jinja

I was able to recover a few photos from the smouldering remains of my CompactFlash card. The first is a shot of my neighborhood's jinja - Shinto shrine - after the 30-year snow. I don't know exactly how it works, but I think that, unlike Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines aren't social places. I've never seen monks live near them. Jinja literally blend into the countryside, growing alongside the grass and bamboo trees. Many of them are very beautiful and reflect the Japanese' skill in working with and complementing natural surroundings in their architecture.

The word "Shinto" is made up of two Japanese kanji. The first one is pronounced "kami," and can mean "sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility." (Wikipedia: "Shinto") However, we Christians use the word "kami" to describe the Christian God. It is obviously very easy to confuse the concept of God the Father with the animistic spirits in the collective consciousness of Japan. I wanted to highlight just one example of the difficulties missionaries face when communicating with a people that has no memory of Christianity.



Tokyo's busiest train station, Shinjuku Eki services approx. 750,000 passengers per day, although Wikipedia ("shinjuku") sets the number at two million. Shinjuku is a business, government, and entertainment hub of Tokyo, especially for the younger generation. Sushi, Karaoke, Gucci, you name it.