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All suggestions are welcome! In This Issue December Speech Page 1-2

Rev. Kenneth Hasegawa Page 3

Please allow me to start off by thanking you all for attending the last monthly Service for 2011 and for your continuous support of our church throughout the year. A little earlier, Mrs. Takeuchi was shaking terribly then her hands became ice cold and I worried that due to her old age, she wasn’t going to recover from this. I repeatedly prayed , “Namu Tenr i -O-No-Mikoto” and thankfully, she seemed to pull through it ok. It was a frightful thought because it was only a couple of days ago when her first son had just passed away. He was in his early 80’s and the family wanted to hospitalize him but the doctor just told his family that there was no need for that. Then he passed away at home. Doctors are not meant to keep us alive forever. They are equipped to repair damages made to our bodies from time to time but these bodies we use are a thing lent to us. We have borrowed it from God the Parent so it is inevitable that we will eventually need to return them to God the Parent. So it becomes

even more inevitable that we take the time in our lives, even if it’s just on a monthly basis, to show our gratitude to God the Parent for what we have borrowed. It has become even more clear to me now as I age how important it is for me to show gratitude to God the Parent of how grateful I am that not only am I still able to borrow this body for another day but I am still able to see the ones in front of me able to function and healthily use their bodies for another day too. Our bodies, like plants have seasons and life cycles. In the winter, when the weather is harsh and cold, the trees lose all its leaves and it looks sad but during that time is when the roots are growing. This is how a tree can continue to flourish with even more leaves in the spring. Our hearts and souls are the same as the roots of trees. When we are struggling through hardships and difficulties, we must rely on the strength of God the Parent’s divine wisdom to help us through the harsh winters. Then our roots will grow even stronger and longer so that when our spring time

z Rev. Aiko Hasegawa zDecember Speech

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2

NC newsletter2 0 1 2 W I N T E R E D I T I O N

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Tenrikyo Northern California Church

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arrives, we have the ability to flourish even more than before. We must greet every hardship with gratitude and a wisdom to understand that difficult ies are necessary for the sake of strengthening our roots, the heart and soul of our life. No one deals with only harsh winters in their lives. There are rays of sunshine that come in our seasonal cycle and those are the springs we must cherish just as much as the harsh winters. It ebbs and flows so we must accept those moments given to us at every moment they arrive. We must appreciate those moments for the value they put in our lives when they are here rather than look to the things that once were. We shouldn’t waste our time grumbling that we are not experiencing what we want at that moment because, in the end, we are all on borrowed time. Now is the time to try to be able to sync our thoughts to the cycles of our seasons. Our own harsh winters are when we must take the time to reflect on our attitudes and thoughts so that we can strengthen and lengthen our roots. Then we have the ability to flourish even stronger the next time. Otherwise, with every spring season that comes upon us, there is only a limited amount of flourishing that will be possible until, in the end, we just have chosen to no longer be able to flourish at all. How we use our minds is the single most important thing that will determine our quality of life.

Look to the mental dusts constantly trying to cloud up our thoughts and hearts. If we neglect to clear them away from our hearts, it can really start to over power us and everyone around us. If we continue to ignore them on top of that, it may bury every opportunity to let the sun shine on top of our souls and spirits and help our lives flourish. Death is not only determined by how old you are. It can also be determined by the damage done to the body you are borrowing or the neglect to care for our own spirit, our own soul. Know what you have and know how to care for it while you can because only God and you can determine how long you are able to keep it. Many people want to take the time to help me here during the monthly service as I prepare for the meal afterwards. But I am encouraging each and everyone of you to realize that the portals to God the Parent’s Shrine is only open during this one time a month. It may not seem significant as you are sitting in a chair in this room but during the monthly service, you are opening yourself up to a time for sincere reflection with your purest thoughts directly in front of God the Parent. This is a wonderful opportunity to show God the Parent the amount of gratitude you really do have for what you have been blessed with so far. Don’t waste an opportunity to spend real quality time with God the Parent.

NC Church would like to thank everyone for all your wonderful support and warm wishes. We truly wish everyone a wonderful 2012! あけましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくおねがいします！

The Attitude of the borrower:

“It is indeed God the Parent’s blessing that we can use our bodies as we wish, whether it be seeing things with our eyes, hearing things with our ears, smelling things with our nose, chewing things

with our teeth, doing something using our hands, or moving with our legs. But please ask yourselves if you live each day with a constant awareness of these marvelous blessings of God the

Parent. It is likely that you pay little attention to them. So, I should like all of you to make the effort, once in a while, to perceive theses as blessings. then, in proportion to the frequency with

which you make this effort, your spiritedness will increase and the value of your faith will become clearer. If you are not aware of God’s blessings, you are no different from people who have no faith.”

- Growing Spiritually Day By Day: Excerpts from the Shinbashira’s Talks

151 (1988): Tsusaka Branch Church

DATE TO REMEMBER: JUNE 21, 2012

HONJIMA GRAND CHURCH’S 110TH ANNIVERSARY

LET US KNOW IF YOU’D LIKE TO JOIN

US!It’s coming upon us very soon!

For any forms, questions, and additional information, please contact:kenhasegawa@yahoo.com or (503) 887-7665

We hope you will join us!!

JOYOUS MIND REV. KEN HASEGAWA JOYOUS LIFE

I wanted to touch on the significance of Mrs. Takeuchi and Mrs. Nakayama to this church. They are the foundation of this church. Established in 1935, this church moved from 7th Avenue and Broadway to where we are right now. Mrs. Takeuchi is 98 years old. You heard how she just lost her son recently and 15 years ago, she had lost her daughter so she has endured many hardships. She came over for the nightly Service yesterday and was literally shaking when we saw her. It was a very emotional and difficult thing for her to deal with as many of you might already know. But she has been able to endure the loss of her children and we are very lucky to have her up to now. She and Mrs. Nakayama are very dedicated members of this church since the beginning and we couldn’t have gone this far if it weren’t for their continued dedication and support so we are truly grateful to have them with us here today. Another member who is no longer with us, Mrs. Tateishi, was part of the beginning of this church too. Her daughter lives nearby and consistently donates kiwi fruits on an annual basis and comes to the church yearly. There a a number of others who may not come to the church but try to support the church in ways that they can and we truly appreciate that. Of course, we cannot forget the many of you who are here and dedicate yourselves to supporting this church as you come to pray and we couldn’t be where we are now without you most of all. I truly want to thank all of you for your time, efforts, and dedication. We’ve endured and witnessed many things happening in 2011 that made us wonder what is happening to our world. Shinbashira said that our mind, our hearts, and God are far apart when this occurs. God is trying to get our attention. There is not enough appreciation and gratitude in the world and too much greed and anger. Our society’s quality of life has improved so much compared to the past with the abundance of food, shelter, and easy access to so many things around us yet, as a small example of our skewed attitude as a society, the level of single parent households keeps increasing from year to year. Our connection and commitment to one another is no longer top priority and what does that teach the children growing up in this world? When Mrs. Takeuchi was young, her family went through incredible hardships that none of us could even imagine enduring in this day and age. All things we take for granted today were things that her generation had to work day and night to keep available. There was no time to begrudge the outside world, they only had the time to work very hard. Yet, the family unit in society was not even allowed to consider giving up on each other as an option. We have forgotten to work hard at staying connected, committed, and dedicated to one another. Our purpose in life is to live a joyous life but that doesn’t mean that it can only happen if everyone is exactly like us. Each of us may have different ideas about how things should be but, if we use the wisdom provided to us through God the Parent, we can learn to appreciate the differences and find where our common goals are that will connect our hearts through it all. That starts in the home. This starts with how you think of those you cannot seem to get along with or make you angry. Take that energy this new year and use it to find the common bond that will make it easier to join hands and make the goal of a joyous life more real.

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theTENRIKYO NC church2840 Davis RoadWest Sacramento, CA 95691(916) 371-9419

Please join us on Sunday, January 8th, at 10am!Unite your minds and construct a path of hope. You must reflect it to the world so the world will be convinced that it is the true path to follow.

Osashizu, September 6, 1902

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