Just when I didn't care about baseball anymore...

I saw this...

So I had a dream about Japan the other night..

Seeing this video today reminded me of a dream I had the other night about living in Japan again. I think subconsciously I'm realizing the need to properly debrief from my time there.  Marie and I experienced many surreal moments there because of the mix of ancient culture, technology and an obsession with all things cute.  Watch this, and you will understand why it's easy to have strange dreams about this country.  

(ht to relevant for the vid)

karate as discipleship

A couple of years ago I listened to Rob Bell's sermon Entitled "Mastering the Art of Living." He started out describing the experience of watching his brother's karate class. I was particularly drawn to the parallels between the karate student to karate teacher and disciple to rabbi. As he went on I realized that there aren't many relationships in our western culture that resemble the rabbi talmidim (disciple) relationship. I really liked the sermon and I chewed on it for a while. Around the same time I saw my friend Ritchie test for one of his levels in taekwondo. As Ritchie and the other candidates attempted to advance in rank, their teacher made every little thing into a lesson. He talked about push ups and how they can develop character. "If you can do 5 you can do 10, if you can do 10 you can do 20..." he said. He build upon that idea saying the same is true for school work, you start out small and you do it right, then you will build up some mental muscles. It made sense.

I started to realize that there was a disconnect for me between church and my real life. Ritchie's teacher stressed taking the lessons learned in the dojo (their place of training) into the rest of the world. At that point, I hadn't experienced many examples of what it meant to take the lessons learned in church (small C) into the rest of my life. What did it mean to love? What does integrity look like in the real world. I had a few, but the examples were not many.

I also see implications between teaching lessons and physical activity. It is a lot easier to teach boys this way. I doubt parents at shoreline would be very happy if I asked the students to bring sparring equipment to services, but there has to be a way for the tactile learners to get something out of services/gatherings beyond children's church. Why do we stop coloring when we get out of kid's church anyway? Wouldn't the adults dig a flannel board? I would.

So, I take karate. I studied for almost a year in Japan.

I've studied it in America for five months and I'll do a post later contrasting the differences. They are kinda funny. I'm not into the fighting part that much. I kinda goof off until I get hit hard, and then I unleash my "fury." Tonight I advanced one more level to orange (the 3rd level out of 7). I practice, I exercise, and I continue to think that there is something more to learning karate than what is on the surface.

Where God Was Born

I'll wind up talking about this book quite a bit, but some history is required before I begin. This is my fourth Feiler book. His first book Walking The Bible awakened my interest in the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. I tore through the huge volume in one sitting and grew very attached to Bruce Feiler's writing style. Then, I was introduced to Learning to Bow (his story about teaching English in Japan) just before my wife and I moved to Japan to teach English for a year. His book was an ESL bible for us that year and was like looking into our future. We were prepared in advance for the culture shock we'd face. The Third book was Abraham: A Journey into the Heart of Three Faiths. It was an excellent follow up effort to Walking Through the bible and it got me through many tough days in Japan. Over the years I've really grown to enjoy his writing. It has inspired me to get to know G-d better and to lean as much as I can about the roots of my faith.
In his latest book, he picks up where Walking the bible left off and goes on a journey that stopped at the end of the Torah, and he continues through the end of the Hebrew Bible. I've been chewing on this book in my head for the past few months. I read it before bed and meditate on the biblical insight Feiler gives. I've 99 more pages to go, but some of the posts in the cooker are on David as a rogue mercenary, the importance of exile to Jewish and Christian faith, and Cyrus G-d's anointed.

Looking forward...