One down, three to go

Its Monday morning.. my last Monday morning, and first period is over. I just finished my next to last class with my first year junior high students (7th grade equivalent). As I was standing at the front of the room, the bell having just rung, waiting to say the goodbye ritual with the kids, I realized that I felt funny, that my eyes were beginning to water and that there was a lump in the back of my throat. I guess sometimes your body registers the loss before all of your mind does. I will miss those kids dearly. I definitely gave them a part of myself.

Goodbyes just seem to keep rolling on a 24 hour basis. This weekend I said goodbye to Allie, my friend in Mito, and the congregation of Mito Church of Christ, where I have been attending Sunday morning and Wednsesday evening services. Pastor Yuki made a point of telling everyone, in Japanese, that I lived in DAIGO which was AN HOUR AND A HALF AWAY and that I came to the Sunday AND Wednesday services. I giggled a little bit, recalling the days of driving 4 hours down to Chiba just to go to church and to find some Christian fellowship. You do what you gotta do to stay in the fellowship. (Mind you, that didn't make it sting any less when I forked over the equivalent of $500 to the car company because I had driven 20,000k this year, which was 5,000 over my lease agreement.) I wasn't too jazzed about the other $500 I had to pay for scraping my car on the curbside. They have wierd curbs here, and I blame Japan.

Oh well, if money makes you evil then I guess the leasing and insurance company really care about my holiness.

So, three more classes, a goodbye meeting with my uber-bosses at the Board of Education, a goobye grill-out with the Hitachi-omiya guys and Joanna, and then a Friday where I move out before midday and then soak up the last drops of Daigo before launching Saturday for Narita airport and then HOME!!!

For those of you who are curious about my arrival and itenerary for Operation America, I arrive in Tampa on the 22nd, Saturday. My folks and I will go to the sunrise service at First Pres. in Lakeland and then drive to N. Georgia to spend the week with my grandmother and little brother. Then, Daniel will pick me up from Athens on either Saturday or Sunday, and I'll play it by ear from there once I get to Augusta. I'll be living downtown with Joe DiRenzo and Steven Cordaro, and working at the Augusta Country Club as a swim coach.

So that's the news from Lake Watanabe, where the women do the manual labor, the men tweeze their eyebrows to be macho, and the children have nervous breakdowns from the stress.

This is your host, Suich Sensei, saying "Kyoutsukete!" and "Ganbate!"
(Take care, and Give it your best!)

Plum Blossoms

For you avid, faithful readers, I'm sure this post title will evoke memories of my previous post wherein I attempted to put my thoughts on the Japanese affection for 'Sakura' to verse. Here, in the Land of the Rising Red Sun, the blossoming of the Sakura (Cherry) and Ume (plum) trees are visited with religious fervor. Right now, the Ume blossoms have JUST begun to hit their sweet spot. Kairakuen park in Mito is the third largest park in Japan, and I am blessed with living less than a couple of hours away from it. There are over 3000 ume (plum) trees in the park, and the ume groves are latticed with fine white pebbled paths, through which one can meander. The fragrance is gorgeous.. rich and heavy for a fruit, with bright and sweet overtones. You normally have to get your nose kind of close to really absorb all the layers of scent, but when a strong breeze comes by the whole smell fills your nose and lungs. Fortunately we visited on a sunny and breezy day, so it wasn't too cold, and we had occasional gusts of wind to give us that wonderful, surprising burst of plum blossom scent.

Quite possibly the best part of this experience (and at the least, the most powerful multiplier of the awesomeness of the day) was the sharing of it with my good friends Blake, Joanna, and Alison. We spent a great deal of the weekend together and even topped it off by doing a photo shoot together in one of those group photo booths at the mall. I have my copies of the 3cm tall pics in my wallet now, and don't plan on taking them out any time soon. It was a very memorable weekend for many reasons. As my time draws shorter, I find myself taking more pleasure and pain from my time with Blake and others here. More frequently, whenever I look at Blake or someone I have come to care about while in Japan, I am taken by the question, "How many more times will I see this person?" It is very difficult to not begin to dread the loss of things and persons we care for in tiny preemptive incriments. But, as Allie said to me this Sunday, "You can't start worrying about that now before its even a problem. That's just silly. You'll only let it keep you from enjoying being where you are... here and now." A good re-wording of Jesus' encouragement on the mount:

""Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:25-27, NIV)

Kairakuen Park ends on one side in a small cliff that looks out over a flat valley below. As you look out, you see another, smaller grove of ume trees, deep pink and white, and finely cropped fields of grass with forests beyond. As I was looking out over this I thought, "This is the Japan that I imaginied." A snapshot of beauty. Well-groomed fields and blossoming trees seen from atop small mountains. Its true. All of the picturesque things that you imagine about Japan really do exist. There are, actually, places and views on this island that you would think you couldn't see without computer generated imaging or a lot of photoshopping. It is impossibly beautiful at times.. but that's just it, its only at times that you get to see these beautiful sights. For the most part, you have to live your life at work, at your apartment, or travelling in between. You have to set aside time and seek out these special places because they are, in fact, special... and especially rare if you are averagely busy, which is a shame. I will say, the Japanese do take time to travel, and for that I respect them. Granted, they do it largely within Japan because the general native perception is that Japan is big and beautiful enough to keep you occupied. I'm partial to America and the rest of the world myself, but then, I'm in Japan as I type this, so I can't blame them. Why do we leave home? What's worth striking out for, seeking, and beholding? Do we leave home because we are dissatisfied.. to find something new, or satisfied... only to return and see it anew?

I'm still quite young, so I learn a dozen lessons a year that many of you have known for decades. I wonder if the learning curve ever really slopes back down? (Right now, m equals about .9 something.) I'll let you know if I find out. m won't equal undefined until we know even as we are known, and even then, I don't think undefined means unreal. Just, as of yet, undefined.

Antepenultimate Omega Post

Greetings all,

 

This is the next to next to last post I will be posting.  (Fun times with doubling up on the repetition.)  I thought I would give a small diagnostic in view of my immanent return to the states. 

 

I came to Japan thristy for wisdom and understanding of myself and my destiny.  It occurs to me that Wisdom is the juice of Perspective, plucked from the tree of Hindsight, grown in the muck of experience.  I've accumulated a lot of muck so far, so that's a good thing.

 

Many people have asked me if I'm excited to come home, sad to leave Japan, or scrambling to get out of here.  In answer, I'm extremely glad I came and grateful for the work the Lord has done in my life while here, but it was a season, and I'm glad that its coming to its "telos" as Paul says.  I have made one really good friend, Blake, who lives in Texas, and I'll be keeping up with him for sure, but for the most part, this has been a very dry time for me relationally.  I've hit bottom and crawled from the valley.  Good but costly, emotionally speaking.  As you can imagine, not having English in common with 99% of your world does take its toll on you.  (Especially a raging extrovert like me who has never met a stranger in his life... only met friends I don't know so well yet.)

 

How soon do I return?  I fly out of Japan on March 22nd, and I'll be moving back to Augusta almost immediately.  I have a job lined up as a swim coach, which will be a sallaried job for the summer.  Pretty sweet set up, jobwise.  I'll be near my best friends Daniel and Chad, and back at my home church FPC Augusta.  All in all, I'd rather be there than travelling around Japan with a pocket-full of cash. 

 

After living here for a year I've discovered that every place on earth has some amount of natural beauty, local flavor, and peculiar people, and those are the things that make a particular place worth visiting... but its only where you are loved and where people let you love them that you have a home.  Relationships make a place worth putting roots down.  I miss my friends and being able to speak to strangers... sorry, immanent friends... and I think I might even be almost ready to move towards a serious relationship... just a decade or so and I'll be ready.  (I figure it will take that long to find a girl who's crazy enough.)

So, that's the news from Lake Watanabe where the women do the manual labor, the men tweeze their eyebrows, and the children have nervous breakdowns from stress.

 

I've posted pictures and movies on Facebook and Youtube.  If you're unclear as to how you can access either of those sites, just let me know.  I'll walk you through how to sign up for Facecrack... I mean Facebook.

 

From Japan with love,

Josh <{><