I am getting sick and tired of the attacks on religious freedom that have been popping up lately-- FOX News proclaiming that President Obama is trying to "cleanse the military of Christians" because proselytizing is not allowed on military bases (even thought it has been that way for decades), "pro-life" adherents claiming that President Obama and liberals 'love murdering babies', the constant spin from the "Moral Majority"-esque religious right against the ever-present "threat of the gay agenda", and the publicly-allowed bashing of Jason Collins (the NBA player who recently announced in public that he is gay) by ESPN commentator Chris Broussard, the pandering politicians who want to 'restore America' to a fantasy time that never existed when the land was governed by "Christians" and "Biblical truths", and, for that matter, even the numerous signs that litter the local landscape exhorting us to "Protect Religious Freedom"-- these are all symptoms of a malaise that has spread across the entire country but the truth is, these scenes are nothing but ploys of the right wing to place themselves behind a facade of Christian faith so they can portray themselves as "God-fearing" folk when in fact they are merely bigots who want to redefine what all Americans are supposed to believe to fit their personal, godless agendas.
First of all, if you have to redefine words and 're-educate' people through constant propaganda, you're not on the right side of the fence. This is true for ANY religion, not just Christianity. When something has to be 'tweaked' to fit into mainstream faiths, it is a cult-- whether that is Scientology, the Unification Church, Black Hebrew Israelites, or, for that matter, Mormonism. And when it comes to re-defining words, it doesn't have to be church-related: take the words "pro-life", used to identify people who are against abortion. (A large section of the 'pro-life' movement is funded by the Catholic Church, so there is strong religious element to this movement.) I loathe the term because of it's blatant (but weak) attempt to create division where none should exist. By that, I mean, who is 'pro life', really? I would say 99.99% of people are pro-life-- that is, nobody except for a very few psychopaths, are 'pro-death'. If the people the 'pro-life' adherents said were actually 'pro-death', the world would be a totally different place, and I dare say 'pro-death' people really abounded like the 'pro-life' people claim, 'pro-life' people would not be able to make any public protests out of fear for their own lives. Just because I don't think I have the right to dictate to women how they should think or behave does not mean that I wish death on whatever fetus they may be carrying. I don't know the circumstances that led to a woman's pregnancy. I don't know the health history, social history, educational record, or what have you of a pregnant woman, nor do the conservatives who claim that women 'deserve rape' The worst part about the conservative 'pro-life' movement, beyond their 'if you're not with us, you're against all life' attitude, is their attempts to tie their conservative, bigoted beliefs to the teachings of Jesus Christ. By that, I mean that they seem to believe that, if you're 'Christian' in their eyes, you MUST be 'pro-life'. Sorry, Charlie, but Jesus Christ never said anything about abortion, for one; but as a Christian, I don't feel I have the right to sit in judgment on women and what they do with their bodies; as a Christian, having known what it is like to be forgiven for my sins, I know I have no grounds to stand on when 'pro-life' groups demand we line up to stone the accused for the error of their ways.
The fact that these right-wing conservatives are willing to shut out large sections of the populace also does not sit well with me. The attempts by churches to demonize homosexual people for centuries is a significant problem in my embracing the churchgoing folk in their quest for spiritual dominance. It may be hard for you to believe, but I am a 'born again' Christian, and have been since the age of 38 (and I'm now 51)-- but my understanding of how God works does not jive with what I see in the words and deeds of the churchgoing folk. I've been to many churches in these past 13 years, and what I've seen leaves me saddened in regards to the state of the Christian faith. Some of the churches I visited proclaimed to be 'inclusive', meaning that they accept homosexuals as 'brothers and sisters in faith', but in my experience, many churches fall short-- and I mean VERY short-- when it comes to accepting gays and lesbians (and, in some cases, people of other races, people who have different views, etc.) The truth remains that most Christians are unwilling to believe that a homosexual person is 'truly' Christian if they do not outright renounce their sexuality, or conform to certain expectations regarding behavior (a statement to the effect that you remain celibate while you wait for God to change your orientation to that of a heterosexual.) The Catholic Church will even go as far as banning you from participating in Holy Communion if you are 'actively gay'. Prayer groups at the 'inclusive' churches will stand together in prayer to 'pray away the gay', and ask that God 'deliver' the gay individual from their 'demon', or their 'sin'. And this is why Chris Broussard felt it was perfectly OK to say that Jason Collins-- who is a devout Christian, by the way-- should 'repent' for being gay.
That's a very strange demand to make on a person, but it happens all the time in churches across the world. Being gay is an integral part of a person's identity, just as being heterosexual is. It's not a choice, no matter how much the conservative part of society would love you to believe it is. Making it a choice is a cop-out, actually, for by doing so, that means that the gays and lesbians did something bad, and all others are released from having to deal with a scientific truth. You can thus cling to your bigotry and homophobia, and it gives you the right to feel superior because you did not 'go down the wrong path', you are not the one 'walking in disobedience to God', and so on. But the truth remains, that homosexual people will still be here, and no matter how many prayers are sent up to God, homosexuals always have been, and always will be here. It won't matter if all active homosexuals are rounded up and put into concentration camps-- because it's not the homosexuals who give birth to more homosexuals-- it is the heterosexuals who create homosexuals. More and more will 'come out'; and this will be true no matter how long the conservatives fruitlessly try to push back attempts to legitimize marriage equality, the scientific fact remains that gays will always exist.
Conservatives vainly try to redefine 'marriage' as being between a man and a woman-- note the singular-- and refer to the Bible as basis for their belief. But then, they seem to have forgotten the story of Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest king in the Bible who had many wives and concubines. What a great example of a man who was not walking in obedience to God... Or what about Abraham, the 'father of the faithful', who had three wives- Sarah, Hagar and Keturah? And Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes, had four wives: Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah. And Moses-- well, he had Zipporah, but he also (gasp!) married a black woman-- an Ethiopian. And of course, let us not forget the beloved David, who had at least eighteen wives and ten concubines... and he loved Jonathan as well. So, in the conservative Christian world, it's perfectly OK to demonize a man who, having learned in Sunday School that one of the greatest commandments is to 'love one another', falls in love with another man to the extent that he wants to marry said man and legitimize his spousal status, all because of some strange homophobic fear (or is it jealousy?) and to claim that couple are 'in disobedience' to God...
What amazes me when it comes to homosexuality, is how low people will stoop to demonize the gay and lesbian people in the world, when in actuality, God is perfectly fine and actually quite accepting of gay and lesbian people. How do I know this? Simply because it is my story. It wasn't any particular person who led me to Christ, although I know one person who would like to claim it was him, as if it helps him score points on a salvation scale or something. And no, it wasn't me trying to be score 'goodness points' before I die, either. To be honest, I was not seeking God out. I was perfectly capable of living without God in my life, and had for over twenty years. It was God who, unannounced, sought me out; and when God came looking for me and knocked on the door of my heart, I was surprised. At first, I didn't understand it, because I thought God neither cared about me or wanted to have anything to do with me but I found out I was wrong. And after I felt the healing, loving embrace of God, and knew my soul had been cleansed, the blinders had been removed, and the shackles of ignorance had fallen away, I bawled uncontrollably while on my knees... The power in the touch of Jesus coursed through me, and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and I was awestruck. It was the first of many such encounters, and I treasure them immensely. And it is this feeling I remember when some person claiming to be Christian makes an anti-gay remark; this is what stirs up the anger within me, because I know that the homophobic individual has NOT encountered Jesus Christ like I had, for if they had encountered Christ like I had, how could they not know what God is capable of? And if they don't know what God is capable of, what, I ask, gives them the right to proclaim their anti-gay stance based on their 'Christian faith'?!? Any true Christian knows there are no grounds to stand on for throwing stones at others.
It is the right-wing element in our society that most commonly conflates the Christian faith with their ideology, which is not even remotely based on Christian principles, but instead centers itself around capitalistic greed, yet the gullible masses lap it up. The real problem behind this is that the agenda of the right is to strip people of everything we believe in. The right wing claims our society is in danger of imminent collapse because of one of more of the following: a 'failed public education system', the 'liberal mass media', the 'gay agenda', 'government spending', the 'socialist healthcare system' the 'corrupt unions', or their proposed 'fact' that 'God is removed from our school systems/military/government/sports events'. None of this is true, but these things will never be removed from the right-wing propaganda. But it is precisely this right-wing ideology that truly presents our greatest problem. They want to place the blame for what ails 'the country' (when they perhaps mean their control of the country) on the various elements listed above, when the true source of the ailment is their own policy failures. The facts show that, when it comes to the government spending, it is the right-wing administrations that generate uncontrolled spending sprees, mostly on bolstering the already over-inflated defense budget; any failure of public school systems is most likely due to budgetary cuts made by the right on schools that have already been forced to cut back on funds allotted to provide quality education when a cut in our bloated military budget could easily pay for better schooling; the 'liberal' mass media is surprisingly full of right-wing voices, including FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Pat Robertson, and the voices on the right have even infiltrated entertainment channels, such as ESPN, as was recently seen in Broussard being allowed to openly criticize Collins on the air for not following Broussard's own standards for Christianity; and while Rupert Murdoch's tabloid news may fare well with the British, his attempts to sensationalize everything to maximize profits goes against the very tenets of his own network to be 'fair and balanced' in presenting the news, but in his blatant criticism of President Obama for any and everything he is willingly distorting the truth and turning a portion of the media into an untrustworthy and unreliable source of information, best used for comedy fare on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. The tactic is scarily devious-- for if we cannot trust the news media, then our sources of information become less reliable, and if our sources of information become unreliable, it becomes harder to distinguish truth from opinion, and thus it becomes easier to swallow the propaganda when a person on television tells the viewer that gays have a specific agenda, that the Founding Fathers meant to establish the U.S. as a "Christian nation", that separation of Church and State was not a good idea, that the government is plotting against you and stealing hard-earned money from rich people (most of whom have never worked a day in their lives) to enrich the slothful poor.
But when it is all said and done, it is the call for "Religious Freedom" that really annoys me. Having had some experience as a Buddhist monk, I can appreciate the sense that we all want to be free to follow the religion we believe, and understand that it was the intent of the Founding Fathers to provide us with that. I understand the frustration of certain Europeans, who, after centuries of wars in Europe over truly trivial religious matters, fled their lands to come to these shores. But the thing is, the "Protect Religious Freedom" signs I see around me have nothing to do with guaranteeing religious freedom for all or even freedom FROM religion. The signs are equivalent to the "Don't Tread On Me" signs of the Revolutionary War and are, in effect, a statement against 'government tyranny'. The signs are meant to convey that the posters want the government to back off from making them comply with such things as providing prenatal care or birth control pills to young women or sex education courses, which the Church is obviously wiling to conflate with abortion and/or promiscuity, or to provide evolution-based science courses because it isn't in alignment with the creation story as written in the Bible. It galls me to see these signs because the people putting them up are attempting to steal my faith and twist it into something it is not supposed to be, and THAT, I believe, is the ultimate in arrogance. It is highly likely that these "Christians" are the ones who willingly twist the words of the Bible, and cherry-pick only a few certain phrases out of a very large collection of books written over thousands of years to justify their bigotry and 'right to demonize' the gay sector of the populace, and I find it appalling. And what makes this even more appalling is that when you call them out for their bigotry and their distortion of scripture to justify their persecution of others-- specifically the gay and lesbian population-- you are 'infringing' on their 'religious freedom' and persecuting them.
As a Christian, I believe we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. And if we have a spiritual encounter with God, much like the one I described above, then we shall see the error of our ways, and not provoke a sector of the country by hurling accusations of 'sin' or 'disobedience' towards them, because as humans, we all have a propensity for failing to do the right thing and making blunders. As a person who has lived on the other side of the world, I have seen that people in all nations and all races mostly want the same thing-- and being on 'the other side of the fence' when it comes to my sexuality, I can unequivocally state that what I want is pretty much the same thing as any heterosexual male-- I want to be treated as an equal. There is no way my marriage is about to destroy yours; yes, it may weaken your already weak attempt to redefine the word 'marriage' to suit your own petty agenda, but that's not my fault, nor my problem. I don't want anyone to think that my faith in God is less powerful than anyone else' because of my sexuality; my faith is strong, and being married to another Christian male is only going to help make our faith in God stronger. And yes, I want "Religious Freedom" too-- but not if it means I have to be a member of the Christian Taliban. And to make sure you understand this, I will repeat it-- I am pro-life, because I know being 'pro-death' is NOT want you want. I suggest you take a better look at the words you fling around before your next protest.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Jason Collins and The Backlash Against Coming Out
So, Jason Collins, a center on the Washington Wizards NBA team, came out and said he is gay a few days ago.
Already critics have jumped on the bandwagon-- Chris Broussard, an ESPN commentator, said that Jason was "walking in disobedience to God", even though Jason said he was raised in a Christian household and did not take the decision to come out lightly.
Today, I read that a church in Wisconsin cancelled a speech by Leroy Butler, a former Green Bay Packers safety, because he sent Jason Collins a congratulatory tweet.
Then, TMZ wants to jump in with an interview with his former fiance, who he 'dumped' back in 2009 before they hit the wedding altar, but she never knew why they broke up until last week, when he called her to tell her before he made his public announcement.
So the media are having a field day while tons of people are saying that it was wrong for Jason Collins to come out of the closet.
And to that, I say this is precisely why it was good that Jason Collins came out of the closet right in front of the watchful eyes of millions of people.
Until Jason Collins came out of the closet, very few of us knew of his sexuality. He was just another gay man living in the closet, hiding the fact that what we saw when we watched him play was not the REAL Jason Collins.
Although I am not certain, Jason could have been 'on the down low', dating women and acting like his heterosexual teammates. It is not uncommon for gay men to try dating women, just to try to fit in with the mainstream and hide their true sexuality. There is a lot of pressure, from both family and society in general, to do this: parents and grandparents often come across with expectations of children or grandchildren, as 'proof' that they 'raised their children right'; best friends want to know that those they grew up with are successful in their endeavors, because they can then claim their input contributed to said success of friends; teachers, preachers, community leaders all want to see their charges succeed for the same reason...
But at what price?
At what price should a gay man or woman have to fit in with heterosexuals? How can any heterosexual understand the level of pressure a gay man or woman feels to conform with expectations that he/she deny their basic, innermost feelings just to conform to expectations that will never be met? At what price should a practicing Christian have to deny himself the right to love the person of their choice, just because misguided churchgoers say that their love is 'unnatural', or in 'disobedience', or 'a sin'?
I loved my parents, but knowing that I, a gay man, will never be able to father a child-- something I have known since I was thirteen-- was a sad truth that I bore in secrecy for decades. Even when I came out to my mother, I was astounded to find out that she had harbored hopes that I may one day bring home some woman to introduce to her as my girlfriend-- after decades of never making such a move in the past, it shocked me to think that she was so far in denial. And after becoming a 'born again' Christian at the age of 38-- me, a gay man being accepted by God as I am -- I began seeking fellowship with other Christians like me and went to church in hopes of sharing the testimony that God DOES love gay people, only to be told repeatedly that "God would do a good work in me", which meant that I was wrong, that in the eyes of the parish, they expected God to convert me into something I was never meant to be-- i.e., heterosexual-- because, you know, gays fly in the the face of all that is good and Christian and holy, and they could not be a good Christian and accept as I am.
So, I know what it is like for Jason Collins to have to brave the backlash from the audience, albeit the backlash he will face will be on a much grander scale. I know what it is like to face the fear of rejection, but to stand firm and state "I will not live a lie-- no more." I know what it is like to feel the chains come off, to accept oneself, and stop trying to pretend to be someone you're not. And so I fully support Jason and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
The world may not be 'ready' to hear someone come out on prime time TV. Tough! Gay people are not going anywhere, no matter how many times a politician says gays should be rounded up into concentration camps, no matter how many times a church leader says the 'gay lifestyle' leads to eternal damnation, no matter how many friends or family members feel disappointed or confused, no matter how many times a person says "Ewww!" to two men kissing or holding hands in public.
So, Jason and I are in the same boat. And neither one of us, nor millions of other gay men and women like us, are about to change who we are just to meet the impossible expectations of the majority. So, deal with it the best you can. But I'll tell you right now, treating me like the people above treated Jason Collins will not work at all.
Already critics have jumped on the bandwagon-- Chris Broussard, an ESPN commentator, said that Jason was "walking in disobedience to God", even though Jason said he was raised in a Christian household and did not take the decision to come out lightly.
Today, I read that a church in Wisconsin cancelled a speech by Leroy Butler, a former Green Bay Packers safety, because he sent Jason Collins a congratulatory tweet.
Then, TMZ wants to jump in with an interview with his former fiance, who he 'dumped' back in 2009 before they hit the wedding altar, but she never knew why they broke up until last week, when he called her to tell her before he made his public announcement.
So the media are having a field day while tons of people are saying that it was wrong for Jason Collins to come out of the closet.
And to that, I say this is precisely why it was good that Jason Collins came out of the closet right in front of the watchful eyes of millions of people.
Until Jason Collins came out of the closet, very few of us knew of his sexuality. He was just another gay man living in the closet, hiding the fact that what we saw when we watched him play was not the REAL Jason Collins.
Although I am not certain, Jason could have been 'on the down low', dating women and acting like his heterosexual teammates. It is not uncommon for gay men to try dating women, just to try to fit in with the mainstream and hide their true sexuality. There is a lot of pressure, from both family and society in general, to do this: parents and grandparents often come across with expectations of children or grandchildren, as 'proof' that they 'raised their children right'; best friends want to know that those they grew up with are successful in their endeavors, because they can then claim their input contributed to said success of friends; teachers, preachers, community leaders all want to see their charges succeed for the same reason...
But at what price?
At what price should a gay man or woman have to fit in with heterosexuals? How can any heterosexual understand the level of pressure a gay man or woman feels to conform with expectations that he/she deny their basic, innermost feelings just to conform to expectations that will never be met? At what price should a practicing Christian have to deny himself the right to love the person of their choice, just because misguided churchgoers say that their love is 'unnatural', or in 'disobedience', or 'a sin'?
I loved my parents, but knowing that I, a gay man, will never be able to father a child-- something I have known since I was thirteen-- was a sad truth that I bore in secrecy for decades. Even when I came out to my mother, I was astounded to find out that she had harbored hopes that I may one day bring home some woman to introduce to her as my girlfriend-- after decades of never making such a move in the past, it shocked me to think that she was so far in denial. And after becoming a 'born again' Christian at the age of 38-- me, a gay man being accepted by God as I am -- I began seeking fellowship with other Christians like me and went to church in hopes of sharing the testimony that God DOES love gay people, only to be told repeatedly that "God would do a good work in me", which meant that I was wrong, that in the eyes of the parish, they expected God to convert me into something I was never meant to be-- i.e., heterosexual-- because, you know, gays fly in the the face of all that is good and Christian and holy, and they could not be a good Christian and accept as I am.
So, I know what it is like for Jason Collins to have to brave the backlash from the audience, albeit the backlash he will face will be on a much grander scale. I know what it is like to face the fear of rejection, but to stand firm and state "I will not live a lie-- no more." I know what it is like to feel the chains come off, to accept oneself, and stop trying to pretend to be someone you're not. And so I fully support Jason and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
The world may not be 'ready' to hear someone come out on prime time TV. Tough! Gay people are not going anywhere, no matter how many times a politician says gays should be rounded up into concentration camps, no matter how many times a church leader says the 'gay lifestyle' leads to eternal damnation, no matter how many friends or family members feel disappointed or confused, no matter how many times a person says "Ewww!" to two men kissing or holding hands in public.
So, Jason and I are in the same boat. And neither one of us, nor millions of other gay men and women like us, are about to change who we are just to meet the impossible expectations of the majority. So, deal with it the best you can. But I'll tell you right now, treating me like the people above treated Jason Collins will not work at all.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Are You God Experienced?
Every time someone asks me if I am a Christian, I cringe.
I hate answering that question. For one, I never know why they ask. And it makes me ask myself, "Aren't my actions alone sufficient testament to what I believe?"
But it goes beyond that, I tell myself. I find the question "Are you a Christian?" to be a trick question. And as I have discovered in that past, it's a loaded question.
I was raised in a Methodist church... until I attempted suicide. Then I stopped going to church... not because I had lost my faith, but more because I didn't want to deal with the people in the church. You see, I had just had my first major God encounter, and even though I didn't understand it, I knew the people in the church would understand it even less, and if I had tried to rely on them for help, I know I would have found a way to finish my suicide attempt, and I would not be here writing this now.
God is a touchy subject, not just for me, but for a lot of people, and that is why I am hesitant to even write this, but I am giving in to that inner urge to express something that has been on my heart, so please bear with me.
I will admit that I have had a 'born again' experience. That is, I have encountered God (and in reflection, I have encountered God many times and never knew it was God until after this 'born again' experience) and I 'have accepted Jesus into my heart', and believe it to be a very important aspect of my life.
However, that really doesn't mean a hill of beans, does it now?
That is, a lot of people claim to know God. Many people claim they 'have a relationship' with Jesus Christ because they 'accepted him into their heart as their Lord and Savior" and thus have been given the right to call themselves Christians and are now capable of sitting in judgment of <<SCREEECH!>>
Hold it right there. Back up a bit. Why do these "Christians" feel they have a right to sit in judgment?
I don't care if we're talking about drug addicts, single mothers, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or even questioning people, the poor, the oppressed, prison inmates, or any other kind of person. If you feel as a Christian you have the right to look down upon any of the above people at all, I have just one thing to say: Your 'accepting Jesus into your heart' is just a sham.
I know this, because I know God.
When God and I really met face-to-face that first time, it wasn't because I went looking for him. I had had enough of the God that was taught in that small Methodist church I went to as a child. By the time I was 16, I didn't want any more to do with that God. That God was so full of hate, so narrow-minded, abusive and temperamental. That God was NOT capable of "so loving the world".
When God came calling, it was a huge surprise to me, I was just doing my own thing. I was 38 years old, I had had experience in a Buddhist monastery and learned quite a lot of nifty things about other people, other cultures, other languages... I had experienced quite a few of the vicissitudes of life; I had re-created a whole new me while I lived in Japan, I had had some moderate successes, but since coming back to the U.S., I was struggling at finding a job that I really loved. I also knew I was no better than anyone else; I knew I was quite fortunate to have not had to go through a lot of stuff that others had to as part of their experience. And, I knew that God was out there lurking.
And one day God showed up. For real. No more lurking around, no more moving things out of sight (like he did when he hid the shotgun casings when I tried to commit suicide). And something amazing happened when I finally, really encountered God.
I can't explain how God works for everyone. I don't know. But in my case, the idea of Christ as the Good Shepherd is how I encountered God. And for the curious, I will explain what happened.
On that day, I felt compelled to buy myself a new Bible, for I had given the one I had owned to a friend in Japan. That evening, I began reading my new Bible starting with the book of Romans. And I had come to the part where Paul, the ultra-religious Jewish persecutor of Christians who later converted to Christianity, wrote "Who shall separate us from the love of God?..." and he proceeds to give a litany of evils -- trouble, hardship, famine, persecution, war, danger, nakedness, and so on-- but in the end, he says he is convinced that nothing-- no powers, no angels, no demons, nothing in all of creation -- can separate us from the love of God.
And when I read these words, I asked myself "Is this true?" because for years, I had struggled with my own sexuality. And I asked if it would be wrong to insert my sexuality into that list of troubles that were incapable of separating me from the love of God. The Apostle Paul was CONVINCED that nothing could separate me from the love of God "that is in Christ Jesus"...and when I asked again in my sexuality could separate me from God, I heard a resounding "NO!"
And I was transformed. I was transformed into a little lamb, wet and shivering. I was out in a wasteland and did not recognize my surroundings. I was alone, and cried out. And then I heard a voice calling out. I heard a voice calling my name. I turned to look, and there he was: the Shepherd. He called my name again, and I took off with a speed I never knew I had. And when I was just a short distance away from him, I thought of leaping into his arms, but I was so embarrassingly filthy, and he was spotless, and I hesitated... but only for a moment, because he opened his arms and beckoned me, and I jumped up and he caught me and held me in his arms...
He held me in his arms, and I knew that decades of built-up ignorance and false teachings were a thing of the past; I knew that, yes, indeed, I was loved, even though many tried to tell me otherwise. I knew there were no strings attached, that I had found someone who would never abandon me. And I knew that type of joy that cannot be expressed, for having been forgiven, for having been found.
That was my first real encounter with God. There have been many God encounters throughout my life, thankfully. I am so happy now to know that God wanted me to get to know him from the beginning. While I can't say that I was always happy in that knowledge, it is still well with my soul.
But I still cringe when people ask me if I am a Christian. This is mostly because I have encountered a lot of godless fakers who call themselves Christians and are adept at making themselves sound like Christians but in essence exhibit little or no Christ-like characteristics.
I know "Christians" who will say my relationship with Jesus "can't be real" because I am gay. And I say it is BECAUSE of Christ, and his love for me, that I am perfectly fine loving my husband. GOD said I am fine just the way I am, thank you very much. So I don't accept your condemnation.
I know "Christians" who will say I 'lean unto my own understanding' and therefore have let my fleshly desires control my thinking, and therefore cannot be Christian because I do not follow the Bible. And I say don't talk to me about not following the Bible. And stop using the Bible as a weapon, you Pharisees!
I know "Christians" who try to condemn me for not living per their 'moral code', which they claim to have derived from Biblical teachings. And I will say I stand behind what God has taught me and shown me on a one-to-one basis, and I will stick with that, thank you very much. I would rather have a current and active relationship with God, not try to limit my understanding of God to what I find in a text written thousands of years ago for a primitive people. I am modern, and God is timeless. Isn't it about time you let God out of the books?
And please, please do NOT use the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner" around me. 'Christians' who try to show they are better than others use this all the time. It is really meaningless. You know what Christ did? He loved those he encountered, and didn't even recognize the sin. The moment you start talking about 'sinners' and 'sin' is the moment you begin judging. And isn't it funny that the various sins of the ones making that odd comment are never mentioned?
So, if you are curious, and want to know if I am a Christian... I think the answer is clear. But if it's not the answer that fits your view of Christianity, well, so be it. Fare thee well on your journey. But please, stop trying to put obstacles in mine. Because I am CONVINCED that NOTHING shall separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, especially you.
I hate answering that question. For one, I never know why they ask. And it makes me ask myself, "Aren't my actions alone sufficient testament to what I believe?"
But it goes beyond that, I tell myself. I find the question "Are you a Christian?" to be a trick question. And as I have discovered in that past, it's a loaded question.
I was raised in a Methodist church... until I attempted suicide. Then I stopped going to church... not because I had lost my faith, but more because I didn't want to deal with the people in the church. You see, I had just had my first major God encounter, and even though I didn't understand it, I knew the people in the church would understand it even less, and if I had tried to rely on them for help, I know I would have found a way to finish my suicide attempt, and I would not be here writing this now.
God is a touchy subject, not just for me, but for a lot of people, and that is why I am hesitant to even write this, but I am giving in to that inner urge to express something that has been on my heart, so please bear with me.
I will admit that I have had a 'born again' experience. That is, I have encountered God (and in reflection, I have encountered God many times and never knew it was God until after this 'born again' experience) and I 'have accepted Jesus into my heart', and believe it to be a very important aspect of my life.
However, that really doesn't mean a hill of beans, does it now?
That is, a lot of people claim to know God. Many people claim they 'have a relationship' with Jesus Christ because they 'accepted him into their heart as their Lord and Savior" and thus have been given the right to call themselves Christians and are now capable of sitting in judgment of <<SCREEECH!>>
Hold it right there. Back up a bit. Why do these "Christians" feel they have a right to sit in judgment?
I don't care if we're talking about drug addicts, single mothers, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or even questioning people, the poor, the oppressed, prison inmates, or any other kind of person. If you feel as a Christian you have the right to look down upon any of the above people at all, I have just one thing to say: Your 'accepting Jesus into your heart' is just a sham.
I know this, because I know God.
When God and I really met face-to-face that first time, it wasn't because I went looking for him. I had had enough of the God that was taught in that small Methodist church I went to as a child. By the time I was 16, I didn't want any more to do with that God. That God was so full of hate, so narrow-minded, abusive and temperamental. That God was NOT capable of "so loving the world".
When God came calling, it was a huge surprise to me, I was just doing my own thing. I was 38 years old, I had had experience in a Buddhist monastery and learned quite a lot of nifty things about other people, other cultures, other languages... I had experienced quite a few of the vicissitudes of life; I had re-created a whole new me while I lived in Japan, I had had some moderate successes, but since coming back to the U.S., I was struggling at finding a job that I really loved. I also knew I was no better than anyone else; I knew I was quite fortunate to have not had to go through a lot of stuff that others had to as part of their experience. And, I knew that God was out there lurking.
And one day God showed up. For real. No more lurking around, no more moving things out of sight (like he did when he hid the shotgun casings when I tried to commit suicide). And something amazing happened when I finally, really encountered God.
I can't explain how God works for everyone. I don't know. But in my case, the idea of Christ as the Good Shepherd is how I encountered God. And for the curious, I will explain what happened.
On that day, I felt compelled to buy myself a new Bible, for I had given the one I had owned to a friend in Japan. That evening, I began reading my new Bible starting with the book of Romans. And I had come to the part where Paul, the ultra-religious Jewish persecutor of Christians who later converted to Christianity, wrote "Who shall separate us from the love of God?..." and he proceeds to give a litany of evils -- trouble, hardship, famine, persecution, war, danger, nakedness, and so on-- but in the end, he says he is convinced that nothing-- no powers, no angels, no demons, nothing in all of creation -- can separate us from the love of God.
And when I read these words, I asked myself "Is this true?" because for years, I had struggled with my own sexuality. And I asked if it would be wrong to insert my sexuality into that list of troubles that were incapable of separating me from the love of God. The Apostle Paul was CONVINCED that nothing could separate me from the love of God "that is in Christ Jesus"...and when I asked again in my sexuality could separate me from God, I heard a resounding "NO!"
And I was transformed. I was transformed into a little lamb, wet and shivering. I was out in a wasteland and did not recognize my surroundings. I was alone, and cried out. And then I heard a voice calling out. I heard a voice calling my name. I turned to look, and there he was: the Shepherd. He called my name again, and I took off with a speed I never knew I had. And when I was just a short distance away from him, I thought of leaping into his arms, but I was so embarrassingly filthy, and he was spotless, and I hesitated... but only for a moment, because he opened his arms and beckoned me, and I jumped up and he caught me and held me in his arms...
He held me in his arms, and I knew that decades of built-up ignorance and false teachings were a thing of the past; I knew that, yes, indeed, I was loved, even though many tried to tell me otherwise. I knew there were no strings attached, that I had found someone who would never abandon me. And I knew that type of joy that cannot be expressed, for having been forgiven, for having been found.
That was my first real encounter with God. There have been many God encounters throughout my life, thankfully. I am so happy now to know that God wanted me to get to know him from the beginning. While I can't say that I was always happy in that knowledge, it is still well with my soul.
But I still cringe when people ask me if I am a Christian. This is mostly because I have encountered a lot of godless fakers who call themselves Christians and are adept at making themselves sound like Christians but in essence exhibit little or no Christ-like characteristics.
I know "Christians" who will say my relationship with Jesus "can't be real" because I am gay. And I say it is BECAUSE of Christ, and his love for me, that I am perfectly fine loving my husband. GOD said I am fine just the way I am, thank you very much. So I don't accept your condemnation.
I know "Christians" who will say I 'lean unto my own understanding' and therefore have let my fleshly desires control my thinking, and therefore cannot be Christian because I do not follow the Bible. And I say don't talk to me about not following the Bible. And stop using the Bible as a weapon, you Pharisees!
I know "Christians" who try to condemn me for not living per their 'moral code', which they claim to have derived from Biblical teachings. And I will say I stand behind what God has taught me and shown me on a one-to-one basis, and I will stick with that, thank you very much. I would rather have a current and active relationship with God, not try to limit my understanding of God to what I find in a text written thousands of years ago for a primitive people. I am modern, and God is timeless. Isn't it about time you let God out of the books?
And please, please do NOT use the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner" around me. 'Christians' who try to show they are better than others use this all the time. It is really meaningless. You know what Christ did? He loved those he encountered, and didn't even recognize the sin. The moment you start talking about 'sinners' and 'sin' is the moment you begin judging. And isn't it funny that the various sins of the ones making that odd comment are never mentioned?
So, if you are curious, and want to know if I am a Christian... I think the answer is clear. But if it's not the answer that fits your view of Christianity, well, so be it. Fare thee well on your journey. But please, stop trying to put obstacles in mine. Because I am CONVINCED that NOTHING shall separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, especially you.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
By the Time I Get to New York CIty...
I am gonna talk about love a bit here... because I am listening to Isaac Hayes perform his long version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", and there are so many things he touched upon that stirred up something within me.
I guess I am especially sensitive right now because I am preparing to leave where I have lived for five years for a new place, a new home, and a new life. I know that there will be some sadness as I say farewell to the state of Ohio, where I have lived most of the past 12 years... but I must leave. I have to leave, even if it means a whole lotta hurt.
That may not sound like a big deal, but you have to understand why this IS such a big deal for me. In order for you to grasp the significance, I am going to peel back a layer of my heart and let you see something that has been hidden for a long time...
You see, it's about the power of love. And for a long, long time, I didn't know love. I didn't know love and I didn't know how to love. I couldn't love anyone if I tried, because I couldn't love me.
I dreamed about love for years and years, but never believed it would or could be mine. I was too ashamed to even try to express love, because ever since I was a young boy I had been taught that what I considered true love was wrong. Not only was it wrong, it was unnatural, it was depraved and in a way it was evil. I naively believed what I was taught, and so I believed it would lead me to Hell. I thought it would tear me apart from all of my loved ones forever and so... well, I thought it was stupid to believe that I could try to love anyone.
So I didn't. I stayed in the dark corners of the closet and kept to myself. I pretended to know what it was like to love someone... but the truth was, I didn't love anyone, not even me. And for years, I was like the singer of the Foreigner song, "I Wanna Know What Love Is"... And for years, I cried myself to sleep. And for years, those temptations to hurt myself, to end my misery lurked in every corner. After my first suicide attempt, I had to force myself to stay away from guns. For many years I refused to learn how to drive a car because I was afraid I would use it to kill myself, and maybe inadvertently kill someone else in the process. I had to stay away from the edges of bridges... I did many things to keep myself from taking my own life because I was too, too fragile to force back the depression and take the reins of my own life.
Until recently. The past year or so has been a huge path leading me away from the old, and pulling me closer to my true destiny. And it's because of love.
I feel like I am on the cusp of something big, and I am. I mean, I have taken many great strides over the years. For example, when I graduated from college, I left the U.S. and went abroad. I spent a total of eight years abroad, and there, I was able to re-imagine myself, and get rid of a lot of the 'old Rolf' that kept me down. I was able to create a new me, or at least let the positive side of me get some exposure to the light, and the result was that a much different, a much more confident person emerged.
About seven years after coming back from Japan, I had another experience that showed me the things I had been taught by church-going folk, including so-called friends and family, were all lies. I came to understand then that I had been deluded and deceived into thinking that I was some horrible person. But I'm not. I was just confused, but once the truth was clarified for me, I was able to tackle some internal issues from a brand new angle, and I was able to actually come out of the closet and start interacting with people on a regular basis.
Then, about five years ago, a new stage of evolution began. Even though I had been free to explore my new freedoms from a new vantage point, I really hadn't realized the potential.... until I met David. We did not do a lot of things at first, but I do recall sitting in a restaurant, and later in my car, during our first encounter, just talking to David, and knowing that I really, really liked him, and we shared so many common interests, and if I ever had the chance I would gladly see him again someday....As the cliche goes, I guess you could say it was love at first sight.
Over the years, David has pulled me up out of the darkness of loneliness, and enticed me to try other things. I have experienced more with David in the past five years than I did in the previous fifteen, and I have grown a lot more mature even as I fell more and more in love with him.
And I realized that it was time to say good-bye... not to David, but to the old me, the one that cried himself to sleep because he was lonely, the one that moped about while putting on a happy face because he hated the questions from co-workers about his personal life, the one that looked at other couples and gave them a cold eye... You see, David is funny, cheerful, positive, outgoing, sensitive, caring, and honestly, quite loving.
In order to be with David, I realized I had to quit those things that kept me apart from him. I had to make some hard decisions... I realize that I need to let go of quite a few things. I realize that those things that once seemed to be so precious to me had actually become a hindrance... I realize now that the immaterial things I share with David-- time, laughter, love-- are far more precious with each passing day.
And the truth is, love does make the world go 'round. It can make you or break you, just like Isaac says. It can make you say or do some crazy things. And for love, I will say good-bye to Ohio and the people and things and places here... so I can say hello or good morning or hey or whatever to my love face-to-face each and every morning. And I really don't believe I will miss Ohio all that much.
I guess I am especially sensitive right now because I am preparing to leave where I have lived for five years for a new place, a new home, and a new life. I know that there will be some sadness as I say farewell to the state of Ohio, where I have lived most of the past 12 years... but I must leave. I have to leave, even if it means a whole lotta hurt.
That may not sound like a big deal, but you have to understand why this IS such a big deal for me. In order for you to grasp the significance, I am going to peel back a layer of my heart and let you see something that has been hidden for a long time...
You see, it's about the power of love. And for a long, long time, I didn't know love. I didn't know love and I didn't know how to love. I couldn't love anyone if I tried, because I couldn't love me.
I dreamed about love for years and years, but never believed it would or could be mine. I was too ashamed to even try to express love, because ever since I was a young boy I had been taught that what I considered true love was wrong. Not only was it wrong, it was unnatural, it was depraved and in a way it was evil. I naively believed what I was taught, and so I believed it would lead me to Hell. I thought it would tear me apart from all of my loved ones forever and so... well, I thought it was stupid to believe that I could try to love anyone.
So I didn't. I stayed in the dark corners of the closet and kept to myself. I pretended to know what it was like to love someone... but the truth was, I didn't love anyone, not even me. And for years, I was like the singer of the Foreigner song, "I Wanna Know What Love Is"... And for years, I cried myself to sleep. And for years, those temptations to hurt myself, to end my misery lurked in every corner. After my first suicide attempt, I had to force myself to stay away from guns. For many years I refused to learn how to drive a car because I was afraid I would use it to kill myself, and maybe inadvertently kill someone else in the process. I had to stay away from the edges of bridges... I did many things to keep myself from taking my own life because I was too, too fragile to force back the depression and take the reins of my own life.
Until recently. The past year or so has been a huge path leading me away from the old, and pulling me closer to my true destiny. And it's because of love.
I feel like I am on the cusp of something big, and I am. I mean, I have taken many great strides over the years. For example, when I graduated from college, I left the U.S. and went abroad. I spent a total of eight years abroad, and there, I was able to re-imagine myself, and get rid of a lot of the 'old Rolf' that kept me down. I was able to create a new me, or at least let the positive side of me get some exposure to the light, and the result was that a much different, a much more confident person emerged.
About seven years after coming back from Japan, I had another experience that showed me the things I had been taught by church-going folk, including so-called friends and family, were all lies. I came to understand then that I had been deluded and deceived into thinking that I was some horrible person. But I'm not. I was just confused, but once the truth was clarified for me, I was able to tackle some internal issues from a brand new angle, and I was able to actually come out of the closet and start interacting with people on a regular basis.
Then, about five years ago, a new stage of evolution began. Even though I had been free to explore my new freedoms from a new vantage point, I really hadn't realized the potential.... until I met David. We did not do a lot of things at first, but I do recall sitting in a restaurant, and later in my car, during our first encounter, just talking to David, and knowing that I really, really liked him, and we shared so many common interests, and if I ever had the chance I would gladly see him again someday....As the cliche goes, I guess you could say it was love at first sight.
Over the years, David has pulled me up out of the darkness of loneliness, and enticed me to try other things. I have experienced more with David in the past five years than I did in the previous fifteen, and I have grown a lot more mature even as I fell more and more in love with him.
And I realized that it was time to say good-bye... not to David, but to the old me, the one that cried himself to sleep because he was lonely, the one that moped about while putting on a happy face because he hated the questions from co-workers about his personal life, the one that looked at other couples and gave them a cold eye... You see, David is funny, cheerful, positive, outgoing, sensitive, caring, and honestly, quite loving.
In order to be with David, I realized I had to quit those things that kept me apart from him. I had to make some hard decisions... I realize that I need to let go of quite a few things. I realize that those things that once seemed to be so precious to me had actually become a hindrance... I realize now that the immaterial things I share with David-- time, laughter, love-- are far more precious with each passing day.
And the truth is, love does make the world go 'round. It can make you or break you, just like Isaac says. It can make you say or do some crazy things. And for love, I will say good-bye to Ohio and the people and things and places here... so I can say hello or good morning or hey or whatever to my love face-to-face each and every morning. And I really don't believe I will miss Ohio all that much.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
A Couple of Weird Dreams
On April 3rd I dreamed the following dreams. They were so bizarre (and somewhat funny) I thought I would share.
Dream #1: I found an old guitar and tuned it (note: I've never played a guitar, much less tuned one), and then started plucking on the strings... After getting it to 'sound good', I strummed it a few times, and ended up playing "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens (or Yusuf Islam, take your pick). I was so adept at the guitar that I began playing it with my TOES and was able to produce the most fantastic sounds from it for a group of friends (and it actually included women, which is REALLY bizarre--LOL). I was able to make the guitar sound like a piano, then a drum kit and then other percussion as well. (I'm assuming that was all 'beginner's luck'.) Then, to showcase my talent, I began performing a rousing, unnamed tune on the guitar (again, playing with my toes) while they carried me out to the car (because I couldn't walk, naturally) so we could go to a TV studio for a live performance. == End of dream #1. (Note: my big toe hurts! It's either because my toe-strumming has been out of practice or I stubbed it when they carried me in my chair. LOL)
Dream #2: I took a new Japanese co-worker of mine to the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. (For those of you not familiar with the Minneapolis campus, it is split into two by the Mississippi River, and there is a bridge with a covered walkway that connects the "West Bank" to the rest of it.) We were at the 'beach' along the edge of the river (believe me, the Mississippi River does not have a 'beach' in Minneapolis that I'm aware of) and the water was flowing far more rapidly than I've ever seen it move (and in the opposite direction, I may add!!) but we were going to ford it so we could climb up an old rickety wood-rope contraption on the other side for some obscure purpose. (We saw others doing it, so we lemmings decided to give it a shot too??) I made it all the way across (stepping on 'stones' that were conveniently just below the surface) but my Japanese co-worker did not and had to be fished out of the river) and I climbed up the ropes until I came to the Simon and Garfunkel poster high above the river and == end of dream #2.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Why Shoveling Snow Saddens Me So
I just shoveled the snow off of five spaces in the parking lot of the apartment/condo complex where I live. Not that I needed a spot to park, but who knows? Maybe I will, but even if I don't, a fellow resident might need a place to park tonight when they get home from work, I cleared some spots for them. I don't know why the management can't do it; it's their job, but regardless, it's been done now, and I got in my workout for the day...
Having said that... while shoveling the snow, I couldn't help but think of my father.... He was always trying to come up with a way to make shoveling snow by hand easier. Until I left home for college, I lived with my parents in a house on a hill that had a fairly long driveway. For many years, whenever a major snowstorm passed through, we had to clear out the driveway by hand shovel. No one enjoyed that at all, including my dad. He attached a 'handle' to a scoop that belonged on the front of a truck and we sometimes used that (sometimes in tandem) to scoop the snow off the driveway. Normally we worked 'in shifts', but my dad always worked the longest and the hardest to make sure we had a clear path....
And it was the snow that did him in. Or, rather, the snow shoveling. My dad had a long history of hypertension-- he had had a heart attack back in 1966. At least I think it was 1966, because the last memorable Christmas we had was in 1965, when Dad was still in his prime. My dad's heart attack took away our sole source of income; with 7 mouths to feed (my oldest brother and only sister had graduated high school and left home by then) money was really tight, and I remember the horrible conditions-- milk made from that horrible-tasting Carnation instant powder, blocks of cheese from the government, hand-me downs that were ugly and outdated, not to mention being ostracized from the community...
Flash forward to 1989, when a huge snowstorm passed through Minnesota. I wasn't at home at the time-- in fact, I was on the other side of the globe, in Japan. Dad had been out shoveling snow most of the morning. My mother was working two jobs-- as an elementary school teacher's aide during the day, and at a nursing home during the night, so she was not home.. One of my brothers was living with my parents at the time, and he wasn't feeling well. My dad came in from shoveling snow, and said something to my brother... maybe it was that he was tired, or not feeling well. It's been so long, and I don't remember the details, but Dad went to lie down. After a while, my brother asked if he wanted something to eat, and my dad said he wasn't hungry. My brother left him alone, and while Dad was asleep, he suffered a massive coronary and passed away...
I got the call just as I was about to leave home in Japan for a speech contest. I was supposed to give a speech in Japanese, and I was supposed to win (my sponsor had that much confidence in my skills.) I called him to let him know I was heading out to the community hall, and when I set the phone back in the cradle, it rang. Curious, I picked it up. It was my brother. That was even more curious, because my brother never called me before. When he told me Dad had passed away, I thought he was joking. But when I realized he was telling the truth, the shock hit me like a ton of bricks. What was I to do??
I called my sponsor back and explained what happened. They told me I should come to the event, but not participate. He understood. I said I was alright, and went to the speech contest, and I bombed. I couldn't speak while memories of my dad ran through my head. I fought back tears as I rambled and forgot my thread. I told the audience to never take one parents for granted. I was in a daze. At the party held after the event, I sat numbly in a corner.
Many years have passed since my father passed away... And I realize in many ways I am just like him. Of my brothers, I probably look the most like him. All the hair on my chest-- just like him. All the wrinkles-- just like him. All the good looks-- well, they, too, are from my father. The saddest of it all, though, is that I never really appreciated him while he was alive. It wasn't until after he passed away that I realized just how much he meant to me, just how grateful I should be for what he gave me. It wasn't until I grew up a little more that I could finally see what fatherly love truly means...
One last thing-- six months before Dad passed away, I had a break from teaching in Japan. I returned to the U.S. for the first time in three years. On the day I was scheduled to fly back to Japan, my dad stopped me on the porch, gave me a hug, and with tears in his eyes, told me he loved me. I was very surprised, as this was totally unlike my father. I told him I loved him back, but the truth of the matter is, I think I was in too much shock from his actions to really express how I felt. Given another chance, I would hug him back like I meant it, hold him against me and tell him I loved him more than words can say... For being the hardest-working man I ever knew, for overcoming life's obstacles again and again, for always trying to be better, for trying to provide more, for every laugh at my god-awful jokes, for working with Mom to raise us right-- for all these things and more-- I would give him my heartfelt thanks.
So, with each shovel of snow, I am reminded of my father, and my loss.... and this is why shoveling snow saddens me so...
Having said that... while shoveling the snow, I couldn't help but think of my father.... He was always trying to come up with a way to make shoveling snow by hand easier. Until I left home for college, I lived with my parents in a house on a hill that had a fairly long driveway. For many years, whenever a major snowstorm passed through, we had to clear out the driveway by hand shovel. No one enjoyed that at all, including my dad. He attached a 'handle' to a scoop that belonged on the front of a truck and we sometimes used that (sometimes in tandem) to scoop the snow off the driveway. Normally we worked 'in shifts', but my dad always worked the longest and the hardest to make sure we had a clear path....
And it was the snow that did him in. Or, rather, the snow shoveling. My dad had a long history of hypertension-- he had had a heart attack back in 1966. At least I think it was 1966, because the last memorable Christmas we had was in 1965, when Dad was still in his prime. My dad's heart attack took away our sole source of income; with 7 mouths to feed (my oldest brother and only sister had graduated high school and left home by then) money was really tight, and I remember the horrible conditions-- milk made from that horrible-tasting Carnation instant powder, blocks of cheese from the government, hand-me downs that were ugly and outdated, not to mention being ostracized from the community...
Flash forward to 1989, when a huge snowstorm passed through Minnesota. I wasn't at home at the time-- in fact, I was on the other side of the globe, in Japan. Dad had been out shoveling snow most of the morning. My mother was working two jobs-- as an elementary school teacher's aide during the day, and at a nursing home during the night, so she was not home.. One of my brothers was living with my parents at the time, and he wasn't feeling well. My dad came in from shoveling snow, and said something to my brother... maybe it was that he was tired, or not feeling well. It's been so long, and I don't remember the details, but Dad went to lie down. After a while, my brother asked if he wanted something to eat, and my dad said he wasn't hungry. My brother left him alone, and while Dad was asleep, he suffered a massive coronary and passed away...
I got the call just as I was about to leave home in Japan for a speech contest. I was supposed to give a speech in Japanese, and I was supposed to win (my sponsor had that much confidence in my skills.) I called him to let him know I was heading out to the community hall, and when I set the phone back in the cradle, it rang. Curious, I picked it up. It was my brother. That was even more curious, because my brother never called me before. When he told me Dad had passed away, I thought he was joking. But when I realized he was telling the truth, the shock hit me like a ton of bricks. What was I to do??
I called my sponsor back and explained what happened. They told me I should come to the event, but not participate. He understood. I said I was alright, and went to the speech contest, and I bombed. I couldn't speak while memories of my dad ran through my head. I fought back tears as I rambled and forgot my thread. I told the audience to never take one parents for granted. I was in a daze. At the party held after the event, I sat numbly in a corner.
Many years have passed since my father passed away... And I realize in many ways I am just like him. Of my brothers, I probably look the most like him. All the hair on my chest-- just like him. All the wrinkles-- just like him. All the good looks-- well, they, too, are from my father. The saddest of it all, though, is that I never really appreciated him while he was alive. It wasn't until after he passed away that I realized just how much he meant to me, just how grateful I should be for what he gave me. It wasn't until I grew up a little more that I could finally see what fatherly love truly means...
One last thing-- six months before Dad passed away, I had a break from teaching in Japan. I returned to the U.S. for the first time in three years. On the day I was scheduled to fly back to Japan, my dad stopped me on the porch, gave me a hug, and with tears in his eyes, told me he loved me. I was very surprised, as this was totally unlike my father. I told him I loved him back, but the truth of the matter is, I think I was in too much shock from his actions to really express how I felt. Given another chance, I would hug him back like I meant it, hold him against me and tell him I loved him more than words can say... For being the hardest-working man I ever knew, for overcoming life's obstacles again and again, for always trying to be better, for trying to provide more, for every laugh at my god-awful jokes, for working with Mom to raise us right-- for all these things and more-- I would give him my heartfelt thanks.
So, with each shovel of snow, I am reminded of my father, and my loss.... and this is why shoveling snow saddens me so...
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Haiku Hankerings - The Cry of Cicadas (Part 1)
静けさや 岩に染み入る せみの声
Oh, what quietness! Penetrating through the rocks The cicada's cry
The above poem is a famous example of a haiku written by Matsuo Basho. I first encountered it when I was quite young, and for many years, it puzzled me. I had heard cicada cry before and knew they could be quite loud, but not to the level where they could 'penetrate through the rocks' I had seen as a child... And anyway, how could there be such stillness?!? The real answers did not come until I actually spent several years in Japan.
The first part of the answer came to me during my first trip to Japan in the summer of 1985. I had just graduated from college the winter before, and sold my original comic book collection to pay for a trip to Japan. That summer, I visited Hiroshima for a week. My acquaintance there was a high school teacher who let me stay in his guest room. He had a son in college who was home for summer vacation and a daughter in high school. I sometimes practiced English with them, but for the most part we spoke Japanese.
Hiroshima, if you're not familiar with the city, is on the coast on Honshu (the largest island of the four major islands of Japan) and surrounded by mountains on three sides. My host and his family lived in 'the suburbs' around Hiroshima, which basically meant he lived on the side of a mountain and not in the super-congested downtown area. The Japanese make use of almost every inch of land they can, so the house sat on a man-made concrete-reinforced platform to keep it level. (I am not sure, but there may have been some earthquake-resistant engineering built into the platform as well.)
Near my host's home there was a public tennis court; the daughter suggested we play a game of tennis to pass the time. (She was a member of the tennis club at her school.) She and her brother accompanied me to the tennis court, and on our way there we had to pass through a graveyard. I noticed during our walk through the land of the dead that it was fairly littered with statues, somewhat like the graveyards I had seen in the U.S., but on a grander scale. Quite of few of them were fairly new, too. "Victim of radiation poisoning," one slab said. Another nearby also mentioned the A-bomb explosion that obliterated most of the city back in 1945. I was sure quite a few of the people buried here were A-bomb-related deaths, whether from the explosion itself or from the radiation they had absorbed over the course of many years.
When I tried to ask my companions questions about the statues I saw, they both shrugged their shoulders and pointed to the trees a short distance away. I found out later that it wasn't that they did not understand my Japanese-- they said they just couldn't hear me. Shortly after we entered the holy grounds, the sounds of the cicadas crying increased in volume, and continued to grow in intensity until nothing could be heard but their sound. When I tried to shout over the noise, it was useless-- I couldn't even hear myself. After more gesticulation, we left the graveyard for the tennis court, which was much quieter. It was there that I was able to ask my questions and get answers. At that time, I found the answer to part of the puzzle about Basho's haiku-- yes, these cicada in Japan could cry loud enough to penetrate the stones.
Oh, what quietness! Penetrating through the rocks The cicada's cry
The above poem is a famous example of a haiku written by Matsuo Basho. I first encountered it when I was quite young, and for many years, it puzzled me. I had heard cicada cry before and knew they could be quite loud, but not to the level where they could 'penetrate through the rocks' I had seen as a child... And anyway, how could there be such stillness?!? The real answers did not come until I actually spent several years in Japan.
The first part of the answer came to me during my first trip to Japan in the summer of 1985. I had just graduated from college the winter before, and sold my original comic book collection to pay for a trip to Japan. That summer, I visited Hiroshima for a week. My acquaintance there was a high school teacher who let me stay in his guest room. He had a son in college who was home for summer vacation and a daughter in high school. I sometimes practiced English with them, but for the most part we spoke Japanese.
Hiroshima, if you're not familiar with the city, is on the coast on Honshu (the largest island of the four major islands of Japan) and surrounded by mountains on three sides. My host and his family lived in 'the suburbs' around Hiroshima, which basically meant he lived on the side of a mountain and not in the super-congested downtown area. The Japanese make use of almost every inch of land they can, so the house sat on a man-made concrete-reinforced platform to keep it level. (I am not sure, but there may have been some earthquake-resistant engineering built into the platform as well.)
Near my host's home there was a public tennis court; the daughter suggested we play a game of tennis to pass the time. (She was a member of the tennis club at her school.) She and her brother accompanied me to the tennis court, and on our way there we had to pass through a graveyard. I noticed during our walk through the land of the dead that it was fairly littered with statues, somewhat like the graveyards I had seen in the U.S., but on a grander scale. Quite of few of them were fairly new, too. "Victim of radiation poisoning," one slab said. Another nearby also mentioned the A-bomb explosion that obliterated most of the city back in 1945. I was sure quite a few of the people buried here were A-bomb-related deaths, whether from the explosion itself or from the radiation they had absorbed over the course of many years.
When I tried to ask my companions questions about the statues I saw, they both shrugged their shoulders and pointed to the trees a short distance away. I found out later that it wasn't that they did not understand my Japanese-- they said they just couldn't hear me. Shortly after we entered the holy grounds, the sounds of the cicadas crying increased in volume, and continued to grow in intensity until nothing could be heard but their sound. When I tried to shout over the noise, it was useless-- I couldn't even hear myself. After more gesticulation, we left the graveyard for the tennis court, which was much quieter. It was there that I was able to ask my questions and get answers. At that time, I found the answer to part of the puzzle about Basho's haiku-- yes, these cicada in Japan could cry loud enough to penetrate the stones.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Haiku Hankerings - The Oddest Foreigner
When on my trip to the northern part of Japan back in 1989, I had the opportunity to visit the city of Sendai, the largest city in the northern part of Japan, with a population of over one million. The 'city' includes a lot of land that is not heavily populated, and reminds me to some extent of Columbus, Ohio, which occupies the entire Franklin County. For the purposes of comparison, I looked at other major cities in the U.S.:
Los Angeles, CA - 502.7 square miles
New York City - 468.5 sq. mi.
Indianapolis, IN - 372.0 sq. mi
Sendai, Japan - 303.4 sq. mi.
Columbus, OH - 212.6 sq. mi.
Seattle, WA - 142.5 sq. mi.
Las Vegas, NV - 135.9 sq. mi.
When going into Sendai by train or car, you can see a lot of landscape before you realize you are inside the city limits. You may be familiar with the city of Sendai, as it received a lot of damage from the earthquake and resulting tsunami of 2011. You may have seen some of the videos showing the tsunami; many of them were taken in the area around Sendai.
Anyway, I had no hotel reservations when I arrived in Sendai; I called someone I knew from my college days to ask if he had any suggestions; I ended up staying overnight at his home. When I knew this guy, he was a high school English teacher; that night, I found out that he was actually a member of Sendai's Board of Education, and had an office in 'downtown' Sendai. He invited me to visit his office, and I, thinking that it would be some time to get off my sore feet, agreed to go with him.
Shortly after I arrived at the office of the Sendai Board of Education, one of the Japanese there asked me what I was doing in the northern part of Japan. I explained to him that I had read "Oku no Hosomichi", the seminal work by Matsuo Basho, and was hoping to see the same sights that Basho had seen.
"Oh, you must have read that in English!" the man said.
"No-o-o-o.... I read it in Japanese," I replied.
"Oh, it must have been the modern-day Japanese translation," he said.
I knew by that statement that the man I was speaking with had to be a teacher of the Japanese language and literature. Many Japanese teachers act as if their native tongue is impossible for gaijin (foreigners) to understand on a rudimentary level, so if you can master the language and do things that Japanese people do in their everyday lives, you are relegated to 'hen na gaijin' ("odd foreigner") level. "Odd foreigners" have these interests in Japanese culture that equal or surpass the Japanese themselves. If you own Japanese swords, enjoy sumo wrestling, sing a karaoke song in Japanese, enter a Buddhist monastery, or partake in any form of Japanese culture, or speak perfectly fluent Japanese, you are "hen na gaijin".
"No, I used the college-prep guides," I explained. (The college prep guides have the original classical Japanese text, followed by a modern-day Japanese translation, and then a section describing the grammar and 'dead' vocabulary of the classical Japanese.)
"Oh-h-h-h? So you understand classical Japanese? You understand haiku too?"
I did not like the condescending attitude of this Board of Education member. While I knew my understanding of classical Japanese wasn't perfect, it was good enough. After all, I had read "Oku no Hosomichi" and believed I enjoyed Basho's poetry enough to want to make my own trip to northern Japan. Wasn't that enough?
Without answering his questions, I decided to turn the tables on him. After I confirmed that he was, indeed, a teacher of Japanese language and literature, I said, "Many Japanese teachers don't know classical Japanese, nor do they understand haiku."
"That is true."
"What about you? Do you know classical Japanese and understand haiku?"
The teachers sitting around us were all listening intently to our conversation, and maybe some of them were surprised by my brazen challenge. Maybe they sensed something else was going on. All ears and eyes were glued to this 'hen na gaijin' in their midst.
"Of course I do!" the Japanese teacher replied.
"We-e-e-l-l-l," I said, and paused for dramatic effect. "If I gave you a haiku, would you be able to identify who wrote it?"
"Sure, I can!" the teacher replied.
"OK," I said, and paused again, as if I was thinking about which poem to give. Actually, I already had my choice: 時雨ふる 旅のはじめや 国分寺 (Shigure furu / tabi no hajime ya / Kokubunji)
"That's a Buson work!" the teacher said excitedly. (Yosa Buson was another famous haiku poet of the late 18th century.)
"Chotto matte! (Waitaminnit!)" a fellow Board of Education member said. "I think that was by Issa!" (Kobayashi Issa is another famous haiku poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.)
The two teachers argued for a few minutes over who was correct, and I sat and listened without interrupting. Finally, a third member asked me to settle the argument. "Who did write it?" she asked.
"I did, in the spring of this year!" I said, and raucous laughter ensued, as the crowd of teachers realized they had been duped by the oddest of foreigners they had ever seen.
NOTE: Astute readers of my blog will realize this haiku first appeared two posts ago. It was the first haiku I ever made, and my haiku teacher's comment that it was "just like Basho!" made me so proud that I memorized the haiku so I could 'whip it out' at any time. Practice made this one absolutely perfect!
Los Angeles, CA - 502.7 square miles
New York City - 468.5 sq. mi.
Indianapolis, IN - 372.0 sq. mi
Sendai, Japan - 303.4 sq. mi.
Columbus, OH - 212.6 sq. mi.
Seattle, WA - 142.5 sq. mi.
Las Vegas, NV - 135.9 sq. mi.
When going into Sendai by train or car, you can see a lot of landscape before you realize you are inside the city limits. You may be familiar with the city of Sendai, as it received a lot of damage from the earthquake and resulting tsunami of 2011. You may have seen some of the videos showing the tsunami; many of them were taken in the area around Sendai.
Anyway, I had no hotel reservations when I arrived in Sendai; I called someone I knew from my college days to ask if he had any suggestions; I ended up staying overnight at his home. When I knew this guy, he was a high school English teacher; that night, I found out that he was actually a member of Sendai's Board of Education, and had an office in 'downtown' Sendai. He invited me to visit his office, and I, thinking that it would be some time to get off my sore feet, agreed to go with him.
Shortly after I arrived at the office of the Sendai Board of Education, one of the Japanese there asked me what I was doing in the northern part of Japan. I explained to him that I had read "Oku no Hosomichi", the seminal work by Matsuo Basho, and was hoping to see the same sights that Basho had seen.
"Oh, you must have read that in English!" the man said.
"No-o-o-o.... I read it in Japanese," I replied.
"Oh, it must have been the modern-day Japanese translation," he said.
I knew by that statement that the man I was speaking with had to be a teacher of the Japanese language and literature. Many Japanese teachers act as if their native tongue is impossible for gaijin (foreigners) to understand on a rudimentary level, so if you can master the language and do things that Japanese people do in their everyday lives, you are relegated to 'hen na gaijin' ("odd foreigner") level. "Odd foreigners" have these interests in Japanese culture that equal or surpass the Japanese themselves. If you own Japanese swords, enjoy sumo wrestling, sing a karaoke song in Japanese, enter a Buddhist monastery, or partake in any form of Japanese culture, or speak perfectly fluent Japanese, you are "hen na gaijin".
"No, I used the college-prep guides," I explained. (The college prep guides have the original classical Japanese text, followed by a modern-day Japanese translation, and then a section describing the grammar and 'dead' vocabulary of the classical Japanese.)
"Oh-h-h-h? So you understand classical Japanese? You understand haiku too?"
I did not like the condescending attitude of this Board of Education member. While I knew my understanding of classical Japanese wasn't perfect, it was good enough. After all, I had read "Oku no Hosomichi" and believed I enjoyed Basho's poetry enough to want to make my own trip to northern Japan. Wasn't that enough?
Without answering his questions, I decided to turn the tables on him. After I confirmed that he was, indeed, a teacher of Japanese language and literature, I said, "Many Japanese teachers don't know classical Japanese, nor do they understand haiku."
"That is true."
"What about you? Do you know classical Japanese and understand haiku?"
The teachers sitting around us were all listening intently to our conversation, and maybe some of them were surprised by my brazen challenge. Maybe they sensed something else was going on. All ears and eyes were glued to this 'hen na gaijin' in their midst.
"Of course I do!" the Japanese teacher replied.
"We-e-e-l-l-l," I said, and paused for dramatic effect. "If I gave you a haiku, would you be able to identify who wrote it?"
"Sure, I can!" the teacher replied.
"OK," I said, and paused again, as if I was thinking about which poem to give. Actually, I already had my choice: 時雨ふる 旅のはじめや 国分寺 (Shigure furu / tabi no hajime ya / Kokubunji)
"That's a Buson work!" the teacher said excitedly. (Yosa Buson was another famous haiku poet of the late 18th century.)
"Chotto matte! (Waitaminnit!)" a fellow Board of Education member said. "I think that was by Issa!" (Kobayashi Issa is another famous haiku poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.)
The two teachers argued for a few minutes over who was correct, and I sat and listened without interrupting. Finally, a third member asked me to settle the argument. "Who did write it?" she asked.
"I did, in the spring of this year!" I said, and raucous laughter ensued, as the crowd of teachers realized they had been duped by the oddest of foreigners they had ever seen.
NOTE: Astute readers of my blog will realize this haiku first appeared two posts ago. It was the first haiku I ever made, and my haiku teacher's comment that it was "just like Basho!" made me so proud that I memorized the haiku so I could 'whip it out' at any time. Practice made this one absolutely perfect!
Friday, March 1, 2013
Will the Classics Wither Away?
In my previous post, I had mentioned how some people believed that Matsuo Basho, the famous haiku poet, may have been a ninja spy when he made his trip to the northern part of Japan in 1689. This is because the area where Basho was born and raised was the home for a variety of ninja and the journey as described by Basho in Oku no Hosomichi is impossible for the average human with the methods of transportation available at the time, but as I stated last time, I think those people are forgetting that Basho is a poet and an artist, and as such took a few liberties with the truth.
Basho himself clearly states the reason for his trip to the northern part of Japan, away from ever-busy, densely populated Edo (modern-day Tokyo): he was impressed with the works of Saigyo (1118-1190), a Buddhist hermit and poet who lived during the a time of major political and social upheaval in Japan, and Basho wanted to see if he could find the same majestic scenery that Saigyo had described in his much longer poems centuries before him.
In the 19th section of Basho's Narrow Road to the Deep North, he describes his feelings about his journey in the footsteps of Saigyo when he finds a monument that had been inscribed with Chinese characters on it from almost a thousand years earlier:
According to the date given at the end of the inscription, this monument was erected during the reign of Emperor Shomu (724-49), and had stood here ever since, winning the increasing admiration of poets through the years. In this ever changing world where mountains crumble, rivers change their courses, roads are deserted, rocks are buried, and old trees yield to young shoots, it was nothing short of a miracle that this monument alone had survived the battering of a thousand years to be the living memory of the ancients. I felt as if I were in the presence of the ancients themselves, and, forgetting all the troubles I had suffered on the road, rejoiced in the utter happiness of this joyful moment, not without tears in my eyes.The above is taken from this website: http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/basho2.html
In other words, Basho wept with joy in finding some physical evidence that connected him with the 'poets through the years'. That is the beauty of art in its myriad forms; whether it is a famous painting, a statue, a movie, a book, a song, a poem, or anything else, when we encounter the works left behind by ancient masters, and feel that connection that crosses the centuries, we too may feel that 'utter happiness' in knowing that we are not alone, and we come away feeling that our troubles were totally worth it. This is especially true if we understand the Buddhist sense of impermanence, when things are expected to change and even vanish from existence, and in time, from our collective memory.
I can sometimes understand why students hesitate to get caught up in the Classics of literature. I never really understood Shakespeare as a child, and hated being forced to read "Romeo and Juliet" in junior high school-- the language was uncool and the social settings were not anything like I knew. "Hamlet" was a little more passable, but at the age I read it, my classmates were still giggling about the word 'codpiece'. "The Three Musketeers" was too florid and I settled for the comic book adaptation and the movies instead. "Great Expectations" was easier to read, but the only real great expectation I had was to finish the book, which was mandated reading. I have always loved to read (I chose to read "Shogun" by James Clavell in high school before the mini-series came out on TV, and my classmates thought I was nuts) but the Classics were hard to appreciate at such a young age.
When I was teaching in Japan, I found that the youth there had little appreciation for Classical Japanese literature. Tosa Nikki (The Tosa Diary, written in the 10th century), Hojoki (An Account of My Hut, written in 1212), and Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North, in the late 17th century) are all stories in Classical Japanese that I have read, mostly on my own after graduating from college. I had to use college-prep books that had an explanation of the old grammar along with a modern-day translation to enable me to understand the content, but in the end, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the books. I have even memorized the opening lines of Hojoki, and have used them to impress the Japanese on my knowledge of their literature.
The Japanese students I taught, however, hated Classical Japanese with a passion, which I believe stems from the fact that these ancient texts are used by colleges and universities in Japan to weed out applicants for study in their entrance exams, and due to the difficulty of the test questions, the focus in teaching Classical Japanese is not the content of the Classics, but the esoteric grammatical rules used by the writers of yore. The students at that age should not be forced to remember how to parse the grammar of some 'dead' language that is practical only for one short period in their lives (i.e., when taking a college entrance exam) but that is where the focus of the college entrance exams lies. I believe the content of the Classics is far more important-- that is why the works have been admired for centuries after the death of the writer. It doesn't matter, though, as even the students who may never qualify for a higher education because they didn't have the stamina to memorize obscure grammar rules have to drudge through the rote learning of beautiful text that suddenly withers and turns into something horribly dreary.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Haiku Hankerings -- The Start of My Brief Poetic Journey
When I made my first haiku, it was on a trip with my haiku teacher and some of his poet friends to Iga-Ueno, a town in Mie Prefecture, where Matsuo Basho, the founder of haiku poetry, was born and raised. (A prefecture, for those of you not used to the term, is like a state in the U.S., or a province in Canada.) It was quite fitting to make my first haiku there; interestingly enough, Iga-Ueno is also known for another feature-- it's the birthplace of the ninja, and there is even a ninja museum there. Because of this fact, some people believe that Matsuo Basho made his trip to the northern part of Japan in 1689 as a ninja spy. (This is probably because the timeline of his trip, as reported in the reports he made about it, would be difficult to do for normal humans; I guess none of these people ever heard of artistic license, but I digress.)
We were deep in the countryside when we came upon a temple by the name of Kokubun-ji in Japanese. ("Ji" represents 'temple', so it could be translated as 'Kokubun Temple'.) The temple name seems to be fairly common, as there is another, much more famous Kokubun Temple that played a part in the founding of the country of Japan, but it's located in a different prefecture. This smaller Kokubun Temple was just a rural temple, and I didn't even see a priest there as we walked around on that dreary February day when the weather was skittish. Small rain showers (called "shigure" in Japanese) could be seen in the distance and a few sprinkles fell on us, too, but not enough to call off the trip.
As we wandered around the temple grounds, my poet companions were busy trying to come up with the perfect haiku. Meanwhile, my haiku teacher was telling me about the basics-- the 5-7-5 syllabic structure, the use of a word to denote the season, and so on, which I already knew from my elementary school education. I was still skeptical about trying my hand at writing haiku, but I listened to him. One thing I found about poetry in Japan is that their poetic sense can be vastly different than American sense. A full moon, for example, occurs in any month, but in Japanese poetry the moon somehow represents winter. I also knew that the Japanese were far less direct than Americans about expressing their opinions and feelings in public. In my college courses on Japanese literature, for example, I was told that Japanese typically didn't directly talk about crying-- they used euphemisms like "my sleeves are wet from the dew", or "the gentle rain falls" to express sadness. Anyway, even while I had my reservations about my skills as a poet, I still kept an open mind and tried to take in as much as I could about the words and phrases I heard my teacher mention so I might be able to use them in the future if I ever decided to write haiku.
In the interior of the temple grounds, there was a 'small mountain'-- I guess you could call it a hill because it wasn't that high, but it was steep, and formed from volcanic upheaval like the rest of the Japanese archipelago. There was a small waterfall rolling down one side of it, which I found very neat, but assumed that it might have been a man-made system, as there was not enough rainfall to account for the stream. Going up the side of the 'mountain' was a very wide set of stairs, and each step on the stairs was covered with hundreds of small Buddhist statues, and most of them were decorated with some small red cloth. There had to be at least a thousand of them in all, and for such a small country temple, it seemed strikingly odd. I asked my teacher about them, and he explained that each of the statues was of Jizo, the Buddhist protector of children. Jizo escorts the souls of children to Paradise, so each of these statues represented the death of a child, whether it was an infant, stillborn, or aborted. The local women would make small jackets or caps to put on the statues so they wouldn't get 'cold'. That alone was enough to make me feel sad, but there was one more thing in the temple grounds that broke my heart...
In the center of the grounds, there was a larger (life-size?) statue of Jizo standing on a wooden platform. The statue held a baby in one hand. Dangling from the wooden framework on which the statue stood, just below the statue's feet hung a large Mickey Mouse doll. When I realized that the doll meant that the child was dead, tears welled up in my eyes. All of the preparation of the parents, all of the expectation and all of the joy of bringing new life into the world had come crashing down around the family with the death of the child. I will never know how the child died, but I imagined some young woman was crying in inconsolable despair for their lost loved one, whose journey through life ended so abruptly, so early. The overwhelming sadness was too much to bear, and yet... and yet, out of that, came the words that brought together all of the college coursework, all of what I had heard from my teacher, and from out of the blue, I had my first-ever haiku:
時雨（しぐれ）ふる 旅（たび）のはじめや 国分寺（こくぶんじ）
Early spring drizzle At the start of the journey Kokobun Temple
You see, sadness is not expressed directly in Japanese; the early spring drizzle expresses the sadness I felt. The start of the journey represents the journey of life; and when life has just begun, or was just about to begin, but ended so early for these children remembered at Kokubun Temple through the offerings to Jizo, it is truly sad...and even to this day, the sight of all those statuettes and that doll is fresh in my memory, as a collective impression of the parents who lost their hopes and dreams in Japan...
I checked my Japanese syllables feverishly... 5... 7... 5! Perfect! When my haiku teacher asked me on the train back home if I had been able to create any haiku, I gave him the above poem, and he broke into a grin. "Just like Master Basho!" he said, and I felt really, really proud of myself, and I was on my way to writing more.
We were deep in the countryside when we came upon a temple by the name of Kokubun-ji in Japanese. ("Ji" represents 'temple', so it could be translated as 'Kokubun Temple'.) The temple name seems to be fairly common, as there is another, much more famous Kokubun Temple that played a part in the founding of the country of Japan, but it's located in a different prefecture. This smaller Kokubun Temple was just a rural temple, and I didn't even see a priest there as we walked around on that dreary February day when the weather was skittish. Small rain showers (called "shigure" in Japanese) could be seen in the distance and a few sprinkles fell on us, too, but not enough to call off the trip.
As we wandered around the temple grounds, my poet companions were busy trying to come up with the perfect haiku. Meanwhile, my haiku teacher was telling me about the basics-- the 5-7-5 syllabic structure, the use of a word to denote the season, and so on, which I already knew from my elementary school education. I was still skeptical about trying my hand at writing haiku, but I listened to him. One thing I found about poetry in Japan is that their poetic sense can be vastly different than American sense. A full moon, for example, occurs in any month, but in Japanese poetry the moon somehow represents winter. I also knew that the Japanese were far less direct than Americans about expressing their opinions and feelings in public. In my college courses on Japanese literature, for example, I was told that Japanese typically didn't directly talk about crying-- they used euphemisms like "my sleeves are wet from the dew", or "the gentle rain falls" to express sadness. Anyway, even while I had my reservations about my skills as a poet, I still kept an open mind and tried to take in as much as I could about the words and phrases I heard my teacher mention so I might be able to use them in the future if I ever decided to write haiku.
In the interior of the temple grounds, there was a 'small mountain'-- I guess you could call it a hill because it wasn't that high, but it was steep, and formed from volcanic upheaval like the rest of the Japanese archipelago. There was a small waterfall rolling down one side of it, which I found very neat, but assumed that it might have been a man-made system, as there was not enough rainfall to account for the stream. Going up the side of the 'mountain' was a very wide set of stairs, and each step on the stairs was covered with hundreds of small Buddhist statues, and most of them were decorated with some small red cloth. There had to be at least a thousand of them in all, and for such a small country temple, it seemed strikingly odd. I asked my teacher about them, and he explained that each of the statues was of Jizo, the Buddhist protector of children. Jizo escorts the souls of children to Paradise, so each of these statues represented the death of a child, whether it was an infant, stillborn, or aborted. The local women would make small jackets or caps to put on the statues so they wouldn't get 'cold'. That alone was enough to make me feel sad, but there was one more thing in the temple grounds that broke my heart...
 |
| Small mountain of Jizo statues (not the ones at Kokubun Temple) |
In the center of the grounds, there was a larger (life-size?) statue of Jizo standing on a wooden platform. The statue held a baby in one hand. Dangling from the wooden framework on which the statue stood, just below the statue's feet hung a large Mickey Mouse doll. When I realized that the doll meant that the child was dead, tears welled up in my eyes. All of the preparation of the parents, all of the expectation and all of the joy of bringing new life into the world had come crashing down around the family with the death of the child. I will never know how the child died, but I imagined some young woman was crying in inconsolable despair for their lost loved one, whose journey through life ended so abruptly, so early. The overwhelming sadness was too much to bear, and yet... and yet, out of that, came the words that brought together all of the college coursework, all of what I had heard from my teacher, and from out of the blue, I had my first-ever haiku:
時雨（しぐれ）ふる 旅（たび）のはじめや 国分寺（こくぶんじ）
Early spring drizzle At the start of the journey Kokobun Temple
You see, sadness is not expressed directly in Japanese; the early spring drizzle expresses the sadness I felt. The start of the journey represents the journey of life; and when life has just begun, or was just about to begin, but ended so early for these children remembered at Kokubun Temple through the offerings to Jizo, it is truly sad...and even to this day, the sight of all those statuettes and that doll is fresh in my memory, as a collective impression of the parents who lost their hopes and dreams in Japan...
I checked my Japanese syllables feverishly... 5... 7... 5! Perfect! When my haiku teacher asked me on the train back home if I had been able to create any haiku, I gave him the above poem, and he broke into a grin. "Just like Master Basho!" he said, and I felt really, really proud of myself, and I was on my way to writing more.
My Most Embarrassing Moment
When I taught English Composition in Japan,
I had a very funny, very embarrassing experience which I will try to share with
you. First of all, in Japan in the 1980's, male teachers where I taught were expected to wear at least a white shirt with tie, if not a full suit. So I dressed up every day when I went to work. Secondly, the classrooms in Japan are LARGE. In many Japanese high schools, there are typically 45-50 students per classroom, so there is a platform at the front of the classroom on which the
teacher stands so the students in back can see (so they can stick their comic books or personal notes or spitball shooters away before the teacher gets too close.) The platform is not that high, maybe
only 5-6 inches, but high enough for this story.
At the time this embarrassing event occurred, I was
teaching my students about prepositions, and was trying to explain the
difference between ‘in’ and ‘into’. I came up
with the brilliant idea of showing them the difference. So I stood by the
door, and said “I am IN the classroom.” Then I walked out,
and walked back in, and as I came in, I said “I am walking INTO the
classroom.” Some seemed to get it, some did not. Using the “shampoo
method” of teaching, (“lather, rinse, repeat”) I did the same
thing several times. One of my brighter students asked me if the verb “walk”
was the only verb that used “INTO”, and I said, “No, you can jump into the room"
(so I went into the hallway and jumped into the room,) and then I added, "And you can run into the room... “
And this is when the trouble began.
I went into the hallway with the intention
of running into the classroom. And I did. Until my foot caught on
the edge of the platform. Then I proceeded to do a
full-body smash onto the floor. The whole building shook, I think. People
in nearby classrooms probably thought it was an earthquake or a chemical explosion.
The vibrations were so severe, that the chalkboard eraser sitting on the shelf
just below the chalkboard bounced up and off the shelf... and landed right on
my head. And not just the top of my head, but on my face. The left
side of my face, to be exact. When I stood up, there was not a student in
their seat. They were all rolling on the floor, clutching their sides in
raucous laughter. They were pointing at me and laughing. When I
checked my appearance in the mirror by the chalkboard, I saw a crimson-red face
half-covered with white and yellow chalk. I, too, pointed at my reflection and
started laughing hysterically. The students who had been able to compose themselves
were once again on the floor, laughing hysterically with me. The room was nothing
but laughter for about 10 minutes. When it calmed down, I said, “Well,
you can FALL into the room, too!” And again the laughter started...
While the situation was embarrassing, and
funny as hell, it also led to something special—respect. After that
day, the students of that class treated me with more respect than I had ever
received before. They knew I was serious about my joy of teaching—but
they knew I could also laugh at myself. They knew that I had a lust for
life, a yen for Zen (I had a shaved head, and talked about my Buddhist
practice from time to time, and had a mind as sharp as a tack, and a heart of gold. Compared to
the horror stories they heard from their fellow students who studied under my
Australian counterpart, I was a patient and kind teacher, who genuinely cared
about them. At the end of the school year, the students came up to me,
and asked me to take a picture with them. They framed it and gave me a
copy, which I have to this day. That was also the year I was voted “Teacher of the Year” .
Good, good memories all around.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Haiku Hankerings Part II
During the summer of 1989, I used my summer vacation (I was teaching at a private girls' school at the time) to see just what it must have been like for Matuso Basho, the founder of the haiku form of poetry, on his travels to the
northern part of Japan, who used his journey in 1689 as the basis for "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". My trek just happened to coincide with the 300th anniversary of
Basho's journey, or so the posters in the train stations claimed. I
was unaware of that fact when I set out, but it really didn’t matter. My intention was to make the same journey (as much as I could, anyway) that Basho and Sora, his travel companion and fellow poet, did. I
did not make any hotel reservations in advance, for example, and relied on finding a place to lay my head when I got to wherever I was. I also decided I would try to walk as much of the trip
as possible, starting with a short trip to Kurobane, a city northwest of Tokyo. (I figured I would get out of Tokyo by train, as it was
far too crowded and noisy to offer much in terms of quiet meditative moods.)
So, I hopped off the Shinkansen (“bullet train”) at the station closest to Kurobane and started walking. (The trek to Kurobane would take about an hour on foot.)
On the way there, a couple of public buses stopped and the drivers asked if I wanted a ride. I declined both times. I eventually stopped for a breather at a roadside
rest. It was a small place, more of a convenience store for those
driving by. I was about to pick up my bags and set out when the woman proprietor came out and
waved me down. “Please sit,” she said, and quickly brought out some freshly cut
watermelon. She hastily explained that her son, who was due back from college "at any moment" would be very happy to see me. So I waited, and sure enough, a few minutes later, a young
Japanese man pulled up to the stand in his car. I got involved with singing Beatles songs
while he played the guitar. I know beer was involved. I am still amazed to this day that some Japanese won't speak a lick of English in conversation, but can recite every lyric of their favorite songs without hesitation. They asked me what
I was doing in that part of Japan, and had a hard time believing that I was going to try to walk all
the way to Kurobane, much less northern Japan. The mother mentioned a temple in the area that was 'worth visiting'. She said her son could take me to the temple in his car. No,
I wanted to walk, I replied. The son agreed to accompany me to the
temple. (See photo below.)
I asked the family about a place to stay. They called
the local pension, which is a
word the Japanese borrowed from the English and applied to something totally
different. It’s basically an inn, and that is where I ended up for the night. I arrived later than normal, just as they were about to empty
the bath water, but I was able to convince them to let me use it first. (Many
people can use the same bath water in Japan; one must thoroughly
wash and rinse oneself BEFORE climbing into the tub so as to not dirty the
water. It’s OK to use the hot bath water during this process, but the
cleaning is done OUTSIDE the tub, and great care is taken so that the soapy
suds do not get into the tub.) I gingerly took off my socks and quickly
examined the blisters that had formed on my first day of travel. The fact
that I had already developed fairly large blisters did not bode well for the
rest of my trip. On a good note, to my surprise, there was a small stone in the inn's garden inscribed with one of Matsuo Basho's poems.
The next morning I “cheated”, and took a bus back to the
city of Utsunomiya, a major stop on the "Shinkansen", and then from there I took the train
to the town of Nikko.
Nikko is
a very famous resort community famous for several things, one of which is its proximity to the Toshogu Shrine, which was built by the Tokugawa
dynasty. The shrine is most famous for its intricate carvings of various
wildlife, including three monkeys who “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no
evil.” I could have easily spent a few hours at this shrine and its environs, as I’m
sure the Emperors of the past have done, as this resort was originally built
for the royal family.
Some distance from the Toshogu Shrine is the Kegon waterfalls
that originate as the water spills from the lip of Lake
Chuzenji, which formed in
the basin created by the mountains near Nikko, to the gorge below. It’s not that often that one can view
the falls: many times the weather is dismal and the clouds droop too low and block the view. At other times, the spray from the falls obscures one’s
vision. Sometimes, during periods of drought, there is not enough water
flowing from the lip of Lake
Chuzenji to create the
falls. The falls are over 3.5 hours away from Nikko Station on foot, so I had a lofty goal set for me.
Sticking with my plan to walk the trail of Basho, I set out
from Nikko
station, went to the Toshogu Shrine, and confirmed that the monkeys were still
there. My feet were already protesting about the pain, but I pressed on. After
thoroughly examining the nooks and crannies of the shrine, I trudged on toward
the i-ro-ha-zaka, the “alphabet slope” that led up to Lake
Chuzenji and the entry to the Kegon Falls.
The slope is given that name because there is a hairpin curve for every
one of the letters of the Japanese phonetic alphabet. The Japanese version
of our “ABC” song waxes much more poetic, but I still can’t sing if it you
wanted me to. Anyway, I trudged on... and on... and further on while
people in cars and buses stared at the sweaty foreigner walking funnily on the
sides of his feet, probably wondering what I was doing. I was even
offered a ride by someone who told me I can’t walk to the falls, but adamant in my desire to walk like Basho walked, I turned them
down. I would prove to them and my feet that I could do what I set out to
do!
When I got to the base of the curvaceous mountain
slope, I came upon a gigantic sign that listed prohibitions of various kinds, mainly this
one: “Due to the dangerous nature of the hairpin curves ahead, ABSOLUTELY NO
PEDESTRIANS ARE ALLOWED beyond this point!” Muttering a few choice words, I begrudgingly bought a bus
ticket to the mountaintop and climbed on the bus. In mere minutes, we
were on our way, and as we went through the curves, I looked out the window. I
could not see the ground underneath us—just the fir-covered ravine stretching
down, down, and down. After a few more curves, I had to look away because it was getting a
little nauseating. Instead, I kept my eyes out for the little monkeys
that appeared from time to time next to the signs warning passengers not to
feed them. Judging by the items left on the ground at the monkeys’ feet,
I would have to guess the signs weren’t very effective.
On the way to the top, the bus driver announced that the falls would not be visible due to the cloud coverage. At the top, I alit from the bus and began wandering
around. With wincing steps, I followed the path leading down to the trail that went to the
falls. I followed it, paid my fee to get in, walked down the narrow steps as
others came up, grumbling about not being able to see anything. I took the elevator down and emerged into the mist-filled
chambers, and when I walked outside, the clouds parted and revealed the Kegon Falls in all its glory,
as the recent rains had been sufficient to make them quite magnificent.
And that is when I created the following haiku:
And that is when I created the following haiku:
The journey is long / But the fatigue forgotten / Rumbling waterfalls
As a side note, after seeing the Kegon Falls, I sat on the shores of Lake Chuzenji for a while to consider my options about the rest of my trip. I knew it was no longer possible to walk to every stop, especially since my feet were aching terribly, so I decided to take public transportation to the strategic spots, and then walk when I could. I took a bus back to Nikko Station, then the train to Utsunomiya, where I found a hotel for the night. I checked in and headed straight for the bath tub. I pulled off my shoes to find my white socks had turned red because my feet were bleeding. As I soaked my feet in the tub (and drained the water and cleaned the tub after), I reviewed and revised my plans, but had no idea of the various thrills and challenges waiting for me in northern Japan.
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