Koshu Kawahara
Born into this world: July 23, 1941, Kurume City, Fukuoka, Japan
Passed into the Light: March 20, 2024, Chikugo City, Fukuoka, Japan
Masayoshi Kawahara was born in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. After World War II, his family moved to Hirokawa, Fukuoka. He graduated from Fukuoka Prefectural Fukushima High School and took a business course. He loved artwork since he was a child and joined the after-school art club at his high school. He married and had one son and one grandson. His passion for art grew greatly. Around the age of 50, he decided to work as a professional painter under the name KOSHU.
In early 1990, Koshu met Bishop Yukinori Matsushita at Yukinori’s yoga class in Kurume, Fukuoka. Bishop Yukinori taught Oki Yoga once a year in Kurume in 1990. Yukinori told Koshu about ancient solar cultures in Japan and introduced Koshu to the Teachings of Cosolargy.Koshu joined The Academy in July 1997, enrolling in the Project X Program while living in Fukuoka, Japan. He later moved to Kurume to be nearer the Japanese Community there and the headquarters of the Cosolargy Institute of Japan.
By December 1999, after having progressed through the first two years of The Academy, Koshu was admitted into the Sacred College of Jamilian Theology and the Clergy Program. He received first level ordination on October 13, 2000; second level ordination (Deacon) on October 7, 2007; and third level ordination as Presbyter on September 12, 2010 with the title of Reverend.
Bishop Yukinori and seven Japanese members, including Koshu, believed in the importance of spreading The Community’s Teachings. With their compassion and efforts, the Japanese Community was formally organized as the Cosolargy Institute of Japan in February 2010 with a decree issued by Bishop Gene Savoy, Jr.
Koshu was a talented artist, preferring to work in oil paintings and produced many works displaying bright color, accented with gold leaf. He completed two paintings of his interpretation of the third Ship of Light: The Feathered Serpent III – Ophir and gifted these paintings to the late Most Right Reverend Gene Savoy, Sr. in December of 1997 prior to the ship’s maiden voyage from Peru to Hawaii. He also gifted numerous other original paintings of his to The Community. These paintings are displayed in the Rectory-Abbey at Bishopstead in Reno. Below are photos of the paintings and of the signature blocks from the back of two of them.
Koshu joined the crew of the Feathered Serpent III in the Summer of 1998 just prior to its departure from the Hawaiian Islands towards Australia. Koshu was aboard the ship when it was damaged and then destroyed by an intense storm in the waters of the South Pacific in August of that year. (This story is told in a separate publication.)
Koshu Kawahara will be remembered by the Community as a gentle soul who yearned to contribute meaningfully. A Memorial Service for him will be held during The Community’s Convocation in June in the Chapel of the Holy Child.
A Personal Memory of Koshu from Deacon Stephan Fuelling
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There is one beautiful moment that I shared with Koshu during The Community’s Japan Seminar & Tour in 2015.
We were at a beautiful temple garden where there was a sign about a tree, at which location a master ascended to Heaven and one of his students cried out to take him up, too. The master turned around reached down and lifted the student up to accompany him into the Pure Land. On the way up, the student dropped something (a ladle). It was very moving for me to read this. And as I looked over and saw Koshu, I noticed that he too was wiping tears from his eyes after having read the same text as I. I looked through my pictures and I found one that I took right after, where Yuki, Koshu and Shinobu were standing at the sign. (See pictures on the right and below.)
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