Thoughts about lamenting

The other day when I was editing an article I came across the suggestion that lamenting might be an important thing to do if you want to build up your resilience and yet struggling with emotions.

This helpful article defines lament as "a Christian response of grief to suffering, injustice, and pain in the world, past or present."

I took a bit of time to see what "lamenting" actually meant and came across an interesting article here (as well as many others). 

It points out that many, if not most, churches in the West spend little time on lamenting. We tend to major on rejoicing. And of course, we are commanded to "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4:4 NIV).

However, it is worth noting that a good portion of the Bible isn't joyful. Lamenting is, indeed, a common theme. Starting with the obvious: the Psalms, scholars vary in their assessment of this, but I've read that "lament psalms" make up between 30 and 45% of the book of Psalms (even that up to 60% of Psalms have sections of lament in them).

But also there is much lamenting in the books of Job, Jeremiah, Hosea, Isaiah, and so on, and of course, a whole book called Lamentations. Jesus lamented and Paul, Peter, and John, all lamented at times in their writing. The whole Bible is full of God (and his people) lamenting over sin and the consequences of sin. Romans even says that the whole creation groans (8:22). 

So what does this mean for me and you?

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Not quickly glossing over the not-so-joyful bits of Scripture. God's put them there for a reason, so we should read and ponder.
2. Taking time to lament, even when things are going well in our own lives. Give me 20 seconds and I can rattle off half a dozen people I know who are going through tough times right now. These are people who have been in my prayers recently. God calls us to "weep with those who are weeping" (Romans 12:15 NIV).
3. If I'm struggling to find something to lament in my own life, I need to ask God to show me my sin.
4. If I'm struggling to find something to lament about in the cultures around me, I need to ask for God's eyes to see and have the same heart that Jesus had when he looked at Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37.
5. If I'm struggling to find words to express to God my sadness, disappointment, anger, agony, confusion, or desperation, I can use the words of Scripture to help. Remember, Wendy, God is big enough to take our pain! Jesus dealt with more than that on the cross. For example, we can pray the words of Psalm 13.
6. Even if things are going well for us, practicing lamenting can prepare us for hard times that will inevitably come our way.

I don't like dwelling with bad feelings. I suspect I'm not the only one. But as I've gotten older I find myself able to identify more swings of emotions that I can ever remember having when I was younger. I'm much more aware of the pain in life, much less starry-eyed.

These few weeks are another period of transition in our year, as school starts up again. I didn't get time to write about early June when the last one happened. It was full of end-of-school events and farewell events. Once again, it was a time for goodbyes and see-you-laters (those being two very different things). This time of year everything at school starts up again (like February in Australia). There are new people to meet, "start of year" events to go to, and absences to notice.

Periodically I feel morose and need to take time to lament, not just drag myself out of the mud and keep going. However, praise is also important, and that is also what we see in many of the Psalms, they start with lamentation, but end in praising God. Like this:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God. (Ps. 42:11 NIV)

For any who would like to think on this further. Here is an excellent article from desiringgod.org: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dare-to-hope-in-god 

My holiday reading

This morning I made a single pile of all my summer reading books and took a photo. It looked good and I posted the photo on social media. Then two friends asked for recommendations. I like that. It wasn't even so much about boasting about how much I've read, rather sharing some of my favourite books from the summer.

The reason why I've got all the books from the last nine weeks of reading is that the school allows us to borrow 20 books over the summer, including parents. I didn't quite manage 20 books read, but I did get quite a lot read, about half were read during our two-weeks away. With no work or wifi, I spent a lot of time lying on my bed reading (my by-far favourite place to devour a book).

Two of the books I borrowed I didn't get far with for various reasons, I haven't pictured them. One of the books pictured I got most of the way through, then it got repetitive and rather boring (Other Einstein). I'm currently part-way through Crazy Love by Francis Chan. 

I've taken four more photos, this time, split into categories.

The first photo is of fiction. Of these, my favourite was in broken places, though The Janson Directive by Ludlum was also an excellent read if you're into thrillers. in broken places is about a new teacher at an international school in Germany, so there was a lot I could relate to. However, it had a dark side, with the deep shadow of past child abuse.

These are historical fiction. Both the lower two are great, but I think my favourite was The Librarian of Auschwitz. It truly is astounding how much a human can put up, but also how small things, like a handful of books, can make a big difference in dire circumstances.

These biographies/autobiographies were also great. I loved Shoe Dog, written by the founder of Nike. Great writing style! Unexpected story. Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus was hard to get into but soon became an excellent read. It doesn't strictly fit into biographical, it is also apologetics. I learned more about Islam than I've ever known before.

It's hard to choose a favourite from these three non-fiction Christian books. Possibly Sabbath, though it is not written strictly for a Christian audience and there were elements I had to discard, it had great suggestions for ways to build restorative rest into your life.

I hate writing book reviews. But the above is definitely a more fun way to do it. Perhaps I should try more of this comparative way of doing it in the future? (Though it's harder when books I've read have gone back to the library . . . perhaps I can make a collection of spine-photos?) I do read a lot, so maybe I could help others by sharing a bit more?

First day of school again

Yes, it's the first day of school . . . again. It's our third in 18 months. First last July in Australia, then when we returned here in January, and now, actually in sync with everyone else around us, going into a new grade at the same school the boys finished at in June. It's a small thing, but also a big thing!

I think that we're pretty much recovered from our six-months in Australia. You might be thinking: Wow, that took a long time! Well, it did. Longer than I subconsciously expected. I've said it many times—international moves are a big deal. Especially when that involves children, schooling, and jobs. It is not like taking a holiday.

I have not been able to share on this public blog some of the private struggles we had during our home assignment, but believe me when I say that some of them have had a long-term impact on us. I think that now we are in a much better place as a family now than we have been for some years. It is good and we are thankful. God has helped us persevere through some tough stuff, I'm teary now even thinking about it. But all praise goes to him, not us.

However, I started this post with the intention of writing about the start of school and something about the challenges of our holidays.

I have no first-day-of-school photo. Our boys are very much of the opinion at the moment that photos of them, particularly posed family photos, are a ridiculous idea. I've tried a couple of times to get family photos this summer and it simply hasn't produced anything that any of us would want to share with anyone.

You can guess, therefore, that the battle of the wills in our house is quite strong. It always has been. Perseverance (or stubbornness) runs strongly through all five of us. And as you might know or guess, stubborn teenagers are sometimes not fun to be around.

This summer the boys have not been shy in letting me know their true opinion of just about everything: my cooking, my habits, how I talk, move, breathe, eat. I think my driving has been relatively critique-free, and probably something else that I can't think of now. But sometimes my growing-thicker-by-the-day skin has worn thin. I've taken myself into "time out" in my room more than a couple of times.

The boys have been out of school since June 11. That's a long time! However, it hasn't really dragged.

Our youngest did two weeks of "Summer school", keeping him busy for five mornings and five afternoons. He's also had a maths booklet to complete, fairly sizable, but a good review of all of the maths done in grade eight (helpful as he missed half a year while in Australia and studied different topics in maths there).

Our middle son has had a part-time job mowing lawns at school and a missionary property. He has also spent time catching up on on-line school work that didn't get finished in Australia as well as doing an extra maths subject so that he can do five subjects of maths during his high school career, instead of four. The latter has taken hours almost every day in the last month, but also David's, as both a teacher and parent (i.e. physical presence helps with focus). There was procrastination involved, but speeding through a year's worth of maths in just five weeks is no small feat, even if you are good at the subject.

We had our eldest son here for about two weeks and then we went away for two weeks. Plus two camping trips either side of that holiday.

David was acting head of school for a few weeks while the HOS was overseas visiting family, so he only really had a short break from being at school.

My holidays pretty much only contained those days and weeks we were out of Tokyo. In fact, our holidays made the weeks surrounding them quite busy as I prepared to leave and then caught up when I got back.

I think I had somewhat grand ideas about the "summer holidays". Many half-formed ideas that didn't get any further. We did have a couple of movie nights with friends, one BBQ, and a couple of other social gatherings. While we were away we made a concerted effort to leave work behind. I didn't check email for two weeks straight! I did get a good start on my new cross-stitch project and did a lot of reading too.

But now it is over for another year. We head into the last four years of having boys at school. I'm looking forward to the predictability and stability of that because I know that there are big changes coming up. Four or so years until everyone leaves. That doesn't seem so far away.

For now, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of having no one here. Not even so much the quiet, as my boys are often quite quiet. But the peace of mind in knowing that there are no critics watching me. No one I have to check with if I want to go out or urge onwards with their work. No one who will be upset with my choice of music. I can have lunch whenever I want, without stepping on anyone's toes. (Of course, homework is coming . . . but not during my daytime.) Ah, the freedom. And of course they are happy too: they get to be free of hanging out with the annoying "olds" day after day.

What do you cook for dinner?

So I've resolved this school year to blog at least once a week. But every now and then in my job I run into a quiet patch and have more time to do things like write here. It's an interesting phenomenon as I deal with many deadlines every week. I'm in the interesting position that many of these deadlines are set by me, so I do my best to keep things relatively manageable.

It helps, just now, that I'm not trying to "get ahead" due to any upcoming holiday time. Preparing for and recovering from holidays can be significantly stressful! These last two months have been busy with preparing for holidays and dealing with different family needs while they're all home here. Until this week I've also been going slower in the mornings and getting up at least an hour later. All of which means that I've been cramming more into less time.

Menu list
One of my summer goals was small: for reference when menu writing, to make a list of all the meals that I regularly make for dinner here. I had a list I wrote in pen many years ago, before I had teenagers. But it's a bit outdated and, as it lives on the side of our fridge, it is fading. 

Earlier this week I wrote up the list. I was surprised to find that I could think of 47 meals that I make at least once every few months. If you consider that I only usually cook five times a week (the other nights are usually left-overs), that's quite a lot of variety. I eat the same breakfast six days a week and that's the way I like it, but I prefer to have a lot of variety at dinner!

A favourite meal: wraps. Usually chicken
with simple salad. People make their own
(which I suspect is part of the fun).

Perhaps you'll be interested in the list, so I've posted it below. I don't actually make much Japanese food, there are only four or five below, though there are others I occasionally cook. I find many Japanese meals are time-consuming to make from scratch (which is how I prefer to do most of my cooking). But perhaps some of you could give me some helpful hints? And of course, living in Japan, when we eat out we often have Japanese! Eating out in Japan is relatively cheap (especially if you don't take teenagers with you!). 

My criteria for cooking dinner is that it can't take much longer than an hour and that most people in the family like it. For keeping a lid on the budget, my weekly menu usually consists of only three big "meat" meals and, for the sake of variety, those are usually each different meats (i.e. not two chicken meals in the one week). Other meals often include smaller portions of protein like bacon or eggs or both.

There's probably a number of things on the list that you don't know, either. I'm happy to explain or even share recipes! The notes in brackets are recipe book nicknames.

August 2019 camping trip

Before our camping trip last week fades into a distant memory as we gear up for the start of the school year, let me take you for a quick tour of our two nights away. We have now camped over 30 times in Japan (maybe it's 33, I really think we're starting to get beyond the need to count!). This trip we made with a family that we've camped with four other times in the last 3 ½ years. We're finding that camping with another family helps to grease the oil in relationships, especially as our boys get older.

We left on Tuesday morning, stopping to buy lunch at a convenience store on our way to the expressway, as we often do on trips like this. The temperature outside felt like an oven, a humid oven and the car said that it was 37C, confirming what our bodies were saying: that we wanted to escape, even if for a couple of days.

There are only a handful of campsites that we've been to more than once, one of them was the one we went to four times during CAJ's Thanksgiving break. Another is west of here but still within the Tokyo prefectural borders, and the third is the campsite in Nikko that we went to this time with our friends. It is the third time we've been there.

It's a gorgeous campsite:

Another big attraction to this campsite is that it is in a park that boasts a large obstacle course as well as a park golf course. It also has lovely facilities, including hot water for washing up in the camp kitchen. We were pleased to find this time that our showers would no longer cost us 100 yen per five minutes, rather they were free!

Park golf course that's beautifully looked after!
Because it was late in the day and storms threatened,
we were pretty much the only ones using it.

We arrived at the campsite early afternoon and set up camp quickly. It's only the third time we've slept in this new tent and we're getting faster. Though it is quite a bit smaller than the 10-man tent we have done most of our camping in, so that's taking a lot more getting used to. Most of the men-folk (all?) are unhappy with how squished it is—I'm the only one who isn't up against the side of the tent, so I am not so bothered by it.

Love the moss we were camped next to!

We were pleased to see that there was only one other tent set up in the free-camping site (i.e. no electricity and you can't park right next to the tent). But then another group arrived that was quite unusual and generated a lot of conversation amongst us. Five young guys, all in white t-shirts and jeans. They first brought up a tent, a table, and a bench, which seemed an unusual combination. We eventually determined that they were probably Youtubers (or wannabes) as they did a lot of filming, but never did find out what their group name was.

From about 7pm the temperature cooled off beautifully and we had a very pleasant night, where I even had to put a light jacket on in the early hours of the morning.

When we go camping with our friends, to keep it simple, we divide up the meals between us. The first night our friends were on dinner, so we enjoyed being catered for! Pasta and meatballs followed by legit S'mores (in Japan, Americans trying to make S'mores often have to substitute other crackers for Graham crackers and they assure it isn't quite the same).

On Wednesday, the goal was to get up early when it was still cool and get a lot done, but we never quite managed that. After about 7am it was too hot for me in the tent . . . but others stayed there longer. David cooked bacon and eggs along with muffins for breakfast, and it was close to 10 before we made it to the obstacle course.

I regret not getting better photos of the course, but it is actually hard to capture, as it winds between trees (thankfully, for the shade!). There were 23 "obstacles" to climb on or over or through, most involve ropes and logs. I made it through almost all of them. One particular memory was when others insisted on a race between me and my contemporary, the mum of the other family. We had to get into a small basket-type thing made out of rope and metal, pull ourselves over to another platform with a rope, and get out of the basket. Turns out the getting-out part was particularly hard. Competitive juices kicked in and I went as hard as I could at it. The fastest way I could get out of the basket was not very pretty, though, and I ended up on my back looking like a dead cockroach, not to mention the rope burn under my arm!

In the afternoon, after lunch I went and sat with my feet in this little creek. The water was brilliantly cool (came from the mountains) and the setting so peaceful and green. I wish, now, that I'd stayed longer!

Later, after it had cooled, we did a round of park golf and had a lot of fun.

That evening it was our turn to cook. We made Yakisoba, a very common Japanese stir fry noodle and pork dish.

Followed by a favourite: chocolate and marshmallow banana boats in foil over the fire. Everyone made their own.

Some other photos:

View of the mountain from near the obstacle course. Near here you can also hire mountain bikes.

Camp washing-up zone. Gorgeous!

Dragonflies were common.

Fire! Always a highlight, though we were too
exhausted on the second night to enjoy it for long.

On Thursday we packed up to be out of there by 10am. We headed up the mountains west of the campsite to see this famous, nearly 100m high, waterfall.

Driving back into Tokyo was a bit tedious Thursday afternoon, but I snapped a photo of one of the sections of the expressway that is covered with green on both sides. These green plants are vines that cover the walls that separate the expressway from the rest of Tokyo, and, presumably, shield the locals from some of the noise.

I was a bit sad to be back in Tokyo. It flagged the end of my holidays, and, possibly the end of camping until after winter early next year! Not to mention that Tokyo was just as hot as when we'd left it! 

But, it is good to be gradually getting back into a more usual rhythm. School starts properly on the 23rd, but we've got a range of school-related stuff already going on. Both boys are doing maths (long story) and David's in and out of school as well as helping the boys. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to having the house to myself again, from 8.30 to 4 (or later).

A summer holiday

We got back from our two-week summer holiday on Monday and I've been working hard all week to catch up on editing and writing work that was waiting for me. Therefore I haven't blogged about our holidays or anything else, for that matter, for some time (also worked hard before we left so that I could leave my computer and email packed away for the whole two weeks).

This holiday was sorely needed. It's the first time in two years that we've really stopped for two whole weeks. We did little travel and no socialising. We applied ourselves to relaxing as much as possible. Our days were filled with reading, playing games, jigsaw puzzles, Minecraft (two boys), sleeping, and movies. The latter we did every night (mostly at home, but did go once to the theatre). We also walked to a park down the road several times to play Park Golf...but more about that soon.

I've turned this into something of a "slide show" with a couple of dozen photos, text inserted in-between, so that you can see some of what we did and saw. 

The drive west/north-west out of Tokyo via motorways pretty quickly becomes dominated by mountains and green. It's always a welcome sight.

This is the holiday house that OMF owns and where we stayed. Our apartment was the top floor, which included a loft, so the top two layers of windows here. It was fantastic being able to feast our eyes on farms and the mountains beyond (when we could, they were covered in cloud a lot of the time). 

The grass is trimmed beautifully due to the hard work of David, who spent quite a number of hours with the brush cutter (the property extends down the hill on the other side of the house and the grass was over six-feet tall down there).

Our dining table looked out upon the fields and we watched as the farmer and his wife plowed, planted, and sprayed some of this land (the latter two tasks by hand).

The park 700m from our house is smallish, but a beauty. It has some playground equipment, this pyramid, and a 32-hole mallet/park golf course that we did twice over four days.

Not the greatest photo, but I stuck my finger in to show how small this frog was. We found several of these during our golfing.

One of the features of the park is this picturesque bridge. It doesn't lead you to much, just the rest of the golf course, but it's lovely to look at.

Some of the golf course. The big feature of park/mallet golf is that it is largely in a natural park environment with lots of natural obstacles. This is really a mallet golf course (though we really aren't sure of the differences between the two, except that park golf is mostly a Hokkaido sport). The clubs are different, but we used both (having our own park golf clubs that missionaries gave us a few years back).

One day we walked down to the park and it was a bit cool and rainy, I realised that not only did I have a teal shirt and jacket on, but my umbrella also was too, and this teal-coloured shed was too much to resist!

The road past the house is a bit of a sealed track and is bordered closely by bushland. Just gorgeous green-therapy for our Tokyo-singed eyes.

Not a great view for the camera through the fly screen, but we could watch the sun set every day from our living/dining area. Most days we only caught a short glimpse, because cloud was the predominant feature of the skies.

 It always amuses us, when we're in the Japanese countryside, so see how many of these utility trucks there are. It's the standard vehicle ("ubiquitous" is the word that comes to mind) for anyone on the land and also the managers of campgrounds. They are the equivalent of the Australian "ute" but much smaller and not so "cool".

We slept on the floor in a traditional tatami room. However, the futon were a bit old and my neck didn't appreciate it. I ended up piling up a lot of bedding in order to get a good night sleep and help the headaches stay away.

One of my favourite spots, with key pursuits in view: cross-stitch, a game, a jigsaw, book to read, ice coffee, and TV. And as with all the windows in this apartment: we could see green!

One afternoon we went to a nearby town to play ten-pin bowling, buy shoes at an outlet mall, check out the Lego shop (a family tradition in this area), and finished up with afternoon tea at a coffee shop. A lovely afternoon overall, even if I did terribly at bowling, others did really well. I'm surprised at how hard it is to get teenagers to enjoy a family outing. I didn't expect that when I had younger kids. They weren't even keen about going away on holidays, however, it wasn't as bad as they expected.

This shop was next to traffic lights that we stopped at a number of times. We never went in, but the name of the shop makes you want to! Maybe when we go back in December...

 More park photos: there were some gorgeous fungi around if you kept your eyes open, but they were generally small.

We walked past this pile of logs every time we walked to the park. I loved the pattern!

Side view of the neat stack.

This was the most fun puzzle we've done in a long time. 100 very quirky chickens and a worm to find. There are more in this series, though the company doesn't sell them anymore, I'd love to get my hands on one or more!

Another frog.

 

 One afternoon our youngest and I had a baking afternoon. He made cinnamon rolls and I made bread rolls for a BBQ dinner. The aromas in the house!

And finally, a screenshot to show you where we were. We were about 900m above sea level, just a bit cooler than on the plain, and only a couple of hours from home. We slept beautifully at night.

Maybe you're wondering why a mission would own a holiday house? To start with, Japanese people don't take long holidays. Two weeks is unheard of—I've been asked, "What would you do?" Therefore they don't have affordable self-catering accommodation for this sort of holiday. So, we missonaries find it difficult to take long, affordable holidays. Our mission organisation owning and maintaining holidays houses makes it affordable. We are ever so thankful.