"God—you are our Otoh-san [Father], Okah-san [Mother]"

God is the divine Love and Being that does not send mixed messages.

God – You are my/our Otoh-san [Father], Okah-san [Mother]. And You would never turn into something that You are not. It is just not Your nature.

I am getting to know You, God, better each day, during this time. And I am knowing and seeing Your creation better. Your creation is spiritual and real–the universe including humanity, each and every one of us.

As for my family and friends in Japan, I am letting You be their Parent, as You already are, and take direct care of them as Your children–that is their primary and only identity. Gauged physically, it appears as if they are so far away from where I am now. But they are also just a “thought” away, just like my neighbors. I will not let physical measurements start making me feel sad. In fact, my mother in Tokyo is sounding very cheerful as usual. She is a great pillar of strength in the family, and I thank You for that.

Our Father-Mother. You “made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite” of Yourself (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583 ). You are Love.

After I first learned of the events happening in Japan, I got very, very quiet in my thought. I also asked someone, who is available 24/7 as a Christian Science practitioner, to pray with me for healing thoughts. As time passed, I got to a very quiet place in my consciousness where I found and felt an absolutely “rock solid” presence and being. I saw myself as a feather, securely resting on a rock, not moving, not sticking out to be blown away. It is staying with the rock as if we are one with the rock. So secure. So strong. (I thank Whitney Woodruff Moody for her poem, "Feather on Rock" from The Christian Science Journal, Jan. 2002. You can read it here.) To me, that rock is the Truth, a synonym of God.

Truth is honest. Truth tells me what God is, what God does versus what God is not, and what God does not do.

Once, I stood in front of rubble. I was in front of the three-story apartment building where my high school best friend used to live. The newspaper that had been delivered that morning was still in a mailbox, dusty and yellowed. It was a few months after a great earthquake hit the beautiful port city of Kobe in the western part of Japan where I used to live for five years as a teenager.

I was always seeking Truth that does not shake, but had not found something that fully satisfied me. What faced me in that picture in Kobe, that year in 1995, also did not make sense. While certain emotions tried to sweep me away, I also came to see that it was extremely important for me to behold my friend in her true light, only in Truth, not in a distorted image. That’s spiritual justice. I had planned to relocate to Pennsylvania that year from Tokyo for graduate study, and there, a year or so later, I finally found the Truth, God--with no mixed messages–through Christian Science.

What I found was our rock-solid relationship as children to our Creator, our Otoh-san, Okah-san, who is so sweet, kind, and loving. So much so that She could not, in any way, create something unlike Herself, such as disease, death, sin, disasters, unhappiness.

Also, our Otoh-san and Okah-san has taught me, through the Science of healing Truth (the Science and laws of Christ; Christian Science), something about my friend–in fact, about me and everyone: “… henceforth know we no man after the flesh” (II Cor. 5:16 ). Being and staying absolutely truthful to the nature of God and my friend as part of His creation has since healed me of any grief or confusion. In other words, truthfulness and obedience to the Truth is an experience and expression of our rock-solid relationship with the Creator, who is Truth itself and good and infinite.

During the past week when the news has been showing the devastating images of Japan, I have been sustained by the unshakable, unwavering light of Truth as a great pillar of hope. While quietly following the news (mostly reading, not watching “bombarding” images), I am reassuring some friends (both in Japan and outside of Japan) who are feeling troubled or fearful, via e-mails, Facebook messages, and by phone. One friend here in the US said, “I know it is not good to question God, but … I know in my heart that harming innocent people, including children, is just not right.” I said to her, “We are not taught of such a god in Japan. That’s a foreign concept for us. And that kind of image of the Deity … if it does not make sense to you, it is OK to question it.”

Another friend, whom I had not heard from for 15 years and has been back in her home country in Europe, found me and e-mailed me to my surprise. She expressed her concern. I then reassured her with a Bible verse, given her Christian Orthodox background: “…. but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice” (I Kings, 19:11, 12 ). She then e-mailed back to me and wrote, “I pray for Japan, but we need a prayer too!” She asked me if I could help her, as she is facing a very tough time in her life. So, I shared some truths and some further resources that she may find useful.

As for the ongoing concern about nuclear power plants, I have asked a circle of friends for their Scientific prayers. I knew they had already been praying, but I wanted to ask them for specific support. In the meantime, I have been thinking a lot about God as the only intelligence and power. The following ideas have been so clear and so reassuring to me that I translated these sentences into Japanese and e-mailed to some friends in Japan (We do not yet have a Japanese translation of Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896): “The perfection of man is intact; whence, then, is something besides Him that is not the counterpart but the counterfeit of man’s creator? Surely not from God, for He made man in His own likeness. Whence, then, is the atom or molecule called matter? Have attraction and cohesion formed it? But are these forces laws of matter, or laws of Mind?” (p. 173 ). In Japanese, the translation reads:

“人の完全性は不可侵である。それならば、神以外のもので、人の創造主の対(つい)ではないが偽せ物である何かがどこからか存在することが出来ようか？それは神からではない、なぜなら神は神自身の似姿に人を創造したからである。それならば、物質と呼ばれる、原子力や分子は、一体どこからやってくるのか？引力や結合によって形成されたのか？しかしこれらは物質の法則なのか、それとも心の法則なのか?”

So, today and tomorrow and in our timeless being, we live and will continue living as deeply loved children of God, such “yasashii” (gentle, loving, reassuring) Otoh-san, Okah-san. Our rock-solid relationship with God is unshakable, indestructible, and always intact. Through that divine oneness with God as His beloved children, we are fed, clothed, sheltered, and made free–and never alone–as part of His vast creation which is timeless and always good. We are never alone.

I want to end this writing with a verse from a wonderful hymn which instantly brings me back to Japan–a hymn that reminds me of a Tokyo branch Church of Christ, Scientist, where you hear the congregation singing in both English and Japanese simultaneously, together:

Thou, Soul, inspiring–give us vision clear,
Break earth-bound fetters, sweet away the veil,
Show the new heaven and earth that shall prevail.
Alleluia! Alleluia! (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 66 )

The sentence “Show the new heaven and earth that shall prevail” shows that God isalready keeping us and knowing and seeing us in heaven (which is described in Science and Health on page 587 as “harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul.” And in earth “a sphere; a type of eternity and immortality;” from page 585 ). God is unfolding and expressing the new vision of harmony as realities in our thought and in our actual, daily experience, right here on earth.