Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year

There are certain things that go with celebrating the New Year in Japan.  Sending cards to folks (we just had a delivery of cards from some of our Japanese friends), deep cleaning of the home, and specific decorations.  Last year we bought a small new year's "good luck" door decoration, and in typical foreigner fashion left it up too long.  Our neighbors politely told us in late February that it was okay to take it down.

The decorations represent longevity, prosperity and steadfastness, respectively. The fundamental function of the New Year ceremonies is to honor and receive the deity, who will then bring a bountiful harvest for farmers and bestow the ancestors' blessing on everyone."

I don't embrace all of the Japanese spirituality, but I like the idea of cleaning house and setting out items that tell the Deity you are ready to receive  blessing.  I can appreciate the idea that prosperity--in the Hebrew scriptures understanding of prosperity (shalom for the whole community)--is dependent upon our recognition of God's movement in our lives.

Today we have been cleaning the kitchen and baking cookies and cakes to take into the USO center on base to feed the unaccompanied folks who have no other place to go, and to give them something close to home-baked.  It's part of cleaning out the old to make room for the new (but the "old" isn't out dated food-stuffs) just a pattern of eating we--or maybe more accurately, I--want to move away from.

Cleaning house is a way of saying, I'm letting go of what has been in order to make room of what can be.  It's a very Lenten approach to the New Year and I like that.  I connect with the embodiment of spirituality and maybe if we made the celebration of the New Year more than just a list of things to check off, that our interest in change may become a commitment.