Lost in Translation

It's easy to get lost in Tokyo.

Even with a map you can't rely on street names—there are none—each block just has its own number. Through trial and error you get used to using the strange little signs on light poles to let you know where you are.
The labyrinth of streets adds to the confusion. Sometimes it feels like you're in a maze, especially when you start to think, Didn't we go past this spot before? Are we just going in circles? But it might just be that all the streets look the same, one dirty grey concrete building looking depressingly like the next.
And at night the whole city explodes into a craze of neon so that it seems like a disorienting hallucination—whole buildings flash on and off, covered in strange writing, beckoning your attention if only you could decipher what it means.
It's easy to get lost in a city of 10 or 20 million people where everything can be bought. If you’ve got enough to spend, every option, fashion or lifestyle is yours. Punk rockers, Buddhist priests, goths, sumo wrestlers, didgeridoo players, neo-fascist bikers, middle-aged businessmen with a thing for schoolgirls, hippy artists, kimono-clad grandmas, and that’s even before you turn on the TV!
Especially for a foreigner, being in Tokyo is often an alienating experience. You’re out of your comfort zone, adrift in it all, definitely not “at home”—lost. It's a disconcerting and sometimes dangerously liberating feeling.
Bob Harris and Charlotte find each other amid the surreal chaos of Tokyo in Lost in Translation. Their friendship becomes a small island of sanity in a crazy world. It makes each of them better than they would be by themself. It allows forgiveness for their mistakes and makes each day a little better. Their friendship is a solid thing to stand on when other people are less reliable than they should be. They become found, where they had been lost.
But you don't have to go to Tokyo to be lost. The everyday world we live in is enough to leave us feeling confused, alienated and alone. There are plenty of things to help us lose our direction and become disoriented without all the flashing neon of a strange city. There's enough people who let us down, lead us astray, want to tell us what to do, or just don't seem to be speaking the same language.
It’s when we take time to be friends with someone that this starts to change, and we start to become found ourselves.
No wonder Paul wants us to build friendships with others. He also gives us a good reason to try. He says, "If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ . . . agree with each other, love each other, be deep spirited friends" (Philippians 2:1, 2, The Message).
A lot of what Jesus says is to encourage us to have good relationships with all of the ordinary, annoying, unattractive people, just like ourselves, whom we have to deal with all the time. He even says that doing this is the main evidence that we have a good relationship with God. It's not easy, but who knows, you might just find someone who's lost.