People all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima.

People at the Lyndale Park Peace Garden and people in Hiroshima, Japan, gathered simultaneously this past Saturday (Aug 5th, 2006) to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a tea ceremony. John Brisson, a member of the Yukimakai (meaning amid the snow) tea study group, led a meditative tea ceremony, an almost silent ritual, at 6:00 p.m. (the time when people were also gathered in Hiroshima) to remember the bombing and its victims.

The tea ceremony was the beginning of a full weekend of events offered by the Hiroshima Nagasaki Commemoration Committee to encourage reflection on the past and hope for the future through action in the present. A paper crane symbolizing peace was the central theme at these events.

On Sunday, a Ceremony of Cranes began at 7:30 a.m. with music and reflection, ending at 8:15 a.m. with a moment of silence at the time of the dropping of the bomb. Participants then lay origami peace cranes on trees and bushes at the Peace Garden.

At 2:30 on Sunday, a Family Event with music, dance, storytelling, and crane folding was held at the new, and yet unfinished, Spirit of Peace sculpture. This sculpture is a series of boulders, each of which shows one step in folding the peace crane. (It is hoped that by next year there will be a Spirit of Peace vertical sculpture in the center of the circle of boulders.

The Japanese singing group, Mumin, which means Dream People, sang two numbers, one of which was an ancient children’s song about a ball that rolls out into a procession. This group regularly performs at the Lantern Lighting Festival at Como Park in St. Paul in late August. Their director is Chiemi Onikura Bly.

Marcia Sanoden, a music teacher who grew up in Japan, performed a beautiful traditional song from Okinawa called Shima Uta, or Island Song, and taught the audience a Japanese folk song.

Sansei Yonsei Kai, a Japanese dance group made up of children and adults, performed and also lead the audience in a traditional dance. This multicultural dance group has members aged 4 to 70. It is led by Linda van Dooijeweert and has performed many times at the Lantern Lighting Festival in St. Paul, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and other venues around the Twin Cities. The group has been in existence for over 33 years and all members are volunteers committed to the Japanese tradition of dance.

A definite highlight of the event was the telling of the Story of Sadako, the young Japanese girl who folded 1,000 origami cranes in an effort to recover from radiation sickness. Larry Johnson, Emcee, Elaine Wynne and their 10-year old granddaughter Renee Weeks-Wynne told the story.

When Sadako Sasaki was two years old, she was exposed to the radiation of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Ten years later, this popular student and fast runner contracted leukemia. Her best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako started folding cranes and completed over 1,000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.

The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make cranes until she died. Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako’s friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.

In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads: “This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world”.

Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima.

At 5:30 p.m. the final event was the third annual Peace Concert at Lake Harriet Bandshell, as part of the Lake Harriet Bandshell summer concert series.

[Information for this article was gathered from the World Peace Project for Children website, http://www.sadako.org/, which also has a picture of Sadako, the Sadako monument, and other information about Sadako, and from the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers Calendar website, http://www.mapm.org/calendar.htm.]

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Rose Grengshas been a SJA parishioner since 1982. She is an immigration attorney and passionate about the subject. She is a member of the choir and active in the Peace Movement. She and her husband, Paul, routinely attend the 11:00 Mass. She is the mother of four children and grandmother of three. She is looking forward to retirement, travel and enjoys music, especially singer, songwriter, Greg Brown.

You are invited to contribute to the Peace Garden Project (PGP) which will replace the peace bridge and install the vertical Spirit of Peace sculpture. Your donation (checks to MPRB – Peace Garden Project) is tax-deductible and will be matched by an anonymous $10,000 grant.