rest, church, home
My final Saturday in Tokyo was uneventful, spent relaxing, catching up on some sleep, reading, taking a bike ride, and doing some preliminary packing.
Sunday returned me to worship at Mitaka Evangelical Church, with its liturgy, sermon, and celebration of the Lord's Supper, all made easier for an English-speaker by the provision of an English order of service and Psalmbook:
That afternoon I led a second two-hour lecture and discussion with a number of people from the church, this time giving a historical overview of the development of Reformed theology within the 16th and 17th centuries, from the time of early Reformation up until the writing of the Westminster Standards. While I did trace developments, I also discussed number of different issues of ongoing debate and theological diversity within that period, ranging from worship practices to covenant theology. Hopefully the talk was helpful for understanding some of the issues at work in the development of the Reformed tradition. The questioned raised by the people there were certainly thoughtful and helpful.
On Monday, the Smiths drove Ben and me out to Narita airport for our respective flights back to the United States. I had more opportunity to explore the airport on this occasion and was impressed by some of its architectural detail, as well as how clean and well-maintained it seemed. These pictures are details of an enormous monolith covered with color glass tiles that occupies the center of the terminal we were in:
The personnel at Narita, I must say, are also very well-trained, polite, and friendly. I mention this in particular due to a wee bit of a mishap I unintentionally caused at the carry-on security gate. The Smiths had given me a lovely gift, nicely wrapped up in Japanese-print gift-wrapping with a bow, that I had deposted in a carry-on bag with a number of other wrapped gifts. What had entirely slipped my mind while packing was the fact that the gift was a foot-long Japanese chef's knife.
Thus I was rather alarmed when, while re-pocketing my coins and keys on the other side of the X-ray machine, I looked up to see what was clearly a dangerous weapon filling the entire X-ray monitor and the security agent peering over her shoulder at me. I probably turned several different shades of color as I fully expected to be interrogated, clapped in irons, or something equally unpleasant. Instead, however, a security officer very quietly and politely asked whether, if I didn't mind terribly, I could retrieve the package from the bag and deposit it in a secure container he was holding out. I was all to happy to have the offending item out of my hands and repeated several times, I think, "Yes, take it, please, take it away."
Fortunately, Ben was close at hand and able to speak to the security guard in Japanese, explaining that the knife was gift, that his parents were still in the terminal, and could he return it to them so they could mail get to me at a later point. The guard kindly obliged and Ben disappeared to return the knife to his folks.
In contrast with my somewhat stressed mood at that moment, I offer a photograph of a unperturbed flower that was growing in the terminal:
The flight home was in two legs, one from Tokyo to San Fransisco (I can now say I've been to California) and the other from San Franscisco to Newark, New Jersey. Since the bulk of the first leg was spent over the Pacific Ocean, the view was largely unremarkable, though I did get a good look at the west coast of the US and the mountains around San Francisco Bay. The second leg gave me a sense of the size of the country and the variety of landscape, though I spent quite a bit of it chatting with a very pleasant young couple from Sweden we were visiting the States as tourists.
I finally arrived at Newark about 40 minutes later than scheduled and made my way to the Airport Train Station:
And from there I caught an Amtrak train home to Philadelphia where, despite the circadian confusion of jetlag, I was able to once again enjoy sleeping in the comfort of my own bed.
(end; return to introduction)
Sunday returned me to worship at Mitaka Evangelical Church, with its liturgy, sermon, and celebration of the Lord's Supper, all made easier for an English-speaker by the provision of an English order of service and Psalmbook:
That afternoon I led a second two-hour lecture and discussion with a number of people from the church, this time giving a historical overview of the development of Reformed theology within the 16th and 17th centuries, from the time of early Reformation up until the writing of the Westminster Standards. While I did trace developments, I also discussed number of different issues of ongoing debate and theological diversity within that period, ranging from worship practices to covenant theology. Hopefully the talk was helpful for understanding some of the issues at work in the development of the Reformed tradition. The questioned raised by the people there were certainly thoughtful and helpful.
On Monday, the Smiths drove Ben and me out to Narita airport for our respective flights back to the United States. I had more opportunity to explore the airport on this occasion and was impressed by some of its architectural detail, as well as how clean and well-maintained it seemed. These pictures are details of an enormous monolith covered with color glass tiles that occupies the center of the terminal we were in:
The personnel at Narita, I must say, are also very well-trained, polite, and friendly. I mention this in particular due to a wee bit of a mishap I unintentionally caused at the carry-on security gate. The Smiths had given me a lovely gift, nicely wrapped up in Japanese-print gift-wrapping with a bow, that I had deposted in a carry-on bag with a number of other wrapped gifts. What had entirely slipped my mind while packing was the fact that the gift was a foot-long Japanese chef's knife.
Thus I was rather alarmed when, while re-pocketing my coins and keys on the other side of the X-ray machine, I looked up to see what was clearly a dangerous weapon filling the entire X-ray monitor and the security agent peering over her shoulder at me. I probably turned several different shades of color as I fully expected to be interrogated, clapped in irons, or something equally unpleasant. Instead, however, a security officer very quietly and politely asked whether, if I didn't mind terribly, I could retrieve the package from the bag and deposit it in a secure container he was holding out. I was all to happy to have the offending item out of my hands and repeated several times, I think, "Yes, take it, please, take it away."
Fortunately, Ben was close at hand and able to speak to the security guard in Japanese, explaining that the knife was gift, that his parents were still in the terminal, and could he return it to them so they could mail get to me at a later point. The guard kindly obliged and Ben disappeared to return the knife to his folks.
In contrast with my somewhat stressed mood at that moment, I offer a photograph of a unperturbed flower that was growing in the terminal:
The flight home was in two legs, one from Tokyo to San Fransisco (I can now say I've been to California) and the other from San Franscisco to Newark, New Jersey. Since the bulk of the first leg was spent over the Pacific Ocean, the view was largely unremarkable, though I did get a good look at the west coast of the US and the mountains around San Francisco Bay. The second leg gave me a sense of the size of the country and the variety of landscape, though I spent quite a bit of it chatting with a very pleasant young couple from Sweden we were visiting the States as tourists.
I finally arrived at Newark about 40 minutes later than scheduled and made my way to the Airport Train Station:
And from there I caught an Amtrak train home to Philadelphia where, despite the circadian confusion of jetlag, I was able to once again enjoy sleeping in the comfort of my own bed.
(end; return to introduction)
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