In Tacoma, I slept at Bix’s house, really Jean’s house, in the second story, high above downtown Tacoma. Jean was a survivor of the US concentration camps for people of Japanese descent in WWII. She was there as a child and then lived in the house until old age. Bix lives there now. It was a fitting starting point.  Bix had cranes painted on the side of the house in honor of this trip and of Jean.

Journey of Repentance Pilgrims in front of Jean's House in Tacoma, Washington

I got up early to finish stringing the thousands of cranes I folded. It was still reasonably cool. Then everyone and then some arrived, we did our send off and then were in the airport. By the time we got there, Louie was already being interviewed by the Japanese National Press.  We posed for about 30 shots and within a few hours were on the plane to Tokyo.

Until you get to downtown Tokyo, other than the few traditional style homes, it looks pretty much like western Washington or Oregon.  Lots of green and non-descript buildings. We arrived at the hotel late, a traditional Japanese family style hotel with small rooms outfitted with tatami mats and sleeping pads. I’m in a two person room with the documentary filmmaker and Joann, a fellow pilgrim. I scored on the roommate selection. We did well together and our room is cool and quiet. I brought my thermarest and a sheet and was glad I did. I slept ok. Ambien helped.

Up at 4 am for a shower in the basement. The hot baths were not filled, it’s traditional to bathe in the evening in Japan. As usual, I swim against the flow.  The hotel  owners made us coffee and set out homegrown blueberries for us. Perfect start for the day.  At 5:30 am, we were off to the fish market.  This is one big fish market, probably the biggest in the world. Mitch, or (his given Japanese name) used to work there.  It is busy, it is noisy. But it does not smell of fish. The fish is the freshest available so no fishy smell. There are acres and acres of fish. Eels, octopus, squid, every kind of shell fish you can think of, big honking fish, the tiniest silver fish and even tinier dried eels.  I saw no women working in the market. They don’t care for tourists there, we gunk up the system. This is an orchestra of quick moving people, carts, boxes and fish. There is no conductor, they don’t need one. They are in a fast paced dance with a lot of fast runs.  By 7 am, it is over.  Pack the unsold fish in Styrofoam boxes and ice and cart it out of there.  Hundreds of little electric carts zoom off down streets and alleys to deliver what was purchased.

Fish Market

Fish Filet

Open Air Market

Fileting Eels

For Louie, this was a meaningful visit. His father was a fish distributor in Los Angeles and visited this very market. When Louie became a vegetarian, he kept eating fish until his father’s death, out of respect.

Fish Market

As for me, I bought roasted soy beans and dried apricots in the market. We wandered the streets of Tokyo and were back by 9 am.

Cutting Blocks of Ice in the Market

This has been a year of losses. Loss does seem to pervade middle age and I am no exception.  On August 11th, 2008, I lost my friend Inayat Anderson.  This anniversary is coming up soon. I am not through the grief.

Inayat’s wife and I have been friends since the 9th grade.  She is my best friend. We haven’t always been best friends, we’ve woven in and out of close relationship especially during the early years. But friends we’ve stayed, and as we’ve become older, I think we both value that friendship even more. We aren’t exactly alike. We both have the same eclectic decorating style, we both love thrift stores, we like to travel, we both read a lot and love poetry, we are both artists and writers, we both love cats.  Peggy is a great cook and I’m not, although I enjoy the benefits of her foodieism. Peggy is an accomplished poet, I write for a hobby. Peggy is a cradle Catholic turned Theosophist, I’m a cradle Methodist turned Catholic. Although we don’t share all the same viewpoints and lifestyle preferences, we are both tolerant of differences. We both have the same values about the essential parts of life and decent behavior.  Peggy doesn’t have children, I have three. However, I’m quite sure that Mariah is genetically linked to her somehow because they have the same fashion gene. Any sense of fashion I’ve gained, I’ve gained from studying the two of them.

My “primary” relationships haven’t been so good. I don’t have a good picker as someone once said. Two failed marriages and a third very important love affair also failed.  I wasn’t so fond of Peggy’s relationships when we were younger. There was Greg, the great cook but total slob, and some other guys whose names I can’t remember. Then she met Inayat.

Inayat was an oncology nurse who also worked with AIDS patients. This was when AIDS was an automatic death sentence. He was strong, funny, sweet and caring. He was also a styler like Peggy. They cut a dashing path as they walked down the streets of San Francisco. Inayat was movie star handsome and got more so as he aged. He did not think so, despite the fact that people used to stop them and ask for his autograph but say they couldn’t place his name.  My fondest memories are us all going out to dinner and having great funny conversations and laughing for hours straight.

Then there was Spa Man. Inayat knew every alternative healing therapy in the book and he practiced on grateful us. We had massages, treatments, ionic cleanses, and a host of new methods he was trying out. I always felt better after all this, probably more due to Inayat’s loving spirit than the machines. We named him Spa Man and thought he should have a cape.

I also remember us walking three abreast in all kinds of City weather talking and laughing all the way. Laughing is what I remember about Inayat. Until the last few years.

And then there were mornings with Inayat, where he’d try to get up before Peggy and I and would deliver us coffee in bed with his big Inayat smile. Peggy gave me Inayat’s coffee cup after he died. Its sitting next to me as write this piece. I treasure it. It has a big smiling cat on it.  On work mornings, he ironed his shirts. I remember him padding around the house in his PJs, ironing the shirts in the kitchen and getting ready for work. I miss you Inayat.

Inayat in his beloved Sedona, AZ

Two years ago, I lived at Peggy and Inayat’s flat part time through the school year while I attended Theology school. Because Peggy travels a lot in her job, I got to spend a lot of time alone with Inayat talking. He had become depressed. I urged him to seek help. He was resistant or had ideas to help himself that I didn’t think would work.  We continued to talk. Several times I was afraid that he’d take it too far.

On August 11th, it was a Monday, I got a call from Peggy at 4 in the afternoon. With the first word out of her mouth, I knew. Ansel helped me throw everything in the car and 15 minutes later I was on the road, over the Sierras where I would arrive at the flats six hours later. Inayat’s sister was there. Inayat had killed himself. He let a note saying he thought he had Alzheimer’s. He did it in a way that was loving and caring of Peggy, so she wouldn’t be the one who found him. That was so like Inayat.

At first I was angry. We had tried to intervene. How could he do this? Then as we talked, we did recall things that weren’t quite like Inayat over the last couple of years. One was that he had lost his sense of humor.

I miss him so much. Recently, Peggy sent me these pictures. They are hard for me to look at. They are so full of Inayat. I want him back.   This is life, so many gifts, and then ones that mean the most go away and we are left to go on. The task is to keep appreciating the gifts we have. Mine is that Inayat was in my life for over 20 years.

Goodbye Inayat. I love you.

At the time, I was leading a comprehensive plan outreach for the second largest city in San Diego County. The neighborhood workshops I held were attended by around 300 people. I had put myself through college with competitive speaking. I had performed on stages in front of literally thousands of people. I never considered myself a party person – but speaking and leading efforts with lots of people defined much of my life.

Famous Introvert Jimmy Carter - We share the same birthday - October 1st

What I learned was that introversion was not about whether you could do the above mentioned things, but how you dealt with stress and where you are most comfortable. I am energized by time alone. I could be a Trappist hermit. I have spent 30 days alone. It’s my idea of heaven. My friend Sherri doesn’t like to spend 15 minutes doing nothing. I can meditate for hours and think this is heaven if I can carve out space to do such a thing. My favorite vacation is at a Carmelite monastery in southern Colorado where I spend weeks in a hermitage praying, reading, doing my art work and walking in the desert.

On the other hand, cocktail parties with more than ten people are my definition of hell. If I don’t know any of the ten people, its hell with less than ten people. My daughter Mariah can show up at a party of 200 people she’s never met and have a wonderful time. The thought of it makes me overwrought. Before going to such a torturous affair, I always have made a plan to meet the social obligation and then get out as fast as I can.

Small talk is baffling to me. Why would anyone think it is interesting? As a coping mechanism, I’ve developed small talk, but I’m awkward at it and I think I come off as irrelevant, boring and oafish when I try and be social. I’ve been criticized so much for being quiet in groups that I’m not sure if I should go back to that or continue the unskilled jabbering. Aargghh…

I recently had a job where I was in a cubicle with everyone else. This is the first time I’ve not had a closed shell office since i was 24. My chair back was to the entrance of the office. I would go home every day a wreck. Being in that position was a moment by moment major stress.

If I have something to do, some service to perform, I can be in situations where there are a lot of people that I don’t know. But if I just have to be, well give me the hermitage.

I make myself be social. When I first got to my latest job, I joined a chorale group and an orchestra. But the job proved so stressful, that adding the stress of being in a big group at night was too much. I quit all the extra curricular activities and hid out at home when I wasn’t at work. I took long drives and hiked alone. This has been a year of severe introvertion.

Both my boys are introverts. Ansel reminds me of Steve Martin, also an introvert. He can get up on a stage in front of hundreds of people, speak or act and have people laughing so hard they are in tears. And, some of our biggest struggles have been getting him to go places where he didn’t know anyone. He’s better now because he knows his default is to be always alone and he makes himself go out and be with others, just like I do. Devin is also an introvert. He has been the lead singer in a indie band.  Go figure.  Poor Mariah, she liked hanging out with us, but had to get out of the house often. We were boring for her.

With my move to Tucson, I’ll be among friends. A community of like minded people. This feels like the promised land.

Thursday, I fly to Japan with 17 other people, two of who I know – the rest I don’t know. I think I’ll be ok. But I’ll probably be quiet!

Pesky Princess Beezus

Beezus is my youngest cat. The only girl. Just like my daughter Mariah who is the youngest kid (though only by 30 seconds in her case) and is the only girl.

According to vets, Beezus is a Russian Blue.  That’s quite a designation for a former scroungy, partially feral kitten from a shelter in Butte, Montana.

Beezus’s story starts with Lucy and Frank. Lucy and Frank are two partially Siamese kittens I adopted in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The animal shelter called me one day and said someone had dropped a box of 26 kittens on the doorstep of a ranch in Rifle and would I take one? The kids and I went down and looked. The kittens mostly looked very small. Among the smallest were Frank and Lucy, who were displayed with about six other kittens in a vertical bird cage (the shelter didn’t have enough cages for this many kittens).  I asked the shelter if they were eating on their own and they assured me they were. Their eyes were open even though they were amazingly small.

When I got them home, they didn’t know how to eat. I called my vet and he set me up with a concoction of condensed milk and raw egg. I bought doll sized  baby bottles from KMart.  They had to be fed every two hours for 3 weeks just like Ansel and Mariah did during their premie months. I even got the zombie look after a couple of days from lack of sleep. Frank ate so vociferously that he would bite off the tops of the doll bottles and I had to go back to KMart and get a stash.

But they grew and flourished. Because they were so young, they would do things to get their mommy time. I’d come up to my bedroom and the twins (who were they 7ish) would be laying on the floor watching TV and Frank and Lucy would be sitting on top of their heads (in their hair) purring away. I think it must have been the closest thing to mom’s warm fur they could find.  Frank grew to be a big bruiser of a cat, the most comical and eccentric cat I’ve ever owned. He could be a star on David Letterman’s stupid pet tricks if cats would consent to do that sort of thing. Lucy grew to be a Princess. She was petite and beautiful. She was quiet, calm and demure. Princess Lucy.  We eventually moved to Butte, Montana.

Lucy was killed by a car in front of our house on Broadway shortly after we moved (Broadway is a narrow side street in Butte). We had lived in a place in Colorado at the end of a road, so perhaps she didn’t understand that cars could do that. I wasn’t home at the time, so the kids were alone when it happened. They called my friend Robin and she took them all to the vet. It was too late, Lucy died at the vet.  We were all devastated.

Mariah considered Lucy her cat (the only girl, the youngest kid). Mariah is very persuasive. She started in on me early about getting her another cat. I wasn’t too excited about this but Mariah is persuasive.  So a few weeks later, we went to the Butte shelter. They only had two kittens, both grey, in the same cage. They looked like they had come from an alley.  Both had thin scraggly hair and looked like they hadn’t been cared for. One of them was crying loudly. Of course, my daughter with the big heart picks that one.

I tried to talk her out of it. I like beautiful cats. I am a good American shorthair cat picker. My cats are really beautiful. This little grey cat did not even come close to meeting my standards. But Mariah is persuasive.

Beautiful Bilban - Ansel's Cat

So home she went. Immediately, I noted she had some sort of respiratory disease. Off the vet we go. She recovered but never stopped wheezing. She wheezes to this day.  She also got put on the good cat food. And we found out she was mostly feral.

Mariah and Ansel decided to name her Beezus after their beloved memories of Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. In the story, Beezus in the sensible sister. Ramona is pesky. Beezus should have been named Ramona.

She wanted to be near us but didn’t want us to touch her. So she’d zip into the room I was in, brush by my leg without touching then zip out. Zipping is one of Beezus’s strong suits, she is almost eight now and still zips. Her nickname is Zippy.

If I would reach down and try and touch her, her ears would go back, her eyes would get wide and she’d look like she’d seen Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining.   I continued to try and touch her. Eventually (read months) she’d let me do this. So I started on actually petting. Acceptance of petting took months too, and she didn’t permit it for more than one swipe – followed by zipping out of the room. After a couple of years, petting was acceptable. Picking up was not. Ears go back, eyes go wide, horrified look is displayed on kitty face. Beezus is expressive and she lets you know what she thinks. But I did continue to pick her up and pet her if only for a second. Three years later, I was allowed to pick her up.

Beezus has two basic looks – her horrified look and her blissed out look. The blissed out look appeared years later. The blissed out look comes over her when she saunters over to a place she wants to sleep. She has been known to get so blissed out that she falls off things because she loses track of where she is in her blissed state. Beezus is a cat of extremes.

She’s now seven almost eight. She actually comes to me now and wants to be picked up. When I’m sitting in bed in the early morning reading, she throws her body at me and insists on being petted NOW! She follows me around like a dog.  This took seven years of love but love certainly worked for her.

And, she’s now beautiful. She has the thickest, most beautiful coat and has a bluish cast to her grey hair. Russian blue. I’m a good American short hair picker .  And she’s still more like Ramona than Beezus. She zips around the house with the mad woman look during a windstorm or when the temperature drops suddenly. She jumps on the table and claws the rug when she’s not supposed to and dares you to chase her off. She tells you loud and clear when she thinks you ought to feed her, pet her or pick her up. She is not subtle or demure or sensible.

Beezus not enjoying her picture being taken

Beezus is one of my many teachers of the power of gentle persistant attention to hurt and pain. In others, in myself. Being faithful and persistant and paying attention day after day, month after month, year after year. The other being needs to want relationship. Beezus wanted to make a connection, she just didn’t trust it. But we both hung in with each other and now we are best buds.

Solid and firm resistance to oppression. Hope in hopeless situations. Fidelity. Signs. Redemption. Promised land. Delivery from exile.

These are all the same to me.

The story of the Virgin of Guadalupe is a powerful mythology of truth about God’s preferential option for the poor.  In the Elizondo’s story of the Apparition of our Lady Guadalupe abbreviated version (1980B:75-79) Juan Diego hears her say:

“That which is scares you and causes you anguish is nothing: do not let your heart be troubled, do not be afraid of that sickness. Am I not she who is your Mother?

“Then the Virgin told him to go to the top of the hill where he would find various flowers. She told him to cut and gather the flowers and bring them to her. He obeyed immediately and when he arrived at the top, he was astounded to discover numerous exquisite roses of Castille, especially since it was long before their normal time.

They had a beautiful aroma and were covered with the morning dew. he immediately cut them and returned to the Lady with the roses. She took them into her hands and rearranged them in his tilma.  She then said, ” My son, the smallest of my children, this diversity of roses is proof and sign that you will take to the bishop.  You will tell him in my name that he is to see my will in this and he must fulfill it. You are my ambassador and most worthy of trust.  I rigorously command you to unfold your mantle only in the presence of the bishop and to show him what you have with you. You are to tell everything. You will say that I told you to tell everything you saw, so that you may convince the prelate to give his help in building the temple I asked for.

When Juan Diego arrived at the palace of the bishop, the servants of the bishop came out to see him. He begged them to tell the bishop that he had to see him, but none of them wanted to listen to him.

They acted as if he were not there. But seeing that he would not go away, that he simply stayed patiently in his place, the servants decided they better inform the bishop.  Soon the strong aroma of the roses began to spread and servants were also able to get a few glimpses of what he had with him.  The were surprised to see roses of various kinds and of great beauty, and at first tried to take them from him, but he held on all the more. They finally went to tell the bishop what they had seen and that it would be good to see the Indian.

Juan Diego said, “Sir, I did what you ordered me to do, to go and tell my Lady, the Lady of Heaven, Holy Mary, Precious Mother of God, that you asked for a sign in order to believe me.  She sent me to the top of the hill where I had seen her before, to cut the roses of Castille.

Even though I was well aware that the top of the hill was no place for flowers, because there are only cactus, mesquites and other kinds of wild brush, I did not doubt. When I went to the top of the hill, I saw that I was in paradise with all the varieties of roses of Castille, shining with Morning Dew.  She told me was to give them to you. That is what I am doing now so that in them you may see the sign which you have asked for and thus will will fullfill her will. Here they are, accept them.

“And he unfolded his tilma, all the roses dropped to the floor and as they did the precious image of the always Virgin Mary, Mother of God, appeared on the tilma in the presence of the bishop and his household. They were amazed and fell to their knees. The greatly admired the image and showed by their actions that they truly saw her in their minds and in their hearts. “

This is a story of deliverance from exile, of the power of the stories of the poor to transform the hearts of the rich and powerful. Juan Diego is poor but faithful. He listens to the Mother of God and is given roses in the desert as a sign of her promise of deliverance from exile. He tells his story to the bishop, and when the bishop listens, he is transformed.

The Tucson sector is a desolate place for those crossing the US Mexico border.  They, like Juan Diego, are seeking healing. They come with desperate hope for a sustainable life. These people are not coming to get rich – they will work in low paying jobs long hours  and often make far less than what Americans consider a living wage.  They risk their lives to get here in ways we can’t begin to imagine.

The reason Catholic teaching tells us that people have the right to migrate to survive is because unjust economic systems cause people to leave loved ones and home, and travel to hostile foreign lands. “Consider that the take-home pay for the average worker in Nogales, Sonora, …is about ten pesos per hour. When the worker goes to the store to buy a gallon of milk, it costs 30 pesos, the equivalent of three hours work.  That’s equivalent to a U.S. Laborer working three hours – at say, $6 an hour – to buy a gallon milk for $18.” In Mexico, about 70% of a two-wage earner household income will go to provide a basic diet for a family of 5.  Native farmlands have been exploited by US conglomerates, groceries are often sold by US companies at a higher price than US citizens are charged, while workers in Latin America make 1/8 to 1/20^th of a US wage for comparable work.  We – as US citizens – enjoy the benefits of this economic exploitation, and native Mexican and other Latin American people are forced to leave their homelands to feed their families and to continue to provide profit to US companies who pay them little in Mexico and charge them too much for food.

Deaths along the US/Mexico border have increased 7% over last year even though border crossings are down 25%.  Why is the death toll at the highest level ever recorded? In 1994, the Clinton administration began the process of militarizing the border.  Recently, sonic towers have been erected to detect crossers.  In 2005, a significant number of bodies were found where people were not known to cross previously. An analysis of the increased death sites revealed that migrants were trying to avoid the new sonic detection towers by moving away from them into riskier territory, around mountains and through flash flood areas.

Groups like No More Deaths, Samaritans, Frontera de Christo, Humane Borders and many others are working to keep good people from dying because they have no other choices than to leave home and cross the desert. Guadalupe watches over the desert and leaves fields of roses.

“ Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.  If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?  You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.  God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine!  Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5: 13- 16 (The Message)

I don’t know the context for this story, but I expect that people may have been feeling shy about proclaiming the Good News and were quiet about it, or maybe even too nice.  Salt in ancient times was a preservative, and also an essential ingredient in fertilizer.  This passage has been sometimes interpreted as a directive to take part in the world and not withdraw from it.  Jesus is imploring people to engage, to be a part of,  and to participate in, so that others may see and know what God has to offer.  Since salt is an additive, I would suppose he meant to be yourself, but even more so – a more flavorful, intense version of the uniqueness of yourself. And I know this is modern day, individual-oriented interpretation – followers from Jesus’ culture may not have been so individualistic.

Not being one who values an external show of piety as much as some, I particularly like this passage. Salty language brings out the God-colors? Who knew!

I am hard wired to be salty. I have played the role of prophet – sometimes well received, sometimes not – repeatedly.

In an early incident, I led a three-day walkout against the Vietnam War at my high school. The participating students, about 30, came to school and instead sat on the lawn in front of the school in full view of passersby. We continued our class studies on our own throughout the 3 days. We had support from many of the teachers. Our principal was very angry with me, although our vice-principal was supportive and encouraging. The principle – I forget this name -  forbade me from attending my high school graduation which was fine with me. I observed the ban without regret. Several students carried symbols supporting me through the graduation.  After the walkout, we appeared at our district school board meeting to explain our actions. We were neutrally received.

At the time, I didn’t see that the event taught me that drawing attention to justice issues, while observing tradition (we did not neglect our studies intentionally, we didn’t want the protest to be read as students using an excuse to skip class) is very powerful.

I continue to believe in speaking up and resisting injustice respectfully and without making the opposition an enemy.  I rarely have seen an incident where an individual’s behavior is the root of the problem, but more often it is a system that supports less than cooperative behavior from individuals.

Problem solving is tricky. On one hand, it is an active response to an unjust situtation. The intention of problem solving is a good thing. The arrogance of problem solving is when one person sees big problems and wants everyone to solve them. But they aren’t interested. The challenge is, what do you do with that situation? Resist? Persist? Or walk away? I tried to just accept in a recent situation and it didn’t work because the problems continued. My biggest fear was falling to the level of the problem and fall I did.  I didn’t take Jesus’ recommendation to shake the dust off one’s heels. I stayed and tried to make it work. It didn’t.

Commitment is tricky.   There is honorable, mature, faithful commitment. And there is stupid commitment. Sometimes its hard to figure out which is which, and being a Libra – I can always see both sides of the coin. Arggghhh….

In any case, I have learned that when people aren’t committed to you, its probably not a good idea to commit back!

This last June I took Theology of Ministry. I explored vocation. I learned I have a false sense of vocation – I think stupid commitment is virtuous.

A long time ago when I was a young landscape architect, I was drafting away in an open office with other landscape architects. We were discussing our dream jobs, some of which were quite fanciful. I’ll never forget when Tim McKimmson turned around to me after a particularly flippant comment came out of my immature mouth and said, “when you are given a gift or have a talent, you are responsible to make use of that talent for the good of others.”  I shut up. That one comment has stayed with me and informed my reflections, perspectives and decisions ever since.  John Neafsey echoes my wise professional friend in the opening line of his book A Sacred Voice is Calling.  “Vocation is not only about “me” and my personal fulfillment, but about “us” and the common good.”

In Neafsey’s world we are always in discernment process; listening to ourselves, listening to the world. It is not easy, but by hanging in we can learn to love more deeply and move through our resistances to a more and more authentic life. The theme of interactive responsibility and accountability – to ourselves and to others – is the ying and yang of growth and maturing.

Most comforting to me is Neafsey’s belief that truth speaks in gentle, loving, life- affirming terms. Vocation is to what our love and passion reaches for, and does not come from obligation. Suffering is not the means or the end to vocation. This doesn’t mean we won’t suffer, but reluctantly moving forward because one believes they have a duty or obligation, and that suffering makes fulfilling that obligation more holy, is probably not an authentic and true discernment. “The first question to consider when discerning whether a path or activity is right for us is whether we experience a sense of joy when we are doing it (or thinking about doing it).”

And the idea that vocation could be what would really make me happy; well, this is radical thinking for me. I tend to get into hard situations and believe it’s my lot in life – my martyr complex keeps me tolerating intolerable situations.  “Our sense of vocation is intimately linked o the people and things that move us to passion and compassion. We cannot answer the authenticity question, “Who am I?” without also answering the passion question, “What do I really want?”

The wisdom of this book, along with the guidance of an insightful counselor, has helped me understand that I have stayed in situations I needed to tolerate, and not freed myself to do what God is really calling me to do. My resistances to my heart’s calling may have more to do with stepping out of my suffering comfort zone.  By listening to Neafsey and to myself, I am now moving with faith toward what I’m passionate about and what I love to do.

I didn’t want to go to Japan at first. After Pacific Life Community met in February, Bix asked me to come up to the Tacoma Catholic Worker and talk with him. I went up for the weekend, I think it was in April, and he told me he wanted to make a pilgrimage of repentance in August and did I want to come?  I was focused on trying to make a very difficult job work and was coming home every day depleted. Thinking about planning for a trip was not in my energy field. I said no. Later, I spent some time with my friend John Dear and he thought I was crazy not to go. Then I learned Louie was going. When certain people talk, I’ve learned to listen. So I changed my mind and said yes.

I love Japanese design philosophy. When I was a young landscape architecture student, learning about the origins and symbology of Japanese architecture and garden design expanded and has continued to inform my own work. But if you ask me what countries I want to go to, it’s the more exotic places – anyplace in Africa, India, Thailand, Italy, Greece, Prague, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico City.  Japan was not on my list.

In 2008, I went to London on behalf of Nevada Desert Experience to represent them at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament‘s 50th Birthday convocation. I never wanted to visit London either. I studied Christopher Wren. Rigid, heavy and grey. That’s what I thought about London. Turned out, I absolutely loved London (but still not Christopher Wren, sorry Prince Charles). I’d live there given the chance. So I know better than to follow my prejudice. Japan will probably blow me away.

Part of the deal in Japan, besides bringing lots of clean socks, is to leave 1000 cranes at the memorial sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Initially our group was overwhelmed by folding all those cranes. I wasn’t. Anything with paper, anything fiber art is easy for me.  So they gave me some paper. I bought some more and I started folding.

Cranes at Hiroshima Memorial

I’ve folded cranes before. Folding cranes was the context for the infamous Ode to the Peace Chicken at NDE. I like to fold them for a while, but then I get bored. So I figured I’d fold a few hundred and be done with it.

I folded and folded. It’s good TV work, although I notice that I don’t remember what was on TV the next day. I folded so many that I decided it would be nice to make 1000 cranes and send them back with Mariah for Pax Christi’s action at Los Alamos in August.  I gave 200 to the Journey of Repentance. I kept folding. Now I have folded about 3500 cranes. I can’t stop.

I’m not particularly superstitious. I’d like to be, but I haven’t noticed much difference between circumstances when I follow superstition or not. The outcome seems to be the outcome despite any ritual I might perform. You all know the story of Sadako, but just in case, a quick refresher:

Sadako Sasaki (佐々木 禎子, ) was a two year old Japanese girl who lived near Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  By November 1954, chicken pox had developed on her neck and behind her ears. She was diagnosed with leukemia. Chizuko Hamamoto — Sadako’s best friend — came to the hospital to visit and cut a golden piece of paper into a square and folded it into a paper crane.  Inspired by the crane, she started folding them herself, spurred on by the Japanese saying that one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish. Sadako died in October of 1955, the same month I was born.

Folding cranes is an interesting gesture of hope. Sadako folded cranes and she ended up dying anyway. But I’m not of the opinion, nor does it seem that any folders of cranes are, that not dying is the only form of healing. Moving out of anxiety, frustration, fear, and desperation is healing.Coming into wholeness – that bright spot of acceptance, compassion and love – is healing.  While the myth is that Sadako never finished her cranes, the fact is she did and continued to fold more and more past 1000. Sort of like what I’m doing now.

Just this past week I realized that all this time I’ve been folding cranes I’ve been healing. I’ve finally moved out of a frustrating and seemingly unsolveable situation in my life. It wasn’t the resolution I’d hoped for, but it is a resolution for me and a tremendous burden has been lifted. I’ve learned more about myself, have learned to be more compassionate with me, have learned that vocation and calling can be about joy – not obligation.

So there might be something in that crane folding. In any case, I will continue with the cranes until the Japan journey is over. I’ll finish the Los Alamos set, another one for the Journey of Repentance, one for a friend who lost her husband this year, and will fold one for me while I’m in Japan. I don’t know what I’ll do with the extras.