I Sing a Song of the Saints of God

These words are from the third verse of the wonderful English hymn “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” that Anglicans often sing on All Saints’ Day. All Saint’s Day, November 1^st, is the day set aside by the Roman Catholic Church in the 9^th Century to honor the many saints of the Church. Today, other liturgical faith traditions continue to celebrate All Saints’ Day, which was sometimes called “All Hallows’ Day.” October 31^st was known as All Hallows’ Even—which gradually was shortened to Hallowe’en.

On All Saints’ Day, we remember all of the saints—both the well-known and the not-so-well-known. One of those who is not well known was added to the list of Holy Women and Holy Men by the Episcopal Church in 2015.

I’d like to share a little bit about this holy man, Hiram Hisanori Kano, a Japanese man who was born into the large Japanese imperial family and immigrated to the United States during World War I.

As a young man, Kano met Willliam Jennings Bryan, a Nebraskan, when Bryan visited Japan. Eager for adventure, Hiram immigrated to the U.S., with Jennings’ support. He settled in Nebraska and began life as a farmer, earning a master’s degree in agriculture economics from the University of Nebraska. He quickly began to teach his Japanese neighbors and became an activist and leader among the Issei, the first-generation Japanese. When the Nebraska legislature was considering laws that prevented Japanese farmers from owning land and farming in Nebraska, the bishop of western Nebraska, The Rt. Rev. George Beecher, sought Hiram’s assistance in addressing the legislature to convince them not to enact such onerous legislation. As a result, the legislature adopted less restrictive laws.

Bishop Beecher persuaded Hiram to be a lay minister to the Japanese in western Nebraska. A few years later, Hiram sought ordination; he became a deacon in 1928 and a priest in 1936.

On December 7, 1941, Fr. Kano had just celebrated the Eucharist at the Episcopal Church of Our Savior in North Platte, Nebraska, 180 miles from his family in Scottsbluff, when local police arrested him and took him to Omaha. Fr. Kano was not allowed to notify his family of his arrest. On the drive to Omaha, he heard news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the police car radio.

I had Japanese-American friends when I was growing up in Colorado. Their families were not interned, so I wondered why Fr. Kano was arrested—and why his family was not. As I did research on Fr. Kano, I learned that, because his family in Japan had connections with the Japanese government, and he was so personally influential with the Japanese Americans as both a minister and a teacher of agriculture, he was rated "Class A – the most potentially dangerous of Japanese Americans." He was the only Japanese of the 5,000 living in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming to receive this rating and to be interned.

Fr. Kano was held captive for over two years; during that time, he was moved to camps in four states. He always worked to help the other Japanese internees or to minister to AWOL American military personnel. He used his internment as a time to teach and to spread the Gospel. His son recalled that Fr. Kano had said of his camp experience, “Well, God put me here, what does he want me to do?”

When Fr. Kano was paroled in 1944, he went to a seminary in Wisconsin, where he earned divinity degrees. He returned to his ministry in western Nebraska in 1946.

When Japanese immigrants were allowed to seek citizenship in 1952, Fr. Kano and his wife quickly became citizens. They promptly began teaching citizenship classes to other Japanese; by 1955, nearly 100% of the Japanese in Nebraska had become U.S. citizens.

Nearly 40 years after the end of World War II, when the U.S. government offered reparations to those who had been interred, Fr. Kano told his bishop, "I don't want the money. God just used that as another opportunity for me to preach the gospel."

Fr. Kano retired in 1957 and moved to Fort Collins, where his daughter Addie worked in the chemistry department at CSU. He occasionally filled in for the priest at St. Luke’s Church, where I grew up. I remember him as a small man who was absolutely delightful. I did not even know that he had been interned until he was added to the list of Holy Men and Holy Women in 2015.

A good friend of the Kano family said, “If you look at the lives of saints, it was (Fr. Kano). He left a life of wealth to become a farmer in Nebraska and to preach the word of God, to talk the talk and walk the walk.”

Fr. Kano could have become bitter about his years of imprisonment, but he viewed the experience as an opportunity to share the Gospel, to teach, and to help other people. He walked the walk, and he talked the talk.

Fr. Kano was ‘just folk like me.’ He did not walk around with a halo on his head. But, he did have a joy—a joy that radiated the love of Christ to all he met. I did not know him well, but I feel blessed to have spent time in the presence of this holy man.

May we all view life’s challenges as opportunities to be instruments of God’s peace. And may we radiate Christ’s love to all we meet. Amen.

For more information about Fr. Kano, read:

https://history.fcgov.com/wwii/kano

or Fr. Kano’s Memoir, Nikkei Farmer on the Nebraska Plains.