Emily

“You best meet the Supernatural if you make your heart like a hut that is empty of everything but the bare essentials.”
― Paul Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb

“After the carnage, smoke and ash of the last few days, the mountains never looked so beautiful or dependable. That Chinese poet had expressed it well: ‘Though the nation go under, the mountains and streams remain.’ Though men explode atom bombs, God’s sunlight never fails.

Scientist Nagai corrected that thought: ‘The sun’s fuel is already half spent, and one day sunlight will disappear and the green mountains around me will die, just as surely as my wife died and my books and medals turned to ash.’ His copy of the New Testament had also turned to ash, but as he walked, a verse from it took hold of his heart: ‘The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.’ There it was, the truth more reliable than mountains and sunlight, and the answer to the horror and sadness of August 9th.”
― Paul Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb

“God has never said you have to perform great deeds for your country and humanity to have lived well. Where would that leave all the sick people in the world? Look at me, for instance, needing to be assisted all the time. You wouldn't say that we sick and bedridden of the world are 'useful'! But usefulness is not the point. Our lives are of great worth if we accept with good grace the situation Providence places us in and go on living lovingly. A sick person who has grasped this will live so full a life that there will be no room for morbid death wishes.”
― Paul Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb

“Bamboo and pine denote endurance and fidelity. No matter how cold the winter or how torrid the summer, they remain green and vigorous.”
― Paul Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb