But I Looked for Carp, Not Minerals...

I couldn't find it! Usually, the local church worship service is streamed on Discord, but this morning, the church icon wouldn't show on Discord...I looked and looked until I managed to find it.

YESSS--! I KNEW it had to be here! Then I looked forward to the honey I knew my heart was going to get treated to for a while.

That was what I remembered doing at the park up in Iwatsuki. I'd go to the creek, to a certain spot just around the bend where I KNEW there were carp under the brush and peered hard.

At first, I couldn't see anything, but after a while, I would see something move and then something else.

Then I could see them clearly, sweetly--about four or five carp--because I was EXPECTING to see them there. Other people walking thru' the park would look in the water in the exact same place but see absolutely nothing. These people would scratch their heads, look at me kinda funny, and walk on. Of course, they would never hang around to see the baby carp come out from the back or witness delightful rare antics of swimming things!

EXPECT God's blessings, we're told, and "mine for wisdom as for silver, gold, or precious stones. (Job 28)" But I know how to look for carp in the water, not mine for minerals in the earth...

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.

They Don't Make Them Anymore

”Lookit what Yoneko just brought," Joyce said, hoisting a junior-sized accordion onto the table; "I haven't seen one of these in a while." We began talking about how 50 years ago, quite a few missionaries played accordions. After all, you could take those instruments into the jungles and villages a lot more easily than pianos and organs.

We thought about Christmas Eves with the Shuri Church in the 60's. Once, it got surprisingly cold, and Daddy had wrapped his head with a scarf to stay warm. Co-worker Aunty Edna had brought her accordion, playing beloved carol melodies with right hand keys while pumping out bass and chords with left-hand buttons.

Someone at church asked for recommended reading, and Andrew Murray's Humility was mentioned (Here is my stepmother's translated copy). Biblical humility, so different from what people think of as humility, is NOT mere contrition; it's stated in the book. It's having a vision of GOD to the extent self disappears.

It's kinda like the accordion, I think.

The accordion is not an instrument to produce beautiful sound calling attention to ITSELF as a solo concert instrument, but it is carried in order to lift other hearts toward GOD. 

When everybody starts singing, you're supposed to forget about it if you play it right.

A Piece of Cake for the Creator

Yesterday, I shopped for chocolates for Kinya and Keima, remembering St. Valentine, who'd been imprisoned for secretly performing marriages between young lovers altho' the young men had been drafted to go to war.

Valentine's loyalty lay much higher: to God, the Creator of the shadows of the prison cell.

"You won't find a bargain like that again." Kinya had told me. My last laptop had been a high end one someone let go of for a newer model, and we happened to grab it when it first hit the market.

God, the Creator, had brought it to me for about a fifth of retail price.

(Husband Kinya to right, Church Member Kina-san below.) 

Let's just pray. You never know what God can do, I'd said, and asked someone at church for pointers looking at computers.

The Creator brought to me a computer bearing all the necessities mentioned by the person at church--CPU, SSD, memory--and after checking, it was learned this laptop would've cost about 8-9 times brand new!

Speaking of "new"...I found something "old"...a Prayer Card from 40 years ago!

My Dad had just gotten remarried, so Kiyo was the new Mrs. Oshiro, and we 3 J's are new missionaries, college graduates here!

Wow. You never know what God can do.

(Can you tell who's who?)

NOT HALF BAD

When Joyce came up with old markers and told me I could have them but she'd had them for years so wasn't sure if they worked, I decided to try sketching yesterday's ladybug candle with them. I pulled out a cheap dollar-store sketchbook and started scribbling in it. But when the inks seemed to flow nicely, I ended up filling in the picture with color pencil, wishing I had been less careless at the beginning.

My sisters and I will be trying to make visits on the far south of the island Tuesday. The first stop we will be making is to see a fellow high school graduate, whom the Lord gifted with musical talent, a loving family, and later in life, a stroke that left him wheelchair-bound and unable to speak. His wife Nari and a son pretty much watch out for Eddie 24-7.

Eddie and Nari are the kind of people you want to encourage, but every time you're with them, they end up encouraging you. They're never without a smile. Even if Nari herself was, several years ago, diagnosed with cancer and must battle fatigue as well as constantly look to God for the future, and Eddie too is well aware of all this.

We say we believe the God Who cares for the fowl of the sky cares for us, but do we live like we believe it? Eddie and Nari do.

Shouldn't Be Able, but Had to Help

It sounded like a scream came from the direction of the falls. Sure enough, someone had slipped on the rocks and hurt himself, the heron flying overhead could see. But out here in the wilderness, no one would come by to help. That was too bad.

Wait. The man was conscious and able to swim out to the island in the center of the river and pull himself up on it. The sun would dry him off, and he could rest there; it was doubtful any dangerous predators would want to swim out to that island.

Only problem was, the man would probably starve to death, because that sliver of land was barren of vegetation for him to subsist on...

But as if having read the thoughts of the heron, a waterfowl nearby carried berries to the man on the island regularly. The heron looked at the bird swimming from the shore to the stranded man, noticing how the feet of the morehen were not webbed; it was not supposed to be able to swim. How was he doing that? The scarlet-visored bird did not pretend to know. It's just the injured man needed the berries.

Sunday a brother in Christ will be recognized as elder of a church. When he was first asked to help, people might've said he didn't have proper web...qualification, ordination. But the important thing is he wanted to help Pastor Ricardo, who needed him.

Surely God can greatly anoint his service as elder if He would smile on the swimming efforts of a creek bird!

See? Even the white-shield Eurasian coots watching decided they wanted to join in and help too.

NO COLOR YET EITHER

Even the 2022 Sketch I put in the corner of my mother's desk looked intimidating. I've been away from sketching people so long...I know the experienced artist gave advice to someone who wanted to get back to drawing after being away a long time: get a cheap sketchbook and scribble on it using pencil, don't worry about paint, or 3D at this point, just get your hand moving, and your mind used to creating, she said.

Well, I tried that yesterday because that Tonokura house makes me feel good plus it's simple lines...and I realized I was enjoying myself. But thinking about drawing moving people scares me. Maybe...not working from the absolute scratch, but maybe I could finish up these things I started before?

Call me Chicken. That sketch I started in the summer, when my sister headed up a Singalong in the Community Room--I wanted to draw her at the piano, but it frustrated me no end because she moved around so much, and I found myself turning the page of the sketch book with the first simple lines but the picture unfinished.

No, sorry; this post isn't a great inspirational one either; just me trying to get back on my feet and telling you about it. That happens too.

"Trouble? Couldn't have been more perfect, June!"

For this past trip, my drawing activity consisted, not in actual sketching as much as in handing out drawings I'd already done--I gave away about 45. Of course, they were not portraits done by a professional artist, but they were sketches tailored to individuals' interests and experiences.

One of them, I had no way of knowing, because I didn't even know her when I was in Iwatsuki. May I tell you about this one?

I'd made plans to meet a Bible-loving college friend so had drawn pictures from the Old Testament, pretty sure she'd be able to guess what stories they illustrated. Here's one of them, from 2 Chron. 28. The other was Baby Moses.

The day we were to meet--I'd been staying with my sister in Minnesota willing to drive south to visit some relatives near Iowa, where my friend is, who drove north to rendezvous with us.

Car trouble kept us from meeting, but God led my friend to a Jewish person plus enabled my sister to spend time with her relatives that day.

To top it off, later that week, I formed an unusual bond with my sister's neighbor Lynne and decided to give her the drawings I'd intended to give my friend I couldn't meet (we discussed via phone to do this). Old Testament pictures turned out to be perfect, as Lynne was Jewish!