It's been a while for my parents to go on vacation due to pandemic, I took my parents to Karuizawa, a resort town in Nagano Prefecture because we wanted to visit a place nearby that held many good memories.
Being Christians, my parents had often visited Karuizawa in their younger days through their connections with missionaries, so we spent our time strolling around and visiting churches.
The church retreat house where I had spent summer when I was a child was no longer there, and the mountain lodge of the elementary school my mother had attended in Tokyo had become completely modernized.
However, the wooden Union Church remained unchanged, blending humbly into the landscape as it always had.
Looking at the large scripture verse displayed at the front, my mother told me once again,
"Your name, Mariko, comes from this scripture in the Bible."
(kanji for my name 真理子 means 'child of truth')
Hearing that, I couldn't help but sigh and think to myself,
"Even at this age, I still haven’t lived up to my name..."
It was a pensive autumn afternoon.....
流行り病の合間を縫って両親を連れて旅行。
「近場で想い出の多い場所」ということで軽井沢へ。
クリスチャンの両親は若い頃から宣教師さんのご縁でよく軽井沢に来ていたので、散歩がてら教会めぐり。
子供のころ夏休みに来ていた教会の山荘はもうなくなっていたり、母が通っていた小学校の山荘もすっかり近代的になっていたりですが、木造のユニオンチャーチは変わらず風景にとけこむ質素な佇まいを残していました。
正面に大きく掲げられている聖句を見た母から、
「あなたの名前の真理子は、聖書のこの箇所から取ったのよ」
と改めて言われて、
「この年になっても、いまだに名前負け続行中だ、、、」
とうなだれてしまった秋の午後、、、
