Late Night Religious Deep-ness

So...my Wednesday advanced class just beat all records at how late our Bible Study went overtime. The class is supposed to end at 9:10. Our previous record was 9:55, with one student continuing to ask questions privately until 10:15. Tonight we set a new record of 10:50.

Usually I do most of the talking. They toss questions at me and I try to explain them all away, with varying levels of success. It's the class where I feel like God takes over my talking most often, or at least the class where I end up spilling my entire heart about God, humanity, or my own place in the middle of all that without a second thought until all the words are already lying out there in a jumbled heap. It's only after they've been said that the touch of embarrassment can come in. That sense of, "Oops. That was the real me in unrestrained form. Is that a good idea in front of my students?"

Tonight, however, I managed to get them talking. I don't remember exactly how, but it had something to do with Buddhism. They started talking about praying for dead people, and how the prayer is connected to the spirit separating from the body. I asked where the power in the prayer came from, and I think we reached the following conclusions:

1) The prayer has no real power. The spirit separating from the body is just a natural process that will happen regardless of whether the dead are prayed for or not.
2) But prayer for the dead is still important. It shows a respect for the dead person, and that respect is deserved merely on the merit that the person is dead--kind of like respect for the completeness of their life.
3) The meaning behind this prayer is really irrelevant to the people in my class. But the action of folding their hands in memory of one who is died is important to them.
4) Even though most people in my class were arguing from a "Japanese" viewpoint, their idea of the afterlife ranges from unconsciousness (preserved in the memories of loved ones), person becoming a kind of God, or person going to Nirvana.
5) None of my students believes that Truth exists. Some make exceptions for science, some do not. It does not bother at least two of them to know about themselves that they view the world in the way that makes them feel the most comfortable.

Probably I have managed to misunderstand something in here...it was an interesting experience...several times I had to make them repeat things or explain them in a different way multiple, multiple times before I understood enough to go on.

But we finally reached this point of just raw honesty with each other. When they're sitting there like, "We can't believe in truth and we can't believe in God." And a couple of the class members said, "We wish we could believe in God." Which is the point that I start weeping inside. And I decided to dare asking a question that I had never asked in this direction before. I often talk to people about "What keeps you from believing in God?", but I asked them tonight, "What would it take for you to believe that God exists? What if God's existence and the existence of suffering are both true realities?"

I never quite got a straight answer out of them. It took a lot of times for me to repeat the question and try to help them understand it. But their answers were interesting when they did answer, one woman's especially. She talked about how she knew that believing in God would change everything...she is a doctor, and she said that the Truth was whatever the patient said it was, but that that would have to change if she believed in God. She's been thinking about the issue of when life begins and abortion recently and she said she knew she might have to deny some patients treatment if she had God to give her something absolute in her life. And I realized something as she was talking, which was that, even though she had said she wanted to believe in God, really she didn't. Not yet. She knew how difficult that switchover would be. I filed that thought away to pray for her later.

I don't know if this class has any idea how much I love them. But in my final outpouring of heart for them today I got ever so slightly teary eyed. Just enough to grab a tissue and try to dab at my eye at sneaky moments when I hoped they wouldn't notice to try to keep it from stinging and getting worse.

After we were done in class, I was at my desk cleaning up, and we must have been talking in English long enough that they forgot to switch back to Japanese while they were in the kitchen cleaning up the teapot and cups. So I get to overhear them saying, "Yeah...I realized today that I really don't understand Buddhism" and then, "Pamela was crying. I think we made her sad because we couldn't understand."

They actually filed out, the four of them who were left, and apologized for making me sad. I was speechless. Honestly, I hadn't felt so sad until they came out and said it like that. But how could I possibly explain? I finally said, "Japan often makes me a little sad. That's why I'm here. That's why I want to stay." Then they were rather speechless. But my wonderful lady doctor said, "But, Pamela, I really like hearing what you have to say."

I know God is reaching to them. I see it in their faces, in their questions, in what grabs their attention. Evangelism is child bearing. As such, it is painful work. I don't mean in terms of conflict. There is no conflict in this class. Just question asking and seeking and trying to understand. But I ache for them.

A God who allows rants

A lot of my time in Japan has been spent fighting to pray. The past few months have been especially that way. They've been the kind of months where, whether alone or in groups, I sit down to talk to God and find myself wondering what I could possibly have to say to a God who knows everything, can do anything, etc.

It's odd sometimes how hard it is to be honest with myself. It seems like it would be more natural to be dishonest with other people and straight in my own thoughts, but somehow it has never worked that way for me. I will be innocently going along, really believing that everything is all right until a friend says, "You've been acting like something is bothering you." Which is usually news to me. Until about twenty minutes later when the friend has managed to drag some woe out of me that I didn't know existed.

God has done that for me a couple times now too.

I sometimes get stuck in the rut of "this is how I should approach God" and even begin to feel proud at how well I've fortified myself in trusting Him, entering His courts in praise and thanksgiving, did much more intercessing than "troubling" Him with my own problems...one could almost forget that I *have* problems.

Until God slows me down, steals my ability to pray, and we're left staring at each other, me as confused as when my friends have sat me down to say, "Something is obviously bothering you." It took me until this week to realize that I wasn't really on speaking terms with God. Oh, I knew I hadn't been talking to Him. But I'd kind of been blaming Him for that. It wasn't that I hadn't set the time aside, after all, I just hadn't really had any words for Him when I had. So the only possible explanation in my mind was that He was trying to teach me something. Which I suppose He usually is, but I usually don't figure it out until the lesson is over. If I think I've figured it out before that, there's a good chance I have no idea.

The first time He did it to me was at prayer retreat last August. Part of the retreat was to take a day apart with God. I'd been wandering around and finally "arrived" at a small clearing out in the trees. There was no one around for a *long* ways. And I felt God say, "You can shout here." To which I'm thinking, "Umm...great. But...er...I don't really feel like shouting about anything." Ten minutes later...it was a rant to end all rants.

It was the same way this week. That feeling of, "We are not going anywhere until you [Pamela] sit down and give Me your heart, even if it's hurt and angry right now." And I'm thinking, "Dude...there's no need to get angry at You. I trust You. I know it will be okay. Why do You want me to shout at You?" A theme of Japan has been God saying over and over again, "I want *everything* from you. Not just what you think is the good you have to offer. You are not allowed to choose what is good enough for Me. I want *everything*."

I think it has been about three days of ranting at God now. But something finally fell into place late this morning, and the ranting gave way to real, true, honest-to-goodness worship. The kind where each word of the song strikes my heart with how amazing this whole journey with God is and where each stroke of the guitar feels like a dance of joy. And today, as students were coming in and registering and I was sitting working on a class syllabus I found my thoughts drifting to various people to pray for. It has been *eons* (read: probably not more than several weeks) since that was true.

My ranting isn't done quite yet, but I found myself amazed right now...what kind of God really wants His people to rant at Him? Seriously?! Really...we have a God who doesn't wait for us to pretty ourselves up until we can come before Him, flawless and beautiful. He wants us to sprint up to Him, our clothes torn and dirty, our words foolish and our lips stammering. Somehow, I think we're more beautiful in His eyes that way.

Sakura season!

Right now in Tokyo the cherry trees are in full bloom. Just wanted to share the beauty with you! It is a custom in Japan during cherry blossom season to go to "hanami". In kanji, this word is written: 花見. The first character means "flower" and the second character means "look". Basically, this means you go and spread a tarp under a blooming tree and hang out enjoying it.

I went to hanami with some of my students last week. Whenever food is involved, my students do amazingly impressive things. I had kind of expected the food to come out all at once like a traditional American picnic. But food kept showing up out of bags throughout the entire meal. Homemade inari-zushi (rice wrapped in thin sweetened tofu), cooked carrots and lotus root with a sauce to go over the top, little dango (balls made from pounded rice) with a sweet glaze over them, etc.

Tokyo usually feels really busy. It's easy to walk through a crowd. There's usually a rather slow lane of walkers, and then a stream of people in a hurry that one can jump into. But the blossoms put even Tokyo walkers into slow motion. I left to meet a friend at the train station this last weekend. My walk crosses some ponds, and the path is lined with cherry trees. Usually the walk takes me around 20 minutes, but I was eight minutes late because the whole path was filled with people looking up at flowers, ambling along slowly, enjoying food and friends as they went. Even though it made me late, it's lovely to see Tokyo slow down to enjoy beautiful things!

Starting Out Again!

Happy Easter! Easter omedetou!

Yesterday was a double or triple treat. It was Easter, 'nuff said (much dancing). It was also the first baptism I have gotten to see in Japan. It was a woman maybe in her late 20s. She's been attending Christian schools, with the exception of kindergarten, since she was in preschool. She's played the organ at Hongo for awhile.

She had her hair very neatly up back in a bun, and she knelt very seriously and calmly by the baptismal bowl. Yasui Sensei was kind to her. I don't think there was enough water in his hands even to drip and he wiped it across her head three times in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The enthusiast in me was slightly disappointed by the lack of water everywhere...after all, God doesn't just come and get our hair a little wet, He pours all over us and leaves our hair a mess and our skirts dripping wherever we go. It was so lovely to see, though.

Apparently at Hongo, it is a custom for the person being baptized to give their testimony. I was particularly excited for this part, and made one of my bilingual friends translate the whole thing. Adult decisions for baptism are always somewhat puzzling to me. There is often a quiet miracle behind them all. Some people can point to some dramatic, concrete moment when they knew God was real and that He loved them. But the woman baptized yesterday fits a theme I have heard from many of them...they have gradually come to believe, and finally knew it was time to be baptized.

Our spring break is wrapping up now, and starting today, we hit the streets! That's right, it's pamphlet time of the year again!

For the next three weeks, Aaron (the long term missionary who runs the English Center at Hongo) and I will be handing out pamphlets at train stations and university gates. We'll start registering students for the new school year, which begins April 8th, next week.

Please pray:
1) For us to have minds that are praising God and praying as we hand out pamphlets so that His light can shine through us the most brightly
2) For our pamphlets to find their way into the hands of those who are hungry for God or who are at a time in their life when "seeds" can be planted.
3) Pray for our ministry, that God would always be molding us into a ministry where He can send those who need Him and they will get what they need

An Afternoon at Kabuki

My parents have been visiting these past few weeks, which has given me lots of different opportunities to run around and do things I don't usually do. We went to a kabuki play this afternoon and evening. Kabuki is a kind of traditional Japanese theater. All of the actors are men, and the story lines are often complex and confusing--even to Japanese people. The point of Kabuki is less about the story and more about intricate costumes, sets, and beauty in general.

Nevertheless, I always find myself quite drawn into the story. What can I say? I enjoy confusing complexity.

The second act was Kyokanoko Musume Dojoji (The Maiden at Dojoji Temple). It opens with a line of monks who are lamenting that they will have to perform some very long rites that day because they are dedicating a new temple bell. But they are a little comforted by the fact that one of them has a bottle of sake they can pass around and another has an octopus they can eat while performing the laborious rites.

Then they are distracted by the arrival of a lovely woman. Bravely, one of the monks approaches her and inquires whether she is a local dancer or an innocent maiden. Learning that she is a dancer, the monks break temple rules and allow her inside to worship, but present her with a dancing hat, hoping that she will perform for them.

The next section of the play is her dance. A beautiful, slow sequence. Attendants occasionally get on stage, pull a few cords off "her" costume, and in one jerk are able to completely change it from one kimono to another underneath it.

In the final transformation, the woman uses magic to cause the new temple bell to fall, and we learn that she is truly a jealous serpent spirit who hates the bell and has come to destroy it. The bell comes down on top of her, and the monks must take action.

The monks suddenly become very pious. They pull our their best prayers, hoping to lift the bell, but it does not move. They confess all their sins and lament their worldliness, merry living, and how their actions have not prepared them for the afterlife. The bell stays firm. Then, they pull out their prayer beads for extra strength, but this also fails. They hear the approach of others, and the monks run away.

The new arrivals are a group of strong men. They use all their strength to pull on the rope to lift the bell, but they also fail. Finally, the bell shakes of its own accord and lifts. The demon serpent spirit is revealed and makes the strong men's weakness known.

At that moment, a lone warrior comes and confronts the serpent. He gives the serpent a choice, be gone immediately, or to end up turned to dust "under his feet". There is a brief fight, and the serpent gives up, acknowledging that it cannot win.


I am always interested to see ways that God reaches to different cultures, and Japan in particular. (I'm just a *little* particular to Japan ;-) ) And from that perspective, I found this play fascinating.

The monks and strong men are powerless against the demon. They need another to fight for them. I was especially fascinated by the expression "turn to dust under his feet" because of the image of Satan being placed under Christ's feet on the cross that is in the Bible. In Ephesians 1:18-23, for example, it talks about the power that we have as Christians and the connection to Christ's resurrection, in which "God placed all things under [Christ's] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church", the part just before that is a little bit more specific about the "everything" that Christ has been given authority over, including "all rule and authority, power and dominion".

The priests of the Kabuki play and even the strong men could not put the serpent under their feet. Their confessions and piety were not enough. Their combined physical force was as nothing.

Today around the world, many are still fighting evil with their own goodness and their own strength. Christians certainly believe in goodness, and as people get a hunger for God, they will necessarily begin to clean up their lives. But there are a plethora of religions out there to help people to be good and strong. If that were all Christianity was, it would have little to add to the religious spectrum. But Jesus has always stood for sinners. Christianity is about a promise of redemption between us weak sinners and the God of All. Christianity is not about good people, but about a Good God who insanely and beautifully lays down as a sacrifice His own self. What kind of God sacrifices the beautiful to save the ugly? How awesome He is!

Being in Japan, I talk to a lot of people who have a positive image of Christians. They see us as being kind, good people. In a way, we have to get past that. Kind, good people run the world over. But there is only one Jesus. And every single one of us needs Him to put the evil within us under His feet.

Eggplant juice?!

Last week when I left class on Wednesday, on of the beginner students let me know: "Next week...juice party. Please bring fruit or vegetable."


She claimed absolutely anything was okay, except for bananas, which aren't juicy enough for her machine, so I went out and bought an eggplant from the convenience store early Wednesday morning. :P It turned out to be very fun, and a very Japanese kind of party.


A.k.a the kind of party where we all sit in a circle and observe someone make food and toss out comments along the way.


But she had this machine where you just stuff fruit or vegetables into a plastic tube and they get squished into juice. If the base of the juice is apple and carrot, you can put pretty much anything in and it tastes great. They were a little shocked and surprised at my eggplant, though. Hee hee. So, they put that in at the very beginning just to make sure it was alright. Probably the first and only time I'll be sitting in a group of people passing around a tupperware of freshly squeezed eggplant juice.


We each tried a small spoonful, deemed it good for drinking and started adding other fruits and veggies. Meanwhile the Japanese ladies started playing with the remnants of eggplant, the little kind of dried out shredded bits, and, with a little salt, managed to make something fairly decent.

January 2008 Newsletter

Happy 2008!

I am going to try something new. My hope in moving newsletters from email to a blog is that I will update more frequently but with smaller stories and experiences. I'll send email reminders about blog updates every once in awhile. The other change that is happening with this blog is that this is my official communication as an ELCA Missionary. My newsletters before were written as a combination Official Newsletter and Mass Email to Friends all in one. This blog is written under the assumption that my readers are interested in hearing about church and God related things. There will be other entries too...I will do my best to share my experience here, so it will also include many cultural entries and other stories. Anyway, welcome to my new blog! I have a lot of older entries that I have moved from another blog and I also included all my old email newsletters here. Welcome to all who join the story now and welcome to those who have been with me much longer! Come and walk with me awhile...

This past fall and Christmas time reached new levels of busyness, though it's been a good kind of busy. In mid-September, Tokyo was invaded by nine new missionaries--five new J3s, two new VYM, and one long-term ELCA couple. I have felt something like a proud aunt watching them from a distance...you know, we really do pick up Japanese pretty quickly. It felt so slow when it was me.

Teaching English this term was much more natural, much less of an experiment. I might be learning how to read Japanese people much better...or at least during one class I explained to them that, when I ask them if they have any questions and they sit without making eye contact and say nothing, I am never sure if it means:
1) They still do not understand the English but don't know what to ask and will wait for me to ask them if they have a question.
2) Really they understand the English perfectly but feel like they must come up with a question because I am asking for one, so I should just move the class on.
3) They *have* a question, but no one else seems to be asking one, so they can't ask theirs either.
My students laughed with me at this and told me I understand Japanese students very well. Which I find slightly amusing.

Christmas this year was a good one. Though it was hard. Many people asked me this year if it was my first Christmas away from home, and when I said 'no', they would say, 'Oh, okay.' But really, the second Christmas away from home is not so different from the first. And the song 'I'll be Home For Christmas' remains on my banned songs list.

That being said, I really love my congregation. We had kid's activities on Christmas Eve and I got to watch Yasui Sensei (the pastor) try to teach origami to four year olds. For once, Japanese preschoolers lived up (er...down) to their American counterparts, and the adults ended up doing a lot of the folding.
Pic: Kids racing around trying to snatch a strip of toilet paper from the backs of their friends.

Kid's activities were followed by a candlelight service with harpsichord. After the service, we hit the streets with candles and carol books! Singing on the streets is definitely not normal Tokyo behavior, and it felt so lovely to be standing on the corners singing 'Joy to the World' in Japanese. One church member made it her personal mission to wish Merry Christmas to everyone we passed. I was so proud of her. Other church members were laughing at her, but she explained that it was the one day she felt free to tell the world around about the joy that she had. She got two people to say 'Merry Christmas' back, and as soon as they were passed she threw her arms up in the air with joy and then would hold up a count. 'Got one! Got two!' It felt so easy to feel God smiling that Christmas night.

This season at Hongo has been one of deepening relationships. Most of my classes have gotten smaller, but more dear at the same time. I find myself really loving them.

My Wednesday Advanced class is perhaps the most fun. It is made up of nine wonderful people. A cram school English teacher with a better hold on idioms than most Americans who speaks up to a mile a minute. A young doctor who has blossomed into a strong, opinionated student. An older woman who goes salsa dancing with Cubans from time to time and often says 'Adios' on her way out the door. A college professor in forestry who vanishes for several weeks at a time and comes back with tales of figuring out how old trees in given areas are. A soft spoken man who has lived abroad in Canada who, when asked what he's confident about, mentions things like having a good family someday. Three lab partner college students who research molecular biology and are able to hold conversations with the aforementioned doctor about lymph nodes which, although English conversations, are completely incomprehensible to me. A shy woman who comes and goes early but knows Japanese sign language and enough about American gestures to teach us why you could get in big trouble speaking Japanese sign language in America.

If I ask this class to introduce themselves, we will talk for forty five minutes. Our end of class Bible studies have taken to going twenty to forty minutes overtime because we get so into our discussions.

My reflection for these past few months has been about time in the middle. I received an encouraging email that had nothing to do with mission work except in my head. It was really about writing. But this was a quote in it:

"A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realize that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in."

So it is for ministry as well. There is a time when things are starting fresh and new that they seem really adventurous and exciting. Really, they never stop being that way, but the wonder fades to our sinful eyes eventually. G.K. Chesterton says that the amount of time it takes to complete a miracle does not change whether it is a miracle or not. A 3000 year miracle and a 1 second miracle are all God doing the impossible. Here in Japan, we are building a wall that is revival of the church here. We dream of a time when people will look back at the days of "1% Christian" and say, "Look what God has done for the Japanese since then!".

For now, though, the work is often setting down one stone at a time. One prayer for the wall. One word about Christ for the wall. One friendship for the wall. Luckily, we are not building the wall alone. But sometimes we are not starting walls or finishing walls, but just laying down one stone at a time. Each stone is really needed, though.

Recently, it has felt like the time of Middle is coming to an end. Ironically, it hasn't felt like the transition is from middle to ending, but rather from middle to beginning. Time will tell.