David Potete, the pastor of my church in Chicago, has a saying that`s become rather famous at Northwest FWB Church. `The hardest thing to achieve in the Christian life is balance`.
I cannot tell you how many times I`ve heard those words. And I have to say, as life goes on I am more and more convinced of the accuracy of that phrase. I don`t want to expand on this really, but think about it for a bit and you`ll see. There`s only one area of life where we are allowed complete addiction and eccentricity, but we`re usually too busy with con-artists to notice the Real Deal.
Different subject...this morning in English class we were learning different terms for reconciliation. One of my students read this in her dictionary: `to come to a peaceful agreement.` They immediately preferred this expression because, as they would say in Japanese, it has a good image or picture. I told them I preferred `reconciliation` because it`s short and to the point. We are so different, Western and Asian. I am just learning about their thinking patterns, so I don`t really know what I`m saying to be quite frank. But it`s very interesting to me. For example, before I left Hokkaido a friend of mine made a small but beautiful arrangement of flowers for me. She arranged them according to her mental `picture` of me, my personality, etc. I don`t think my mind has ever had a picture of someone other than their phsyical appearance. And I may think that someone is kind or generous, but I don`t create an image of that in my head. Isn`t that amazing? I am reading a book right now called `Geography of thought: why Asians and Westerners think differently and why`. It`s a difficult book but completely fascinating, we`ll see what I can glean from it.
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