Saturday, December 20, 2014
Hidemi’s Rambling No.532
I spent my schooldays from junior high to college at a Catholic school
not for religious reasons but for my mother’s vanity. She wanted me to
attend the most prestigious school in Kyoto in order to brag about it.
With no religious background, I encountered quite a few unfamiliar
events at school that held Catholic ceremonies regularly. The school
often celebrated the Mass, which was an entirely new and different
culture to me and I hadn’t the slightest idea what they were doing.
Christian students sat in the front row with white lace veils on their
heads at the assembly hall. The priest gave them something that looked
like a soft snack and they ate it. I regarded it as the believers’
benefits to have a snack during the Mass. The school held the annual
Candle Service near Christmas. Before my first-ever Candle Service at
junior high, Sister told us to bring something from home as a donation
for the Candle Service. She added for those who couldn’t think of what
to bring, that bars of soap would do. I had no clue what the Candle
Service was. All I could imagine was I would receive some sort of
service from Sisters. I looked forward to it because I thought Sisters
would serve cake or tea like a Christmas party, and I could get it just
with a bar of soap. But as it turned out, we just stood in line holding a
candle at the dark assembly hall and sang several hymns endlessly to
the poor accompaniment of the orchestra club students. While singing, we
got on the stage one by one and put a bar of soap or other donations
into a cardboard box. When all the students finished putting their
donations into the box, the service was over without any cake. The
school had a big, tall fir tree across from the entrance gate. It stood
by the side of one of the school buildings like a wall decoration. Its
top reached as high as the third floor of the building. Judging from its
size, it was planted there when two Sisters came from US after WWII and
opened the school. Around Christmastime, the tree was decorated with
ornaments and made the school look beautiful. I was a member of the
student board when I was a sophomore. Until then, I hadn’t known that
the decoration was the student board’s task. I felt exhilarating for the
first time as a student board member. The boring board revived and
every member had so much fun decorating the tree together. The tree was
too tall to decorate the upper part from outside by a ladder. We got
inside the building, put an ornament on the tip of a broomstick and
stretched it out of the window of the third floor. Gold tinsel garlands
were thrown toward the tree from the forth floor window. It was the
biggest Christmas tree I had ever decorated. I had had all those
Christian events and classes in the Bible for years until college and
yet I never really understood the meaning. I left school, got out into
the world, and worked as a musician. Through the years of making music
that hasn’t been paying, I feel I finally know why I continue and have
spent so much time and energy to create a good song, which hasn’t
brought me money or fame. It took a long time to understand, but better
late than never, I suppose…