My first Beginner Bible class was today!
There's something about new terms that always makes it very, very clear how little about Christianity is in the culture of the country I live in. And it is both frustrating and satisfying...satisfying because I realize how much my students have really learned about Christianity in the course of the last term, and frustrating because I have new students and must return to square one all over again.
Today there were two new students at Beginner Bible class...they are my favorite kinds of students, aka, the ones who ask difficult, honest questions. We read the creation of humans today, and I got way ahead of myself (because they didn't have the appropriate background info to actually understand the answers to their questions) and in the course of an hour and a half ended up drawing pictures and charts on the board to explain authority, the fall, the trinity, why God became a human, what it means for us, and what happened spiritually when Jesus died and rose again.
One of the new students is really observant. And I felt like she had a knack for picking out the parts of the text that cause disagreement among Christians interpreting. So, she immediately picked up on God saying "create them in our image" and asked about the "our". She also looked at what humans had originally been told to eat and asked if eating meat was considered a sin.
The other new student, on the other hand, while studying the "trinity diagram" asked if Jesus and the Holy Spirit existed at the same time.
I think they kind of got the important points, though. But man!! I was reflecting during this whole thing how good it is that God uses multiple people to share the gospel, because many of these students I don't see more than once, or at least not so consistently. But it's so impossible to explain only the important points! At least in a way that would have meaning. I could tell them simply that Jesus died for their sins...that his death set us free from slavery to sin and Satan. But that has never seemed to get through...it gets stuck in questions like: who is Jesus? Are you saying *I'm* a sinner? What is this sin thing anyway? What does that have to do with my daily life? Who is Satan? If Jesus death set us free, why is the world still screwed up? Why are you insisting that there is one God and then talking about three different parts?
But by laying the entire thing out, it makes sense. You have God's command from the moment of our creation to rule over the earth, the devastating decision to turn that authority over to Satan, and then the brilliance of God...not to keep shouting down from heaven to try to get us to get it right, but clothing himself in human skin to fix what only a human had the authority to fix.
Somehow, something worked. At least, by the end of all my board diagram, one of the new students summed it up very well: "So...we should follow God?"
Please pray for my students...the new ones are Naoko and Hirano-san.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
How to see beyond?
We had another English book club today. It's been interesting and frustrating to read The Heavenly Man with people from my church. At the beginning, the book causes a big explosion. There are two non-Christians in the group, and all the others are church members. One of the non-Christians went on a rant about how he didn't want to read a book that was just full of miracles. A church member went on a long processing train of thought about how this book was like reading the Bible and he couldn't figure out why the Chinese people became Christian. Multiple people were confused about why the main character became Christian (his father had cancer and was cured overnight when prayed for...the whole family followed Jesus from then on).
The way people respond to miracles often confuses me. When I read about miracles...real miracles, mind you...those things that are inexplicable aside from God existing...they make me starving to see Him in real life. Reading about them always makes me go slightly crazy...that is, I end up in my room in tears begging Him not to hide from me and not to keep His face turned from the places I live. I watch many people (Christian and non), however, hear about miracles, shake their heads, and say "I can't believe that." To me, when I read these stories, I think not believing them requires a greater leap of faith, and a much more detailed argument, than believing them. The number of things that would have to be true for this story to be anything other than God touching China with a magnificent show of power is unbelievable to me.
Anyway...we had another meeting today. I really appreciated the church member who is leading the club because he has put a tremendous amount of work into getting us maps and putting together time lines and looking up Bible verses to go along with the story. It definitely adds to the story when you see where some of the places are, and just how far they were willing to walk to carry the gospel.
What I have realized, though, is how much suffering can steal our eyes away from God in the times when He is often most visible. Today, they decided that we will read chapter eight next month, and after that we will probably skip to chapter 22 because everything in between those two chapters is pretty much "just persecutions", the leader claimed. I was not sure how to respond.
Partially, I am a little relieved. I know that this book has stirred up some of the thoughts that needed to be stirred up, and I'm not sure the church members need to read it for the next year and a half, which is about how long they would be reading it at the rate they're going. They've purchased the book, so if there are people who God is nudging to see a bigger picture of Him, they can always read it on their own.
But it brings up an interesting point to me...the sufferings that Yun goes through are horrible. But they are not the whole story, or even close to the whole story. They are going to miss stories of unbelievable transformation within prison walls...of a complete fast that lasted longer than 40 days...they'll miss Yun learning about his service to the Lord becoming an idol and how he brought his focus back...they'll miss efforts to unify the house churches in China...they'll miss seeing the amazing good things that happen because Yun stands up for the truth boldly, and the way God cares for him constantly while he is inside prison walls...and stories of God warning Yun ahead of time about what will happen through visions so that he is prepared and can continue to honor God through everything that happens to him.
But hearing from the people who have read the whole book, it's almost like they didn't see any of this stuff anyway...my non-Christian student who attends this book club described the book after she finished reading it as "a book where the man suffers through the entire thing." She made it sound like every page was nothing other than reading about a man in agony.
Perceptions are interesting things...it's interesting to me that, in a book where I see God's power overcoming in the most dramatic, awesome ways possible, others see nothing more than a man tortured around every turn.
It's something I experienced myself, especially with the prophetic books of the Bible. I remember reading Amos for the first time as a college student and feeling physically sick. When I read Amos, all I saw was God's anger, God's threats of violence, people being killed. It took until the fourth time reading it (in the course of a week...it was for class) to see the verses "They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed." (2:6-7). That was all I needed...my view of God at that time involved a God who mostly cared for the poor, homeless, etc., and seeing that the reason he was angry was because serious, serious injustice was happening was my gateway into being able to see Him in those books...but I had to have that opening first. That one view of His goodness in the middle of verses like "For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath" (which caused my stomach to ache) was all it took to begin the journey of seeing Him other places in the prophetic books.
I wonder what the opening would be for these church members. I wish I could help them see God and be inspired by this story.
The way people respond to miracles often confuses me. When I read about miracles...real miracles, mind you...those things that are inexplicable aside from God existing...they make me starving to see Him in real life. Reading about them always makes me go slightly crazy...that is, I end up in my room in tears begging Him not to hide from me and not to keep His face turned from the places I live. I watch many people (Christian and non), however, hear about miracles, shake their heads, and say "I can't believe that." To me, when I read these stories, I think not believing them requires a greater leap of faith, and a much more detailed argument, than believing them. The number of things that would have to be true for this story to be anything other than God touching China with a magnificent show of power is unbelievable to me.
Anyway...we had another meeting today. I really appreciated the church member who is leading the club because he has put a tremendous amount of work into getting us maps and putting together time lines and looking up Bible verses to go along with the story. It definitely adds to the story when you see where some of the places are, and just how far they were willing to walk to carry the gospel.
What I have realized, though, is how much suffering can steal our eyes away from God in the times when He is often most visible. Today, they decided that we will read chapter eight next month, and after that we will probably skip to chapter 22 because everything in between those two chapters is pretty much "just persecutions", the leader claimed. I was not sure how to respond.
Partially, I am a little relieved. I know that this book has stirred up some of the thoughts that needed to be stirred up, and I'm not sure the church members need to read it for the next year and a half, which is about how long they would be reading it at the rate they're going. They've purchased the book, so if there are people who God is nudging to see a bigger picture of Him, they can always read it on their own.
But it brings up an interesting point to me...the sufferings that Yun goes through are horrible. But they are not the whole story, or even close to the whole story. They are going to miss stories of unbelievable transformation within prison walls...of a complete fast that lasted longer than 40 days...they'll miss Yun learning about his service to the Lord becoming an idol and how he brought his focus back...they'll miss efforts to unify the house churches in China...they'll miss seeing the amazing good things that happen because Yun stands up for the truth boldly, and the way God cares for him constantly while he is inside prison walls...and stories of God warning Yun ahead of time about what will happen through visions so that he is prepared and can continue to honor God through everything that happens to him.
But hearing from the people who have read the whole book, it's almost like they didn't see any of this stuff anyway...my non-Christian student who attends this book club described the book after she finished reading it as "a book where the man suffers through the entire thing." She made it sound like every page was nothing other than reading about a man in agony.
Perceptions are interesting things...it's interesting to me that, in a book where I see God's power overcoming in the most dramatic, awesome ways possible, others see nothing more than a man tortured around every turn.
It's something I experienced myself, especially with the prophetic books of the Bible. I remember reading Amos for the first time as a college student and feeling physically sick. When I read Amos, all I saw was God's anger, God's threats of violence, people being killed. It took until the fourth time reading it (in the course of a week...it was for class) to see the verses "They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed." (2:6-7). That was all I needed...my view of God at that time involved a God who mostly cared for the poor, homeless, etc., and seeing that the reason he was angry was because serious, serious injustice was happening was my gateway into being able to see Him in those books...but I had to have that opening first. That one view of His goodness in the middle of verses like "For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath" (which caused my stomach to ache) was all it took to begin the journey of seeing Him other places in the prophetic books.
I wonder what the opening would be for these church members. I wish I could help them see God and be inspired by this story.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Fun Registration TImes
Yesterday was a good afternoon at Hongo. Classes will start next week, but this week we come and hang out at the center from about 2-7:30 to register new students. Sometimes things are pretty slow...our old students usually don't register until classes start, and we don't usually get dramatic rushes of new people. Today our first new visitors of the day were two girls who came in at 7:30 just as we were picking up our bags and getting ready to flip light switches.
But yesterday was really busy! We had something like eight people stop by. My favorite, however, was a guy named Amar. He looked Japanese to me, so when he first tried to tell me his name, I automatically tried to make it into a Japanese sounding name. "Amaru?" But no...he corrected me. And then told me his full name, which I made him write down and teach me how to pronounce. He is from Mongolia.
Normally we go pretty easy on our registering students...Etsuko gives an explanation of our free Bible classes and strongly invites people to attend those as well, even if only to get more English practice. But when she asked Amar any questions, he told her that he had seen on the internet that we were a Lutheran organization, and so he had looked up the history of the Lutheran church and Martin Luther and wondered if Etsuko would tell him more about it.
I love seeing Etsuko get the chance to do what she really loves doing. She wanted to be a pastor, but has ended up a church and English school receptionist. The days I come in when she has had to shove letters in envelopes all day I see how much it wears on her. But give her anyone who will give her the chance to talk and encourage and teach and she lights up.
This Mongolian grad student was completely engrossed in her explanation of papal bulls, sola scriptura, and salvation by faith. I was a little afraid she was overdoing it, but once she stopped he just pressed on with the questions. She had a Bible out soon enough and was showing him through that as well. Only when two more prospective students walked in the door did he jump to his feet, a little embarrassed, and apologize for taking so much of our time. We assured him he had been no trouble at all, and he assured us he would be back with more questions.
A little while later, we had a Korean guy stop by who is only in Tokyo for a few weeks, but asked if he could pray in our church.
I have a cool job. :-)
But yesterday was really busy! We had something like eight people stop by. My favorite, however, was a guy named Amar. He looked Japanese to me, so when he first tried to tell me his name, I automatically tried to make it into a Japanese sounding name. "Amaru?" But no...he corrected me. And then told me his full name, which I made him write down and teach me how to pronounce. He is from Mongolia.
Normally we go pretty easy on our registering students...Etsuko gives an explanation of our free Bible classes and strongly invites people to attend those as well, even if only to get more English practice. But when she asked Amar any questions, he told her that he had seen on the internet that we were a Lutheran organization, and so he had looked up the history of the Lutheran church and Martin Luther and wondered if Etsuko would tell him more about it.
I love seeing Etsuko get the chance to do what she really loves doing. She wanted to be a pastor, but has ended up a church and English school receptionist. The days I come in when she has had to shove letters in envelopes all day I see how much it wears on her. But give her anyone who will give her the chance to talk and encourage and teach and she lights up.
This Mongolian grad student was completely engrossed in her explanation of papal bulls, sola scriptura, and salvation by faith. I was a little afraid she was overdoing it, but once she stopped he just pressed on with the questions. She had a Bible out soon enough and was showing him through that as well. Only when two more prospective students walked in the door did he jump to his feet, a little embarrassed, and apologize for taking so much of our time. We assured him he had been no trouble at all, and he assured us he would be back with more questions.
A little while later, we had a Korean guy stop by who is only in Tokyo for a few weeks, but asked if he could pray in our church.
I have a cool job. :-)
You know what kind of pray-ers you're getting involved with when...
You tell them the prayer time is from 9-11 and you receive an email in response that says:
"hey is it 9am to 11am, 9pm to 11pm, or 9am to 11pm?"
Personally, I think 9pm to 11am would have been more likely than 9am to 11pm, but you know. To each his or her own. ;-)
"hey is it 9am to 11am, 9pm to 11pm, or 9am to 11pm?"
Personally, I think 9pm to 11am would have been more likely than 9am to 11pm, but you know. To each his or her own. ;-)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Ah, the Tokyo Life
As of checking my email this morning, if I did everything I have been invited to that would be potentially good and cool this weekend, I would be:
-Leading an overnight prayer meeting for Japan praying at the same time as a Hong Kong group from 9pm Friday to 6am Saturday.
-Taking off to meet the GAPers (Gospel Assembly of Praise) people at the beach at 1pm Saturday afternoon.
-Either making it back at 7pm to go to Tokyo Baptist to watch a girl who found me on the 24/7 site on the internet but who I haven't met yet sing in a gospel choir there (how's that for a run-on sentence?)...or going to watch the same thing Sunday morning at 9am. She didn't find me to invite me to the choir concert...she's looking for a group that prays for the nations...I'm excited to meet her someday hopefully soon!
-Hongo for morning worship at 10:30am
-And reading Brother Yun with the English Book Club at Hongo from 2-4
-And worshiping with the GAPers in the afternoon at 4:00 and hanging out with them through dinner.
I'm in one of my super-hyperactive excited phases...so I look at all this and say...yay! Nothing overlaps! That might be doable! *laughing at self* Someone hit me over the head.
So...any of you Tokyo folks want to pray for Japan overnight, come to the beach with some cool people, or go watch a gospel choir with me? Come to think of it...oh man. This might be the Saturday my revival prayer group meets as well...wow. Never mind about nothing overlapping. Happy back to regular schedules, everyone! ;-) (I am *so* excited to be moving again!)
-Leading an overnight prayer meeting for Japan praying at the same time as a Hong Kong group from 9pm Friday to 6am Saturday.
-Taking off to meet the GAPers (Gospel Assembly of Praise) people at the beach at 1pm Saturday afternoon.
-Either making it back at 7pm to go to Tokyo Baptist to watch a girl who found me on the 24/7 site on the internet but who I haven't met yet sing in a gospel choir there (how's that for a run-on sentence?)...or going to watch the same thing Sunday morning at 9am. She didn't find me to invite me to the choir concert...she's looking for a group that prays for the nations...I'm excited to meet her someday hopefully soon!
-Hongo for morning worship at 10:30am
-And reading Brother Yun with the English Book Club at Hongo from 2-4
-And worshiping with the GAPers in the afternoon at 4:00 and hanging out with them through dinner.
I'm in one of my super-hyperactive excited phases...so I look at all this and say...yay! Nothing overlaps! That might be doable! *laughing at self* Someone hit me over the head.
So...any of you Tokyo folks want to pray for Japan overnight, come to the beach with some cool people, or go watch a gospel choir with me? Come to think of it...oh man. This might be the Saturday my revival prayer group meets as well...wow. Never mind about nothing overlapping. Happy back to regular schedules, everyone! ;-) (I am *so* excited to be moving again!)
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Silence and Hiding Christians
There is a very famous book about the 17th century Christian persecutions in Japan called "Silence", written by Shusaku Endo. One of my professors gave it to me to read while I was thinking about whether or not I would go to Japan. The characters in the book are being tortured for their faith, and the book centers around the complicated issues about how they will respond to the pain inflicted on them. Also threaded throughout is the theme of the silence of God and the struggle of the suffering Christians as that silence makes them feel abandoned.
Understanding the current spiritual climate in Japan requires understanding the history.
The tactic of the shogunate for determining whether people were Christian or not during the persecutions was very simple. They made whole villages come to the temples and then they brought out a round disk they called a "fumie". It had an image of either Jesus or Mary on it, and the people were forced to stamp on the image. If a person refused to tread on it, they were killed. Through this and other persecutions, the church became invisible very quickly.
Japanese Christians became very adept at hiding. There is a museum in Tokyo that is a whole collection of artifacts made by these Christians. There are many items with cleverly hidden crosses, images of Mary made to look like Buddhist images, and other ways that the Christians found ways to represent their faith so that they could practice without anyone knowing what they were doing. There's a fairly detailed website here with a picture presentation if you are interested in more about the Japanese hidden Christians.
The bans on Christianity lifted in the 19th century, and some hidden Christians came out of hiding and rejoined the Catholic church.
But there's an aspect of the Japanese church that is still hidden. You see it in the Christians who go to church on Sunday, but don't let their coworkers know they are Christian. Or it's in the many Japanese people who are waiting for a family member to die before they will get baptized.
Today, I had lunch with a young guy who recently became a Christian while he was studying abroad in Illinois. He's been back in Japan for a little more than a year now, and the adjustment has been difficult for him at times.
For awhile, I've been in something of an intense discussion with him. He decided several months ago that evangelism of any sort wasn't people's work, but God's work. He had decided it was just fine to let people be. Recently that view of his was developing even further, and he had decided from the tower of Babel story that diversity was something that needed to be defended. I am a fan of diversity, except when it goes so far as to say that all religions are equally true and should be "tolerated" in the sense of never saying "I think you're wrong" to another person. The center of our discussion has been that I believe that some things are True. And when something is True, it is worth defending to other people--especially when the Truth in question is Jesus, and a treasure of a Kingdom of God that is worth trading our entire life for.
For a couple months, we have been going around in circles with this discussion. And I couldn't quite figure out why. For whatever reason, my argument of, "This is worth standing up for because it is True", just doesn't seem to hold water when I pull it out here.
Last night I had a conversation with a friend until nearly 5am. We finished by saying, "Well...maybe we didn't solve any of Japan or the world's problems, but we discussed them all!" But there was an immediate fruit to our conversation, because we had been talking about the problem of hiding and isolation in Japan. So, this time when I came back to the discussion with this guy, that was fresh in my mind, and I explained to him that I saw Japan as a country of hiding Christians, and that it wasn't what God intended for us here.
The response was instantaneous. I was shocked at how quickly it framed his entire situation...not from my perspective, but from his. He was instantly able to summarize it as him pulling back. And then we had a super productive conversation about why he feels like hiding, how one fights the desire to hide, how one deals with reaching out when Satan is throwing condemnation after condemnation. It's amazing how changing a lens changes everything...we've been struggling all these weeks with questions of "If God doesn't need me, why should I do anything?" and "Is there even really just one truth in the first place?"...I would have thought those were central issues. Apparently they were not the core.
It's something I've been realizing more and more...sometimes the greatest faith is in leaving action alone and offering up a prayer. But very often, our prayers are weak because we are praying for God to do things that we could do ourselves, but are not willing to. "God...please heal this person, but don't ask me to spend time with them." "God...please reveal yourself to my unsaved friend, but don't make me ruin our relationship by speaking Your truth to them!" "God...please save our country...but don't give me an active role in Your work!" "God...please take care of hungry people...but don't make me give more than 10% of my income!" Our actions make our prayers hypocritical. We should pray with all our heart...we must offer the situations around us up in prayer...but if we believe that God will answer, that should create freedom and love that will propel us to act.
More on this later. I have several thousand ramifications I'm still thinking through.
Understanding the current spiritual climate in Japan requires understanding the history.
The tactic of the shogunate for determining whether people were Christian or not during the persecutions was very simple. They made whole villages come to the temples and then they brought out a round disk they called a "fumie". It had an image of either Jesus or Mary on it, and the people were forced to stamp on the image. If a person refused to tread on it, they were killed. Through this and other persecutions, the church became invisible very quickly.
Japanese Christians became very adept at hiding. There is a museum in Tokyo that is a whole collection of artifacts made by these Christians. There are many items with cleverly hidden crosses, images of Mary made to look like Buddhist images, and other ways that the Christians found ways to represent their faith so that they could practice without anyone knowing what they were doing. There's a fairly detailed website here with a picture presentation if you are interested in more about the Japanese hidden Christians.
The bans on Christianity lifted in the 19th century, and some hidden Christians came out of hiding and rejoined the Catholic church.
But there's an aspect of the Japanese church that is still hidden. You see it in the Christians who go to church on Sunday, but don't let their coworkers know they are Christian. Or it's in the many Japanese people who are waiting for a family member to die before they will get baptized.
Today, I had lunch with a young guy who recently became a Christian while he was studying abroad in Illinois. He's been back in Japan for a little more than a year now, and the adjustment has been difficult for him at times.
For awhile, I've been in something of an intense discussion with him. He decided several months ago that evangelism of any sort wasn't people's work, but God's work. He had decided it was just fine to let people be. Recently that view of his was developing even further, and he had decided from the tower of Babel story that diversity was something that needed to be defended. I am a fan of diversity, except when it goes so far as to say that all religions are equally true and should be "tolerated" in the sense of never saying "I think you're wrong" to another person. The center of our discussion has been that I believe that some things are True. And when something is True, it is worth defending to other people--especially when the Truth in question is Jesus, and a treasure of a Kingdom of God that is worth trading our entire life for.
For a couple months, we have been going around in circles with this discussion. And I couldn't quite figure out why. For whatever reason, my argument of, "This is worth standing up for because it is True", just doesn't seem to hold water when I pull it out here.
Last night I had a conversation with a friend until nearly 5am. We finished by saying, "Well...maybe we didn't solve any of Japan or the world's problems, but we discussed them all!" But there was an immediate fruit to our conversation, because we had been talking about the problem of hiding and isolation in Japan. So, this time when I came back to the discussion with this guy, that was fresh in my mind, and I explained to him that I saw Japan as a country of hiding Christians, and that it wasn't what God intended for us here.
The response was instantaneous. I was shocked at how quickly it framed his entire situation...not from my perspective, but from his. He was instantly able to summarize it as him pulling back. And then we had a super productive conversation about why he feels like hiding, how one fights the desire to hide, how one deals with reaching out when Satan is throwing condemnation after condemnation. It's amazing how changing a lens changes everything...we've been struggling all these weeks with questions of "If God doesn't need me, why should I do anything?" and "Is there even really just one truth in the first place?"...I would have thought those were central issues. Apparently they were not the core.
It's something I've been realizing more and more...sometimes the greatest faith is in leaving action alone and offering up a prayer. But very often, our prayers are weak because we are praying for God to do things that we could do ourselves, but are not willing to. "God...please heal this person, but don't ask me to spend time with them." "God...please reveal yourself to my unsaved friend, but don't make me ruin our relationship by speaking Your truth to them!" "God...please save our country...but don't give me an active role in Your work!" "God...please take care of hungry people...but don't make me give more than 10% of my income!" Our actions make our prayers hypocritical. We should pray with all our heart...we must offer the situations around us up in prayer...but if we believe that God will answer, that should create freedom and love that will propel us to act.
More on this later. I have several thousand ramifications I'm still thinking through.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Gathering Artists and Missionaries All
This last Friday, a had a lot of friends over to my apartment. My birthday was back in June, and this weekend people had some time, and so my friends informed me that they would be descending upon my apartment en mass. The problem with getting together with my missionary friends is always that all of us teach English until late in the evening. I get home around 10pm on Fridays. But, undeterred by such obstacles, they kept arriving in waves until we had six of us in my apartment, the last one arriving after 11:00 sometime. And then we had a wonderful time playing Apples to Apples and finally went to bed with the sun around 4:30 in the morning.
It was a really lovely time. We don't get together very often at all just to hang out.
My friends also went against my request that they not get me anything...I tried to tell them all I wanted was for them to come over and play board games, but Jenae arrived with a guitar case on her back, and after I got over my initial incredibly gullible and naive thoughts of, "Woah...did Jenae start playing guitar?!" and realized there was a ribbon on the back of it, I decided I was really glad they had gone against my request. They had all gone together on one really awesome gift.
My old guitar case is the one that came with my guitar...I recently had to sew about a foot and a half long tear in the side of the case that was just from me walking around with it, and the pocket in front has had a tear that has made it unable to hold anything since about my second week with the case. My old case is also no good for carrying a guitar while riding a bicycle, which is a necessary skill for my existence. Since it wasn't a backpack case, I would swing the shoulder strap over one shoulder and slip my other arm through one of the handles and bumble along that way, usually knocking my guitar into various posts and things that I am much more skilled at navigating around when I don't have a guitar swinging off my back.
So, Jenae arrived with a brand new backpack guitar case with all sorts of interesting pockets. It has little pockets in the backpack straps, one of which even has a little hole so you can put your ipod inside and then pull the ear buds out and listen as you walk. In fact, upon further inspection the following day, I am pretty sure that I can put everything that really matters to me inside the case. Which is to say, there is room for my song book, a notebook, my Bible and maybe one more book, space for guitar picks and my capo, and the nice little ipod slot. There is a strap at the top that one friend suggested might be for an extra bag, and if I could find some way to attach an extra pair of clothes, brush, hairbrush, soap and little bottles of shampoo and laundry detergent, I think, as I told my friends, that I could go completely gypsy. Then they were a little worried about having given me the guitar case. But I am overjoyed with it! It was so easy to ride my bicycle to church on Sunday, and I didn't clunk my guitar into anything.
People left a couple at a time in the morning until there were three of us left, and then the guitar came out. I had promised some of them I would play a song for them that I had written. I wrote the song quite a while ago...or, at least several months ago, but I've been really shy about sharing it. Then, a couple Sundays ago, I was playing guitar while other people were milling around and talking after church, and I played my song...it's no problem to play it if no one knows it's mine. ;-) But a 12 year old ran and found someone to translate for her to let me know that she thought I should send in a demo tape because a music company would surely accept it. Now, I am very aware that what she said is not true in the slightest...but I figure that if a 12 year old thinks my song could be on the radio, it is maybe safe to share it and put my name on it.
The danger isn't even that people won't like it...though that would be sad too. But I've realized when people create something, it's not just like putting together a model airplane or making a stack of blocks (no offense to anyone who does those things in a truly artistic way), but it's like taking a small sampling of their own soul and putting it down on paper. You choose words that mean something real to you, and make a melody that flows out of somewhere so deep inside you you don't know how you even got to it, and whether it's profound or beautiful or deep or sad or joyful or simple, it's a sliver of you at the deepest level. It's not about skill, it's about beauty. As such, the greatest danger is that people will hear and be indifferent.
Some of the most beautiful music I have ever known was from a small congregation in Honduras. It was my first time in a foreign country, and I will never forget the shock of this six person church that sang with the strength of six hundred. Every note was wrong, but sung with the confidence of Pavarotti. And when I thought the song was finished (they had sung all the verses) they often continued on, either repeating a verse or adding a new verse they all knew that wasn't in the hymnal. That to me is beauty.
I wasn't the only one sharing music on Saturday, but my friend Kat had also written a song. After she heard mine, she tried to get out of playing hers. But we dragged her over to Hongo to use the piano and she shared her songs with us. After she was done playing, I was really glad I'd gotten to play first, because I thought hers were a whole lot better than mine! But the comparison is just anxiety. What is really amazing about the whole thing is hearing the music someone else has written and getting to see a little bit more of that deepest part of them which has dared to put itself on paper.
Amber was the third friend still with me in the afternoon, and she is also an artist. In addition to her painting, Amber's had the idea for a long time of putting together a liturgy written entirely by our group of missionaries. This might sound like a nice, normal idea after you've read this entry and assumed that we have original music coming out our ears or something, but when she came up with the idea, to my knowledge, only one member of the community had written music before and she wasn't even living in Tokyo. I didn't start writing music because of Amber's idea...I started because of the new, strange urge to do so. But it all kind of fits in with this vision that Amber has.
I shared my music in two ways on Saturday, and the second was almost scarier than the first. I had another song that was a simple two line melody. No words. But somehow about the deepest love song to God that was inside of me. I've been searching for words for it for more than a month now with no success. I would find some Bible verse that fit the meaning, but not the rhythm. And so, with Amber thrilled about the liturgy coming together, I offered up the two lines and asked her if she had an idea for words.
We finally ended up with some that were perfect: "Falling at Your feet I worship You, I'm giving everything to You." And that is it...the whole song. But it seemed fitting...I couldn't finish it alone.
I think about the verse, "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
Worship is a blend of beauty...it's an offering of the beauty that we have. In community, that means we give over ownership of the beauty that we see. And our beauty becomes blended with the beauty of another person.
It was a really lovely time. We don't get together very often at all just to hang out.
My friends also went against my request that they not get me anything...I tried to tell them all I wanted was for them to come over and play board games, but Jenae arrived with a guitar case on her back, and after I got over my initial incredibly gullible and naive thoughts of, "Woah...did Jenae start playing guitar?!" and realized there was a ribbon on the back of it, I decided I was really glad they had gone against my request. They had all gone together on one really awesome gift.
My old guitar case is the one that came with my guitar...I recently had to sew about a foot and a half long tear in the side of the case that was just from me walking around with it, and the pocket in front has had a tear that has made it unable to hold anything since about my second week with the case. My old case is also no good for carrying a guitar while riding a bicycle, which is a necessary skill for my existence. Since it wasn't a backpack case, I would swing the shoulder strap over one shoulder and slip my other arm through one of the handles and bumble along that way, usually knocking my guitar into various posts and things that I am much more skilled at navigating around when I don't have a guitar swinging off my back.
So, Jenae arrived with a brand new backpack guitar case with all sorts of interesting pockets. It has little pockets in the backpack straps, one of which even has a little hole so you can put your ipod inside and then pull the ear buds out and listen as you walk. In fact, upon further inspection the following day, I am pretty sure that I can put everything that really matters to me inside the case. Which is to say, there is room for my song book, a notebook, my Bible and maybe one more book, space for guitar picks and my capo, and the nice little ipod slot. There is a strap at the top that one friend suggested might be for an extra bag, and if I could find some way to attach an extra pair of clothes, brush, hairbrush, soap and little bottles of shampoo and laundry detergent, I think, as I told my friends, that I could go completely gypsy. Then they were a little worried about having given me the guitar case. But I am overjoyed with it! It was so easy to ride my bicycle to church on Sunday, and I didn't clunk my guitar into anything.
People left a couple at a time in the morning until there were three of us left, and then the guitar came out. I had promised some of them I would play a song for them that I had written. I wrote the song quite a while ago...or, at least several months ago, but I've been really shy about sharing it. Then, a couple Sundays ago, I was playing guitar while other people were milling around and talking after church, and I played my song...it's no problem to play it if no one knows it's mine. ;-) But a 12 year old ran and found someone to translate for her to let me know that she thought I should send in a demo tape because a music company would surely accept it. Now, I am very aware that what she said is not true in the slightest...but I figure that if a 12 year old thinks my song could be on the radio, it is maybe safe to share it and put my name on it.
The danger isn't even that people won't like it...though that would be sad too. But I've realized when people create something, it's not just like putting together a model airplane or making a stack of blocks (no offense to anyone who does those things in a truly artistic way), but it's like taking a small sampling of their own soul and putting it down on paper. You choose words that mean something real to you, and make a melody that flows out of somewhere so deep inside you you don't know how you even got to it, and whether it's profound or beautiful or deep or sad or joyful or simple, it's a sliver of you at the deepest level. It's not about skill, it's about beauty. As such, the greatest danger is that people will hear and be indifferent.
Some of the most beautiful music I have ever known was from a small congregation in Honduras. It was my first time in a foreign country, and I will never forget the shock of this six person church that sang with the strength of six hundred. Every note was wrong, but sung with the confidence of Pavarotti. And when I thought the song was finished (they had sung all the verses) they often continued on, either repeating a verse or adding a new verse they all knew that wasn't in the hymnal. That to me is beauty.
I wasn't the only one sharing music on Saturday, but my friend Kat had also written a song. After she heard mine, she tried to get out of playing hers. But we dragged her over to Hongo to use the piano and she shared her songs with us. After she was done playing, I was really glad I'd gotten to play first, because I thought hers were a whole lot better than mine! But the comparison is just anxiety. What is really amazing about the whole thing is hearing the music someone else has written and getting to see a little bit more of that deepest part of them which has dared to put itself on paper.
Amber was the third friend still with me in the afternoon, and she is also an artist. In addition to her painting, Amber's had the idea for a long time of putting together a liturgy written entirely by our group of missionaries. This might sound like a nice, normal idea after you've read this entry and assumed that we have original music coming out our ears or something, but when she came up with the idea, to my knowledge, only one member of the community had written music before and she wasn't even living in Tokyo. I didn't start writing music because of Amber's idea...I started because of the new, strange urge to do so. But it all kind of fits in with this vision that Amber has.
I shared my music in two ways on Saturday, and the second was almost scarier than the first. I had another song that was a simple two line melody. No words. But somehow about the deepest love song to God that was inside of me. I've been searching for words for it for more than a month now with no success. I would find some Bible verse that fit the meaning, but not the rhythm. And so, with Amber thrilled about the liturgy coming together, I offered up the two lines and asked her if she had an idea for words.
We finally ended up with some that were perfect: "Falling at Your feet I worship You, I'm giving everything to You." And that is it...the whole song. But it seemed fitting...I couldn't finish it alone.
I think about the verse, "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
Worship is a blend of beauty...it's an offering of the beauty that we have. In community, that means we give over ownership of the beauty that we see. And our beauty becomes blended with the beauty of another person.
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