Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning I head off to the Cathedral near the Tokyo tower. My time there is very different from the local church where I am based, the culture is office based: there are office hours, as well as the usual additional tasks of a priest. Church members expect their Cathedral priests to be in the office if they aren’t out on a task. Very different indeed and not a model of priestly presence I can appreciate very much. However the experience comes hand in hand with a true commuter experience for me.
At 6 in the morning I’m on the train for an hour’s commute to be in time for the early morning Eucharist. Everyone goes to work silently at that time, thousands of people are moving through the city on a dozen underground lines, crowded jaw to jaw at times, then flowing silently through the streets like some large liquid machine that their nation owns.
It was both awe inspiring, and saddening, to observe as a newcomer, the ease with which we can dehumanize ourselves.
In Japan, although that does fit the national spirit where the group comes before the individual, it is terrifying to think how much creative, precious people can be marshalled into uniformity. When you see it, the fears of neighbouring countries about the strengthening of national identity here.can be easily understood.
Today, I waited for a bus to get to my language class. It’s a half hour journey. I was a little early for the bus (they are exact about running usually), so I had a little time to reflect (for once). Half nine in the morning, The silent liquid machine was still running at full speed, each underground train disgorging its contents onto the street. I couldn’t help feeling they were passing something potentially precious as they streamed passed the Cathedral area.
So many people pass the Cathedral, it saddens me that the church is sitting there seemingly serving only its own interests. Unfortunately the church here seems a group apart with very limited access to society. It is inward looking (at least in the healthiest sense of the term) with its creativity stymied. Most of its energy is spent on worship services and vast amounts of contact time with church members afterwards, so that, important though those things are, I’m not surprised that nothing resembling outreach has yet been seen after two months of being here. It saddens me, and I feel the resistance here to learning from what I am and I feel there is no wish to explore, only the concern of what they already are. That being said, the kindness of the members here is superb, and I see the desire to do more among some of the priests. Perhaps as time goes on, there will be change. Here the church suffers the same dwindling numbers of priests as in the UK. In this Diocese for example half the priests are due to retire sometime soon. There are only a few tens to start with. I always think that is a good thing, for any church anywhere. The pressure builds until someone somewhere is creative enough to say there is a problem (we’re all clever enough to see there is a problem), and then we’re left waiting some more until someone somewhere dares to get the creative box of paints out and do something different, and most often that happens outside the mechanisms of normal decision making.
So here is to the removal of the giant silent liquid machine everyone can become. It’s 1pm here now. And I see individuals scurrying about choosing a variety of office lunches from the convenience stores, chatting in a lively way with one another. There is human spirit, and from it can come new things. It is important. Let’s not see it squashed.
Nine Hours Ahead... 