Lincoln Nebraska Annual Nagasaki-Hiroshima Commemoration and Lantern Float

Annual Nagasaki-Hiroshima Commemoration and Lantern Float:
Holmes Lake Park in Lincoln, Saturday, August 9, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

For further information, contact Paul A. Olson at 475-1318

The Annual Nagasaki-Hiroshima Commemoration and Lantern Float for 2008 is commemorating the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. It will be held Saturday, August 9, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at Holmes Lake in Lincoln, NE. We will be on the northeast side of the lake on Holmes South Shore Road, off of Normal Boulevard on the east side of the lake. The schedule of the event is at the end of this message. The public is urged to attend and participate in this event.

The primary sponsoring groups are Nebraskans for Peace, First Mennonite Church, Lutheran Justice and Advocacy Ministries, First United Methodist Church, and Blue River District, UMC/Nebraska Conference. Additional sponsors include a number of individual parishes from the Methodist, Mennonite, UCC, Lutheran, Friends and other religious and advocacy groups.

The Nagasaki event, which occurred 64 years ago, included the dropping of a nuclear weapon on a city that, according to historians, had not been the site of conventional bombing attacks before although it had some military industries. Nagasaki was not intended to be the primary target of the bomb when the plane which struck it took off. Most historians argue that the diverting of the bomber to Nagasaki was in the nature of an experiment because the cloud cover over the plane’s primary target, Kokura, was so heavy. Generally historians estimate that the deaths from the Nagasaki bomb reached 80,000 by the end of 1945 and that many more died later of radiation sickness.

The crew that bombed Nagasaki was made up of Christians. Catholic and Lutheran chaplains blessed the plane before it took off. However, paradoxically Nagasaki was the site of the largest Christian church in the Orient, St. Mary’s Cathedral, the largest concentration of baptized Christians in Japan, and the city where the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier established a mission church in 1549. The city also included a population of a large number of allied prisoners of war and Koreans brought to Japan for forced labor or other purposes.

The Annual Nagasaki-Hiroshima Commemoration and Lantern Float is intended primarily as a reminder that we and all other nations must forgo the use and production of nuclear weapons if the planet is to survive. Lantern floats in Japan have traditionally been used to guide the souls of the dead to their rest, but in recent times they have also been used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and around the world to commemorate the people destroyed by the first atomic bombs and to express the hope that such weapons will never be used again. Though the purpose of the event in Lincoln is partially to remind us of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is primarily to will that such events never again occur.

The event will include the construction of the Japanese lanterns for the float, guitar, Indian flute, and folk music, meditations on the meaning of nuclear war and the Nagasaki event, and readings of poetry written by victims of the bomb at Nagasaki, observers of the blast, and survivors of the weapon. Complementing the readings from Japanese poets translated into English will be readings by Nebraska state poet, William Kloefkorn, from his book, Collecting for the Wichita Beacon, a work that gives an account of a young boy’s experience as a paper boy during the time when the bomb was dropped. The event will begin at 6:30 with the making of the lanterns, the formal program will begin at 7 P.M., and the floating of the lanterns on the lake will come when darkness comes, about 9 P.M. Materials for the lanterns and plans for making them will be provided at the site or one can see how to make a shade and base at http://www.progressiveportal.org/lanterns/shademaking.html.

Schedule for the evening (times are approximate):

1. 6:30-7:00: Assemble at Holmes Lake site to assemble lanterns and socialize;
2. 7:00-7:25: Bill Behmer and Gwen Meister music;
3. 7:25-7:35: Marilyn Mecham of Interchurch Ministries of Nebraska presents a statement about the religious implication of nuclear war;
4. 7:35-7:45: Lela Shanks, peace and justice advocate of Lincoln, reading account of Nagasaki bombing;
5. 7:45-7:55: David Orr reading from literature written by nuclear radiation victims after Nagasaki, from John Howard Yoder’s theological writings, and from President Truman;
6. 7:55-8:25: William Kloefkorn reading from his own poetry about his remembrance of the first nuclear weapon and the renewal of the natural world possible;
7. 8:25-8:40: Poetry about hope from nuclear radiation casualties read by Pastor Jamie Norwich McLennan of First Methodist Church – also her own poetry perhaps;
8. 8:50-9:00: summary music by Chuck Bentjen, ELCA-NE Justice and Advocacy Ministries;
9. 9:00-9:30: Native American flute music by Michael Murphy. The assembled group carries the lanterns down the peninsula as the sky darkens and floats the lanterns.