Kimigayo

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu5QjNvC9qM&feature=related]

Something for the weekend.  I have long had an appreciation for the simple beauty of the Japanese National Anthem, the Kimigayo.

May your reign
Continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations,
Until the pebbles
Grow into boulders
Lush with moss

I first became familiar with it through a friend of mine, a retired Methodist minister who served as a Navy corpsman with the Marines during World War II, including fighting on Guadalcanal, and who was among the first wave of occupation troops after the Japanese surrender.  He helped treat Japanese at Hiroshima.  He said that the fondess he developed for the Japanese and their culture was not the smallest miracle God worked in his life.