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| In 1948 through one of my close
friends I was introduced to a very sincere and warm-hearted American missionary,
named Carroll Cannon. His talk impressed me greatly and we became very close
friends. I started to visit him and his wife ( Carroll and Nona Cannon)
in Tokyo quite often and discussed a lot about religions. And that was the
beginning of my life-long friendship with them. Later they became professors
at universities in California. They impressed me so deeply that I finally
decided to study more about Christianity. They and their American friends
were trying to establish a Christian College in Ibaraki Prefecture and encouraged
me to join them there. Trusting in the Cannons, I quit the medical college
and got in Ibaraki Christian College, which had not been officially recognized
yet. I stayed there for about two years and experienced days of new enthusiasm
and vision of the young instructors and students gathered there hoping to
find something new and meaningful in the confused society right after the
War. One of the unforgettable people I met during that period was Logan
Fox, the young president of the college and a psychologist who later introduced
Carl Rogers to Japan for the first time. And his brother Harry Robert Fox
gave a great influence on many people with his such a genuine sincerity
as was well expressed in an expression in Japanese " Seijitu-sa no
katamari" (sincerity Itself). I am grateful for the fact that I found
deep and lasting friendship with some students, too. Harry Fox later supported
me financially when I studied at the graduate school of Tokyo Union Theological
Seminary only because he had been interested in me. When the Cannons had decided to return to the U.S.A., they suggested that I could study more about Christianity in the States and I responded to that proposal positively. In the spring of 1950, I joined a great tour the Cannons had prepared driving through almost forty states giving lectures at hundreds of churches for the cause of their college in Ibaraki. Those several months we spent together remain in me as one of the most genuine and beautiful experiences in my whole life with innumerable memories of kind people and wonderful scenery all over the States. The Cannons suggested that I should study at Abilene Christian University in Texas. Even though I deeply appreciated the so-called "Southern Hospitality" which was shown abundantly there, I was deeply disappointed with the surprisingly strong " fundamentalistic" tendency of the school. Therefore upon completing the BA course there, I decided to study further attending a joint graduate course provided by Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary particularly under Paul Tillich. In New York I encountered James Greer, a poet and a pianist, who became my closest friend there. Thanks to him, my love for music was kindled. He urged me to take lessons in singing and to hear all kinds of classic music at Carnegie Hall by providing me with the tickets for every Saturday for six months! While attending the joint seminar under Paul Tillich, I met Kosho Otani, who was staying at Tillich's home. He later became the abbot of the Otani School of Jodo Shinshu, the largest Buddhist Denomination in Japan. Mainly through him, I was urged to read many Buddhist Scriptures at the splendid library of Columbia University. I also met an excellent student there who in fact was expected to be the successor of Tillich. To our great surprise, however, he committed suicide by jumping off the top of the twenty-storied tower of the Riverside Church leaving a rather mysterious poem "Oneness". I myself was not satisfied with Tillich's theology mainly because I had felt that he was not paying enough recognition to the fundamental difference between Christianity and Buddhism and to the historical- critical studies of the Bible. He kindly provided me of very special opportunities to talk with him personally. I, however, was not convinced mainly because of my youthful and undue arrogance. At the same time, the promised financial support from the church was cut off. As the result I had to return to Japan being deeply disillusioned and disappointed in the summer of 1953. Even though I started studying music quite seriously after I had returned
to Japan, in the next spring I started teaching at Ibaraki Christian High
School being strongly urged by Logan Fox, the president of the college
there. Three years later, I decided to study systematic theology in the
graduate course of Tokyo Theological Seminary where I concentrated on
Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. Meanwhile I met my wife Shinobu and married
her in Tokyo. Three years later, I was invited by Ibaraki Christian College
and started teaching theology there. When we were blessed to have our
first son, we named him Kazunobu (It means " belief in reconciliation").
Two years later we were given our second son whom we named Naoki (meaning
" straight tree"). Meanwhile I could not get along well with
the fundamentalistic missionaries there and they urged the faculty to
force me to obey them by checking the notes for my lectures. Since I refused
their demand, they forbade me to give lectures! During those tense days
we were given our first girl baby whom we named Nozomi (meaning "Hope").
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