Walking Hirosaki

Yesterday was a golden day!. The weather was more like April than January! So after I finished my interview at the University Mary and I wandered downtown in the sunshine and finally gave blood - well, I gave blood but Mary was too anemic - before meandering back to the University for an evening Bible Study.

Monday wasn't quite such a golden day but we had fun doing the (very) short version of the Hirosaki Church Tour. This time my husband joined us - I think it might even be the first time he's done the church tour. (He took the photos.)

Winter Picnic in the Park

The Anglican Church

My husband discovered my favorite view

from the Dotei Machi bridge...

...and a spring I didn't even know about!

No terrible fires or orphan shacks, but...

I haven't got any terrible fires or orphan shacks in my past... But I know what it's like to feel devastated and alone! (Although not ACTUALLY alone with a husband and - by the end of the dismal period in question - 4 children under the same roof as me!)

The year I turned 23 was probably the most frightening year of my life, but the year I turned 28 probably rivaled it for inner turmoil. In fact, even though when I look at old photos I realize that there were actually many happy moments, I still remember all the years between 23 and 28 as one long dark tunnel with no light at the end. God was continually testing me - and I failed everytime! At least that's what I felt like. (I was so screwed up I even wondered sometimes if God would kill me.)

Everything changed after my own "Marah" experience at the end of 1983 and, unlike Lemony Snicket's unhappy Baudlelaire children, I did eventually come to the light at the end of the tunnel.

When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah. ) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"

Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."

- Exodus15:23

Daughter #3 was a little shocked when she first learned her name meant "bitter". But I've always told her that the year of her birth was the year God turned my bitterness sweet. The circumstances remained much the same (difficult!) but my perception changed.

The Elliot Family in 1983

shortly after Mary was born

It helped to have some of Lemony Snicket's "true friends" urging us on from the sidelines. Thank God for friends who understand!

The Nature of Friends

"It is a relief, in hectic and frightening times, to find true friends... Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similiar experiences, a phrase which here means 'having lost family members in terrible fires and lived in the Orphans Shack.'"

- from Lemony Snicket's "The Austere Academy"

Everyone in the Elliot household right now seems to be reading (or has just read) Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" (Volumes 1 - 13).

Does Truth Matter?

A few years ago when Sarah was reading "Life of Pi", I listened to any number of tirades before she got to the end... at which point she read the whole last chapter to us at the breakfast table and then made us discuss it. (Shortly after that we read the rest of the book ourselves.)

It is a well written book - and perfectly fascinating. But, as Sarah pointed out, the basic premise of the book is that objective truth does not matter in religion.

Dijur's Birthday Cake

I've thought of this many times during the last 4 months of friendship with our own dear "Pi" - the young Nepalese Canadian who is one of 4 foreign English teachers in Ajigasawa.

Our friend has a lot of company these days. But truth does matter.

I like Dallas Willard's lecture on "The Relativity of Belief and the Absoluteness of Truth" . I like the title. People have it so backwards. They think that believing is the important part... but in religion, as in "real life", it is the truth that really matters.

Constant Feedback

I've always liked Stephen Covey's analogy of an airplane being off track 90% of the time but arriving at its destination. He was talking about families. But I thought of it today when I was thinking about devotions, quiet time or whatever you want to call that daily feedback time when you read your Bible, meditate and pray:

It's like the flight of an airplane. Before the plane takes off, the pilots have a flight plan. They know exactly where they're going to start off in accordance with their plan. But during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulance, air traffic, human error, and other factors work upon that plane. They move it in slightly different directions so that most of the time that plane is not even on the prescribed flight path!Throughout the entire trip there are slight deviations from the flight plan. Weather systems or unusually heavy air traffic may even cause major deviations. But barring anything too major, the plane will arrive at its destination.

Now how does that happen? During the flight, the pilots receive constant feedback. They receive information from instruments that read the environment, from control towers, from other airplanes - even sometimes from the stars. And based on that feedback, they make adjustments so that time and time again, they keep returning to the flight plan.

- Stephen R. Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families"

Daily Refueling

A few weeks ago at a joint worship service with Goshogawara I was searching for common ground with a young woman and began with "So what have you been reading in your devotions lately?"

Her only response was a slight widening of the eyes and an almost imperceptible tilt of the head which seemed to indicate "devotions" wasn't a word in her vocabulary. So I tried rephrasing... but finally concluded it was the concept that wasn't registering! She had been baptised in the family bathtub by an interim pastor who included no instruction on the continuing Christian life.

Indoor...

Outdoor... Early morning...

Late at night...

I like early morning myself. But what really matters is the daily refueling.

What Does a Christian Look Like?

Last Monday down in Tagajo (near Sendai) as I headed across the parking lot I was surprised to hear someone calling to me in English. I turned and found a pleasant looking Japanese woman addressing me. "I saw you in the Electrical Store and I was so impressed by your appearance I just had to talk to you. Are you European?"

Over the years I've grown used to hearing my family compared to the Ingalls family of "Little House on the Prairies" and I'm not overly surprised anymore to hear myself compared to Tasha Tudor. (After all, we both wear a kerchief!) So I thought this was just another woman interested in my slightly off-beat appearance.

After some minutes of conversation we established that I was leaving in a few hours, that she didn't have email and that friendship would have to wait for another time. She had recently met another missionary residing at Takayama and so she knew where I would be in the summer.

Still thinking she was attracted by my foreignness I invited her to the Summer English Camp in Aomori. "Oh no," she replied. "I'm not interested in English! It was your "aura" that attracted me. - and I just had to find out more about you." And then, perhaps muttering more to herself, "Lately I seem to be attracted to Christians."

My phone rang - my daughter wondering why I was taking so long to cross the parking lot - and we parted. But I was left with plenty of food for thought! What did she see? What do I have in common with Jane Swan (the other missionary) besides Jesus Christ? How could she SEE that?

Take Care of Your Thoughts

"But what if from childhood they had been warned, 'Take care of your thoughts, and the rest will take care of itself; let a thought in, and it will stay; will come again tomorrow and the next day, will make a place for itself in your brain, and will bring many other thoughts like itself. Your business is to look at the thoughts as they come, and let in the right. See that ye enter not into temptation.' This sort of teaching is not so hard to understand as the rules for the English nominative, and is of infinitely more profit in the conduct of life."

- Charlotte Mason in "Parents and Children"

On the wings of the dawn

I found a note from a friend in my desk here at Takayama that begins:

August 7, 1999

If I rise on the wings of the dawn
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your right hand will guide me
your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139:9, 10


It seems to me some of you Elliots do rise with the dawn, if not exactly on its wings.

Tak Dawn

Until I got sick on Saturday, I was rising with the dawn. It seems the best time to think... The trouble is, the wee hours are also good for thinking - which makes for a rather short night.

I've been thinking about what my own Elinor, Daughter # 4 said recently, something to the effect of, "I have decided to tell her/him what I think and then let her/him do what she/he wants and not worry about it." But she's finding that its a hard resolution to carry.

I did something like that with my oldest daughter. But I told her to fight it out with God and I shut the door and she was obliged to fight it out with God. I didn't see her go out the door and wonder where she was all night! She was safe in her room working it out with God.

However, "Elinor" and I can't be shutting people in their rooms these days. I suppose we must trust them to the Holy Spirit...

Sigghhh.

I'm still thinking.

"Ah Matsushima ya, Matsushima ya"

I'm feeling better now. And I'm also feeling like I ought to get some mileage out of that unfortunate trip to Matsushima.

Matsushima

- known as one of the three most scenic sights in Japan

It looks much more scenic seen from above

- unfortunately the "Panoramic Drive" is closed for the winter!

We never seem to be able to afford a boat ride!

And we don't do temples and shrines...

So we walked...

And checked out all the souvenir shops...

... and played around a bit!

And of course we ate fish sausage and drank tea

in the little shop where we always go.

And I only have these photos because Daughter #3

was playing with the camera

(I haven't included all her "artsy" shots.)

Learning the Hard Way

I wish for more Elinors in my world - people with the good sense to exert themselves to behave honorably and with restraint from the beginning. The selfish Willoughbys are perhaps, without a work of spiritual regeneration, beyond hope. But the Mariannes can and do come to their senses eventually - when they cease their pity party.

Elinor: "Do you compare your conduct to his?"

Marianne: "No. I compare it to what it ought to have been; I compare it to yours.

.... My illness has made me think -- It has given me leisure and calmness for serious recollection. Long before I was recovered enough to talk, I was perfectly able to reflect.

... you above all, ... had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your heart and its sorrows; yet, to what did it influence me? not to any compassion that could benefit you or myself. -- Your example was before me: but to what avail? --Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I imitate your forbearance?

... No; not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you to be at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to exist but with me, regretting only that heart which had deserted and wronged me, and leaving you, for whom I professed an unbounded affection to be miserable for my sake."

It seems like the Mariannes usually learn the hard way...

But why should we learn the hard way when there is an easier way?! (I Corinthians 10:6 - 13) When we have the example of those who have gone before us and when, above all, we have the Holy Spirit to help us? Why torture oneself unnecessarily?

What Frustrates Me

The selfishness I see all around doesn't frustrate me nearly so much as the refusal to be comforted except by a "relationship" - however unsuitable that relationship may be.

So many times in both the past and recently, too, I feel like Elinor:

"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. ... Have you no comforts? no friends? Is your loss such that leaves no opening for consolation."

Selfishness - The Spirit of the Age

I finished "Sense & Sensibility" for the umpteenth time tonight - this time more for instruction than pleasure.

Joy on the other hand is just beginning it for the first time and announced at the dinner table tonight that she would like to "punch out Willoughby". That made me smile. I have read the book so many times that I have long ceased to think of Willoughby with any sort of passion. Only sadness...

Elinor's description of him embodies for me the spirit of this age when it comes to male-female relationships: "The whole of his behaviour, from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded in selfishness.... At present he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it? Because he finds it has not answered toward himself. It has not made him happy."

How Did I Get Here?!

Yesterday in one brief moment of inattention I drove off the road onto a curb where we were stuck for some time before being rescued by a tow truck. Now our car is off the road for an indefinite period.

How did I get HERE - where I didn't want to be?!

I've been thinking for a week now about the moral side of how people get where they don't want to be. And for a few brief minutes after my "little" accident I thought "Perhaps it really is just a moment's inattention.... a brief lapse at just the wrong moment. After all, that's what happened with me just now."

But on further reflection I realized that ISN'T how it happened. I was feeling ill and had been earnestly thinking about how much I wanted to be home in bed for at least half an hour. Wishing you are in bed is NOT a healthy state of mind for driving!

I looked healthy - but I wasn't!

Often people look alright. But really they are thinking thoughts that will eventually lead them where they don't want to be...

Above all else, guard your heart,

for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

I always forget my camera...

We always take photos on birthdays, but otherwise we seldom remember our camera for the important occasions of life. We are even less likely to take photos of the important people in our lives.

There is a young man in our town who has practically lived at our house ever since September, but the first time I managed to capture his face clearly in a photo was at Christmas. Even then, I don't think I took the photo. I got it from Luke.

This is the only photo we have of our daughter Anna's visit last week - and I didn't take this one either! My wonderful nephew, Aaron, sent it to me.

Tea with Ghents to celebrate Anna's visit.

(Anna is on the right)

Snow Camp - What We Did

We ate a lot - and very good meals, too!

We sang - and not just in Chapel Time.

There was an evening of testimony and song.

And this year there was actually a planned activity

for the non-skiers!

Pastor Igarashi made us hot punch on his camp stove.

Snow Camp - A New Twist

January 2 - 4, 2007 was going to be my time for crashing. But with Pastor Igarashi and Pastor Ogawa heading up the Ski/Snow Camp at Aomori Christian Center, I ended up at Moya! (Along with 6 others from Ajigasawa - only 3 of whom had actually planned on it.) And I wasn't sorry!

This year, besides the usual contingent of teens and pre-teens there was a large turn-out of young families - 5 pastors brought their families (6 if you count my husband as a pastor and 7 if you count the speaker & his sons.) So it was an incredibly rich bonding time.

Some of the teens.

Some of the little ones.

We helped the little ones...

And they helped us!

Drying dishes turned out to be an wildly popular activity!

New Year's Day

New Year's Day we met at Goshogawara Church for the annual Ajigasawa/Goshogawara Church New Year's Service. Joy thought it was rather hard to get out of bed and go to church so early in the morning after staying up so late - but, as I pointed out, if we were going to skip something we should have skipped the night before. Unlike churches in North America and Brazil, the common Christian practice in Japan is a New Year's Day service NOT a Watch Night service on New Year's Eve.

Only one Ajigasawa member was absent!

New Year's Eve

We ALWAYS go to my sister's church in Itayanagi for New Year's Eve. Afterall, "It's tradition!" And this year was no exception.

Pounding Rice

I will confess that I find very little thrill in three hours of hanging out, playing games and eating noodles. On the other hand, the key activity of the evening - pounding rice - is a little too thrilling for me! I'm afraid I always anticipate the mallet missing its mark and splitting someone's head open!

Choosing our verses!

But I do appreciate the verse exchange - its probably the main reason I've humored my children all these years. This year I got Psalm 121 - the whole Psalm.

People came and went all evening

- this is who was left at midnight!

Time for People

For many years I've been chief cook and bottle washer for the English Camps (as well as organizer and registrar) but my daughters have been taking on more and more responsibility. Mary surprised me this year - the "slow" sister (i.e. the follower) is actually very capable!

But all that good food just sets the stage for what is most important - talking to people about things that matter!

Speak to one another with... hymns ...and songs.

No one has ever asked me to head up a "Worship Team" - they likely never will. But I get my chance once a year at the Winter English Camp. I'm actually not so very fond of worship teams but I'm a firm believer in the power of music to encourage and motivate us to right living. I think it was for good reason that Paul urged the Ephesians, "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

Mary & Me

The Life That Matters

I hate films with an agenda - especially if its an agenda I disagree with! And I have an aversion to masochistic sports like boxing... so "Million Dollar Baby" was not on my list of "must-sees" . But when Kris put forward his idea of using this film for the December 26 - 29, 2006 Winter English Camp his theme really grabbed me. (It helped that he said he'd write the lessons!)

Kris Sevillena

He had a harder time selling it to a couple of other members of the team. So in the end we combined it with the 1970s film "Joni" and talked about "The Life That Matters".

John Giving the Morning Lectures

Morning 1 - The Wise Man Built His House on the Rock

Morning 2 - The Foolish Man Built His House on the Sand

Morning 3 - Build Your Life on the Lord Jesus Christ

My Christmas Prayer

I've always loved this John Whittier hymn - and I really needed it on Christmas Day! (I hate it when people change the plan on me!)

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise. (2x)

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down. (2x)

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace. (2x)

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,
O still small voice of calm. (2x)

For a day so fraught with emotion the only photo is peaceful enough! I think I am finally learning to let God's coolness and balm reach me in the "earthquakes" of my life. Even though the day on the whole may be difficult, I still find my moments of calm in the middle of it.

More Traditions!

Elliot Christmas stockings contain breakfast and it is perhaps the only meal of the year that isn't taken "family style". Of course, back when our family was unaccustomed to sleeping in ( sleeping in at the Elliots usually comprised an 8:30am breakfast) we all (minus my husband) still ended up eating together anyway. The only difference was that we lounged around the living room.

Intrepid with the Christmas Stockings

This year John couldn't resist sharing his new Christmas book with everyone - afterall, reading together is another Elliot tradition!

Kris with Grace listening to John read his new book

John - still reading to us at Camp a few days later!