Kōbe shenanigans. #神戸 #japan (at 神戸布引ハーブ園／ロープウェイ)

Last weekend we went to a place called Little World near Nagoya for our Golden Week excursion with our college students. Later we grilled out, went to the bath house, and watched Star Wars all night.

This place, Little World, is so cheesy, but that’s what makes it great.

Something I’ve been re-learning again lately is that the moments that matter most and the places where relationships are either created or strengthened, are pretty ordinary and seemingly insignificant. One of the things I have become most disturbed by, not just ‘out there in the big, bad world’, but primarily in my own heart, is the tendency to paint my life in a certain light for others: namely, that it’s filled with never-ending, profound, and awesome experiences. I know that a host of articles have been coming out lately lambasting the over-use of social media to create a facade of meaning and significance for the watching and ‘liking’ world - and there’s some credit to those writings. But those summaries are usually simplistic.

There’s something deeper and complicated occurring, usually. I know that to be true for myself. It usually has something to do with self-justification: wanting to seem like I’m good enough, fun enough, accomplished enough, having amazing experiences enough, cultured or educated enough, smart enough, witty enough, progressive enough, awesome enough, etc. The list goes on. It’s different for everyone. The point is, there is a deep and innate desire that all humans everywhere share to be someone significant; someone found worthy. It’ll kill you if you let it - either by making you fatalistic, depressed and lazy because you never measure up or by making you a workaholic, anxious, and unrelentingly self-oriented as you keep up your appearance with others. Curating your life so that others approve of you, or that you approve of yourself for that matter, isn’t just exhausting, it’s wretchedly enslaving.

“Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.” -Wendell Berry

As I was walking around this cheesy Japanese theme park with a dozen of our best friends and college students, a place that maybe I would have looked down upon with pretentious disgust or boredom if I were with any other group, I felt oddly relieved. There wasn’t any pressure to find a really amazing experience that I could tell others about - there were only my friends there with me, in the moment, doing pretty ordinary things (and purposefully doing uncool things) and we were all laughing about it.

I don’t want to look back at the end of my life or even the end of our time here in Japan and all I have is a bunch of awesome looking photos that are filled with cool scenery or ‘amazing experiences’ but are utterly skeletal in their significance. I don’t want to spend my final days here or on this Earth grabbing up everything I can for myself so that I can prove to others how (insert self-promoting adjective) I am. I don’t want to live like a tourist.

I want to pour everything I am into those around me because, in the end, people are what matter the most. The places that change you aren’t the extravagant vacations or breathtaking views - those places just leave you more wanting than before. The so-called ‘amazing experiences’ I am clawing after with tooth and nail aren’t ‘out there’ like a buried treasure waiting to be unearthed by my cunning and witty and well-manicured lifestyle, but they’re hidden like an insignificant seed in the hearts of the people presently around me. 

God, give me eyes to see it and the heart to chase after it.

And those moments of sheer wonder and awe that we all desperately want either appear or begin in the most mundane, unanticipated and unsexy ways - waiting in line, refilling someone’s cup of water, walking to the convenience store to buy greasy chicken, arguing, learning to forgive, listening…writing letters home.

“I knew from my study of the Gospels where to look for Jesus. For the most part, his earthly life was hidden, like a seed in the field…Jesus never used his power to show off. He used his power for love. So he wasn’t immediately noticeable. Humility makes you disappear, which is why we avoid it. In order to see Jesus, I would have to look lower. I would have to look at people simply, as a child does. I began to ask myself, “Where did I see Jesus today?’ I hunted for the difference between what others would normally be like and what they had become through the presence of Jesus. The presence of Jesus, the only truly authentic person who ever lived, would reveal itself in the restoration of authenticity in people. I’d see Christians whose inner and outer lives matched.” -Paul Miller, A Praying Life

I understand greatly the desire for significance that haunts each one of us. Let’s be honest, we’re haunted by it. I mean, it’s not entirely screwed up. That deep hunger for authenticity and honesty and freedom is good, even glorious at best. The way we know it’s not something twisted is when that thirst in us, that’s deeper than our marrow, is directed towards serving others - when it’s not incurvatus in se (turned inward upon itself). When that craving for authenticity is first and foremost chased after and unveiled in the life of others - even at the cost of our own. When that happens, that honesty and integrity and sheer authenticity we would kill for is born in us.

Then again, what do I know?

More on Flickr.

© photos by Jake Gee

Kyoto (part 2):

As promised, part 2.

More on Flickr.

© photos by Jake Gee

Kyoto (part 1):

Had an amazing time ending off our trip with the Mama in Kyoto. Too many beautiful sights, delectable foods, and lovely memories to share. Hopefully the photos will be sufficient enough.

More to come!

© photos by Jake Gee

Hanami (Cherry Blossom watching) = lunchin’, chattin’, and frisbeein’ with our favorite crew! Good riddance, Winter.

A few more on Flickr.

© photos by Jake Gee

#geisha doin’ their thang. #kyoto #japan (at 祇園白川)

Had an awesome first couple of days with the mama in Takayama. We stayed in a beautiful ryokan (Japanese hotel), wandered the city aimlessly, ate and tasted too many wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) flavors, hiked in the woods, saw some old stuff and laughed like old times.

We’re so glad she’s finally here!

More on Flickr.

© photos by Jake Gee

Congratulations to our friends at Gaidai University for graduating college! Kaji and I (Team Okinawa) want to wish you the very best and hope to see you in the near future. We love you guys!

There’s a couple more over at Flickr.

© photos by Jake Gee

Last Friday, I went to the Hadaka Matsuri in Konomiya - just outside of Nagoya. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was probably the most insane thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I was already running on a little bit of adrenaline from finishing up a hard two weeks at language school. I was also feeling pretty pumped about finally being able to travel solo in Japan for the first time and actually understand what was happening around me! As soon as the train pulled into Konomiya Station, you could see this small town bursting at the seams (no pun intended) with spectators and groups of loin-cloth laden men marching and screaming down the street.

This was probably the most testosterone I have ever been around. This is also surprising to me in a place like Japan, where modesty and reservation are king, but I enjoyed seeing a different side of this culture than I had expected. I think that’s one of the joys and great challenges of living and serving in ministry in a different culture: willing to have your categories for people and their practices completely shattered or rearranged and trying to really understand and observe rather than sit either in the position of mockery or judgment. 

With that said, I don’t feel like going into the whole festival, the meaning of it, and all the fine details. If you want to read up more on it, be my guest.

The day’s weather couldn’t have been more perfect. I hobbled through the crazy crowds of people, occasionally discovering a foreigner’s face. Climbed on top of fences and squeezed into nooks on the sidelines to catch a better glance or take a better photo. I talked to complete stranger ojisans and laughed with them in my broken Japanese and heard about how they used to march in the festival when they were younger. I walked past the mesmerizing aroma of every type of mouth-watering Japanese street food you could ever want to eat. I watched as these thousands of almost-naked dudes shouted “Wasshoi” (heave, ho!), punched each other, laughed, cried, threw gallons upon gallons of water on each other, and shivered in the freezing cold covered in mud, blood and who knows what else. 

And yet, as crazy as things were, as different as this day was from anything else I’ve experienced thus far in Japan, it was kind of normal to me. Ok, not entirely normal, but I didn’t feel like a total stranger. In an interesting way that I haven’t quite processed yet, I felt at home. That’s not something I expected. And it’s probably the first time I’ve realized that I’ve ever felt that here.

Now, I’m sure it would be a different story if I was actually in the festival. Yeah, I think it would have been a nightmare if that happened. I’m not that used to Japan yet. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is I have really grown to love Japan, my friends, their customs, the language and ways of communicating (for the most part!), and constantly discovering new aspects to this culture. It’ll be a year in a couple of weeks, since we arrived here, and comparing how we feel now to what it was like when we first stepped off the plane is like night and day. So much has happened, and yet God has truly taken care of us and helped us take our baby steps here in a completely new way of life. Can’t wait to see what this next year holds and how much we’ll look back on our ‘baby’ selves and laugh and perhaps miss these times where every day is so much an adventure and an honest cry to God to help us in the midst of our weakness that we often feel so vividly.

However, if at this time next year, you see me in some photos in this exact same festival, please buy a plane ticket, knock on my door, cover your eyes, personally slap me and take me home. 

And bring an extra pair of pants. Please.

For the rest of the photos (beware, there’s lots o’ skin!), go here.

© photos by Jake Gee