I am sitting in my living room in Western Massachusetts, but I am looking out at the outskirts of Tokyo passing below…
I made this six minute video from the window of a train when I was in Japan last December with the idea that I would be able to study it later, and try to describe it in words.
But it’s not easy.
When the video begins, the jumble of buildings is briefly interrupted by a stand of trees that try to cover a nearby hilltop. The square heads of distant apartment buildings peak out from beyond the park on the other side of the hill. The sky is a mottled overcast – glowering and moody, with, here and there, a breach that lets in the stark winter sunlight. In the foreground, where the hill dips down to street level, the lowlying residential buildings resume control, their rigid geometry a study in ordered disarray. The traditional sweeping curve of a temple rooftop mixes with the treetops.
In an instant the trees are gone, replaced by the relentless crush of residential buildings, all of them about two or three stories tall, but with no uniformity at all except their obedience to the edge of the streets that contain them.
**
In the Bible story that Helen just read for us, young Solomon, who has just become King, gets a visit from God.
the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, the text says: and God said, “Ask what I should give you.”
Solomon is being given a wish.
This is no two bit genie. This is the God of the universe.
This is not a trivial matter.
I wonder what I would wish for?
What would you wish for?
This business of being given a wish – we are familiar with this plot aren’t we?
The most well known story is the story of Aladdin and the Lamp, but this “make-a-wish” plot element shows up in stories from every corner of the world.
This is, perhaps, the Hebrew version.
Interestingly, Solomon doesn’t have to go through a series of adventures to earn the wishes. It’s not a heroic tale. God simply appears in Solomon’s dream and asks him what he wants.
Well, that was easy.
But wait.
In another sense, this story is more difficult than Alladin’s story, because Solomon doesn’t get three wishes.
He only gets one.
One wish.
I thought about that for a while.
One wish.
There is no room to screw up.
If you only have one wish, you better make it good.
Or, even more importantly, you better be careful.
Have you ever heard of Tithonus?
Poor Tithonus!
This young prince was so handsome that Eos, the Greek Goddess of the Dawn fell in love with him. The two lovers went cavorting about and having a good time, as Greek Gods and mortals like to do.
But eventually time began taking its toll on Tithonus, and the Goddess of the Dawn woke up to the fact (pun intended) that her lover would eventually get old. He might get ugly or, even die!
What was a confused Goddess to do?
Eos went to Zeus and asked the king of the Gods to give Tithonus immortality.
And Zeus must have been feeling generous because he humored Eos and granted her wish.
But Eos had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
Now pay attention here, because if you ever have a chance to ask Zeus for a wish, you don’t want to make the awful mistake that Eos made!
You must never, ever wish for immortality. Living forever is a curse, unless you stay young.
Tithonis kept getting older and older and older, and he never died.
Don’t ask for immortality.
Ask for eternal youth!
The older poor Tithonus got the more he shrunk, until eventually, he dried up and shrivelled to the size of a cicada.
This is not one of those “happily ever after” stories!
It’s a cautionary tale.
And one that explains where cicadas came from.
**
The train is elevated, but in the section of Tokyo that I recorded in my video, the tracks appear to follow lowlying corridor, and the taller buildings outside are built up an incline, restricting my ability to see into the distance. But I am not at all bothered by this. Since the train is moving, the horizontal view is constantly shifting, and my fascination with the life outside never falters for a moment.
Now the whole world is obscured behind a massive apartment block that shoves its shoulders right up against the elevated track.
Now it opens up again, and I am peering down a wide thoroughfare that cuts a vertical swath through the buildings and into the distance.
So many people.
So much life!
Last year the United Nations released a report entitled “World Population Prospects 2025.” According to this document, if you include the six neighboring prefectures that surround the city of Tokyo, and, in this way, consider the Greater Tokyo Area, the resulting mega-city has a population of around 33 million people. Some estimates suggest that up to 15 million others commute into the city for work everyday. According to the UN report, Tokyo is now the third most populous city on the planet. The two bigger cities, in case you are interested, are Dhakka, in Bangladesh with 36.5 million, and at the top of the list, Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia that, it is estimated, is home to a terrifying 41.9 million people.
**
The story of Tithonus and Eos sensitizes us to an ironic truth that lies at the heart of almost every “make a wish” tale.
Not wanting to lose her loved one, Eos’ request was motivated by desire.
It is almost impossible to separate “wish” from “desire.”
And the problem with desire is that it is self-serving.
The most well known make-a-wish story that goes wrong because of self serving desire is the story of King Midas – also from the Greek tradition.
King Midas was in the right place at the right time. An old friend of the God Dionysis was in need, and Midas helped. In return for this, the God rewarded Midas with a wish.
Midas saw his opportunity. He was a greedy man. He wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Dionysis warned him that such a wish would lead him to despair, but the king insisted.
And you know what happened…
Midas had a delightful few hours turning all the roses in his garden to gold, but it wasn’t long before, forgetting himself, he hugged his beloved daughter, and she too turned to gold.
So when we say that someone has “the Midas touch” it may be a compliment – that everything he touches turns to gold – but it also has the implication of tragedy – and the truth, embedded there – that there are some things that are much more precious than gold.
So if we pay attention to these stories, a wish is not so much a way of “getting what you want” as much as it is a way of teaching you (usually the hard way) what is really at stake.
A wish that satisfies a superficial desire serves, ultimately, to unveil the emptiness of that desire, and, in the process, reveal a deeper, more troubling truth.
Isn’t that interesting?!
A wish does not give.
It teaches.
We think we know what we want, but when we get it, we learn that the want itself was a mistake…
A wild goose chase.
Desire makes us wish. But if our wish is fulfilled, it leads, almost inevitably to a kind of disillusionment.
There is something uncannily familiar about all of this, isn’t there?
Our economy – and therefore our culture – is built on the engine of our desire.
We can hardly open our eyes without being subjected to a constant barrage of advertising – all engineered to make us believe that the product – whatever it is – will bring us delight and satisfaction.
I wish I had this…
I wish I had that…
And… our economy – and therefore our culture – is also built upon the belief that we have a genie in our pockets – a piece of plastic – that would be delighted to oblige us by granting our wish.
Put it on my Mastercard!
Put it on my Visa
Money is like our Greek God. It has the power to satisfy our wish…
or at least, that seems to be what we believe.
**
So what about Solomon?
God gives Solomon a wish.
So what does Solomon ask for?
Does he ask for a winning lottery ticket?
No.
Does he ask for the most beautiful woman in the world?
No.
Does he ask to become king of the world?
No.
Solomon wishes for none of these things.
The text describes Solomon’s wish in this way:
I am only a little child; he says, I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil, for who can govern this great people of yours?”
This is unexpected.
Since wishes are so inextricably tied to desire, we tend to wish for things that we want to have.
But Solomon’s wish is not about having.
It is about being.
This, perhaps, is the simple rule that should determine a wish.
Nothing that you can have will ultimately do you any good.
You can’t take it with you, can you?
So don’t think about what you want to have.
Think about who you are.
And who you want to be.
**
The train emerges from the buildings, and for a minute or so traverses a bridge that crosses a wide river. The vista opens up, and I can see into the distance. A road runs adjacent to the train tracks, and cars, vans, trucks, all involved in some important errand, parallel the movement of the train. The high tension wires follow the river, and in the distance, the city becomes an indistinct gray under the somber sky.
Once across the river, we descend into more urban sprawl. Industrial buildings and more ugly apartment blocks. For a moment – a playing field. School children.
It is not particularly beautiful.
But it is!
Human life is so irrepressible.
So irresistible.
United Nations study impresses me.
The work that they do is extremely important
The numbers that they document are both fascinating and frightening.
There are so many of us.
But, while understand the numbers, and I appreciate the work, it is not who I am.
When I look at Tokyo, this is not what I wish for.
A guy riding a bike…
I wonder…
Where is he going?
What does he want, riding down that long road?
What does he wish for?
Looking out at Tokyo, I think I know what I wish for.
I think I know what I want to be.
I suppose my wish has already been granted.
I wonder.
I wonder!
I wish for wonder.
Amen