Late Night Religious Deep-ness

So...my Wednesday advanced class just beat all records at how late our Bible Study went overtime. The class is supposed to end at 9:10. Our previous record was 9:55, with one student continuing to ask questions privately until 10:15. Tonight we set a new record of 10:50.

Usually I do most of the talking. They toss questions at me and I try to explain them all away, with varying levels of success. It's the class where I feel like God takes over my talking most often, or at least the class where I end up spilling my entire heart about God, humanity, or my own place in the middle of all that without a second thought until all the words are already lying out there in a jumbled heap. It's only after they've been said that the touch of embarrassment can come in. That sense of, "Oops. That was the real me in unrestrained form. Is that a good idea in front of my students?"

Tonight, however, I managed to get them talking. I don't remember exactly how, but it had something to do with Buddhism. They started talking about praying for dead people, and how the prayer is connected to the spirit separating from the body. I asked where the power in the prayer came from, and I think we reached the following conclusions:

1) The prayer has no real power. The spirit separating from the body is just a natural process that will happen regardless of whether the dead are prayed for or not.
2) But prayer for the dead is still important. It shows a respect for the dead person, and that respect is deserved merely on the merit that the person is dead--kind of like respect for the completeness of their life.
3) The meaning behind this prayer is really irrelevant to the people in my class. But the action of folding their hands in memory of one who is died is important to them.
4) Even though most people in my class were arguing from a "Japanese" viewpoint, their idea of the afterlife ranges from unconsciousness (preserved in the memories of loved ones), person becoming a kind of God, or person going to Nirvana.
5) None of my students believes that Truth exists. Some make exceptions for science, some do not. It does not bother at least two of them to know about themselves that they view the world in the way that makes them feel the most comfortable.

Probably I have managed to misunderstand something in here...it was an interesting experience...several times I had to make them repeat things or explain them in a different way multiple, multiple times before I understood enough to go on.

But we finally reached this point of just raw honesty with each other. When they're sitting there like, "We can't believe in truth and we can't believe in God." And a couple of the class members said, "We wish we could believe in God." Which is the point that I start weeping inside. And I decided to dare asking a question that I had never asked in this direction before. I often talk to people about "What keeps you from believing in God?", but I asked them tonight, "What would it take for you to believe that God exists? What if God's existence and the existence of suffering are both true realities?"

I never quite got a straight answer out of them. It took a lot of times for me to repeat the question and try to help them understand it. But their answers were interesting when they did answer, one woman's especially. She talked about how she knew that believing in God would change everything...she is a doctor, and she said that the Truth was whatever the patient said it was, but that that would have to change if she believed in God. She's been thinking about the issue of when life begins and abortion recently and she said she knew she might have to deny some patients treatment if she had God to give her something absolute in her life. And I realized something as she was talking, which was that, even though she had said she wanted to believe in God, really she didn't. Not yet. She knew how difficult that switchover would be. I filed that thought away to pray for her later.

I don't know if this class has any idea how much I love them. But in my final outpouring of heart for them today I got ever so slightly teary eyed. Just enough to grab a tissue and try to dab at my eye at sneaky moments when I hoped they wouldn't notice to try to keep it from stinging and getting worse.

After we were done in class, I was at my desk cleaning up, and we must have been talking in English long enough that they forgot to switch back to Japanese while they were in the kitchen cleaning up the teapot and cups. So I get to overhear them saying, "Yeah...I realized today that I really don't understand Buddhism" and then, "Pamela was crying. I think we made her sad because we couldn't understand."

They actually filed out, the four of them who were left, and apologized for making me sad. I was speechless. Honestly, I hadn't felt so sad until they came out and said it like that. But how could I possibly explain? I finally said, "Japan often makes me a little sad. That's why I'm here. That's why I want to stay." Then they were rather speechless. But my wonderful lady doctor said, "But, Pamela, I really like hearing what you have to say."

I know God is reaching to them. I see it in their faces, in their questions, in what grabs their attention. Evangelism is child bearing. As such, it is painful work. I don't mean in terms of conflict. There is no conflict in this class. Just question asking and seeking and trying to understand. But I ache for them.

A God who allows rants

A lot of my time in Japan has been spent fighting to pray. The past few months have been especially that way. They've been the kind of months where, whether alone or in groups, I sit down to talk to God and find myself wondering what I could possibly have to say to a God who knows everything, can do anything, etc.

It's odd sometimes how hard it is to be honest with myself. It seems like it would be more natural to be dishonest with other people and straight in my own thoughts, but somehow it has never worked that way for me. I will be innocently going along, really believing that everything is all right until a friend says, "You've been acting like something is bothering you." Which is usually news to me. Until about twenty minutes later when the friend has managed to drag some woe out of me that I didn't know existed.

God has done that for me a couple times now too.

I sometimes get stuck in the rut of "this is how I should approach God" and even begin to feel proud at how well I've fortified myself in trusting Him, entering His courts in praise and thanksgiving, did much more intercessing than "troubling" Him with my own problems...one could almost forget that I *have* problems.

Until God slows me down, steals my ability to pray, and we're left staring at each other, me as confused as when my friends have sat me down to say, "Something is obviously bothering you." It took me until this week to realize that I wasn't really on speaking terms with God. Oh, I knew I hadn't been talking to Him. But I'd kind of been blaming Him for that. It wasn't that I hadn't set the time aside, after all, I just hadn't really had any words for Him when I had. So the only possible explanation in my mind was that He was trying to teach me something. Which I suppose He usually is, but I usually don't figure it out until the lesson is over. If I think I've figured it out before that, there's a good chance I have no idea.

The first time He did it to me was at prayer retreat last August. Part of the retreat was to take a day apart with God. I'd been wandering around and finally "arrived" at a small clearing out in the trees. There was no one around for a *long* ways. And I felt God say, "You can shout here." To which I'm thinking, "Umm...great. But...er...I don't really feel like shouting about anything." Ten minutes later...it was a rant to end all rants.

It was the same way this week. That feeling of, "We are not going anywhere until you [Pamela] sit down and give Me your heart, even if it's hurt and angry right now." And I'm thinking, "Dude...there's no need to get angry at You. I trust You. I know it will be okay. Why do You want me to shout at You?" A theme of Japan has been God saying over and over again, "I want *everything* from you. Not just what you think is the good you have to offer. You are not allowed to choose what is good enough for Me. I want *everything*."

I think it has been about three days of ranting at God now. But something finally fell into place late this morning, and the ranting gave way to real, true, honest-to-goodness worship. The kind where each word of the song strikes my heart with how amazing this whole journey with God is and where each stroke of the guitar feels like a dance of joy. And today, as students were coming in and registering and I was sitting working on a class syllabus I found my thoughts drifting to various people to pray for. It has been *eons* (read: probably not more than several weeks) since that was true.

My ranting isn't done quite yet, but I found myself amazed right now...what kind of God really wants His people to rant at Him? Seriously?! Really...we have a God who doesn't wait for us to pretty ourselves up until we can come before Him, flawless and beautiful. He wants us to sprint up to Him, our clothes torn and dirty, our words foolish and our lips stammering. Somehow, I think we're more beautiful in His eyes that way.

Sakura season!

Right now in Tokyo the cherry trees are in full bloom. Just wanted to share the beauty with you! It is a custom in Japan during cherry blossom season to go to "hanami". In kanji, this word is written: 花見. The first character means "flower" and the second character means "look". Basically, this means you go and spread a tarp under a blooming tree and hang out enjoying it.

I went to hanami with some of my students last week. Whenever food is involved, my students do amazingly impressive things. I had kind of expected the food to come out all at once like a traditional American picnic. But food kept showing up out of bags throughout the entire meal. Homemade inari-zushi (rice wrapped in thin sweetened tofu), cooked carrots and lotus root with a sauce to go over the top, little dango (balls made from pounded rice) with a sweet glaze over them, etc.

Tokyo usually feels really busy. It's easy to walk through a crowd. There's usually a rather slow lane of walkers, and then a stream of people in a hurry that one can jump into. But the blossoms put even Tokyo walkers into slow motion. I left to meet a friend at the train station this last weekend. My walk crosses some ponds, and the path is lined with cherry trees. Usually the walk takes me around 20 minutes, but I was eight minutes late because the whole path was filled with people looking up at flowers, ambling along slowly, enjoying food and friends as they went. Even though it made me late, it's lovely to see Tokyo slow down to enjoy beautiful things!