Relationship is life.

It's so nice to have some friends. It's transformed my life I would say, for the better. No man is to be an island and all that... (even if About a Boy claims he is Ibiza, my life alone is more like Hokkaido: cold and a bit bleak :-)

There's three girls from my course and we're now a little group of four, on Fridays, when we have what has developed into our weekly lunch together, and others sometimes join us too. Last Saturday we went sightseeing together too, and we tried to this afternoon today after our lunch, but it didn't work out as the buses were too crammed.

I've also now got a little selection of Japanese friends, so I feel just within two months I've reached my quota of friends, but I'll see how God develops things as he might have other plans of course. The lady I met in the cafe last Sunday has invited me to a J-League football game next Saturday, whatever that is, so I've told her I can come! and Yuki, mthe other girl I met, has also emailed so that will hopefully be another regular thing.

One of the girls in my class said something very surprising to me today. We were doing an example in japanese (we were in a pair, working together), and there was a picture of someone crying and we had to guess (in Japanese) why that person was crying. She said, 'Yes, I've never understood why people cry.' It astonished, no ASTOUNDED, me to hear that. I'm sure she's not had a smooth background either; her family it would seem may have been through some heartache. So to hear such a view! I remembered that even Jesus wept, on Lazurus' death, so it's not a bad thing to cry. Maybe she's seen so much change in her life (which she has) that pain can no longer touch her. Or maybe she thought crying is pointless, not achieving anything. But even that is not true, as life is not about tasks only, but about relationship, with others and also with ourselves as we figure out where we stand with people and how we fit into the world. Those times can bring heartache; they are not 'useless' times, as I believe through going through such emotions we can grow and move on even. That has been the case for me at least. Life without tears might be happier, but this is not the life we are living in yet, and tears can be an exression of that tension.

I recently discovered a great blog site by a lady called Mary in America, and she has written about the tension as Christians that we have between joy in the Lord and sadness at the hurting world around us (and sometimes in us too, if we're truthful). I agreed with what she wrote. See Novermber 22nd entry: http://missmaryb.blogspot.com/