"Visiting Week"

This week in Japan has held two Japanese holidays, so there have been opportunities to travel and catch up with people who used to be roommates and adopted family. On Monday, I was in Tokyo at a Taize music seminar, which brought people together from congregations all around the Japanese Lutheran Church and several of the missionaries that I know. On Thursday, some students and church members from Shirone, a former teaching site for me, came to visit Fukushima, and we went out to lunch and visited one of the baths high in the mountains. It was lovely to see everyone--lovely, but sad. On Thursday, our two groups separated ways with clumsy hugs that were trying to make up for everything that could not be said in words. What would we have said, if we could have used words? I hope you find the One who loves you. I pray that your hearts would be comforted with God's love and the purpose He has for you. I pray that you would not feel alone. I pray that you have rest from your burdens, healing from your pain...meaning for your life. I pray that you would find the One who is our real Home and Friend and Father.

The verse from Corinthians keeps running through my head: "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Cor. 13:12)

Why do we drive hours to go to Tokyo? Why would students from years ago drive hours from Shirone to visit us in Fukushima? Why, in the midst of 8+ location changes and 30+ roommates over the last several years, do I still cling to the idea of home? Because we want to see face to face. Because we want to be known and to know. Because from the beginning of time, we've been made for relationship. We just often don't know it.

Sensei was telling me, on our way to Tokyo, that Japanese culture is not familiar with a relational God. In Japan there is no right or wrong, so there is no need for grace or love. The closest thing they have to sin is ugliness or dirtiness (pictures which are often used in the Bible to depict sin, I know), and so religion is used in the same way a person would use a face-wash: to clean and beautify one's self.

But how different--how wonderful and different--is the Creator-God's interactions with the people He's created! There is sin, dirt, pain, judgment, ugliness...but through all of it, He is still intimately and intricately engaged in the lives of those He's created and loves, offering grace to the repentant and faith to know Him in an even deeper way. He's not just interested in a relationship--He wants a good one!

The Taize music seminar in Tokyo was lovely--there were many, many tears around me, amidst the hours of music and gentle words from the leader. Sometimes I think we forget how many masks and broken relationships we carry--how much face-wash we are trying to use, and how little that is working--until we are met fact-to-face with the presence of our Savior, who sees all. And then we realize our broken relationships, our attempts to hide, and we realize that they are futile. The only real response we can have, maybe, is to drop the masks and cry in both sorrow and gladness.

One woman sang the Taize music this week and did not respond with tears. She is the mother of a church member, and she is also a Christian. She is small and frail, and needs help standing, sitting, and eating...maybe her time in this place will soon be over. When we gathered with Sensei and her family in their home to offer her communion, I was surprised to hear this little old lady's voice raised above all of ours as we sang the simple Taize songs--she was belting them out with joy and contentment. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and I found myself wondering if her responses of joy come from knowing that someday soon she will be able to truly see God "face-to-face" and experience the fullness of that relationship in heaven?

I find myself aching--in envy of her joy, in pain for those around me that do not know yet.