There Is A Balm In Tokyo

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health Of the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah 8:22

I am back from Manila. I knew it was going to be a difficult trip. It was even harder than I imagined. I either ate some bad food or drank bad water (or both) and spent the better part of three days in the hotel bathroom. I will spare you the details. Our dainties disappoint us.  

Really miserable. Probably the third most horrid experience in my life. First, being docked in a mosquito-filled swamp in a sailboat overnight when 13; Second, my perforated appendix emergency surgery three years ago; Third, and this.   

I hadn't really imagined Manila and the Philippines as being a vacation per se from the start. I am not a huge fan of the tropics and all that comes with it...bugs, swamp-ass, etc. The purpose was to attend my best friend's wedding and then hope to get some good food and drink along the journey. Manila and the Philippines in general is very crowded, very hot, and very much in the developing world category. The Friday after I landed, out and about in Manila, I saw a little girl defecate mid-morning into a sewer grate. Hence, the unsafe and unsanitary food and water.

I found the Filipino people to be friendly and welcoming. They found my height of being 6'8" to be hilarious. There weren't too many white people around (except, that is, old lecher graying white men with young Filipino women), so I stuck out like a tall sore thumb. I was under no illusions though. There is a criminal element in Manila, particularly in the part of town where I was staying. I thought being  close to the U.S. Embassy would be a nicer area. Nope. The embassy itself had been the target of a bombing a little more than a year ago. Something I didn't know until I was staying at the hotel. Credit cards are not used except in the business district. Too much identity theft. 

The hotel was really great and the staff and amenities top-notch. But, it was in a non-touristy neighborhood. Being petitioned for prostitution services happened daily walking out the hotel doors. I didn't have a lot of time to vett the locale because of the short timeline for the wedding. Like I mentioned, I knew going to the Philippines was going to be a push, particularly coming on the heels of returning from Taos. I just didn't surmise how much of a push. 

To be fair, all of these things do happen in America daily on a large scale, so I am not into hurling rocks here. It is just not typically part of my Central Pa. world. It was a good eye-opener and I am glad I went. My best friend and his wife deserved me to be there and it was my honor. 

Fortunately, I had three days of being able to be in the hotel before having to board the planes back to the US. The first two days after the poisoning were really, really bad. If I had been on a plane at the time, I would have caused an international incident. I don't even want to envision how bad that would have been.  By the third day, even though not feeling great, I was able to leave the hotel and get some banging, but mostly non-spicy, Indian food--supposedly the best in Manila. It is where the Prime Minister of India chows down when in town. I figured that I needed to tone down on the spice lest I set off the alarms below. I was very squeamish about eating and drinking anything else on the ground otherwise. I didn't eat much for three days and drank a couple of gallons of bottle water to stay hydrated. 

The day of boarding the plane for Tokyo, I was ready to leave Manila behind. I wanted some semblance of first-world amenities. When we landed in Tokyo, I could feel  the difference. The Japanese are an extraordinarily refined people. The airport was sleek, samples of high-end Scotch were offered by a cordial lady outside of the Duty-Free Shop, and I found a Craft Beer and Ramen joint down the Terminal.  

I was aching. My bowels were the equivalent of vocal cords being  hoarse from screaming. I needed something. Initially, I was thinking sushi but good friend of mine suggested Ramen and  it was exactly what the Dr. ordered. As I slurped down the umami-infused goodness, it applied a deep balm to both my body and soul. Never underestimate the power of a delicious bowl of something to dispel despair and restore hope. I left the place with an empty bowl but a full heart. 

* I got on the track of "There is a balm in  Gilead" in a really interesting manner. YouTube had recommended that I watch and listen to an MLK sermon that he delivered in 1967. In it, King details the early years of the Civil Right movement in Birmingham. His life and the life of his family was under constant death threats. White racists would call and tell him that he had to get out of town otherwise he would be killed. After one particularly mendacious phone call, MLK said that he lost hope. That he was scared for real and knew that these were not idle threats. Apparently, up to then--even though he  was a preacher's kid from a long family line of preachers, and even a preacher himself--his faith was formality and not real.

Citing this verse in Jeremiah, King said that God met him in that midnight moment of despair and  gave him courage to continue. To take a stand for justice and righteousness, despite the costs. The sermon was about a year away from him being assassinated so he was soon to be killed for his work.    

** Gilead is in Jordan, East of Israel. From another preacher's sermon I listened to last night, I am still adjusting  to Pa time-zone and was up until 3:30 AM (I think 2:30 PM Manila time)--Israel is too dry and arid to grow the Balm Tree. It is apparently more like a shrub and only produces balm unless it is wounded in the base of the tree. What oozes out is that healing balm, both for the tree and for the hurting in general. The preacher did an amazing piece of work tying the balm to Jesus. He had to be wounded for our healing, that there was nothing extraordinary in His appearance, etc.                     

*** I can say that I have had Chinese food in China and Ramen in Japan. Although both dishes were in airports, the dishes were legit.