From the Midwest and Around the World

   Let's talk about fortunes! At Japanese temples and shrines, there are little boxes, like so:     Inside are sticks with numbers written on the end. To get one's fortune, you shake the box and then hold the box until a stick comes out from the hole. You read the number and grab a piece of paper with that number on it (some temples even have vending machines which do this). This whole process and the paper you get are omikuji. On each paper (which is different depending on the number), there is a certain degree of blessing: all the way from amazing blessing to horrible curse. The two times that I've done it, I've never gotten a curse. In Kyoto, I did a koimikuji (love omikuji). I got a "future blessing" for that. I won't tell you the whole thing, but for me, the "key to good luck" is reading...so I think I'm fine for now. The second time I did the omikuji was in Tokyo at that Asakusa Temple. I got "Regular fortune." Luckily th...

   Hello everyone! It gets harder and harder to update, especially since I've fallen behind a bit in my posts as well as I've had a few busy weeks recently.    About three weeks ago, I visited Kyoto with some of the Japanese students who were studying English here at JCMU. We visited Yasaka Shrine and Kiyomizu Temple. Because much of Japan is very open (and semi-secular) about religion, but their faith is based in polytheism, there are many shrines (both large and small) and a lot of temples. It is not uncommon to see a very small shrine squeezed in the alley between two houses. As a Christian, I also have not gotten a chance to see inside another religion's house of worship.    Yasaka Shrine has a large white and bright orange gate. When you walk inside, there are food-booths and a lot of mini shrines. There is also a place where one can buy protective charms (usually about $10 or more), "mikuji" (which are fortune sheets...I will talk about t...