"I remember the first seminar well. Guide picked me up at headquar- ters and accompanied me to the Izu research center; our headquarters had begun as just a single rented room in Asukayama, where we used to meet, but soon we purchased the land and the whole apartment building and made a headquarters appropriate for this period of growth in the church.
"I had little academic background, and I thought it was a bother to have to go to Izu to appear in front of these former students from science depart- ments and medical schools. But something beyond this bothered me. The research facility, once a company resort, looked like an old deserted house from the outside, but once inside you could see how the members' devotion had made it into a pleasant place. To my surprise when I actually saw them all together, I found Guide had assembled over forty of these men and women.
The seminar began in a conference room right after we arrived, as we ate lunch. I was scared to death, but soon I was completely absorbed and found myself saying things I never would have normally said aloud. Guide, seated beside me, sometimes tilted his head to one side in disbelief, but still he viewed the proceedings happily.
"This elite group at the Izu research center was much more alert and active than the young followers at our usual gatherings. They sat at these old- fashioned long tables, no doubt left over from the days when the center was a recreational facility, and leaned forward toward me in rapt attention. I wasn't used to such attentive expressions and shining eyes. It gave me the kind of happy feeling you get when you see something completely new and unex- pected. Finally Guide spoke.
"'This isn't the first time you all have met Savior, is it? Most of you have heard him talk before, at various branch gatherings. I assume you're all pleased to have this opportunity to ask him questions directly?'
"They responded with youthful laughter, and one young woman spoke up and said it was the first time she'd actually seen me. She was part of a little five-person group that was seated in the front row, on the right. As soon as I entered the conference room I'd felt something was different about that group.
The young woman's hair was pulled back so tightly her forehead looked stretched, and though the color of her eyes was not pure Japanese, she was a type of person you might run across on the streets of Tokyo. Gesticulating in an offhand way that was different from people raised in Japan, she made the following statement: '"This is the first time I've met Savior,' she said. 'My mother became a follower first. My parents were divorced when I was little and I grew up with my father, who's of Irish extraction, in California. But my mother in Japan got very sick and wanted to see her ex-husband and daughter. She was hav- ing a terrible time trying to track us down when Savior gave her a hint that allowed her to locate us. After she got in touch with my father, he went to see her, quit his job, and decided to live in Japan. That's how our family was reunited.
'"I looked for a university I could transfer to from the one I was going to in the States. After I started school here I ran across an old friend from when I was a student in the American School in Yokohama, who was a follower of the Savior. When we graduated he was asked to come to the center here, and I came with him.
'"I was only able to nurse my mother for a short time, but throughout she told me about your teachings, so when I came here I wasn't completely ignorant. Hearing about how you helped my mother find us and, though she didn't recover, how my father changed after meeting her-all this made me believe in the power you possess. And now that I have met you I'm as happy as I imagined I'd be.'
"Still worked up after she finished speaking, the young woman covered her face with her silver-nailed hands and the boy with round glasses next to her, also a Eurasian, gave her a hug. The young women and men around them gave her an enthusiastic round of applause.
Guide turned to me-he was really speaking to everyone there-and by way of introduction explained that the group this girl was in felt more comfortable speaking English than Japanese. Including this girl, three of them had attended high school at the American School, and two more had lived in English-speaking environments in Fiji and Western Samoa and then returned to high school in Tokyo. Guide explained how these young people were a task force he'd created to deal with the foreign media. That wasn't their only job, of course; they'd all majored in computer science or engineering in college and were going to continue their work here at the center.
"After this bilingual group presented testimonies of how they came to faith, we had a question-and-answer period about the future of the church.
They had all swiftly devoured their lunch in the healthy way young people do and were waiting for me to respond to their questions, which I had to do alone, and I remember looking down impatiently at the food that was still on my plate, which I couldn't finish because of all the questions."
4
Patron continued reminiscing to Kizu about the meeting while flipping through a stack of cards that Dancer had brought to him from their office workstation; the cards were ones she'd made by copying out passages from church publications that predated the Somersault.
"One young man who asked some questions was trained in experimen- tal physics. Guide had great hopes for him. This is what the young man said: "Td been taking medicine for many years to control my epileptic sei- zures. Because of the medicine my head was always in a fog, and I worried that I wouldn't be able to handle the delicate elements of my research. As I feared, I was forced off the research team just when we were reaching the final stages of the research. I'd been on this team ever since I entered the de- partment, so this was a terrible shock. I couldn't get over it and quit the uni- versity before I graduated. Despite these problems, soon after I joined the church I was allowed to work in the prophet's research center and I felt-I'd like to check this English word with the bilingual group-overjoyed.
"'In the university I was too preoccupied with my own research project and couldn't recognize obstacles along the way, but after I started my re- search again here I felt I could understand the feelings of my former pro- fessor, the one who fired me, and why I wasn't allowed to be a part of the final critical stage of the project. Some of my former colleagues later joined me here, and we enjoy our research to the full every day. Hallelujah! If things continue as they have, I predict some good results before too much longer, and we'll be able to outwit all those colleagues of mine still in the university. The bilingual group has been kind enough to translate some of our research papers into English, and it's as if all the burdens and problems I used to face are gone.
'"But am I making a big mistake all over again? The impetus for join- ing the church was my frustration, my suffering, but what drew me further in was the Savior's teachings. The world is fast approaching its end, a point that my field of research confirms too. But even if our research team's efforts bear fruit-and I have no doubt they will-that's not going to do anything to stave off the end of the world, is it?
'"Is it really all right for us to just enjoy doing our research in this won- derful environment? The Prophet told us if our research gets results that become known abroad, people won't confuse our church with a cult. That's good, but even if people hold us in higher regard and we get more members, aren't we just doing the same thing that established religious organizations do?
'"There's a list in this little almanac here of the official numbers of members of various religious groups, many of which have huge numbers of followers. Tenrikyo, for instance, has 1.84 million members, Kongokyo has 440,000, Omotokyo has 170,000, Reiyukai 3.2 million, Seicho no ie 840,000, Sekai Kyuseikyo 840,000, Perfect Liberty Church has 1.26 million, Risho Kyosei Kai has 6.35 million, and Sokka Gakkai has more than any of these. If all these churches got together to repent and parade, there'd be 20 million people flooding the streets. But no one ever attempts to do that.