Neal Lawrence, Jr.

Monk, Priest, Diplomat, Teacher, Artist, and Poet

Education and War * Peace and Decision * Tanka Poet

Questioning Basic Beliefs

During the invasion of Okinawa, the events that surrounded him were leading him to question his basic beliefs and values. He is given much credit for the beginning of the rehabilitation of Okinawa. Together with a few other officers who agreed to remain after the end of the war, the political, economic, educational and cultural life were given a major start toward a peacetime existence. The bloodshed and destruction that he witnessed gradually built up to what he now describes as a "crescendo of horror." "You couldn't imagine the sheer waste of people and buildings--the physical and human destruction," he says.

At one point, he saw medics in his landing party killed by shrapnel because they had been curious to see the kamikaze planes flying overhead. He witnessed cleanup operations where marines with flame throwers set fire to the fields of sugarcane to flush out the enemy. There were suicides among the captured, and civilian deaths, too.

This was a critical period in Lawrence's life. In Okinawa, he was faced directly with the inhumanity of man to his fellow man. " I thought that if I survived, I would do whatever I could to promote peace. I had the romantic notion of stopping all war, and I was determined to live in a world where this sort of thing could never happen again."

He was next assigned, as a lieutenant commander, as director of the Department of Economic Affairs for the Military Government of the Ryukyu Islands. In 1991 he was invited back to give a lecture to the Ryukyu-American Historical Research Society. "The Ryukyu Broadcasting Company made a documentary of me retracing my steps in Okinawa and sent me a video of it," he said.

After the Japanese surrender, he turned down the opportunity to return to Boston where a promising career with Lever Brothers was waiting for him. "Plenty of people at that time wanted to be businessmen," he explains. "I wanted to create a better world, and I knew there were other ways to go about it."

The Diplomat

Leaving the navy with the rank of lieutenant commander, he returned to Columbia University on the G. I. Bill for a MA in public law and government in 1947. He also was introduced to key diplomatic figures by his faculty adviser, Professor of International Law Philip Jessup, such as Ralph Bunch and John Allison. These personal contacts were to prove very helpful. After taking and passing the State Department's qualifying examination, he was assigned to the diplomatic section of General MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo under Ambassador William J. Sebald and was involved in political and economic reporting and liaison with the diplomatic corps of other nations. Recommendation.

In 1948 he was the first U.S. diplomat officially to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki after American atomic bombs killed tens of thousands. Many years later, in 1997, Fr. Neal returned to Nagasaki as a result of being a member of the St. Paul, Minnesota/Nagasaki Sister City Committee, the oldest such Sister City tie. Last year it celebrated its 40th anniversary along with the 50th of the end of World War II.

The Sister City Committee wanted to leave something permanent in Nagasaki. As a result, Richard Bresnahan, Saint John's University potter, created a giant bowl with the Global Harmony Symbol. On the foot is his signature and an English tanka poem based on Fr. Neal's 1948 experience. This was presented to Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki on October 8, 1997. It will be placed in one of the city's museums. The tanka poem reads:

Tanka

Held in tiny hand
Assure Blue Bottle melted
All twisted and bent:
Other hands no longer living
Suffered same atomic fate. (NHL)

After the occupation, he was transferred to the United States Information Service (USIS), forerunner and overseas branch of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA, 1953-1999); he served as the US public affairs officer in Singapore and the Federation of Malaya. From 1949 to 1951, as a diplomat in Southeast Asia, he successfully established a USIS office and library in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur. He also helped establish friendly U.S. relations with the British, Malays, Chinese and Indians. In Singapore, he chaired the first Asian Conference of Public Affairs Officers.

Search for Inner Peace

By this time, William Henry Lawrence Jr. was forty-three years old. His ambition to contribute to world peace was still firm, but his personal search for inner peace was beginning to focus on religion. In contrast to his Methodist upbringing, he was particularly fascinated by the Catholic Church.

Prior to his transfer to Singapore, he had stopped by Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, to visit a Mexican friend who was studying for the priesthood. "I was amazed by the kind of place I found there and the people I met. This Benedictine monastery was so peaceful and beautiful, and people were so kind. My visit made a deep and lasting impression on me."

Conversion and Monasticism

In 1952, he accepted the job of assistant director of Malayan Tin Bureau in Washington, D.C., and that same year, he was baptized at Saint Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In 1953, he left the Tin Bureau to enter the novitiate and seminary at Saint John's Abbey.

"My conversion to Catholicism was a long process," he explains. "I went through a great deal of mental anguish concerning some of the teaching of the Church, such as the Catholic policies on population problems and birth control. But at one point I said to myself, 'These are all problems, but my basic conviction is that I want to be a Catholic.'"

One aspect of the Benedictine Order that intrigued him was its sense of religious community where the needs of the community take precedence over the needs of individuals. The Benedictine motto "Ora et Labora" stresses contemplation and prayer (Ora) as well as work (Labora). Benedictines accept what they cannot understand as part of divine providence. They rely on the power of contemplation and prayer and carry on their daily work with a positive, optimistic, and peaceful attitude toward life.

Father Neal Henry Lawrence OSB was ordained a priest on 4 June 1960, and celebrated his First Solemn Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., nine days later. In September he was assigned by the abbot of Saint John's to the abbey's mission in Tokyo, Saint Anselm's Priory. It was a dream come true for Father Neal, and he returned to Japan full of hope and ambition.

In addition to his work at Saint Anselm's, he taught international relations and English at Tokyo University from 1962 to 1968, until he "became too mature for them" at the age of sixty, the university's mandatory retirement age. Rather than retire from teaching, he continued teaching English, ethics, Japanese Poetry in Translation and international politics at four other Tokyo-area universities--Keio, Seikei, and Sophia universities and Shirayuri Women's College, retiring from this college last in 1984. He served as president of the Association of Foreign Teachers in Japan from 1964 to 1971. He has been prominent in promoting the study and use of English as the International Language.

He has continued to seek an understanding of war and peace. One result was research on the events leading up to World War II. Having met some of the key Japanese involved, he wrote an article for the Asiatic Society of Japan dealing with the negotiations just before Pearl Harbor which helped give a clearer idea of why they failed to prevent war.

STAIFA

Another of Father Neal's many cross-cultural undertakings is Saint Anselm's International Friendship Association, or STAIFA. "STAIFA offers an opportunity to hear and speak English on something intelligent, not just the weather," Father Neal explains. "It offers contact with people interested in similar activities and cultivates contacts with people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to get together. Since 1973 it has had leading authorities on many subjects speak on their specialties, followed by discussion. I think the 'AI' in STAIFA is the Japanese word, ai (love). It is love that makes people aware of others, not just themselves and their immediate families. It broadens their point of view."

STAIFA holds annual charity concerts to raise funds for needy children, such as 'street children' and orphans, arranges baseball games and outings with local orphans, and recently staged an English poetry reading to solicit donations for Vietnamese "boat children." The association's core committee arranges all of these functions, but there is no doubt that Father Neal is the inspiration behind the success of the group.

In 1993 Father Neal was awarded the Saint John's University Presidential Citation "for your truly catholic and truly evangelical, founding leadership of STAIFA, and for numerous achievements of service to humankind that stand as tall and solid as the pines that surround Saint John's Abbey and University ...."

Education and War * Peace and Decision * Tanka Poet

Some of the above information has been taken from the magazine article, "The Winding Path to St. Anselm's" by Thomas Ainlay, written in 1980, for PHP, A Forum for a Better World. Other material has been obtained from letters, memos, and other published articles. Editor: Tom Gillespie.

Neal Henry Lawrence OSB

Trinity Benedictine Monastery * Saint John's Abbey