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.