Japanese technology

Japan is famous for its technology, but there are 3 things that I am particularly looking forward to trying out.


Toilets - Apparently, Japanese toilets are amazing! You can choose the temperature of the seat, and sometimes you can choose sounds to use as white noise. If you want to be really clean, you can choose the temperature of the water and the temperature of the air that dries you off. All of this to create the most pleasant bathroom experience imaginable.


Vending Machines - More specifically, the vending machines for alcohol. Apparently, the machine scans your head and determines whether or not you are old enough to purchase alcohol. But I am betting the design is based on Japanese characteristics. Japanese typically have fairly large heads. My head is tiny. I can't wait to see if I'm "old enough" to buy alcohol from a Japanese vending machine!


GPS - I hear that you can choose not just what language, but also what accent. Australian English, British English, Southern US English... My Japanese instructor had hers set to Japanese but had to switch it to English because the Japanese was too vague. I imagine it's afraid of offending the driver. So if it's that accurate, then does the Southern US English say "Bless your heart!" when you fail to make a turn? Do they have Brooklyn English ("Do I have "Information" on my forehead?!?!")? How about Seattle English (gives directions to the closest latte)? Is the British English very proper? Or is it cockney? I'll need to try them all!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Where is the compassion?

In a recent post, I quoted John Stott’s description of sin as self-centeredness. “For God’s two great commandments are first that we love him with all our being and secondly that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves. Sin, then, is the reversal of this order. To put ourselves first, virtually proclaiming our own autonomy, our neighbour next when it suits our convenience, and God somewhere in the background.” This quote was the latest link in a chain of comments I’ve seen in the last year that basically put self-centeredness at the core of so many issues. For example, a year ago, when studying the concept of humility, I read something by CS Lewis saying that humility is not to think less of yourself than you are, but basically not to think about yourself at all – that is, selflessness. And I’ve read things by John Stott, CS Lewis, and others all noting the importance of selflessness in showing love to others.

In recent weeks, I’ve read a string of absolutely horrifying accounts of people turning their back on someone in great and immediate need, people completely lacking compassion. First, there was the toddler in China who was run over by TWO trucks in the presence of witnesses, and nobody came to the child’s aid. I saw some argument about how police there can be lazy and declare whoever is close by to be guilty, so people were afraid. But it was a toddler! Better to face injustice in this world than to lose your soul.

Soon after reading about the toddler in China, there was a (very fast) conviction in the Lululemon murder. Apparently, employees of the store next door heard the murder happening, heard the woman calling out for help, and turned away and went back to work. Why? Because they thought it could just be a drama. ARGH!! Who cares if it is a drama?! If it turns out the store employees have a tv that they’re watching, they’ll learn to turn down the volume to a reasonable level when you or the police come to check it out. A woman might have survived if only people hadn’t turned their backs.

And sadly, no list of horrifying selfishness and/or total willingness to ignore what’s going on in front of you would be complete without Penn State.  How many people’s lives were destroyed because a whole string of Penn State employees chose to ignore an eye-witness account (much less the previous investigation) and simply decided to say it shouldn’t happen on their campus? They told a predator to go elsewhere. Nobody bothered to find the child and make sure he got help. Nobody called the police to report a violent crime. 

Unfortunately, such stories aren’t really new. If they were, we wouldn’t have the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Levite and a priest both avoided the man in distress. - It could be a trap!  They could be defiled and have to go through a week of purification! – Instead, it’s the Samaritan who shows love and compassion to the man, risking danger and using his resources to respond to a need.

Of course, all of these examples are horrifying in their seriousness, but there are little ways that we turn our backs on people every day. Granted, we can’t respond to every need, but there are many times where a kind word, bringing a meal to a sick friend, or lending an ear to a person in the midst of a trial makes a world of difference in a person’s life. What a different world this would be if people spent less time thinking about themselves and more time thinking about others.

In the middle of all of the immoral and callous actions I’ve read about recently in the press, I did read one thing that made me proud. Recently, a girl at my old high school was stabbed repeatedly in the chest and neck by a fellow (mentally unstable) student. She survived because of the immediate actions of her fellow students to subdue the attacker and staunch the bleeding and the quick thinking of medical personnel. That’s one life that did not end, one family that was not devastated, and an entire school that does not have to hang its head in shame.  They can be proud, because they did not turn their back on a person in need or waste precious moments thinking about their personal safety. They showed love and compassion to a person in need. Praise God for these “Good Samaritans”.

Musicals!

The last 12 months have been The Year of the Musical for me. I saw The Lion King on Broadway last December, Wicked at the Kennedy Center for my birthday, and last weekend I went to see Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center. I think Les Mis was the first musical I ever saw in person. They're doing a 25th anniversary tour, so I took advantage of the opportunity to see it for the third time. I'm sure my neighbors are all thrilled that I did, since I've been spending a lot of time wandering around my place singing bits of songs at the top of my lungs - connecting random lines, since I never seem to remember an entire verse intact, and switching keys as necessary to get the song within my vocal range (especially since my favorite songs are not for 1st soprano).


If you want to revel in the moment with me (or have been living under a rock for the last 25 years and don't know any Les Mis songs), here is my favorite - "On My Own", as sung at the 25th Anniversary concert. Just for fun, you can also watch Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel sing a bit of "Confrontation" (including the really, really low note!) and Idina Menzel (Wicked!) and Lea Michelle sing "I Dreamed a Dream". And then you can join me in wandering around singing Les Mis songs to the great joy of all the neighbors!

You are here

I go to FSI (aka: the National Foreign Affairs Training Center) about twice a month for Japanese Area Studies, where we get a little culture, a little history, a little current events. I think it's really interesting. When I was there last week, I noticed the site maps that have been placed around the campus. I loved them so much, I had to take a picture. 

Isn't it great! A site map that's blank. I love it! There are several ways I can think to interpret this. 1) Stating the obvious. "You are here." Why yes, I am. 2) Some sort of existential/philosophical interpretation. Am I really here? Where is here? Who am I? 3) A blank slate representing the no-man's land in which those of us at FSI exist - having left one assignment, but not yet at the next assignment. 4) They haven't gotten around to putting the maps on there yet.


I think I'm hoping for #1. Or maybe #2. 


Right next to this particular sign was a rather good coyote statue. I believe they're supposed to scare away the geese. This led an Air Force friend to joke that they (the Air Force) just have the Marines take care of the geese. And that led to all sorts of images in my head of 19-year old Marines with big guns and flame throwers and the like going after a field full of geese. Which is probably evidence of how burned out I was getting and why I decided that I needed to take most of this 3-day weekend to NOT study. I know; I'm a rebel. But I really do feel so much more energized now. I think I may actually manage to shove some more Japanese words into my head before the weekend's over! Assuming that I am here, that is.

My connections with Famous Authors

I am very excited for two lovely ladies who are about to have books published! 

The first Famous Author is my dear friend from Brazil, Jenny Spinola.  She’s an American from the small Virginia town where my mom now lives who met her Brazilian husband while she was a missionary in Japan.  (Three hemispheres!  One family!)  We met at the International Baptist church in Brasilia.  Recently Barbour Books picked up three of her books.  The first one, Southern Fried Sushi, will be released this coming Saturday.  Woohoo!  The book has been getting some lovely reviews.  The second in the series will be released in just 6 months.  So everybody rush to your nearest bookstore, computer or kindle and buy it!

The second Famous Author is Katy Pistole.  I don’t technically know Katy, but her mother was my mentor in the CS Lewis Fellows program last year and is one of the sweetest ladies I know, so I’m sure Katy is wonderful!  She has already published a series of four children’s books, but last night she won the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Genesis Award for Contemporary Fiction.  So her first book for adults will be published soon!

Congratulations, Jenny and Katy!

In memoriam

Today I remember a beautiful clear day 10 years ago. A day just like any day, when I rode the bus to the Pentagon, transferred to the metro, and arrived at my office just across the river.

I remember my office-mate receiving a phone call from a friend saying that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We found a little radio and started listening to the news. The correspondent at the Pentagon reported that the entire building just shook, and he thought a bomb had gone off. 

Rumors of another plane. It’s heading for the White House, just up the street, where a number of my friends are working. Or it’s heading for Congress, just up the street the other direction, where more of my friends are working. 

I wake up my Dad in Hawaii so that he will know I’m okay. I can’t get a hold of my Mom, because she’s in training, but I leave a message. Cell phones aren’t always working because everybody is calling loved ones to make sure they’re okay. 

We’re told to go home. But my route home is through the Pentagon. No metro. No bus. Four of us decide to walk to the closest person’s apartment. We walk across the 14^th Street Bridge, past a smoking Pentagon and tons of emergency response people. We walk through the Pentagon City neighborhood, where we meet some Air Force officers who had been just down the hall from where the plane hit. They were looking for a sports bar where they could get a drink and watch the news. 

We arrive at the apartment and watch the news. All day. Trying to figure out what is going on. Being told that nobody is allowed to drive on the streets unless it’s an emergency. After dark, the roads are opened, and we are able to go home.

I remember generosity and kindness in a city known for neither of those things. I remember people passing out lemonade to the thousands of people walking to their homes. I remember patriotism. The tons of American flags flying on cars, at homes and office buildings for months afterwards. Songs like “God Bless the USA” and “Bring on the Rain” playing on the radio. 

I remember our pastor that Sunday speaking about the problem of evil in the world, and the sermon given by an incredibly gifted young intern – just as his grandfather had preached the Sunday after Pearl Harbor. I remember the many people asking for prayer for friends and family in New York or who worked at the Pentagon. The man crying because his small children couldn’t understand why their friends were never coming back to the day care. 

I remember anxiously watching planes fly across the sky for months afterwards. Riding a silent train through an eerily closed Pentagon metro station.

I remember all of the jokes about having to go shopping to keep the economy running, “or else the terrorists win!”

I remember the debris at the Pentagon being removed and a new clean wall rising up, with the American flag flying above it.

I remember a beautiful clear day a year later, exactly the same as the year before. Dawning in a world that was never the same.

Life in language training

It’s been an interesting few weeks. We’ve had an earthquake, a hurricane and now floods. I’ve discovered that my cat freaks out and runs behind the sofa when there’s an earthquake and won’t come out for an hour afterwards. I have a little pile of things to superglue as a result of the earthquake. And after this week of continual torrential downpours, I’ve been thankful that I live on the third floor of my building.

My life is currently dominated by studying Japanese. It’s pretty much all I do. A lovely friend gave me the opportunity to go to the beach in North Carolina over Labor Day weekend. It was beautiful and relaxing and occasionally a fascinating (Southern) cultural experience! And I flipped through flash cards on the beach. I’m pretty much always studying Japanese. I have class 5 days per week, 5 hours per day, one on one. And then there are the hours and hours of studying outside of class. I have been in class for 4 weeks and completed 6 chapters in the book. I think you learn a lot about a culture when you study the language. In Japanese, I’ve learned that there is no distinction between singular and plural or between the present and the future. I’ve learned that pronunciations imported 1,600 years ago are still considered “imports”. I’ve learned that stroke order (the process of drawing kanji – the imported Chinese characters – knowing which line is drawn when and in what direction you move the pencil/brush) is very important. I’ve also discovered that, when under pressure, the only foreign language that pops into my head is Portuguese. I start Japanese Area Studies next week (1 full day about every 2 weeks for 10 months). That should be really interesting.

When taking a break from Japanese, I’ve been reading John Stott’s book “The Contemporary Christian”. I’m only part way through it, but I would highly recommend it. I’ve underlined a lot, but I have two favorite quotes so far. For one, his definition of sin strikes right to the core: “…what the Bible means by ‘sin’ is primarily self-centredness. For God’s two great commandments are first that we love him with all our being and secondly that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves. Sin, then, is the reversal of this order. It is to put ourselves first, virtually proclaiming our own autonomy, our neighbour next when it suits our convenience, and God somewhere in the background.” 

My other favorite quote was his succinct and eloquent discussion of how we find our humanness in relationships of love: “True love, however, places constraints on the lover, for love is essentially self-giving. And this brings us to a startling Christian paradox. True freedom is freedom to be my true self, as God made me and meant me to be.  And God made me for loving. But loving is giving, self-giving. Therefore, in order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself. In order to be free, I have to serve. In order to live, I have to die to my own self-centredness. In order to find myself, I have to lose myself in loving.”

In other thoughts… Over the summer, I posted links to several commencement speeches where the speaker talks about failure and how it’s okay if our dreams fail. I think those talks spoke to me, because I think we are often defined not by how we live in supposed perfection but by how we face difficulty and failure – or the risk of failure. Some of the darkest moments in my life have been turning points that have grown me as a person, and specifically as a person of faith. Some of the biggest moments of risk in my career have turned into wonderful opportunities and fascinating experiences. To act out of fear – of failure or of pain – is to withdraw from life. To take a step of faith, to follow where God leads, to trust in His goodness, to take what the world might call a great risk, is to experience the wonder of God and His creation. The process may be terrifying, but when you stand at the other end and look back, you see an abundance of reasons for praise.

Finally, adding to my current trend of including fun or interesting links:

Here is an article about how God is good – ALL the time – including singleness (as the author was at the time). I think it's both amusing and encouraging.

I think this video on “Wrong Worship” is hilarious.  And maybe just a little convicting.

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

A few weeks ago, I had my last day in my old job, and after a wonderful week of vacation, I started long-term Japanese language training. It’s fun to learn a new language in that it is interesting and quite the sense of accomplishment when you learn anything at all. But it is also exhausting and mind numbing for people like me who are not gifted at it. I spend 5 hours every day in class one-on-one. After about 2 hours, I start getting tired, and the Portuguese begins mixing with the Japanese. At 2pm I head home (yeah!), and then study for several hours (meh). The priority for week #1 was to learn one of the alphabets (hiragana). There’s another alphabet and kanji (Chinese characters) still to go. Half the time I’m thinking that this is interesting, and I’m blessed to have this opportunity, and half the time I’m thinking ARGH WHAT AM I DOING? The cat, on the other hand, is quite pleased with this new schedule, as it has me sitting quietly at home much more than I would be if I were in an office. But if anybody wants to meet up for coffee some afternoon, I would welcome the excuse for a study break!

In the realm of “interesting tidbits”:

After sharing 2 commencement addresses in my last post, I found this one by JK Rowling that is really good too. She also spends a good part of her speech saying that failure is really hard, but it can also be a wonderful opportunity.

I also recommend this blog post regarding a recent ministry at a church I was a member of for 10 years. It discusses just one way to create a structure for people of different demographics (namely married and single) to get to know each other, thereby creating community. It’s so easy for us to just spend time with people in a similar stage of life as us, but we lose so much if we do that. Some of the greatest blessings in my life are my friends who are married with children. I know it is easier for them to get together with other couples with children – people they currently have more in common with, where a play-date for their kids is built in. But mixing married-with-children, married-without-children, older singles, and younger singles is what makes church family, enriching everybody’s lives. It takes effort to do that. I know I am helped by putting something on my calendar – something that isn’t a large room full of people I don’t know, but a much more manageable group. And before I get all of the “do YOU reach out to others?” questions... Yes, but I don’t do it as much as I should. Fairly often, I ask myself what effort I’ve made lately, and I start inviting people to coffee or over to my place to play games or bake cookies. The problem for an introvert like me is knowing people to invite over, which is where dinners, community Bible studies or the like are so helpful.

I'm afraid that's all I have this time. I guess I've been taking seriously the idea of "the lazy days of summer". Enjoy the final weeks of summer!

June Update

I’ve fallen down on the blogging thing this month, and since there hasn’t been anything particularly blog-worthy, I’ve decided to do one post with a bunch of random things. Consider this as your introduction to the kind of overview posts that I’ll likely do when I’m in Japan.

I ended May with a trip out to Oregon for my Grandmother’s funeral. The positive side - I saw relatives that I probably haven’t seen in at least 20 years and some college marching band friends that I haven’t seen in 10-15 years.

June began with the end of my year in the CS Lewis Institute’s fellowship program. That year was a great blessing to me, and I am thrilled that our group intends to keep meeting once a month. 

The cat got a microchip – stage 1 of The Master Plan to get her into Japan without having to spend time in quarantine.

My office moved from one end of our very large building to the other end. It is what it is, and since I go into language training in just over a month, I don’t really have strong feelings about it.

I went to see Wicked, which was totally awesome and probably one of the best musicals I’ve seen. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it. Right now. Or at the very least, watch Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth sing “Defying Gravity” at the Tony Awards. But that’s really not sufficient… Just go see it. Not only are the music and the sets incredible, but the story – a completely different perspective on The Wizard of Oz, showing you that nothing was truly as it seemed – is really intriguing. 

Something interesting from this month – watching commencement speeches. I watched the speeches given by Conan O’Brien at Dartmouth and Stephen Colbert at Northwestern. What I found particularly interesting was that both men didn’t do the traditional “follow your dreams” talk, but rather both basically said that it’s okay if your dreams change, and that “failing” at your current dream can actually be a really great opportunity. Personally, I find that to be both pretty accurate and an interesting reflection on how American society has changed in recent decades.

And finally… Tomorrow is my birthday, when I will turn 29 (for the 9^th time). Being a summer birthday, I found it rather disconcerting the first time I realized that people work on my birthday. Isn’t it like a national holiday or something? No? Oh well. The older I get, the more it becomes like any other day – where the “specialness” of the day largely depends on what I make of it.  But that’s good, because that means I can create all sorts of “days of fun” and justify them all in the name of my birthday (as long as they fall within an acceptable date range). This is a good opportunity to reflect on the blessings of the past year and embrace the coming year – a year when I will be fully occupied preparing to move to Tokyo. Can't wait to see what happens!

Memories of a lady

My grandmother passed away this evening.  While I’m thankful that she lived a good, long life and went before the Alzheimer’s got really horrible, and while I know that I’ve been slowly losing her for years, I mostly just miss her right now.   

She was the grandparent I was closest too. The one I saw multiple times per month growing up and every spring break in college. She was steady and strong-willed, in a petite little package. Feisty, in the best sense of the word. I went to college in part because of her absolute determination that her children and grandchildren should have the opportunity that she and her husband did not. Those memories of me playing a superhero were in her home on Mercer Island. I can see her reading on her chaise lounge or puttering around taking care of her plants. Her parents divorced when she was a child – a rarity in those days – so she understood me in ways that other grandparents could not. Over the years, I made her spend hours telling me stories about her life and showing me her old photo album. We would get to the two pages covered in wallet-sized photos of young men, and she would sweep her hand over the pages and say “and these were my boyfriends”. Flip. (GRANDMA!) 

I loved that she could laugh at herself – like when grandpa would tease her saying that she was getting so jumpy as she got older that he couldn’t walk up the stairs without things flying by his head. I loved how she took care of my cat for me, just like her grandmother took care of her cat once. Every time I talked to her, she’d tell me the cat bit her that day, but I think she was relieved that I didn’t ask for the cat back when I graduated from college. I loved how she got on the plane to come visit me in DC grousing about the trip and how old she was, but by the time she was part way up the Capital South metro escalator, she was WALKING up the escalator with her head turning left and right like it was on a pendulum. 

I will miss her.

What is that to you?

When I was in high school, I didn’t have a plan for my life per se, but I did have an idea of a good scenario – namely, go to college, work for about 5 years, then be married for a few years before beginning to have 2 or 3 children. The only thing that went according to that scenario was college. The older I get, the more it appears that I may never have a husband and children. There are more Christian women than men, so statistically speaking, a good number of women are never going to be married. All of the single Christian men I know who are around my age are getting married to girls 10(ish) years younger than me. Men who appear interested in me either lose interest when they learn what my job is or are nearer in age to my parents than to me (a line I’m not willing to cross at this time). 

Do I doubt that I am where God would have me? No. Do I doubt that where God wants me is the best place? No.Can I look at my life and see numerous ways in which I have been blessed beyond measure? Absolutely. Should I turn away from what I believe God is calling me to do right now and put my life into a holding pattern in the hopes of getting a man to love me? What a waste of my life that would be.

When Jesus appeared to a few of the disciples after the resurrection and told Peter that he would die a martyr’s death, Peter looked back at John and asked “what about him?” Jesus’ reply was, “what is that to you? You must follow me.”

I suspect that often my dissatisfaction with singleness is because I look around at apparently happily married couples with several children and wonder why I haven’t been given that. But, at least for today, that is their calling, not mine. I spend too much time looking around rather than looking up. Over and over again, God has had to ask me “What is that to you?”

There’s always something to be discontent about. If I was married, who’s to say that I wouldn’t struggle with infertility? If I had children, who’s to say that they would be perfect healthy little angels? We all have our struggles, some more visible than others. We have to fight discontentment. We have to actively choose joy, choose to trust God and rest in His peace.

A few years ago, I tried to go see Macchu Picchu. The problem is that, in order to go to Macchu Picchu, you have to go to Cuzco. People with asthma are strongly advised against going over 10,000 feet. Cuzco is at 11,000 feet. I’m stubborn. God is stronger than my stubbornness. Everything that could possibly go wrong (safely) with my trip did. After 48 hours of travel, I never even made it to Peru. I only got as far as the airport in Santiago, Chile. I travelled across a continent and got a blueberry muffin. But I never saw Macchu Picchu. Maybe it would have been a bad idea for me to go to Cuzco.

There are several times in the Chronicles of Narnia where Aslan tells one of the children that it is not for us to know what would have been if… But I look back at how I’ve grown over the years and I think maybe it was good that I didn’t get married when I was younger. And even though I still want to be married and to have children, I must choose to live in the present, to follow the path that God has laid before me, to fix my eyes on Him instead of looking around me and asking “but what about her?” For what is that to me? I must follow Him.

Please don't call me

One of the less exciting aspects of being a Foreign Service officer is when you serve as duty officer. Those are the weeks when all the after-hours “emergency” phone calls go directly to you. If an American gets arrested during non-business hours, you make sure they are treated no worse than anybody else in that jail. If an American dies, you try to track down next of kin. If an American is mugged, you help them contact family to wire them money. It’s an important and necessary job. But I would spend those weeks praying that I wouldn’t get a phone call, and especially not a phone call in the middle of the night. Or if I did, that I would wake up and answer the phone right away! (One excellent way to get in trouble is for the DCM to get woken up because you didn’t answer the duty phone. Praise God, that never happened to me.)

When I was in Brazil, more often than not, those “emergency” phone calls were not actual emergencies. On the rare occasion when it was a legitimate call, I was lucky enough to have them fall under other consular jurisdictions, so all I had to do was call the duty officer in Rio or Sao Paulo or Recife and pass on the info. Hallelujah! But the majority of my phone calls were not emergencies, and I had to tell the person that we couldn’t help them or to call back during business hours. Tokyo, on the other hand, is a major city that actually gets a fair number of American citizens, so I suspect I will not get off so easily when I am stationed there. In an effort to make my life easier, here are just a few tips to keep in mind before you call up the Embassy after hours if you or a loved one are in Japan sometime between September 2012 and August 2015. (And PLEASE remember the time difference!)

* The fact that you are leaving for the U.S. tomorrow and you just realized that you forgot to get a visa for the nanny is not an emergency. (This obviously only applies to citizens of countries for which we require a visa.)

* The fact that your husband has enrolled your kids in school and declared that you will be staying is not an emergency. (People watch too many movies. The Marines are at the Embassy to protect classified material, not to swoop in on a helicopter to pull your teenagers out of school.)

* The Embassy does not have a fleet of planes waiting to be used by American citizens with various medical conditions.

* The U.S. government does not have a fund to fly friends or family to the bedside of somebody who got the flu/malaria/etc while in a foreign country. (I’ve gotten this one the most. Would you ask the government to fly you to another state? No. Under certain conditions, this would be a “welfare and whereabouts” call, where we would locate the person and make sure they are still living. That's about it.)

* While I don’t encourage people to get their pictures taken with alligators, getting your picture taken with an alligator while you are drunk and in the middle of nowhere is NEVER a good idea.

My secret identity

I’m sure everybody reading this blog knows what a big geek I am, so it should come as no surprise that I love superheroes. One of my clearest memories from childhood is running around my grandparents’ house pretending to be Firestar, working with Spider Man, the Wonder Twins and Ice Man to beat the bad guys. (I was an only child, so to say I had an active imagination might be an understatement.) I was somewhat conflicted in my desire to be a superhero in that I occasionally would get captured (damsel in distress!) and have to be rescued before going back to beating up bad guys. But I loved pretending to be a superhero. I still love superheroes, although I think I've come to love warrior princesses more. I never pretended to be Snow White or Sleeping Beauty (well, except for singing slightly operatic songs around the house), but Princess Leia was awesome, and even now one of my favorite LOTR characters is Lady Eowyn.

I have often daydreamed of being something bigger than myself, preferably with the talent for the awesome and witty one-liners. I LOVE awesome and witty one-liners. I’m sure I’m not the only one, or nobody would have saved the reported response of the Spartan King Leonidas when told that his comparatively tiny army should lay down its arms at Thermopylae – “Come and take them.” Or the Spartan who, when told that the enemy arrows would be so numerous as to block out the sun, said “we shall have our fight in the shade.” Or Maximus, in the movie “Gladiator” – “what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

Don’t we all want to feel like our actions echo through eternity, like what we do makes a difference? You often hear about mothers making such a difference, but I’m not a mother. I would love to be a warrior princess with the awesome one-liners. But without pain. I don’t like pain. And without fear would be good. A little fear is okay, but nothing too serious.

And this is where I acknowledge that my desire to be a witty warrior princess is completely divorced from reality. Because let’s face it, I don’t go to the gym enough or have sufficient hand-eye coordination to ever be a good warrior princess. There was one time I was really in a position to help make the kind of difference that would echo through the years – when I was leading a pastor search in a city where intense spiritual warfare is pretty much the norm (there are groups that pray every week for the destruction of the Christian church in that city). I ended up curled in a ball on my bed crying to God that I can’t do this thing I’ve been set to do and if He wants it done, He’ll have to do it through me and in spite of my many weaknesses. 

But you know what? He did!

That’s the amazing thing about all of this – God is the ultimate “superhero”, who doesn’t just operate outside natural laws in a few areas, but who created all of those natural laws and operates outside all of them. And He chooses to use His people – mere jars of clay – to accomplish great things if we’ll only let Him. 

You can only go forward

Maybe this is incredibly self-absorbed of me, but I always find it to be a bit surreal to leave a job or a home. It always seems odd to me that after the goodbyes are said, I quietly walk away and people go back to living their lives. Life goes on without me, and the role I played in that relationship or organization is filled by somebody else.

Moving on is a part of life, and I can never really go back. I can remember my time there with fondness, but it can never be repeated. I’ve changed; those people have changed; the circumstances have changed. We can get together, relive old memories and catch up on what has happened since then. But our ability to pick up as friends again depends on whether they like and accept the changes in me since our last meeting and vice versa. If I’ve turned into a brat while I’ve been away, no amount of fond memories will entice my old friends to hang out with me again.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in meditating on Psalm 119:3, stated, “With God one does not arrive at a fixed position; rather, one walks along a way. One moves ahead or one is not with God. God knows the whole way; we only know the next step and the final goal. There is no stopping; every day, every hour it goes farther. Whoever sets his foot on this way finds that his life has become a journey on the road. It leads through green pastures and through the dark valley, but the Lord will always lead on the right pathway (Ps. 23) and he will not let your foot be moved (Ps. 121:3).”

Looking at my life, I can say that it definitely feels like a journey. My hope is that I’m always moving forward in the direction that God is leading. My trust is in the understanding that God has a plan and a purpose, that He is working my life into what will one day be a glorious tapestry.

This may seem like a non sequitur, but…  Loving people is risky. You make yourself vulnerable. What makes such a risk possible is the knowledge that God loves me dearly, is always by my side and will never leave me. May I carry this knowledge always in the depths of my soul. But people come and go, and at this moment in time, I know that person will be me. 

I’ll be leaving in a year and a half, and I know that leaving friends and family will hurt horribly. Any friendships I now have will be put at risk of fading away into fond memories. True, there is email and skype and facebook and any number of other ways to maintain the friendship when you don’t see the person on a regular basis, but that takes effort that is not seen much in this day and age. However, if I try to protect myself from pain by locking up my heart and not developing deep friendships, I will miss out on the most precious moments of life, and I won’t be the woman God has called me to be, a woman who loves God and loves others. So I must continue to build relationships, to love. Lord willing, my dear friends and I will be close for decades to come. At the very least, I must treasure these moments of the journey and hope that I have touched lives in a positive way. 

Thoughts on men who fall in love with pillows

Just like everybody else in the world, I’ve been reading the press coming out of Japan almost religiously.  Reading one of those articles led me to another article which led me to another article that I can not find now for the life of me.  But it got me thinking, and the thoughts started swirling around in my head, and now I have to write a post to save myself the cost of the therapy I would need if I were to keep getting worked up about this. 

The article was basically about the trend of Japanese men falling in love with “2D” characters, mainly in the form of pillows or dolls that look like preteen anime girls.  The fact that they are PRETEENS just makes me SO… 

If you aren’t familiar with International Justice Mission, “a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppressions”, check them out at http://www.ijm.org/.  Consider how you can support their work, whether financially or by some other means.

But we’ll set aside the fact that theses pillows picture anime PRETEENS (!!) for the purpose of this post…

One colleague who used to work in Japan noted that the country has a 1950s concept of women.  This article basically noted the same thing – that women are expected to quit their jobs when they get married and have children.  So women are looking at their options and deciding that they would rather stay in the workforce.  And apparently there are a lot of men that are “falling in love with” pillows or dolls.  I read another article (in my search to find the original article again) that said some men set up separate apartments in the city for their dolls, as if they were mistresses.  (From my own limited experience in Asia, I had noticed that pornography was much more obvious and available there than anything you would see in the U.S., but I saw nothing to this extreme.  Praise God.)  Statistics are showing that the natural population change rate (live births minus deaths) has been increasingly negative since 2005.  Marriage rates in Japan are dropping and not-insignificant percentages of men have no interest in sex with an actual person.  Basically, large numbers of men would rather be in a relationship with a fantasy.

I’m not an expert on these sorts of issues at all.  But this article got me thinking about a lot of things.  I never used to consider myself a feminist, but I clearly hold to certain Western ideals of both equality and chivalry.  I think it’s wonderful when men open doors, offer to carry something heavy or give me their seat on a crowded bus.  I think that’s something to be encouraged.  But I also expect my intelligence to be respected and that I not be metaphorically patted on the head.  I understand that these are particularly Western ideals.  But I also think they are particularly Christian ideals.  Didn’t Jesus shock his contemporaries by talking directly to women and by their involvement in supporting his ministry?  We never hear of Aquila without his wife Priscilla, and Lydia was a significant figure in the church in Philippi.

So I look at this situation in Japan and, while I know that it is much more complex than this, I wonder what came first – the chicken or the egg?  Did men’s obsession with pornography and fantasy relationships with pillows lead women to say “better off staying in the workplace!”  Or was women saying they want to continue to work a trigger for men to choose “2D” relationships?  If it’s the latter, then why is it that when women said they wanted to keep working in the West, the majority of men learned to accept and even welcome the concept of a spouse who also worked outside the home (granted, over the course of decades)?  But in Japan, what you apparently see is not more married women working, but more men turning to pillows and dolls?

I don’t know the answers to these questions.  But I hear tales of a lot of men who are more interested in fantasy than reality, and a population that is literally dying off because of it.  And I pray that the lost will be found before it’s too late.

Thoughts about stuff

If you haven’t watched this video of the tsunami hitting Japan last Friday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uJN3Z1ryck), you should watch it.  It’s stunning.  In 5 minutes, it goes from some street flooding to buildings being ripped off their foundations and carried off. 

My first two thoughts in rapid succession were “WOW that’s fast” and “WHOA that’s powerful”.  The third thought that quickly followed those two: I can’t imagine watching my home be picked up and carried off, knowing that I will never see any of my stuff ever again.  There’s my life, floating away.  It’s heartbreaking.

I don’t consider myself to be overly materialistic.  I don’t feel like my identity is wrapped up in how much stuff I own or how expensive it is.  When something breaks, I generally sigh, mourn it’s demise for a second or two, and toss it in the trash.  But in nearly 37 years, I have lived in 20 different homes.  (Granted, 2 of those were 3-month temporary housing.)  I’ve only lived in one house for 5 years, and I left there nearly 27 years ago.  So while I love my condo and it’s location, for me, it is the stuff in the condo that makes it “home”.  (That and my cat.  But we’ll exempt her from this discussion.)  I know it’s just stuff, but it’s stuff that I have put together over the course of 36+ years in order to create an ambience that is my own.  Some things are replaceable.  Some things are not – things with lots of memories attached to them, family heirlooms, things I collected from my travels around the world, pictures I took, cross-stitches I labored over…

To see all of my stuff destroyed by earthquake or washed away by a tsunami would be heartbreaking. 

I would cry. 

I would get angry. 

But I also know that, eventually, I would start speaking truth to myself. 

I would remind myself that my identity lies not in these things but in my relationship to God.  I would remind myself that He is faithful and will stand by me.  I would remind myself to be thankful to have survived, that life is infinitely more valuable than stuff. 

And then I would start to rebuild.

"One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.  For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.  ...I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.  Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD."  (Psalm 27:4-5, 13-14)

Random thought on "modesty"

If you are looking for me to tell you what constitutes “modest”, I’m afraid you are out of luck.  One definition I saw said, “conforming to the recognized standard of good taste.”  The problem with “recognized standards” is that it means different things in different places.  Modesty in Wisconsin is very different from modesty in Brazil, which is very different from modesty in Saudi Arabia.  Some people worry about defining the limits way too much.  (I can’t tell you what a huge weight was lifted from my soul when I was living in Brazil and realized that NOTHING I would wear willingly would be considered “immodest” there.)  There are other people who I think could stand to think about it a little more.  But I’m not talking about that.

I’m also not talking about modesty from the perspective of “caring for our Christian brothers”.  I understand the argument, but I also know that we all have temptations.  Part of growing up and maturing is learning to recognize those moments of temptation and, if necessary, averting your eyes.

And don’t get me started on those churches that publicly announce that you need to be modest to come to their church.  Where in the Bible does it say that you must have your act together before you can seek God?  If churches are filled with sinners saved by grace, can’t we show a little grace to other sinners? 

But I’m not talking about that either.

What I am talking about is motivation, a topic that came to mind as I was reading a book on insecurity.  (It was pretty good.  Don’t ask me for more than that, because I had to set it down for several months in the middle while I dealt with other stuff.)  While reading, I got to thinking about how it could change our attitude towards immodesty – particularly of the eye-popping, might-as-well-be-naked variety – if we considered the motivations for wearing such an outfit.

I thought of a couple possible motivations.  (And please remember that I’m thinking of the eye-popping type of immodesty, not the little lines that people so often quibble over, such as straps on dresses.) 

1) Pride: They are incredibly proud of their body (whether by nature, nurture or plastic) and they want everybody to know it. 

2) Cluelessness: They don’t realize that this and/or that is showing.  (Most of us have been there at one point or another.)

3) Misfortune: They only own one sweater, it shrunk in the wash, and they don’t have the money to buy a new one.  (It happens.) 

4) Insecurity: Many possible underlying reasons here, one of which could be that they think their value lies in whether or not they are sexually alluring.  I suppose somebody could counter that they wear it because it makes them look good.  But usually I find that “good” in these instances is more accurately defined as “hot”.  Which then raises the question of why they feel a need for everybody to think they’re “hot”.

So my thought was that, in this controversial realm of “modesty”, maybe we would be more godly in our attitudes and actions if we sought to address the underlying motivations rather than the symptom.

Praying for Japan

First of all, let me say that I join the millions of people around the world right now who are praying for our friends in Japan during this horrible time.  Many have already posted Psalm 46:1-4, but it is very appropriate:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 
though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.”

For the 2% of the Japanese population that are Christian, I pray that they will be sustained through this fiery trial so that in the end they may be like the believers that Peter was writing to:

“…though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  (1 Peter 1:6b-9)

Secondly – and as crazy as this may sound – let me say Congratulations on getting through the initial event so well! 

Before people decry my lack of sensitivity, let me explain.  Japan just suffered through the worst earthquake in its history.  The fifth largest in recorded history for the world.  It is officially a “Catastrophic” (with a capital “C”) 8.9, with 79 aftershocks and counting, many of those registering between 6.0 and 7.1.  And yet so many buildings are still standing.  Much of the damage I see in pictures and in the press is caused by the tsunami and the things falling inside the buildings.  The death toll is currently in the hundreds (but expected to surpass 1,000), which is truly devastating, but compare that to Haiti.  Haiti suffered a “Destructive” 7.0 earthquake that literally flattened them and resulted in more than 330,000 deaths.  Haiti is still recovering.  But Japan had the technology and building codes to largely withstand an 8.9.  That didn't help with the tsunami, but nothing stands in the way of a 33-foot tall wave of water.  Japan also had the stability of government that allowed assistance to begin flowing within hours of the event.  That can’t be taken for granted.  (Update: Okay, there is this whole "potential nuclear disaster" thing that is quite disturbing.  Praying that it will get resolved before it's too late.  But I stand by my overall argument.)    

P.S. In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a video clip of some news coverage.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OooqbScBC20)  And in case you missed it, that’s a BUILDING floating down the “river”.  I’ve seen a number of big floods in my life, so I don’t get too surprised by seeing cars floating by (although I admit that's a lot of cars).  But that was a BUILDING.  Floating by.  Seriously.   

The small topic of love

Next month, I’m supposed to talk to the community group I’m in about love.  We all chose a characteristic that we were striving to have a better grasp of, and I chose the oh so narrow topic of love.  No sweat.  What makes this slightly better is that I have a very particular angle that I’m looking at.

This all started a year ago, when I was looking at the fact that I was still single and started asking myself what exactly I was looking for from my dream of marriage.  When I began to answer that, I had to admit that no man was capable of fulfilling that perfectly, all the time, and it would be unfair for me to put that burden on any person.  Only God can love me perfectly.  So maybe I should be focusing more on falling in love with God and truly comprehending His love for me. 

Of course, the added benefit is that I would be better able to demonstrate God’s love to others, because it would come from the overflow of my heart and not from my puny attempts to love people out of my own power.  But that’s for another post.

I have spent this year in the CS Lewis Institute’s Fellowship program.  (Highly recommended!  Application period is now.  Just saying.)  From early on in the program, I was reading authors who I respected refer to meditating on God’s Word and how they came to have a deeper understanding of their relationship with God.  That’s what I wanted!  Every month in this fellowship we’ve focused on a different topic.  But every month, what has stood out to me is how those things relate to God’s personal love for us and how we relate to him.  How many times have I read or recited John 3:16 without noticing that I was looking at “God so loves the World” as somewhat detached, rather than a very personal love, where God loves ME, individually, as a person.  (Oh yeah, and you to.  But this is about me, so humor me a bit.)

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about how I really need to start meditating on some key scripture if I’m going to truly move this idea from my head down to my heart.  But in more than 3 decades of going to church and participating in Bible studies, I don't think I've ever heard a discussion on how to meditate on the Word of God.  And guess what this month’s topic for the fellowship program is?  “Being Transformed Through the Bible.”  The action assignment?  To select a different passage of Scripture each week and meditate on it, using the Lectio Divina approach.  Woohoo!

So I’ve got three passages chosen; passages I’ve read a thousand times without truly absorbing how amazing they are.

1 Thessalonians 1:3-5a

We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.  For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, and with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

1 Peter 2:4-5, 9

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  …But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Colossians 3:12-14

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

I did a vocational analysis last week, where Dr. Lindsley talked to me for more than four hours to determine what motivates me, what my gifts are, and for what ends.  My #1 motivation?  To be chosen.  Other things speak to other people, but for me, these three verses are pretty awesome.  They tell me that God has done what no man ever has.  He has chosen me, and I am precious to Him.  I think that’s pretty deep.

And so it begins...

And so begins my entry into the 21^st century and the world of blogging!  I have a couple plans for how I will use this space.  One stems from my past in Brazil and my future in Tokyo.  When I lived in Brazil, I wrote monthly email updates that I sent out to a group of friends who expressed an interest in receiving them.  The updates were fun to write, useful in helping me process being an expat in Brazil, and apparently interesting to receive by those who cared to hear about my crazy life and observations.  The down side was that the email list required a certain amount of maintenance on my part to ensure that I wasn’t spamming people.  But if I wrote a blog, I could continue to write my updates without fear of spamming.  People either read it, or they don’t.  They either subscribe to get the latest update, or they unsubscribe.  Win/win!  I could add in some pictures.  Win/win/win!  So plan #1 is to update people on my life during the three years I’ll spend in Tokyo (summer 2012 to summer 2015).  In addition, it is likely that there will be some documentation of my struggles to learn Japanese over the coming year.

Plan #2 revolves around the fact that I sometimes have thoughts rolling around in my head.  Deep thoughts.  Oh so deep!  It seems like it would help me process these thoughts if I write them down and put them into a coherent format.  So I thought that I could add them to my blog in the event that maybe others will find them helpful too.  Although I imagine I will also put down any number of totally shallow thoughts just for the fun of it.

I don’t really know when this fount of creativity will begin, but at least I have the blog site set up now!