Ps. 136...kind of

I have spent quite a bit of time today preparing and planning for different worship times that will occur over the next week. One of the simple Japanese worship songs I discovered today has the repeating phrase, "The Lord's grace endures forever" (in my loose translation) in it, and tonight I had Psalm 136 running through my head because of it. Therefore, without further ado, I present to you "Psalm 136" based on today's experiences...in any order. Here goes:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

He brings relief from heat and humidity and blesses us with cool temperatures.

His love endures forever.

He provides a roommate who doesn't mind cleaning mold inside the top of the toilet.

His love endures forever.

He opens a "new way"* (like youtube) and streams in the desert...

His love endures forever.

He gathers Christians together for moments of prayer and causes praise to be brought to him from many tongues, cultures, places, and people.

His love endures forever.

He pours down rain and water to bring life. And we are blessed with the beginning of nashi* season!

His love endures forever.

He draws students into conversations about himself, to show his love...

His love endures forever.

He helps in the learning of kanji.*

His love endures forever.

He created and loves these people, in Fukushima.

His love endures forever.

His forgiveness goes further than I could ever deserve or imagine.

His love endures forever.

He's faithful for the future...even when it involves meetings and confusion and illogical plans.

His love endures forever.

His gifts are abundant and good, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

It may sound glib...but it's real in my heart. :)

And here's a link to the actual song which had me thinking of this in the first place: Shu no megumi wa tokoshie made, by Daisuki Yokoyama.

Explanations regarding vocabulary:

*"New way" - I am partly responsible for worship music at the church...you'd be surprised at how useful youtube is for learning a new melody/lyrics :)

*Nashi - Asian pear

*Kanji - Chinese characters with multiple readings in the Japanese language

Summer fellowship

Fall 2006...I'd spent the last four weeks muttering the mantra "I live here. I live here. I live here. I live here..." under my breath. When I jumped away from bicycles on the crazy sidewalks near Kawasaki station...when I ran for the train...when I was overwhelmed by Tokyo's ever-moving sea of people...I would remind myself that there was no going back--this wasn't vacation. I was living in Japan.

The VYM program that I served in from 2006-2009 had business meetings and retreats that happened in the fall and spring of each year, and it was fall retreat of 2006 when I first met the whole VYM group in Japan. I remember sitting in the back corner on the floor during one of our group worship times, lips pressed tightly together because I couldn't honestly sing the lyrics to the song the group was singing:

"We delight ourselves at your table, O God.

You do all things well; just look at our lives."

Look at my life, with my silly mantra to get me through day after day that seemed overwhelming?! Yeah, right. (Note: I know that God is good. Sometimes, I just like to pout about my life for a moment. :))

As I got to know my fellow-missionaries better, the song's lyrics took on special meaning. Not one of the missionaries "had it all together." No one was feeling necessarily competent or efficient. When we got together, we definitely did talk about exciting things God was doing...but we also talked about the darker things, like loneliness and doubts and culture questions and clashes. We talked about the ugliness that comes out when we are stressed, about the disappointment we feel toward ourselves and those around us.

And I realized that when we were singing, we hadn't been singing necessarily about gifts of wisdom, beauty, language skills, respectability, peace, goodness, etc. We had been mostly singing about grace. Yes, look at our lives--look straight at the realness of our pain and questions and struggles--and praise God whole-heartedly for His grace.

Summer 2011. This last weekend in Fukushima, we gathered together again. Many of us have left Japan and then returned. Several of us have gotten married and came with spouses. We have new ministries and new homes in new parts of Japan...new memories and stories of earthquakes and aftershocks and culture shocks and life. New experiences of grace and God's "doing all things well."

With this group of people, I can talk about both the elusiveness of hope and the miraculous doors God has opened...all in one breath. We mourn, cry, comfort, laugh, pray, praise...and love each other with a loyalty grown in honest difficulty, desperation, and experiences of grace. We end with hugs and talk about next time we'll meet...America? Japan? Only God knows...

And today, the first day of our fall semester, I was thinking of my dear friends, and of experienced grace...present grace...and the promise of grace to come. What a blessing! The lyrics ran through my head:

"We delight ourselves at your table, O God.

You do all things well; just look at our lives..."

Summer conversations

"Why do you ask God for help?" my friend, visiting from Tokyo, asked as we leisurely stood outside my apartment swatting mosquitoes and watching the sunset. "God can't be everywhere at once. If he is helping you, then it takes him away from other people who need his help. So you are just being selfish."

We talked about God creating everything, knowing each sparrow that falls, and each hair on our heads.

"Do you really believe that?"

Yeah. Yes, I do, and I don't know how to communicate to you that God knows you. Loves you.

"I think that God sits up in heaven. Sometimes he sends angels, if you are in trouble. But mostly, he is just saying 'ganbatte'--do your best. So I should do my best."

No. Your best...my best...isn't good enough.

"You really believe that God is one, but that God is everywhere? That's illogical."

Yeah. Yes, I do. Yes, maybe it is.

We say goodbye, finally--friends who have spent the last 5 years conversing about religion and God's character...and I sigh as I give a last wave. We've covered topics (generally brought up by my friend) like Jesus' death and salvation, praying to Mary, pain in the world, living good lives, certain biblical parables...but conversations always end in illogical places to eyes without faith. I wish that I had CS Lewis' ability to reason...with that I could know Japanese culture better, so I had better ideas of the presuppositions the people I talk to are holding...

One thing I do feel keenly--that my friend wants to be known and loved by God. Heading back to the apartment, I send up a prayer for God's presence to be real to those who feel Him far away...and for His truth to be revealed.

Fukushima summertime

As I sit here and eat my third batch of ice-cubes for the day, I thought I'd share a short dialogue between my roommate and I which, at the time, did not strike either of us as odd...

H: "So, I can run to the store. I'm guessing I should pick up liquid of some kind..."

C: "Yeah, that'd probably be good."

H: "Anything else? Should I get any ice cream for the computers?"

C: "Hmm...probably."

"Wait!" One might say. "Computers don't need ice cream." Let me explain...

It's a little warm here. :) I pulled up a heat index calculator earlier and discovered that the humidity and temperature adds up to feeling like about 130 degrees Fahrenheit. This does not bode well for either our bodies or our electronics--in the middle of working on my laptop a few days ago I began to smell something burning...followed by a heart-rending scream from my speakers...and my poor Toshiba froze solid (well...had a meltdown).

Because of this, we've recently been using the dry ice that we receive freely at the grocery store with an ice-cream purchase to help cool down our computers. :) The dry ice goes on top of a plate or bag and is placed inside a basket, upon which the computer is set. Then the rotating fan blows air over the dry ice...and hopefully provides a little cool air under the laptop. Our other electronics either fend for themselves or receive cold-water baths from time to time (particularly the refrigerator).

I confess...Cindy and I do actually eat the ice cream. But really...it's for the sake of our laptops that we bought it in the first place... :)

Studying the Sermon on the Mount

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell...

One Bible study that I teach is with some lower-level English students, and we generally use all methods of communication available--English, Japanese, facial expressions, gestures, sounds, visual aids of various kinds, etc. I have, at various times, hopped across the room and played dead on the floor in an attempt to communicate meaning. :)

We have just begun studying the Sermon on the Mount in this Bible study, and it's...not easy. After several attempts yesterday to explain the section above in both languages and still receiving confused looks, I realized that my brother was actually sitting right next to me. The poor boy had to undergo some rough words for a bit, as I tried to depict what it might mean to call a brother a fool and have that be equal to murder in God's eyes. :) I was in the middle of a tirade against him when a student broke in by asking incredulously, "Wait...so if this is against God's law...you guys never fought or yelled at each other as children?!"

After laughing, we explained that of COURSE we'd yelled at each other as children--that was pretty natural. Jesus' message showed us that we can't follow God's law perfectly--that even in the deep places of our hearts and minds, we are sinners needing a Savior. The punishment that we deserve to receive was taken by Jesus on the cross, and it's only when we recognize and realize that we are forgiven that we begin to start realizing what it means to have hearts of love for others as well.

Something clicked together: THIS was why we were always talking about Jesus' death and resurrection...THIS was why we celebrated Christmas and Easter... After a few questions, silence with a look of deep pondering settled over the faces and room.

I think most Japanese people who have heard of Jesus describe Him to me by saying, "Oh, yeah, I know Jesus--He told us that love is most important, and we are supposed to love our enemies." Then a lot of people I have met have followed that statement with a comment along the lines of, "Jesus is the same as Buddhist teaching. It also teaches us to be kind to everyone."

I confess that even as I respond with, "Oh? Can you tell me more about that?", inside I'm thinking, "There is more to the story than being kind..." I've been praying that as we study the Sermon on the Mount, we'll learn where the power to love enemies and where kindness really comes from...

As I stacked the Bibles and put things away, I overheard a student speaking out-loud to her child thoughtfully, "We learned something important tonight...what should we do about it?"

"Believe," my heart begged. God, give life and faith to believe...