Gary Huss Sr at the Sanctuary in the 1980s PHOTO: Ted Staver

A Eulogy of Victory delivered by Rev. Canon Ted Staver

A Memorial Service was held for the Reverend Gary Huss Sr. (June 28, 1954 – March 31, 2015) on April 11, 2015, at the Chapel of the Holy Child. In attendance were Community members, among them his son, Gary Jr., and his wife, Diane. During the Memorial Service, the following Eulogy of Victory was delivered by Rev. Canon Ted Staver:

GARY HUSS Sr. was born on June 28, 1954, in DeRuyter, New York, a tiny town in the center of the state. He was a twin, but his twin sister, Carrie, died at birth. Gary grew up on a dairy farm but sought wider vistas so he enlisted in the army at age eighteen.

I met Gary in the army in 1975, when we were both stationed in South Korea. He was originally at Camp Casey, about forty miles north of Seoul, but later transferred to the 702nd Maintenance Detachment where I was. We both worked in the same shop. We hit it off immediately. Later on, we took up studying martial arts together. Bruce Lee was our hero of choice, and we spent a lot of time discussing Lee’s philosophy and concepts. From there we branched off into a study of Buddhism and some other Eastern teachings. Gary was always searching for the greater meaning of it all.

He told me that before coming to Korea he was stationed in Okinawa and that one day, for no special reason, he went out to view the sunset over the South China Sea. He told me: “The sun looked huge. Then something happened. In a flash I saw this symbol. I didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but it changed me somehow.” That became his inner driving force. He really began diving deeply into the Eastern mystics, men like Sri Yukteswar Giri, Swami Yogananda, Lahiri Mahasaya, and others. He loved reading about their mystical experiences and talking to me about those things.

One day, Gary found a discarded copy of Fate magazine in the barracks, thumbed through it, and saw the ad for the book Jamil: The Child Christ and recognized the Second Advent cross as being similar to what he had seen in the sun during the Okinawan sunset. He ordered the book immediately. I remember the day he got the package. He grabbed it and was gone. Several hours later he was standing out on the third-floor balcony yelling across the field to me, “Hey, Ted, it’s the sun; that’s the key.” It was about one o’clock in the afternoon, and I looked into the sun and just knew. Shortly after that we joined The Community, and thus our long journey began.

Gary moved to Reno in 1978. I followed a year later. There was a lot going on here in the Eighties; it was the “building phase” of The Church. Gary and I often found ourselves working together on the building projects, whether it was the chapel, the Episcopal See Building, or out at The Sanctuary. His favorite, though, was working with Stan Fortmeyer in the Production Department. He really liked Stan, as they shared so many similar viewpoints and taste in music.

Besides working on Church projects, he and I liked to go out to the Fremont drag races. It was a nice place to let off a little steam. (Nothing like standing next to a 4,000-horsepower dragster belching out clouds of nitro into the air to help you relax!) We’d go down into the pit areas and watch the crews tear apart motors, replace blowers, all kinds of close-up stuff. We even got a chance to shake hands with Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney, two of the greats in drag racing history. After a day at the drag races we’d come back all charged up and do a little drag racing with our own cars. But probably the best were those Saturday afternoon Community softball games. We all loved those. It was a great way to just let go and have some friendly competition. Afterwards Gary and I would find a cool place and a cold beer, and he would talk about baseball. He was a walking encyclopedia when it came to baseball. His hero was Hall-of-Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan. He had all the books and all the stats on the guy memorized. You always walked away knowing a little bit more about baseball.

That was in the early years—the good years. We were both married at the time. Gary was married to Sun Cha, and in 1982 she became pregnant. When she was in the hospital, going into labor, Gary wanted the nursing staff to play George Harrison’s “Cracker Box Palace” over the loudspeakers; one of the lyrics went: “I welcome you to cracker box palace! We’ve been expecting you.” Of course they wouldn’t do it, but that was Gary. I recall the first day they brought Gary Jr. home. Rev Gene Sr. along with some staff showed up to anoint him and welcome him into the world. I think it was about two years later that Sun Cha left, and Gary became a single dad. So over the next ten years or so, we didn’t see a whole lot of each other; we were both just too busy.

There was this window in Gary’s life where things just weren’t working out for him, and he was really struggling. I like to refer to it as “the George Carlin period” because he loved George Carlin. Gary had all Carlin’s skits, all the hand gestures and facial expressions down pat. Carlin became his voice to help him express what he was going through. During this time he could be just a little hard to be around at times, but, hey, we all have our demons.

Then he met Diane, and she became the lifeline that rescued him from a stormy sea. To quote Willie Nelson: “Love’s the greatest healer to be found.” Diane was the love of Gary’s life; the kind of gal that would head off to the drag races with him or pack up and venture off to visit historic places. She said, “He was always happy; sometimes he would be walking down the hallway throwing kicks and punches—I guess he thought he was Bruce Lee! I told him, ‘You’re too old for that stuff; you’re gonna hurt yourself.’” One of Gary’s childhood friends commented: “One of the things I will remember most about Gary is that he would do whatever it took to make us happy. Gary never lost his ability to be child-like. I will miss his sweet hugs.” And don’’t forget Gary’s favorite quote: “Beam me up, Scotty!”

I remember planting trees with Gary down by the pond at the Sanctuary; he was so gentle and careful with the trees, and all the time we worked he talked to me about a Civil War book he was reading. I really learned a lot from that.

Diane was telling me that she and Gary had been together for about ten years when one morning at the breakfast table, Gary got up to pour a cup of coffee, turned around, and said, “You know what? We should get married.” And they did, on May 23, 2010.

One thing I didn’t know about Gary was that he could cook. Apparently, when he was working for McPherson Art Supplies, they would hold these company picnics, and they would have these judging contests of the food people brought in. Gary won a plaque for the best chicken wings.

Gary had a love of American history—especially the Civil War—and like baseball or auto racing, he pursued it with a passion fueled by a child-like curiosity. When he would talk about these subjects he could appeal to your sense of curiosity; he could draw you in to share his passion for the subject. He was really good at that. He was a teacher in his own way. He had that quality in Korea and never lost it. Over the past few years he turned his attention to astronomy. Sometimes he would show up at chapel and in the parking lot would show me all these photos he had downloaded from the Hubble Telescope and others; images of quasars, black holes, distant nebulae, photos of suns a hundred light years away that were so big they’d make our sun look like a golf ball, galaxies colliding and merging with each other. He would begin explaining phenomena like an astrophysicist. That was Gary: all the way or not at all.

I did not know until recently that he was in the beginning stages of writing a book. He has hundreds of notes compiled, and it has something to do with generative existence, but I am not very clear on where he was going with it.

But his greatest love was always the Christian mystics—or any mystic—and their transcendental experiences with the divine. If there was a book written on a mystic, he had it. That’s where his heart was; that’s the Gary I knew. He had a deep love and respect for Rev. Gene Sr., for this Church, the Teachings, and the people in this Community.

Gary left us with an heir, Gary Jr., and now Gary Jr. has a son of his own, so the Huss legacy continues on.

Gary Sr. had been an active member of The Community since April 1976, and part of the Reno community since March 1978. He performed numerous liturgical services at the Chapel of the Holy Child and at the Red Rock Sanctuary. He received third-level ordination in October 2007 and was a member of the crew of the Feathered Serpent II and an active member of the Andean Explorers since 1977. Gary and I grew up together in The Church and in this Teaching. Forty years is a long time: good times, bad times, and everything in between; things that can test a friendship, but in the end it was still there.

I would like to conclude with this prayer taken from the liturgy at Zion that was a favorite of his. I think it reflects his present state of being:

So in that world to which there is no end, ye shall receive great light,
but those who have been saved by their works,
and to whom the law has been now a hope,
and understanding an expectation,
and wisdom a confidence,
shall wonders appear in their time,
for they shall behold the world which is now invisible to them,
and they shall behold the time which is now hidden from them,
and time shall no longer age them,
for in the heights of that world shall they dwell,
and they shall be made like unto the angels,
and be made equal to the stars,
and they shall be changed into every form they desire,
from beauty into loveliness,
and from light into the splendor of glory.

PHOTO: Tanjug Video

US director Joseph Sikorski’s Tower To The People, a new documentary about Nikola Tesla, had its European premiere on April 6, 2015 at the Sava Centar in Belgrade.

The documentary is about Tesla’s dream of sending free wireless energy from a mysterious tower at the Wardencliff laboratory on Long Island. The film premiered in October 2014 at the New Yorker Hotel, where Tesla held his annual birthday press conferences for many years and where he died in 1943.

The film features materials obtained from the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and the Wardencliff Project, including previously unseen photographs, and music written by Emmy-nominated composer Marina Arsenijevic.

A press conference on March 31st was attended by Tesla’s nephew William Terbo, the sole living relative of the great scientist.

The screening of the film was organized by Toronto-based Tesla Magazine with assistance from the Belgrade city Secretariat for Culture and the Nikola Tesla Museum, and the event was held under the auspices of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.

< Watch the 24-minute segment of “Serbian Toronto Television—Episode 16″ on the film and its making. After a one-minute introduction in the Serbian language, the remainder of the program is in English. Included is a 5-minute film trailer, two long interviews with film maker Joseph Sikorski, and commentaries by numerous advocates of Tesla’s work. >

 < Watch the 4-minute trailer for the movie Tower to the People on YouTube. >

< Watch the 5-minute musical introduction to the movie Tower to the People on YouTube. >

Joseph Sikorski is presently working on a second movie on Tesla titled Fragments From Olympus.

< Watch the 5-minute theatrical teaser for Fragments From Olympus on YouTube. >

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was enshrined in 1993 by the Advocates for Religious Rights and Freedoms (www.arrf.org).

Annually for many years, the Advocates for Religious Rights and Freedoms held a Human Spiritual Rights Celebration on October 12, the Day of the Races of Man. The program of these celebrations contained awards presentations, musical presentations and speeches by Advocates and invited speakers, and enshrinements of individuals noted for their support of Human Spiritual Rights.

Tesla and many other pioneer leaders and thinkers inspired by a higher calling endeavored in their lives to bring to the world a greater appreciation and understanding of the mystery that is the human spirit. In honoring them, the Advocates not only remembered their acts, thoughts, and works but also paid tribute to their legacy, which is the quest for spiritual freedom.

The Advocates for Religious Rights and Freedoms is a consociation of churches and ministers of the International Community of Christ, Church of the Second Advent, that seeks to preserve , protect, and defend freedom of religion and to protect the right of individuals to religious expression.

— links submitted by Robert Petrovich

Michael Hillerby, Rebecca Wilis, Pat Hickey, and Gene Savoy Jr. In front of the Nevada Legislature building after the Nevada Assembly Taxation Committee hearing. PHOTO: Ted Staver

Bishop Gene Savoy Jr., Head Bishop of the International Community of Christ and President of the Nevada Clergy Association, has been working diligently for the past several months to prepare a piece of legislation that would not only provide full tax exemption for Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary, an event that Church members have been awaiting for over three decades, but also provide protection to all properties devoted to religious purposes.

Nevada Assembly Bill AB391 revises provisions governing the exemption from property taxes of certain property used for religious worship. The bill is a very important piece of legislation that expands the scope of religious property tax exemption in Nevada and will benefit all religions in the state of Nevada, was introduced in the Nevada Assembly on March 17, 2015.

Currently, if any religious organization in Nevada purchases a piece of property to build on, it would be taxed until fully developed. Under the proposed amendment to NRS 361.125, it would be exempt from the time it was acquired.

Bishop Savoy sought support for the bill from members of the Nevada Clergy Association and received it from 13 members, with letters of endorsement from the Muslim Community, Hindu Community, Jewish Community, Divine Mission and Satyachetana International, Catholic Community, and others.

The bill was introduced in the Assembly on March 17, 2015 by Michael Hillerby of the firm Kaempfer Crowell. However, Bishop Gene Savoy Jr. And Michael’s father, Fred Hillerby, now retired, had been working on the bill for nearly two-and-one-half years. The 2013 Nevada legislature was already in session when the two began their collaboration. And since the Nevada legislature meets for 120 days every two years, 2015 was the earliest the bill could be introduced.

The Nevada Assembly Taxation Committee hearing on the bill took place on Tuesday, March 24th. Present at the meeting to represent the Church were Church members Gene Savoy Jr., Rebecca Willis, Ted Staver, Michael Hillerby and Nevada Assemblyman Pat Hickey.

Following the hearing, Bishop Savoy personally thanked the members of the committee and requested their support of the bill, which assures equitable treatment for all recognized religious organizations in Nevada without denominational preference.

Voting by the committee is scheduled for next week.

< To read the text of Assembly Bill 391 as it was introduced, CLICK HERE. >

* * *

Nevada Assemblyman, and daily political commentator, Pat Hickey posted this article on the bill on his web site shortly before the bill was introduced on March 17th.

When it comes to paying taxes, the tension between church and state has been around for a long time. Jesus made the point pretty well some 2,000 years ago when he said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Problems arise when the jurisdiction of one infringes upon the rights of the other.
A case in point:

A local Northern Nevada church, the International Community of Christ (ICC), owns 1,300 acres of land off Pyramid Highway where they worship and practice their faith. The “problem” is that their sanctuary is not your classic cathedral or house of worship, but rather a desert hillside overlooking Spanish Springs. Central to their worship practice and their communion with God is being outdoors surrounded by nature.

An issue arose in the 1980s when Washoe County tax assessors began sending them property tax bills for the undeveloped portions of their land. The basis for this demand was NRS 361.125, which provides an exemption for “churches, chapels, other than marriage chapels, and other buildings…and the lots of ground on which they stand.” The county did exempt the portions of the property that were actually developed, but taxed the undeveloped areas.

The ICC pastor has asked members of the Washoe delegation to help with his pay-unto-Caesar problem. I and a few others have therefore introduced a bill, AB 391, that would add language to NRS saying that the current church exemption in the law would apply to parcels of land used exclusively for religious purposes and would include both developed and undeveloped portions of the parcel.

The Church is not saying that if they build timeshare condominiums on the lovely hillside in Sparks, they shouldn’t be taxed. They’re just saying that if your congregation gathers up on a hill to worship like Jesus did while delivering the Sermon on the Mount above the Sea of Galilee, you shouldn’t have to “render” to the local tax assessor.

Should be an interesting hearing today at 1:00 p.m. in the Assembly Taxation Committee in room 4100. Both “Caesar’s” and “God’s” people are expected to be in attendance. It’s not expected that the “sermons” given in testimony will match those referenced above, but they may be worth a listen nonetheless.

Scenes of Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary, Retreat, and Wildlife Park, located at Antelope Valley, Nevada, north of Reno, are collected in this beautiful video and set to music.

The video was produced by Michael McIntyre and Gary Buchanan, and uses photographs taken by Michael’s son Matthew Aaron Madonna.

< Watch the video on YouTube on CosolargyICC channel. (6 minutes) >

Throughout this series, I would like you to keep the following in the peripheral of your perspective:  For people that do scientific research it is like this: “I am suddenly dropped on this island. And really, I have no right to be there. Somehow I must build a bridge back to things that we already know.” This will become a valuable perspective, because often people that dedicate themselves to research have motivations that are not conspicuous to the results or the actual work at hand. These motivations seem to be a result of collected personal experiences, which have an enormous impact, compelling the individual researcher to uncover the mystery of those experiences.

This Tour of Consciousness series is a collection of videos in which researchers present findings of clinical or laboratory studies. Within these talks, there are brief moments when the speaker alludes to the motivations that inspired their research. As a preface to each of these video talks, I will include some brief background so that the talks are little more digestible.

The subject of Consciousness is an involved one.  You will be exposed to, seemingly, many pieces of the puzzle. It is worth your while not to discard any one of the presented perspectives for another, as many of these perspectives can be homogenized to further substantiate the Cosolargy models for the architecture and premise of Consciousness and give validity to the experiences that come as a result of applying The System.

If you were to ask any scientist of physics, neurology, cognition, or psychology What is consciousness? every one of them would answer, “We don’t know.” “That’s what we are trying to resolve. We are just now beginning to look for an answer to what may be the most significant question of our time—or any time, for that matter.” The answer to What is consciousness? will not be found in this series. So we have to ask, why would we give this material any attention in the first place? Let me give you a few examples.

I can say to anyone: “The people of the world can be affected by the conscious intent of a small group, collectively cascading their thoughts into the sun, which can then affect the world.”  Most people would consider this a fanciful, or fantasizing, remark.  But, give me 15 minutes and two pieces of paper, and I will premise this for you, based on the work of two Nobel Prize candidates.

Or I might say, “A person can develop perceptive skills by utilizing solar eye techniques that enhance cognitive abilities. This can result in waking-state visions of geometric archetypes outside of normal awareness that are not hallucinations but a verifiable episode shared by more than one person at that experiential moment. These archetypes carry information, primordial thought, and have the potential to be transcribed and interpreted by the individual.” . . . give me a piece of paper and 10 minutes, I will show you the neurological and mathematical foundations that support this cognitive ability.

The whole purpose of this presentation series is to simply recognize and then utilize “the bridges that lead us back to things we already know.” The final three sections of this series are quite dense. I will do my best to ease you into this arena as each segment ensues.  I had to re-watch some of the later talks in order to understand the magnitude of what was being relayed. So, don’t let the expertise of the presenters intimidate your capacity to grasp their ideas—their initial intuitions and conceptual formations for these explanations, are naturally available to us. All we need is to adopt their scientific jargon and mentality.

— Michael McIntyre, January 2015

< Read WEEK 1 >

Dr. Lorraine Hurley PHOTO: GCN Radio

On February 6, 2015 Bishop Gene Savoy Jr. appeared on Dr. Lorraine Hurley’s radio program “Uncommon Awareness” on Genesis Communications Network (GCN) Radio in a live broadcast from 5:00-7:00 PM Central Time. Dr. Hurley co-hosted the show with Dr. Dean Lloyd.

The show description reads: “Our guest is Gene Savoy Jr. Gene Savoy, Jr. describes the System of Cosolargy and the solar techniques that are taught by the Jamilian University. This practice leads to development of the spiritual Light Body and plays a powerful role in transcending into higher dimensional existence. Practiced as sun-gazing by many, Savoy is establishing schools through out the world that teach the techniques of Cosolargy.”

Dr. Hurley said to Gene of her interview with him: “I’m pretty fascinated by what you have shared so far about the sun transmitting information outside what we see and feel. I have been wrestling with the ‘truth’ of what has taken over our world and beginning to see larger cracks in the matrix as evidenced by their escalating lunacy and recklessness.”

Lorraine Hurley is a medical doctor who grew increasingly distressed by the failure of medicine to provide health care. Her show presents guests who share fascinating experiences and evidence that we can be cured. From scientists to practitioners, activists, physicists, metaphysicists, spiritualists, esoteric teachers and healers, they show that natural and alternative practices work and that we are living in a new reality paradigm. Dr. Hurley hopes that what she and her guests share will help launch listeners into a profound understanding of human nature, potential and evolution.

Dean is a life-long professional musician who has been practicing holistic healing for more than twenty years. A board certified acupuncturist, naturopath, radio show host, author, professor, inventor, and philosopher, Dean teaches Acutone to Acupuncturists and health practitioners and has invented numerous musical healing devices, including the Resonance Bell, which he employs in his busy clinical practices.

< To listen to the first hour of the interview, CLICK HERE. >

< To listen to the second hour of the interview, CLICK HERE. >

            I think that I have always believed there was something beyond the physical, at least as far back as I can remember. But I always had doubts about some of the things taught in church. My mother was raised Catholic. I don’t know what church my father was in originally, but he became Catholic after they were married. My parents seldom bothered to attend church services themselves, but they sent us kids to mass every Sunday.

When I was fourteen, we moved to a new town. This town, in Massachusetts, had two Catholic churches located just two blocks from each other. It really wasn’t a large enough town to need two Catholic churches, but it had two because decades earlier, the population of the town had been nearly half Irish immigrants and the other half French. They didn’t like going to the same church so each group got their own. This increased my doubts about the Catholic church, and I soon stopped attending. That town, by the way, is Spencer, Massachusetts, home of the Trappist monastery that is famous for its Trappist jams and jellies and now is home to the first Trappist beer brewery in the United States.

I generally stayed away from churches after that, and it wasn’t until I was in college that I got involved in anything spiritual. When I reenlisted in the Army after completing my initial three years, I chose a program that allowed me to go to college for two years. I was accepted into the program and was sent to a college in California which, at the time, was the only two-year college with a degree program in Data Processing (now called Computer Science). While I attended Orange Coast College, my apartment was located about half a mile from a small bookstore that had a large section of spiritual books. I found myself getting more interested in the subject and began buying and reading some of these books. This was in 1972. Meditation was also becoming popular at the time, and so I took the basic class in Transcendental Meditation (TM). During the next semester, I heard that a meditation club was forming on campus, and I joined it. The faculty adviser for the club was a member of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) and got me interested in this group and in Edgar Cayce, its psychic founder. I read books and continued to practice TM for some time, although I never felt that I was really getting much from it. After completing my college studies and returning to military service (U.S. Army), I moved away from anything spiritual for many years, at least formally. I always retained interest in the subject.

I really can’t remember what triggered it, but in 1991 I felt that I needed to get back into spiritual studies. I started reading spiritual books and magazines again. I started looking at the ads for spiritual schools in the magazines that I read. An ad in Fate for Project X caught my attention, and I sent in a request for more information. I liked what I read in the information packet and decided to join The Community, at least temporarily. Over the next several months, as I read the books and listened to the tapes I was sent, I became more convinced that this School was for me. Later in the year, I attended my first Convocation. After that,  I had several dreams that I felt were about my involvement with The Community. In one such dream, I was helping several people I recognized as members of the group construct a brick building. In another, I was climbing a  mountain with Community members. These dreams and others helped convince me that I had made the right choice to join. I continued to read the books, listen to the tapes, and practice the techniques. After retiring a few years ago, I moved to Reno and became even more active in The Community.

View of Los Barriles across Sea of Cortez PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr

Bishop Gene and his wife, Radheka, traveled to Mexico January 21-29, 2015 on an exploratory mission with the intention of establishing a Community Center there. They were located in the small town of Los Barriles in the state of Baja California Sur, about 40 minutes northeast of the international airport at San Jose del Cabo. Los Barriles is dry and arid and rests on the coast of the Sea of Cortez. The trip from Reno to Cabo takes approximately 5 hours via Phoenix, AZ.

Dry arroyo running from Sierra de Las Lagunas mountains, west of Los Barriles PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr.

Early morning in Los Barriles PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr.

Joining Gene and Radheka was Consociate Humberto Garcia who traveled from Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, TX. Together, they met with an attorney who began paperwork on a non-profit association which will either be named International Community of Christ, Cosolargy International, or Cosolargy Institute of Mexico. Very similar to the United States, the association will have tax-exempt status and donors will be able to claim tax deductions. The original incorporators are Mexican citizens: Bishop Gene, Humberto and Claudia Grady, the wife of Deacon Shane Grady.

Natural hot springs in the foothills of Sierra de Las Lagunas at the Biosphere Reserve of Las Lagunas PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr.

In addition, Gene and Humberto also met with real estate agents who introduced them to geothermal areas in the region. Bishop Gene’s vision is to establish a retreat/conference center in conjunction with a healing center/spa, much on the same lines as The Community has at Steamboat Hot Springs in Reno.

Wind surfers along the coast of Los Barriles in the Sea of Cortez PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr.

Some of the positives of the area include: (1) easy access to an international airport; (2) the beauty of the Sea of Cortez; (3) the area has both mountains and beaches; (4) the weather is warm and sunny; (5) a large ex-pat community of Americans and Canadians; (6) English is widely spoken; (7) geothermal/mineral springs; (8) low land prices and building costs; (9) a significant number of people from Reno reside and own homes there; (10) excellent seafood and water sports; (11) organic and natural foods stores and restaurants; (12) safety; (13) an Eastern exposure with good sun and good energy; (14) it’s close to other places, such as Cabo, La Paz, El Triumfo, San Antonio, Santiago and Todos Santos; and (14) it sits on the Tropic of Cancer.

We will keep you informed as things progress on this interesting project. Ole!

Landscaping outside residence in Los Barriles PHOTO: Gene Savoy Jr.

by Gene Savoy Jr.

On left, coastline of Sado island off the main island of Honshu; on right, Yukinori Matsushita vested after Sunrise Service. PHOTO: Keiko Inoue

Yukinori Matsushita, Eriko Ueno, Keiko Inoue, Miyuki Okayama, Shoko Oba and Yaeno Sanada went to Sado Island in Niigata province for a Sunrise Service there on Epiphany Day.

Niigata is located on the island of Honshu on the coast of the Sea of Japan.

From left to right, Miyuki Okayama, Eriko Ueno, Yukinori Matsushita, Yaeno Sanada, Shoko Ohba. PHOTO: Keiko Inoue

The Community in Japan attends Sunrise Service in Kurume every Sunday and visited Hokkaido and had private Sunrise Service there as well. When we look at Kurume and Hokkaido as points, and then add Sado Island, there are 3 points that together make a large triangle for Light to prevail over a larger space. That is why Yukinori picked Sado island.

Standing from left to right, Yaeno Sanada, Yukinori Matsushita, Miyuki Okayama, Shoko Ohba. Crouching in front is Eriko Ueno. PHOTO: Keiko Inoue

The place was already ready for a Sunrise Service. The weather was as warm as it is at beginning of March and birds also attended the Service. That morning was overcast but the sun came out by the end of the Service. We were expecting the Sun from the East during the Service. That is the direction that points towards San Francisco and on to Reno.

Everyone felt relief that everything was going well. In this year, we will hold our big conference in Japan. We are looking forward to a big success for both Communities!

PHOTO: Keiko Inoue

Japanese New Year decorations at hotel. On the left are two sheep made of pottery. Behind is a Japanese folding screen with a well-known proverb is written on it: “Good fortune and happiness will come to the home of those who smile” or “Fortune comes in by a merry gate.” PHOTO: Keiko Inoue

submitted by Keiko Inoue
(translated by Noriko Roy)

Large Japanese-style Second Advent Cross mounted on Chapel wall at Cosolargy Center in Japan PHOTO: Yukako Kawai

Recently Yukako Kawai, an ordained member of the Community in Japan, created Second Advent Crosses out of wood to adorn the wall of the Chapel at the Community Center in Japan.

Yukako had not done any woodcarving since she was in junior high school. She just thought it would be nice if she could make the Crosses for the Community in Japan. At first, she wanted to use a single round wooden board to make the Cross, carving the American-style Cross on one side and the Japanese-style Cross on the other side. When she went to look for a wooden board at the lumber store, she found a big nice round wood board at store that she wanted to try to work with. But she thought it was too big and that there would not be enough space for it at the Center. So she bought a smaller round piece of wood 30 centimeters in diameter.

After the finishing the smaller wood Cross, she showed it to Bishop Yukinori Matsushita, who requested Yukako to make the bigger Cross. It was then she realized that it had been no coincidence that she saw the big round wood board at store, and she felt that somehow her consciousness was guiding her to make the Cross with it.

American-style Second Advent Cross PHOTO: Yukako Kawai

Japanese-style Second Advent Cross PHOTO: Yukako Kawai

Each side of the smaller cross design took about two weeks to carve and one week to paint, a total of 40 days. The larger Cross took about four weeks to carve and a week to paint, a total of 50 days.

By Noriko Roy