Having attended the three-day celebration of the 2,000th anniversary of Tsubaki grand Shrine held between the 10th and 12th of October, I submit this report:

All non-Japanese members of Tsubaki America's board of directors and their spouses received all-expenses paid invitations to attend the celebration --Marjorie Flaherty, George Williams and his wife Zizi, Colleen Cook and her husband Bill, and yours truly and my wife Margaret. Dr. Stuart Picken, member of the Tsubaki America board from Japan, participated in the event; Rev. Richard Boeke, adistinguished former member, and his wife, Rev. Johanna Boeke, also flew in from England for the event.

Current and past priests of Tsubaki America &emdash; Jun Yamamoto, Hitoshi Iwasaki, Tetsuji Ochiai and Yukihiko Tsumura &emdash; took part in the rituals with our host, Chief Priest Yukitaka Yamamoto, and other members of the shrine staff. Helping to arrange the visit was Yuji Inokuma, English-speaking secretary to Rev. Yukitaka Yamamoto.

We were amazed by different sights and experiences, but no one will forget the gracious greetings extended by the chief priest, the efficient and thoughtful arrangements made by Yuji, the helpful and friendly assistance from priests and former priests of Tsubaki America, and the personal guidance and attention given to each of us by young women not only familiar with Tsubaki Grand Shrine and the intricacies of a matsuri (festival) but able to speak English.

We non-Japanese participants enjoyed every minute of the red carpet treatment extended to us. We were pleased to see, hear and participate in three impressive matsuri held on successive days of the celebration and we were delighted to obtain insights on Japanese religion from the six distinguished scholars who participated in a four-hour panel discussion.

As the teacher of a course on Shinto at the Starr King School of the Ministry in Berkeley, I was constantly on the alert for points I could and should make about the meaning of what was being seen and heard on this 2,000th birthday of one of Japan's oldest and most illustrious Shinto shrines. I am sure to explore with my students at least these three questions:

• Why was there so much NEWNESS in celebrating the birthday of a shrine so old?

• Why was so much attention given to the UNIVERSALITY of Sarutahiko who is now worshipped in other parts of Japan as well as abroad but who was for centuries worshipped only by "clean children" living in one clearly-defined part of Ise Province?

• What does it mean that we of other religious persuasions experienced SPIRITUAL UPLIFT when participating in these Shinto festivals?

Before getting into the question of NEWNESS in festivals, not just in those held at Tsubaki, we will have to be sure that there really was evidence of a conscious attempt to see that every robe, dance, piece of ancient music and prayer was meant to be new and lively. We noted, for example that the norito (prayers) read by the chief priest at the high point of each matsuri were not old but new ones prepared for this celebration either by Chief Priest Yamamoto or a priest from Jinga Honcho, the headquarters in Tokyo of Shinto Shrines.

Why was importance assigned to newness at such an old shrine celebrating its 2,000th birthday? My theory is that kami have always and everywhere been worshipped primarily for their spiritual power to benefit any form of life (not just human life) here and not. Therefore, everything done during a festival is intended to induce a kami to bestow its blessings on the life of worshipers at this very moment.

Thus everything done in the presence of the life-giving kami during a festival (offerings, dances, music, prayers) must be lively and new, not deathly old. Because of the life-here-and-now thrust of kami-worship, history does not seem that important to kami believers. Ancient ideas about kami belief (doctrines) as well as past ways of conducting matsuri rituals tend therefore to be disregarded and forgotten, making it extremely difficult for a historian like me to find enough historical evidence to trace and understand the process of Shinto change. A kami believer is likely to say something like this when historical questions are asked: "Who cares about what a kami did yesterday or last year? What I want to know is what a kami is going to do to benefit our life right here and now."

UNIVERSALITY at Tsubaki Grand Shrine is also puzzling because worship at that old shrine, like that at old shrines all over Japan, has for centuries been limited to the group living in the surrounding area. But now Tsubaki has branch shrines all over Japan and there are even a few (like Tsubaki America) in the United States. Why?

Ever since his return to the shrine after World war II, Rev. Yamamoto has been engaged in preaching sermons and building shrines because he was convinced that Sarutahiko (the main kami worshipped at Tsubaki) has a spiritual power to create and enrich life anywhere, not just in one part of the Province of Ise. This is an entirely new and revolutionary approach that has led some shinto scholars to say that Rev. Yamamoto is more like a founder of a new Japanese religion than a priest of a traditional shrine whose kami is believed to bestow blessings only on life within one geographical area.

Consequently, Tsubaki Grand Shrine now has branches all over Japan and Rev. Yamamoto is president of the 100-year-old International Association of Religious Freedom. IARF, made up of religious organizations all over the world, teaches and practices the idea that we should accept &emdash; certainly not hate and kill &emdash; human beings whose religious beliefs are different from our own. Indeed, I and other members of the board, most of whom are affiliated with a non-Shinto religion, are pleased to be associated with Rev. Yamamoto and Tsubaki Grand Shrine because we, too, are enthusiastic supporters of the cause of religious freedom. That may be the only effective way we have to deal with the hatred and bigotry that has bred war in so many regions of the world.

Finally, there are puzzling but important questions about the meaning of RELIGIOUS UPLIFT experienced in the sanctuaries of another religion. American businessmen who knew virtually nothing about Japan or Japanese religion have told me that they gained at Tsubaki Grand Shrine a mysterious sense of renewal from a misogi (purification) in which they stood under a bitterly cold waterfall in the middle of winter.

And again at the great Tsubaki birthday party, several outsiders openly confessed that they had experienced spiritual uplift when placing a tamagushi (sacred tree branch) in front of the innermost sanctuary at Tsubaki Grand Shrine. What does this mean?

Everyone will have his own answer ( or non-answer) to this. and I dare to air mine. When faced with this question, I usually recall a day in Hawaii many years ago when my five-year-old daughter Charlotte, who was tagging along with me on the golf course, suddenly stopped, looked up at me, and asked, "What am I?" The serious, puzzled look on her face suggested that she, although not yet in first grade, really wanted an answer to this unanswerable question. Remembering what my young daughter had asked &emdash; together with considerable reading on the subject and some familiarity with archeological evidence of religious activity during the Stone Age in widely scattered parts of the globe &emdash; leads me to conclude that most human beings, at all times and places, have been and still are plagued with questions which have only religious answers (or atheistic non-answers) and which lead them to devise explanations that become known by others as myths.

This suggests that most human beings believe in the existence of spiritual power. But why can spiritual uplift be experienced by a Christian when he or she is participating in a ritual in which God is never mentioned? Here you and I will never accept the same answer or anybody else's, especially if it is detailed and wordy.

Nevertheless, I dare to state here that a person who has such an experience in the sanctuary of another religion must surely believe, consciously or unconsciously, that a great concentration of spiritual, intelligent and creative power does exist, although it is given different names and honored in different ways by different people. So when Christians obtain a sense of uplift or renewal from participating in a ritual held in a Shinto sanctuary, they must be feeling that they are in the presence of God who, at this particular time and place, is called a kami.

Unitarians and members of the IARF seem to believe in the existence and power of such a creative spirit (even though they cannot agree on what to call it) for they have scholars and committees working busily on this question: What is common to all religions of this world? They may never arrive at a satisfactory answer but all of us who have experienced uplift in a ritual honoring our Creator called something else will keep searching for one. I now favor this: Believers in any religion not only believe in the existence and power of an unseen, creative spirit but believe that this spirit can and does create, renew, nourish and enrich life if approached in a special way.

Having celebrated the founding of Tsubaki Grand Shrine, we all need to talk about, and discuss together, these and other questions on the spiritual side of power and human existence.