Love Compels Us

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One of our last stops in Nagasaki (we are now in Fukouka) was at a museum dedicated to Dr. Nagai Takashi (and heard from his grandson)--an atomic bomb survivor and a doctor who treated people effected by radiation. His story is heart wrenching and compelling. But his message was so simple....yet so hard...Dr Takashi saw so much human suffering and had a deep desire for peace....while dying he would write his thoughts from his bed (he died due to radiation exposure), his writing in his dying days was described as....he would write a thought....and then rest to get his next breath (if that isn't mindfulness....) and so on. He said that peace isn't a today, tomorrow and the next day kind of thing...it's a lifelong pursuit that is never over, and that if you can't be peaceful in small ways you can't be peaceful globally. His words were about family and having peace within your family first. I think we can take it a step more inward and wonder.....if we aren't at peace within ourselves....can we work for peace anywhere else? What would happen if those inward steps happened first? Check out one of the pics for a compelling quote.

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