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| Crown Prince Akihito and Elizabeth Gray Vining, 1949. Source. |
The chief reason why I wanted to come [to Japan] is that in her new constitution Japan has renounced war as an instrument of national policy. Other nations must follow. I believe that out of her great suffering and defeat Japan will draw a new strength and a new vision that will enable her to lead the world in ways of peace.
You are the generation that will have to do it.... I come to you in friendship and in the hope that I can take a small share in helping your many distinguished teachers to prepare you for your great task.
— Elizabeth Gray Vining, speaking to Crown Prince Akihito's school class at the beginning of her service. (Windows for the Crown Prince, 1952.)
In a couple of recent posts, I've touched on the relationships among diverse Quakers and the country of Japan (the country where my mom was born and raised). Back in July, Sergei Grushko's article mentioned Japanese students at Quaker colleges during World War II, and then my Hiroshima-Nagasaki post went on to summarize a few more connections.
Those few instances of U.S. Quakers serving in Japan or serving Japanese people made me wonder whether there has ever been a full-length study of that history. The relationship between the Quaker movement in Japan and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting seems to be well-covered in the recent book Friendly Connections: Philadelphia Quakers and Japan Since the Late Nineteenth Century. I've not read this book (it's on my wishlist!... price $156) but the review in Friends Journal gives an idea of its scope. It includes accounts of Elizabeth Gray Vining's and Esther Rhoads's roles in the education of Crown Prince (now Emperor Emeritus) Akihito.
(I highly recommend Vining's own account of her years as his tutor, and how that engagement came about.)
What might understandably be less emphasized in a Philadelphia-centered account is the major role of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in building and maintaining Quaker relationships with Japan over the last 140 years. During our years in Richmond, when I was a student at Earlham School of Religion and and Judy worked with Earlham's East Asian studies program, we got to know three of the people who contributed to those relationships—professors Jackson Bailey and Len Holvik, and Earlham's president Landrum Bolling. Jackson Bailey (nephew of biblical scholar Moses Bailey) had been a conscientious objector who served as a cook in the U.S. occupation forces in Japan. As Chuck Yates says in the Earlham brochure, "The History of Japan at Earlham,"
Deeply impacted by his time in Japan, Bailey dedicated his life to improving relations between Japanese and Americans. In his over thirty years of labor, he did not quite succeed in creating a world where war and its sorrows are impossible, but there are certainly thousands of people on both sides of the Pacific for whom those things are now unthinkable, thanks to Jack’s efforts.
(Forgive another personal aside: One of my most vivid memories of Earlham was from 1983. A graduation reception brought together Jackson Bailey, his uncle Moses Bailey, and British Quaker writer Elfrida Vipont Foulds. Foulds gave the commencement address at the graduation itself, and received an honorary doctorate. Her speech was an amazing blend of pastoral advice and storytelling which managed to captivate an audience of students and families whose highest priority had not been to sit and listen to a speech!)
The relationships of Friends and Japan on the Philadelphia track and on the Earlham track may seem to run separately and parallel, but there's considerable overlap. For just a couple of examples:
Thomas Jones of Fairmount, Indiana, married Esther Balderston of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1917, and both served as Quaker missionaries in Japan under that yearly meeting until 1924. Thomas Jones later served as president of Fisk University and then Earlham College. Son T. Canby Jones, whom we knew as a professor at Wilmington College, was born in Japan. Canby's education was in the Philadelphia orbit, at Westtown School and Haverford College, before going off to Yale.
Esther Rhoads, Crown Prince Akihito's second Quaker tutor, is another bridge person between Philadelphia Friends and Earlham. Since Friends from both of these tracks of Japan-Quaker history were involved with Tokyo Friends School, there are probably many similar overlap stories waiting to be chronicled in a more comprehensive history. Maybe such a history has already been written, and I simply haven't found it. If you know of such a resource, please share....
And if the book Friendly Connections itself has more about Earlham than the review suggests, let me know that, too.
My own Quaker journey began in 1974. I joined Friends in Ottawa Meeting (unprogrammed, generally liberal), but within a year or so I found out about programmed Friends and a Quaker culture that was relatively more Bible-oriented than most Canadian Friends were. I found it easy to move between these different Quaker cultures, but found many Friends in each barely knew (or actually did not know) that the others existed.
Having read the accounts of U.S. Quakers and Japan, I wonder whether, several generations earlier, relations between "orthodox" Quakers in (say) Indiana and Quakers in the eastern yearly meetings were far more routine and relaxed than they've seemed during my time ... despite the lack of today's mobility and Internet channels. What might have reduced that earlier overlap? Among the totally unsubstantiated theories I've come up with was the consequences of the end of the series of organizations known most recently as the Young Friends of North America, a movement that at its height brought together young adult Quakers from all over the continent.
Another theory: when the yearly meetings that had divided in the 19th century) began reuniting, this may have had the unintended and perverse effect of accentuating the theological differences in the larger U.S. Quaker landscape. For a possible case study, see Ruth Pitman's "The 1955 Union and the Future of Friends."
Or, on the third hand, maybe we're simply talking about changes in patterns among what was always a small subset of Friends—those who are fascinated or inspired by the Quaker movement as a whole rather than prioritizing their faithfulness to the nearby communities they know best. God knows we need both priorities, and perhaps we move back and forth from one to the other as we go through life. Again, your thoughts are most welcome.
Visiting my mother's school in Kobe.
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| Jack Kirk. Source. |
Max Carter remembers the late Jack Kirk. Max writes that Jack was the "consummate encourager..." which was exactly my experience. Jack encouraged me through some concrete terrors, including my first sermon in public, when my Quaker Hill Bookstore boss Fred Boots asked me to substitute for him at Paoli Friends. Jack also shepherded me through my first writings for Quaker Life during his editorship there. His obituary reveals that he, too, found it congenial to move between Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and pastoral Friends. Despite the sad occasion, I find it impossible to look at his photo without smiling. I can just hear him saying, "Let's key in on the central issues...."
Brian Drayton pays tribute to writer and documentary filmmaker John Crowley.
Turns out that Julia Curlee, CIA analyst and provider of presidential briefings, was the wrong kind of American. "The White House needed me—until the fact that I am trans became public."
Daily Quaker Message, from Thomas R. Kelly: "It takes no time, but it occupies all our time."
Philip Gulley knows what faith is and isn't. "While I don’t always have faith, I do know faith when I see it."
Whitehorse and a mighty fine editor, "Come On In My Kitchen."
