How Sakura Con is more of a church than some churches

After a long absence of many years, I had the privilege of attending Sakura Con 2015. Sakura Con is an anime/manga convention I was exposed to in high school during my now embarrassing infatuation with Hellsing (which, in my defense, has fantastical art). Though Sakura Con has been and always will be primarily a celebration of Japanese culture, the primary appeal for me is cosplay, the practice of creating costumes designed to make you look like a fictional character of your choice. It need not be anime or manga based, it could be anything. This year, I was the tragic Booker Dewitt of Bioshock Infinite (a game with such depth that I would love to devote an entire blog entry to it), as well as Oswald of Carim of Dark Souls. I even threw together a Vincent Law of Ergo Proxy for the masquerade ball.

But while the cosplay was excellent this year (it's always such a delight to see what people come up with), other aspects of con were emphasized to me. One of the most magical things about con is that everyone becomes approachable. You can hold an amiable conversation with anyone, as if you were friends, no matter who or what you are outside of con. I chatted with strangers for hours, and I enjoyed it. Even though I am an introvert typically drained by prolonged exposure to people, I was charged by the atmosphere. The sense of brotherhood was tangible, and while there were those who preferred to remain quiet and reserved, everyone was friendly with one another. The details of our lives were unimportant, except that we were all of us nerds who delighted in nerdy things. Sakura Con is one of the largest conventions on the west coast, and it draws thousands upon thousands of people from all over the world; inevitably, you run across someone with a unique shared interest. "You like this too? I thought I was the only one!" For the most part, it's a time of tearing down the walls we erect to prevent unwanted social contact and enjoying one another's company. It's about sharing in nerdiness.

This being said, Sakura Con (I can only speak for this con, having attended few others) has spawned cultural practices that are observed each year. This was my first con since going to college, and I found that my insight into things had drastically changed since my first con experiences, and I began to notice and appreciate different things that were always there.

Chief among my examples is the practice of the hugging circle. Every year in the courtyard, a large crowd gathers, usually at least 60 people. Some of the people form a circle around the others, and empty cans and bottles are placed in the center. A person inside the circle kicks a can, and whomever the bottle points to on the outside of the circle is then approached and hugged by the kicker. After the hug, the two exchange places. The person then stands on the edge of the circle until a new kicker's bottle points to the them. They then hug and the first kicker returns to the merry frenzy of the center, looking for a bottle to kick. It's a very simple dance of exitus and redditus that perpetuates itself endlessly.

This might not sound like much of a game, but I spent hours playing it. Along with a new friend who had become dear to me in a short amount of time, I hugged what must have been hundreds of people, and it was a far more delightful experience than I expected. Everyone was enthusiastic in their determination to make everyone feel welcome. All types were present. Those in cosplay and those in street clothes, those in brightly colored costumes and those in dark ones, those were were dressed morbidly and those were dressed pleasantly, those who spoke english and those who did not, those were loud and those were quiet, white, black, asian, straight, gay, male, female, transexual. All were accepted into the circle as participants of the ritual. I gave some damn fine hugs that day, and received my fair share too, and I couldn't keep from smiling. Though the dance was quick in its pace and you could go out and in and back outside the circle within a minute, everyone moved at an amiable pace and got to know one another through a word spoken here and there. The air was charged with a determination to love and celebrate one another.

Through it all, I couldn't help but think. And being me, my thoughts eventually took a theological turn. Again and again, I could feel myself nodding in approval as I thought to myself "there is a goodness at work here. Surely God is in it." And I progressively came to realize that the hug circle was more like a church than some churches. As a community, it perfectly represented the peace that is meant to be present in church when the Lord's peace is shared among the congregation. There was an incredible amount of diversity as well, and it did not matter in the least who you were; the only things of importance was that you brought no evil with you, that you were welcome, and that you could expect a warm hug from anyone at any moment. It amazed me that such a diverse crowd of people could exist in a small space so happily, and I realized that this is what church is meant to be. All children of God should feel welcome as members of the body of his son, no matter who they are. All types were present, including a silent and intimidating assassin who would politely bow before offering a quick but courteous embrace. There was also a child led by his father's hand. The circle drew all kinds, just as God draws all kinds.

There was an additional liturgy often invoked in the circle. Occasionally, one of the members in the center would shout "Hey, guess what," to which the rest would respond "What," followed by an additional "Hey guess what" from the crier, who would then make a statement or claim. Sometimes a person would declare "I need a hug," at which point the entire center of the circle would swarm them in a group hug. One of two chants would then begin: either "No way out" or "One of us." Occasionally a member would announce that they needed to leave, at which point the "No way out" chant would begin. The person was free to leave at any time, and people did come and go, but it was vigorously emphasized by the collective circle that it desired to keep the company of the person leaving.

The significance of this for me was that in the body of Christ, there is no power that can separate you from God's love. There is "no way out." At the same time, you are, and always will be "one of us." Taken alone, one of the chants might come across as either foreboding (no way out, we won't let you leave, you're trapped!) or in danger of sounding insipid (one of us, man, totally far out, man). But taken holistically, the chants communicated a powerful message to me, saying that the experience of having participated in the circle this year would be with me forever, that there was no way out of the experiences that made up my person. At the same time, I would always have the experience of being one of the group, of being included, of actively participating, of being welcome without any qualifiers at all.

It is entirely possible that some of my readers are reading into my analogy of the hug circle as church with a sense of abject horror. "Welcome without any qualifiers at all? What madness! Are we to let just anyone into our church? The foreigner, the atheist and the sexually ambiguous? Those who do not take the liturgy seriously? Those whose sin clings to them? Are we to let them in without any qualifiers at all?" To which I would respond, no, you would not let them in without any qualifiers at all, because admittance into the body of Christ has only one condition: that you willingly share in God's love through his son and give it freely to others. I find this condition an excellent one because by the word love, much is communicated. Love is grand in scope but uncomplicated. It desires and hopes all things that God wills, and God's will is peace and harmony, meaning that to share and give of God's love is to be an agent of renewal, that is, an agent of shalom. When the heart is fixed on God's love, it desires what God desires, and wills what he wills. And the more one takes love into account in every action, no matter how small, the more one realizes that God wills that love should flow into everything. Everyone in the world ought to be welcomed into church, so that they may learn of God's love in real and life changing ways. Christianity is not a set of abstractions, policies and dogmas; it is a living, breathing community charged with a sense of belonging together in a context of celebration, unity, and delight. That is the church, and that is also the hug circle.

"But what about rules? Rules need to be in place!" Indeed, the church is held together by rules. The hug circle would fall apart if everyone decided to abandon the rules and do as they each individually willed. The church has a code of conduct that is beyond contestation, not for the sake of rewarding some and excluding others, but for the sake of holding the community of believers together in real and tangible ways. God's word is law and sin is to be removed, but this happens through the economy of God's love as it descends on the congregation and continually winds its way through them. In other words, the hug circle represents a kind of perichoresis that is uniquely human. It is a dancing about where a hug is received, given, and then received again. It is self-sustaining, animated by the economy of hugging. It's like a heart beating blood into every vein, again and again. Life spreads like a wave, quiets for a moment, and then explodes into action again. God's love comes into the congregation, beginning a cycle of sharing that can go on a long time before dissipating. The rules of perichoresis are clear, and they must be willingly abided by for the economy of love to flow ceaselessly. Everyone is welcome in the church/welcome to play the game, but the there are rules and they must be observed. And within the context of these rules, what could there be to complain about when God's love is moving among his people? Why worry about how the rules of hug circle are constricting you when you are caught in a maelstrom of affection and warmth? No, the rules are not constricting. They are there not to dictate who may or may not participate in the economy of love, but rather to keep that economy flowing ceaselessly as it ought to.

Perhaps this all sounds too idyllic. I understand. In the case of the hug circle, all of the members were predisposed towards a functioning economy of love because of their shared nerdiness by being members at con. It is entirely possible that not everyone in Seattle would have been comfortable participating in the circle. Perhaps the circle is not meant for everyone. Perhaps everyone must seek out their own version of the economy of love, just as each Christian must seek the denomination and congregation that brings them closest to that sense of divine perichoresis with fellow humans. Perhaps this is more representative of what I ought to expect from the time following the resurrection, when all will be given new life and a new chance to know God's love. Indeed, it seems appropriate, now that I think about it, that Sakura Con is always held on Easter weekend. And though I regret not being able to attend a church service on Sunday, I still believe that I witnessed a hint of what can be expected on the day of resurrection. For while Easter is a day to celebrate and be in awe of Christ's death and resurrection, the hug circle was (for me) a celebration in awe of each person's own death and resurrection, and what that shared experience of resurrection will mean. There is a sense in which churches have lost, and need to regain, the hug circle's sense of vibrant joy and celebration. Churches could learn more than a few things from con culture, because con is all about drawing together disparate people through shared passion and love. And that's what church should be.

The dear friend I mentioned earlier had to leave Sunday to go back to Montana, far away from here. But we spoke about hope and memory; we had formed these memories, and there was no way out. They would always be part of us. Memory alone is not enough to live on, so we could keep those memories with the hope of one day making new ones. Hope and memory, I sometimes catch myself murmuring now. One of us, no way out. One day, the memories I formed in the hug circle, which hope for perfect realization in the healed earth God promised us, will be made new. Hope and memory. I keep the memory in hope. One of us, no way out.

And I will never forget how present God felt in that circle, because I am one of us, and there is no way out of that. I am eternally a member of the hug circle at Sakura Con 2015, just as I am eternally a member of God's family.

This is the Idiot, signing out.