Remember this: When you make the decision to destroy records, both good or bad, you are destroying a stranger's hopes of knowing whom their ancestors are.
A photograph dated 1896 is sold at an estate
auction in South Carolina with other photos bound in copper-colored fabric
covered albums with metal trimmings.
The photographs travel to their new home.
Only two photographs have names written on them. One is a death note of a woman
in English. The other is a postcard-style photograph bearing text written in
Japanese cursive. Both sit for years until someone decides to find their
ancestors or have them deciphered.
The death note is passed in copy to a living
ancestor who was having problems filling in the family genealogy.
The post card style photograph traveled with
her, as if he were her ancestor, until she finally found two people, who
together but in parts, translated the name of the person who penned the text.
His name was realized. His attempt became
awareness.
Have you ever seen something and much later
the thought of it gnawed at you gently, like someone was trying to nudge you
into action? You couldn’t explain it but there was something there and you were
to push the thought out into the world. We always say it is just thoughts, but
what if it isn’t?
I haven’t experienced a good week of night
time sleep lately. I am a troubled sleeper on occasion. I wish this wasn’t so
but I know the cause of it most nights.
My waking thoughts have been intruded upon
by the image of this oriental man. He walks around pacing and then comes closer
like he is looking into a peep hole.
It could be my own subconscious that feels a
need to bring him back from his unknown grave and point out something about
what little of his life that I do know.
I did read something, now lost, of a letter
to the current Meiji Emperor of that time ripping the current regime’s antics.
He was a little rebel and had very verbal opinions on the state of how his
world should be. I guess so, he lived there and it affected him and his people.
You can’t hold in one’s opinion of tyranny forever.
The photograph shows the image of a man
named Professor (Reverend) Yoshisuki Samuel Sacon. Yoshi means lucky or
righteous and -suki means to like. He was righteous and well like for his
pluck.
Professor Sacon took the picture in 1896 in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I thought him stylish in his wooden shoes and cultural
clothing. The picture was mailed from Tsuruga, which is a Fukui Prefecture of
Japan. He graduated Saint Drew Theological Seminary in 1895 in Brooklyn, NY
where his address was 11 Dodworth Street. He traveled to Washington, DC and
landed in Fresno, California where he was doing work with local Japanese
immigrants.
I called the local university and spoke to
the Professor of Japanese Studies. She was very kind and I left a copy of the
text with her so at her leisure she could try and translate it. She also sent
the text to someone else but never got back with me on that. She translated
that the photo was sent to someone because Professor Sacon had gotten busy but
didn’t want to forget. He sent the image to the receiver. Given the
information Professor Sacon was a theologian of Christianity, the current
professor translated the word kami-gami, which refers back to the ancestor gods
of Old Japan.
Kami-meaning Supreme Being or God and -gami meaning graceful or divinity. I am not trying to be politically correct on that as literal truths. It is just a reference point. He must have followed the Shinto religion or born into it.
Kami-meaning Supreme Being or God and -gami meaning graceful or divinity. I am not trying to be politically correct on that as literal truths. It is just a reference point. He must have followed the Shinto religion or born into it.
One source, now lost to me, noted that
Professor Yoshisuki Samuel Sacon was the first Japanese man to attempt to
translate or revise the Japanese Bible, in particular the New Testament. I found some researched
snippets for documentation on this fact.
The Christian Work and the Evangelist,
Volume 19, page 309 stated, “Since the outbreak of the present war in the Far
East, the Japanese Empire is so wide for the Christian evangelism as before.
Consequently, the demand for the Christian literature increasing everywhere
among all classes throughout the Empire” and “The Reverend Yoshi-suke Samuel
Sacon of Japan is now undertaking the much needed revision in this city of ours,
where he can more easily avail himself of an access to the libraries and all
other necessary helps than in his own country. During his stay in the city he
is making addresses to any congregation on the religious subject in Japan.”
Rev.
Y. S. Sacon
1296 Webster Ave
New
York, NY
“From Professor Y. S Sacon of Tokyo, Japan,
we received a copy of his translation of the Psalms in the Japanese language. It
is his first volume in his heroic attempt to revise the translation of the
Japanese Bible.”
Upon reading these different accounts, when
Professor Sacon was in Fresno, California there was a written report where a
pastor talks about how the local Japanese immigrants who practiced Buddhism was
blocking the Christian attempt to recruit Japanese young men into their ranks.
I thought this odd but is that not the way of all religions, to find more people
to indoctrinate.
Yet somewhere in Professor Sacon’s attempts
to translate the New Testament there were problems. For what little I did find
on this man, his efforts were not fully realized by higher ups. There was a
problem with the way the translation was being rendered. It was an issue of
ideographs and characters in lieu of there being a literal translation of the
bible’s message. Once again, let me reiterate the lack of a wide range of
information to build a good case here on the part of Professor Sacon, sage that
he was.
I almost laughed when the thought occurred to
me that these Moral Oras thought Professor Sacon was going to secretly change
the meaning of the Bible to usurp the current Christian regime through a slash
of the ink pen here and there via character and ideographs. A little late for
that because of King James and his versions and exclusions.
I really got into reading The Japan Daily
Mail, let me tell you.
The Japan Daily Mail dated 9 Feb. 1907 on
page 148 stated, “We published another page, the first part of a translation of
the Epistle to the Phillippians, made by Mr. Sakan Yoshisuke, who has studied
in America for some time and who is very strong of opinion that a new version
of the Japanese Bible is called for. He proposes a new translation of the whole
of the New Testament.”
In one of the reports of the newspaper a
reviewer of Professor Sacon’s translations of the Epistle to the Romans, noted
an attempt in translating a different meaning to the Word, to know or understand
by writing this particular word with ideographs sometimes and with a character.
Whoever this reviewer and his party were did not like this issue and wanted the
work to move to Kiragama(sp?) or the whole bible to be printed in Romanji (I am
not sure if this word is the correct spelling~probably not. The document was
blurry. Maybe it was my eyes…who knows).
The word in question might have been shitte
iru but I am not sure. Word aside I have looked everywhere on the internet for
a revised version of The Bible by Professor Yoshi-suki Samuel Sacon.
I contacted the librarian at St Drew University.
He sent me documents on file. Someone else had signed for them. I tried to
contact the retired female professor on the papers but she was 80 years old. No
one returned my mail or calls.
In my readings it was noted the Professor Y. S. Sacon's heroic intention of translating the Japanese Bible were unfinished. It never saw it's end with him.
In my readings it was noted the Professor Y. S. Sacon's heroic intention of translating the Japanese Bible were unfinished. It never saw it's end with him.
I wondered what message I could render from
this man pacing across my third eye. Could it be my own failed attempts that
were never realized conjured in an oriental man’s appearance?
I attempted many things in my life to some success
but some to a failure of sorts or unfinished business.
Does it make a difference what goal we put
our energies to? How do we know it is the right goal? What if it starts off as
a great experience but end in tragedy? Does that make memes on the internet
relevant about being a lesson? What if I don’t learn from it or realize it
ever? Am I truly cosmically screwed?
I don’t think it was the subject of
Christianity or the play on words.
I could say it might indicate knowing a
person otherwise hidden. Yet, it was the attempt regardless of success or failure
that kept reminding me, as long as you are preoccupied by a goal, that goal can
become your whole life. What about all the experiences on the outskirts of the
goal? What about the people you passed by on your way to the goal that fell to
the wayside as unimportant? What about being so glamoured or distracted by a
goal that you never experienced organic sensation because you were so engrossed
in the thought process? What if you were having sex but became disconnected
from your lover because you were thinking of an equation or something? What am
I saying? People stare at their phones all the time entranced by the little
pixels on the screen. Those are the things passed by because the goal becomes
all important. There is no reality except the goal’s end or is there?
We should all attempt to have goals and do
things. Situations may arise to hinder those goals.
There was a message in there somewhere about
fear, mistrust, and not having confidence in someone because the person or
group feels the individual is an outsider even though indoctrinated and could
corrupt the message being sent, right or wrong. In that era when war was an
issue, it can be seen today with questions of national loyalty or past
discretions towards people based on ethnic origins pertaining to location.
Imagine being an oriental man from Japan
ministering to other Asians while being under the watchful eye of a European
belief system that worships a God, where in your homeland it's ancestor gods or
The Way.
It’s my belief that no matter how many
religious foods you taste, you retain those elements of the recipe from the
final product that make sense to you whether they are in or out of order or
make sense to others.
I ingest all of it like a beast because of
the end goal. You can call it Salvation, Nirvana, kicking the can, or the Happy
Hunting Grounds. That Goal being: the Soul or Cell finding the end of its
physical form and moving on as energy to the next life, whether celestial, finality or
the Unknown. The information of your life is passed through your ancestors with
every event of the DNA.
It could be the concept of awareness.
I don’t really know what Professor Sacon’s
leisure time was like but for a man who could question the revisional needs of
the Japanese Bible, he must have noticed something not quite right. He was aware at some point.
Could he have internally argued a foreign
religious concept or merely wanted to find the bridge between two different
religious concepts to marry them into one without sacrificing one or the other.
I reflect back on awareness. Be aware that
you do have the ability to decide and attempt, for in the attempt you overcome
fear and find courage to do something no matter the outcome; that outcome need
not be the defining moment of your life to determine your value or worth. It is
merely a preoccupation that society pushes to differentiate between worthiness
and mediocrity. Yes, there will be people questioning you in suspicious or less
than confident ways. Screw it and jump out the plane unless they try to stop
you, then jump anyway.
As humans, we do not elevate the deserving
element of humanity. We elevate big buttocks, shallow reality television
families, and the world spins on gossip. Gossip could be its own religion.
The sad truth is for every crop of children
bred and raised to adulthood, as a society the profane knowledge thought up a
long time ago is hidden in books or not even passed on to the child. Children
stop playing outside and now have become these societal clones moving and being
controlled by inorganic screens that give them useless, destructive knowledge
that rarely makes the world a better place.
I could also argue the individual that
finally is aware of a problem then acts on finding a solution instead of always
complaining about the error. There again the futility of speaking up and being
ignored or over-ridden by Authority.
I can state now that I don’t feel completely
satisfied with my interpretation of this because I feel some things weren’t
revealed to me in meditation but that is okay because I attempted to resolve
this mental issue in my head by writing about it. I have satisfied the issue to
some degree.
You were worthy when you were born as you
are just as worthy now.
Just attempt whatever it is and don’t overthink
it. Don’t think at all just follow through. That is all it takes sometimes.
Grace has success.
In small matters
It is favorable to
undertake something.
Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore
