Slippers. I did it again!

I did it again! 

My gosh how many times does that make it now?

 Every time I do it, or some kind of similar “Ugh! what a dumb ass cultural blunder that was!” move, I can’t help but think of a friend who visited during my first year in Japan and laugh. I don’t even remember exactly what it was he did when we went to the A-bomb museum in Hiroshima, just him telling that he did some kind of bonehead tourist move only to have the staff point it out to him and, in telling me about it once outside the museum he said: 

“They’re probably wondering, ‘How’d we lose the war against these people?’” 

That was a good visit. We traveled all over this land and laughed a lot. 

In any event I recalled that time while laughing at myself when walking back to my car this morning.  I pictured the staff at the door shaking their heads as they watched me go:

“He forgot to take off the toilet slippers when he left the toilet? What a dumbass! How did we lose the war to those people?!”

When I was all finished I went to leave and the lady said "You forgot your slippers"

"No, those aren't mine" I replied, only to notice... "Ah shit!"

Then have to explain (in Japanese of course) that I'd forgotten to take off the toilet slippers when I went there to do the urine sample. 

I asked my wife about it this evening. Have you ever forgotten to take off the toilet slippers when you left the toilet? I could tell by the “What’ya think I’m some kinda dumbass?” look in her eyes that she hadn’t before she even replied. So apparently it’s not something the Japanese do. But me? Well, yeah. 

This morning it was at my yearly physical, which was held in the building that houses the public health department offices. The town I’m in, like most other’s in Japan I’m guessing, mails health check packets out to its citizens around their birthday every year. The packet is basically a “Time for your yearly physical” kinda thing. It’s got all the info on how to sign up or when and where they’re being held. It’s a fantastic system and $20 for a full on medical check is a small price to pay for peace of mind. 

There's plenty I think they could do better in this land I'm in, but gotta give credit where credit’s due and they’ve got affordable, annual medical checkups for every citizen down to a fine science. Since turning forty I've gone to my regular doc to get it done maybe once every three to five years. You can do that to get a more thorough physical, like last year I went to Dr. Takahashi so I could get the up the butt and down the throat cameras. (hopefully different cameras or not in that order!) but so far everything’s checked out fine so most years I opt for a big exam test site. You can't get a butt cam there, but still they take a look inside your guts via the barium drinking belly x-ray test. They have trucks set up outside the building—a couple for that and one for chest x-rays—then the blood drawing, pee in a cup, blood pressure and physical exam by doc and all take place inside the building. 

The pee in a cup part was right at the beginning. I went in came out with my little sealed vile full of pee, handed it to the lady at the next desk then went through the next half dozen or so sections completely oblivious to the fact that I’d forgotten to change out of the toilet slippers. 

Depending on the type of place you’re at here there might be slippers to change into at the entrance then others to wear in your room (like in a hotel) or still others to wear if you step out on a patio and of course then there are the toilet slippers. I’d just as soon go barefoot or in socks and often do in places like a hotel or spa, but when handed slippers by someone at the door I just think “when in Rome” and put them on. I just wish there was a flashing sign outside the toilet that said “TAKE OFF TOILET SLIPPERS HERE!” though. That’d be helpful. 

But there’s not, so I did it again, and yet again a small group of Japanese probably looked on in amazement at how anyone could do such a bonehead thing, all the while wondering to themselves... .

“OMG! How did we lose the war to those people?” 

Oh well, medical check done for another year at least. 

Grateful for that I am. 

I guess I should be grateful that knowing slipper etiquette is not necessary for winning wars as well. 

Another house demolished. Let there be light!

In the end of April our good Australian neighbor friend...  I mean, mate,  around the corner texted to tell guys were stripping roof tile off the house across the river.

So I stopped by when out for a run and sure enough...

Windows and doors removed, inside stripped bare and...

Whoa! Look't that! 

I've seen enough old houses get destroyed here to know it'd go quick, so went early the next morning to see if I could take it.  A worker I asked pointed over to a truck.  

The shyacho was there! Awesome!

 Shyacho is  company president.

Loose translation of our conversation:

"You're destroying everything in there?" 

"Yes"

"Mind if I take a light fixture?"

....

“Isogu, chansu!” (Hurry now’s your chance).

I'd gone prepared with folding saw in pocket so ran inside, climbed up in the attic and cut the ceiling joists around the light. It was a bit of a struggle to keep from crashing to the floor with it but old California framer skills saved me. I thanked the shyacho and asked if I could have some of the wood they'd already pulled loose. He replied the same as before so after a few more hasty trips in and out I had a nice big pile on the side of the house. I jammed home on the electric scooter only to find the crusher already tearing into the entryway when I returned to haul it all home in the car a few minutes later.

I thanked the shyacho again and asked if I could pick through the rubble after they were done for the day. He agreed with a bemused smile. Apparently a foreigner excited to take stuff that he pays to dispose of at the dump  isn't something that happens every day. If ever!

Here's that first load of salvaged loot

But that's extra. This light was the main thing I wanted.

I wired an old cord to it, plugged it in and "Hai-YAA!"  It was as if the light didn't even know it was supposed to be trash! I've since found similar ones online that range from 10,000 to 40,000 yen ($100-$400). Most have covers made of plastic. This one's Panasonic and wood. It just lacks remote control that most new ones come with.

It's made to be recessed into the ceiling but when I poked my head up in the crawl hole I realized "Yep! that beam's right in the way."

Oh well. I'd grabbed some nice 1x6" finish boards to build a box so I could mount it straight to the ceiling if need be. Putting in backing was a chore since it's a super tight squeeze between our tatami room ceiling and the upstairs floor, but thanks to two extra me-made crawl-holes I got that done by and by and did it all with salvaged wood so was still on course to install a light for the mere price of the screws and nails. 

Goodbye old hanging light fixture

Alas I ended up deciding to get new wiring instead of trying my chances with recycled wire torn loose by the crusher. The old fixture in our tatami room was constantly getting juice and had a pull string switch. The replacement needed a wall switch so I ran a cable down to the box in the hallway and added one there. 

Our tatami room triples as guest room, classroom, and dojo. A duct tape-wrapped futons and clothes homemade 5' tall heavy bag is a permanent fixture in the corner. At eight tatami mats It's big enough for karate kata, but trying to swing a sword around a hanging light made iaido (swords martial art) kata difficult; thus wanting one like this. I'd looked at buying one but nah,  hold off one will come in time. And so it did.  This is the light that was meant to be.

Installed and looking pretty with ranma (transom) over the window
salvaged from another demolished house.

light switch in the hall outside the door 

I spent the rest of the week salvaging what I could—multiple trips back to the house supplied me with everything from shoji door frames

to stair treads, 4x4 or larger posts and beams and on and on. Haul it home by night, pull nails and cut off splintered ends by day. 

Go over on the scooter and set out pieces to take home. 

 

That first light success was motivation enough to finally replace the one over the sink in the kitchen. It had a short in it and I had some lights that a neighbor widow who I help out from time to time gifted us when she had her kitchen remodeled, so....

Lightbulb!

I cut down one of the shoji doors and rebuilt to fit in the recessed area above the sink with one of the neighbor's old kitchen lights in the center.  By putting a thin piece of plywood painted white on back I was able to hide the wiring and outlet box for the switch (old light was fluorescent tube with pull string switch). And since on a roll I figured it high time to install the lights over the kitchen table that my wife had been wanting. Wiring those was a bit trickier, however, so I was grateful to have an all things electrical guru Italian friend stop by to be sure that went smoothly. The original plan was to put the neighbor's old kitchen lights there too (there were four total) but my new friend recommended can lights and had two to give us. Since he's forgotten more about lighting than I'll ever know I agreed--wife loves it so obviously that was best choice! Pictured below is shoji door light fixture over the sink (left) and can lights over dining table (upper right)

The house across the river is gone now. My scrap wood pile on the side of the house is restocked, and Henry Estates in Kannami has a dandy new/recycled ceiling mounted light in the guest room that you won't hit with your sword if ninjas attack when you stay here.  

Tōrō 灯籠 Evolution

Tōrō  灯籠 is "lantern". 

Apparently it's any kind of lantern, but I first learned the term to describe the standing stone lanterns that line paths in Nara, and have since heard it mostly to describe similar large stone lanterns at shrines and temples. You don't usually see them in people's yards, at least not big ones, but gosh darn it I wanted one in ours. 

Unfortunately they're expensive, like at least $100 for a small decorative landscaping one--three to $500 or more one over a foot tall.  Between that and the fact that my wife thought our yard just fine without it there was no way I was gonna get one. Or wasn't there? 

Here's how it began, evolved, and is today. 

As with most projects the lightbulb began flickering in my head long before I did anything about it. I spent many long moments looking on at ones I'd come across, all the while imagining construction method and design. Then one day last year it just happened. A day later I was stripping the form off my first attempt at making the lantern section of a standing Japanese stone lantern. 

The cost was minimal. I didn't even use half a bag of Portland cement, which is only about $4. The scrap wood and screws for the form I had in abundance. In time I tried making a base for it only for it to break, then the lantern itself broke after I accidentally left the candle burn in it all night, picked it up (it wasn't attached to the base) felt the heat and dropped it. So rebuild that, redesign then reattach to base, find a stone for the "roof" of it and call it good effort that resulted in a Frankenstein Tōrō. It sits in the backyard now and looks like this. 

For the record my wife doesn't think we need so many wood creatures in our yard either. But that's another story so back to the stone lantern. I learned a few things while making, repairing, rebuilding, redesigning, and remaking that one, so just had to try again.

This time I had a clearer image in mind before starting and built the form accordingly. I used two 1000 ml (1/4 gallon) milk containers attached end to end to keep it hollow in the middle, which makes it lighter and used less cement. The milk cartons are in the center of an old piece of Yuki the guinea pig princess's home that I used for reinforcement. She has no more use for it in guinea pig heaven.

Next up was fill with cement and wait...

I cut shapes out of foam floor square tiles and attached to the inside of the form for designs on the base

Next I built the form for the lantern section on the top of the base itself, which proved easier and stronger than attaching it afterwards. First was the bottom section. The X shaped metal pieces there is for reinforcement--it's part of an old kerosene stove that I cut and attached to the base with a stainless steel screw 

I also used parts of the stove for reinforcement inside the lantern itself. In the prototype I used wood but this time opted to go with styrofoam for the hole in the middle and sides. It was far easier to cut than wood to get the shapes I wanted for the openings and far, far easier to remove after the concrete dried.

After that I attached the lantern form to its lower section that I built around the base, filled with cement then back to waiting...

I went with a rectangular opening for the front and crescent moon for one of the side holes, but wanted to try a different design for the hole in the other side. I asked my wife what would be a good shape to try. 

"オタマジャクシ" she replied.

Really? A tadpole? Like a pollywog in a bog? Sure! Why not?

She swears she didn't say that but I know she did because we were talking about me taking the girl child to catch newts (and pollywogs, frogs, etc.) and she did so say it! I went directly downstairs, searched out a good pollywog shape, printed it out and traced it to foam, cut it and the rest is history. Only I meant to have its tail pointing up but put it in upside down. Oh well. There's your otamajyakushi honey. I like it! 

And finally, the roof! As noted I used a large stone for the top of the Frankenstein lantern prototype, but I wanted to try to make a roof for this one. I figured it easy enough--just build a frame same width as the bottom section and cut four baby hip rafters then fill in the holes with pieces of plywood, turn it upside down and fill with cement. It ended up looking like this:

The rafters there are pieces of a sofa I remodeled into a bed. I'll finish the entry about that project one of these days. Like said all the wood used is scrap. The only cost in all of this is cement and it I did it all with one $4 bag. So basically it's a $4 stone lantern.

The screw sticking up inside the form is so I can attach a round top to it. I ended up going with an old hard rubber baseball. I might change that to solid concrete or cover the baseball with a thin layer of concrete in the future.

And so we now have our very own Tōrō--this one for the quasi-zen stone garden in the front of the house. Silly wife thinks we don't need one there either, but I sense she secretly likes it.  ;) 

Experiencing life...

We never truly know anything until we experience it for ourselves. No matter how hard we try to understand, how lengthy the books we read, courses we take or lectures we hear, the lessons remain incomplete until we touch it, do it, feel it ourselves. In this age of online connectivity I, like everyone else, see the experiences and read the thoughts, accomplishments, joys and sorrows and on and on, of acquaintances, friends and family. Most get a quick like click, some a comment, then there are the shares… you know the ones. Clicking a heart or care emoji seems so inadequate. I try to stop for a moment to hold the person in compassion.

I type as much while thinking of the countless shares I’ve seen of people dealing with various life trials—illnesses or missing a loved one—a parent, or spouse, or god forbid even a child. Pain and sorrow, a hole in the soul that all the words in every language of the world cannot begin to make sense of.

I’ve been fortunate in this life to have lived well into adulthood with both of my parents alive and in good health. I’ve been equally fortunate to live in an era in which it’s possible to talk with them in real time—to see their faces even. It’s all been a mere click away.

Both my parents are still alive and relatively healthy as I type this. Alas it was always mom who knew how to do Skype or texting but since her most recent brain surgery it looks like those days are over. It was her who’d see what I share on social media as well but that, like being able to call, appears to have come to an end. I’m sure that’s why living out my adult life as an expat has felt a bit more distant this past month or so. I’m beyond grateful for the best brothers and sisters-in-law any guy could ask for—for getting to see them a lot more often via zoom so they could keep me in the loop through all of this and them even calling on Facetime when visiting so we can see and talk to my mom in the nursing home. She’s a fighter and has a stubborn streak 10 miles wide so I ain’t about to give up hope yet, but then again…. 

Well, the thing about life is we’ll all reach that point sooner or later—every life on earth will come full circle by and by. We can only hang on to life as we know it till it changes. 

It always changes. 

Thus acceptance and gratitude are key I think. Learn anew to see things as they are and let them go as they go. Be grateful that all of life is right here, right now, in each and every one of us this very moment. Sit and breath and be grateful for this miraculous moment of life. I’m grateful too for modern medicine—for doctors who can literally cut open a person’s skull and stop bleeding in the brain and the patient can come out of it able to recognize loved ones at all, even ones on an iPhone from 5k miles away! And again, my brothers and their wives and all they’ve done and are doing to help mom and dad. Gratitude beyond words with a big side of admiration.

For those who don’t know, my mom’s recovered well enough physically that she’ll likely stay on this side of the daisies for years to come. That said it doesn’t appear she’ll return home, at least not anytime soon, nor be back on FB or be able to navigate an iPad well enough to answer a Skype call, etc. Thus it’s one more life experience that’s helped me understand and able to feel compassion a little deeper for those of you who share of illnesses or, worse yet, of missing a loved one who’s moved on.

All just one more indelible reminder that we’re all in this life game together. Here’s to playing it well—to living it with compassion and kindness when we can—or at least refraining from calling someone an asshole and writing them off forever. Again, when we can. 

Life as a human…. It’s not a very easy thing to do I think.

Bombus ignitus is a species of bumblebee found in East Asia.  I was too late in helping this one escape a predator. A split second in its  grasp was more than it could withstand. 

Our Japanese snowbell tree was the reason it was in our yard. It absolutely exploded in white prettiness this year.  Here's the view of it from our balcony.

And here's a close up with one of the countless little fuzzy flying teddy bears harvesting its tasty pollen.

I spent long moments watching them collect the pollen. Full of non-aggressive cuteness they buzzed all around me as if I wasn't even there. Then my kids told of seeing one getting captured so I walked out there to see for myself and YAAAAAAAA!!! 

Osuzumebachi. The biggest, deadliest hornet on earth. It was already back for another kill. It hovered around the snowbell tree for all of ten seconds then swooped in and plucked one of my fuzzy little bumblebee friends out of mid air and flew off with it. 

I had to do something but man, why Osuzumebachi? Why couldn't it be a bear or something less frightening! Osuzumebachi kill more people in Japan every year than all other insects, reptiles and wild animals combined. I needed to prepare for battle. The photo of the bee above is the result of me standing guard with a net and can of cockroach spray. I needed more firepower.

By the next day I'd extended my reach by taping a long, thin gardening pole onto the bug net handle and bought a can of hornet spray. I sat out in the backyard and before long heard what sounded like a small helicopter coming in to land.

Huge, hovering death! I needed both hands to work the net with the handle extended so put the spray where I could grab it quick then, heart racing, took my best shot, blasted the net with hornet spray then turned and ran like hell just in case I missed and it was pissed.  Slow and cautious I returned and...

Hai-YAA!  

The lump in the net was still moving so I gave it another shot, this time point blank. 

I've never been much of a trophy hunter--never been one at all actually, but was downright giddy as I carefully removed it from the net and pinned it to a piece of wood, glued it in position and sprayed it with clear lacquer. The most difficult part was removing it from the net since it'd chomped down so hard that I never could get the net free from its jaws. There's a hole in the net now, the rest of it is that white stuff  in the jaws of my defeated foe. 

For the record it's exactly 2" long and has a 3 1/2" wingspan--both dimensions appear to be at least quadrupled when it's alive and flying anywhere near you. 

Henceforth on display in our home, albeit somewhere where my wife won't see it! She's not too keen on my new trophy, but happy the Osuzumebachi flybys over our yard have stopped just the same.

Sidewalks, curbs, gutters and BBQs

This is a typical well traveled road hereabouts. Note the long, narrow chunks of concrete with vertical ends sticking up. Those hateful demon street sentinels are Japan's idea of a curb. Sometimes people hit them. It's never pretty. The narrow path on the other side of those is the sidewalk, which is made up of concrete slabs and heavy steel grates atop U shaped concrete troughs set end to end down in the ground. That's the rain gutter.

Here it is without the hit one and die curbs in front of our house.

The U shaped concrete troughs come in various sizes; the most common being about 2' long x 15" wide x 15" deep, like this one at a nearby mom and pop hardware/construction supply shop. 

I'm not sure what they're called in Japanese so snapped the above photo before walking in and asking them how much one that size costs. It was only 1,500 yen! (about $13) . The day before I saw the same exact size for nearly twice that much at a big home store.  High praise for buying local!

So that's the skinny on curbs (deadly), sidewalks (narrow) and gutters (big and buried) around here.  

Now about BBQs in Japan.

They suck!

They're flimsy cheap metal boxes on wobbly legs that, after getting loaded with hot coals a few times, end up looking like a compact car that hit a Japanese curb.  I did find a fairly decent one once. Some beachgoers abandoned it at the beach near my in-laws' house. It sat there forever, used but much better than the one we had so finally I decided to take it. We still had to buy the cheap all but disposable fold one in half with one had if ya wanted grills for it, but the BBQ itself was beefier than ones for sale in the home stores. It lasted a good eight years or so before finally holes started forming in the sides and bottom. After paying our last respects I decided to order one from the States but it never came and it's not like we can live without a BBQ so I broke down and bought the best one I could find at the nearby big home center and Ugh! 

I hated it from day one.  

My options for a real BBQ were either try again to get a good one shipped here from the States or figure out a way to get a good solid BBQ without having to hock a kid because good gosh the shipping alone is crazy expensive. Thus the DIY BBQ gears that'd been turning in my head for years kicked into overdrive and I took action.

First I bought that U shaped rain gutter outside the mom and pop hardware shop and drilled holes inside the ends for concrete screws to anchor wire and miscellaneous strong steel pieces (broken drill bits, a sold steel shaft salvaged from a printer, etc.) to reinforce the concrete ends.  I made simple forms, one end was all concrete and I used a couple bricks I had for the other end. A salvaged heat resistant steel sleeve that went around the wick of an old kerosene heater worked great for the vents--one down low on one end that could also be used for cleaning and one up higher on the other end. I had to use a big stone to reinforce the form after pouring concrete in one end and realizing the piece of plywood I used for a form was definitely too thin. Oops! Then after that side set I did the other end.

And here it was on its maiden voyage for a rainy BBQ under a tarp in our backyard with some Canadian, Italian and Japanese friends. It worked like a champ. 

I did have to redesign the cart it sits on though. I only have to move it a few meters from its place agains the wall of our house to the center of the yard but it's one heavy sombich. Homemade wood wheels and strider bike tires on the short side design just wasn't cutting it. 

So take two! I invested another 1,000 into it for two heavy duty castor wheels that pivot and put the strider bike tires on the end so I can pull it long ways. Save for those two wheels the entire cart is made of scrap wood and salvaged materials. e.g. the main frame is part of Yuki's old DIY industrial strength cage frame (Yuki has no use for it now in guinea pig heaven) the steel cross pieces are part of an old kitchen stand, and the handles on the ends were parts of a folding floor chair that was a Father's Day present. I still have the chair--am sitting on it right now actually. It's just had a wood frame inside ever since one of the tubular hinges broke. 

And here it is again. Another reason for wanting an industrial strength able to hold Dante's inferno BBQ is I use it for more than just cooking dead animal flesh. Bamboo for example! A couple years ago a friend down in Kyoto informed me that heating bamboo till the oils bubble to the surface then wiping it down hardens it, makes it bug resistant and oh so very shiny. Bamboo is plentiful (i.e. free) around here so I use it as a building material quite a bit.

I also like having something that I can easily burn scrap wood in (usually with a foil wrapped sweet potato in there cooking ;) or  here it is this morning being used to speed dry concrete around an old countertop dish drying rack that I cut down and put concrete around for weight and support. I needed it to dry completely so I could put it down in the fish pond, thus using fire to harden it up quicker. 

The fish hotel stand I'd made out of a tree branch and scrap wood turned out to be a speed breeding grounds for moss and muck so Hey! Stainless steel dish rack that my wife wants to throw away. That'll work! This wasn't going to be part of this tale but what the heck, most of it is submerged and hidden with stones but here it is with the fish hotel on it. 

Heat dried concrete thanks to new BBQ and 100% Fish approved

As for the BBQ now it's easy shmeasy Japanese to pull out and use then tuck back away in its storage place against the house. It's super easy to clean too. 

So Finally! There's a BBQ in Japan with a lifetime guarantee. 

Especially if/when ever I get one of those sidewalk grates for a grill!  

I will contentedly cook on it for the rest of my days.

Awake

It happens often enough lately that I think it fair to call it a new nighttime ritual. The younger boy child slides open a shoji door, enters and walks laps around the low table where I sit at my computer in the center of the tatami room. In his mouth is a toothbrush. He brushes as he walks. I speak and he utters true to amusing young adolescent boy replies. Some nights he’ll do two or three laps; tonight it was a good dozen or more before his stop at the door and toothbrush-in-mouth mumbled “good-night” was followed by the wood on wood snap of papered doors closing. 

Usually I go right back to what I was doing, but tonight I just sat for a moment, closed my eyes and focused on my breath to better take it all in. 

A contented smile ensued.

This Life!

It’s so easy to focus more on judging its meanness  than recognizing its miraculousness. The result is missing a myriad of wonders. 

I cringe to consider how many of its joys have passed without me even noticing? 

Oh well. What's done is done.

But not this time. 

For this one I was awake. 

I don't know

I walked out to get something out of the shed and WHOA! 

Blindsided by the full moon rising over the nearby hill. It gets me every time. What is it about the moon? After standing awestruck for a moment I ran in to get the camera. How about that eh! 

I saw it die and disappear last month yet here it is again. Resurrection! People used to think it was a god you know. The ever dying, ever resurrecting god. Tales of gods dying only to be reborn date back as far as we can see into the history of our species and likely much further. The earliest evidence we have of anything considered "religious" comes from graves. Both our species and Neanderthals buried the dead in the fetal position like a baby in the mother's womb. They gave the corpse things to take with him or her when put back into Mother Earth to be born again. Just about every religious motif you can think of--life after death, dead and resurrected god or gods, gods born of virgins, heaven(s) and hell(s), holy lands and chosen people, creation myths with the life giving tree in its center and four pillars or rivers, the goddess and serpent, catastrophic floods, heroes swallowed by monsters, these and scores more have been found the world over dating back to the earliest art or writing. The German ethnologist Adolf Bastian called them "elementary ideas". Later Carl Jung coined the term archetypes to describe them. Ideas and images as old as humankind itself, appearing everywhere across space and time. How can that be? 

The two theories are either diffusion or we evolved with them in our subconscious--any and every human is subject to having these images appear in their nightly dreams. Of course the gods, devils and various tales vary according to respective cultures and periods of history. From there they remain mythical tales or start being read as actual history and become articles of faith. In such cases the individual either believes it or she doesn't. If she doesn't she calls it a lie or pretends to believe in order to be accepted. Not all adherents of the world's religions insist their stories and/or symbols are to be taken literally, but scores still do.  So that's one way to look at them.

Another way is just to reject it all as bunk and be done with it. Many go that route too. Indeed, more seem to opt for that route as our species presses forward into the future.

However, there is a third way--the middle path one might say--which is to believe these symbols and tales have value and thus something to teach us since they're so uncannily common across so many religions since the dawn of our species. They all have their own cultural inflections of course, but strikingly similar just the same. What is it that made us this way? How could there be so many different stories of dead and resurrected gods or virgin births--stories that predate the time of Christ by many thousands of years? Could there be something in every single person that transcends culture and time, sex and religion? Indeed, that goes so far beyond anything our waking, conscious minds can imagine that... well, that we can't even imagine it? And if so, then what the heck is it? 

Getting jolted by the unexpected appearance of the full moon rising over the nearby hill rattles these and more questions loose in my mind to go over all again for the umpteenth thousandth millionth time.  I'll never arrive at a satisfactory answer. I'll never know. But that's okay. The fascination that comes with asking and pondering, contemplating, reading, reflecting and wondering...  That's only grown stronger over time and I don't mind it at all. Not knowing only makes the awe, wonder and desire to worship and praise the mystery stronger.

Valentines Day 2022. Let's talk about Love.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things….”

The Apostle Paul’s words are often included in wedding ceremonies, and yet there’s no mention of the kind of love in which the eyes tell a the heart “That’s the one!”—a person’s love for their beloved.  Ironically enough, that kind of love was dangerous business for well over a thousand years after 1 Corinthians 13 was written.

Love as its celebrated and praised in the West nowadays—the uniting of soulmates leading to happily ever after—would condemn lovebirds straight to hell. Take Tristian and Isolde for example. He went to fetch her in Ireland and bring her back to marry King Mark. Isolde had never met the king, but prearranged marriages were the only kind approved by the church back then. What we take as commonplace marry the person you love now was considered adulterous.

There should be love and attraction even in a prearranged marriage though, so Isolde’s mother made a love potion for them to drink on their wedding night. Alas while on the boat back to England Tristian and Isolde mistook the potion for wine and drank it. When Isolde’s nurse Brangene realized what they’d done she said to Tristian “You have drunk your death”.  To which Tristan replied: “If by my death you mean this agony of love, that is my life. If by my death you mean the punishment that we are to suffer if discovered (execution) I accept that. But if by my death you mean eternal punishment in the fires of hell, I accept that too.”

How’s that for love! This was real defiance now mind you. Back then if you refused a sanctioned by the church prearranged marriage partner your fate was sealed. Belief of “punishment in the fires of hell” was far more widespread then too. Yet fear of hell wouldn’t stop Tristian from loving her. That’s how strong real love is. 

 

In my lay study of myth and history I’ve noticed that certain “sins” or beliefs of earlier eras aren’t viewed the same now. Much like languages, beliefs and taboos have changed over the years right alongside societal and cultural changes. Today much of what’s accepted by the church, and thus God apparently, was mortal sin in the not so distant past. If you like the notion of marrying for love then thank a twelfth century Troubadour. 

Before the Troubadours arrived on the scene following your heart into marriage was taboo. Like with Tristian and Isolde it wasn’t allowed to the point of execution for going against the church.  Those days would pass by and by only to have the taboos and “thou shalts” change over time. Well into the past century people stood on the authority of the Bible to oppose unions between Caucasians and non-white races. The rules changed but hearts remained true to love-led form. Over time more people have accepted bi-racial unions only to draw new no go lines, such as same sex unions or those of people of two different religious traditions.

I think back to my wife and I announcing our engagement. The happy news was accepted with cheer and well wishes, but some voices had a tone of reservation in them—a whispered reservation… “Is she Christian?” Now in our 19th year of marriage the union has been an ordeal at times, yet love has only grown stronger. Today we celebrated another Valentine’s Day—the girl from a Buddhist tradition and boy from a Christian one, with three kids who’ve been wrapped in a fabric woven together with threads of each. 

Three kids conceived in and raised with love. As for their religious upbringing, experience has me believing Thich Nhat Hanh correct in stating that children raised by parents of two religious traditions merely have two spiritual roots instead of one. That can be a good thing even, and besides, no single religious tradition has the sole rights to kindness and honesty, charity, love, compassion and just doing good.

I’m still crazy about that quirky Japanese girl I met at the kids English Christmas party that cold December day so long ago. Lately I’ve been talking with an English accent like she did the day we met. We tell the story to our kids now and they laugh and laugh, especially girl child, whose laugh brings heaven into the moment every time. 

There are times my heart grows heavy with the thought that others may wish us to believe or do differently. When talking about it one day I mentioned not going to the heaven of their understanding, to which my wife smiled and said it’s okay, we can look out the window of ours and wave.

God I love her. I read heaven and hell like all other religious metaphor, as just that. Metaphor. But if this life I’ve chosen, this defying of the “thou shalt”, leads to eternal punishment in the fires of some medieval hell then so be it. I’m right there with Tristian. I accept that too. I’ll take this love there with me and be fine. 

Love endures all things.