An omikuji received in Miyajima carried a simple message: Return to a good heart. The words lingered long after the visit ended. Yet as the days passed, another question gradually emerged: How does one recognize a good heart?
The question may seem strange. We speak of sincerity, integrity, and character as though they were easily recognized. Yet experience suggests otherwise. Appearances can deceive. Humility can be performed. Virtue can be advertised. Every age develops its own forms of performance. The temptation remains the same: To appear rather than to become.
A Lesson in Humility from a Young Guide
A conversation in Miyajima left me reflecting on that distinction. A young guide named Ken gently corrected an assumption I had carried for years. His name did not mean sword. It meant humility. The lesson stayed with me because it pointed toward something larger. The good heart is not necessarily loud. It rarely advertises its own existence.
Years before that conversation, I had encountered a similar intuition elsewhere. As a Scout, I learned that trustworthiness came before leadership. Before responsibility could be entrusted, character had to be formed. A promise had to mean something. A word had to carry weight.
The Depth of Makoto
The word itself was not new to me. Anyone who spends enough time around the Japanese martial traditions eventually encounters it. Yet like many familiar words, it took years to appreciate its depth. Makoto. The word is often translated as sincerity or honesty, yet those translations feel incomplete. Makoto is not merely about speaking the truth. It is the alignment of thought, word, and action. It is the condition in which what a person believes, what a person says, and what a person does point in the same direction.
A samurai proverb expresses the idea simply: “A samurai has no second word.” Different cultures arrived at the same intuition. In English, one might say, “You can take that to the bank.” In Filipino, we say, “Itaga mo sa bato.” Christ teaches, “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.” The Scout begins with trustworthiness. The samurai stakes his honor upon his word. The vocabulary differs. The insight remains remarkably similar. Trust matters. And trust depends upon the alignment between what is said and what is done.
A Nation's Longing for Authenticity
Long before I understood why the word mattered, I had already been searching for it. In the Foreword to our book The Long Way of Grace, I found myself reflecting on a peculiar hunger in Filipino life. I described it as a longing for something more than performance, a longing for something grounded. Looking back, I realize that observation was never really only about BINI. It was about a nation.
For many years, we have been surrounded by performance. Politics performs concern. Institutions perform unity. Individuals perform versions of themselves for audiences both real and imagined. Yet what seems to move people is something else. Not perfection. Coherence. The alignment between what is professed and what appears to be lived. The discipline behind the achievement. The substance behind the image.
A people growing weary of spectacle often recognize sincerity before they can explain it. Perhaps what I called coherence was a search for makoto by another name. Not perfection. Not flawlessness. Simply authenticity. The kind that emerges when words and actions point in the same direction.
The Foundation of Trust
Every meaningful human relationship depends upon it. Friendship. Family. Community. Faith. We trust people not because they never fail, but because their lives remain recognizably aligned with what they profess. The concern remains the same: Can this person be trusted?
Of all the lessons I brought home from Japan, that may be the one that lingered longest. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it illuminated something I thought I already understood. The omikuji had invited me to return to a good heart. Makoto suggests how such a heart becomes visible. Not through declarations. Not through branding. Not through spectacle. But through the quiet alignment of word and deed. The character vanished almost immediately. The lesson remained.
