Art Life Faith Podcast

During the month of March on this podcast, we’ve been telling story after story from March 11 and the terrible earthquake that struck Japan 10 years ago. I was surprised when headlines in the news the other day read, “March 11: The Day Everything Changed,” but the articles were not talking about one of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history but about the day one year ago...

Japan is no stranger to devastated cities. As I traveled giving concerts through city after city ravaged by the 2011 tsunami in Japan, my thoughts eventually turned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No other city in the history of the world quite compares with their destruction. They are the very first “ground zero.” In one brief flash of light and fire, every living thing vaporized into thin air. Those...

For the past couple of months, I’ve been sharing stories of my experiences after the 2011 earthquake in Japan. For this episode, I want to go back to the very beginning. I want to start with Day 1, the day the day the earthquake hit and how we got involved in the relief movement. This is going to be longer than usual, so brace yourselves, but I hope you’ll find it useful as we all think about how...

This week, I had the honor of talking with Peter Bakelaar, founder of Gallery NANI (Nagoya Arts Network International), about his exhibit at the Aichi Arts & Cultural Center in downtown Nagoya. To remember the terrible disaster that struck Japan 10 years ago and bring healing, he is running “Scars: The Path Toward Healing” from March 2-14, 2021. Listen in as we talk about some of t...

As I travelled around the disaster area after the 2011 earthquake in Japan to give concerts in shelters, believe me there were times when the aftershocks, the mud, the smells, and everything else really got to me. I especially remember one night. What’s that noise? Where am I? Heavy creaking in the ceiling above my head jolted my sleep-numbed mind into consciousness, as my eyes flew open to darkne...

After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, Christians started art organizations to provide jobs and build community, and, just as important, to bring beauty back into a shattered world. They made jewelry, decorations, bags, and clothes. In the city of Ishinomaki, a small group of women made jewelry out of broken shards of dishes and teacups found in the rubble. They called themselves Nozomi Project , or...

On March 11, 2011, the world changed. Like the old photographs I occasionally found scattered amongst the debris, all the color was gone. Gray mud from the ocean floor coated everything, and gray dust constantly blew through the air turning our white masks black. Even the sun remained hidden behind the dull clouds, refusing to penetrate our colorless purgatory. The world became flat. The wave robb...

After the earthquake, one of the most startling things I heard was: “Go away! Leave us alone! Too . . . many . . . volunteers!” We had just entered the high school gymnasium of a temporary shelter in the city of Iwaki. I turned to see a young man sitting on a cardboard box. He appeared to be slightly handicapped, with one leg shorter than the other. But it was his face, full of rage, that I notice...

As I walked through a garden on a hill overlooking the town of Otsuchi, Japan, birds flew overhead and the wind blew in gently from the sea. Leaves rustled on the trees, and the sweet aroma of flowers wafted through the air. I looked down to see goldfish swimming in a pond, and at the top of the hill I found a white glass-paneled phone booth. Inside the booth, I saw an old black rotary phone, a ne...

This week I want to share a very special story with you about the most famous tree in all of Japan. It was the only vertical thing left standing in the city of Rikuzentakata after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. As the 10 th anniversary of this day quickly approaches, and we prepare an arts conference to remember that day, we’ll be talking about this tree, because there’s a violin that...

On March 1, we’ll be coming out with my next book Aroma of Beauty , telling stories of how the arts brought hope and healing after the 2011 earthquake and disaster here in Japan. We’re pretty excited about this project because the beauty we found in those dark times can encourage us at all times, and nothing seems more appropriate during this time of unrest and during the spread of the coronavirus...

When I was a child, I was really into astronomy. My father took me to visit observatories every chance we got. I remember attending some big events in Boston that were public lectures and then going home to document the findings myself with my own telescope. I journaled and drew the movement of sunspots across the sun, and the moons around Jupiter. I read every issue of the magazine Astronomy and...

Happy New Year everyone! We did it! We made it through 2020. It’s been quite a year! Over the winter break, my family and I went into the mountains of Japan near Nagano City, which many of you know was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. They’ve been getting a lot of snow there this year. Last week, there were a few days in a row when I think we got about two feet a day. That’s a lot of snow! Th...

It’s just past the winter solstice. As I’m looking outside, it’s dark and cold. It’s dark when I get up, and it’s dark when I go to bed. It makes me think about how precious Christmas illumination is at this time of the year. In the dark, we need the light. In the dark, we need beauty. And I’ve never known such complete darkness as I did in those days following the 2011 tsunami here in Japan. Ther...

https://youtu.be/Z-_gAP8ed0g Some of you know that I am an organist by training. I’ve not talked about this at all on this podcast yet, but actually I do think about it all the time. It has a huge influence on how I see the world, and I believe there are things that can be said through this language of organ music that really cannot be said in any other way. So, indulge me for a second as I try to...

In the previous episode, we talked a little bit about “Pippy the Piano and the Very Big Wave,” an illustrated children’s book released last week. Thank you for your support of this project. Sales have been going really well. It’s pretty exciting! We were the #1 Best Seller on Amazon in various categories, for both the English and the Japanese versions of this book. And it’s our hope that this will...

During a season of Christmas concerts a number of years ago, I was traveling near the city of Kamaishi, Japan where the 2011 tsunami hit. Of 16,000 people killed by the tsunami, over 1,000 were killed in this town, and it’s not a very big place. Everyone there knows someone who died. New Life Kamaishi Church was completely flooded by the wave, but miraculously the building was left standing, partl...

I’m going to take a little break from the stories I usually tell you in these episodes to give you a glimpse into an event I participated in this week put on by GCAMM (Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions) . If you are interested in the intersection of faith and art and foreign missions, then you definitely need to know about this group. Their gatherings have the largest number of mis...

My friends Matt Burns and Paul Nethercott made a beautiful little film called “Finding Beauty in the Rubble,” telling the story of a woman who made art in the midst of the terrible devastation of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I put a link to the film in the show notes so you can see it too. I’m especially grateful to Nancy Nethercott for her friendship and for answering all my question...

There is so much brokenness in this world! Just by me speaking to you right now, it’s very likely that some of you are suffering, or someone you know is suffering. Especially now, during COVID-19. Life is hard, and we would be fools to think otherwise. It’s a terrible part of this world, and you know, frankly, it makes me a little bit angry. We want to protect the ones we love from suffering, but...

One of the joys of living overseas is being able to see the world differently, sometimes in ways I would never expect. One day when I was in Kyoto, in the Kyoto National Museum, I stumbled upon some clay bowls. Everything about the exhibit screamed, “These things are important!” They were individually encased behind panes of glass. They sat beautifully displayed on felt-covered small boxes. They e...

One of the joys of living overseas is being able to experience different parts of the world. There are times when I think, “Wow, that’s exotic.” Sometimes it’s a smell in the air. Sometimes it’s a sound that I hear. Sometimes it’s the feel of the atmosphere. When we first moved to Tokyo, I had such an experience every single morning as I took my kids to school. We had to pass by some traditional w...

A concert in a hospital near the broken nuclear power plants of Fukushima shortly after the 2011 earthquake in Japan brought us together. In that terrible time, music brought healing and helped us to mourn and cry for what was lost.

My friend, Shannon Johnston, started The Scarf back in 2011 as a direct response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster here in Japan. It was a way for people to knit their hopes, thoughts, and prayers together for the people of Japan. Scarves are something you wear around your neck like a hug. The Scarf was a way people could give hugs without actually being physically present in Japan....

Mayu is a visual artist in Tokyo. With the spread of COVID-19, like everyone else, she was stuck at home, with no way to share her art and no way to make a living. What bothered her most, though, was that people were hurting all around her. She wanted to do something, but didn’t know what she could do. One day, her mother said, “Mayu, I think you should make masks.” … Website: https://...