A Jaunt

This past week I had the opportunity to travel to Shirahama for a retreat. We tourists can be attracted by the interesting and beautiful sandstone formations in the area. The crashing ocean waves against the rocks reminded me of summers spent on the Bruce Peninsula in Tobermory Ontario.

三段壁 = Sandanbeki

千畳敷 = Senjyo-jiki

No Lid

On my way to an old train line trail, I was changing trains. The people I was going to hike with had a head start. I was in a hurry.
I was still in my good, black, secret agent suit (wearing my new tie, which my wife had so very recently and with great effort picked out for me). I had just a few minutes between disembarking the Kobe Line Limited Express bound for Osaka, and boarding the Takarazuka Line 'normal' Express on my way to the boondocks (where the time between return trains increases from the accustomed couple three minutes to an almost unbearable fifteen twenty minutes). Yes, as you may have surmised, a recipe for trouble, but trouble has a way of sneaking up on you, through the chinks in your armour. A few minutes was not quite enough time to remove my secret agent suit, and don my hiking gear, but it would have to do. I hurried to the WC to find an empty stall. I have found while living in Japan, that I prefer western style toilets over the Asian style variety, but the architects and builders of this particular station were traditionalists. I went with the flow, and secured myself a changing stall. No toilet tank but someone had thoughtfully installed a small metal shelf on which to precariously pile my baggage. I removed my jacket, and with great care managed to get it into my bag without my pile falling over. After undoing and rolling up my tie, (my new tie, which my wife had so very recently and with great effort picked out for me) disaster sneaked through a chink. It was one of those slow-motion things, bullet time as it were, my tie began to unravel, gravity doing its dirty work, my aging reflexes failed miserably and the tie unraveled right into the toilet. I paused in shock. I somehow, magically, pulled a plastic bag out of my teetering pile and with as little contact as possible put my tie into the bag. I subsequently changed the rest of my gear without further mishap and caught my train, but was left with severe emotional scarring. Just how will I explain this to my wife? Or the dry cleaning lady?

Cross Cultural Engagement Skills and Love

Ambiguity tolerance
Sense of humour
Observation and questioning
Flexibility
Willingness to learn
Seeing “different” without judging
Patience
Good listening skills
Love
Willingness to risk
Setting aside “self”
Abandon independence
Drop presuppositions
Come as learners, (be teachable)
Willingness to learn like a child
Humility
Loss of one’s place and value

A list of skills needed to engage a cross-culture, as made by the attendees (mostly with experience in trying to engage the Japanese culture) at the third part of Josiah Bancroft’s core training seminar entitled Spiritual Formation and Gospel Renewal as given at this year's CPI conference.
It turns out as Josiah showed us, that these skills are transferable. These are things that we need if we want to love someone. I need to be willing to listen to my friend or need to set aside myself to love my child. It helps me step into the foreign territory of another culture or relationship.
I can’t wait to get home and practice on my wife.

The Spittin Image

I travelled to Hakone not too far from Tokyo this week for a conference. As we came over the mountain I caught a magnificient view, the view that one always sees in paintings and pictures of the landscape in Japan. Well I was finally able to get a shot myself.

A step back in time.

Kobe. A section of Meriken pier preserved as it was after the devastating earthquake of 1995. It used to sit about a meter and a half out of the water, and believe it or not those lamp posts used to be vertical. Even though more than ten years have passed, people who experienced this earthquake still talk about it with a lot of emotion and difficulty.

Yes!

The last word in The Message paraphrase of Luke is Yes!

It comes after reading all of Luke, the birth, the life, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension. The word following all of this is Yes. One word, dripping with meaning.
It is the kind of Yes you feel after scoring a goal, making a great save, or slamming one down the line. It is a fist pumping kind of Yes. It is a point to the sky sort of Yes.
A lot of work goes into making that great play. Years of practicing, hundreds of games under your belt, eating sleeping and drinking your craft, and only a few times in your career can you look back on a particularly well finished play and say Yes!
But this particular Yes is the greatest Yes sitting at the TSN turning point of History.
It is the sort of Yes that can be very loud or barely audible, depending on who you are, but either way it carries the weight of Glory to God.
Soli Deo Gloria.

At'll do er.

With a little technical help from my brother Paul, I managed to get my picture up. It turns out a pushpin does the trick. Smarts, but as they say no pain no gain.

A Tad Frustrated

I will keep you up to date on my trials and errors. As a facespace pioneer it may be useful for others to learn from what I have attempted and either avoid making the same errors or do what I did if a thing works. With respect to the picture problems, tried just thumb-tacking my picture over the question mark. Not working so far and I seem to have liquid crystals leaking out of my LCD. I'll let you know how I make out.

Facespace

Having finally mastered double clicking icons in windows, formatting my big ol 5 1/4 floppies, and sending and receiving e-mail it is with some consternation that I attempt something new. I heard about this newfangled facespace or mybook or some such thing. Signed up. I am hip. I got friends now. Gnarly. Dude. The strange thing, I have a giant question mark where my face ought to be.

Happenings at our little church

Last Sunday evening at Grapevine Cell Church 「ぶどうの木セルチャーチ」we had one of those great little intimate concerts that are a rare find. Guitaurist Mark Miller came to town. No no no not that one, theothermarkmiller. We slooshied some of his handmade tunes and he also subjected us to the one about the colour coded genies and their bricks. If you have not heard it, you can listen here.

Shinsaibashi

Looking at Shinsaibashi shopping street from Dotombori bridge, on a Monday when it is not so crowded. It is a good thing they don't allow cars during the day thinks I to myself.

Amanohashidate

The other day we made our way to Amanohashidate (天橋立). It is reported to be one of the three most beautiful sights in Japan. The peculiarity of it all is that one is supposed to look at it upside down in order to fully and truly appreciate it's beauty. It is a time honoured tradition complete with do-it-yourself handrails, viewing platform and safety screening for those who might topple over backwards. The safety screening looked quiet well used which caused me to wonder how many people rolled down the mountain in days of yore before safety screening was invented.

A potrait of the author.

It has been some time since I started writing this blog and the little old moving picture in the corner no longer does me justice. I feel I am aging gracefully, and thought I could maybe give the general readership out there a taste of my current charming looks. I recently came into some excellent portaits, uncommisioned and yet smacking of Rembrandt quality. I thought I would post these as an upgrade to plain old photos.

By Tomoko

By Wako

Ninja Shoes

Used for crossing moats and the like, to sneak up on unsuspecting castle guards.

Being a good Canadian they remind me of snow shoes.

Equations du jour.

tokei = 時計 = watch.
kakkouii = かっこういい = pretty cool.
これはかっこいい時計だと思います。(In Japanese but the pictures are good).
Here are some pretty cool watches. (English interview with creator Haruo Suekichi but watch out for the colourful language.)

Hisashiburi （久しぶり）

My Japanese English dictionary defines hisashiburi as "after a long time [interval, silence, absence, separation]".
Or in the timelessness of the olde First Nations expression with which I am sure you are familiar, long time no blog.