2026 Japan: Kobudo Kyokai Taikai (V)

The modern European matchlock, or teppo, arrived in Japan in 1543, when a Portuguese ship was blown off course and landed at the island of Tanegashima (the firearm was also known as Tanegashima, named after the island).  The local daimyo, Tanegashima Tokitaka, bought two and put a swordmaker to work.  From these humble beginnings, the teppo became one of the dominant features of Japanese battlefields:  by 1575 at the Battle of Nagashino, 3,000 gunners firing volleys of 1000 shots at a time destroyed the cavalary of the heretofore very successful Takeda clan.  By the time of the Japanese invasion of Korea in the Imjin War (1592-1596), a quarter of the 160,000 troops were gunners.

The last event at every Kobudo Kyokai Taikai is an example of the art of Hōjutsu, or gunnery.  This year's demonstrating art was Morishige-Ryu.

Getting the floor protected:

Entrance:

Preparing:

Fire!

Volley:

2026 Japan: Kobudo Kyokai Taikai (IV)

 Hoki-Ryu Iaido.  This falls within the larger family of Iaijutsu, of which I am a practitioner:

Tamiya-ryu Iaido.  Also within the larger family of Iaijutsu:

Yagyu Shingen Ryu, another armored style.  I do not believe I have seen any armored styles in person prior to this year, and now I have seen two:

Yaguy Shinkage Ryu?  Next year, I will remember to take a picture of the display:

Negshi-Ryu Shuriken Jutsu.  Contrary to popular belief, throwing spikes/darts like these were just as a common as the "Ninja stars" of modern martial arts movies.

Jonah And The Age Of Rage

 Yesterday my pastor preached a banger of a sermon that left me thinking long after the sermon ended.

The sermon - one part of two or possibly three - dealt with the book of Jonah. It is a short book in the Old Testament and is likely one of Biblical stories that almost everyone has heard of, even if not a believer:  A guy getting swallowed by a large sea animal (whale or fish, your mileage may vary) will stick in anyone's mind.

The first chapter of Jonah appears at first glance to be pretty clear cut:  Jonah, a prophet of God in the Northern kingdom of Samaria in the mid-8th Century B.C., is commanded by God to go preach a message of judgement and repentance to the kingdom of Assyria.  Jonah has no desire to do so (we will get to that in a minute) and so flees West in precisely the opposite direction.  A storm comes up and, through a drawing of lots, the crew discovers that Jonah is the reason for the storm.  He is thrown overboard and swallowed by aforementioned fish/whale, where is composes a song to God (more on that later too).  At the end of Chapter 2, he is spit back up on land after three days to get back on track.

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My pastor, at the opening of his sermon, proposed two questions and asked "Which one bothers your more?: 

1) Why do bad things happen to good people?

2)  Why do good things happen to bad people?"

For him, he suggested - and for many - the second question is harder one.  We as Christians can walk through the fact of God's sovereignty at difficult times of our lives ("All things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" - Romans 8:28).  What is far more difficult is when good things happen to bad people, to vile people, to the worst of sinners.  "God makes the sun to shine the rain to fall on the just and the unjust" said Christ in Matthew 5 - but I wonder if I believe too often that God does so grudgingly.

Jonah's sin, my pastor suggested, was that he was so frightened of God's compassion that he fled God's mission.  He disliked - indeed hated, as we find out later - the Assyrians, and would rather not preach to them lest they receive God's mercy.

To be fair, from a human standpoint the Assyrian Empire was cruel and treated all of its enemies cruelly (and would, in fact, eventually conquer the Kingdom of Samaria).  So - humanly speaking - his reaction was understandable.  Why risk offering such terrible people the mercy of God?

Because there was a risk they might get His mercy.

We are no different that Jonah, was the analysis.  In Matthew 5:44 Christ commands His followers "Love your enemies and prayer for those who persecute you".  Christ, he suggested, does not call us to hate or even to indifference towards them.  He calls us to pray for them, to shape our hearts in mercy towards everyone.

Jonah, as the story goes, turns out to be a narcissist:

-  He will not carry out God's commands to the Assyrians because he does not like them (in fact, hates them). 

- He does not concern himself with the crew during the storm, in which they are working hard to keep the ship afloat and praying to their own gods while he is taking a nap and not praying at all.  

- The crew, during the course of the story, come to realize that Yahweh, the covenantal name used by the Israelites, is the one true God (they offer a sacrifice to Him at the end of Chapter 1); Jonah haphazardly mentions he serves that God during his trip but that is about it.  

- Even at the end of Chapter 1 when the casting of lots reveals Jonah is the cause of the storm, Jonah does not suggest returning to Joppa so he can continue his mission (it is interesting to theorize what would have happened if he did:  would the storm also have ended immediately?), but would rather be thrown into the ocean and, for all he knew, die rather than run the risk of good things happening to his enemies.

Once he is swallowed, he composes a song to God (Chapter 2).  In it, depending on your translation, Jonah uses the words "I, me, my" 16 times in 9 verses:

-  He cries out to God because of affliction - which would not have occurred if Jonah had followed God's command.  

- He says that God cast him into the deep - God did not; he got there in an interest to be sacrificed rather than follow God's command.  

- In verses 8-9 he notes "Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice to You" - but in point of fact, the pagan sailors found God and sacrificed to Him.  

- Jonah could not even be bothered to pray.  "I will pay what I have vowed", says Jonah in the latter half of verse 9 - but he had vowed, if anything, to refuse the command of God to go to Nineveh.

Jonah ends up being spit out to start over again, but nowhere in his prayer to God does he talk about actually doing what God commanded.

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I have often lamented here what I have termed "The Age Of Rage", a sense that I have almost everyone is angry at everyone and everything all the time.  It seems to me that too often, people assume the worst of others.  It is not even that things can be discussed in reason; things cannot be discussed at all.  Nothing can simply exist anymore:  everything has to serve a cause, and woe be to those on the wrong side.

Understandable from a human perspective.  As Christ says in Matthew 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  For many people - for me, too often - they would stop reading right there - after all, it makes complete sense.  Like those who like you, hate those who hate you.

Understandable from a human perspective.  But we miss that second part too often in verse 44: "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

If all we ever do is live in hatred of others, it cannot but impact our own hearts.

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As always, I write this to convict myself.

One of the best (although accidental) decisions I made during the last election cycle was to set the rule that if anyone posted anything political in nature, I would simply hide them from my feed.  That extended to "both sides" as it were.  Over time, my feed has become mostly politically and "modern issues" free, for which I am grateful.

But I am still in this climate.  I still hear the words that people launch at one another, the emotion that comes to dominate every aspect of their lives until everything is a life or death moment.  We are all involved in a great war - not the Spiritual War the Bible speaks of so often (yes, I know, we are involved in that of course), but a great social and political war which is always on and in which we must always choose a side.

I look at that.  I am tempted to love some and hate others.  And then I look at the commands of Christ.

Does Paul command the Thessalonians to avoid even the appearance of evil?  Yes.  Does Christ command his followers to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves?  Also yes.  But I struggle to find the command that I must think poorly of, let alone be at war, with everyone with whom I may disagree about anything.  

Marinate a piece of meat in a marinade long enough and it will come to take on the flavour of the marinade.  Marinate your heart in anger and hate long enough and no matter how often or much you proclaim your Christian beliefs, the anger and hate will come through.

Forgive them, said Jesus as they nailed Him to the Cross, for they know not what they do.  Earlier he had told his disciples that the servant was not above the master, that if they hated Him they would hate His followers.

In an Age Of Rage, I as a Christian should - indeed, must - be different.  As my Master was.

A Year Of Kindness (XI): The Lion And The Mouse

 

(Source)

The Lion And The Mouse

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

A kindness is never wasted.

- Aesop (~620-564 B.C.)  (Source)

Shelf Cat

 

Morning darkness shines:

yellow lamp and orange fur

and reflective eyes.

An Unexpected Retirement

 In an unexpected turn of events at the end of last month, my manager announced that she was retiring.

It was not a completely unexpected outcome:  I had no idea how old she is (and it is never polite to ask a lady) but it turns out that this was the year that it could all work for her.  Also, for the past 5 years she has been commuting from her home in the next state over and staying in New Home 2.0 four days a week before heading back for three days a week.  She will be retiring to her family farm, where she will be working on her art and her rather large (and expanding garden).

As you can imagine, this has upset the apple cart a bit.

One of the immediate questions that came up from my coworkers and even my direct reports was "Will you apply for the job?"  I thought about it for something like five minutes; knowing what I know about the position and the state of the work world, I do not have the particular elements of the industry experience nor the long experience at working at a large company that those who make such decisions put into the job description.

Besides, not one person in the hiring chain suggested I throw my hat into the ring, which tells me volumes.  That, and the fact that having done that role once before (which ended in Hammerfall 2.0), I was not terribly eager to throw myself into that fire again.  I have no need to build a career or empire at this point: I am just trying to make it to retirement.

What it does mean, though, is for interim - and who knows how long that will last - I will be acting in her stead.

That is not as daunting as a task at it may seem at first blush: internally I know everyone in the department and the transfer of responsibilities in terms of reporting will be minimal.  Yes, my schedule in terms of one on one meetings is about to double (I will likely be spending 8 hours a week talking to people), but most everyone is pretty self-sufficient at this point.  They do not need me to tell them what to do (in general); often they just want an ear to listen to them with challenges.

The daunting part will be that - at least for the intervening period of time - I will be the one everyone wants a decision from.

I have been in this position before and know exactly what it is like: e-mails and chats throughout the day, people grabbing you in hallways, and of course the ever present growth of meetings. It becomes almost impossible to do your actual "work".

The other side of this, of course, is what happens when that person is hired.

I have already had some such discussion with my team.  I have reminded them that, given everything that we are doing, no-one has any interest in disrupting ongoing operations; if anything, we have become more valuable than before because leadership (that amorphous term that refers to a series of groups of people above our heads) wants things to continue to move forward.  But I also know, from painful experience, that it is always uncomfortable and always engenders change.

And then, of course, there is my own adjustment.

There will be that initial stage where the incoming person knows nothing and is just meeting people and going to meetings to gain context, followed by the gradual assumption of responsibilities and then the setting of a course, perhaps a different course, than what we have been on.  And then the inevitable reorganization that happens and what will become the "New Normal".

My estimate? This will take the rest of the year to settle out, assuming that person arrives within one or two months.

I am super happy for my manager.  She deserves this retirement and I hope it is a good one for her.  But I am really sad for the rest of us.

Maybe even sadder for me.  Because she had a wealth of experience and was a great manager.  No matter who comes in, it will be a very different feel.  I worry a bit for my own future - not so much in another Hammerfall scenario, but rather in the scenario of either being pigeonholed or having nowhere to go.

I just have to keep reminding myself head down like a bison in a snowstorm.  This, too, shall pass.

TB The Elder Day

You have may have heard of the idea of "work spouses", the concept that there are individuals that we work with that essentially become the working equivalent of our spouse due to the time we spend with them on a weekly basis and the degree of closeness that one acquires in working with a particular set of people over the years.  I have, somewhat in the same fashion, apparently acquired "work children".

The request came about innocently enough, a younger coworker (arguably 90% of my worksite is younger than I am) with whom I spent a lot of time in work and discussion asked me out of the blued "Would you be my work dad?"

Well, sure, I said after I thought about it for a bit.  My one condition was that they are financially independent; I pay for nothing. But if they just wanted someone to lend an ear or fill in occasional words that maybe had some wisdom in them from time, I was up for the job.

I started with one "adopted" daughter.  I now have three.

---

Last month, one of my new "children" popped an invite on my calendar entitled "Lunch with Dad". It was not a big deal - lunch at a chain close to our place of work - but I have confess it tickled me to no end.  After all, Na Clann are thousands of miles away (literally) and I see them now twice or thrice a year.  A "Dad date", even with bright young women not your own genetically who - for reasons unknown to me - are willing to call you "Dad" even jokingly warms my heart.

This month, looking at the calendar, I picked a Friday for another "Lunch with Dad" date.  And then I looked at the date.  It was the day after my father's birthday.

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TB The Elder, for those that may be of newer vintage here, was my father (thus, I am TB - although arguably, not TB The Younger).  I do not suppose I have a better introduction to him than the eulogy for his funeral (at least, at the macro level).

He and I had what is likely a more common father/son experience than I had believed when I was much younger.  I used to think we were not alike at all growing up; I think we were more alike in spirit than I realized although in manifested in what we did.  We "graduated" from that experience sometime in my mid to late twenties (more due to my inability to grow up than a failure on his part), and sometime in my mid to late thirties reached a far better relationship - although we never really shared the same interests, we could at least communicate about them in a way that showed interest and got the message across.  Over time, he came to realize that he himself struggled with depression (which I have for most of my life, which was an insight into perhaps where mine came from) and even anger issues, which he apologized for.

Over the last few years, I have realized that I am like him far more than I have thought:  a self-thought and personality tested introvert, I have learned to be as social as he ever was.  I can make "smart" comments in the same way to generate laughs.  We cared and care about different aspects of Nature.  We were and are really both homebodies. Sometimes, we struggle with our religion (as my father said for many years, he was not sure that he believed but he went to church because my mother did).  And I always, always have the example of him acting as the primary caregiver of my mother for 7 years as her Alzheimer's grew worse - until finally, after she was safely in a memory facility, his own body and mind gave out as well.

If there is interest, most of my interactions of that time are located here.

It was shocking to me to look are realize that this July will have been four years since his passing - honestly, I would have pegged it at only two.  How time gets away from us.

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 Here at The Forty-Five, we celebrate a series of holidays which are in some cases the equivalent of local regional holidays, the sorts of things that a town or region might do.  One of these is, of course Failure Day (02 August), a day to celebrate failures.  Added to the pantheon will now be 11 March (my father's birthday), hereafter known as TB The Elder Day.

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My adopted "daughters" asked me why I had chosen the Friday (tomorrow) for lunch. I simply said that was the day after my father's birthday, and it seemed a good enough reason to celebrate.  And I sent them his obituary.

One of them responded back:  "Wow.  Good men raising good men".

I do not know that I am good man.  But I have seen at least one.