Exchange Meeting

A tradition in the Soka Gakkai, our Buddhist organization, is that when an experienced member travels overseas, a special meeting is held so they can meet local members. This is called the "exchange meeting". We held this last Saturday, when Yasuko got to meet a lot of prominent local Buddhists.

It was also the first time we'd had more than one or two people over to see Ren. Everyone has been eagerly awaiting a chance to meet her and see how we all are doing. Plus my parents were there! This made it a big and very special meeting for everyone! I was very busy managing the meeting and got only a couple good pictures.

The biggest part of the meeting was Yasuko giving her experience in faith. She talked a lot about how important Hiroko was to her family, and what a miracle it is that she could give birth and carry on the legacy given her childhood problems. I got the impression my marriage to Hiroko was even more important to her family than it was to me. I was glad everyone got to hear the story.

Then we brought out Ren so everyone could see her. Lots of people have had colds so her visit was brief, but I guess this counted as her introduction to our faith community.

Marcus Dunleavy also played spanish guitar after the meeting. He's one of a number of local Buddhist artists I'm lucky enough to know. By coincidence, he played a version of "Over the Rainbow", the same song I used to play for Ren when she was in her mom's belly. Marcus is second to the left in the above picture.

I wrote a little more about my parents visit here at my blog for myself.

A couple more pictures: