So much beauty

Nakamura River

Mount Iwaki was SO BEAUTIFUL this morning. But I couldn't capture it with my little cell phone camera. The sun was shining from that direction and sparkling on the river.

Daughter # 3

I was actually trying to take a photo of our puppy... but she's too full of beans! She bounced all over the place happily pouncing on grasshoppers. At least, she THINKS she's chasing grasshoppers. I'm not convinced - haven't seen any in at least a month.

I love watching her though. Its like watching a small child - it reminds me that life is beautiful even in the hard times. And is it really so hard?

... godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

I Timothy 6:6-8

This was too good to let it go by!

A friend sent this to me...

'A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ
That a man should have to seek Him first to find her.'
- Maya Angelou

Did Maya Angelou really say this? I'm impressed!

(Later note: Apparently not - but I'm still impressed by the concept.)

Best of all worlds

Some people think we're just crazy, mixed up people. But I think we who participate in 2 or more cultures are the most fortunate - blessed! - people of all. Our lives are never dull. Neither are our menus!

Today's menu

Today we ate kimchi soup with potatoes, turkey stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce on the side. It was delicious!

Thanksgiving Camp at ACC

We just finished the Thanksgiving Camp at Aomori Christian Center a few hours ago... and it was GOOD!

Here is a just a little taste of the event. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Camp at Aomori Christian Center

November 23, 24

You just keep bringing it back!

Part of the problem with lust is that it assumes that we need to have sexual experiences immediately because we may miss the opportunity. Although some people never marry, the vast majority of people — more than 80% — eventually do marry. When we realize that these experiences are most likely ahead of us, but are reserved for a different season — in which they will be beautiful and right — rushing becomes unnecessary.

Lustful thoughts, however, will come. We may be especially vulnerable when we are trying to pray against them. Instead of getting caught in a cycle of praying against lust only to have a fresh onslaught, we can shift our focus. "Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train," Anne Lamott wrote. "You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper."

Our puppy, Yae - and no, we don't drop-kick her!

When our minds wander in unfortunate directions our job is to bring them back to those things that are good, true and lovely (unless of course, a lovely person is what got us into trouble in the first place).

-- from Jenny Schroedal's A Season of Celibacy

Boundless Webzine 2004

Afraid of friendship?

Eros will have naked bodies;
Friendship naked personalities.
- C. S. Lewis

Why are people so anxious for eros - and so afraid of friendship?

Submission

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

C. S. Lewis

Objects of affection vs God

It is deep autumn;
My neighbor--
How does he live, I wonder?
- Basho

It beyond deep autumn... in fact it looks like winter this week! And now with Facebook and Blogs I find myself wondering not so much how people live, but why the inconsistancy...

I mean, shouldn't what we believe be reflected in ALL our choices?

I've been thinking about this all week - and not just when I look at Facebook!

I think I started on this train of thought again last Saturday when I wondered out loud if our love for God is readily apparent when we eat and drink (!) how much, what and when... ? ? (1 Cor. 10:31; Eph. 5:18-20)

Is it obvious when we're hanging out with friends? (Eph. 4:29-5:20)

How about when we work: Do we work hard not only when the boss is watching in order to win his/her favor? Or do we show sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord in all our work? (Col. 3:22-24)

Is our love for God apparent in our choice of objects of affection? (James 4:4; Matt. 6:21, 24))

I repeat... is our love for God apparent when we choose objects for our affection?

I'll be watching you!

It was a bit startling to meet our (favorite) Immigration Officer at the top of Anmon Falls when we went picnicking in Nishmeya on the October 13th holiday.

Anmon Falls

But that was nothing like the jolt it gave me a few days later when I was introduced to a young lady at the University with the statement "My friend here saw you at Anmon Falls."

REALLY?! How many people were watching us?

As the days passed it appeared the answer was - quite a few!

My sister even asked me if I'd bought corn that day on Mt. Iwaki. Well, yes I had. Her friend had told her.

It brings to mind the lyrics of that song:

Every breath you take.... And every move you make... Every bond you break... Every step you take... Ill be watching you... Every single day... And every word you say... Every game you play... Every night you stay ... Ill be watching you

Anmon Falls Slide Show

We sometimes forget that like the apostle Paul we are "on display ... We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe... " People are watching us. Do we reflect God's glory? (1 Corinthians 3)

That familiar smell

I found the quotation from C.S. Lewis that I was thinking of last night. It's in one of my favorite essays and it doesn't use the phrase family resemblence at all! But that is what its talking about really.

They are, you will note, a mixed bag, representative of many Churches, climates and ages. And that brings me to yet another reason for reading [old books]. The divisions of Christendom are undeniable and are by some of these writers most fiercely expressed. But ... Measured against the ages "mere Christianity" turns out to be ... something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible.

I know it, indeed, to my cost. In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante. It was there(honeyed and floral) in Francois de Sales; it was there (grave and homely) in Spenser and Walton; it was there (grim but manful) in Pascal and Johnson; there again, with a mild, frightening, Paradisial flavour, in Vaughan and Boehme and Traherne. In the urban sobriety of the eighteenth century one was not safe—Law and Butler were two lions in the path. The supposed "Paganism" of the Elizabethans could not keep it out; it lay in wait where a man might have supposed himself safest, in the very centre of The Faerie Queene and the Arcadia. It was, of course, varied; and yet - after all - so unmistakably the same; recognisable, not to be evaded, the odour which is death to us until we allow it to become life: an air that kills "From yon far country blows."

C.Lewis "On the Reading of Old Books"

Men of differing political views - but brothers in Christ!

The Family Resemblance

Daughter #1 recently took her little daughter to meet the Elliot relatives. So far we haven't seen any photos of them with Grandpa and Grandma Elliot but I love this photo of Ruth Anna and Erin with all my husband's sisters.

Mary, Ruth Ellen, Jan, Ruth Anna w/Erin, Joan

I can never quite get over how much Ruth Anna looks like her Aunt Ruth Ellen! No question about this family resemblance!

I thought about family resemblance in the family of God today both in the morning Bible Study and tonight at the College and Career Pizza Party. I wish I could find what C.S Lewis said on the subject... he puts things so well but I think there is a "family resemblance" and that its important to have a sense of what my son used to call "the family honor".

Do you embarrass your brothers and sisters in Christ? For that matter, do you embarrass God?!

"Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

The Secret of Pleasant Society

After we got back from church tonight we spent a few minutes by the fire with our herb tea and a bit of leftover butter tart reading together from E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children":

There is a nice old fashioned room at the 'Rose and Crown' where Bargees and their wives sit of an evening drinking their supper beer, and toasting their supper cheese at a glowing basketfull of coals that sticks out into the room under a great hooded chimney and is warmer and prettier and more comforting than any other fireplace I ever saw.

There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it was pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.

Pleasant Society at the Elliot House

We took this photo the morning after Ajigasawa Chapel's Reformation Day Supper on October 31. Hans who stayed with us for a few months in 2005 had brought his wife Mirjam for a visit and Fiona (SA student) and Nick (missionary teacher at Seiai High School) came for the weekend.

Time flies by so fast!

I neglected to mention that I spent most of the week under the mistaken impression that November was just beginning.

Why am I so often one step behind?

Today I finished the article I was writing for the KGK Newsletter in record time and sent it in by the time I promised.

So why am I not happy?!

Well, if I'd printed out her email instead of scribbling a garbled note to myself I might have sent the article in by the 10th instead of waiting for Miss Narumi to phone me as she promised. Then I would have been free today to focus on the International Night this evening here in Ajigasawa. I might have remembered that it was the perfect opportunity to pass out invitations to the Annual Thanksgiving Potluck here at Ajigasawa Chapel! (I usually do this!)

As it was, I was 45 minutes late for the event. And I didn't remember the Thanksgiving Potluck ads until I saw the ad for another church's Thanksgiving. (No, there is no other church in Ajigasawa... that church just advertises VERY widely.)

I should focus on the fact that I had a lot of fun once I got there and remember that not having the ads in hand meant that I went out of my way to invite people by word of mouth - which is actually usually more effective.

End of the the Evening - Running out of Butter Tarts

But next week I'd really like to be one step ahead instead of one step behind!

Why we keep a dog...

...because we're busy people. Much too busy to take the walks we need. Or so we think. But our dog Yae keeps us in touch with what's really important: our relationships with God and man.

When we walk we remember God, we spend time with each other. We remember that all our "busy-ness" will come to naught. Only God and man are eternal.

Angela with her dog and Mary with our dog

The swans are back from Russia

There were a lot more of them! But I only had my phone camera.

Mt. Iwaki reminds me of Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth!

Finally!

Yesterday I was readier for the day than I anticipated I would be when I finally packed it in the night before. And when I looked at my list again in the clear light of morning, I realized I had actually done the most important things on it. :-)

However, what really made my day was that yesterday Daughter #3 and I FINALLY made it to Messiah Practice! Practices started at the end of August but this is the first one we've managed. I'm not all that musical but I have been singing in the chorus every year for 12 years - and it all came flooding back when we started to sing.

This year's concert: December 13th

I know why my little friend Ray loves Handel's "Messiah". I do, too!

Where did today go? ...

I feel like today just disappeared! I didn't DO anything....

Well, that's not really true. I walked along the river with Mary and Yae (the dog) this morning. I translated the Thanksgiving Camp Ad into English. I mailed them to regulars of the English Fellowship at Hirosaki Gospel Church. I learned how to add an event to Facebook and added the Thanksgiving Camp as an event. I uploaded the photos of the 07 Winter English Camp. I even had a Bible Study with someone this afternoon.

Thanksgiving Camp

But I didn't follow my usual morning routine. I got dressed but I didn't put my earrings on (my one vanity - I don't feel dressed without them) and I'm not entirely sure that I ever combed my hair. I didn't study. I didn't do anything on my to do list ... and the real issue is: I'm not ready for tomorrow!

We love what we know

Yesterday Pastor I's son asked me if I knew Messiah....   I'm afraid I just stood there temporarily rooted to the spot with that "Help, help!" smile one smiles at little children and speakers of foreign languages.

 

This boy is 3 years old! What Messiah could he be talking about?! 

 

His mother rescued me, "Ray, what are talking about?! Of course Laurie knows, she sings it!"  Apparently Ray's favorite music these days is Handel's Messiah. His mother says he listens to it every day.

 

I'm impressed.

Diddling again...

I should be writing an essay - homework for a university class in Japanese written composition - and hopefully I will be writing an essay in another minute or two! But Mary and I were watching Happy Slip again while I postponed the inevitable and this one was just too good. Not funny like a lot of her skits but a really good perspective on relationships. I just had to share it.

From http://www.happyslip.com/ (via You Tube)

Recommendations for Sarah Mae

Recently we finally watched the DVD a friend lent us last spring - and I wondered why we waited so long! Gregory Peck, China... But maybe it was God's timing. The film so touched me that I immediately ordered a second hand hard cover copy of the novel it was based on: A.J. Cronin's "The Keys of the Kingdom."

I'm afraid I stayed up much later than I intended last night reading... Its a novel about an unorthodox priest and the theology is a little unorthodox, too. But it helps me think through things like humility and faithfulness and the outworking of obedience to the difficult commands of Jesus to love our enemies.

Reading is best by the fire - so is napping!

And now that the opposition is gone we're reading as a family again. We finished Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" and began E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children."