end of the week, especially the period from Friday evening through Sunday evening.”   The names of the days of the week in English and other languages are related to the Latin names they were given in the Roman Empire, which reflected the concept that there were seven celestial bodies revolving around the earth: the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.  The names of the days of the week, both in English and other languages, were related to the names of these celestial bodies, which were also related to Roman gods.  The first day of the week is Sun day, followed by Moon day. Next is the day of Mars, the god of war, which was identified with the Norse god, Tiw, so we have Tiw’s day.  The Norse god called Odin, or Woden, became identified with Mercury, and so we have Woden’s day.  Thor, the Norse god of thunder, was identified with the Roman god, Jupiter, which resulted in Thor’s day.  Frigg is the Scandinavian name for the wife of Odin and was associated with Venus, so we have Frigg’s day and the week ends on Saturn’s day.  Japanese names for the days of the week include characters related to these celestial bodies: sun, moon, fire, water, wood, gold and Saturn.  Since Jesus was crucified on Friday, some people consider it an unlucky day (especially Friday, the 13th, for that was the number present at Jesus’ last supper with his disciples), but since he rose from the dead on the first day of the week, Sunday is the day for worship and celebration of new life for Christians.  (1008)

Cruise
06/10/22

     “Crew,” spelled c-r-e-w, denotes a group of people working together, especially to manage a ship. The plural of this term is pronounced “kroos.” Another word with the same pronunciation, spelled c-r-u-i-s-e, denotes “a sea voyage for pleasure.” Although my wife and I have traveled from North America to Japan by ship (both on a freighter and on a passenger ship), until this month, we had never enjoyed a cruise although we had heard many stories from residents of this retirement community who had. Some time ago, we decided to join over forty other residents to take a 5-day cruise this month from the port of Jacksonville, Florida to Key West, Florida and then on to Nassau, capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. We thought the fare was very reasonable and felt the need for a time of relaxation after a very busy summer (in Japan, Florida and Illinois). Over six years ago, when we left Japan, I brought with me books in both Japanese and English that I planned to read during my retirement but which I have been unable to read because we have become so busy. So I looked forward to doing some quiet reading during the cruise. Taken to the ship on our community bus, we were surprised to see its size: 223 meters long, 56 meters high with 12 decks and able to transport over 2000 passengers. Permission had been granted to our group to meet daily in a meeting room to have a Bible study on the Old Testament book of Jonah, which our cruise leader thought would be an appropriate book. We were all directed to comfortable rooms. Although our room had no window through which to view the ocean or land, beautiful views could be seen from the upper decks to which we ascended either by stairs or elevators. At a grill, certain kinds of food were available at any time, but we were served during certain hours at designated dining rooms. (More reminiscences in future messages.) (1009)

Key West
06/10/28

     There are different meanings of “key.” It may denote a musical tone or an implement used to open something that is locked, but the “Florida Keys” is a chain of islands off southern Florida. In this case, “key” is derived from a Spanish word for “island” and the westernmost island in the Florida Keys is Key West, which is also the name of the seaport on that island. A 200-kilometer highway connects these islands with the Florida coast and Key West, the southernmost city in the continental United States of America, was the first stop on our cruise from Jacksonville. We arrived there about 38 hours after boarding the ship and cruising down the Atlantic Ocean. We spent the morning and early afternoon taking a trolley ride around the city and looking at the numerous shops, markets and places of interest. Although meals in the dining rooms and grill aboard the ship were included in our tickets, we stopped at a small restaurant to enjoy a piece of the delicious Key Lime Pie, made from fruit grown in this area. Then, we returned to the ship to continue our seaborne journey. Our cabin was similar to a small hotel room and located on the seventh deck. Dining rooms, the grill and meeting rooms were two or three decks above ours, so we either used stairways or elevators to go there. The kind of key we used to open the door of our room was not metallic, but plastic with holes in certain places. When it was inserted into a slot in the door, the door could be opened. There are many different kinds of keys and in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verse 52, Jesus criticized the religious leaders of his day, saying “you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Religious teachers should seriously consider these words today also. (1010)

Nassau
06/10/31

     An archipelago is a large group of islands. Looking at a world map, we may see many archipelagos, and it is often difficult to discern their boundaries, especially when smaller archipelagos are included in larger ones. For example, the West Indies between North and South America, include the archipelagos of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles, which includes the archipelagos of the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands. The city of Nassau, the capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, which includes about 700 islands, was the second stop on our recent cruise. Although it is not located on the largest island, its population of over 170,000 is over half the population of the Commonwealth. In Nassau, we also did some sightseeing and “window shopping” even though we did not need to look through windows to see the articles which were on sale along the streets. For us, the most impressive sight in Nassau was the huge aquarium which served as a spectacular wall around the lower floors of the Atlantis Resort, in which there are over 50,000 fish representing over 200 different species. Viewing the great variety of aquatic animals (from large stingrays to tiny goldfish), we were again reminded of the wonderful beauty, variety and complexity of our universe. Our boat left the Nassau port late at night and we spent the next day cruising north to Jacksonville. Every morning during the cruise, the passengers from our retirement community gathered in a meeting room for an hour to consider the Old Testament book of Jonah and its significance for us in our day. We arrived back home five days after leaving and my only disappointment was that I did not get as much of Endo Shusaku’s novel, Umi to Dokuyaku (Sea and Poison) read as I had hoped. (1011)