The Church by the Bridge - 100 Years of Good News
13th September 2024
Last weekend we watched Wim Wender’s 2023 film ‘Perfect Days’. The film gives a glimpse into the life of Hirayama, a cleaner of public toilets in Tokyo.
The film traces two or three weeks of his life, his morning routine, day job routine – cleaning public toilets with great pride and meticulousness – then coming home where he then cycles to take his daily bath in the public baths and meal in a take-away. His weekend routine is similarly structured. Hirayama lives a spartan life. A simple mattress on the floor, one set of clothes, hardly any cooking facilities, yet shelves of second hand books which he reads in his spare time, and classic 70s rock music cassettes (remember them?) which he listens to whilst driving between cleaning jobs.
On the surface of it, ‘nothing’ happens during the two hours of the film.
Yet, what it does is trace how Hirayama engages with the world around him. His taking in of the morning freshness through a smile at the sky when he steps out of his door, the observation of joys and challenges of children in the playground he passes, the trees reflecting their light at his lunch stops which he photographs every day, the short exchange with the worker in the takeaway place where he eats his supper, the enjoyment of his daily bath in the public baths.
In the end we learn that Hirayama’s simple lifestyle was conscious choice, and that after having made his choice, he perseveres with it with joy, gratitude and a sense of fulfilment and purpose.
This beautifully thought-provoking film is not Christian yet, as so often happens, it has a take-away that can apply to many of us. In this case I found myself thinking of the importance of enjoying the little things that we come across, and the inner contentedness that comes with knowing that we are being looked after, no matter what.
Jesus says in this well-known statement in Matthew 6:25: 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?'
This he says as a follow-up to ‘store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’ (vs 20,21 of the same chapter).
Sometimes as Christians we can be reminded even from such secular sources like this fictitious one, of what the priorities in our daily walk can or should be. For example we can relearn that humbleness comes from within or the joy of the little things in creation that we so often take for granted. We can also be reminded of the in-depth knowledge that what we in the name of Christ do, might in the eyes of the world not be important or high-flying, but can make a big difference to the other – like keeping public toilets immaculate day after day.
Have a blessed week
Kai