Sakura

Nothing makes the Japanese heart beat like the sight, or even just the anticipation, of the sakura – the cherry blossom. I had never been to Japan during cherry blossom season before, so one of my specific intentions in the planning of this trip was to be here to experience it. Within the first couple of days of being here, I was asking around about where the best places were to go and see the cherry blossoms. I didn't like what I was hearing. "Owari desu" – they're already past. At least around here. So, I asked where I might still be able to see them. I got the names of a couple of places on the Izu Peninsula. Kawazu, just north of here, and another place on the west coast of Izu, also not far.

Oh dear. All this planning, and I'm still not going to be able to get the full experience. Carolyn and I rented a car one day last week and drove first down the coast, then back up as far as Ito. When we asked around there, we were directed to a particular part of town where the cherry blossoms are especially lush. We drove all around, stopping occasionally to get directions, and finally being told by a small group of middle-aged women (who surely would have known the best places) that we were on the right path, but that they were afraid the timing was not good. Owari.

Or at least that's what I thought I was hearing.

But we followed their directions none the less. We made our way down a street made famous by its cherry blossom tunnel. There was clearly a pink cast to the canopy, and some trees had more blossoms in them than others, but it was also clearly not in full bloom. Our imaginations were full of what it must have looked like just a week ago. Like the parades of cars on a peak New England fall day out to see the foliage, this display of nature brought hordes of spectators to see the new burst of spring every year here in this place. We're told that the cars are bumper to bumper down this street, and you can sit for hours waiting to get through, but enjoying the sight of the cherry blossoms the whole while.

This past weekend while we were in Tokyo, we began to have doubts. We heard people in Tokyo talking about the buds popping within the next day or two. When we said we thought they had already gone past down where we were in Shimoda, there was speculation that it could be because of the warmer climate or the effect of the mountains. But we also began to realize that we had not seen any evidence of fallen cherry blossoms on the pristine streets of Ito or Shimoda. Perhaps those slightly more red buds on the trees were not the leavings of blossoms gone by, but the yet-to-burst-forth buds of yet-to-be-born blossoms. Wouldn't that be nice!

Our suspicions were further aroused when Junko, our exchange daughter in Osaka, responding to a note I had sent, expressed real surprise and disbelief that the blossoms were "owari." They hadn't come out yet even down south in Osaka. We're more hopeful still.

So, today has been cool and cloudy, so nothing dramatic has happened. But on an evening walk through the neighborhood down to the beach, I did seem to notice more trees in bloom than before. We're even more hopeful now! The anticipation is getting to me!

In his introduction to his translation of The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko, Donald Keene talks about the issue of perishability and impermanence in the Japanese psyche and aesthetic, particularly in relation to Kenko's advocacy of the imperfect. Kenko writes: "Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? …Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration… In all things, it is the beginnings and ends that are interesting." He notes that nothing can be added to a full moon, or to the cherry blossom in full flower. But it is the anticipation of what is to come that stirs the imagination when you see a bud about to burst forth, or the memory of what already was when you look upon a faded flower that is most interesting and finally most worthy of our attention – perhaps most evocative of our deepest human capacities for thought and emotion.

I'm trying to pay attention to that now. What was our sense of something faded and past has turned, ironically, to anticipation. There's probably a new Easter metaphor in there somewhere if I think about it. For now, I'm paying close attention to those little red buds.

Maybe all of those people who told me it was "owari" were trying to help the gaijin by telling me in their heavily accented English that they were "early" (the two words can, believe it or not, sound somewhat the same with a Japanese accent). That's all I can figure out for now anyway. Can't wait to find out. And will let you know!



PS -- It's now Wednesday mid-day here, and the mystery is solved! We found a guy in our neighborhood who explained to us that there are TWO cherry blossom seasons here -- the first in mid-February -- and indeed "owari." But the major blossom season is just upon us now. Yeah! We can tell from the cherry trees today that everything is about to burst into blossom. Already..., but not yet!

Ah, the anticipation.

No April Fools!

Makudonarudo

You'll never guess where I've been spending a lot of my time in Japan. Makudonarudo – that's the Japanese phonetics for McDonald's. It's not that I'm a big fan of McDonald's. I'm not. But it happens to be the only (or the most convenient) place to find wireless internet access here in Shimoda. We've tried everything else. I can get wireless access via my phone otherwise, but I pay for data by the megabyte, and typing on a little phone keyboard just isn't the same as my nice big 17 inch Dell laptop. I'll have to admit that I'm very self-conscious about walking into this place – it's just a thing I have about appearing so predictably American – coming into this "restaurant" when I could be eating local food -- and perhaps reinforcing some stereotype that this place represents American cuisine. (It is, by the way, what most people around the world think of first when you put the words "American" and "food" together.) Oh well, I'm getting over it. I come in a few times a week, order a cup of coffee and a hot apple pie just so I'm not a total mooch, then go upstairs into the far corner where I can hide out for a while to read the news, check my email, and post to my blog.

Now there are certainly lots of things to be learned here in Makudonarudo about Japan, too. But first, a little lesson in Japanese phonetics. It's very simple, and I'll try to keep it that way. Unlike English, which has a 26-letter alphabet, Japanese uses a 50 character syllabary, which consists of 50 syllables, each with a character (called hiragana – and a corresponding syllabary called katakana, which is used for words of foreign origin – like Makudonarudo). The syllabary begins with five vowels: a, i, u, e, o – each with only one sound (roughly the same as what those vowels sound like in Spanish). From there, each character represents an initial consonant together with a vowel – so, for example ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, si, su, se, so, and so on, through a series of initial consonants that include k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, and w. Some of those (k, s, and t) can also be hardened to g, z or j, and d. There is only one final consonant in Japanese (meaning a consonant with which a word can end), and that is "n" (which can sometimes sound more like "m" or "ng"). The "si" is really pronounced "shi", "tu" is actually more like "tsu" and the "ti" actually sounds like "chi." Oh, yes, and the "hu" is actually more like "fu", and the ha, hi, hu, he, and ho can become "ba, bi, bu, be, bo" or "pa, pi pu, pe, and po" with the additional of little phonetic marks.

Not as simple as I promised, I know. Oh, well.

Anyway, there are no double or triple consonants in Japanese. Sounds like "McD" at the beginning of McDonald's are impossible in Japanese phonetics, so the sounds have to be represented otherwise, by the syllables ma, ku, do and so on. There's also no "l" sound, although the Japanese are famous for confusing the "r" and "l" sounds. The "r" sounds in the Japanese syllabary (ra, ri, ru, re, and ro) are neither the "r" of standard American English, (nor the "a" of Boston English!), nor the rolled "r" of languages like Spanish, but rather more the simple flip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth – not as hard as a "d" but close. And they have to make do for "l" sounds as well.

It makes for some interesting combinations of sounds to try to represent English or other foreign words. So, I go down the street deciphering katakana signs and finding some really interesting things. Wa-n-da-fu-ru wa-ru-do. Wonderful World. It's the kayak rental place just down the beach from us. Be-i be-ri. Bay Berry – the name of the pension across the street from us. Ha-i-ki-n-gu tsu-re-ru. Hiking trail.

Makudonarudo is still one of the best.

So, here at McDonald's, what can you learn about Japan? The Japanese fascination with nearly all things American, first of all. Watching sumo wrestling on TV a week or so ago, I was stunned to see a McDonald's banner ad trotted across the sumo ring by walking advertisers just ahead of a sumo bout. You have to realize that sumo is one of the most highly traditional things in Japanese culture. It is the national sport, even though baseball is close on its heels for popularity. It has all kinds of Shinto rituals associated with it. The referee is dressed like a Shinto priest, if in fact he isn't really. It takes place in an arena under a Japanese style tiled roof suspended over the ring to appear like a shrine. As long as the signs being carried across the ring were all in kanji characters (that's the Chinese characters that are used in Japanese – another lesson for later), I could fantasize that they had some ritual significance in this highly ritualized sport. But when the golden arches appeared, I just about died! It didn't seem to bother anyone else.

What has stood out most of all to Carolyn and me as we sit in McDonald's is who it is that comes here: adolescent girls. At least they seem to be a very large part of the customer base. And at least 90% of what we see being consumed by them is French fries – super sized, please. They tend to come in during the after school hours, often dressed in their school uniforms. It's clearly a social thing. Carolyn wonders if their male counterparts (who are really not in evidence here very much at all) are playing sports, while the girls are eating French fries. Do the schools offer sports for girls? Don't really know the answer to that. But if the young women behind the counter at McDonald's represent in any way the aspirations of their younger customers, we'll be seeing a lot more super-sized Japanese young women as long as Makudonarudo remains as popular as it is. And Makudonarudo is also going to have to invest in some bigger tables than the little Japanese sized ones they have now.

I vote for more sports in schools.

Adolescent girls are not the only people here. There are young families – often young moms with their little ones, sometimes accompanied by a grandmother. The sight of an older woman in a kimono sitting at a McDonald's table always provokes more than a little bit of cognitive dissonance for me. It's not something you see a lot, but it does happen. There are people of all ages, really. You also notice just how uncomfortable the Japanese are with finger food. It's rare to see someone handle a sandwich with their bare fingers. It's always wrapped in the paper wrapper. French fries, I believe, are different. They have a special status all their own here.

So here I find myself, squeezed into the "honey, I shrunk the booth", typing away, drinking the obligatory coffee and eating my 197th hot apple pie in the last two weeks. Good thing I walked five miles to get here. I haven't checked McDonald's stock today, but I can't believe they're going to need a bail out any time soon if these Japanese girls and I have anything to do with it.

Still keeping my eyes open for that sushi internet café.

A weekend in Tokyo

Yesterday on the train to Tokyo I started wondering whether this had been such a good idea. The trip to Tokyo, that is. I started thinking about our wonderful, peaceful place in Shimoda, and how relaxing it all is -- and then what a big, complex "city on steroids" Tokyo is. And in our plan for the next 48 hours we had at least three engagements planned, so I was just imagining ending up on Sunday evening exhausted, and wondering why we had bothered.

Boy, was I wrong.

Carolyn and I are back at our hotel in Kayabacho (that's Tokyo's Wall Street), where we're staying in a very simple but comfortable business hotel. We got here late Saturday night, after we had been to our first social engagement -- an evening in Chiba with Mina Onoda, her parents and some friends.

Mina is a young woman in her mid-twenties who spent three months with us at Christ Church in Andover last year as an organ scholar, studying with our organist, Barbara Bruns. When we heard that Mina would be playing the organ on March 29th at St. Luke's in Tokyo, we decided that would be the weekend we would take a trip into the big city. Mina invited us to come to her home in the northern suburbs of the city for dinner. We had a fabulous evening with Mina, her parents Hisaya and Ryoko, and two other friends, Yoji (George) and Hiroko. What interesting people -- all of them! It was definitely an evening to remember. They're all members of St. Luke's, which is the chapel at St. Luke's Hospital, a venerable institution established by a young Episcopal Church missionary doctor from Rome, Georgia, in the 1890s. It is also the (or one of the) largest congregations of the Sei Ko Kai (Japan's Episcopal Church), serving both as a hospital chapel and the home of a lively congregation of families and people of all ages, including a substantial Sunday school. Its average Sunday congregation is somewhere around 100 people - a big church in Japan. St. Luke's has a very fine organ and wonderful acoustics, all so very fitting in its neo-Gothic architecture. We were eager to hear Mina play on Sunday morning.

"George" (a real character who has had a career as a tour guide for Japanese business persons in the US) showed up at our hotel to pick us up for church at 10 am Sunday morning, accompanied by Ryoko, Mina's mother. A children's chapel was taking place in the church when we arrived, so we listened intently as they sang, prayed, read lessons and performed various liturgical functions. As we waited for the main service to begin, another friend showed up -- Hideyo Yamamoto. Hideyo is the owner of the house we're renting in Shimoda, but she lives in Tokyo. We've been corresponding for months, and when I told her I was a minister, she told me she doesn't know anything about religion, but she reads the Bible and is interested. She wanted to know more. I told her the best way to learn more was to visit a church. So, when she found out we would be in Tokyo for church, she said she wanted to come. Today was her first time. I think she felt warmly welcomed and she sure seemed to enjoy it. She told people there she would be back for Easter Sunday.

One of the unique things about St. Luke's is that it has an American priest, Kevin Seaver. Kevin is probably around 40. He's a Texan who has lived in Japan for 18 years and speaks Japanese with near native fluency. His Japanese wife and their three young children are a definite complement to his ministry. Another Japanese priest, Fr. Ueda, serves with him at St. Luke's. We enjoyed getting to know them both and being a part of this community for at least one Sunday morning. It is definitely a warm and welcoming congregation and a tribute to Japan's Sei Ko Kai.

St. Luke's Hospital is not only the first truly modern hospital in Japan, but it has also served as a training institution for people in the medical field. My Japanese host mother, Sachiko, trained as a nurse there many years ago, as did her sister-in-law, whom I met in church last week in Ito. There's always a note of pride in their voices when they let you know that they studied nursing at St. Luke's.

After church, Carolyn and I went in search of sushi. We've had lots of good Japanese food these past couple of weeks, but no sushi yet. So I enquired at the front desk of our hotel where the best place would be, and they directed me to a large department store in the Ginza -- just a fifteen minute walk from where we are. We found our way to Takashimaya, up to the sixth floor, where there were several very nice restaurants, and eventually were seated at a sushi bar for what was a truly amazing meal. Our George is a major sushi-lover. He would be jealous.

Our final engagement for the weekend was in another home, this time, the home of Web and Ryoko Coates. I've known Web since he was about 12 when his family moved to Boxford around 1991 and joined Trinity Church in Topsfield. His parents, Malcolm and Debbie Coates, continue to be good friends of ours -- and Malcolm a fellow board member of the Esperanza Academy. Web is another American fluent in Japanese. After several exchange experiences in Japan during his years at Phillips Academy and U. Penn, Web decided to live and work in Japan, where he is an investment banker with Citigroup. Web and Ryoko have two children, both boys, Taka and Musashi. We spent the evening in their home in Yoga, a suburb of Tokyo, where Web treated us with his extraordinary culinary skills. Ryoko is a lovely person in every way. She and Web have both been wonderful, loving parents to a multiply handicapped child, and now also to a healthy, bouncing baby boy, Musashi. What a lovely family, and it was a privilege to spend an evening with them in their home.

We just got back to Shimoda on Monday afternoon -- happy we made the trip to Tokyo. It was a wonderful way to spend the weekend!

Meet the Shimomuras

I blogged on Sunday about meeting my Japanese host family again after 38 years ("Family"). It was remarkable to me how their personalities had not changed one bit. They have grayed (as have I), and perhaps grown wiser with age. None of the cells in their bodies (or mine) are the same, and yet there was instant recognition. I share their picture here with you all, because every time I look at it, I just can't keep from breaking into a great big smile. So, let me introduce you to my otoosan and okaasan, Kintaro and Sachiko Shimomura!

Lost in translation

Perhaps you’ve seen the Nicholas Cage movie by this title. It is set in Japan. It’s a complex and nuanced movie about communication in general, but so particularly relevant to the challenges you face on a daily basis here in this fascinating and infinitely complex country. Monday and Tuesday of this week were the perfect example.

Carolyn arrived yesterday (Tuesday), but it was not without more than a little adventure. Northwest Airlines flight 11 was due to arrive from Detroit at 5:45 pm on Monday, Tokyo time. I had to make the roughly four hour train trip to Narita to pick her up, so I began my day by walking the five miles into town to get my exercise (dressed in my short-sleeved shirt, no jacket, on this nice sunny day), and arrived at the station here in the town of Shimoda a little before noon so that I would have plenty of time to get to the airport.

When I showed my train pass to the ticket agent so that I could get my reservation for this particular train, she began to go into an explanation of something that quickly exceeded my competence in Japanese. I do pretty well in casual conversation, but my vocabulary is much more limited than it was 30 years ago. So, the conversation started going right over my head. This was the first day of a four-day train pass that I had purchased, and had picked up at Narita Airport on my arrival a week ago. It’s a pass that only foreigners can get and must be purchased outside the country, which I had done. When you pick it up it requires that you show your passport and visa and the purchase form, and so when she began a rather lengthy explanation of something I presumed that there was yet another bureaucratic hoop through which I had yet to jump. I told her that I did not understand, so she then asked me what airline my wife was coming in on, gave me a phone number and told me that I would have to call Northwest Airlines and talk to them. I took the number, called it, and got a message saying that this number was not in service. Time was clicking away until the next train, and I was frustrated by my encounter with the woman at the window, so I went back into the line and ended up at a different agent. When I asked him if my JR Pass was all I needed for the train to Tokyo and then on to Narita, he assured me that it was. I was relieved. I sat for a few minutes waiting to board time, then got in line to get on when it was time to board. When I got to the platform, the agent looked at my pass and told me that I needed a reservation for this train, which I apparently still did not have. So, once again frustrated, I went back into the line, and this time ended up with the woman who had stood in my way before. I told her that I had called the number she gave me, but that it was not in service. Then, putting on my best look of desperation, I said to her in Japanese, “I have to get on this train. My wife is arriving.” She turned to her computer screen, poked out a couple of things, and out popped my reservation card. She handed it to me. I thanked her profusely, and walked back to the line and onto the train platform, found my car and my seat and settled in for the first leg of the trip, wondering just what that was all about, but still frustrated that she had been the cause of so much anxiety for me already in one day.

It was an express train all the way to Tokyo Station. Imagine Grand Central Station with all the signs in Japanese, with occasional English names of train lines. I quickly found my way to the Narita Express, got my reservation, and was off on the final hour-long leg of the trip to the airport. When I arrived at Narita, I went to the Northwest arrival area to find that Carolyn’s plane was delayed. Finding an agent, I asked if they knew when Flight 11 from Detroit would arrive. The woman explained to me that because of the accident, one of the runways had to be closed.

This was the first I had heard about an accident.

I agreed to come back later when they had more information. Meanwhile I walked around the airport, finding a whole multi-story mall with shops and restaurants in it. On the fifth floor near a fast-food court was an observation deck, so I went to take a look. The deck had been closed, but you could see through the windows to the runway straight ahead about 500 yards, and the sight of emergency vehicles all around a smoldering pile of crashed airliner. There were a few people around with cameras and somber looks on their faces. I heard a Japanese couple next to me talking about it, and heard one of them say that two people had died. I asked if I had heard correctly, and they said yes, two people had died. I sat down to drink my coke and pulled up the Japan Times (English version) on my smart phone. There it was. A FedEx plane coming in from Guangzhou, China, had crashed at Narita at 8:20 this morning, with pilot and co-pilot only, both of whom had died in the crash. Both were believed to be US citizens. Apparently high winds and a bad case of wind shear caught the plane as it touched down, sending it into a roll from which they could not recover. Flammable cargo on board immediately exploded creating an enormous inferno. Tragic. I was rather surprised to see a number of airline crews (mostly flight attendants) stopping by to take a look, pointing and gesturing, some with looks and comments that did not seem at all in keeping with the fact that two of their professional colleagues had just perished a few hundred yards away in what must have been an unimaginably terrifying experience. There were no “moments of silence” that would have seemed more appropriate. Instead, cameras clicked away.

I went back down to the arrival area to see if there was any new information on arrival times. This time the agent told me that Carolyn’s plane had been diverted to Nagoya Airport, which is farther to the south from where I had just come by train. They were still waiting to find out when it would be able to come back to Narita. I was glad it had arrived safely, and was happy to be patient.

In the meantime, I got to know Terminal One of the Narita Airport very well. After a few hours, I started to feel like the guy in that other movie that I can’t think of the name of now. He gets trapped in an airport for like a year and ends up stateless. I start to wonder just how long all of this is going to take. I’m also very aware of the fact that I have no appointments to keep, and that patience (I thought) was the only important virtue at this moment. Turns out that some other forms of ingenuity and insight would also have come in very handy. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I start to become aware of the fact that even though I have my cell phone with me, which also gives me email and internet access, it hadn’t occurred to me to bring a charger. After all, I was only going to the airport and back, right? More than enough battery for a day! Aware that I could run out of charge eventually, I go in search of a store with an AC adapter that will fit my phone. Nada. Arimasen. I don’t usually think of the Japanese as particularly negative people, but everyone who took a look at the connection on my AT&T 8525 phone said, “we don’t have that in Japan.” Come on folks, you cannot speak for all of Japan! And this is such an international place – Narita Airport! I found a general lack of willingness to help me solve my problem in favor of broad generalizations that immediately ended the conversation. It seemed so different from the “go out of your way to help the stranger” ethic I have generally found in Japan. Was it a lack of empathy in this big, anonymous international location? A quick and easy response to my limited Japanese? Was I just too calm? Did I not look desperate enough? Surely someone could help me. Never found that person.

So, I’m left trying to preserve as much battery power as I can. I check email only occasionally to see if there’s any sign of Carolyn out there. Nothing yet. A few hours pass, and arrival time is still “undetermined.” Eventually I work my way through a crowd of Filipinos to a Northwest agent, who finally tells me that the plane is now scheduled to leave Nagoya at 9:30 am tomorrow (Tuesday) and will arrive at Narita at 10:32 am. Well, at least I know now. I imagine Carolyn having been sitting on an airplane all this time waiting to take back off, but now headed for the gate to be put up in a hotel for the night. Turns out it was all happening very differently in reality, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

I quickly become aware that it might make more sense for Carolyn to go directly from Nagoya to meet me in the town of Atami, from where we would then meet up and go directly to Shimoda. I send an email to her, on the off chance that she’s been able to access the internet in the airport and check to see if she can reach me. She does not have a phone with her, but she has her laptop. She had learned only days ago that the Sprint service on her Blackberry would not work for her in Japan. I have AT&T and it does. But I knew just how scrappy she was, and she’d find internet access one way or the other. I tell her in the email that she can find a phone and call my number direct by dialing my US area code and number and it will work – no international codes. The only drawback in this plan is that she will not be able to pick up her four-day special train pass at Narita, which is part of what is required. We’ll figure that piece out later, I reason. I even ask her to send her passport number just in case the folks at the Japan Rail office will let me pick hers up. Turns out that it’s not that simple. I also become aware that if I wait until tomorrow, it will have taken two days of my four day unlimited rail pass to make this little trip to the airport, and that’s a pretty expensive proposition. I go to the rail office to let them know my dilemma, but until I hear from Carolyn, I won’t know if I’m leaving the airport this evening or tomorrow. My head is beginning to hurt as I carefully formulate my Japanese sentences, aiming for maximum comprehension in this increasingly complex scenario.

But, I don’t hear back from Carolyn, so the default position is to spend the night at Narita. I have already learned that all the hotels are booked up. I guess I’m sleeping in the airport seats tonight. I have already scoped out some places. There’s a big seating area where I sat for a while watching sumo wrestling (which I’ve been following for the past few days and now feel like I know some of these big guys). It’s in the departure area of the airport, but that shouldn’t matter. The airport is closing at 11 and there will be no new news on arrivals. I find a section of three empty seats that my six foot one frame can stretch out on pretty comfortably, and as the airport gradually closes down, I settle down to sleep along with the dozens of stranded travelers around me from all over the world. I manage to get several hours of something between rest and deep sleep, and the night passes relatively quickly. At some point in the night, I see a blond-haired twenty-something guy in a knit cap, earphones plugged in, working away on his laptop through the dead of night. Looks like a pretty tech-savvy guy – maybe he’ll have an adapter that fits my phone. I ask him if he’s from the US. No, Norway – but he speaks English, of course. He checks through his bag for something that will fit, but no luck. I’m imagining worst case scenarios – loss of contact with the outside world -- and am aware of how little public internet access there seems to be in public places. Finally, at around 6 am, lights begin to come on and the airport begins to come back to life. I, of course, don’t have a toothbrush with me. I don’t even have a jacket, it was so nice when I left the house in Shimoda yesterday morning. I go to the arrival area. No one around yet. I figure I’ll get breakfast and check back in. I go to try to freshen up a bit. Wondering how much battery power I have left, I decide to check email to see if there’s anything from Carolyn. There is. In fact, there are several emails from her and the kids.

She’s in a hotel and is wondering if I’m somewhere nearby. Says the room is big enough for us both if I am. Why didn’t I check one last time last night?! I quickly fire off a response to have her meet me in the arrival area as soon as she can. I read her other emails. She’s in a hotel – not in Narita, but in Atami! She took my advice and went on to Atami, but I didn’t know it. Could have gone back last night if I’d known. So, I fire off more email to her, scratching my previous message, and telling her I’ll get there as soon as I can, but I know it will be at least four or five hours.

I’ll leave out lots of details here, but I get on the first train leaving Narita that morning, headed into Tokyo. Lots of commuters on this local train – and all dressed for winter. I had checked the weather on TV yesterday morning before I left, and hadn’t seen any indication of cold weather, so I have only a short-sleeved knit shirt on. Now it turns out that it’s a chilly, rainy morning, but I’m a hearty New Englander, right? I do my best to think warm thoughts. I’m sure the commuters around me are wondering what’s up with this strange gaijin with the Boston Red Sox cap on. (Maybe they imagine that I’m displaying my pride that Daisuke helped Japan beat the US in the World Baseball Championship just the day before!). If they only knew what this gaijin had been up to! I get back to Tokyo Station (during morning rush hour) and find my way to the Tokkaido Line and the train to Atami. This train is even colder inside than the last one. But an hour or so into the trip the clouds start to disappear, and it begins to feel a little warmer. I am more than amply rewarded by a stunning, clear view of snow-capped Mount Fuji out the train window somewhere between Yokohama and Atami. I exchange glances with the older kimono-clad woman seated beside me. We smile, and she says to me in Japanese, “I love Mt. Fuji.” I tell her that I do, too. I take my camera out and snap a few shots from the fast-moving train.

At 10:28 am I arrive at Atami station, right on schedule. My last email to Carolyn had told her that’s when I would arrive. I come down the stairs and see her a few yards ahead, looking intently up the stairs to another line she thought I’d be coming in on. I surprise her from the side. Big smiles, hugs, and kisses. We finally connect! It turns out that Carolyn had left Nagoya airport shortly after she arrived there, and gotten herself to Atami, quite independently of my brilliant suggestion – before she had ever gotten my email. She had been advised – rightly – that it didn’t make any sense to go all the way to Narita if she was planning on ending up in Shimoda. If I had only known! But she had a nice evening in a nice hotel near the Atami station. She has already bought her ticket to Shimoda, so we got onto our train together and headed down the coast of the Izu Peninsula for a beautiful ride to the part of Japan I first experienced in 1971. And even though this is now her third trip to Japan, she has never been to this part of the country before. We passed through the town where I lived with the Shimomura family when I was sixteen. I tell her about my experience this past Sunday of meeting them again after 38 years.

Finally we arrive in Shimoda, the end of the line – for us, and for the train. We get off with her suitcase and carry-on bag and head for a taxi. It didn’t dawn on me until I got off the train and started into the station, what that frustrating woman had been trying to tell me yesterday morning. She was trying to spare me all the trouble I had just been through. But since my Japanese vocabulary doesn’t contain words like “crash” or “runway” or airplanes being “diverted” to other airports, I took her for a frustrating bureaucrat who was standing in my way of getting where I needed to be. And I took her colleague who gave me the go-ahead as a “can-do” guy, when in fact, it turned out, he wasn’t really the one most looking out for my interests. I could have spent the whole day right here in Shimoda if the message hadn’t gotten lost in translation – or the lack thereof.

Haiku for the day

I'm on a train going up the coast of the Izu peninsula nearing Ito on my way to Tokyo, then another hour or so to Narita airport to meet Carolyn. It's a beautiful day along the coast, so here are couple of haiku to try and capture the day's experience.

This first one is in Japanese:

Itoh made
Umi utsukushii
Kumo ga aru

Translation:

Journey to Ito
Beautiful ocean waves crash
Clouds in the distance


Surfers on the beach
Catching the waves this morning
Wish I were younger


Carolyn coming
Narita I'm on my way
to meet my lover

Another one in Japanese:

Sakura mada
ki ni aru koto de
nioitai

Translation:

Cherry blossoms still
on the trees in the distance
Wish I could smell them

Family

Gotta tell ya'll what happened today. Couldn't have dreamed this would be possible.

To start with, the place where we're living for this month in Japan is on the Izu Peninsula only about 40 miles south of Ito, where I spent the summer of 1971 -- 38 years ago -- living with a host family. Apart from the fact that the house we're in was the only one listed on vrbo.com in all of Japan, the fact that it was near Ito was, frankly, one of the attractions for me -- in addition to the fact that it is a really beautiful part of the country.

I hoped that at some point during our time here we would go to Ito, and I would try to find the house where I lived. I had lost touch with the family only a couple of years after I was here. I had visions of knocking on the door, and Eriko would answer. She was my bratty ten-year-old host sister, who would be 48 now. I didn't imagine that her father would still be living. His health seemed quite poor way back then.

Well, it also just happens that the only Sei Ko Kai Church (that's Japan's Anglican Church) within a hundred miles of here is in Ito. So, this morning I took the train to Ito, and got a cab to Izu St. Mary's Church. I got there about 45 minutes before the service, but had a chance to introduce myself to a man who was probably a warden, who then took me next door to the rectory to meet the priest. I explained my connection both to Ito and to the Episcopal Church in the US.

The service began, and there were about twenty people total. I was able to follow the service pretty well, and sing the hymns. We had Eucharist -- my first time ever to be in a Sei Ko Kai service in Japan.

After the service, the priest made the announcements for the day, then introduced me. He gave me the mike to speak to the congregation. I explained in the best Japanese I could muster that Ito held a very special place in my heart, and that 38 years ago I had been an exchange student here in the home of a family named Shimomura. I told them that in spite of severl trips to Japan since then, this was my first time back to Ito, and that I was hoping to find the home where I lived. I even told them the address. I also told them that I'm a priest, and offered greetings from their brothers and sisters at Christ Church in Andover.

They welcomed me very warmly and invited me to stay for the lunch that followed, which I of course was happy to accept.

After I finished speaking, a man came up to me and told me his wife was a Shimomura. I then spoke to her and told her my host father was named Kintaro, at which point she told me he was her brother.

Now you have to understand a few things here. First of all, this is a city of roughly 100,000 people. Two, there are only 20 people in this church. Three, I had no idea that any Shimomura relatives were Christians, much less Sei Ko Kai.

It turns out that this sister used to live in Tokyo, and I had stayed in her home with her two sons about my age (my Japanese cousins Ryota and Eita). She and her husband moved back to Ito in their retirement.

Well, this was just the beginning of a wonderful afternoon. After the lunch with the congregation, during which I had a phone conversation

Kintaro and Sachiko Shimomura

with Eita (who, thankfully, speaks perfect English), they took me by the place where the Shimomura house had been. It has been torn down and is now a vacant lot. I never would have found it on my own. Then they took me to the home of her brother, Kintaro, and his wife, Sachiko (my okaasan), where we had a reunion more joyous than I could have imagined! Other relatives came, too, another sister and the mother of two other cousins, Aki and Shingo. We talked for over an hour catching up on all that has happened in our lives. Kintaro, my otoosan, looks in better health than 38 years ago, I'm happy to say. And I had nearly forgotten what a wonderful, cheerful, and absolutely lovely person Sachiko was.

Amazing how a relatively fleeting experience (only two months in the life of a sixteen year old kid so long ago) can leave such a lasting imprint on our lives. We picked up where we had left off all those years ago, and you would have thought we really were family from all the people and events we talked about.

I guess we kind of are!

I'm putting this on the blog now, but ill add some pictures once Carolyn arrives tomorrow with the plug adapter that will finally allow me to use my laptop for this. I'm getting tired of pecking out one letter at a time on my phone!

More later!

Jeff

Sunrise at Goishigahama

It's a beautiful Saturday morning at Goishigahama. Sun up at precisely 6:00 a.m. on this vernal equinox.

I didn't hear any Westminster chimes this morning, but just in case I've left the impression that I have something against Westminster chimes, I certainly do not. When I'm walking through Trafalgar Square I LOVE the sound of Westminster chimes. I even love them coming from the grandfather clock in my own house.

But on Goishigahama beach??

(I just had to clarify that for all my English friends who undoubtedly took offense at my prior post. The English are very sensitive, you know, around all of this stuff having to do with empire. It seems, however, that their hands are clean in Japan.) :)

I raced to get to the beach by sunrise this morning, missing it by seconds. It was still spectacular. I lingered on the beach for some time.

On the climb back up the long hill to our place there is a tunnel about 200 meters in length. It's the perfect echo chamber -- over five seconds. And since there were no other pedestrians in it with me, and no cars racing by at this hour of the morning, I let loose with my finest chant of the sursum corda and the preface to the Eucharist, followed by Healy Willan's setting of the Rite I Sanctus -- exactly 200 meters' worth of a cool, dark echo chamber -- on a beautiful Goishigahama vernal equinox -- in the land of the rising sun.

Doesn't get much better than this.

The other side of cross cultural communication

Westminster chimes ring
at Goishigahama
Did Perry bring these?


Day before yesterday I met for about an hour with Rev. Daiei Matsui. He is the Buddhist priest in charge of Ryosenji temple here in Shimoda. Ryosenji is important because it served as the guesthouse for the occasional foreign visitor during Japan's 250 year isolation from the rest of the world, and more specifically as the residence for Commodore Matthew Perry and his crew after they sailed into Tokyo Bay.

For two months in 1854 Perry and his men walked the streets of Shimoda freely while the terms of a treaty between the United States and Japan were negotiated. The freedom they had in this place was in marked contrast to the experience in Edo (Tokyo) when they first arrived in Japan, where they were treated pretty much like you'd expect a spaceship full of extraterrestrials to be treated -- effectively quarantined, constantly surrounded by retinues of samurai, while the cannons on the four black ships just offshore were always aimed onshore. Swords and guns created a certain détente while these mutually suspicious tribes took a careful look at one another. There was no freedom there -- only suspicion and fear.

Eventually, Perry and company were sent down the coast to Shimoda, and the work of making a treaty began. In 1854 the only people who could speak both English and Japanese were a few Dutchmen, who served as translators in the process.

The Americans were allowed to walk freely in Shimoda. Paintings from the period show Americans sitting on the ground surrounded by curious locals, talking and laughing. Samurai officials followed them around, observing their behaviors, but not interfering with their freedom.

Rev. Matsui is something of an authority on the period. He showed me numerous pictures of how the Japanese and Westerners perceived each other before (as hideous monsters in the case of Japanese portrayals of foreigners) and after the experince in Shimoda (much more human-like portrayals). He firmly believes that it was the freedom afforded the Americans in Shimoda that created a new climate of mutual respect and eventually a treaty. Consequently he is a big proponent of "grassroots communication" -- a term that comes up often in conversation with him -- and, in fact, what he believes is really the essence of Buddhism.

I had been put in touch with the priest at Ryosenji by my good friends, Dain and Constance Perry in Boston. Yes, the same Perry family. They were guests of the Japanese government here a few years ago for the 150th anniversary of the signing of the treaty, and when they heard I would be in Shimoda, they wanted me to be sure to meet him. We spent about an hour discussing the fine points of Pure Land Buddhism, cross cultural communication, and, of course, the Perry legacy.

An important image has stayed with me from that exchange -- and that is the contrast between the isolation of the Americans at Edo in the seat of political and economic power (indeed, the armed standoff between them and their "hosts"), and the "grassroots communication" among ordinary people here in Shimoda that enabled the opening of an important international exchange and a relationship between peoples where there had been none.

Makes me think of all sorts of possibilities for cross-cultural exchange to help us deal with some of the problems in our own time.

The next day (Wednesday) I spent the day closer to home -- just down the hill on Goishigahama beach. What a beautiful, picturesque beach it is. "Ishi" means "stone" in Japanese, so I think the name is a reference to the Japanese game of Go and the playing pieces, or stones -- hence Go-ishi.. This beach has a number of large outcroppings of unknown (to me) geological origin. They seem to be made up of relatively loose collections of fist-sized lava rocks -- but they are huge, some of them 40-50 feet high. And perhaps their most beautiful feature is the occasional twisted branch or trunk of a cedar, reaching out from the side, with the beautiful blue backdrop of the Pacific, in what appears to be the most carefully and artfully designed bonsai creation imagineable. I sat just beside one of these enormous Go stone bonsais, listening to the waves for a couple of hours. It was quintessential sunny coast of Japan.

You can imagine how odd it seemed then at 12 noon to hear Westminster chimes in the distance. How familiar -- and yet how seemingly out of place! I would have expected (perhaps preferred) the deep gong of a temple bell! Or the low moan of a shakuhachi. Or the twang of a shamisen.

But it was most definitely Westminster chimes that I heard! How odd.

Ah, the price of all this cross cultural communication! So much for my illusions of some imagined cultural purity or true type. The fact is that the Japanese love things Western. And part of the genius of Japanese culture has been its ability to assimilate while maintaining its distinctiveness.

But isn't that taking it a bit far -- Westminster chimes on Goishigahama beach, on my picture-perfect sunny Japan bonsai beach day experience?

Perry came -- and Japan has never been the same.

Finding Joy

Eucharist at dawn
looking toward the rising sun
Patrick would love it

At home it is St. Patrick's Day (the morning after here in Japan). Patrick exemplifies the Celtic spirit -- a spirit I find has remarkable similarities with the Japanese spirit, particularly with respect to its sense of the divine (kami) in all of nature.

I started the day with something generally reserved for life in community with others, but I find myself alone today, the communion of saints notwithstanding.

I'm normally in church on Wednesday mornings early for the Eucharist with friends and fellow travelers back home, so this morning I got up before dawn, opened the drapes to let in the first light coming in over Goishigahama beach below. There before the large plate glass window, I sat a small table on the tatami mat, laid a white cloth, with bread and wine, sat cross-legged in my yukata on the tatami, and began a time of silent meditation -- no words necessary, but drinking in deeply the wonders of creation and the glory of the Creator.

Robert A. Johnson, in his book Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology of Joy, says that "Enthusiasm is truly a divine word because it means 'to be filled with God' (en-theo-ism). Thus to be visited by an enthusiasm is legitimately to be filled with God. The soul is enhanced where the self is activated -- a beautiful experience. Joy is a part of this."

I was filled with God this morning. And yes, it brought deep joy.

Tsurezuregusa

A few weeks before leaving for Japan, a package showed up in the mail. I opened it, and it was a book. I took a close look at it, not remembering ordering it myself, but being very interested in the title, Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō -- Essays in Idleness. Sounded timely as I was about to begin a sabbatical -- and intriguing -- but I couldn't remember buying it, and had no idea where it would have come from. But then, examining the form in the package, I saw that it had been ordered by Liz Gill Neilson -- my very thoughtful and very perceptive daughter. She knows her father very well, and she wanted to be sure I came down from my otherwise somewhat frenetic pace of life and learn to appreciate the value of idleness. I think she figured that Kenko could help me to do that.

Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) is a well-known classic in Japanese literature, written by a 14th century monk by the name of Kenkō. Anyone taking the college entrance exams in Japan can be guaranteed at least one question on the Tsurezuregusa. Kenkō elaborated at length on the art of living for the Japanese, and his essays capture some of the mystique, some of the charm and the uniqueness of a Japanese aesthetic that is hard to describe, but so utterly characteristic of the Japanese way of being.

The title, tsurezure comes from the first line in the book:

つれづれなるまゝに、日暮らし、硯にむかひて、心にうつりゆくよしなし事を、そこはかとなく書きつくれば、あやしうこそものぐるほしけれ。

Translation:
"What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realise I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts that have entered my head" (where つれづれ -- tsurezure -- means “having nothing to do”).

Having nothing to do. I`m not sure Ben Franklin would approve, but it sounds like the recipe for a sabbatical to me. Kenkō was the original sabbatical blogger. And an encouragement for me to write down some of my own "nonsensical thoughts" now.

Turns out I'm having more challenges finding, and getting onto the internet than my idle lifestyle will allow. I walked about six miles into town today to learn that "there is no internet access in Shimoda -- not even the hotels." I didn't believe, so I kept asking until a young man standing on a streetcorner looking at his cellphone pointed me to an upstairs pachinko parlor where there was a computer sitting in the hallway. even this young hipster was not clear on the concept, but we booted it up, found a password (0000) and logged on -- and voila! up comes Internet Explorer. I'm hopeful!

But that was just the beginning. Ever try using a QWERTY keyboard that's keyed for Japanese characters? I had my first experience. It wasn't easy or fun. So now I'm back home, poking out the letters one by one on my AT&T 8525 smart phone. That's not easy or fun either. Nor does it fit with the virtues of idleness, about which I hope to learn more.

Back to the tsurezuregusa for now.

Oyasumi nasai

Made it here, safe and sound. More later!

A Sunday on Sabbatical

A family leaving church early on Sunday morning caught me getting ready to pull out of the rectory driveway at about 10:45 am. Carolyn and I had decided that we'd go into Boston to Trinity Church for our second Sunday on sabbatical. Well, now that we're so relaxed and unplugged from everything, we had forgotten about the time change, and it wasn't until about 10:20 that we realized it was 10:20 and not 9:20. So we raced around, got showered and out the door as fast as we could, and put the pedal to the metal (won't say how fast -- I think it really stinks when someone driving a Prius is speeding) on our way into Boston. I had fixed us each an egg sandwich to eat in the car and had a thermos of coffee ready, too.

Our Sunday mornings are usually so well organized! This is going to take some practice, not having to be somewhere (right next door) on Sunday by 7:30 am.

So, we pulled up to the corner of Clarendon and Boylston Streets at 11:13 (two minutes till church starts) and I let Carolyn out so that I could go find a free parking spot on the street, figuring that Sunday morning in Boston isn't at all like the rest of the week for parking and I'd be able to grab a spot somewhere within a block or so.

Right.

Ten minutes later, after driving around several blocks, then all the way down to the Public Garden and back, I finally pulled into the garage across from Trinity, and ran into church (in as dignified a way as I could, of course), just as the acolytes were putting the cross and torches away after the procession. Slipped down the side aisle to the back, and into the pew with Carolyn right after the Confession and Absolution. I was there in time to be absolved of my lead foot, by the way. It was the first Morning Prayer service we had been to in quite some time. Good sermon. (Sermons are sort of like meals -- they always taste better when someone else is doing the cooking.) The choir did a Duke Ellington piece between the lessons ("Come Sunday") which I thought was great, and at the end of the service there was an alto sax solo postlude from the chancel -- improvisations on the Richard Webster choral benediction the choir had just sung from the back of the church. Clearly a theme here.

Turns out that there was going to be a concert at 3:00 in the afternoon of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts with the Trinity Choir in collaboration with the Berklee College of Music Concert Jazz Orchestra.

And then we also learned that the Price Lecture would be held at 1:30 pm, featuring Chris Hedges, author, New York Times correspondent, and currently the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton. Chris was a classmate of mine at Harvard Divinity School in the early 80s. I have read a couple of his books (War is a Force that Gives us Meaning and Losing Moses on the Freeway) and had been following his career at the Times, and so I decided this might be a good chance to reconnect after 25 years.

So, after church was over, Carolyn and I decided to make a Copley Square day out of our foray into the city for church. Lunch at Paparazzi, then back to Trinity for the Price Lecture. Chris was ostensibly talking about his latest book, I Don't Believe in Atheists, but he didn't say anything about atheists until the very end when he referred to a series of debates he has had with both right wing fundamentalists and atheists, and how equally frustrating they both were. His thesis is that they share a common obsession with certainty that leads them both, albeit in different forms, to their respective fundamentalisms. His talk was much more about the career that led him from his Harvard Divinity School education, and particularly his courses in social ethics with James Luther Adams, to Central America in the 80s, the Middle East and the Balkans in the 90s, and virtually every other hot spot on the globe to cover some of the last two decades' worst conflicts. I had a chance to speak with him briefly afterward. I was most interested to get his journalist's impression of the work of David Ray Griffin in The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Griffin is a retired professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate School of Theology and has written a very provocative book with, as the title suggests, some very disturbing, unanswered questions. Chris had not read the book. I'm going to send it to him so that, hopefully, he can disabuse me of the idea that higher ups in a certain former president's administration had any complicity in the events of 9/11, and I can once again sleep at night without worrying that such things could actually happen in this country of ours. Alternatively, if Griffin is on to something, Chris just might be the guy with the bully pulpit to bring some things to light that have until now been shrouded in darkness. What I care most about is the truth, which one would hope a professional journalist does, too.

From that happy topic, we went back upstairs at Trinity to a nearly packed house for the Duke Ellington concert. What great music! The Duke was no theologian, but he sure knew how to touch the heart string. The only thing "sacred" about some of these songs as far as I could tell was that they had some mention of heaven, or a title like "Tell me it's the truth" (with all the books of the Bible being narrated by the choir), or another titled "In the Beginning." There were some really great soloists, and some amazing college-age musicians who sounded like they'd been doing this stuff for decades. The kid on piano was amazing (Michael Palma from Dallas), and there was a pretty awesome bari sax in there, too. Perhaps the highlight was a guy with a PhD in tap dancing. Thomas DeFranz floated across the chancel like nothing you've ever seen. He really does have a PhD from the Department of Performance Studies at NYU and a BA from Yale.

So this is what Sunday is like for other folks! We walked out of the church energized. If only they had had Evensosng to close the day! I sent Anne Bonnyman, the Rector, a note on Monday morning to thank her for a great day at Trinity. She reminded me that, in fact, there was a 6 pm service of Eucharist that we could have stayed for!

But we were home by 5 pm. And it had been a good day -- even if we did have to pay $20 to park.

Thinking of Japan

Red toes in the sand

ten inches of snow back home
I take a deep breath

A week in Florida behind us now, we're home in Andover -- but just for a week. My thoughts now turn to Japan.

Japan has been part of my imagination since I was a child growing up in the Midwest in the late fifties and sixties. Maybe it was Tomiko, the Japanese war bride who went to our church. Perhaps it was the National Geographic magazines I always saw on my grandfather's library table with their pictures of exotic places. Maybe the stories from missionaries who came through Indiana from the Far East. My first memories of this fascination come from around the age of seven or eight, not coincidentally at a time when my own parents contemplated serving as missionaries -- in Japan. That never happened, but a seed had been planted in me.

I first went to Japan at the age of 16, in 1971, as an exchange student with Youth For Understanding. I lived with the Shimomura family in the town of Itoh in Shizuoka prefecture on the Izu peninsula during that summer. I later studied Japanese at the University of Minnesota and Indiana University. And after a year of marriage, Carolyn and I sold all our worldly goods and headed for Japan, where we supported ourselves by teaching English in a church-related school in 1977-78.

My assumption that I would spend my adult life in Japan as a diplomat or missionary scholar didn't hold, although my love for Japanese culture, language, aesthetics never waned. I had developed a particular interest in the 19th century convergence of East and West during the Meiji Restoration, and the influence of American Protestantism on the formation of the new Japan. I had written a number of papers, both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student on the subject. I didn't return to Japan for quite a few years after that, however. I had other experiences in Latin America and in Europe that also captured my imagination. And other changes in our lives intervened as well. Carolyn and I started a family. I went to seminary and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. Made my way into parish ministry. Made a brief visit to Japan to see friends in 1989 on my way to Hong Kong on a business trip. I had just been ordained and was working part-time in my first parish, but was still working for a consulting firm at the time. I loved the fact that I actually got paid to go to a place I loved so much.

Meanwhile, in the early 90s we hosted Junko Nakao, a YFU student from Japan, for a year in our home in Topsfield. Junko quickly became part of the family. When she got married in 2004, Carolyn and I returned to Japan together for her wedding to Tomonobu (Tomo) Masuda, a Buddhist priest of the Jodo Shinshu tradition. We made a two-week stay out of it, traveling for a week on our own to some out-of-the-way parts of Japan where we had never been, and being reminded on a daily basis of just what it was that we loved so much about this country and its people. Although my Japanese is rusty, it got me by most of the time, and what I lacked in ability to communicate verbally, I could usually make up for in the kinds of non-verbal communication that are also so important to the Japanese way of life.

And now we get to go back. While thinking of the things that would be renewing and refreshing for me on my sabbatical, I thought it would be important to revisit a part of my life that has been significant, but not terribly well nurtured over the years. I knew that my experiences in Japan had connected me to a way of life that I was deeply attracted to -- one that brought me a deep sense of inner peace -- and I wanted to reconnect with those experiences. I imagined hiking in Basho's footsteps, Japan's foremost poet of the Edo period, on his "narrow road to the deep north" reading his haiku and learning from him to write haiku myself. I also wanted to be in Japan during cherry blossom season.

As it turns out, we will be based in the town of Shimoda, on the Izu Peninsula, about a half-hour south of the town where I first lived in the summer of 1971. We have rented a rural, seaside, Japanese-style condo for a month. From there, we plan to ride our bikes along the coast, take hikes in the woods, feast all our senses on cherry blossoms and rustling brooks and mossy gardens, and -- if I find the courage -- try my hand at some haiku. We will spend a few days in Tokyo, where we will see Mina Onoda, our recent organ scholar at Christ Church. Mina will be playing at St. Luke's Church in Tokyo on March 29th, so we will go there for worship that day. We will also spend some time with Junko and her family. She and Tomo have an adorable two-year old daughter named Sawako. Junko has taught her to say "grandpa" and "grandma" in English. We can't wait to see her in person!

I'm likely to have more reflections from Japan. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, this week, I have to pack both for a month in Japan, and for the bike trip down the Pacific Coast that will follow. I have to ship my bike to Portland, Oregon, to Liz and Dunc's house. They're going to bring George, his bike and mine, to Vancouver, BC, to see us off on our biking adventure in the middle of April.

The journey continues!

PS -- Those red toes in the sand are Carolyn's -- not mine.

Guilt

Having lived and worked in a predominantly Roman Catholic area of the country now for over 25 years I've become accustomed to hearing people talk about "Catholic guilt." It comes up anytime when I, for example, mention to a former Roman Catholic in our church (of which there are many) that "I missed you last Sunday." Ooops. I just evoked some "Catholic guilt." It comes up a lot around matters of religious observance and an inbred sense of obligation. At least that's where I hear it coming up, but then, hey, I'm a priest, and apparently I evoke more than the normal amount of it just by being who I am -- at least for some people.

I've always been suspicious, however, of just how "Catholic" all this guilt is. I grew up with my own share of it after all. There's something very real about Protestant guilt, too -- certainly in the brand of sectarian protestantism in which I grew up. As a young Pentecostal, whose theology was rooted in Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection, there wasn't any escaping guilt for anyone who was less than perfect. And then, of course, I had to go and pile on top of that all of the liberal, politically-correct forms of guilt like white guilt, male guilt, or any other form of guilt that made me a privileged person in the world.

So, it should be no surprise then that I feel occasional tinges of guilt on this first week of a six month sabbatical. Guilty that I get a sabbatical at all when most people don't. Guilty that I got this nice grant that allows me to travel to exotic places. Guilty that other people are doing my job while I'm away. Guilty that I'm doing lots of flying on this sabbatical, leaving a huge carbon footprint. Guilty that I'm enjoying a walk down the tony streets of Naples, Florida, while people suffer in the world -- yes, I do all of that to myself.

Guilty that I'm in a warm place sitting on the beach while people back home are digging out of a 10 inch snowstorm! (Guilty that I rubbed it in just a little too much while speaking to a staff member on the phone last night!)

There's gotta be a middle ground between all of this guilt and the sense of entitlement that allows some people to live unreflective lives without regard to how what they do affects the lives of others.


Guilt is not always necessarily a bad thing, of course. It can keep us from doing things we really should not do that are harmful to ourselves or others. I just have to figure out how to keep it from killing a legitimately good time!

I'm gonna try to work on that.