Roger W. Lowther's Blog, page 7

22. Scars: The Path Toward Healing

This week, we had the honor of talking with Peter Bakelaar, founder of Gallery NANI (Nagoya Arts Network International), about his exhibit at the Aichi Arts & Cultural Center in downtown Nagoya. To remember the terrible disaster that struck Japan 10 years ago and bring healing, he is running “Scars: The Path Toward Healing” from March 2-14, 2021. Listen in as we talk about some of the works of art.

Aichi Art & Culture Center, Art Space X (B2F)
1-13-2 Higashi Sakura, Minami Ku, Nagoya, Japan
contact@nanijapan.org
www.nanijapan.org

Light at the end of the tunnelLight in the midst of the tunnel

Thank you for remembering Japan with us during the month of March. 3/11 is as important in Japan as 9/11 is in the U.S. Everyone who lived through the earthquake will never forget this day for the rest of their lives. Many we know lost someone. This 10th anniversary helps continue the process of healing.

On March 10 and March 11, the ebook versions of my two books about 3/11, “Aroma of Beauty” and “Pippy the Piano and the Very Big Wave,” are available for free from Amazon. They are available in both English and Japanese, so please make sure to pick them up! Even if you can’t read Japanese, would you be willing to go ahead and download a copy of the Japanese version as well? Who knows? You might be able to share it with your Japanese friends later! May more and more people hear about the hope that comes in really dark times.

Click the books below to download your free copies (March 10 & 11 only)!

21. Be Still and Know

As I travelled around the disaster area after the 2011 earthquake in Japan to give concerts in shelters, believe me there were times when the aftershocks, the mud, the smells, and everything else really got to me. I especially remember one night.

What’s that noise? Where am I?

Heavy creaking in the ceiling above my head jolted my sleep-numbed mind into consciousness, as my eyes flew open to darkness.

Nigero! Okiizo! “Everybody out! This is a big one!” someone behind me yelled.

That was all it took. I blindly fumbled for my flashlight, always kept near my head for emergencies like this, and then grabbed my jacket. The floor moved chaotically, making it hard to keep my balance. But somehow I reached the door frame, grabbed it, and pushed my way outside.

The wind hit me like a cold slap in the face. I stopped a safe distance from the door surrounded by fellow relief workers, with nothing to do but wait as the old building creaked back and forth.

My right foot was soaking wet. Ugh, I must have run through a puddle, I thought. One minute, I’m warm and happy in dream land. And the next? Well, I’m wet and cold and standing in the dark.

How much longer? Will this never end?

It was April, a full month since the earthquake struck. Aftershocks mercilessly pelted us every day. I had no idea there could be so many. In normal life (whatever that was) the strength of each one would have been an event in and of itself. But now, each one blended into the next and the next, too many to count.

The earthquakes didn’t just shake me physically but to the very core of my being. They threatened me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I couldn’t relax. I always had to keep busy. My adrenaline levels never went down, and I was anxious all the time.

What is wrong with me? I kept telling myself to just stop it. Calm down!

I was a mess . . . and I was sick of it. I was sick of people yelling, “Earthquake!” and “Take shelter!” and “Get away from the windows!” I was sick of worrying what was going to fall on my head. I was sick of running for the door, and I was sick of digging holes in the dirt for my toilet, with no running water to wash my hands. I found myself wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, “Stop it! No more! Enough!”

I learned something that day. I crave the impossible. I want something on earth that does not move, does not change, does not let me down . . . especially the ground beneath my feet! I want something solid to stand on and be still. Is there such a thing?

Then the words came to me.

Be still and know that I am God.

I’ve heard these words a million times, but now I didn’t even know what they meant.

God is our refuge and strength,
   an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
   and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
   and the mountains quake with their surging . . .
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:1–3, 10)

There are so many scary things in Psalm 46: earthquakes, crumbling mountains, roaring seas. And in the shaking and destruction, God’s command to “be still” seems ludicrous. Insane! When everything is being torn apart, how can we be still? Where is that emergency shelter we can run to with no fear of collapse? Where is that refuge that will never be overcome by the sea? Where are those walls that can protect us from this invisible radiation shooting through our bodies?

Where? WHERE?

I started to read the psalm again.

God is our refuge and strength,
   an ever-present help in trouble. (Psalm 46:1)

Then I saw the answer. The psalm does not start by telling us to be still. It starts by telling us to be with God, that God is “ever-present” (verse 1), and ever-present means God is always with us. Why had I missed this part before? God is omnipresent; he is with us wherever we are. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). There is no way in life to be separated from the presence of God, and this is our refuge and strength.

The Psalmist repeats the message in verse 7, and again in the very last verse.

The LORD Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:11)

Three times—in the beginning, middle, and end—we are told that God is with us, that we never have to stand on our own. God can say, “Be still and know that I am God” (verse 10), because he is always there, present with us. He is there when the earth “give[s] way,” and the mountains “fall into the heart of the sea,” and the monstrous tsunamis “roar and foam.” God was present in the earthquake at Jesus’s death (Matthew 27:51), and in the earthquake at Jesus’s resurrection (Matthew 28:2). God is the Lord of earthquakes.

God’s voice calls to us louder than the tsunami sirens screaming up and down the coast of Japan. And God’s ears hear the silent screaming of our hearts for it all to stop. When besieged by a world gone terribly wrong, in the shaking and terror, God invites us to a dependable fortress, an uncollapsing shelter, an impregnable refuge.

God’s presence offers so much more than comfort. It offers an end to all the shaking and fear. It offers the space where we can finally stop and rest in these words.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

20. Fragments of Hope

After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, Christians started art organizations to provide jobs and build community, and, just as important, to bring beauty back into a shattered world. They made jewelry, decorations, bags, and clothes.

In the city of Ishinomaki, a small group of women made jewelry out of broken shards of dishes and teacups found in the rubble. They called themselves Nozomi Project, or literally, Project of Hope. The people at Nozomi pick up the pieces of their lives by making beautiful art, one necklace, earring, and bracelet at a time.

Collecting broken pieces themselves was too painful—their unhealed wounds just went too deep—so volunteers brought the bags of debris to them. Then the Nozomi workers carefully pulled out the pieces one at a time, remembering that each one represented a fragment of someone’s life.

The women washed, shaped, and polished those pieces. Their creative work moved them beyond mere survival to unlooked-for healing. These broken pieces were powerfully symbolic, as they were recycled and transformed into something valuable, something worthy of display.

Tomoko, an artisan at Nozomi, cared for people by working at a retirement center. It was her day off when the earthquake struck, but she immediately felt a responsibility to get the senior citizens to a place of safety. She asked a friend to watch her three-year-old son and rushed to help, but, tragically, both the friend and the boy drowned in the tsunami. Guilt and despair tore her apart. Eventually, she began working with Nozomi and making accessories in the name of her surviving daughter, to encourage both of them in their grief. “I didn’t know that creating something could bring so much healing,” she said.

Nozomi artisan Asami recalls, “In the beginning, we couldn’t laugh. We didn’t know what we were living for day after day. We ate without tasting the food. There was no thought for the future even a year after the earthquake.” However, in the community of Nozomi, she learned how to laugh again.

These women found a place to belong in the middle of the ruins and the rubble. “It became a home for my heart,” Asami said.

The broken shards, redeemed as valuable sought-after pieces of jewelry, were powerful symbols of renewal, but not only that. Sue Takamoto, founder of Nozomi Project, said, “God was working in multiple layers in our midst that we couldn’t have thought of ourselves.” The jewelry provided employment and healing, but it also provided a community of people who loved one another.

“I thought to make jewelry you had to do the whole process yourself,” Asami said, “but one person cleans the pieces, another polishes them, another designs them, another puts the pieces together . . . everyone’s involved. I was really surprised by this at first. Women new to Nozomi hesitate to join us because they don’t know how to make jewelry, but we can always find a job for them to do. We tell them, ‘First, just come and see!’”

Women started working to help themselves financially, but through the work, they ended up helping themselves emotionally as well.

Maki remembers, “In the beginning, I thought I had to keep going as a single mom all by myself, but when I was about to break down, people were there to support me and pull me back up.” Maki fell into a deep depression after losing her mother and sister in the tsunami. Her sister was just a month away from giving birth. “I was at a loss,” she said. “I just wanted to die, but I knew I couldn’t leave my children. But now, everything is different. It’s mysterious to me how this place has soothed my heart. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘this is what community is for.’ Because we experienced this pain together, we were able to be there for one another and encourage one another. Perhaps that’s part of the strength of Nozomi.”

The jewelry business also became a way to communicate the gospel. Most days after lunch the women gathered to read the Bible together, discuss the passage, and pray. “One time I went to the library with my big Bible,” Maki said. “I sat there to read, but I didn’t understand a thing. I definitely think it’s easier to understand when we’re together and able to share.” Two years after the tsunami, Maki was baptized. Soon afterward, two other women in the Bible study were also baptized.

Becoming a Christian is always about the building of community. It’s about bringing healing and love to a world so desperately in need of it.

The Christians who started Nozomi Project simply wanted to be the hands and feet of Christ to their neighbors, but little by little they have seen their influence spread around the globe. They continually hear from customers with handwritten notes of appreciation.

“My first Nozomi earrings arrived today, on a day I was diagnosed with a disorder I’ve had for more than 15 years. I truly felt broken and without hope, but this afternoon my beautiful blue package arrived, like a gift from God to remind me I am perfectly made in his image. What I saw as a fault was actually a design feature God beautifully built into me.”

Another wrote,

“I wear my earrings often. I tell people about your work. I tell people that there is beauty in brokenness. Thank you for all the work that you do to bring joy to people around the world!”

Sue remarked, “It’s so encouraging to receive notes like these. God’s plans are always bigger than our plans. He works in ways we never could have foreseen. We started Nozomi to help local families, but now God is working through us to send hope to the rest of the world!” Nozomi has now sent jewelry to 42 countries, which they celebrate with a big map marking all these locations on the wall of their meeting space.

“God is sending hope around the world through our brokenness,” remarks Chad Huddleston, leader of the church planting network associated with Nozomi Project. “And surprisingly God is sending this hope through the beauty he creates out of our brokenness.”

What is the gospel? We are broken, but we are redeemed by the one who found us. We were dead, but we have been renewed with life. We were once a people without nozomi, without “hope,” but we are now a people with hope.

Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ . . . without hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12)

In the gospel, we find wholeness brought out of brokenness. Nozomi Project is boldly proclaiming and living out this message one piece of jewelry at a time.

www.nozomiproject.com

19. The Bike

On March 11, 2011, the world changed. Like the old photographs I occasionally found scattered amongst the debris, all the color was gone. Gray mud from the ocean floor coated everything, and gray dust constantly blew through the air turning our white masks black. Even the sun remained hidden behind the dull clouds, refusing to penetrate our colorless purgatory.

The world became flat. The wave robbed the land of anything vertical—buildings, electric poles, trees—leaving nothing but the distant mountains. The empty concrete foundations and shapeless piles of debris resembled some alien planet.

The world became hard and inhuman. There was no room for anything but the most basic of human needs: food, water, clothes, shelter. Emotions were absent. Natural human expressions of smiling, talking, and laughing were gone. People were waiting, always waiting: for food, water, supplies, or a word from a missing loved one.

Mystical barriers between earth and sea fractured into one muddy chaotic mess. Fish sat orphaned on land. Large ships rolled onto downtown roads. A boy’s soccer ball floated across the Pacific. A picture frame, a golf club, a teacup, and a child’s doll lay jumbled together in the wet mud.

On one of my trips to the city of Ishinomaki, I took some time separated from the group to walk around try to make sense of it all. I came upon a dirty twisted bicycle propped against a pile of trash. A sudden urge came over me to fix that bicycle and make it useful again.

I picked up a metal pole and poked it between the spokes of the front tire, bending it into something resembling a circle. With my foot against the frame, I pulled with all my might to straighten out the twisted handlebars. The seat was too low and covered in mud, but I sat on it anyway. I tried the pedals, and the bicycle lurched forward.

This bike and I are going for a ride, I decided, just the two of us. We rattled through the devastation to see how far we could go. We must have looked ridiculous. I’m glad no one was around to watch.

But as I rode on, I began to feel very much alone. Not one house remained standing. Children once played in these streets. Families once lived in these neighborhoods. It all seemed so final, these shapeless mountains of debris. And yet, didn’t this abandoned bicycle prove that new life in the rubble was possible, that the brokenness didn’t have to be the end?

The bicycle and I rode all the way to the eastern edge of town, where the potholed road led straight into the ocean, a sign of just how far the land sank during the earthquake. It was no small miracle we made it that far, and for some strange reason a small smile crossed my face.

18. Go Away!

After the earthquake, one of the most startling things I heard was: “Go away! Leave us alone! Too . . . many . . . volunteers!”

We had just entered the high school gymnasium of a temporary shelter in the city of Iwaki. I turned to see a young man sitting on a cardboard box. He appeared to be slightly handicapped, with one leg shorter than the other. But it was his face, full of rage, that I noticed most.

Time after time, strangers barged into this man’s “room.” In that brightly lit flourescence, he had no privacy, and he was obviously sick of it.

Startled by the greeting, but not sure what to do, I followed the volunteers walking in front of me and placed the box I was holding with the others. The volunteer team proceeded to lay out big blue tarps, line up chairs, and set up buckets of freshly drawn hot spring water, still warm to the touch.

The city of Iwaki is unique in that hot spring water can be purchased anywhere in the city. With the similar feel of a gas station, you can draw hot mineral-infused water fresh from the ground. After the earthquake when city water stopped flowing, these water sources became especially important. As volunteers, we couldn’t provide a place to bathe at the shelters, but we could at least show love through washing feet. It was meant to be just a little act of kindness. We got down on our knees, and people began to line up.

The night before Jesus’s death, he got down on his knees and washed feet. This was an urgent time, not unlike the urgency we now experienced. Why on earth did Jesus choose to spend the night before his death washing feet? Weren’t there more important things to do? Jesus knew what was coming, and there are so many things he could have been doing to prepare: preaching a sermon or writing a message. I was tired and stressed, so maybe I wasn’t thinking straight, but if it was me, I think I would have wanted to take a nap, to have the strength and clarity of thought to say and do the right things.

However, Jesus washed feet.

He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. . . . When he finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:4–5, 12–14)

In this way, Jesus shared love and the presence of God with his disciples. Jesus came to serve in order to show God’s love for us.

The Japanese print “Christ Washing the Feet of St. Peter” (1963) by Sadao Watanabe is one of my favorite works of art. Jesus sits in the traditional seiza position on his knees, wearing a robe and a sash like the kind you would wear in a Japanese bath house. Peter sits in front of him on a chair, eyes closed, hands together in a gesture of prayer. An angel holds out both hands in the act of blessing the event. Waves energetically bounce around the water basin. The gold background shows this is the kingdom of heaven—beautiful, sublime.

We can imitate the actions of Jesus almost like a performing art to show love to people, to show we care.

After a few trips to shelters to wash feet, relationships grew and so did the trust. “Thank you,” one woman said. “After you brought water the last time, I had my first restful sleep since getting here.”

“Thank you,” one man said. “I’m glad you came.” This was the same young man we met when we first arrived. But now, rather than angrily sending us away, he said he wanted us around. His attitude had completely changed.

In that gymnasium, the significance of Jesus’s actions became clear to me. The King of kings got down on his knees, “not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). Jesus came not to be loved, but to love and to urge us to do the same.

“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. . . . Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:15, 17)

May we be transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus, serving as his hands and feet to a broken world so desperately in need of love.

17. Whispering to the Wind

As I walked through a garden on a hill overlooking the town of Otsuchi, Japan, birds flew overhead and the wind blew in gently from the sea. Leaves rustled on the trees, and the sweet aroma of flowers wafted through the air. I looked down to see goldfish swimming in a pond, and at the top of the hill I found a white glass-paneled phone booth.

Inside the booth, I saw an old black rotary phone, a newspaper article taped to the wall, small wooden blocks marking the date, and an open notebook with a pen. There was also a letter, a poem, written in Japanese.

Who will you talk to?
What words will you use?
Perhaps there are no words?
The telephone of the wind allows the heart to speak.
Make yourself quiet.
Close your eyes and open your ears.
Do you hear the sound of the wind?
Or the sound of the waves?
Or the chirping of a small bird?
If so, speak your thoughts,
And they will certainly reach their destination.

I continued to think about the words of this poem as I thumbed through the notebook, glancing at what people wrote. Most of the entries were brief, comments on the beauty of the garden or greetings from wherever they came from. But some were more personal.

When I left the booth, I saw a woman coming down the hill to greet me.

“Hello,” she called out.

“Hello,” I answered back and went on to explain. “I just happened to be in the area giving concerts at nearby temporary home complexes and heard about this place.”

“I see,” she said. “If you have time, I know my husband would love to meet you.” She pointed toward a small stone cabin, which reminded me of the shelters I often see on the mountains of Japan. As I began to climb the hill toward the cabin, a man who I assumed to be her husband came out to meet me.

He introduced himself and we chatted for a while before he invited me inside. After brewing hot green tea, he told me about the “Telephone of the Wind.”

“I built this phone to help me grieve the death of my cousin,” he said. “My thoughts couldn’t travel over regular phone lines, so I wanted them to be carried by the wind.” The very next year, the tsunami hit, and word about the phone booth spread from person to person. Soon, many visitors began to arrive.

In that cold little stone cabin, listening to story after story about the visitors, I felt an overwhelming sadness. So many came to this place hoping for one last chance to say goodbye. Their grief was as terrible as any tsunami, as destructive as any earthquake. Swallowed by waves of grief, their lives became like so much devastation I saw along the coast, ruined and empty.

I tried to imagine the people who visited, the time they spent in that phone booth and garden. Wind from the sea gently rustled their hair and caressed their skin. Though they couldn’t see it, they felt its movement. The wind surrounded them.

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

In the original Greek, “wind,” “breath,” and “spirit” are all the same word. The Holy Spirit is the breath of God, and his presence is like the wind. The Spirit of God is present in the very air that we breathe, always surrounding us. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We should not take even a single breath without being reminded of the movement and presence of God. He’s with us in our grief and sorrow, the ever-present and perfect grief counselor.

There is hope for those who mourn. “Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus said, “for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). The comfort Jesus offers is not temporary. It’s not cozy or sentimental. Rather, it’s full of life and love beyond all our needs, and lasts for all of eternity.

Praise be to . . . the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles. (2 Corinthians 1:3–4)

God gives a comfort deeper than we can fathom. Jesus bore our grief and pain so that it could be taken away. He died and rose again so that death would not be the end. We have hope in the resurrection, but not only that. In the night before he died, Jesus talked about “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in [his] name” (John 14:26 KJV). We will be comforted by the literal and unimaginably powerful presence of God.

Grief is the tragic result of this fallen and broken world, but in it we never have to be separated from the presence and beauty of God.

“Grief is the tragic result

of this fallen and broken world,

but in it we never have

to be separated from

the presence and beauty of God.”

God listens to our cries of lament and our prayers without words. We are not alone in our grief. God is always by our side, covering us and surrounding us with his presence. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted with the everlasting presence of the living God.

16. Tree of Hope

This week I want to share a very special story with you about the most famous tree in all of Japan. It was the only vertical thing left standing in the city of Rikuzentakata after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. As the 10th anniversary of this day quickly approaches, and we prepare an arts conference to remember that day, we’ll be talking about this tree, because there’s a violin that was made from it. This “tsunami violin” will be showcased in a concert at our conference, one of the official 1,000 concerts planned with this violin. And we’ll be playing a piece called “Kibou” (or “Hope”) that was commissioned in memory of the tsunami. Here is the story of my first encounter with the tree, as told in my book Aroma of Beauty.

I looked up at the enormity of it. The tree was almost 100 feet tall. It grew here in the city of Rikuzentakata as part of a forest of 70,000 pine trees for hundreds of years. The trees protected the people from storms and strong coastal winds and were once chosen as one of the 100 most beautiful landscapes in Japan. But now they were all gone, all except for this one surviving tree.

“The tsunami sure ruined this land . . . and my shoes as well,” Luka added, looking down. She was one of the musicians who came with me on this trip. To get to the tree, we had to slog through mud along the river for about an hour from the nearest working road.

The landscape was nothing but mud as far as we could see. Every tree and road was gone. Every wooden building was washed away. Every concrete structure was destroyed. The tsunami demolished everything in its path.

I looked up at the tree again. In the entire grove of 70,000 trees, and every park and every neighborhood, only one tree was left standing, the Kiseki No Ipponmatsu, the “miracle” pine tree. Despite the incredible force of that wave, this tree somehow still stood!

I saw the tree again a few years later while passing through from one concert to another. Another group of musicians and I were traveling the newly constructed highway along the coast. Even though it was night, we could see the tree from the farthest outskirts of the city, its presence impossible to miss, lit up by spotlights as an unmistakable beacon of hope.

We stopped the car at the beautiful park that now surrounded the tree. There were flowers, benches, signs, and a wide clean concrete path. The original tree died due to salt left in the soil from the tsunami, but an almost exact replica stands in its place. It glowed as a magnificent symbol of resilience, courage, and hope against the darkness of the night sky.

Standing there by the river and ocean, I began to think about the most famous of all trees, the tree that stands by the river in the city of heaven. I wonder what that tree is like. Is it taller than this pine? Can it be seen even from the farthest outskirts of the city? Does it glow eternally in the light given by God? All we know is what the Bible tells us.

On each side of the river stood the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. . . . There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. (Revelation 22:2–3, 5)

I also thought about the cross. Roman soldiers regularly used pine trees for crucifixions, so the cross of Jesus was most likely made of pine.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

Both trees are for our healing. The tree of life wipes away the curse of death. The tree of the cross, planted on that ugly skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem, protects us from the storms of this world. That tree also rises out of the muck and mud of our sin as a beacon of light and hope. The tree of hope reminds us that God is always near, even in the midst of our devastation. It will always stand towering over a broken and desolate world, as the source of all healing and life.

15. The Cookout

In a couple of months, we’ll be coming out with my next book called Aroma of Beauty, telling stories of how the arts brought hope and healing after the 2011 earthquake and disaster here in Japan. We’re pretty excited about this project because the beauty we found in those dark times can encourage people at all times. And nothing seems more appropriate during this time of unrest and during the spread of the coronavirus.

The title of this book, Aroma of Beauty, is taken from the story that I’m just about to share with you. It’s a kind of beauty that is temporary and fleeting, but, man, is it powerful. In fact, this kind of weak beauty, this fragile beauty, is exactly what we needed in that time and place.

The food just after the tsunami was terrible. Every meal was treated like an emergency situation. Refugees and relief workers alike, we all lived off of emergency rations, canned and instant foods. This kind of food may keep the body going for a day, but it sure lacks the vitamins, nutrients, and life-giving beauty that we so desperately needed.

When we heard from survivors the kind of stomach problems they were now dealing with, our local Tokyo community was galvanized into action and began to plan our first takidashi cookout. Grocers donated rice, meat, and vegetables. Restaurants loaned equipment. My dentist even donated toothbrushes and toothpaste. A dozen people who had never been to the disaster area agreed to go as cooks and volunteers.

My wife Abi led a caravan of trucks and vans to the city of Ishinomaki. They came to a halt in a gravel lot cleared of debris, the tell-tale sign that people were taking shelter on the upper floors of nearby homes, stores, and buildings.

Fish and seaweed decayed in the sun. Piles of garbage lined roadsides with nowhere to go. Porta-potties and toilets overflowed. The stench was overwhelming, and every time we opened the doors of our trucks, we were overcome by the potency of it.

This must be what hell is like, Abi thought as she began to unload, trying to ignore the stench and not stare at the surrounding devastation.

Noisy generators powered the rice cookers. Industrial-sized propane burners roared underneath the large pots of water. The volunteers cut meat and vegetables on plastic portable tables. Pork, carrots, daikon radishes, shiitake mushrooms, and konnyaku gelatin strips—all the ingredients needed to make tonjiru soup.

As the food went into the pots, something beautiful began to happen. An aroma began to waft through the air, a pleasing smell unknown since before the earthquake.

People began to line up from surrounding buildings—ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred people—and volunteers began to get worried. “What do we do? We still need more time!”

“It’s okay,” Abi said. “There hasn’t been a smell like this here for a very long time. Let’s enjoy it.”

Abi asked the musician who came with the group if he wouldn’t mind playing a little bit. “I know it’s not an ideal spot,” she said, staring at the blocks of concrete and thick gooey mud. “And your audience isn’t exactly nicely grouped together.” The line of people went as far as she could see.

The musician pulled out his shakuhachi bamboo flute and began to play, slowly picking his way around the puddles and the mud as he walked down the line of people. The melodies of the flute and the aroma of the soup filled the air, wiping away the stench like tears, comforting with a tales from a world without destruction.

The food was more than mere sustenance. The music was more than mere entertainment, a way to pass the time while waiting in line. It was life-giving. An electrifying sense of hope, almost tangible, wafted through the air. It was the aroma of beauty.

“An electrifying sense of hope,

almost tangible,

wafted through the air.

It was the aroma of beauty.”

Aroma may be temporary and only last a moment, but the more time we spent in the disaster area, the more urgently we felt its need. The aroma of beauty became a seawall against the black waves of despair that threatened us every day after that tsunami. It brought an unexpected joy with the promise that a better tomorrow would come.

14. Called By A New Name

When I was a child, I was really into astronomy. My father took me to visit observatories every chance we got. I remember attending some big events in Boston that were public lectures and then going home to document the findings myself with my own telescope. I journaled and drew the movement of sunspots across the sun, and the moons around Jupiter. I read every issue of the magazine Astronomy and had all the constellations and major stars of the sky memorized. I even led viewing nights for elementary school kids giving a short talk on what we were about to see, finding it, and then showing it to them through a telescope. If God took all the trouble to make all these beautiful things, I figured, the least I could do was to get to know them a little bit. I really thought I was going to work for NASA, but music carried me in a different direction.

Anyway, on December 21 there was a really important event in the sky, you may have seen it, the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Just after sunset, many lined up along the river that runs through the center of Tokyo, pointing their cameras and telescopes skyward to catch a glimpse of it. I was one of them! The sixteenth century astronomer Kepler believed this same conjunction was the original “Christmas star” that brought the wise men to seek Jesus.

Every year, we sing about the stars in Christmas. One of my favorites are these lines from the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

Phillips Brooks, a Boston native like myself, wrote these words in the reverse order of what most people expect. Usually, “when you wish upon a star,” people think your dreams come true. But here, Brooks points us elsewhere and makes the stars witnesses to this event.

The stars are full of stories: animals and gods, love and war, heroes and villains. From ages past, men and women have looked up at the stars of the sky and whispered their hopes and fears.

Some make a wish when they see a shooting star. Others check the positions of the planets and stars to make important decisions. While I’ve never had much interest in either of these, I do love the stories behind the constellations. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been reading about them.

When I came to Japan, I learned about the Tanabata Star Festival through my son’s kindergarten, a story of love found, love lost, and love regained once again.

Hikoboshi the Cowherd and Orihime the Weaver Girl fall deeply in love. Orihime’s father, the king of heaven, does not approve and banishes them to opposite sides of the Amanogawa (the “Heavenly River” or better known to English speakers as the Milky Way). However, every year on July 7, the seventh day of the seventh month, he relents and a huge flock of birds form a bridge to allow these two star-crossed lovers to reunite for a single day. In the abundance of their joy, they grant the wishes of mortal men and women on earth.

The Tanabata Festival was particularly lively in Ishinomaki in the summer of 2011. So many people now lived in temporary home complexes, and so many buildings still stood broken and unusable.

Yukiko looked at the colorful strips of paper tied to bamboo grass. On each, a short prayer was written.

I want to be a soccer star.

I pray I can find a job.

May there be peace on earth.

Yukiko tried to think of a wish. But what did she really want, she wondered. The tsunami had taken everything from her. Her mother and sister were now dead. Her husband left her. Her father, coping with his own sense of loss, no longer spoke to her.

She was alone.

Everything she took for granted before was now gone: family, friends, home, job, town. She felt there was nothing to live for.

Yukiko tried to pray, not even knowing who she was praying to.

“Please, if you can hear me,” she whispered, “give me something to live for.”

Sometimes, God does amazing things, surprising things, to show his great love for us. The God who created all the stars of heaven heard Yukiko’s prayer and answered.

That evening at the festival, Yukiko met some Christian women, and in the months that followed, they became good friends. She began eating with them, and even began attending a Bible study with them. Little by little, she grew to know and love the God of the Bible. And little by little, she learned how to pray to him.

In God the Father, Yukiko found a father who welcomed her into his house and wanted her around. In God the Son, she found a husband who would never forsake or leave her, a friend who would always be by her side. In God the Holy Spirit, she found rest.

Because her friends met her at a festival, they began to call her “Matsuri” Yukiko, or the “Festival Girl.” She became a joy to everyone around her, a living testimony of how God saves from despair and loss.

Two years later, on a rainy Sunday morning in July, Matsuri Yukiko walked into the waters of the sea, those same terrifying waters that took away her family and friends. She was baptized in that same ocean that was a source of so much pain and loss. On that day, the water represented an ocean of God’s love, far more expansive than she could ever fathom. Through baptism, she was transformed into a new creation, known by a new name. Yukiko’s story makes me think of the words from Isaiah.

You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah [which means “my delight is in her”], and your land Beulah [which means “married”]; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:2–5)

When we look up to the starry night skies and see the dazzling works of God’s hands, we can remember that the same God made us, loves us, and rejoices over us. We can know that one day we will be reunited with our greatest Lover, the one who will wipe away all our tears and fulfill the deepest longings and prayers of our hearts.

13. A Party One Evening

Happy New Year everyone! We did it! We made it through 2020. It’s been quite a year!

Over the winter break, my family and I went into the mountains of Japan near Nagano City, which many of you know was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. They’ve been getting a lot of snow there this year. Last week, there were a few days in a row when I think we got about two feet a day. That’s a lot of snow! The snow built up almost all the way to the roof of our front door, and my kids had a good time digging a tunnel from our door so that we could get out.

I’m also quite proud of the igloo that I dug out of the snow. I worked on it a little bit each day, and by the time we left it could fit about five people. It even had a side room and little cubby holes where my kids and I stored some tools and other knick-knacks. There was even a small pile of snowballs ready to keep away any invaders. I particularly loved how the sun shined through the walls and ceiling almost like stained glass.

Anyway, we’re back in Tokyo now and ready to get to work. Over the next few months, I plan to share some stories from that time immediately following 2011 earthquake and tsunami here in Japan. The 10th anniversary is coming up in March, and now is as good a time as any to try to verbalize some of these stories. I usually do a fair bit of travel in January and February to share at churches in missions conferences, but I can’t do that this year! So I’m thankful for this podcast which at least gives me a way to share some of these stories remotely.

I would like to tell you about a party we had one evening.

The parking lot of the old Buddhist temple was packed full of trucks and vans. It sat on a hilltop, on the outskirts of the city of Higashi Matsushima, the only structure still standing that was big enough to hold a large group of people. One of the relief workers we met that day invited us to come here for a party.

We entered the side door and walked through the darkness of a narrow hallway. I glanced inside one of the fusuma sliding doors as I walked past. Shuttered windows which kept out the cold also prevented any light from entering. But by the dull red glow of electric heaters and the glimmer of flashlights, I could tell that people covered the floor, reading or talking quietly with one another.

As we continued down the hallway, we entered a large room full of laughing and talking. The noise was a bit of a shock. It was the first time I saw a room of people actually enjoying themselves in the disaster area. I pushed some backpacks aside and sat against the wall so I could slowly take in the atmosphere of the room. Everyone sat on the floor, gathered around little tables about a foot off the ground full of food and cans of Japanese beer. They wore work clothes with different emblems, identifying the relief organizations they belonged to.

A man came over to me and offered some food and a can of beer. He also told me he heard I was a musician and asked, “Would you be willing to play something tonight?”

Before I had a chance to answer, a man in the front began to speak through a microphone. “Good evening everybody,” he said. “I’m so glad we can gather tonight.” He went on to introduce someone from that area, who had been singing in shelters along the coast. As he spoke, a man, who appeared to be blind, was carefully led through the crowd to the front of the room. “I will let his singing say the rest,” the announcer finished.

The blind man stood alone without accompaniment and released a voice full of vibrato. The singing was beautiful but a style completely unknown to me. I figured it must be a traditional folk style and was grateful for the chance to hear it. After a few songs, the blind man finished, and two young men stood up to sing. One of them played the guitar.

Then it was my turn. There wasn’t enough room to set up my portable organ which sat outside in the truck, so they provided me with a keyboard instead. “We can’t seem to find the keyboard stand,” they apologized, but two men volunteered to hold the keyboard while I played.

My memory shot back to a similar situation I had the year before in Memphis, Tennessee, when I arrived at a woman’s prison to give a concert but my keyboard was confiscated at security.

“Can’t let in anything that can be used as a weapon,” the guard explained.

I wasn’t sure what his words meant. My keyboard . . . a weapon?

I was led down narrow hallways in the prison and through high security doors, until we arrived at a large room packed with prisoners.

“Wait here,” the guard said and left. Everyone stared at me until the guard returned with a plastic bag. I opened it to find a small electric keyboard and nothing else.

“Um, are there any other parts?” I asked. Where was the keyboard stand, or the music stand, or the sustain pedal?

“That’s all we got,” the guard said.

I placed the keyboard on a table and plugged it into the wall but nothing happened.

“Try another outlet,” the guard suggested. I quickly tried two more without any success, keenly aware that everyone in the room was still staring at me. The guard told me the voltage was reduced in some places to prevent “accidents.”

“Turn that fan this way!” a voice yelled, breaking the silence. There was no air-conditioning, and that room was pretty hot. One solitary fan blew across the room.

“No, turn it this way!” a second voice yelled from the other side of the room.

Suddenly, a large woman under the fan stood up. “I’m not going to effing touch it!” she swore in a strong Southern accent. “You think I’m your effing mother?”

I was sure a fight was going to break out right there in front of me.

“Ah, thank you for your patience,” I practically shouted into the chaos with all the confidence I could muster, but nobody heard me. Not knowing what else to do, I dove right into my arrangement of Cherry Blossoms, a Japanese folk song. I didn’t know if it was a good choice or not, but being a quiet piece, I hoped it would calm everyone down, similar to how I whisper to my children when I’m trying to quiet the room. My gamble paid off and pretty soon there was not a single sound but the spinning of that one fan.

A woman, the one under the fan who had a gift profanity, raised her hand.

Oh no, I thought. What’s she going to say? “Yes?” I said, timidly pointing in her direction.

“Could you play that again?” she said. “That was beautiful.”

With this memory firmly in mind, I decided to try the same piece. First, though, I wanted to have a little fun. A man stood on either side of me, holding the ends of the keyboard. The tables in that room were too low to use as a keyboard stand! I played a fast descending chromatic scale with my right hand, then stopped and shook my head. No, I motioned with a frown. Too high!

The two men lowered the keyboard. This time I started at the bottom of the keyboard and using both hands played a C scale quickly up the keyboard. But again I shook my head. No, I motioned with a smirk. Too low! A few people laughed.

The two men moved the keyboard again, this time to somewhere in between. I played a short cadence of chords and motioned with a large nod and hands outstretched. Yes, perfect! More people laughed.

I looked to the man on the left and gave a quizzical expression. All ready? He nodded.

I looked to the man on the right and repeated. He nodded as well. We were ready to go.

I began to play but with way too much flourish and the keyboard immediately sank. Gomenasai, I mouthed, “Sorry!” and quickly lightened my touch. I’ve had a lot of strange experiences while performing, but this was definitely a first for me! After improvising for a minute or so, I launched into the piece.

Every eye was on me. Not a voice was heard. The music carried us to a place where dirt and fear and broken buildings were a distant memory.

When the song came to an end, the room roared with applause and I took a bow. Each of the men holding the keyboard also tried to bow, but that didn’t work out very well. It’s pretty hard to bow while holding a keyboard. We were all happy and laughing and content. I’d forgotten such moments could exist and wished that evening could go on forever.