account of the first man and woman in history. Call it a myth if you like, but its truth depends not on any historical record but on psychological observation of the way human beings actually fall into temptation and commit sin.”
“To return to what Iwao was saying,” interposed Mariko, “I can’t help feeling he was exaggerating the abstract side of the matter. Even when he criticizes our discussions for being too abstract, he’s guilty of a similar abstraction, or an even greater abstraction, himself. He sees things in too general terms, and finds all kinds of problems in them. But if we take our daily life as it comes, with an underlying belief in the goodness of things and the love of God, I’m sure most of his problems will disappear. I’ve a feeling that most of the problems of life are of our own making anyway. It doesn’t help to go around with a gloomy look on our face, but it’s of great help to be cheerful. I want everyone to be happy, and it seems to me that the more I try to make others happy, the happier I will be myself.”
“That’s exactly what makes me gloomy,” complained Iwao. “There are so many things in life that make me gloomy, but nothing makes me gloomier that when someone like Mariko comes along and tells me to cheer up. I don’t want to cheer up, at least not in the superficial way they mean. I want to be true to myself and to face the truth of life. I can’t force myself to smile when I’m feeling gloomy. I want to have something, some objective reason or motive or fact, to dispel my gloom, not just a vague word of cheerful encouragement.”
“I’m sure that isn’t what Mariko meant at all,” affirmed Chieko, coming to the defence of her friend. “I’m sure her idea of being cheerful means more than just going round saying, ‘Cheer up!’ to gloomy people. True cheerfulness consists of deeds rather than words, and of an outlook or way of thinking behind the deeds. If you believe in God’s loving providence, as directing all things to good in the end, that isn’t just an abstract idea. It enters into your whole way of looking at things, and into your ordinary deeds. Then you can help others to become cheerful, without saying anything. Or if you say something, the cheerfulness will be in your natural tone of voice, without any exhortation to ‘cheer up’.”
“I must say,” I remarked, “you girls have a healthy approach to life. It’s healthy to be cheerful, and it says much for your upbringing and family life that you can be so cheerful in today’s world. Still, I don’t want to criticize Iwao or Hiroshi for looking at the problems of life. After all, facts are facts, and we can’t get away from them. Maybe boys tend to see such problems more than girls. Especially here in Japan girls tend to live a more sheltered life at home, where it’s easy to be cheerful in a warm family circle. Boys, on the other hand, are expected to face a more difficult life in the world and to put up with more hardship and stiff competition. So I can’t help sympathizing with Iwao when he says he wants a more practical motive for being cheerful than a mere exhortation to cheerfulness, whether it comes naturally or not.”
“All this talk about cheerfulness,” objected Hiroshi, “seems to be a form of flattery. There’s so much of it in Japan nowadays, especially in the family. I wouldn’t call it healthy. To my mind there’s something sickly about it. At least, it may be all right for girls, but what we boys need is something stronger and more masculine. What we need is a form or code of moral discipline, a kind of training such as the Japanese used to have in bushido, or moral precepts such as we used to have in the old Confucianist ethics. In Christianity, too, don’t you have the same sort of thing in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount?”
“What you say is doubtless true,” I said. “In such precepts and commandments we have a practical way of life set out before us, not just in general terms but in precise detail. It is important to be trained in such moral discipline from early childhood, for then we more easily acquire good habits which stand us in good stead later on. Otherwise, without such discipline, we get morally confused, especially in today’s world. Then we all too easily follow what the Bible calls ‘the way of all flesh’, or what Shakespeare calls, using Biblical imagery, ‘the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire’. That’s why in our early formation we need the strictness of a father as well as the gentleness of a mother, though it is sometimes (as in my own case) the mother who is strict and the father who is gentle. Anyhow, both qualities are surely necessary for our education. But as we grow up, we pass from the stage of ‘Do’ and ‘Don’t’, when we accept our parents’ words without question, to the questioning stage of ‘Why?’ And then, as Iwao says, some reason or motive is needed.”
“But is some reason or motive really necessary?” objected Hiroshi again. “In learning martial arts I never think of asking the instructor the reasons for what he tells us. It’s enough for me to know that it works, as I can see in the practical demonstrations. I trust the word of the instructor, when he tells me this is the right way of doing what is to be done. He knows from long experience, and I’m only a beginner. His word is all the reason I need.”
“That may be all right,” I remarked, “in martial arts, when you have to follow the directions of your instructor, at least while you’re only a beginner. But then you’re like a child at first and have to take everything on faith. Later on, as you become more experienced, you acquire freedom in adapting the rules of the art to your temperament and skill. On the other hand, human life is much wider and more complex than any specialized art. Certain rules and precepts may be of help to begin with, especially when they’re based not on the whim of your parents but on experience and tradition. But as we grow up, we have to understand the value of the rules and precepts for ourselves. This is the difference between the Ten Commandments of Moses, which may be compared to a set of Do’s and Don’t’s for children, and the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus makes his appeal to the inner heart of his hearers.”
“Couldn’t you tell us,” asked Nobuo, suddenly coming out of his customary silence without any prodding on my part, “how Jesus appeals to the inner heart of his hearers in that Sermon? I must confess I don’t like the Ten Commandments of Moses. They have too many Don’t’s in them. But the Sermon on the Mount I find much more appealing, with Jesus’ words about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. He must have been a great poet!”
“Even the Ten Commandments,” I answered on behalf of poor Moses, “are poetical in their own way. In their wording I find something strong and clear and rhythmical. They point so unmistakably from words to deeds. In fact, the etymological meaning of ‘poetical’ is the same as ‘practical’. It comes from the Greek poiein, which means ‘To do’, just as the other comes from the Greek prattein, which means ‘To act’. It’s strange how far the two words have drifted apart from each other in modern English, till now they’ve come to stand for opposite qualities. As for the Sermon on the Mount, it has much the same proportion of poetry and practice combined. In Jesus’ time there was too much emphasis on the literal meaning of the Ten Commandments and on many other lesser commandments as well. So what he emphasized was the inner motive for observing commandments not merely as social customs or accepted standards of behaviour, but as expressions of our love of God and our neighbour.”
“Yes,” agreed Mariko. “That’s precisely what I mean by being cheerful, without putting on a forced appearance of cheerfulness. It seems to me that when we do what our parents and teachers tell us to do, and even more when we do what God tells us to do, we can’t help being cheerful. After all, what they tell us is for our own good, whether we realize it at the time or not. So we need have no fear in going ahead and doing what we are told without question. It may be hard, but it’s good for us. It has nothing to do with what Hiroshi says about flattery. I, too, have no wish to flatter. It’s too superficial. In my opinion both hard and soft have to be combined in goodness.”
“You might also say,” added Hiroshi, “that if hard discussion is useful for us, the softness of relaxation and refreshment is also necessary from time to time. Now I notice it’s time for our coffee break. So let’s have a rest and continue our conversation afterwards.”
Whom shall we follow?
“Well, Iwao,” I inquired, as we sat down together again. “How do you feel about our last discussion? Are you satisfied? Or are you looking for something more?”