Dark Night of the Soul

I borrowed (read "stole") the phrase from dear friends Dan and Mary Lou Kline, who wrote me a few days ago my difficulties here, but it seemed so appropriate in view of the experience I had last night.

This will be another of those long narratives, but it's so crucial for you to see what really goes on in Japan... and it's a strange, unsettling one... but please bear with me.

Last night I had what I think was the worst night of my life, all 25 years. It started out fine - I had spent the day with my good Japanese friend Aki, wearing a real kimono (!) and having traditional New Year's food with her family. I even met her grandparents and we got down on our knees on the tatami floor, still wearing kimonos (not as easy as it sounds), bowing with our faces to the ground, palms in front like a triangle in the formal position. Wow.

As Aki's mom pulled out the boxes full of kimono pieces and layers, she had me come stand in the tiny tatami (grass mat) floor in a room I had never seen before. The room was small, with white paper doors, and as she slid the doors open I gaped at the huge butsedon lining one entire wall. A butsedon is, as best as I can describe it, a shrine of sorts prepared for someone who has died. Living relatives buy large, expensive wooden or lacquer boxes sort of like bookshelves that hold (as in this case) carved Buddha statues, jars and ceramic bowls for incense, incense sticks, along with pictures of the deceased person. Usually the butsedon has an urn for the dead person's ashes, along with things the person liked. This one had Aki's father's watch, two packs of Cabin cigarettes, unopened New Year's cards, and all kinds of Buddhist charms and amulets. There were vases of fresh flowers and a purple cushion (obviously used) for praying in front of the Buddhas.

Quite a foreboding site.

It was a shock to see the butsedon because I had never, ever, in all my three months of visiting Aki's house seen even a hint of anything Buddhist, anything that even remotely smacked of spiritualism in any form. Butsedons are so common that I was surprised NOT to see one and thought maybe Aki's family was more open to non-traditional things (i.e. the gospel) than I had imagined.

Apparently not so...

As Aki's mom patiently dressed me in the beautiful kimono, straightening and tying on each silken piece with precise detail, I couldn't get the butsedon out of my mind. There was a big photo of Aki's smiling father, and the smell of incense was soft but powerful. I stared at the open pack of Cabin cigarettes.

I forgot about everything but kimonos and snow and tea shops during the day... until we were all sitting around the table watching Japanese TV. Aki's mom went into the tatami room and started pulling out blankets and mats for my bed. It still didn't register to me until I realized she was laying them out against the wall in the little tatami room - right in front of the butsedon.

How can this be happening? I remember thinking, panicking. She can't really think I would be able to sleep in there with Aki's father's ashes!

But yet there she was, rolling out mats the floor. There were two mats, one for me and one for Aki. I was slightly relieved to know that Aki would be in there, too, but when we turned out the lights, it was like a scene from a horror movie - orange lights around the Buddhas that shone eerily, the black silhouettes of altars and charms. I couldn't bring myself to look at her father's picture or any part of the shrine itself.

I tried not to think how close I was to it. One hand in front of me reached the wall, and my feet could touch the shrine. I curled them up and tried not to think about it.

But as Aki slid the doors shut and then fell asleep, I was overwhelmed at the presence of... something indescribable, something dark. The orange lights reflected on the white walls. The family's four dogs snored loudly in the other room, sometimes rising in crescendos of frightening sounds like a growl. I smelled incense.

I couldn't bring myself to look at the butsedon, not even for an instant, and thanked God my feet were to it and prayed to fall asleep.

Sleep did not come.

I was not afraid, as such, since I know that Christ who dwells in me has already conquered Satan, demons, anything evil. He is in me, and I need not fear.

I remembered His words in Luke 10 when the seventy-two returned "with joy" and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name" (v. 17)

Jesus replied, "...Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (v. 20).

But in that eerie stillness, broken by snarling snores of the dogs in the nearby living room, I did rejoice! For the only thing standing between me and evil was Christ, who died so that I might enjoy His peace, His protection, His promises.

I remembered also, with relief I have never experienced, the words of the apostle John: "...The one who was born of God keeps (the believer) safe, AND THE EVIL ONE CANNOT HARM HIM" (1 John 5:18).

As minutes turned into hours, I lay awake, unable to sleep.

I begged God.

I bargained with God.

I confessed sin.

I argued with God.

Still no sleep came.

I mentally sang hymns, quoted verses in whispers, tossed and turned from side to side in an effort to do something, anything, that would bring precious sleep and let me forget the wickedness I felt.

I was angry; obviously the spirit world was, too, at this intruder into their home. The orange light flickered on the walls, sometimes as I whispered the name of Jesus. Aki murmured Japanese phrases in her sleep. The dogs moaned, nails clawing the floor. Sometimes their sighs sounded like words, phrases, clipped and unintelligible. I heard other voices, far off, with inflections that sounded unlike Japanese. Whether they came from Aki's mom and sister down the hall, the dogs, or families below or above, I do not know... I just know that I lay there, eyes closed, thinking prayers and thanking God I could not understand the voices.

Never in my life has the power of God been so real, so desperately real, the only thread holding me together. I clung to it with everything I had.

Then the unthinkable happened - Aki left. I heard her wake, dress, and get her car keys for her part-time newspaper job. "I'll leave at three in the morning and come back at four," she had told me earlier.

And she left. I was totally alone in the dim light of the Buddhas.

The sound of the dogs' claws echoed in my mind.

I felt abandoned by everyone, even God. How could He do this to me? How could He leave me alone in this room with a dead man's ashes and Buddhist talismans lining the wall?

But praise Him for never taking His spirit from me as He promised: "I am with you ALWAYS" (Matthew 28:20).

I crawled over to my bag and dug out my Bible, without looking at the shrine, and carried it back to my mat. The light was too dim to read, but I held it there in the dark. Biblical images leapt into my mind: "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" (Ephesians 6:17) and "the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword..." (Hebrews 4:12).

Buddha may have his amulets, but I have the Sword that "penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow" (Hebrews 4:12).

New visions of light and darkness came to mind. "If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' EVEN THE DARKNESS WILL NOT BE DARK TO YOU; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You" (Pslam 139:11-12).

And from 1 John: "God is light; in Him there is NO DARKNESS at all" (1:5).

I pleaded with God to save me, to save Japan, to save this precious family that slept within these walls. Aki's mother had so lovingly dressed me, a foreigner, on her knees in her own kimono... now I was on my knees for her.

The isolation was unbearable, so I prayed out loud. I sang hymns. The dogs snarled and moaned louder.

Minutes ticked by like lead... I asked God to deliver me from this hellish place, where darkness wrapped around me like a tomb. Still no sleep.

This verse ran through my mind in the hours of darkness that followed: "The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid" (Psalm 118:6).

I prayed for God to give me the "power, love and sound mind" He spoke of in 2 Timothy 1:7 instead of fear. He had used those words to bring me to Japan; Keigo's hachimake with "fighting spirit" emblazoned in white hangs in my room.

I would have given almost anything to be in my own room, Heidi's and my apartment, filled with the peace of God that shines from every corner. Sleep comes gently there. I am not afraid.

Aki returned after what seemed an eternity, and I was comforted by her presence. But the comfort didn't last long. She fell asleep instantly; I continued to lie awake.

As the sleepless hours crawled by, I cried out to God. This was too much. I have had it with Japan. I am ready to go home.

I did not sleep until sometime around six in the morning when I heard Aki's sister get up and make tea in the kitchen. When I opened my eyes again, sun was pouring into the room. Beautiful, beautiful, bright sun.

Somewhere during the night I had begged God, if He would not let me sleep, to let there be a reason...

In the blur of meeting friends, catching buses and going to the doctor I pushed the dark images of the night away - until I set my bags down in my own genkan, in my own wonderful, peaceful, God-filled apartment.

I poured out my story to Heidi, and as we talked, I had my answer: God had let me taste the sinister underside of Japan's spiritual void.

Japan's darkness is so real, so thick you can almost touch it. It permeates everything. But it's subtle, deceitful, hiding in the shadows so you would almost think it isn't there.

It is hidden behind the gloss of new subways and fancy cameras, crisp suits on businessmen and clean, crime-free streets.

It is hidden behind lovely traditional dances and on the lips of those who criticize missionaries, saying, "Who do you think you are to tamper with culture? Leave the Japanese alone! They have their own ways, their own gods."

It is hidden, as it was at Aki's house, in the corners, behind closed doors, the places no one wants to look.

But it is there. Oh, it is there.

Aki, who lay there on the mat no more than a foot away from me, does not have the comfort and protection I do as a child of God. I noticed her nails, bitten down so much they looked like they would bleed. Worry does that. Anxiety does that.

But, oh, the peace that could be hers to look into the eyes of Christ, who made Himself nothing on her behalf, and hear Him say, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Take my yoke upon me and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28).

That same Peace could restore Japan's shattered families, take the glass from the hand of the alcoholic, stop the young men and women who throw themselves in front of express trains.

Pray, as you never have before, for God roll back the darkness of Japan and flood it with His LIGHT, His radiance, so that His glory would fill the islands like the sunrise.

I plead with those of you who are brothers and sisters in Christ to be ON YOUR FACES BEFORE THE LORD ON BEHALF OF JAPAN. Christians are rising up like armies in countries all around Japan - China, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Russia, Australia, even Muslim Indonesia. Despite persecution, their numbers grow.

And yet today, in the dawn of 2002, Japan's percentage of Christians number LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.

Less than one percent.

There is religious freedom here. There are enough resources to evangelize all of Asia here. There is virtually no persecution of Christians. The Bible, the JESUS film, Christian books and materials have been available in Japanese for years.

Yet they gather dust on shelves because Japanese are "closed to the gospel."

Are they really...?

From these dark shores, His light still burns.

Please, please pray fervently for Japan's deliverance. Pray for the Japanese to "ARISE, SHINE, FOR (THEIR) LIGHT HAS COME!" (Isaiah 60:1).