Great Construction

Opening Remarks (Chijôtengoku 11)

    As all are well aware, the growth of the Japan Kannon Church in this suffocatingly small island country has been so rapid that for various reasons the church has become a center for discussion and debate. To be in the center of attention of a swirl of fiercely differing views is probably an inevitable transitional phenomenon. The historical records of the past are clear that for a certain period, whatever the religion may be, as is expressed in the metaphor of the big tree getting a lot of wind and possibly being damaged, such is an unavoidable fate.
     As it is the case that there is no day when not a newspaper or magazine article about the Japan Kannon Church does not appear, surely it is not that all of them are due only to ill will. Our church has had so much growth on the outside that it is unavoidable that there is resentment that the same growth has not been accompanied internally. Because it is necessary to correct and improve the contents of the church as well, there is a clear reason why the energy of growth has to be regulated to a certain extent. For this, God controls the growth of the church through the means of such vehicles as the bad propaganda of newspapers and magazines. From such circumstances, it can be seen that in the background God is completely pulling the strings.
     To say such a thing will sound like an ingenious admission of an unwillingness to accept defeat, and such an assumption is unavoidable as well because the viewpoints differ. And, as in any other phenomenon in this world, there is no growth in just one burst of activity. Invariably matters greatly advance and then step back a little. Such movement is also one aspect of the law of cause and effect for all in the universe.

 Chijôtengoku, Issue 11, page 3, December 20, 1949
translated by cynndd