Wishes and Cranes

I have always had great hope for the church, even when I was a child. At the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, my Sunday school decided to fold 1,000 paper cranes to be sent to the remembrance.  There were only about seven students in my Sunday school of any age, but we worked for over six months on those cranes. We cut all the paper, and folded all the creases, laughed and played until there were 1000.  At the University of Chicago, where the atomic bomb was first conceived,  there was a ceremony for peace remembering the history of the bombing. We took our 1,000 cranes to be sent to the Children's Memorial in Hiroshima as a sign of friendship.

Legends say if you fold a thousand cranes you get a wish. I believe at the time we wished for peace in the world and an end to all war.  Today I wonder if we had better understood our church if we would not have used our wish to ask that hate and exclusion be removed from the world.  At the time as a young member of a Reconciling Congregation, I saw in my church that all people were welcomed and loved.

When I made those cranes I did not understand polity or know there was a Book of Discipline in my Church. All that I knew at that time was that G-D loved all her children.  I continue today to know in Christ that the love of God is for all.  There are people who seek to exclude, who are blinded by ignorance, anger, or misunderstanding.  Today if I made those cranes again I would wish that there would be no need for me to fold cranes because we would live in a world where all people would see what I saw: God does not hate or discriminate.

Comments

[Leland]

Nicely said, Rachel. Nicely said.