I did get to wondering about 2 questions yesterday afternoon: 1) what was supposed to happen to us Jews? 2) Since I was flying home at the appointed hour, would the rapture-eligible people on plans ascend all that much sooner than the earthbound Blessed ones?
At our Commencement this morning, I posed these questions to my good friend and colleague Fr. Tom, who suggested that I should have checked to see if the pilot was Jewish….
Rob,
I do not quite know how the Rapture is supposed to work mid-flight. However, as for the answer to your first question, I received a package this past weekend which brought this all into perspective for me.
On the day that the Rapture was to occur I received a package from Toshiko Kawamura. Toshiko Kawamura is the wife of my longtime friend Hirofumi Kawamura. Hirofumi and I first met in August 1975 on a Greyhound bus in Provo, Utah. As you may recall, I came from very modest financial circumstances so part of my Amherst College experience was taking the bus seven times across the country, to and from my home state of California to Massachusetts. On my last cross country bus trip, I was accompanied by my high school sweetheart until we reached Salt Lake City, Utah. At that point, she continued on to San Francisco while I disembarked and took a bus headed for Los Angeles, intending to get off in my hometown of Victorville.
The first stop that the bus made on its way from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles was Provo, Utah. In Provo, a middle aged Japanese gentleman boarded the bus. I happened to have an empty seat next to me (oddly, I often had an empty seat next to me in those days). Anyway, I offered the empty seat to the Japanese gentleman and, lo and behold, he accepted. Encouraged by this act of acceptance, I attempted to engage the gentleman in some conversation with him. He introduced himself as Hirofumi Kawamura, a citizen of Kitakyushu, Japan. He had been in Provo, Utah, at some language center (I think at Brigham Young University) brushing up on his English language skills in preparation for his sabbatical year in California. As serendipity would have it, he was a legal scholar who was spending his sabbatical year at the University of California at Berkeley law school but was on the bus going to Los Angeles because he wanted to see Disneyland before going to Berkeley. Surprised I told him I was going to be going to the University of California at Berkeley law school in the Fall as well but that I was on the bus to Los Angeles because I lived in the desert community of Victorville which was on the way.
Well, as best we could, Hirofumi and I became travel companions for the remainder of our trip. We parted in Victorville, but when I finally made it to Berkeley, I looked him up at the International House and had lunch with him. He went back to Japan in 1976, but our friendship did not end there. Our friendship developed over the next 33 years as we corresponded with each other and exchanged occasional gifts. He was real proud when he wrote his book on Japanese corporate law, just as I was real proud when I wrote my first book on African and African American history. We exchanged books. However, I think he got more out of mine than I got out of his since I know that he can read English but I have no clue what the Japanese script that his book is printed in says.
We also exchanged notes on family matters and ultimately on religious beliefs. Hirofumi was Buddhist, while I journeyed from an initial fundamental Christianity to my more Unitarian notions of today. For thirty-three years, Hirofumi and I corresponded with each other but this last year I did not receive my usual reply.
On May 21, the day that, for some, the Rapture was supposed to occur, I received the package from Toshiko telling me that my friend, Hirofumi, had died. Hirofumi was in his mid-70s so his death was not wholly unexpected, but it did catch me by surprise. Thus, on that day, I found myself thinking a great deal about Hirofumi and what may come hereafter.
One of the regrets I have in this life is that I was never able to visit my friend. I would have liked to have had another long visit with him to talk with him and get to know him better. Indeed, for me, at that particular moment, the notion of what Heaven might be like would be the ability to have the opportunity to do just that...the ability to have at least one more chat with a dear old friend.
So Rob, in my theology, that is what Heaven is for me. Heaven is where I can once again be with those I love and with those whom I can share some special times and memories and discussions. And in my theology,... in my Heaven, I do expect to see Hirofumi, my Buddhist friend, again, ... and, many, many, many years from now, I would like to introduce you to him.
Take care, my friend.
