Toei has been rather uneventful as of late! The wind howls at night and it gets cold, but inside my little room in the mountains I am surviving in style! Living in a one room apartment certainly makes me a more efficient person, and it makes me wonder about all the room I had at the apartment in Georgetown. I mean the third floor of the OK is about 10 times bigger than my apartment in Toei. I think that everyone should have to live in a small place at least once…is sure teaches you how to be organized, clean and cozy!
Last weekend Michi and I went to stay with our friends Eriko and Hiroshi in Tahara. Their house is the exact opposite of mine, and very big even by American house standards. Their house is half Japanese-style and half Western-style, and I admit that I would love to have a place like that one day. We ate some great food, Michi and Eriko enjoyed some $100 a bottle sake, and we ate strawberries that were $10 FOR ONE. I kid you not. Needless to say I get to try things here that I never would at home. It helps to have a lot of rich friends!
This weekend I have a meeting in Nagoya and will be spending the weekend in and around there. Nagoya is one of my favorite places to go, just because I have always been fascinated by the big city. Of course I get to come back to tiny Toei after the weekend, and it is amazing to contrast the two. Nagoya, with its millions of people going here and there to this shop and that shop, and Toei where at 6pm, the town is pretty much tucked in for the evening.
We have a busy couple of weekends coming up. Michi is going to Kyoto with her teachers for a school trip. Then we both are going snowboarding in Gifu the next weekend. We are planning to go back to Ise the third weekend in February, and the last weekend we have plans to go back to Takayama with friends. March brings us to the Roppongi beer festival and spring break—where I hope I have a friend or two come and visit. Needless to say the spring is going to fly by.
Some of my elementary kids found out today that I have a tattoo, which needless to say in Japan is not as accepted as it is in the states. One of the boys that I really like saw it and he told me that my secret was safe with him! Some of these kids really are great people. I wish all of you could meet them and be there when I teach class!
Speaking of tattoos in Japan, I have a friend here that has quite a few! Basically his whole body is tattooed, but you can’t see any of them when he is wearing his business attire. It does create a problem when going to onsens (Japanese hot springs). Some of them have signs written in English that say they do not allow people with tattoos. You know when you are in a small mountain town and you see signs written in English, they are meant for you!! Luckily I don’t have a big one (yet!) and a good-sized bandage can cover it. Even still, I have yet to go to the onsen in my town, and it is supposed to be very famous!
Today is a beautiful day in Toei and the mountains look amazing. After school I plan on heading to the Board of Education to pay my rent, stop by the local grocery store, and head back to my apartment for an evening of relaxing. Sometimes living here can be lonely, but sometimes it is just what the soul needs.
I am reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I love it so far. It has some really amazing insight into grace and why many cant accept it. Also, he quotes Aristotle when he said; “I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” I have become very fond of that quote to say the least!
Of course if you know me, you know I am going to say this book has me thinking. It has me thinking about how we as Christians are not quick to neither receive nor freely give grace. Often times we have trouble forgiving ourselves, and even more trouble forgiving others.
Which brings me to the question that I have for you:
If you were to die right now and you found yourself in Heaven, I am sure you would be overjoyed. What if, when you looked around in Heaven, you saw a drunk from your town that never could hold a job, didn’t provide much for his family, and used ‘colorful’ language? What if you looked the other way and saw a woman that you knew to be more than slightly promiscuous? What if you turned around and were staring face to face with none other than Saadam Hussein?
What if Heaven was full of drunks and rapists and child molesters? What if Heaven was a place for liars and stealers and abortion doctors and saints?
How would that make you feel?
Why is it that for many of us, our reaction would be, “WHAT? WHY ARE THEY HERE? Lord, I thought you said that only good Christians who did what you said got into Heaven? Why did you let them in? They never even came to church!! He was always a drunk! He killed little kids!!!!!”
Why is that our first reaction isn’t, “Thank you God! In your infinite and obscene GRACE you sacrificed your SON to save the sinners of the world to come and live forever with you!!!”
I’m wondering about God’s obscene grace, and how it just defies all logic. I’m wondering about man’s brain and how we are so quick to judge others and limit who is in and out. I also wonder if the drunks and scoundrels and sinners really do go to Heaven. I sure pray that they do.
I love it in the book where Manning quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky when he talks about the same situation. I love it when Dostoevsky wonders if God will say to the ‘righteous’: “If I called them [the sinners and drunks and scoundrels}, it is because not one of them deserved it.”
How amazing it is to follow the God of Obscene Grace, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the Great I AM, the Prince of Peace, the God that forgives Hitler and Jerry Falwell, the God that loves me even though I don’t understand him, the God that gave us the mind to create chocolate cake and beer and the atomic bomb, the God that always was and always will be.
I’m anxious to hear your thoughts.
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2 comments:
I was just remarking to Liz yesterday how I like to think that Heaven would just be so damned confusing to a lot of people. Any anecdotal thoughts about Heaven that I have heard in my life revolve around what would make a carnal person happy. Why do we tell people with physical deformities that they will get a new body in Heaven? Isn't it God that chose to have them be the way they are?
As far as I have read, God wants us to act in ways that make carnal pleasures moot. Sacrifice, pain, loving our enemies. All are things that don't fit into the nice picture of Heaven. Maybe Heaven is just a place to be close to God if we so choose. I think salvation has to exist on a much higher plane than just simply being shangri-la.
Just about everything in the Bible about heaven is spelled out for us and our stupid minds in a way that we can understand. If I tell you a place has streets of gold and crystal seas, you immediately think of an amazing place where wealth and luxury rule. Of course, if you told this to someone from a culture where gold and crystal weren't valuable, they may look at it differently. Do I think that the streets will actually be made of gold? I think its an experience and a place that is so utterly incomprehensible that 'gold streets' is the only way that our human minds can begin to understand it.
I don't know that God wants us to act in ways that totally steer us from 'carnal pleasures'...carnal pleasures meaning anything that is good for the body--much bigger than sex. I'm thinking eating a delicious steak is a carnal pleasure in a way..and there is no way that God ain't down with that! I know what you are getting at though and I agree.
Although, I picture Heaven as a huge pond, fishing with Jesus, perfect weather, and some cold brews. That's a picture of heaven I can get down with.
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