Dearest Rachel –
I’ve mentioned him to you before (and I’m curious as to whether you’ve had a chance to meet him up there), but I’ve always been fascinated by the words of King Agur, perhaps the most obscure contributor to the book of Proverbs, and the Bible in general. One of his prayers was that God make him neither rich nor poor, but that he always had enough for the day at hand. I could understand being so poor as to steal (although an earlier chapter acknowledges that such a thief is not despised, even though he is still subject to punishment), but his assertion that being rich would lead to him denying the God who allowed him to become so well off in the first place struck me as odd. How, I wondered, could that possibly happen?
Well, here I am, all but unaware of what day of the week it is, as each day simply carries Daniel and I to our next port. Another day, another city to tour; and while that isn’t meant as a jaded, ‘ho hum’ observation, it’s still a realization that I’m concerning myself more with sightseeing than the fact that Sunday is upon us.
And not just any Sunday, but Easter Sunday. Our church literally refers to this day as the Christian equivalent of the Super Bowl. This is the event upon which our entire faith is built; our sine qua non. And what are we going to be doing? Just touring around the town of Sakaiminato and environs. It seems somehow inappropriate.
Then again, taking that Super Bowl metaphor a little farther, there is so much of the world that isn’t particularly interested in American football. Likewise, a Christian holiday in a land that, if its people are religious at all, is a mixture of Buddhism and Shinto, is going to pass without notice. It’s rather up to us to be observant.
This is how an amount of wealth (or at least, a certain usage of it, combined with specific timing like this) leads to us, not so much denying God, so much as forgetting about Him a little. It’s not something to be proud of.
***
I’ll be honest, honey; when I booked this trip, I really didn’t consider all of the things I would be gone during. I spent an otherwise low-key birthday sweating out whether we would get on board, for instance – the fact that we made it on was rather a nice little present to myself, I suppose. We’ll be out here over tax day; thankfully, we had everything prepared (for ourselves and the estate) and sent off before the end of March. So being out here over Easter is sort of part of the package, whether it crossed my mind or not at the time (spoiler alert: it didn’t). You take your opportunities to travel when you can, and recognize that sometimes these schedules are not yours to control; the ship sails when it sails, and you’ve got to decide whether or not you want to be a part of it.
I take a certain measure of consolation in the fact that people I respect (particularly my dad) were all in favor of me going – to say nothing of next year‘s plans when I will be gone over the same period of time, and then some. While I fretted about leaving certain responsibilities behind, the consensus was overwhelmingly positive (if possibly containing some small amount of envy, which would be perfectly understandable). Nobody seemed to think I should miss out on an opportunity such as this, and indeed, I got a lot of help from folks back home in order to make this a reality.
But, as I’ve said, before, it’s easy to lose track of days, apart from having to know where you are from one day to the next. The fact that this is a holiday, and a religious one at that, tends to slip one’s mind.
***
As such holidays, go, the Japanese are aware of Christmas; I’ve told you about how their (rather warped, but understandable, given how they learned about it) means of celebration came to be. But that one’s relatively easy; December 25th falls on December 25th every year, and while that may seem like a completely obvious statement, you have to bear in mind that Easter floats around. It’s hard to keep track of; and that’s not even counting the fact that different denominations celebrate it on different Sundays. So there is no one Easter, and even if there was, it’s never on the same day from year to year. With all that being said, why would this people think of, let alone bother to, keep track of the day?
Again, that’s for us to remember; and here, I almost forgot. Were it not for a notice dropped on my bed after dinner a couple of days ago, delineating various services for both Good Friday and Easter that would be broadcast on the ship’s television network (mostly from the Vatican, which would be of no interest to either Daniel or myself), it might very well have slipped my mind as well.
***
But then, God has many ways of announcing His presence. Whether it be the still, small voice of a broadcast card on my bed, or the thundering effects of His creation in action, He’ll get your attention if He wants to.
Last night, as we were barely half an hour out of Kanazawa, the ship once again began rocking as it had been when we were making our way up to Aomori. Daniel began commenting again about how the Sea of Japan is supposed to be so much calmer than the Pacific Ocean, when it occurred to me that I was hearing impacts on either the ceiling or the windows. It was raining outside; and not the little drizzle’s that we’ve been dealing with on our last few stops, but real, actual torrents from the sky. This was an honest-to-God storm at sea.
It was the sort of thing that made me wonder if we weren’t a little like Jonah. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that we were running from God, but it could be argued that this is about as far as we can get from His people over here. Still, thanks to the marvels of modern technology and the internet in particular, it’s not as if we have to be far away.
At the same time, we’re probably going to wind up watching the Easter service a day or two from now, as the Saturday service is already over, and we’ll be asleep by the time they stream any of the Sunday morning broadcasts.
For now, I know he’s watching us, like the sparrow. You keep an eye on us too, honey., and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 