Well I guess I was right, I am pretty disappointing since its been over a year since I created a new post. Not all I was cracked up to be.

I've been distracted living life here on Okinawa--what a great time we have had.

We are about to leave Okinawa and return home, and as I write this the charming chimes that play every evening here on Okinawa at 6pm are ringing. Like many things, I wish I could take their music home with me. But this is not my home, although it has been for 2 quick years, and we don't play sweet music to close each day. While living I have learned so much not only about Japan and Okinawa, but also about my own country. In returning I am looking forward to some things (dishwasher, disposal, BajaFresh), but will miss so much. I saw more graciousness and respect and perfection here in two years than in my entire lifetime. I have learned to party and to deal with being in the rare American minority. Do we belong here? Should we be here? Have we overstayed our welcome? I dunno, but we are here. I'll miss so much that is Japanese and Okinawan, but I'll also miss the Americaness of living overseas. I think it was Hemingway who said that one is more American as an expat than in America, and I sorta get what he meant. Over here, we are grateful to have one another around. In our small crowd I have experienced a comeraderie so special it is beyond description. When I came I wanted freedom from all the Americans and to cross cultures. As I leave, I will miss most those who are like me. After all, isn't that who we relate to most, those like ourselves?

Regardless, the upheaval of moving begins in the next few days, and we will be back in Las Vegas before I can figure it all out. I'm said the adventure is over, but I'm anxious to get home--home to family, friends, BajaFresh and discovering what is next. I really want that customs guy to say it when I go through the gate at LAX--"Welcome Home."
- posted by Kristine @ 12:58 AM

 
Why?

Right not I feel like no one is that great--I've got nothin' for anyone, including myself. We are all disappointing. So this should turn my attention to God, but I guess I'm not done being mad and frustrated about how little I get from anyone, and how little I give.

Didn't you know we would be this way?
Didn't you know how disappointing we would be?
And yet still you created us and come to be with us....

Is it for the small, fleeting moments of beauty we can see and appreciate oh so rarely?
Is it for the even rarer acts of greatness one of us happens to commit and can't even explain how or why?
Is it for the few who come through pain and are utterly willing to allow you to mess with them?
Is it the flashes of heroism, accomplishment, love or sacrifice?

I mean we are so rarely beautiful and so often hideous and heinous.

After all the heartsickness we cause, are the glimpses of You, in us, worth it?

- posted by Kristine @ 8:18 PM

 
Lost in Translation

If you have seen this movie and wondered if it exaggerated the supposed (to the American mind) oddities of Japanese culture just for the sake of comedy, I can tell you it did not. The movie showed exactly what it is like trying to get Japan, and communicate with the Japanese as an English-speaking American.

We laughed our heads off.

I also could relate to the characters' idle, empty feelings--I have found that without American cultural comforts Asia feels like that, especially when up at all hours due to jet lag or something else. Notice no American television, or easy leisure activities, except the bar where the characters end up meeting. It's easy to see why Westerners gravitate toward each other when abroad. We always want to understand and to be understood. Difficult to do with another culture when you can't even guess what is being said.





- posted by Kristine @ 8:53 PM

 
Emptiness


All through my life I've heard people come to Jesus and say it was because of an emptiness. I'd always nod in agreement, thinking I knew what they were talking about, but realizing I had not experienced it. I was a "second-generation Christian," raised in the church, and bypassed the emptiness because I started making right choices early. The Christian life is the right way to live. I believed it, experienced it, and it kept me out of trouble. Surely I would be blessed because I made decisions that pleased God. Wasn't that always the underlying message? Make the Christian choices. It was cause-and-effect Christianity. By the time I was in my 30s I would have a handle on how to live, how to please God more and partake in more blessings. Sure adversity would come, but I'd be able to calmly trust Jesus for I'd made the right choices and expected the right result: Don't have sex before marriage and marry a Christian, and you'll have a good marriage. Go to church, get involved, be in a small group, study the Bible, know your doctrine, and you'll become like Jesus.

So I did all that, pretty much had it wired. I was a super-Christian--eating up Bible Studies, becoming more disciplined and "righteous" all the time. An A-student of Christianity. One day I'd be holy. Working off of the cause-and-effect model, I'd eventually achieve better behaviors and thoughts, and the result would be a well-lived, perfectly-lived actually, life. I was on my way to greatness, in heaven if not here.

But, big surprise, I came to the end of that. Suddenly there was no more fuel for that fire. Nothing really big happened to cause the change--It was partly brought on by my husband's brutal honesty in saying, "Hey this Christian thing isn't doing anything for me, it's not what its cracked up to be." The real kicker was when he said, "It hasn't made me a great person." (I would've kept up the facade for a lot longer: "No, this house is great! It just needs a little paint..." as it crashed around me.)

Christianity hadn't made me a great person either--and now that there was one hole in it, what other "promises" had not been kept. Why was my life not "abundant?" Largely-lived? Full of passion and compassion with clear direction and lots of natural, healthy motivation? Here I was in my 30s and I did not have a handle on how to live--surely it was because I wasn't living the Christian life well-enough. I just needed to re-attack! But my battle cry sounded tinny and false, and I couldn't muster.

And in that place was Jesus. Asking. And since I've learned that He always asks. He said there was to be a new way, a huge paradigm shift, a scientific revolution. Would I trust Him? Would I go to a dark, unknown , scary place with Him? Would I let go of all my "eternal securities" in doctrine and ritual, all I'd know Christianity to be? Would I let my identity as a Christian fall away?

And so in weariness and confusion, with mourning and fear I said "yes" to the One who asked. I cried out to Him for help, and allowed the entire Christian construct, the framework on which I had built my entire life, to fall away.

And there was nothing left, but emptiness.

And there it began.


- posted by Kristine @ 5:52 PM

 
No More Excuses

Well, we got a new computer, and it is an absolute dream to work on. Thanks to GGG for all the tips and advice, and for talking us out of being cheap screws--we got the most expensive one. I can read all my favorite bloggers, go to any website, send and receive mail--all things that have been frustratingly difficult since September--and its fast fast fast.

So now I'm having a bit of blog-fright since it has been so long, but am working on a couple of themes to write about. I've been writing a bit longhand during the computer troubles, and it's felt somewhat therapeutic. I'm starting to be unhappy, unconnected with myself if I don't write, like I'm holding my breath. Writing helps me breathe. Wasn't that what praying was always supposed to be like? Maybe it's the same thing.
- posted by Kristine @ 4:03 PM

 
Unwired

Well our computer is STILL down, and I am at a community center to use a computer. Apparantly I have difficulty publishing here, because I see an old blog didn't get published. Anyway, Kevin took our tower to a computer-whiz friend at work, and he thinks he can fix it for a case of beer. If not, I'm pretty sure we'll be computer shopping as I barely saved the computer we have from being tossed out the window.

I've really missed reading and writing blogs. I hope to be back at it soon, it somehow relieves me to write a little, and even more to read that others have thoughts like me. In absence of friends with which to have real conversation, blogging somehow gives me a feeling of expressing myself and of getting to hear someone else's story.
- posted by Kristine @ 7:05 PM

 
Back--not really

Well I'm back at the community center--that's rights, we're still off line. Kevin has been really busy at work, so we are isolated from everyone in the states. It's okay. I got fired from the teaching job, we just couldn't work out the schedule. Partly communication problems, partly he was demanding. "Either you teach for me Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday or I cannot employ you." Well, maybe he wanted it to be my career and I wanted it to be part-time fun.

Tomorrow I go to Kyoto on a tour. I'm excited for I have not traveled by myself ever (except to visit family or Gregg and Heidi), have never had my own hotel room, and I get to just indulgently tour and learn and eat and check out real Japan. It's the cultural center of Japan and was not bombed by us in WWII, and is supposed to be beautiful this time of year. It is the home of tea ceremony, geisha, and all things truly Japanese. We are going to the Kabuki theatre to watch geisha dancing, going to shrines and temples and zen gardens-- I've never left Kevin before, although he's left me many, many times. I feel weird about that, like I should wait until we could go together, but we want to go other places when he takes leave, and he's actually been to Kyoto already. I'm hoping to steal away from the group of 10 I am semi-traveling with, and do some solitude in a zen garden or by the river or somewhere.
- posted by Kristine @ 3:52 AM