Look!!!

 There are so many beautiful things from my brief weeks in Japan I'd love to share with you. Familiar neighborhoods, smiling faces of friends old and new (that I didn't take enough pictures of), tasty food, churches growing/multiplying, dreaming about the future with artists and pastors... 

look at this little canal I walk past almost every day, full of beauty and peace on a rainy afternoon.

The splendor of the skyline from a friend's apartment. The beautiful blues, the energy of the city, the faces and stories of God at work that spring to mind at the glimpse of a familiar building.

Look at the way it lights up at night, a different kind of twinkling sky, that reminds me of God's light shining out, His care for each individual in each apartment, in each office.

Look at this little guy, the delighted urgency and earnestness in his face as he proclaims "あった!!!" (2-year-old-Japanese that loosely translates "look what's here, look what I found!!!")

[*An ant? A leaf? A plane? One must point to it and repetitively proclaim its existence to the nearest family member or friend until said item is no longer in sight.]

I've been savoring lots of things as I've enjoyed the opportunity to be back in Japan this month, and God's reminding me to follow this little guy's example in sharing the beauty. Look! Look what I've found! This is amazing, and beautiful, and I'd love it if you would pause and appreciate it together with me.

Beauty just isn't the same alone. In community we savor together. We point out the wonderful things, the lovely, the true. The new things we might miss, the familiar things we might pass by on our own.

And I'm starting to understand how this is about far more than pictures from a faraway land. It is one of the vital, delightful tasks of every artist...and every Christian. An important part of how we worship the most Beautiful One of all.

A recurring theme: All Clean

It doesn't take long in Japan to notice cleanliness is quite important. The streets are clean, the subways are clean, no shoes in the house, epic baths...it's fabulous. Clean.

As I strolled around my old neighborhood soaking up the familiar back-streets, checking out new construction projects, and attempting to show jet-lag who's boss, I noticed a new addition to the local Shinto shrine: smiling old ladies carefully doing a choreographed walk through and around this large ring of grass.

I learned this week is a special week for half-way-through-the-year purification: for health, good luck, and to wipe away any misdeeds from the past 6 months. To get clean.

I hear a friend practicing organ as I write this, composing. As musicians we work hard to get notes in their places. We want it to communicate well, we want to tell a story. Even in a "messy" story, we usually want the chords and melodic lines precise. Clean.

I spent this morning with a missionary friend/mentor, chatting and catching up on a year of life as we wiped the ash and soot from the recent volcanic eruption (miles away) from her apartment windows. Ahhh, clean. And we talked about complicated relationships and brokenness and sin in both our eastern and western "homes", and we looked forward to the perfect "clean" of our true but-not-quite-yet Home.

When I'm in the US, people often ask about religions, "felt needs", and values in Japan. So... this one's for you! This is one of those shrines, and one of the deepest desires: to be clean, inside and out.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 
(1 John 3:2-3)