MEDFORD, Oregon — When the penetrating heat of summer rises to a scorching point, I am brought back to one sunny day in 1945, faraway from my Oregon home today. I was a sixth grader waiting for my mother. On that day, Aug. 6, in Hiroshima, the sun and the Earth melted together. Many of my relatives and classmates simply disappeared. I would never again see my young cousin, Hideyuki, who had been like a brother to me, or Miyoshi, my best friend. And on that day of two suns, my mother did not come home.

Sixty-three years have passed. The survivors of Hiroshima continue to testify to the horrific consequences of that day and the casualties that continue to the present. At the same time, nuclear arsenals have made quantum leaps in quantity and effects. More nations possess such weapons today — enough to extinguish the world. The worst evil, "the fear of violent death at the hands of other men" in the words of 17-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, resonates in these developments. The demise of Hiroshima was a beginning of what was to come from the darker side of human nature.

However challenging, we must now appeal to our higher nature and take hold and seek a pathway of hope, valuing and affirming life rather than ending it, before it is too late.