COOL DOWN AND REFLECT

Lush, robust wildlife is all over the place in Okinawa--I did not realize it when growing up here. The past few months, however, I have been immersing myself in another kind of aesthetics: the visual arts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the artist attests...altho' I've enjoyed being able to experience a new kind of appreciation, I've also developed a wariness to the mindset that would permit any individuality and call it good quality. I think it is a slap in the face of the actual skilled artist to accept any and all in that way.

I don't know exactly how to state this, but I know what I mean. May I give a little example? I have an artist I highly respect who can take the folds of a wilted flower and give them the worth of gold with the atmosphere, character, texture, feeling she can bring out of even that.  I have seen some of her paintings and can only imagine how she must've first felt when she saw lifeless plants and the time she spent infusing them with the life she did, how it made her feel when she was done (but then true artists are never fully satisfied with the work they do).

     

Every work is worthy. But not all attain to the same quality--not hardly.

Let's put that aside. Even the top gold medalist would not be able to jump as high as the moon. Those flowers blooming in the Tokkuri Kiwata tree in front of our house show a glory no gold medalist will ever be able to attain. And that birdie in the tree several paces to the right would cock his neck up to look up at the moon in the sky. The moon doesn't even shine with a beauty it has worked hard all these years to give off, but it simply reflects the glory of the SUN, doesn't it?

I was going to show you the Tokkuri Kiwata tree mentioned earlier to talk about it, but 3 mins. outside, and I felt my fever coming, so I had to come home. Man, that sun sure is hot! I'll tell you about the Tokkuri tree tomorrow, okay? I made and drank about a third of a glass of lemonade, splashed my face with water, and had to lay down for an hour's nap.

Yup, I slept, didn't work hard at all, dreamt about the time we grew up here, I think. Children are carefree, let their parents take care of them, do all the hard stuff. "Live for the Glory of God?" That kind of religious lingo little kids didn't think about.

WHARFS, WAVES, AND WHITE-EYED WARBLERS

A large wave broke on the rocks, sending a spray across the top. One of my sisters stopped in her tracks, hesitating. Should she walk onto the wharf? We 3 J's were taking advantage of the points Janice had accrued and had enjoyed an overnight stay at the Intercontinental. This morning, we were taking a walk outside before checking out and going home.

No doubt, the waves wouldn't bother buoys, I thought; they just bobbed up and down with them. People ought to be like them when sticky things come along and instead of trying to fight them, just "bob" along with them as best as possible. Or, as I watched a family along the beach unbothered by waves, just learn to wait it out and be patient until large problems can work out into smaller workable ones. Surfers stayed out in the deep. By the time the waves reached the shore, the ripples on the beach had become manageable, tame, even comfortable and pretty to look at.

There was still another way of being completely untouched by waves; by being one of the sparrow hawks that flew above the water. The principle here is not one of wanting to keep oneself from problems therefore to avoid people altogether; rather, to want to live a life of godliness therefore to ask God for help to live like those in the Bible who ran from sin--Pastor Nishino speaks of this like being magnets of the same power as sin, therefore repelling it. We should find no attraction in, want nothing to do with, temptation to sin; any more than substances of like magnetic force would find in each other. But I detected movement at the edge of the rocks where we stood, at the end of the wharf. Was that a...

Yes! It was the little olive bird with the white ring around its eye! Altho' the bird is usually hard to spot in foliage due to its coloring, this time, it seemed to come out for me. I pretended it was in response to my pleading, "c'mon let us see you sweetie; you're so pretty."

When we got home that afternoon, I noticed the same bird decorating the calendar. The Mejiro is popular among Japanese. But I gotta say, the feathered friend that posed for me on the wharf outside the hotel was prettier...or is that my imagination too?