Everything sings

May 6, 2009

The Singing Jumbo Ferry

風の中かんじる
あなたの声かんじる
届いている
ジャンボフェーリ

Kaze no naka kanjiru
Anata no koe kanjiru
Todoiteiru
Jambo Feeri

In midst of the wind,
I feel your voice.
We have arrived.
Jumbo Ferry.

In Japan, everything sings or has a theme song. It's a part of the wonder of Japan. Today, I rode the jumbo ferry home: Kobe to Takamatsu in three and a half hours (you can make it in half that by bullet train for four times the price). The jumbo ferry had a theme song (I wrote a little of it above, best as I can remember). But it wasn't a joke of a theme song like would be in America. It was about a minute or two long, and whenever they were about to make an announcement, they would play it twice: once by itself and once as background music for the announcement. The song was well-done. Singer sounded professional, along with a moving accompaniment.

The song was alarmingly relaxing. I really felt like I was riding on a tropical cruise, instead of the jumbo ferry. And I tell you, until I listened to that song four times, I never realized how poetic the word “jambo feeri,” sounds. The English translation, “jumbo ferry,” does not capture the heavenly sound of it. In Japanese, jambo feeri has a poetic ring to it, like “vermilion” or “tenderly.” As we drifted through the forested islands of the Seto inland sea, the sun setting in grandeur (there's another one of those poetic words) before us, the moment's feeling was captured by the gentle melody of the jambo feeri song.

Anyways, boats aren't the only thing that sing in Japan. I visited my friends in Osaka who live in a high-tech mansion with a talking bathtub. It also plays a melody when it's done putting the water in the tub. Their washing machine played a six note tune whenever it finished a load, and their rice cooker had it's own song, too. Every train station in Japan plays music for about ten seconds when a train arrives, and I don't know how the station employees stay sane. And (my favorite), the garbage trucks have their own melody as they drive around town.

There are a series of alarms and bells in my neighborhood. The most major is the noon bell, which sounds like an air-raid siren and lasts for about 30 seconds. It lets everyone in town know to take their lunch break (because everyone in Japan takes their lunch at noon). The others have more of a melody to them. I live within earshot of 2 preschools, an elementary school, and a high school (I think that's all), and I can hear at least two temples from my house.

At 6 AM, the first song goes off. If I happen to be awake, I can hear it in the distance, faintly. I'm sure it's from a temple, because traditionally, the neighborhood temple would ring the big gong at 6 every morning, and that tradition has been carried down to the present in the form of neighborhood jingles. At 10, I get a tune from one of the preschools. But in Japan, schools don't mess around with their bells. Having just a buzzer or dinging noise is tactless. Instead, what each school needs is a song that plays for 15 seconds when the school starts and ends. There's another song that plays somewhere in the neighborhood at 11 or 11:30, but I haven't nailed down the time. And I'm conjecturing as to where a few of these sounds come from. From the sound of it, one or more of the schools gets out at 3, because I hear that one every day, too.

The last neighborhood noise is at 6 PM. In ye olde times, it was another gong from the temple and signaled the end of the work day. In my neighborhood, 6 PM is like the traffic wreck of neighborhood jingles. The first temple begins its tune, and the second temple follows suit shortly thereafter. Then suddenly, about two seconds later, the government housing complex goes off! It's a song to rival the temples, and for about ten seconds, all the recordings are playing, echoing off the Asahi steel factory so that you have twice as many notes bouncing back and forth, and you don't know up from down or Bach from Mozart or if you should be waking up, eating lunch, or going home. And then, quick as it started, one by one, each speaker shuts off in sequence, until the last echo of the government housing's tune fades from hearing, and all is silent save the frying of tempura in the kitchen by house wives. Man, what I wouldn't give for one of those.

I will furthermore speak of the unspeakable, the abominable: stores with looping 15 second songs. Yamada Denki, may its name be eternally cursed, is one such place (it's like a Japanese Best Buy). Repeated every 15 or 30 seconds, you hear the same song, LOUDLY, and it sounds like an 8-year-old boy singing off-key about Yamada Denki. Generally, at places like that, rather than making you want to buy more merchandise, the songs make you want to take a power-drill to your temple.

The local 100 yen store has a song that I like a bit, though it's gotten stuck in my head a few times. It's just too peppy for words. Picture this sung by in Japanese by a 16-year-old girl who has hit it back a few too many times at Starbucks. Smile as big as you can and dance a little, and you might get a picture what it's like to shop there:

You walk into the store, you're looking for a good deal.
We have nothing but the best bargains.
Everyone shouts at you, “WELCOME!”
(Brief musical interlude)
Each, each, 100 yen each.

Iss OK, Iss OK (that part is said in Engrish)
100 yen each.
Each, each, 100 yen each.
Each, each, 100 yen each.
Iss OK, Iss OK
Each, each, 100 yen each.

But it gets better. Grocery stores. As you walk in, you may hear that store's theme song playing: “Marunaka, Marunaka...” But that will usually be quickly replaced by generic elevator music. Now this is one of those things I haven't figured out about Japan, yet. This music is usually popular American music from within the last 50 years, but instead of playing the actual music, they have these electronically synthesized versions that play without words. The audio quality is roughly equivalent to the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Imagine generic, midi-like elevator music, only it's to the tune of, say, “Brick House.”
Anyways, that won't catch your attention long, because as soon as you walk by the fish, you hear:

Sakana sakana sakana
Sakana sakana sakana
Sakana wo matteiru to
atama atama atama
atama wo (something)
Karada karada karada
Karada (something)
MATTE IRU!!

Fish, fish, fish
We're waiting for fish
Head, head, head (head rhymes with fish in Japanese)
Something about your head.
Body body body (body rhymes with head and fish)
Something about good for your body.
WAITING FOR DINNER!

There's also more in there about “something good is cooking up in the kitchen,” but I can't remember it very well. It's all so peppy and happy that it just makes me want to buy more groceries, all day and all night, then go home and eat them when they finally kick me out of the store. See, aside from the store-wide speakers playing elevator music, all these localized product songs are played out of ordinary tape-players plugged in all over the store. Anyways, back to the Marunaka visit...

As you stare into space at the hypnotic effect of the sakana song, you hear something in the distance, like an echo of kindergarten, and you wander in a daze towards the produce. It was the banana song: “Ba-na-na banana, amai banana, banana wa oishisou. Ba-na-na banana, amai banana, banana wa...” “Banana, banana, sweet banana. The banana looks really good. Banana, banana, sweet banana. Banana, banana (I can't make out the rest)...”

But there is more!!! Oh, there is more! From your left comes something else: “Ichigo, Ichigo, Ichigo” (“Strawberry, Strawberry, Strawberry”). Mikans (mandarin oranges)! There is another stereo sitting on top of the mikans! Ichigo, Mikan, Banana, Ichigo, Mikan, Banana... it's too much! Too many fruits! Too much music! The beauty has turned to horror! The joy has turned into an amorphous mixture of fructose-laden dribble. And to top it off, as your will is breaking, in the background you hear a square-wave version of Is it unusual to be loved by anyone, and that is all. Your sanity is gone, lost forever. Your will is broken, and you return to America, another missionary casualty of Japan, burnt out and broken, realizing why Japan is the hardest mission field in the world: everything sings in Japan. Beyond idol worship, job worship, love of money, the historical rejection of the gospel and the compromise of the church, beyond busyness, the high cost of living, and even the centuries of truth-absent, post-modern double-think that makes apologetics and reasoning impossible... everything sings in Japan. Everything. Missionaries don't stand a chance.

Hey, check it out. I wrote a new story. It's some combination of culture shock and slowly losing my mind. "The World of Ern." I hope you enjoy the craziness.

Something to Prove

I hope that you won't take what I write here too seriously. The thoughts are not completely fleshed out, so don't take it as criticism of others, because I'm just thinking out loud. Who knows if I'll believe half of what I write here when I wake up tomorrow morning. It's just thoughts, not conclusions.

March 6, 2009

Something to Prove

I believe, intellectually at least, that God's love for us cannot be increased by our righteous deeds. Sin has consequences, sometimes terrible consequences, but the diminishing of God's love is not one of those consequences. His love is solely based on grace, nothing else. And by definition, grace is not something that we can influence by right deeds.

This was most clearly revealed to me about 6 months before I came to the field, when I studied hard the book of Hosea. I suggest you do so, too. In it, I saw so clearly at that time that God loves us because He loves us, not because of who we are (dirty prostitutes named Gomer, according to Hosea). When you love a prostitute without having sexual relations with her (Hosea 3), you show that how she gained her love and worth and value in the past (through her body) will not work on you. You love her for an entirely different reason than how she was loved by others. That is how we are before God: filthy and loved dearly. For those who are saved, no sin can dimnish that love. No righteous deed can increase it. His love for us is by grace, and no performance of our own can affect it. He loves us because Christ died for our sins and the blood from His side cleans our filth away. We do not clean ourselves.

That is what I believe. In my head, at least. The other question is not just if God's love for us is constant, but if it is enough. It was for Paul: in all kinds of suffering He rejoiced. The Father's love was enough for Jesus to lay down His life as a sacrifice to purchase His people. It was enough for the rest of the apostles who were violently murdered for their faith. None of these people feared men-they did not fear anything-because God's love was enough for them.

It is not enough for me. I need the praises of men. Well, not their praises so much. I don't like being praised particularly; it makes me feel awkward. But I at least need their indifference. It's their scorn I can't take. God's love is not enough for me to endure just anything for Him. It is not enough to face the burning shame (before men) of really walking with Him and being bold to proclaim His Gospel. I know that His love is unchanging and will never leave me, but it is not enough for me. I need other things. Therein is the root of so much sin.

Sometimes I feel like we as missionaries are so insecure in God's love that we have something to prove through our ministries. Do we truly believe that God's love in unchanging? And is it enough for us? Is the reason that we bury ourselves in ministry because we are mistaken in one of these? After all, if we are working blasted hard for Him, we can be assured of His love: We're missionaries! And if we are insecure in that, well, we always have the work of the ministry to fall back on, right? In other words, is discontent in the love of God a motive for ministry? Is ministry a way of hiding in this discontent?

In a place like Mexico, where with just a good stare someone will repent and believe and jump into the nearest lake for baptism, I assume that it must be just great to hide in your ministry. It must be quite easy to avoid the unpleasant reality of your discontent in God's love (if such a thing exists in you). In rural Japan, it's a bit harder. This place is just HARD. You don't see many converts. When you work in a place like this, resting assured in your work instead of grace isn't so easy.

Ah, but we are clever, we sinners. If the work shows no results, we can work harder. Pass out more tracts. Teach more English classes. Pray more. Join another community activity. Whatever. We can work ourselves into the ground, because if we do so, dagnabit, God must be pleased with us, whether we see results or not.

We are Gomers every one, worthless prostitutes. We want to buy God's love with our bodies. But we must take our joy and content that God loves us despite our prostitution, otherwise we get into absurdities. So, my theory is that some of the time, the reason we missionaries work so hard is because we either do not believe that God's love will be with us no matter what or because we are not content in it. Praise God for those who work hard because they are deeply enthralled in His love. As humans, it is impossible for us to look at other humans and tell if they are working hard out of discontent or out of a genuine response to God's love. So I'll try not to look at other people and tell.

For me, I have the opposite problem because of my insecurity. It's why I run when I should be bold. Were God's secure and all-satisfying to me, I would have nothing to fear.

See, I have trouble “accomplishing things” in the ministry. I just... I want to rest in the certainty of God's love. So when I encounter hard-working missionaries (whatever their motives, good or bad), I just can't keep up with them. I like a slow pace of life. So when I'm around those hard-workers (God bless them for their sacrifice), I just want to cry “Grace, grace! Give me a rest!” I am a weak child who just wants to sleep in (I can be a pretty lazy sinner). I like to take things slow, and I want to spend lots of time with God. If I could have anything in this place of trial and hardship, this field of Japan, I would want to dance and play like a naked child in the tall grass with my Father on a bright day. I want to experience more of Christ and see His pleasure.

“That I may know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” That's the purpose of my life: to know Christ. I would be just as happy to do it without the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings (like I said, I like to take it easy), but unfortunately, the two seem inextricably linked. I just can't escape that. I want to know Christ. That's why I'm here. He has chosen me to come here and to preach the Gospel. I wish I were better at it. But I want to see His love. I want to relish in it. I want the freedom to be an innocent child and to laugh and play and know Him more. That's why it's hard for me sometimes to work hard as others: I just want to see the smile of God, and I know I won't see it by working myself to death for Him. But I'll also be looking the wrong way when it comes if I fail in the tasks He's set before me: I'm a steward of so much that He's entrusted to me for a season, and I would be a faithful one.

But when all is said and done, I just want to play in the garden with my God. I want to be content in that and then do whatever good deeds that contentment drives me to. I wish I could be...


Japan is a workaholic culture. I feel out of my element here. Perhaps that workaholic spirit is part of the reason that we missionaries, too, are often workaholics. Finding a place in such a place is not easy.

Again, these are just ramblings and ponderings, not conclusions. Don't take them as though I've figured any of this out.

The rest of my vacation thoughts.

Before you read this post, make sure you've read the previous! It's a continuation of my thoughts from my vacation.

February 6

I wrote in my head while riding the Chuo-Sobu line into Tokyo from Mitaka and listening to “Breaking Out” by the Protomen (google it). What a rush. I wrote it on paper on a train to Yokohama after transferring. For me, poetry is well... often not very poetic. At least, this one isn't.

Hell's Train

“Chuo-Sobu line, the next station is Nishi Ogikubo.” A hundred men in business suits ride this train, plus some women and about a thousand hanging posters. But they are lost, every one, save for a little lady sitting in the priority seat, and she would deny it. They are lost and doomed, doomed for ーつぎは、おぎくぼ*ー for Hell. The eternal fires where there will be no escape. And Satan would have them think of anything, anything except their eternal souls and the salvation that could be theirs. Alcohol, cell phones, bottled tea, endless droning television (even here, on the Chuo-Sobu line, bound for Shinjuku and Tokyo stations), but most of all the noise, the constant noise of Japan: ads in English and Japanese on every wall, keitai mail, manga, commercials blaring soundlessly from the monitors overhead. I hear the endless clank, clank, clank of the tracks, then BOOM, a train passes inches from my ear on the opposite track. But the hanging posters are far louder.

“Anything, anything save Christ. Take money, food, Sapporo beer, seek love anywhere you please (so long as it doesn't become public), but don't think about – 「次は新宿です。ありがとうございます。」*** Be busy! Be so busy that you can go to bed every night without thought or wonder. Clank, clank, clank. You'll be happy – 'This is Shinjuku. Please change here for the Yamanote line, the Shonan-Shinjuku line, the Chuo local service...' – keep listening to that woman speak. Go ahead, change. Be good people, give to the poor, be polite. Change in any way you please: Tenrikyou, Sokka Gakkai, classic Buddhism in a dozen forms, or plain old superstition. I would love you to be a good person, so long as you do not think about my foe, as long as you never meet one of his followers, and if you do, they are just as engrossed with their keitai** as you are with yours. Become pious, as long as it is not pious for Him.”

Whoosh, the doors open with a blast of cold air, and a hundred men in business suits exit, while a hundred more step onto this train, しゅうてん**** hell.

On Sunday, I visited a church of surpassing caliber. I have never seen its like in Japan. I spent the entire day with them, and though they live in the busiest city in the world, they took in a full-time work day of fellowship. It shone like a column of light, reaching to the heavens in this sin-stained city. The church can never die, and so there is hope for Japan.

*The next stop is Ogikubo

**Keitai – cell phone

*** The next stop is Shinjuku. Thank you very much!

**** Shuuten: Final stop (at the shuuten, everyone gets off the train).

5 PM

What I learned from talking to another MUP missionary in Yokohama station:

Whenever you see someone with something, they obviously care about it, so it can be a key to a relationship with them. i.e. if someone is walking a dog, they obviously like the dog, same if you see them tending a garden. Use that to form a relationship with them.

Feb. 7, Saturday, West of Yokohama (Ninomiya)

10 PM

Tonight, at this home group, I was tired and barely interracted with anyone. They are even still here, and I'm not interracting with them. I formed some good relationships in Tokyo, but here on the tail end of my trip, I'm tired and just can't stand forming any more quick relationships that could be great – if we knew each other for more than a day. Oh, if only things were different and we could truly get to know one another! If only... God forgive me for cursing so much the lot You have given me.

It's hard not wanting to go back to Kagawa. But I will. Through God's strength I will. It's not as bad as I feel right now.

My deliverer is coming. My deliverer is standing by. A slightly overblown song I heard today here, but so true. The fact of the matter is, because God is a being who intervenes in the natural world, I can have hope. I just wish that more people in Kagawa believed and would remind me of that. And I long to speak to those back home.

Oh God, help me to adjust and make it long term here in Japan. A good friend or a wife would help tremendously in that. Some of the local missionaries have already, but I need a peer. Oh how needs can go unmet, which drives us to You. I don't know how long I can last without a resonating soul.

“As long as I have ordained you shall.”

That's always Your answer. Help me to persevere!

He has delivered me half a dozen, significant times already since coming here, and He will continue to deliver me. I need a new miracle of hope every month, lest I perish.

I want to become a capable vessal in this land. To learn this language. Learn this culture. Learn how to minister here. Learn how to love God better and serve for the sake of the Name. Learn, learn, learn, and then go out and be used, all while learning more, growing more, loving God more, worshipping more. I have been a lousy missionary in so many ways, and I can't wait for the Spirit's changing work to be farther along. Oh God, wash me in a shower of your grace and clean all this filth and sin away. I am so sick of it. I want to be clean, want to be better, but half the time I try, it just seems like I'm trying to buy grace, which is twice as bad. Help me to come to you with a humble heart, and not false humility, true.

God, I wanna be happy. Part of me feels guilty for that, despite all the John Piper I've read, because to me, that happiness seems focused on human relationships, like SLO. Maybe too much, good as those are.

But I feel like I can't find that happiness here, and if I go back to CA, even SLO, I will be dissappointed with that choice for perhaps the rest of my life. I will know from the moment of retreat that I ran out of selfishness and chose the second-best, that I failed to obey the purpose of my life, “That I may know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings...” (Phil. 3:10-11) And in comfort, in fellowship, even in marriage, for many years, I will live in regret, either mild or severe, that I did not choose the warrior's road.

So, if I want happiness, it is to be found here – 日本(Japan). Unless God gives me a radical change, if I want happiness, true happiness, it must be found here, on His road, the road of the cross, in Japan. As I look to return to the island where darkness reigns, I must remember that. And I must pursue true しあわせ　（joy)、IN GOD. I cannot live and not pursue happiness. I cannot. 'Tis foolish.

But I must pursue happiness with all my might – working hard, going to あ治(Aji), embarrassing myself, being a naked, dancing clown. In all these things, I pursue my happiness. Whole-heartedly. Through difficulty. Through さびしさ(lonliness). Through unbearable, blinding, hell-echoing pain. That is how I pursue my happiness. In eternity and on this earth. A happiness I do not yet see, cannot yet taste, cannot even see the possibility of coming into existance, that happiness. That happiness do I pursue, and it will surpass all other joys, all imaginable self-bought happiness, for it shall come from the hand of God himself.

The power of the resurrection.

Obtained through the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.

And it shall be a powerful witness to this world, for at this time I prophesy that it shall be (not my words, but those of scripture), so that when it comes, I can point to this very page and say, “See, it has come true!”

For now, I do not see it, and I do not know how these dreams could ever come to reality, but my deliverer is riding on the clouds of Heaven to my rescue, and His power that stretched the cosmos across the endless nothing of space and set every star ablaze with unquenchable fire, His power backs His Word, and I shall yet taste the unbreakable promises coming to fruition. God, help me, and let me see your provision.

And when all is said and done, a thousand souls will follow me into Heaven. Like a duck in flight, successful ministry is not something you can hit by aiming at it – aim for God, ad he content in Him, and all the world will follow the church into Heaven. There is my ministry strategy: “Abide in me, and you will bear much fruit.” (John 15)

God, make it so! Amen, amen, and amen.

-Joey

In this journal entry, some of the promises I refered to are those like Mark 10:29-30... “'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied. 'No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.'”

I do not for a moment believe in health and wealth teaching, that I am earning earthly riches for myself here in Japan. I don't think those are the “fields” that Jesus talks about here. However, look at how He promises rewards in this present age as well as the age to come. I believe this is chiefly knowing Him more in this age (hence my theme verse of Phil. 3:10-11 that I may know Him more and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings), along with other blessings like the family of Christ to take the place of those we say good-bye to. A big reason why I don't think this passage translates to worldly riches is because with this great reward comes persecutions! More joy, more suffering, God by our sides forever.

Feb 8, Sunday

7:30 PM

After leaving Jesus Community Chapel, my heart breaks. This trip is over – only the return journey remains. Not returning to 香川(Kagawa) would do unbearable damage, but the dread of returning is heavy upon me, mixed with the pain of leaving. 帰りたくない。帰りたくない。I don't want to go back. But I must – it is the road before me, and God will be with me in it, despite that no one will be there to greet me. But if I walk this road, He will be with me. He will be.

9:40 PM One more time, on a night bus...

A few more so-called poems, if they can such be named:

The immense suffering of all the saints

The immense suffering of all the saints:

I hear their voices now.

Mine is among them.

Injustice in this world, injustice.

And agony.

We all cry out in our misery the simplest prayer: “Deliver.”

Deliver.

Some cry it with joy.

Some cry it with grumbling.

Some cry it along with the second prayer, “Thank you.”

But we all cry it.

There are no exceptions – save fools.

We cry it, for the kingdom is not yet full.

Evil is.

And sin is strong.

So, we cry, “Deliver.”

Oh God, deliver.

Changed again

I am changed again.

Suffering has done its work,

Followed by its more dangerous partner: beauty.

And now, with a prayer from my friend whose name is forgotten,

With that prayer, the only buttress that gave me strength to leave,

The only thing that held back my tears,

I left.

Not wanting it, I left.

Crying, “Anywhere, anywhere but there,” I left.

Relationships

If anything would cause surrender of this quest,

this adventure,

this destiny of mine,

it would be those that I have left behind.

They called it a revolving door.

The imagery was wrong.

More like a scatter-bomb,

a new one every day.

Pain and beauty have done their work, and so I write. I write anew. I'm reading The Heavenly Man, about Brother Yun, a Chinese house church leader and the Chinese house church movement, and I just read about the point in his life where, like Hudson Taylor and his spiritual secret, Brother Yun discovered that God really would watch over him in all things and that he needed not worry at all. That no matter what, God would deliver him.

Oh, that I too would understand that. Even in bitter loneliness, that I would understand that...

That night on the bus, I slept very little and read most of that book, The Heavenly Man. It truly impacted me, and I highly recommend it. I've always wanted to have an all-night prayer vigil, like Jesus so often did, and that bus was a great opportunity for that sort of thing (lots of reading and praying). Since I can't sleep on night busses, I tried reading and praying instead, which made it a good trip back to Kagawa. When I returned, after all this, I felt very encouraged for having struggled through all this.

Well, for a few days, at least...

-Joey

Thoughts from during my vacation

I'm going to post some thoughts from during my vacation. Here are the first of them.

January 28, 2009. On a bus from Osaka to Tokyo


Something Dan said to me last night: “In ministry, there are needs, opportunities, and your giftings. Meetings needs and seizing opportunities is good, but in the long run, you will be most content working out of your giftings.”

2:40 PM

As I begin reading Revolution in World Missions, about KP Yohannan's work as an itenerant evangelist, I weep for Japan and know that here, even if you moved from place to place and slept in ditched and preached on street corners, few would still come to Christ. No one would beat you, but no one would be saved.

Only the Spirit can break these barriers. I pray for His outpouring, for there is no other hope. Lord, could it be that You have willed a hardening at this time? Could such a terrible thing be true? How can that change?


8:05 PM

Reading KP's book, I want to weep. In India, there are signs, wonders, mirales, and loads of converts. Loads of established churches. Yet here, in 日本、 we see nothing. It is like this night, driving along a highway through the darkness. While KP Yohannan has dreams of the harvest and reaching them through the bridge of hope, as I look out my window in this dark night, there is scarcely a street light, and now and then a green sign or tiny lamp. For all intents and purposes, there is nothing out there and never will be. Oh Lord, you will bring your dawn, but the night is so long, so dark!

Well, as much as I'd like to go work in the ripe fields of India, I'm not needed. Nor called. However, I am called here! And so, it is my lot to speed blindly through the dark, unseeing.

I'd love to visit India, see some of their work, but to me, perhaps, reading of it is enough while I stumble blindly through the harvest fields at night.


February 3

5:40 PM

I must repeat again the words of Gimli son of Gloin upon his departure from Lothlorien, for they ring so true in this life: “Why did I come on this quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not forsee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Gloin!” (Fellowship of the Ring)

See, today I played sports with some JCCC staff and a few American Crusade staff serving in Japan. It was fun. The Americans spoke amazing Japanese. They've used it a lot, versus my isolation. It was fun. Oh God, even though I am still a little sick, it was good to fellowship. So good. Yet even now, after leaving a slight cloud settles on me. That of friendlessness, isolation, and a hard, hard ministry that doesn't seem to fit me well.


6:15 PM

How in the world am I to go back to Shikoku? And what will I do there to find fellowship?

Lord, the surrendered life seems impossible to me. The far-off, joyous cries of SLO still echo in my ears. My own tears resound from the soil of Tadotsu. Kagawa-cho is shrouded in かすみ　mist before me. I feel like it is unreasonable and terrible of God to send me back there to be all alone again. And yet... it is the road to victory. It is the road to the field of Cormallen. And sometimes the hardest part is leaving a place of beauty. And what I have experienced today was beautiful. The simple joy of hanging out with people my age.

Oh Lord, help me to walk this dark road that You have me on, and trust You in it, even as I journey back to Shikoku.

9 months. 九ヶ月 have passed. And I feel like I shall never be anything but lonely – unless I falter and return to the states. But if I do that, I will live the rest of my life in regret. Though God's grace would shine upon me even then that I should not. Yet the laughter of SLO, still ringing in my mind, seems a thing so lofty and full that it shall never be heard again, in no form, no matter what I do. I feel like things will never get better, because I see no signs of such.

But that is not true.

But that is not true.

Not true.

It has not always been like this; it shall not always be like this. There is hope.

I see no signs, no way of things improving while I am in my current situation, and 1 1/2 years seems an eternity to spend there.

Oh God, the situation is hopeless. I have no hope in this world nor in circumstances. My only hope is in You. Please come through.

I suppose my only comfort is that I have done this for the Name, and God takes care of His people.

Broken Mirror

Broken Mirror

So, this is my best attempt at playing Broken Mirror, a piano version of the song “Small Two Pieces – Restored Pieces,” written by Yasunori Mitsuda and performed by Joanne Hogg. This version was arranged by Jay Semerad and released on the One Up Studios album “Xenogears Light – An Arranged Album,” which they included a copy of the sheet music with if you bought it. I believe that takes care of all the credits. I hope you enjoy seeing rural Japan in the background. The rice fields sadly are out of season, so they're quite ugly right now, and as you can tell, the day was quite cloudy.

I've been learning this song for about a year, now. It's by far the most difficult song I've ever really attempted to learn, and some would say it was a waste of time to start learning it so early in my relearning of playing the piano in general (I've sunk so much time into this song). As you can tell, I still have a long ways to go in learning this song, but I wanted to put up this rough draft and write to you some of the meaning that this song holds to me.

However, I reject that this song has been a waste of time. It has been a friend when I've had so few others. To me, this song has a much deeper meaning, and every mistake and trial has been a pleasure for the joy of every tiny bit that I learn to play it better.

This song has a twofold meaning, and each side is deep and rich. The first side is from the original song, and if you search for “Small Two Pieces Xenogears” on Youtube I bet you'll be able to find and listen to it if you want to. As for me, I never played Xenogears (though I did play Xenosaga), but I've always been a fan of Mitsuda's music, especially when you get the voice of Joanne Hogg involved. So I downloaded this song and listened to it some.

Southbound on the 101. I was driving from San Luis Obispo to Redlands. I believe it was Christmas of my first senior year of college. I was listening to a custom CD mix of video game and anime music of my own design and coasting through the emerald hills of the central coast, not a car in sight. “Run through the cold of the night...” These words began to play. And as I listened to this song, it was as though the lands had become resurrected as shall come at the end of the age, and I was travelling along the roads of the new earth to come. I saw myself as travelling with God Himself as company through paradise, not a care in the world, and the two of us were together in a land renewed. To my left stretched miles of vineyards. And vineyards differ from wheat in that wheat is a crop grown for nourishment and survival, while wine grapes are pure luxury and abundance, as shall be that earth. I wept as I drove in yearning of what is still to come, even as I was given as true an earthly imagining of it as many-a-person ever gets. That's what I describe my visions of Heaven that I have received until now: imaginings. Because they are not visions in the truest sense, for my eyes have seen naught but the creation in front of them, but all the same, I have imagined Heaven in such a way as to bring forth true tears of joy and yearning. I want to be there.

The second meaning of this song to me is thus, and this is of the piano version that I am learning: It is a reminder of all that I have lost and all I have yet to gain. I started learning it shortly before going to San Luis Obispo in February of last year (2008). And I listened to it continually when I was about to leave that place. To me, this song reminds me immensely of that place and the people and love I experienced there. It reminds me of those that I left behind. The storm-like intensity of the middle is a constant reminder of the cost of the answered call. And as I listened to it here in Japan, it was a comfort.

As well, that meaning of Heaven is intermixed, for it shares the same melody, after all. In the last notes, every time I play them, I think, “Let the last note of my life sound for You, Lord.”

Broken Mirror is like an unatainable goal for me, for it seems impossible that I will ever learn it. It should take 5 minutes to play. It used to take me 15, but I've managed to get it down to 7. So I hope you will forgive me for posting it here prematurely, before it was ready, but a year is long enough, I think.

Leave a comment if you would like for me to post more of my video game music-playing. I plan to post “To Far Away Times,” another masterpiece by Mitsuda, as soon as it is ready. I finally found a version easy enough for me to learn within a few months, and with that one as well, a clear imagining of Heaven is intermixed.