Tea lessons with O-sensei.

I've been back in the United States for about a week now, and am still in the middle of adjusting back to life in my home country and processing the past two-and-a-half years. I'll post more later about this stage of my journey in the coming weeks, but first, I wanted to share this article I wrote in January for the official blog of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Association, originally published here in Japanese.

As a J-3, in Japan I'm often called sensei, "teacher." I teach English five days a week at Luther Junior and Senior High School, I teach an English Bible study about once a month at Kuwamizu Lutheran Church, and I teach English Sunday School twice a month at Kumamoto Lutheran Church. But even with all this teaching, I feel that throughout my time here in Japan I've learned a lot more than I've taught.

First gifts from O-sensei: a fan (required
equipment for a guest) and a vocabulary list.

The Japanese church particularly inspires me. Every day I learn something new about hospitality, kindness, and patience that I want to take with me back to America. Many of these lessons have been learned in the tea room of Ms. O—, a member of Kuwamizu Church.

For the past year-and-a-half or so, Ms. O— has been teaching me the art of the Japanese tea ceremony. She'd heard that I was interested in Japanese culture and one day in July 2013 invited me to her house for an o-keiko, "practice session."

Page from an instructional photo
album O-sensei assembled for me
from my final lesson.

I'd only ever experienced the tea ceremony once before, as a guest, and although I'd enjoyed it, I'd had no idea what to do. I didn't understand the meaning of a lot of the steps—why turn the chawan (tea cup) before you drink from it? But I held my questions and just followed Ms. O—'s instructions as best I could. A few weeks later she invited me again to her house, and then again, and before long I found myself at her house two or three times a month, her pupil in the Omotesenke school of the Way of Tea.

Once at the end of an o-keiko, I made Ms. O— a cup of tea. After she drank it, she asked, "You didn't wipe the chawan in the shape of the letter ゆ (yu), did you?" I was surprised that she knew that—I didn't think she'd been watching me that closely—but then she showed me the little bits of matcha stuck to the bottom of the chawan. "If you don't wipe it," she explained, "the matcha will clump and won't dissolve."

Wearing kimono for a moon-viewing
party in O-sensei's garden last fall.

Under Ms. O—'s patient teaching over the next several months, I slowly began to realize the deep thought that goes into each step of the ceremony. You put the chawan over here with your right hand so your left kimono sleeve won't drag through the dirty water in the mizusashi. You put the fukusa cloth here after you finish ceremonially cleaning the instruments with it so your hand can immediately move to the shaku to scoop hot water from the kettle (though after you take the shaku you take the fukusa and use it as a potholder to take the lid off the kettle and put it on the futaoki you just freed up). There is a depth to everything in the tea ceremony, even though it might seem arbitrary to an untrained American eye, and it all is rooted in mindfulness for the guest. The tea ceremony is a marvelous exercise in generosity.

I'm getting better at the tea ceremony, though I still bumble and fumble, and evening o-keiko with Ms. O— have become a highlight of my week. I'm so grateful to her and to all the generous people here in Japan that have taught me so much about the depth of God's love and graciousness. You will all be in my heart as I journey back across the Pacific this spring.

Practice hospitality.
Romans 12:13b (NIV)