( From the Kukui Tree, is a collection of thoughts and reflections from The Reverend Moki Hino)
Dear Friends,
I write from the kukui tree that spreads its branches over the birdbath that sits on the front lawn of the square here at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Kukui is the Hawaiian name for the candlenut tree, whose oily nuts were used for lights, making the tree a symbol of enlightenment. The St. Andrew’s tree’s wide branches and broad leaves provide shade for me and for a gray dove that hunts and pecks for tidbits on the ground when I sit outside and talk story with different folks. I watched him earlier this morning and thought he was a pretty mundane-looking creature until I looked closely and saw that his neck was covered with a black band of feathers dotted with white spots, as if teaching me that if I look closely enough I can see beauty in all sorts of things that might otherwise seem mundane.
Not that life on Queen Emma Square is mundane – quite the contrary. My first official day here began with my presiding at a noonday Eucharist with an organ recital immediately following. I got chicken skin as I listened to the first selection and looked at the kahili honoring Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV, their feather standard, symbolic of Hawaiian royalty, like a segment of a rainbow, God’s symbol of peace. And it’s been quite an honor to stand in the pulpit at the cathedral and connect with the people sitting in the pews who listen, nod, and smile back at me. It’s all about bonding with people. And there has been plenty of opportunity to do that here in Honolulu.
Last weekend I went to the aloha hour at The Arcadia, the retirement residence where my cousin Emily lives. After having pupus (that’s a local term for finger food), we took in a show put on by the residents called Skool Daze and it was great fun to see a ninety-year old woman in sunglasses and a fish costume singing a song about being a minnow. It was also fun to sit and mingle with the folks who were there, some of them who were friends of my mother’s parents and others who were friends of my father’s parents.
Earlier in the week I was on Maui to facilitate a discussion on the Anglican Communion and it was fun to meet with the folks from Good Shepherd, St. John’s Kula, and Trinity by the Sea. Right after I got home from that trip I was asked to preside at a funeral at St. Clements’ in Makiki and as a thank you, the deceased’s son gave me a beautiful koa and coconut bowl that had been given to him by a Mrs. Lydia Maioho, who is the mother of my Auntie Jan’s good friend George from Moloka`i. The bowl now sits on a table in my office at the cathedral and in front of an icon of Emma and Kamehameha, serving as a reminder of the intricate web of relationships that we have with people in the Islands.
At the end of July I was home to preach and preside at St. James’ Kamuela. While home my family and I had the opportunity to take in Twilight at Kalahuipua`a on the grounds of Mauna Lani where we had an evening of hula and Hawaiian music given by kumu hula (hula master) Blaine Kamalani Kia. At sunset that evening, Danny Akaka, the evening’s host, asked everyone to look out toward the ocean at the setting sun and to send prayers to Gram’s brother, Uncle Riyo Higashi, who was in the hospital. He’d just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Well, last week Uncle Riyo died at the age of ninety-two and this coming Saturday our family will gather on the Big Island to celebrate his life – a life well-lived. The sun has set on his earthly existence, but the sun will rise tomorrow and his spirit will live on in his children, grandchildren, and the memories of a gentle soul, a warm smile, and a generous heart. Uncle Riyo was a veteran of World War Two, having served in the Military Intelligence Service. My grandmother and Uncle Riyo had family on both sides of the war, some of us here in Hawaii and others of us across the Pacific Ocean in Japan. We were divided by war and are now reconciled in peace, the kind of peace that the rainbow-segmented kahili honoring Emma and Kamehameha in the cathedral sanctuary represent.
I thought about the notion of peace a couple of weeks ago when I was up at Camp Smith for the first birthday luau of Auntie Edith Hanohano’s great-grandson. Camp Smith, in Aiea, overlooks Pearl Harbor, Ford Island, and the bookends of the Second World War – the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri. As I looked out at the vista, I remembered how Gram sat on the roof of her house in Honolulu when she was in college on Oahu on December 7th, 1941. I remembered Auntie Tomoe Kambe’s story of being in the hills above Hiroshima when we dropped the atomic bomb on August 6th, 1945. I remembered Uncle Masao Tokuda’s story about how his family’s ironworks factory in Osaka had been destroyed by American bombs and how Uncle Riyo went to visit with the family after the war and helped them rebuild their factory and bestowed upon them a precious bag of rice from the back of his Army jeep.
As the sun lit up the Hawaiian skies and made its way behind the Waianae Mountain Range, I remembered. I remembered and I looked out at the peaceful harbor and the serene white curve of the Arizona Memorial, a gravestone for the nearly two thousand souls that lie underneath it. I looked out and for a brief God-filled moment, I felt a sense of calm and I felt a sense of peace. So, may Uncle Riyo rest in peace and may peace be with all of you.
Until next month, please take care.
Aloha no,
Moki
