Just Another Rainy Day in April

I’ve just returned home from a two hour trip to Misawa today, a drive over woodsy mountain roads, snow still lingering under the cover of the deep conifer forests lining the roads, to pay yearly Japanese transportation taxes. We were the last customer to slip in before they closed their doors.

We brought with us, this time, the offending library book – an orange board book called “Opposites” – that had prevented us from borrowing the stack of books we’d chosen last time from the library’s shelves. It’s hard to find good books there, sometimes, amidst the Best Sellers and Neocon Captain-America titles. So, having had put the effort into finding the carefully selected books, only to be rejected at the front desk by the meticulous male Japanese librarian whose fingernails are glossier than mine, because patrons are forbidden to borrow more books if a borrowed book has yet to be returned, to be able to borrow again felt like we’d been vindicated. In the true fashion of someone who has just been allowed to do something once forbidden, we borrowed about 30 books. Hopefully, every book will remain in the library books adjacent to the couch this time — and not find its way underneath the couch this lending period.

I had selected a few books today, but placed them back upon the shelf. They were books that merely affirmed my thoughts instead of presenting a challenge to them. I kept a book on herb gardening, something I’m attempting to do in containers in my concrete yard that is mockingly situated on acres of untouchable rice fields and greenhouses, and an updated AP Stylebook in hopes my herbs will be hearty and my punctuation improved.

In the children’s section, Tom found an audiobook version of Inkheart, a self-contained listening device that we hooked into our stereo, and we listened to six chapters during the winding drive home in the dark. Aiden said it frightened him, although nothing particularly scary has yet happened in the story. The description of the character Dustfinger was a bit menacing, however. To admit he was afraid was to admit that Aiden was listening, a backhanded confession that made me laugh given the protests that had come from the same child’s lips moments before.

Green cloth grocery bags are scattered all over the kitchen floor. It is midnight. My children are still awake. I will put away the perishables, and call it a night. Tomorrow, well, when the sun is up at least, because it is tomorrow already, hopefully before my Saturday completely escapes me, I’ll sort out the items that go into our upstairs make-shift industrial metal shelves pantry and those that will go in the limited space of the Japanese kitchen cupboards. I’m thankful for the inexpensive meats, pasta, canned tomatoes, broths, and baking supplies that can be purchased on the base, but the two hour distance means that we must stock up on such things if we want to have a supply on hand in between infrequent trips.

Tonight, as the children spent their energy on the indoor playground, I talked to an atheist friend for a while. She had many questions for me — mostly about the inconsistency of Christians and about why God does what He does.

Quite simply, there are many confused, inconsistent Christians out there and God can do whatever He pleases, no matter how arbitrary it may seem to us. And, no, I do not think every naturally occurring disaster is because God is trying to punish someone or because He is judging people. Rather, we live in a fallen world, and it’s a wonder any of us are still alive and breathing given the circumstances. God isn’t any less God just because His actions make us uncomfortable.

Before I left, she said, “I hope that you’ll still speak to me and be my friend even though you now know I’m an atheist.” I assured her I would and thanked her for the conversation.