So I’m killing time in my home-office-slash-foster-kitten-shelter. The Sacramento SPCA had some kittens needing socialization before they can be put up for adoption. They hiss and run away when approached. I volunteered to see if I could socialize them. Right now I’m just being  present, working quietly, trying not to make them anxious.  They are sleeping now, which I’ll call progress.

Last Sunday, July 22, was the Obon service at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. This was my fourth Obon service since joining the church and the first in which Ven. Kenjo Igarashi moved the stupas to the front of the altar. Normally these stupas are hidden off to right of the altar.

The rack of stupas represent all of people for whom Rev. Igarashi has held memorial services. In the photo above I’ve highlighted the stupa Rev. Igarashi made for my parents, Mary and Edwin Hughes, and my wife’s father, Richard Buchin. I can’t locate without help the stupa he created for my wife’s mother, Mary Buchin, since we asked him to use her Japanese name,  Michiko Wada.

Due to an operator error, I failed to record Rev. Igarashi’s sermon, which was an interesting lesson that included a bomb scare (locked box left on porch; eventually found to contain discarded SGI Gohonzon and other SGI material), unwanted discarded SGI books (the church is not in the recycling business) and a dragon fly who flew into the church one hot summer day to practice the Lotus Sutra, stayed the night and left the next morning when the priest’s assistant opened the doors.   Really wish I had that recording.

I’ll close out this post with a photo I downloaded from Facebook. It was posted by Chen Hsiongcai of Singapore.