Annual ceremony celebrates peace, fosters forgiveness

This year’s Hawaii International Forgiveness Day will focus on the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the end of the war in the Pacific and World War II.

The 13th annual event, 3 to 6 p.m. Aug. 2 at Kawaiaha‘o Church, 957 Punchbowl St., is sponsored by the Hawaii Forgiveness Project. Admission is free, with reserved tickets available at hawaiiforgivenessproject.org.

“We pause on this occasion to question what have we learned in the past 70 years and what are we still learning,” said organizer Roger Epstein, senior partner at the Cades Schutte law firm, an event sponsor. “The circumstances that led to August 1945 (when the bombs were dropped) are securely locked in the past — they could never happen again, anywhere,” he said in a news release. “Or so we believe. Is that really true?”

Masago Asai, a peace advocate whose family was nearly destroyed in Nagasaki, will bring her two young daughters to dance a hula of peace.

The event is organized as nonideological, interfaith and peaceful, so participants can be comfortable talking about forgiveness and experiencing it, the release said. Among Forgiveness Day celebrations held in 86 countries, Honolulu’s is typically among the largest, with 300 to 500 in attendance.

At the conclusion of the Honolulu event, participants will walk to the Nagasaki Peace Bell, next to Honolulu City Hall, to revisit their feelings of sorrow, renewal and forgiveness, with for a brief ceremony of music, invocation, prayer and silence.

Visit hawaiiforgivenessproject.org or email michael@hawaiiforgivenessproject.org.