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JG: Thinking about you specifically... I mean, it's, at what point does a young boy decide to become a minister? Where does that, where does that seed begin to take root? And I'm just wondering, how did you, at least in these, the earlier part of your life, say through, from elementary through high school, how did you experience religion specifically? You've talked about these events that you were a part of. How did you experience religion as, as a younger person?

MN: Gosh, that's a... well, number one that's a question I always get asked in a variety of ways, and my answer is really based on several factors. One, which is just my own experience growing up in the church. And maybe that's where it starts. I did grow up in the church, as did my brothers and sisters, and as I said, church for us was really, in terms of our social experience, sports, everything else regarding our family life, anything else regarding our life outside of the family, Centenary was kind of the, the locus around which our lives rotated. And so the church was always a part of our lives growing up, and so I think that's just an overarching environment that we had. If nothing else, subconsciously I always grew up just knowing that. So that's one response to the question. Specifically though, I never really intended to go into the ministry, and I've said this over and over again. To this day I honestly don't choose to be in the ministry, although I enjoy what I do, I like what I do, I value what I do and I'd like to think that what I do benefits some people in life, but I really consider it more of a calling, rather than a choice. I've always said I'm suspect about anybody who says they want to go into the ministry, because when you look at the biblical text, very few biblical characters chose to follow God. If anything, they ran away from God and God comes running back after them, whether it's Moses, whether it's any of the biblical prophets, whether it's the apostle Paul... nobody in their right mind in the Bible chose to follow God. They ran away first and then God had to go grab them, bring 'em back, and then they saw the light, and I think, not that I ran away from God, but just going into the ministry never was on my radar screen when I was growing up, even all the way through college.

However, having said all that, being the fact that I did major in history when I was in college and I was exposed to different religious traditions just from studying history, my interest in religion in general did pique. I did actually aspire to be a schoolteacher. I did go through one year of teacher training through UCLA after my undergraduate years, but then it was at that point in life, I was about, what, so eighteen or nineteen, I decided just to take a step back, sit out of school and work for a while just to get my feet on the ground. I recall a very, very innocuous experience. I happened to know a guy who taught in the MBA school at UCLA. He was actually a professor from, from USC, but taught at the extension program at UCLA. And I used to work out the old gym at UCLA and this guy would come over and use the gym at the same time, so we began to be friends, and I remember talking with him one day and just for the heck of it I said to him, "I'm kinda thinking maybe I might like to do an MBA." And his comment to me was, he says, "You know, Mark, I tell all prospective MBA students that what you really need to do once you graduate is sit out of school for a while, work any kind of a job for two or three or maybe four years, figure out which end is up, and then see if that's what you really want to do." And he said, "I say that to people regardless of what their academic aspirations might be, whether they want to go for an MBA, a PhD, become a doctor, anything. I really recommend, once you graduate from college, just sit out of school and work a job. Go flip burgers at McDonald's or something. Know what it's like to really work and then see if you really want to get that degree or what else. You may be better off doing something else." And I also recall, as I say this, a professor in the history department basically said the same thing at one point when I had half facetiously said to him one day after history class that I might be interested in doing graduate work in history. And his response to me basically was the same. In fact, I remember him saying -- this was Professor Jeffrey Simcox at UCLA, a well-known professor at that time -- saying, "Mark, if I were you, I would just go out and get a job. Heck, go out and get a job just selling shoes. You might be happier, you might find out you're happier doin' that than going on and doing graduate work." And so hearing these comments from people in academia, professors, made me just sit out and work, so I worked for four years, did various jobs, and it was during that time that... number one, it was a great time in my life. I was working, had an apartment, would work during the day, get home, go to the beach, go out at night with friends, and I did this for about three or four years. But during that time it really made me think about what I wanted to do in life, and it also gave me an opportunity to see what some other friends of mine were doing. Guys who had gone off to law school, guys who were in medical school. I had, knew some friends who were in MBA school at the time. I also, though, at the time, had some friends who were in seminary, and so I corresponded with all of these folks and it was a result of, of talking with them and keeping in touch, with all these people, that not so much made me figure out what I wanted to do, but more through process of elimination kind of made me think seriously about what I didn't want to do. And after I had eliminated everything, or the things that I thought I didn't want to do --

JG: Like what?

MN: For a while, for example, I thought I wanted to go to law school, but then after meeting some attorneys and seeing what my friends in law school were having to go through, I figured that wasn't the way, the route that I wanted to go. I thought about medial school. I just didn't think I was quite smart enough for medical school, quite frankly, so that really left my thought. And then even going into business, while initially that kind of looked attractive, when I really thought about what I really wanted to do, which was to help people, not that being a business person or a medical doctor or an attorney wouldn't allow me to do that... I really realized that those professions, as well as others, including teaching, 'cause I only stayed in the teaching program for one year, really would not afford me or enable me the opportunity to help people in the way I wanted to help them. And when I really sat down and thought about it, I wanted to help people through working in the community, so that really left out only a couple of options, either a social worker or what we know call a community organizer. And then it dawned on me that, gosh, so much of what I do about the Japanese American community came through the church, so with all these thoughts in mind I decided to enter seminary, but again, not because I had made up my mind to become an ordained minister, because I hadn't, but if nothing else, I figured that doing time in seminary would at least, basically extend the time that I would have to get my head together and figure out what I want to do, but if nothing else, I thought it would be a good experience and would prepare me for any vocation in life that I would do after I got out. Really my plan was to go to seminary for three years then come back and then figure out what I want to do after that, and that was it. It didn't turn out like that, which is, which goes back to my original statement that, really the fact that I'm in the ordained ministry really is less because of my conscious decision to do so and more because of God's calling on my life. I mean, if I had my druthers, if I had my choice, it wouldn't have worked out like that. I would've just gone, done three years in seminary for the basic degree and then come back home and figured out what to do next. But it just didn't work out like that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.