Unexpected story of an editor, a 12 y.o. boy, and Japan

A sermon I recently heard at our church introduced me to an editor-missionary who I'd never heard of before. But really, who knows the names of famous editors? It really isn't our thing; we generally prefer to remain in the background.

The man, Luís Fróis, was a Jesuit missionary from Portugal in the 1500s. He worked in Japan from 1563 until he died in 1597. Much of his ministry was as the clerk and editor of letters and periodicals that the missionaries sent to Rome about their work. A missionary who is an editor! (Not someone I come across every day; it's more common to come across missionaries who are writers.) I'm particularly amused by this quote: 

"[Father] Valignano had discovered that many of the letters and reports, especially those written by young missionaries not yet familiar with Japanese conditions, gave a false impression of the country to the readers. He therefore gave orders that the reports concerning the various missions should be collected by an experienced missionary and should be read and, if need be, corrected under the orders of the Provincial as an official Annual Report." (From here)

An editor's brief!

He was also commissioned to write a history of the Catholic church's work in Japan, but ended up writing a very large work that included much observation of Japan of the day, as well as some history of the country.

He was also a witness, in 1597, of the execution of the now famous 26 martyrs in Nagasaki, Japan. It is mostly because of Fróis that we know so much about this event. He wrote a detailed report of this event and sent it to his superiors, only months before he himself died.

But what especially caught my attention during the sermon is the connection that the preacher made between Fróis and a more recent missionary, who died a couple of years ago. Alfons Deeken, another Catholic missionary, was just 12 during WW2 in Germany when he was selected for the Nazi teacher training academy, a great honour at the time. However, he refused this opportunity because he disagreed with what the Nazis were doing because it went against his faith. This decision would have even been viewed by some as anti-German. Alfons had read Fróis' account of the 26 Martyrs. In that he read about another 12 year old boy called Luis Ibaraki, who was among those being marched to Nagasaki in 1597 for crucifixion. This boy's steadfast faith in the face of death inspired Alfons Deeken to go to Japan as a missionary. He's quoted as saying "I felt a great desire to visit the country that had produced such a courageous boy."

Neither Luis Ibaraki, nor Luís Fróis would have anticipated that their actions would inspire someone to do what Alfons did: reject the social pressures of the times and go even further to become a missionary in Japan.

I'm a writer and editor who works in mobilisation. My team and I work to produce social media content that will hopefully mobilise people around the world to be more involved in mission, however that looks. But we rarely hear how our work has directly influenced people to do what we're aiming for. This story excites me because it was a writer/editor who simply wrote what he saw, that ultimately was the vehicle to getting someone 400 years later to make a life-changing decision. He didn't plan to mobilise anyone by writing that report. There are actually a whole lot of unsung heroes here: this was originally a letter in Portuguese. Someone published it, someone translated it into German, and published it again. And someone got this book(let) into Alfons' hand.

This makes me excited about what I do. Writing down things, editing, and publishing them is a sacred task. You don't know where they will end up or what change they will cause in other people. Or even when that will occur. If something I do or write or edit makes a difference to someone in 400 year’s time I would be very surprised. However, I can hope that my words make a difference, even in the here-and-now.

Discovering I've got a skill I didn't realise I had

Me in my comfort zone

In the last week or so, I think I've done more writing than editing! It been an unusual period, but I'm not unhappy, I do enjoy writing. However, I did get pushed outside my comfort zone. In order to attempt to solve a lack of content problem with our magazine, I asked our Japanese pastor if he'd consent to an interview (in English). He agreed, and promptly found three other people I could also talk with about the topic at hand. So on Tuesday afternoon, I spent about two hours interviewing Japanese people. The second hour was mostly in Japanese and stretched me greatly. They had a lot to say, and I didn't catch all of it, but I have enough to write the needed article. [Ironically, I've ended up with the opposite problem—after I implemented a few other strategies to find more articles, we now have more than double the number of potential articles than we need.]

I've been working in publishing for over 10 years now, but I've always avoided doing interviews. I'm not sure why, but I thought it's something I'd probably not be good at. Maybe I'm thinking about the sort of journalism that is intrusive or controversial, or requiring the journalist to do "cold calls". I'm just not that sort of person.

However, I've discovered that I've had many years of learning to ask questions of others, of learning to draw people out. Not for the purpose of writing about them, but just getting to know them, or simply to enjoy their company when we've been together for some reason (like a car journey, or as volunteers, or eating together at a group meeting). 

I've also spent many years living with non-chatty introverts and have worked at facilitating conversation at home. These interviews, in comparison, was easy. My questions were welcomed, and the interviewees wanted to talk. It would have been a lot easier if my Japanese had been better, but I was with our bilingual pastor, so he's helped me a lot.

I'm happy that I discovered this and that I consented to be pushed beyond my comfort level. I'd hate to be starting to plateau in my middle age! I want to continue to grow as a person. I'd like to continue to find opportunities to practise this newly discovered skill (as well as figuring out how to write a 1,500 word article from an interview).

But, reflecting on the last few years, I've been continually pushed beyond my comfort level, but usually not by choice. Mental illness has become part of our everyday lives since before 2018 (we only got the diagnosis that year, so could see it for what it was)—that's definitely pushed us out of our comfort zones. I never anticipated that any of my boys would struggle to complete their studies, but we've had that experience now too. Watching our older two struggle to find their way into adult lives has been really hard, and we've needed a lot of grace to walk alongside them through this stage, and it's certainly not over yet. It's all left me feeling a bit vulnerable and shaky.

But, of course, missionary life is continually pushing us past what's comfortable, more so than perhaps might have happened if we'd never left our native land. But as I said to a newer missionary early last week—I think that this is a privileged life. Not that it isn't hard, but we keep encountering challenges as a result of what we do that push us to depend on God, and on others. Whereas otherwise we might have been much more self-reliant, we've been frequently cast upon resources that we couldn't conjure up ourselves. And experiences like that make you grow.

I was surprised to have a friend who knows more about me than most write to me that she has been observing "a positive shift in me from anxiety and feeling isolated to coming to peace with what is and inviting others into a space of being honest and vulnerable." I can't especially detect that myself, but am glad to hear that she senses this. Apparently God's been at work in me during the "grit your teeth and get through the day" times that I've had in the last few years and I'm glad.

I feel like we've hit a little bit of a breathing space, a bit of light in the tunnel. But the next big challenge is coming at us like a freight train: home assignment next year. Just the other day I wrote two emails one afternoon about pencilling in dates for later next year in Australia—that's a tiny bit scary. And we've already been working on downsizing, that's what the bazaar helped with last month, but since then we've given away more of our stuff too. 

But if I keep in mind that through it all God has never failed us, that he's always with us, and not only that, but he's growing us through the challenges. That as a result of all the "out of my comfort zone" we're going to be better people. When I remember this, then I'm calmer.

Here are a few Bible verses I've found to remind myself of (and maybe you too), that God is at work in us:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. (Heb 12:11–13 NIV)

And this was in Paul's prayers for the believers in Philippi: 

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:4–6) 

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:13)

And Romans 8:28 of course: 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

And of course "for the good of those who love him" doesn't mean God's our genie in a bottle. It means that God is working to make us more like Jesus, more likely to do things that glorify him and achieve his purposes in this world.

That same passage in Romans goes on to say we can't be separated from God's love, nothing and no one can do that, not hardship or danger or distress or poverty or criticism or even death. So therefore, we should live as ones who have nothing to fear (preaching to myself again, for surely there is more fear in me than I'd like to admit).

Okay, I didn't expected to end up here when I started writing this blog post last week, but here we are. I need to get back to various other writing assignments and emails (and all those people I have to write "no-thanks" emails to for their magazine article proposals). Next blog post I want to write about an unsung hero I learnt about yesterday. A man after my own heart.

Margin: something I need, but also struggle with

Margin: it's something I've written about (e.g. https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2015/08/margin-in-life.html), but not always been good at doing. When I saw this blog post by Beth Bathelemy I was reminded again about margin. Not just how important it is, but why I struggle not just to keep it, but sometimes when I'm in that space of not-so-busy, I feel uncomfortable.

I ran into a quiet spot in my work on Friday
when I was basically waiting for other 
people to do stuff. Margin! So I rode to my
favourite local park for a couple of hours.

But first, what is margin? Beth shared this great quote by Richard Swenson:

“Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.”

When I find myself without much margin in my days, things in our lives get compromised that shouldn't be. That can be important work matters, or it can be family, or not being able to help someone else. Without much margin my health suffers: I don't get exercise, or my eating gets sporadic and unhealthy, and because I'm the manager of our larder and maker of our evening meal, if I don't have much margin that spills over to affect everyone else in the family too. If I've overcommitted, I'm often not sleeping well and responsibilities that I have aren't being attended to. I can't pay as much attention to the people in my life if I don't have good margin and I begin to suffocate and let others down.

I thought I had plenty of margin at the start of August in Australia when I'd planned to start back at work after six weeks off. However, in that first week we had family drama as we had flights cancelled, then rebooked, and then an emotional farewell as half our family flew back to Japan. My middle son and I cleaned and moved into new accommodation, and had to adapt to living with another family. Plus we received a new diagnosis to add to the others our son already has. In the middle of all that I sat back at my editor's desk where a large amount had piled up in my absence. Then my throat and head started hurting and I started coughing . . . and it was COVID. All my margin was gone and it took weeks to get back to a place where margin was again in place. I had miscalculated, but also run into some large, unexpected things. And that's really partly what margin is for: to give room for the unexpected. It's just that, in this case, I didn't allow enough (and of course, it is not always possible to allow enough margin).

As a writer and creator I find I also need margin to think, to ponder, to reflect, and to write. The extroverted part of me struggles with that sometimes, but I'm generally happier and more balanced if I've had time alone to think.

However, I also grew up with a strong work-ethic instilled in me. So these words of Beth's also spoke pointedly, they echo some of the struggles I have when I'm not-so-busy:

Recently, however, familiar doubts crept back into my heart and mind. Am I doing enough? Will this read impressively in my newsletter? Is our ministry fruitful enough? And from this lowly place of insecurity, doubt, and discouragement, I forfeited my margin.

I think it's something that people in ministry struggle with especially. Usually we have a lot of drive, are conscientious, and feel the pressure of the overwhelming needs around us. Consider that we ourselves work in a land where less than 1% of people know Jesus and not many more than that have even heard of him. Plus, we live a little bit in a glasshouse: writing prayer letters every month, and responding regularly to a variety of other requests for information about how our ministry is going. All these things can pressure us to increase the load of what we do until we have nothing spare.

But Beth concludes with thoughts like these:

What if we were to put aside our ill-conceived, worldly perspectives on success and productivity? What if we rejected the false narratives of self-importance and worth based on accomplishment? What if we, like Christ, “self-empty” ourselves unto God?

These are good thoughts. I'm full of pride, I know. I measure my days according to how many things I've knocked off my to-do list. I like to think of myself as productive and useful, skillful and clever. What would it look like to move further away from all that?

I'm reading a short book right now by Timothy Keller called The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness.
Where I left the bookmark last night it says:

"So Paul does not look to the Corinthians for his identity. He does not go to them for the verdict that he is a 'somebody'. He does not get that sense of identity from them. But he does not get it from himself either. He knows that trying to find self-esteem by living up to a certain set of standards is a trap " (p. 28).

Paul and Keller exhort us to let go of the idea that we can get our identity from what others think of us, and even from living up to our own standards. We are loved by God. Not because of what we've done for him, but because of what he's already done for us.

Another book I've finished recently called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund says a similar thing. Christ loves us far more than we can comprehend, and our response should be to simply obey the invitation in Matthew 11:28: "Come to me."

But, on the other hand I've also realised that God has created us to both do and be. I'm still trying to balance that up, but I don't think this side of heaven I'll get it right. I can recount many times that I've been told or heard sermons or talks that said that we ought not to look at our schedules for our self-worth. But I also know that God tells us to do stuff. Yes, our primary worth is as a human being made by God, but we've been gifted with varying levels of strength and intellect, gifts and talents, wealth and opportunities. God calls us to DO stuff. Not because that's the way we earn his love, but because we love to serve him, but how easy it is to switch those two things!

So, how to live with these two things in balance? How can I be comfortable with "being", with dwelling in that space between my responsibilities and what my ultimate limit is? How can I fulfil my responsibilities without feeling that they add up to my worth, and therefore when I'm not "doing" I still have worth?

These are questions that I don't think I have an answer to yet. At the moment I'm being very careful about what I say yes to, beyond my usual responsibilities. I know that just under the surface lurk things that tap my energy, and often they are difficult to predict. Some days I just feel overwhelmingly tired by 8pm and struggle to get up in the morning, for no discernable reason. I also know, looking ahead, that we've got some big transitions next year that will take a lot of energy.

So, I'm moving ahead, walking tentatively and keeping my eyes on Jesus, rather on my own nervous, flaky self. And surrounding myself with people and habits that will correct my course when it goes astray.