What I believe is the key to world peace…
It means that each one of us should pass on compassion to our neighbors.
I call it “Relay for Peace.
About 84 years ago, World War II began.
It was a war that claimed tens of thousands, even millions of lives.
In that war, nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Those who survived lost their families and friends, and most of all, they lost peace in their daily lives.
Peace is something that everyone in the world takes for granted.
But “war” has taken away people’s peace and made it difficult for them.
Before the war began, people were living a violence-free life with family and friends, but due to air raids and bombs, they had to live in fear and insecurity. This is a world that is the very opposite of peace.
This is happening in Ukraine now.
My father is American and my mother is Japanese.
We fought as enemies in World War II. If that war had not ended, I and my families in both countries would not exist.
I wonder what I can do to help my children who, like me, have roots in a war-torn country, and I wonder what they are going through right now as they are evacuated. This is one of the reasons I started thinking about peace.
My attention was caught the other day by a newspaper article about a displaced child from Ukraine. It was about an 11-year-old boy, just like me, who had left his parents and taken refuge in neighboring Poland. He had started going to school in Poland.
It is hard for him to study because the language is different. He has no friends. He said that this is life. He said that even though it is hard, tomorrow will come if he “gets used to it. Reading these words, I have no hope for the future and even feel a sense of resignation.
We cannot actually experience what this boy did, but I think it is a very bad thing not to be interested and not to make an effort to know.
In order for us to “Relay Peace,” we must first
We have to think about it as our own thing and take an interest in it.
What we think about ourselves at the beginning will become our words and actions someday.
To be gentle To be compassionate To serve one another
This is a part of the prayer at my school.
I hope that all the nations of the world will live together like this prayer.