In Honor of My Second Home on the Anniversary of 3/11

I wrote the following a year ago after the earthquake and tsunami. I was not blogging at the time. I post it today on the anniversary of 3/11 as I remember my many friends in Japan and their beautiful country. 

Looking out my kitchen window I see our Japanese maple lush with new growth. It draws me back to my years of living in Japan. Every fall the Japanese maple or momiji would burst forth with vibrant earth tones in the mountains of Japan. Most people think of Tokyo and city life when they picture life in Japan. But the Japanese can only live on ten percent of the landmass because the rest of the country is made up of mountain ranges covered in cedar, maple and bamboo forests.   As the momiji would begin to change colors, my friends would soon be organizing a hike to the nearby mountains to see the forest ablaze in a patchwork of gold, auburn, red, and yellow. My fondest memories are filled with such outings with my students and friends.

As spring approaches in Japan, I know the cherry blossoms are beginning to show their splendor, and it will be soon be time for o-hanami or flower viewing. My Japanese friends will gather under a canopy of blossoms at famous parks or temples and enjoy a picnic of chirashizushi or takenoko-gohan or some other dish of the season.

The country seems to move together in a synchronized rhythm with the coming of each new season.  A picnic under the cherry trees. The sharing of a first slice of melon with friends in the summer. A hike to the mountains in the fall. 

Even the school-age children seem to magically transform all on the same day as they abandon their long-sleeved shirts for their spring uniform with its new short-sleeves. Never mind if the weather hasn’t changed. As a foreigner riding on the train filled with children it was not easy to miss since I was the only one still wearing long-sleeves!

As a native Californian who grew up near San Francisco, I also know the change of seasons – not out of the snow but out of cold, wet winters into bright, vibrant springtime. But it wasn’t until I returned from living in Japan that I noticed that my childhood home was on a street filled with an array of cherry trees in the front yards of my neighbors. I must have walked by those trees in full bloom year after year on my way home from school, but I never really saw them. Not until I returned from Japan did I pause and see their glorious plumage and look down the street in awe. One of the many gifts from my life in Japan.

Now as I watch the faces of so many Japanese peering out over destruction and loss, I see myself standing in the street that I once walked and shopped and lived my life. Japan became my home.  I did not live in the north where the destruction is the worse, but I still see my friends and neighbors in each face and each house lost.

An American, Taylor Anderson, was one of those lost in the tsunami. She was 24. She was an English teacher who loved her life in Japan.  I celebrated my 24 birthday in Japan. I lived there for four years and it became my home.  It could have been me in the wake of this disaster.

I grieve for a nation who taught me how to pause and appreciate the beauty around me and celebrate it with others. I now long to give something back to this beautiful country and its people but feel powerless. As a woman who worships the God who entered human suffering in order to bring healing to our battered souls and to be ever-present with us, I long to offer this hope. 

As I see spring opening up in my town on the Pacific Ocean, I stand on its shores and open up my hands and my heart to you, Japan, and pray for healing to come.

As the cherry blossoms burst open this year, I wonder how the nation will celebrate o-hanami? Will they gather as families or co-workers or school friends? Will it be a somber time? Or will they step into the rhythm set by generations before them who have enjoyed the simplicity of a picnic under the cherry blossoms? Will it be a time of healing for this generation? 

May healing come not just to the land but to the soul of a nation. 

Living with the Mess

Life is messy. At least, that's my experience.  I wish I had more time with the people I love. I can't keep all the balls in the air. My expectations of myself and others are often unrealistic. I struggle with resentments and keeping my side of the street clean. I don't have it all figured out. I say the wrong thing. I don't say what I need to say.... But I jump in because I want to live life even with its messiness.

But somewhere along the way I got duped into thinking that life is a competition and I should hide my mess. Image is what matters. 

As a woman who is looking to find her identity in something deeper than external markers, I know that my worth is not measured by what's on the outside. In fact, it's not measured at all. My inner life is not in competition with anyone else's. No matter what I might be hearing around me. And yet, you would never know that walking into many of the places of worship across my city. Image is still a big selling point. And sadly, the church is not devoid of it.

I say this with grace because I buy into it too. Culture is part of what influences us every day. But it can also get so tightly wrapped around our spiritual identity that we forget that God wants us to discover who we are on the inside and see the places in our culture that rob us from deepening our spiritual identity.  I believe that we have to acknowledge those places if we are to discover who we are truly meant to be.

For me this was one of the gifts I received from leaving my own culture and learning to live in another. I did that for four years. And it sent a lightening bolt through my own cultural identity.

For two of those years, I shared an apartment with women from three different cultures and lived in a fourth. My own cultural markers no longer had any relevance. The city where I was grew up, the university I attended, the church I attended, the foods I missed, the music I listened to -- they had no relevance to those I was building relationships with. We shared bits of our culture with each other, but we had to go deeper than that. We had to find connections based upon what made us human beings and how we wanted to relate to one another. It took effort. It took commitment. It took humility. It took love and forgiveness. It took prayer. Sometimes it was messy. But it was beautiful. It was real. It was life.

Today I want to celebrate the mess. The beautiful mess of living life in the midst of a culture that says beauty is only seen on the outside. I want to be a person who lives more rooted in my spiritual identity than in my cultural identity. I want to be an authentic follower of Jesus who discovers what it means to listen to his voice above all others.

This post is dedicated to Doris, Renee and Stephanie for putting up with this loud American.

A Train to Nowhere

I have joined others at The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Fridays. Our assignment is to write for five minutes flat on the topic for the week and share our responses to the same prompt. 

The word for this prompt is OPEN. Here I go...

The first time I got on a train in Osaka, it was rush hour. I was standing near the door. It opened at the next stop and I saw a platform crowded with hundreds and hundreds of people. I thought, “They'll have to wait for the next train. This one is already packed.” Then I watched in amazement (horror?) as all of the people on the platform crammed into the open door. They just kept pushing in tighter and tighter.

The open door began to close and the “pushers” with their white gloves began to push in any arms and elbows sticking out so the doors could shut. The pushers blew their whistles. The doors shut. And then the train took off down the track. At the next station people disembarked and the process started all over again when the doors opened.

Sometimes I feel like I am back on that train. I feel like my culture is telling me that everyone needs to rush through the same open door. Everyone needs to squeeze onto the same train marked "living the American dream." And the voices of my culture are wearing white gloves pushing us all to get on. 

Maybe it’s time to get off the train to nowhere. Maybe it’s time to believe something different. Maybe it’s time to walk on the path less traveled.  Maybe it’s time to walk like He walked.