I am chasing the sun to Japan, and this time I will get there before it sets. Our plane flew over the Great Salt Lake today and Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park. I hadn't seen these in twenty-four years but they were unmistakable. Flying into SFO was also the same as three times prior: salt marshes, sunshine, and the sign on the hill for South San Francisco. The California sun is beautiful.

It has been an easy trip thus far. While it will be less disorienting going this direction, it is really just a long day. I arrive in Tokyo at about 3:30pm local time, which from here is tomorrow. I have plans for the evening and expect to feel like I would after an all-nighter. Tomorrow, or from here the day after tomorrow, I leave first thing for Nagasaki. It will be an awesome way to rest, decompress, and acclimate.

The emotions I felt as I prepared to leave Senso-ji temple in Asakusa my last day have returned in full force. I hope to not make a fool of myself in Narita airport, but I don't care once I get to the ryokan in Asakusa. Hearing Japanese again, with its comparatively few sounds and unmistakable cadence is a welcome sound. I am smelling Japanese cologne of the people around me.

Why am I going back to Japan so soon? What's the big deal? Three years ago my life was very different. So many things interiorly and in the wider world seemed so tumultuous. In these external spheres it is probably no better, and likely worse. But in 2008 I began a journey under the cover of night. I needed to move forward in some way, in any way. Everything was obscured but I knew I had to move in some new direction. Following the advice of so many around me I committed to not making any hasty moves.One year later, in the Fall of 2009 I began to take some trips and made an extended Ignatian retreat outside of Boston. This was my first major retreat in m any years. It gave me an opportunity to put into a spiritual context the work that I had begun the year prior. This retreat and the work with my director there represented a new awakening. Again, the direction was not clear, but the movement in my soul wa s unmistakable.

It became clear to me on that retreat how angry I have been with God. I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. Given the turmoil ofmy life as I attempted to situate myself within a Church that has been a mess, it felt disorienting and nearly impossible to find a niche from which I could deal with issues of self, let alone minister. I could not contain this frustration, even while doing all the usual work that happens on a retreat. One evening, as I approached the chapel, I encountered the tabernacle and my response was spontaneous: "if you're so great, why don't you get out of your little box and do something."

I must have spent a year trying to recalibrate my interior compass to an extent that I would be able to eventually have a basic sense of direction. None of this has be especially pleasant while I've been in the think of it, but hope began to emerge in the form of a new direction. What I eventually realized was that I was the one is a tidy little box, and that I have had avenues for relating to the world outside that presented themselves as reliable and stable when they really weren't.

Last year I couldn't exactly explain why I went to Japan. I knew I needed a vacation, but that it was more of a pilgrimage. While here that first time and since returning home I wrote a great deal more than I am used to, so I have to say it was productive. I think this journey is, in part, about casting off moorings. Whereas before I didn't feel I had the connections I needed to have a good direction, Japan has been a totally foreign environment where I can test what is interiorly real and what is fake. I can't rely here so much on what I think I know. Things are so different, or I am enough of an outsider that they appear different. It is easier here to pay attention to my own language, the influences of culture, and what I consider to be beautiful and good. What of my self stands up in this foreign culture? What can I genuinely lean on?

I am captivated by Japan because it gives me the opportunity to test things about myself. I also like that my experienc of Japan has also given me new direction, though I'll only offer provisional conclusion in this segment of my journal.

My last night in Tokyo last October was a rainy one as a typhoon was passing through. This is the season, so my first night has been a rainy one. Last night as I bounced around the city I managed to stay dry while everyone else looked wet. I have been greeted by another typhoon and it has been relaxing to listen to. Outside my window is the main hall of Senso-ji Temple, the oldest in Tokyo. I think I'll catch the shinkansen for Hakata early since I can't sleep. While awake, I can still dream.