Lessons from Rev. Tom Kurai

On Good Friday, I was fortunate to be introduced to Taiko by one of the masters, Rev. Tom Kurai.  Taiko is Japanese drumming.  Think "Beijing Olympics" and you get the picture.  He wrote soundtracks for movies such as "The Last Samurai" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" as well as music ranging from video games to parts of rock music.  Rev. Tom Kurai founded the Taiko Center in Las Angeles and is the head abbot of the Sozenji Buddhist Temple in Montebello, CA.  Taiko involves so much more than having rhythm.  From the way you stand to the way you hold the bachi (or "sticks" to us Americans), taiko involves the whole person--body, mind, and soul.  

As I listened to Rev. Tom play the taiko and then was able to play myself, I understood the physics principle that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  As the energy flowed from deep within, through my arms, through the bachi, through the drum, returning to my body as vibrations of sound to my ears and movement to my hands, I got it.  I really got it.  If given the chance, I could have played those drums for hours.  I would have exhausted myself, but I would have played until I absolutely could not lift a finger.  It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

As I reflected on this experience throughout Easter weekend, I began to comprehend on an even deeper level what Jesus meant when asked what the greatest commandment was.   "Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment'" (Matthew 22:34-38).  Loving God fully is a whole body experience, with ALL my heart, ALL my soul, ALL my mind.  

I can do the mind thing.  I think all the time.  You could call me a Zen Christian!  Sure I read the Bible and know scripture, but I always have been drawn to verses such as Psalm 49:3 "My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding" and Proverbs 4:7 "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; but with all thy getting, get understanding," and Psalm 19:14  "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." I got it Friday.  I experienced it.  I meditated upon it.  I understood it.

Easter Sunday morning, as I worshiped as part of the Geyer Springs First Baptist Church Celebration Choir, I remembered my experience with Rev. Tom and taiko.  I felt the energy as it flowed from my soul, through my lungs into song. I envisioned it ascending to the throne of God, presented as a gift of gratitude to my Savior, Jesus Christ, and having it returned to me in the form of hope, love, mercy, and grace.  Talk about worship!

Rivers

I spent Monday evening by the river, Arkansas not Ouachita.  Even though I was in the middle of the city with traffic everywhere, I felt such peace.  I always feel peaceful at a river.  I realized I love rivers more than lakes or oceans.  Rivers are more contained than an ocean.  I can look from one bank to another.  I can see the boundaries of the river.  That is comforting to me.  However, rivers are not as confined as lakes.  Rivers flow, rather than being enclosed by dams or mountains.  Whether in a canoe or on a yacht, travel is possible on a river.  I feel neither stuck nor overwhelmed.  I have a choice to sit and watch it flow by or use it as a means of adventure. 

However, I realized last night that rivers touch me in a deeper, more spiritual way.  One of my favorite passages in Joshua 3:1-4: 
¹ Then Joshua rose early in the morning; and they set out from Acacia Grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over. ² So it was, after three days, that the officers went through the camp; ³ and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. ⁴ Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.” (KJV) 

This passage has been such a comfort to me at different times in my life.  When I felt God moving in my life, all I had to do was keep a reverential distance but stay close enough to see His leading because I may not have traveled this way before, but He has.  He knows what I have been through, and He knows what lies ahead. 

And where exactly were the children of Israel in that passage in Joshua?  They were about to cross the Jordan River into the land God had promised them.  They literally were at the point of claiming God's promise; all they had to do was follow. That is easier said than done.  Even with God's promise within reach, acting can be quite anxiety provoking.  After all, it's change, and change is stressful.  They were about to cross the Jordan River and enter the promised land and  God was leading the way not just as a guide but as an advanced guard.  Joshua 3: 7-13:
⁷ And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. ⁸ Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’”
 ⁹ Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. ¹⁰ This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. ¹¹ See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. ¹² Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. ¹³ And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

As with the Israelites, God knows what is awaiting me.  And, just as the Israelites, I have my battles to fight, some within myself, some with others, but God leads the way.  God knows the battlefield and enemy better than I, even when that enemy is myself.  When He leads the way, I can choose to pass through the river, or I can choose to stay behind in my old way and not claim tha promise He has waiting for me.  When I choose to pass through the river, sometimes I pass through on dry land, with no problems, because God is standing in the way, holding back all that will flood me, just as He did for the Israelites.  During those times, I may never know from what all I am being protected because He is shielding me.  "And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap" (Joshua 3:15).  I have no idea what all troubles stand in a heap because He stood in the way. 

However, sometimes I pass through the river and get wet, all wet, the head to toe soaked to the bone kind of wet that leaves no doubt to myself or anyone who sees me that I'm  completely saturated.  Sometimes, this passing through the river is voluntary; sometimes it is not.  Voluntary or not, it is necessary.

Naaman was a powerful leader of the powerful army of Aram.  He was well respected by his leaders and by the people whom he led.  But no matter how powerful and respected he was, he had leprosy (2 Kings 5: 1).  A young girl from Israel had been taken captive and served Naaman's wife.  She said she wished her master could go see the prophet in Israel because she knew he could cure Naaman of his leprosy.  The king of Aram sent word to the king of Israel that Naaman would be arriving.  The king of Israel was very upset, thinking that he was being set up because he knew he could not cure leprosy.  Elisha, however, instructed the king to send Naaman to him.

When Naaman arrived, Elisah sent word via a messenger to “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed" (2 Kings 5: 10).  This did not set too well with Naaman.  First, Naaman was a bit put out that Elisha did not speak with him directly.  After all, he was an important man.  How dare Elisha simply send a messenger!  Second, Naaman was looking for something a bit more flashy.  "But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy" (2 Kings 5: 11).  He was expecting God to work in an obviously spectacular way.  Third, the Jordan isn't exactly the cleanest of rivers.  Naaman said, " 'Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?' So he turned and went off in a rage" (2 Kings 5: 12).   

For Naaman, his pride almost cost him his healing from leprosy.  "Naaman’s servants went to him and said, 'My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed!'  So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy" (2 Kings 5: 13-14).  However, Naaman not only received healing from his leprosy, he received faith in Jehova God.  ^"Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, 'Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel'" (2 Kings 5:15).

How many times have I been like Naaman!  I come to God with a dire need and I expect God to work or lead in a certain way, and when He doesn't, I doubt and get angry.  I don't like what may be required of me for my need to be met.  I want it done the way I want it and when I want it.  Basically, pride gets in my way and I risk missing the amazing blessing God has in store for me, and I risk missing the affirmation that God is God, the great "I AM," and the relief of knowing that "I am NOT."  My pride and stubborness keeps me from seeing the awesomeness of God.  However, when I yield to what I did not want or expect, sometimes after gentle edification from friends, I am at peace.  It may take a while, but I eventually get there.

Then there are times in my life when I voluntarily enter the river as a testimony to Whose I am.  My first entry into the river was baptism, my first public act of service and declaration of my faith in Christ.  Since then, other times I've voluntarily stepped into the river have been leaps of faith, even when that leap was to be still and know that He is God. 

Finally, I think it is beyond coincidence that the Jordan River plays such a significant role.  Ragardless of whether it was the place of healing as with Naaman or the place of promise as with the Israelites, the Jordan is important.  It's not just any old river; it is the river in which Christ was baptized.  Both healing and promise were found in the river because it is a symbol of the source of true healing and promise, Christ.

From now on, my river experiences never will be the same.  Whether watching peacfully from the bank, taking a refreshing swim, floating lazily in a canoe, or turning over in a canoe (which does happen with regularity), this metaphor will be with me as a reminder that this life is but a mere reflection of the deeper, more meaningful spiritual life.  After an encounter with Christ, I am never the same...

Laura, this is for you...

My dear friend, Laura Robertson (whom I met after my son knocked out her son and gave him a concussion...long story) wrote a wonderful post in her blog about her testimony. (Her blog is linked to mine.  Just click "Written Not with Ink" and that's her.)  After I commented on what a SUPERB job she did, I get this friendly little thank you with a "Oh and this is your friendly encouragement - write a post dangit" note on my Facebook wall.  SO, Laura, this is for you.

I wish I could say my testimony was as vanilla as Laura's.  (Read hers first and you'll know what I mean.)  To carry on her analogy, Baskin Robbins ain't got enough flavors to cover mine!  No, I've never done illegal drugs or anything like that.  However, I've always said that Paul wrote he was the "chiefest of sinners" only because I hadn't been born yet.  It's not that my life has been "bad" or anything like that.  It's just that, unlike Laura, I have had lots of struggles with my faith, and still do.

When I was 6, Mom and I were on our way home from a revival meeting at church (Dad was working).  Baptists are like Resuscitator Annie, always needing to be revived.  We got revived at least once a year.  Mom and I had driven one block from the church, and I blurted out, "Take me back, Momma!  I'm going to hell!"  So, we went back to talk with our pastor, Bro. Sutton.  (Now, I had talked to Bro. Sutton about a year previously one night after a baptism, but that's just because I wanted to be baptised because it looked like swimming inside and I thought that would be really cool!)  I remember sitting in the secretary's office talking with Bro. Sutton.  Mom was with me.  I remember praying, and when I finished, the choir was rehearsing for the next evening's song.  They were singing, "The King is Coming" and I looked up and said, "And I'm ready."  

I've always thought too much.  As I got into Junior High, I really began wondering about God, Jesus, and all of what I was hearing.  I would go to church camp and see people get really excited, but it would only last a couple of weeks and they'd be like they were before they went.  I would watch people work and work in the church only to complain about who wasn't helping.  I wondered if this really weren't some way of controlling the masses, you know?  Spiritual crowd control.  Or some big recruiting thing, like "Be on our team and this is what you'll get."  Being someone who really doesn't like confrontation, I'd go along and usually be happy, but I'd always wonder.  The more I learned, the less I knew.  

But a curious thing always happened to me. It happened then and continues to happen to this day.  I believe it is God's unique way of reassuring me in the way I need that He is real.  It seems like every time I seen someone in need of comfort, HE is what comes to mind.  In 9th grade, we had "The Jupiter Effect," the day all the planets aligned.  Some people thought the gravitational pull would tear the planet apart.  Me?   I was just nervous about playing for the choirs at competition that day.  It was the last period when we arrived back at school, and I went to my last class.  I saw a friend of mine named April sitting on a table looking very worried. I asked her what was wrong and she talked about being afraid to die.  She asked me if I were.  I said, "Nope."  Just like that, it fell out of my mouth.  She asked why. I shared with her the love of Christ and she accepted Him as Savior right there in the junior high cafeteria.

That summer, a friend named Lisa went to Music Camp with me.  After our cabin devotional one night, I noticed Lisa went straight to the bathroom. I followed her.  We went to a nearby cabin that was empty.  I asked her what was bothering her.  Stupid me...I thought it was a guy or something!  She said, "I don't know what anyone is talking about when they say they are saved.  Saved from what?"  Again, I just told her of the love of Christ, and she accepted Him as Savior.

Fast forward to my last year in graduate school.  A friend of mine named Beth was driving us back from the prison where we worked.  It was a rainy Friday afternoon.  She recently had a death in her family and asked if I were scared to die. "Nope," again came right out of my mouth. She asked why, and I simply shared the love of Christ.  As soon as we were out of the construction zone, Beth pulled over to the shoulder of I-10 and, in the rain, accepted Christ as Savior.

Just a few months ago, I had two patients, one my last patient on Thursday and the other my first patient on Friday, ask me "Just who is Jesus."  I told them and they both accepted Him as Savior. One said, "I never knew that God's love was Jesus!"  

I don't recount these times because I'm some sort of uber soul winner "on fire for God."  No, I recount these for a very different reason.  You see, in each of these, and in countless others, when my faith was at its lowest, God affirmed to me who HE is by humbling me to share Him with others.  Their reactions are undeniable.  They weren't merely interested; they were CHANGED!  This is no coincidence.  This is God demonstrating His love toward us, toward me.

So, how am I sure God is real?  Every time someone who is confused, hurting, scared, doubting...in whatever state they were, they responded the same way when I told them that Jesus loved them enough to die for them.  When I doubt, God puts someone in my life toward whom I feel an overwhelming unction to share Christ, and their response is the same, and my faith is strengthened.

God affirms His presence when I humble myself, get out of the way, and let Him do the work because His work is far better than anything I could ever do.

So, Laura, if you're vanilla, think of me as the mint chocolate chip and gold medal ribbon with hot fudge, caramel, butterscotch toppings whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry to top it all off!

Why Some Christians Keep Me In Business!!!

I really shouldn't read my hometown newspaper, but I did.  I had just woken up from a hydrocodone induced nap with my knee on which I had surgery yesterday throbbing and my head hanging off the side of the love seat pillow.  I may have even been drooling.  I staggered on my crutches to my Mom's table to try and wake up and I read one article about a nearby school board and it was really ticking me off (won't go into those details).  So, I turned the page and read this title: "Free of Charge, a Non-Medical Cure for Depression."  Sure enough, it was by a guest columnist who is a retired PASTOR!  (How did I know? I would grit my teeth but I'd bite my tongue that's in my cheek.)  Well, I just had to write.  I wanted to write a letter to the editor, but my mom gave me one of those looks, so I decided to write in my blog for now.  The letter may still be in me.


To summarize the article, if you have Jesus you'll never be depressed, and a person cannot have conflicting emotions at the same time.  The retired pastor wrote, "Few know about (this claim based upon a promise made by Jesus) because most of the 85 percent of the American people who claim to believe in the Bible have neglected to read it."  Well, I must be part of the 15% who do read it, and I wonder what Bible the retired pastor is reading because it ain't the same as mine!  Honestly, I don't even know where to begin in response to his article, so I'll just start from the beginning and work my way to the end.

Ignorance is understandable.  A person is ignorant when they lack knowledge or training in a particular subject.  I am ignorant in a lot of areas because it is knowledge I have never been taught or researched on my own.  Ignorance can be fixed or overcome by providing a person with necessary information.

Senseless, on the other hand, is failing to use reason and sound, practical intelligence even after being presented with the information needed to no longer qualify someone as ignorant.  Dogma received without question is senseless to me.  Dogma can easily become "the commandments of men" Jesus referred to in Matthew 15 when he said, "Why do you trangress the commandment of God because of your tradition...Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.  Hypocrites!  Well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying, 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men'" (Matthew 15:3b, 6b-9).  I have to wonder how many of the statements made in this article were traditions passed down rather than truly researched.


To believe that depression can be cured by salvation is as ludicrous as believing cancer or high blood pressure can be as well!  Dear Mr. Retired Pastor, depression is an illness, not just a blah day. It has specific criteria that must be met, criteria that have nothing to do with one's spiritual state.  It is debilitating on its own, without having "Good Christians" like you adding to it through senseless, misplaced GUILT!!!


Do you have any idea how much of my practice is spent trying to undo damage done by "well-intentioned Christians" such as yourself?  It practically keeps me in business!  From the grief-stricken who have to hear "It was God's will" to the devastated who endure "God won't put more on you that you can bear," I hear day in and day out the pain and agony that "well-intentioned Christians" put people through simply because they cannot manage their own anxiety enough to keep their mouth shut!  They feel it is their duty or that God is leading them to say something of comfort, so they open their mouths and this unscriptural drivel runs out!  


Why unscriptural?  First, just how do they know what is God's will and what isn't?  “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9).  Sounds like He knows His will a lot better than we do.  And the whole "God won't put more on you than you can bear" bit, try II Corinthians 1:8-9: "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."   Sounds rather depressed to me.  He promised that we would not be tempted without a means of resisting; He never made the same promise about burdens.


And about this rubbish about not being able to feel more than one emotion at a time?  Do you have any scripture or evidence to back that up?  No?  I do.  First of all, have you ever talked to someone who is grieving?  Have you ever sat with them through trying to comprehend how they can feel such profound sadness and relief at the same time?  I have, too many times to count.  I have talked with parents who have lost children, siblings who have lost siblings, spouses who have lots mates, and the list goes on and on. I have held their hands as they try and grasp all the complex and contradictory emotions that are flooding over then like a tsunami carrying devastation in its wake, trying desperately to drown out the impact of words thrown out by well-intentioned Christians who can't just sit and let someone cry.  "Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent, discerning, when he seals his lips" (Proverbs 17:28 HCSB).  Or, as Abraham Lincoln paraphrased, "It's better for a man to think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."


I have no doubt...