THe Bell in the Mist

Twenty years ago, I visited Hiroshima Peace Park early one morning when first mist and then heavy rain fell like tears from a grieving sky.

The Bell in the Mist

The mist falls like tiny tears on the memorial stones, each drop a whispered apology carried on the wind through Hiroshima Peace Park. In the gray morning mist, the outlines of monuments emerge like ghosts—the skeletal dome, the eternal flame, the countless names etched in granite. My hand trembles as I reach for the large rope of the Peace Bell, its bronze surface cold and wet as I touch the massive vibrating parabola.

Bong.

The sound cuts through the silence, reverberating across the park and into my chest, where it settles heavy and hollow. This bell has rung for decades, calling out across time—a voice for the voiceless, a prayer for the lost, a warning for the living. As the echo fades, I am left standing in the aftermath of sound, surrounded by the weight of what happened here on a random August morning in 1945.

Nearly 80 years have passed, yet the earth still remembers. The trees remember. The stones remember. In the mist, I can almost see them—the shadows burned into walls, the children who never came home, the mothers who searched the ruins calling names that would never answer. The rain mingles with my tears, and I wonder if the sky itself still mourns in the mists of atmosphere here.

How many times must this bell ring before we learn? How many memorials must we build before we choose a different path? The questions hang in the air like the mist, unanswered and yet urgent. Here, in this place where light became death and silence became eternal, I feel the terrible fragility of our species—our capacity for both unfathomable destruction and profound love.

The Peace Bell was cast from metal donated by people from around the world, each country contributing to its voice. United Nations coins, Buddhist temple bells, copper from every continent—melted down and reformed into something that speaks of hope rising from ashes. If we can create such beauty from such sorrow, what more might we transform? 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima on August 6,1945. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, the domed building was the only structure left standing near the bomb’s hypocentre.

Bong.

I ring it again, and this time I hear something different in its tone—not just mourning, but possibility. The same hands that can craft weapons can also heal. The same minds that can conceive of annihilation can also imagine peace. The same hearts that can harbor fear can also choose love. The same intuition that tells us Xtinction is near, also signals us to choose love not fear.

But time is dear here. Our weapons have grown more powerful, our divisions deeper, our fears more entrenched. We stand at another crossroads, much like the one our predecessors faced in 1945. The choice before us is the same: Will we learn from this place, from this bell, from these stones that remember? From these images, from these stories, from these senses?

The mist begins to lift, revealing the details of the memorial more clearly. Children's colorful paper cranes flutter from branches like prayers made visible. Flowers lie fresh on altars. People from every nation walk these paths, carrying their own sorrows and hopes. Perhaps this is where transformation begins—not in the grand gestures of nations, but in the quiet moments when one human heart encounters another's pain and chooses compassion over indifference.

As I walk away from the bell, its last ring still echoing in my soul, I carry with me a question that will not let me rest: In a world darkened by fear, how do we choose a world brightened by love? How do we transform the energy we spend on suspicion and hatred into the courage required for understanding and collaboration?

The answer, I think, lies not in grand pronouncements but in small acts of witness—in telling these stories, in ringing these bells, in refusing to let the lessons of this place fade into comfortable forgetfulness. Each of us carries the power to choose, in this moment and the next, whether we will add to the world's store of fear or to its reservoir of love.

Two weeks ago, I witnessed two powerful peace builders who should be allies dip into the peace dome together at the Peace Park at Rotary International's House of Friendship at their convention in Calgary, Canada. One started and funded professional peace building efforts of the Rotary Action Group for Peace. Another is the volunteer keeping the RAGFP going. One asked the other for forgiveness. The next day, the one who had been controlling and limiting peace efforts beyond the positive peace framework ignoring the horrors of nuclear war offered unsolicited apologies to several for poor communications.

Ho'oponopono: "Please forgive me," "I'm sorry," "Thank you," and "I love you."

The rain continues to fall, but somewhere in the distance, the sun is breaking through to growing edges of peace.

Bong.

I wept at the Cenotaph for what felt like hours, stunned that humans remained capable of such devastating self-inflicted wounds. Yet from this same species came the Japanese who built this Peace Sculpture—testament to our capacity for healing.

WE are all peacebuilders now.

With Steve Yoshida, I had the immense honor of supporting several hibakusha. Several now have moved on. Their courage and deep desire to warn the world of the terrible suffering unleashed with nuclear weapons inspires me still.

There is no climate action when we destroy our cities, when we destroy each other, when we destroy all our relations.

Bong.

Let there be Peace In Earth by 2030.