An Old Enemy
Stories
Shining Moments
Visions Of The Holy In Ordinary Lives
Kendall W. Anderson
We met on a commercial flight between Minneapolis and Detroit sometime in the late 1950s. He was Asian. It was almost fifteen years after the war. I don't remember his name, but I still have his business card somewhere in my desk. I'm not sure why I sat beside him. In those days the airlines still allowed you to pick your own seat. I could have sat with any number of people, or I could have sat by myself. For some reason, I chose to sit beside him.
The plane took off, and after we had been flying for a little while, I asked him if he was Japanese. He said, "Yes." On an impulse I decided to tell him a story that I had just heard -- about a man who died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell. He decided to go to hell because he thought that was where his friends were most likely to be. When he arrived in hell he discovered that there was plenty of rice and other good things to eat, but everyone was starving because the chopsticks were all six feet long. He didn't like the looks of things in hell, so he asked if he could go to heaven instead. He was given permission to go and when he arrived he discovered that everything was exactly the same, except in heaven they were feeding each other.
"Oh," said my companion, "you must be a Christian. I am, too."
He went on to tell that his mother was a Christian and that he had become a Christian after the war. I asked him what he had done during the war. He said that he had been a fighter pilot in the Southwest Pacific. I told him that I had been a fighter pilot, too, in the same area. We quickly compared notes and discovered that we had flown missions over Formosa at the same time. Neither of us said it aloud, but I'm sure it occurred to him, as is did to me, that had we met in the air during the war, we would have tried to kill each other.
We went on to talk about our work. He was serving on the economic council of the United Nations as a representative of Japan. I thought about the great number of people throughout the world that he was able to help with his work, and me with mine, and it struck me what a great tragedy it would have been if one of us had killed the other.
When I got off the plane, I didn't hate the Japanese people anymore, and I knew the meaning of forgiveness.
Editor's Note: Kendall W. Anderson related this account of his unexpected meeting with his old enemy to the editor in September of 1990. Ken served as a fighter pilot with the 39th Fighter Squadron in the Southwest Pacific in World War II. He is a graduate of Bangor Theological Seminary and served pastorates in New England and Wisconsin before retiring in 1984. "An Old Enemy" appeared in Lectionary Stories, by John Sumwalt, CSS Publishing Company, Inc, 1991, pp. 27-28.
We met on a commercial flight between Minneapolis and Detroit sometime in the late 1950s. He was Asian. It was almost fifteen years after the war. I don't remember his name, but I still have his business card somewhere in my desk. I'm not sure why I sat beside him. In those days the airlines still allowed you to pick your own seat. I could have sat with any number of people, or I could have sat by myself. For some reason, I chose to sit beside him.
The plane took off, and after we had been flying for a little while, I asked him if he was Japanese. He said, "Yes." On an impulse I decided to tell him a story that I had just heard -- about a man who died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell. He decided to go to hell because he thought that was where his friends were most likely to be. When he arrived in hell he discovered that there was plenty of rice and other good things to eat, but everyone was starving because the chopsticks were all six feet long. He didn't like the looks of things in hell, so he asked if he could go to heaven instead. He was given permission to go and when he arrived he discovered that everything was exactly the same, except in heaven they were feeding each other.
"Oh," said my companion, "you must be a Christian. I am, too."
He went on to tell that his mother was a Christian and that he had become a Christian after the war. I asked him what he had done during the war. He said that he had been a fighter pilot in the Southwest Pacific. I told him that I had been a fighter pilot, too, in the same area. We quickly compared notes and discovered that we had flown missions over Formosa at the same time. Neither of us said it aloud, but I'm sure it occurred to him, as is did to me, that had we met in the air during the war, we would have tried to kill each other.
We went on to talk about our work. He was serving on the economic council of the United Nations as a representative of Japan. I thought about the great number of people throughout the world that he was able to help with his work, and me with mine, and it struck me what a great tragedy it would have been if one of us had killed the other.
When I got off the plane, I didn't hate the Japanese people anymore, and I knew the meaning of forgiveness.
Editor's Note: Kendall W. Anderson related this account of his unexpected meeting with his old enemy to the editor in September of 1990. Ken served as a fighter pilot with the 39th Fighter Squadron in the Southwest Pacific in World War II. He is a graduate of Bangor Theological Seminary and served pastorates in New England and Wisconsin before retiring in 1984. "An Old Enemy" appeared in Lectionary Stories, by John Sumwalt, CSS Publishing Company, Inc, 1991, pp. 27-28.
