毛糸 Thoughts

I have finally finished reading Jesus Among Other Gods, by apologetics scholar Ravi Zacharias. I found it interesting, but it wasn't the book I thought it would be. In fact, the things I was hoping he would address, he let me know in the introduction that he wished he had more time to address. D'oh.

But I found a number of ideas he presented fresh, and it has certainly inspired me to think in a few different ways that before. Influx of fresh thought is not always beautiful, but certainly challenging.

For example, one thing that remains with me is the concept of secondary belief and doubt. For example, many scornful criticisms are leveled against people who take on the same faith as their parents--that they have no legitimate faith of their own, and are only copying what their parents say--however, Zacharias points out, this is equally true of secondary doubt--we doubt something because we heard it from someone, who may have heard it from someone else. We haven't actually done the research to fuel our own doubt; it is largely indefensible past the first rush of opinion.

I will hopefully be trying to continue to digest a lot more of what he wrote, but those are matters not for this journal.

In other news, I went to the spectacular Miho Museum today, which is located in the middle of the mountains, owned (so I hear) by a cult dedicated to beauty, and totally took my breath away. (When I regained it, it was pine scented, with the song of Japanese nightingales (鴬 --うぐいす) warbling through the warm air, while tiny petals of late-blooming sakura blowing past me in the wind). I plan on returning many times. At only a thousand yen for the door price (largely to pay for the armful of informational brochures in ENGLISH that I picked up!), definitely.

The exhibit that we(myself and a fellow JET friend) visited first (and by far the largest one) was one (largely) borrowed from a museum in China. It featured mostly figurines from tombs of Chinese royalty, to accompany them to the afterlife and serve them. The displays were done so well. Whether it was the lighting or my own hyperactive imagination, I felt that if I looked hard enough, I might be startled (or pleased) if one turned an ancient ceramic head to regard me directly, wink maybe. ;) (I could write about this for hours, I'll quit while I'm ahead!)

I will note that I went to an art show the other weekend in Kyoto (a quite random adventure all its own), featuring famous Japanese painters, like Taikan Yokoyama and Shinsui Ito, and ceramist Kanjiro Kawai and Rosanjin Kitaoji. I left feelilng bewildered, like after conversations with El Pintor Maravilloso and his sidekick, Ball of Bread Boy, both artists. I felt like I needed some background on the style of painting, pottery and ceramics and all of that to even appreciate some of the stuff there. I honestly didn't think some of it was that great. "And he's famous becaaaaause.....?" Yeah, I'm a Neanderthal. The Uneducated, Unwashed Masses of Disappreciation. Except for a few. One of which features several beautiful horses under blooming wisteria, one led by a stern man, and the second by a boy. The pottery, looking like blobs of pot-like things rejected by the 1970s for being color-abhorrent, would be the ones I can't appreciate. Really.

And maybe this shows my biases. Because I wouldn't admit that the ceramic horses and figures I saw today were particularly awe-inspiring because of the incredible skill involved, or because they were by some famous artist, but because they were the words remaining from a very old story, and maybe if I looked and listened hard enough, I might catch a few words breathed into my ear.

But then again, some of the exhibits on display showed skill and craftsmanship enough to leave me speechless, wishing I knew more, to deepen my understanding of what I was looking at. ("That's really beautiful," we said again and again, "Did you see that detail there? Did you see that?")

It was all very inspiring, and made me absolutely mad with the high of being exposed to new things, being shown roads, real and metaphorical, I never knew existed. I didn't hitchhike home, but I should have. Next time I will.