On this day in 1945 the world changed. The writer John Hersey put it in these words: “At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.”
The atomic bomb had been dropped and detonated.
With the War in Europe over, the Allied powers turned their attention to Japan. U.S. planes had dropped leaflets for months and intensive Allied bombing had destroyed many Japanese cities. Feeling the Japanese would not surrender without some massive, utterly horrible, disaster, the atomic bomb was used, first on Hiroshima, then on Nagasaki on August 9.
We cannot rewrite history as much as we would like. The deeds were done and nuclear weapons have become an ultimate fear, especially now as Putin threatens the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. How to strive for peace in the midst of war and a violent world is still the question we all face.
Prayer for the Day
Called to bring peace to the world in this day and at this time,
We are often unsure what that call demands;
Called to walk in the light, we often walk in the darkness,
Caught between memories of the past and our hopes for the future.
Help us, O Holy One, to see the world with a new vision,
As did the blind man whose eyes were opened.
May we always be faithful to your vision, as was the One we follow,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Thoughts for the Day
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
- C.S. Lewis in 1948 (1898-1963)
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more the problem of solving an existing one.
- Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
And shall be raised above the hills; all nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob that we may learn the ways of God
And walk in the paths of the Lord.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate fo many peoples;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2:2-4