HANAPEPE — At the Storybook Theatre of Hawaii in Hanapepe, there’s a statue of U.S. Sen. Sparky Matsunaga pointing into space next to a little girl.
Matsunaga was born on Kauai and served in Italy during World War II and would eventually become an advocate for peace, establishing the United States Institute of Peace.
Remembering his legacy and celebrating peace is why Kekaha resident Kay Koike, whose mother was a classmate of Matsunaga’s, was at the Kauai Soto Zen Temple Zenshuji Friday.
“When he was in the 442nd (Infantry Battalion) in World War II in Italy and he saw all that slaughter and bloodshed and everything, he said, ‘There’s got to be a better way to settle problems.’ He was told in order to be effective, he needed to start from the ground up, become a politician, so he did from Hawaii,” she said.
The statue points up to space because, if different countries can collaborate to get into space, they should also be able to collaborate to solve land and world problems here, said Koike, who sits on the theatre’s board.
International World Peace Day was established by the United Nations in the early 1980s and is celebrated each year on Sept. 21.
On Kauai, the celebration is held at the base of a marble Kannon statue at the Kauai Soto Zen Temple Zenshuji in Hanapepe. The temple was specifically dedicated to world peace in 1991.
“Every day is a peace day,” said North Shore resident Renee Janton, who often comes to the temple to reflect on peace at the base of a statue of the goddess of peace and mercy.
It’s important to stay in balance with nature, and doing so in a peaceful way is the only way Janton knows how to accomplish that, she said.
“I’m glad to be around like-minded people that share in that sentiment,” she said. “Peace is important. We need to be together because we’re all connected, so that’s very important, to be peaceful in our connection.”
She continued: “You wouldn’t want your liver cells to fight against your heart cells, so why do people fight against each other? It doesn’t make sense. You have to be in harmony and balance.”
Kalaheo resident David Silver, who was volunteering at the event, said the temple is a special spot on Kauai where people who want peace can gather.
“We live in very dangerous times,” he said. “We all know it. We all feel the nervousness and fear that comes from that, so peace doesn’t have anything to do with nervousness or fear.”
For Robert Barkevich of Kekaha, everyone on Kauai has such beautiful stories to tell.
“Especially with this one tonight. You have people telling stories about different stories of people that were living on the island and, through our stories, we start to connect spiritually,” he said.
For Barkevich, storytelling is a spiritual experience.
“When someone tells a story, I connect with that story on some level, and through those connections there’s a spiritual bond that starts to be built inside of us,” he said.
“We’re so blessed on Kauai because we have so many different types of people, creeds, religions, and we all get together and we all find what our common threads are, and our common threads can be expressed through our stories.”
The celebration included a pledge of peace, a peace walk, taiko drumming, a performance by storyteller Alton Takiyama-Chung and several musical performances.
About 40 people attended the event.
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Bethany Freudenthal, crime, courts and county reporter, can be reached at 652-7891 or bfreudenthal@thegardenisland.com.
