New Eyes

The glasses I had to start wearing this year

because not all eyes are new ones!

I’m barely able to keep from falling down on the floor in an exhausted heap because of jet lag from the fourteen-hour time difference between Tokyo and the Eastern Time zone of the United States. Of course, it doesn’t help that I flew all night last night to get here at 6:15 A.M. from Thailand, where I attended a conference en route to Japan after our three-month home assignment. And then there was the more than two-hour train ride from the airport to actually get home! No wonder I’m utterly fatigued.

In any case, when I do manage to keep my eyes open for even the shortest time, I realize I’m seeing Tokyo with new eyes. How else can you explain:

The air in this huge megalopolis that is home to 10 percent of Japan’s people is known to be highly polluted from people and industry. Yet it seems fresh and wonderful to me today. I’m drinking it in like a dying woman grasping for breath;

The crowded train seemed comfortable. Granted, I had a seat on all three of the trains I had to ride in order to get in from the airport, and that helped greatly. But I’ve always complained about Tokyo’s crowded trains and there wasn’t any lack of people today, either. However, I found myself strangely comforted by the familiar words swirling around me. I felt relaxed and happy in the anonymity of being lost in the crowd without having to answer questions or express my opinions on anything. In fact, I put my head against the side of the train car and slept like a baby—until my head fell over! But I survived both the body-jarring jolt and the embarrassment; and,

I loved my visit to the vegetable stand to restock the refrigerator. The proprietor is a woman who has been, on the better days, a grump. But today I greeted her as if she were an old friend I’d been eager to meet. Amazingly, she smiled and welcomed me back to Tokyo.

Two days later, I pick up this blog once again. My exhaustion has abated somewhat after two very good nights of sleep. (That’s the best part of coming home—sleeping in my own bed again.) In thinking about my feelings as I resume my life in Japan, I realize that everything is the same, but all is different. I am seeing my neighborhood and my life here with new eyes. My prayer is that these new eyes do not dim or become clouded by the inevitable challenges of life I will begin facing all too soon when my normal schedule resumes. And they will come. Difficulties and challenges just go with the territory of being a Christian missionary in Japan. Despite this certainty, I’m determined that my eyesight remains fresh, alive, and alert to all God is doing and wants to do in my midst now that I’ve returned. I want to join him eagerly and expectantly as I continue to see with these new eyes.

More Americana

The kind of roads I enjoy when I'm not in a hurry.

I’ve traveled in some forty countries of the world, so I think I’m safe in saying that America’s interstate highway system is one of the best in the world—if not the best. Nevertheless, as Bernie and I have crisscrossed the United States while visiting supporting churches on this home assignment, we have chosen to get off the expressways as often as possible. One doesn’t drive state and county roads for speed, but for taste-testing America to discover who she really is. Since we’ve lived in Japan for nearly thirty years, we enjoy these treks on lesser highways. They are opportunities to reconnect with the heart of our homeland. The discoveries we make are sometimes amusing.

Take our stop in Great Bend, Kansas. It was still early, so we decided to go exploring after supper at an Arby’s. Not knowing the area, however, we asked the teenager working behind the counter, “What’s there to do in Great Bend?” She looked at us with a blank expression on her face. “I dunno,” she finally responded without enthusiasm. Then her face brightened slightly as she added, “Well, there’s Wal-Mart.”

Ah yes, Wal-Mart! How much more “American” can you get with most products made in China and sold so cheaply that many people complain this corporation is killing small town U.S.A. Despite this, we did indeed drop in at the Wal-Mart in Great Bend. Not much else was open. It seemed that this was the hang-out for the town’s dyed and spiked-haired youth, most of whom sported multiple tattoos of varying designs. I felt like a sightseeing foreigner even though I was in my own country.

Then there was an even smaller Kansas town we visited. Palco boasted one traffic light and a dying downtown that, even in its heyday, couldn’t have had more than five or six stores. We ate in the Palco Café, the only place to go out to eat in this western Kansas town. Even then, you hope everyone doesn’t decide to show up at the same time since there are less than a handful of tables in the kitchen-sized restaurant.

Looking for the “Today’s Special” menu posted on the wall, I noticed an interesting notation: Milkshakes available Tuesday and Thursday. First of all, it was Saturday, so the ice cream lover in me was very disappointed. But I just had to know why milkshakes were offered only two days a week. The waitress answered matter-of-factly, smiling at my question. “Mary works on Tuedays and Thursdays,” she told me, “and she’s the only one who knows how to use the milkshake machine.” Now it was my turn to smile.

In fact, even today a smile lights my face whenever I think of Palco and small town America. I’ll have to escape there in my mind the next time I’m jam-packed on a commuter train in Tokyo.

Americana

Meeting Halloween in the Minneapolis airport

I can’t remember the last time we were in the United States in October and November. Perhaps that’s why we were unprepared to discover just how Halloween has taken this country by storm force. If the garish yard decorations we’ve seen while traveling this fall are any indication, America is in love with spooks, goblins, scarecrows, pumpkins, and cobwebs! I’d thought those were to be swept away quickly—before anyone could see them and figure out that housekeeping isn’t one of my favorite pastimes. Instead, I’ve seen them artistically draped over the counters of fast food restaurants, displayed at a post office, and decorating bushes in even nicely landscaped yards with the same kind of pride and enthusiasm as a young teenage girl going on her first date with the most popular guy in the class.

But I’m not the only one who’s surprised. The man next door commented, a wry smile lighting his face, “This is the first time I’ve swept away real cobwebs in order to put up fake ones!”

Interestingly, we happened to be flying on October 31. We were greeted at the airport by the helpful staff of Northwest Airlines, each one sporting a Halloween costume and/or interesting Halloween makeup. This was only the beginning of the Halloween “parade” we discovered as we moved further into the airport. It was a surprise to me that costumes hadn’t been banned in the interest of security—the reason one hears for every prohibition and many questionable laws in the United States today. After all, you never know what could be stowed under a tall, black witch’s cap.

By the very next day, however, Halloween was receding into the background. In a feverish atmosphere, people were snapping up the half-off Halloween merchandise as eagerly as if their lives depended upon it. You can be sure their homes and yards will be the talk of the neighborhood next year!

Two days later, Halloween had disappeared like a ghost. In its place, Christmas had magically appeared in stores everywhere—well, the Christmas of evergreen trees, lights, tinsel, decorations, wrapping paper, Santas (edible, display models, and stuffed toy replicas), and all other paraphernalia associated with the commercialism of Christmas. As if attempting to coax shoppers into the Christmas spirit, “Silent Night” was being played over the store’s PA system. When Bernie commented to a Wal-Mart employee that it seemed Christmas had arrived rather early, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “You’d better get used to it.”

I can’t help but wonder what will materialize in the stores on December 26. While I’ve not seen any merchandising plans for 2009, I have no doubt about the strategy that will be employed: tempt customers to spend more money they don’t really have for things they don’t really need in order to fill their oversized homes—homes owned by banks that had to be bailed out for extending credit to individuals whose own parents wouldn’t have vouched for their financial well being. Excuse me for being honest, but I can’t help but wonder what’s going on in America these days.