Merci and Mercies

French word merci and the English word mercy seem to be something like fraternal twins separated at birth. They are both the progeny of the Latin word merces, which my dictionary tells me means "price paid for something, wages, reward." The meaning of our mercy in modern English is thanks to those innovators, the first followers of Christ:

"The early Christians of Rome used the word in a slightly different way. For them it meant the spiritual reward one receives for doing a kindness in response to an unkindness. The word came into early French as mercit or merci with much the same meaning as was later passed on to our Modern English word mercy." (Merriam-Webster)

If only the ancient Romans had known how common - and drained of its meaning - this word would become in modern French. Millions of people in Paris exchange it numerous times a day for a polite je vous en prie (you're welcome) without thinking about it too much. Someone hands us sandwich, and we say merci. Someone holds the door for us and we say merci. But I doubt if your average modern would say it if he were tortured for praying to the God he does. In fact, at first glance, it doesn't make any sense. But those early faithful had such a firm grasp on their own spiritual pardon before God, it compelled them to extend that pardon to others regardless of the way they were treated.

"What are you thankful for?" As we went around the dinner table, the responses were sincere and heartfelt - community, friends in a foreign land, food, family, etc. The Lord loves all thankful hearts. But I'm wondering how my little tribute would stand up next to a response from the Apostle Paul, Stephen and all those guys. They rejoiced that they were worthy to suffer for His name's sake. I rejoice that I've had a year fairly free of suffering. Hm. If my eyes shift even a little from physical benefits to the spiritual over the next year, I will be really thankful.

The word Thanksgiving (pronounced tanks-geeving-eh) is less of a linguistic mystery, having been borrowed quite recently into French vocabulary. They tried to float the idea of le jour de l'action de grace (lit., the day of the action of thanks) for a while. Alas, the French are too much in love with English these days for that sort of thing, and they preferred to swallow the real thing whole, with all of the zeal of a 10-year-old attacking his pumpkin pie. There is even a store named Thanksgiving, where you can buy jellied cranberry sauce for 5 euro a can. I hear you can also order a whole turkey in advance, but we weren't quite organized enough to plan ahead this year.

Which left me cruising around the city for most of Wendesday afternoon from butcher to grocery store to butcher, looking for a bird. No, madame, it is much too early. The farmers haven't even given them to us yet. (It's a Christmas dish here.) Finally, at the eighth stop or so, I was elated to see one handsome specimen in a shop window, the last one. She was magnficent, complete with long black tail feathers and head hanging down, as if she knew her fate. 15 minutes later, she was trussed and prepared, and with profuse merci's to the kind staff, I happily carried her away like an oversized football under my arm. Score! It was probably one of the best turkeys I've ever had. I don't know if you're like me, but I love how almost all elements of a Thanksgiving meal (sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, olives and pickles, etc.) can mingle on my plate and still taste amazing. Any other meal, and this is not okay with me. Must have something to do with gravy.

Yes, this was about as authentic a Thanksgiving as you can create when in a foreign land, far from loved ones. We were with dear friends and collegues, re-created the foods we love. We even piped in live football via the Internet and let Bing Crosby sing in the background. The two English and one Aussie who joined made us a bakers' dozen, and were fascinated and delighted by the whole spectacle. We even thought about doing a re-enactment of the "first" Thanksgiving in 1621, but everyone was too full to move. After recounting the details we knew, the story morphed into something of a fractured fairy tale, where Squanto was trying to save Pochahontas while the lone vegetarian was trying to rescue the turkey from certain doom. It was hilarious.

All in all, a terrific evening. As Ray (our friend and landlord) mentioned, it's a sign of a good party when people aren't worried about running out the door to catch the last metro or train home. Gee, I hope they got home ok.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our loved ones everywhere!

What happened next

Montpellier. We arrive early in the morning. Most of the city is still fast asleep. The street cleaners are washing the smooth, cream-colored stretches of marble of the centre-ville, and a lone cafe worker alternates between pulling espresso shots for the recent train arrivals and unstacking the towers of wicker chairs that by noontime will serve as perches for the large flocks of people that settle down on the Place de la Comedie. It is hard to believe that all of those cafe tables will be occupied in a few hours, but it's true. Sort of a daily miracle. It is not sunny like in the photograph at right.

For now, the mood is so still, it's almost sad. I don't know that we arrived expecting official fanfare and city celebration on our behalf. But there is something slightly disappointing about arriving too early for holidays in France. The shops are still closed, their security screens pulled down like a blanket over the sleepy eyes of an ornery teenager who insists on sleeping in.

But there's also something exciting about this quiet. It's a void that still waits to be spoken into. It's kind of like the early, dark hours on Christmas morning, when my brother and I used to sit around the Christmas tree and enjoy the quiet anticipation of gifts and smiles and coffee and Christmas breakfast.

I digress. But we had a lot to think and talk about while we waited for the Tourist Office (and everything else) to open at ten o'clock. Our hotel room was not ready yet, either - but the kind lady did allow us to leave our luggage in the storage room, and before we left to explore, we caught a glimpse and a whiff of the breakfast being served. We were not particularly hungry, having already succumbed to the heady smell of baked pain au chocolat. There is a sandwich shop near the train station with a little pastry oven turning tasty morsels that would tempt me on my way to class when I was here eight years ago. The aroma still makes me weak.

Feeling light and free, we try not to notice the grey skies, and poke our way through the ups and downs of the cobblestones in the oldest part of town. The narrow passageways are rather unoccupied at the moment, but crawling with history. The Faculty of Medicine is one of the oldest universities in Europe (est. 1180), is where Nostradamus and Rabelais studied. We circled around a tower reaching straight up out of nowhere in a calm square. The Tour des Pins, one of the two surviving towers from the original city wall. - we learn later that there used to be twenty-five. History is hard on things. For Nostradamus, the future was hard on things. Apparently, he climbed these very steps, and declared that the destruction of the city would occur when the two imposing pine trees nearby died. When they did, in fact, die shortly thereafter, the city quickly replanted pines, which are still there to this day. I guess it worked, because Montpellier exists, but my, has it changed!

We also let our eyes run over the impressive Couvent des Ursulines, the 14-century Cathedrale de St-Pierre, and the Aqueduct of St.-Clement, and finally settled down next to a courtyard for some delicious Italian food. (Notice in the photo a shop that is called "Lud 'M" - we couldn't stop laughing at the ressemblance to Lud and Em, our brother and sister-in-law!) With full stomachs, our bodies suddenly started groaning under the punishment of night trains and early mornings. We somehow wrapped both sets of long limbs around one green park bench near the Esplanade and took a snooze.

"C'est une petite chambre que j'aime bien". (It's a little room that I like so very much.) This was what the owner of the B&B said when I had made the reservation the week before. You know when hotel proprietors speak of their rooms with such tenderness, that it's probably going to turn out okay. It was in fact a jewel of a place, full of charm, decent prices, and extremely clean. We decided that this bed was much more comfortable than a park bench.

The crowning experiences of this trip were the gastronomic ones. The first evening, we found an amazing little French place called "Le Boeuf Agile". Small operation, lots of love. They wove us an evening of wild mushrooms, frog legs, grilled fish freshly-caught that morning, a delicate white wine from the nearby Cevennes, and two desserts to finish off the ordeal. The price? 32 euros. Gasp. This was half the price of Paris. It was going to be an excellent weekend.

Still hungry for the sun they always talk about in the Sud, we sought our fortunes in the nearby fishing town of Sete. Bingo! It was still a cool November day, but delightfully warm in the faithful sunshine. We strolled along the little canals that crisscross the city, vaguely reminiscent of Amsterdam or Venice. Around lunchtime, we bellied up to a portside restaurant and didn't leave until a couple of hours later. A boat of mussels, prawns, oysters, and whelks (escargot of the sea) pulled into our table, along with a bottle of chill vin rose. These flavours, the salty air, and the sun will remain indelibly fixed on my memory.

Which is a good thing, since I absentmindedly left our camera on the beach a few hours later. Crazy with the sight of the sea, I had decided to go for a gasp-inducing dip in the water which was a perfect turquoise blue. As were my lips when I emerged ten minutes later grinning from ear to ear to rejoin my husband, who had stood on the rock and laughed at me the whole time. Why didn't we think to take a picture? Might've remember the camera. Oh well, like I said. Good memories (almost) make up for it.

Later, we climbed to the top of the city and saw lights to the left and an eerie ocean spread out to the right, where the moonlight would glint from time to time. Captivating. So much so that we lose track of the time, and miss the train. How to get back to Montpellier? Tired, hungry, cold, we reviewed the options over and over. My Goretex jacket wasn't quite sexy enough to stop a motorist, so hitchhiking wasn't really going to work.

One taxi ride later. Gee, appreciating beauty can get rather expensive.

The remainder of our days were devoted to exploring Montpellier a bit more, and Avignon on the way back to Paris. Yes, we walked across the bridge of Avignon, where "they're all dancing, they're all dancing," though bridge dancers are harder to come by in the chilly winter months. Thankfully, so are tourists, so we had many of the sites to explore uncrowded.

I love the South. But there's something about coming back to Paris that is always so inviting. A place I know. A home of sorts.

N.B. The photos I owe to Google Image search and our previous quick stop in this city last summer. It just seemed like a forlorn post without some color.

Wanderlust

Lately, we have sustained a nervous desire to get out of Paris. Why, you may ask? Are we so blasé so as to think that this city is passé and cliché? Have we grown so accustomed to just sitting on the same old café chair, so as to be unable to move it, even when we want to? Has the dreaded ennui finally set in? OMG, Paris is SO last year.

Well, perhaps it's not quite that bad. It is true that we are prone forget how delicious our daily baguette really is. My eyes sweep up and down an extraordinary medieval street or two on my way to work, and I am preoccupied with planning a trip to Spain, Italy, or even Iceland. It seems that before we take this wonderful place for granted, it is time to explore beyond the peripheral enclosure that has thoroughly defined our lives for some time.

The first opportunity to break free came last weekend, in the form of two trips - Karl went south, and Abbey went north. No, we are not so anxious to cover all the necessary ground before we leave this continent that we felt it was best to split up the party. Rather, my fabulous husband had a gig in the Pyrenees, and my weekend plans had already formed around a retreat on the Sea. So, we kissed good bye on the sidewalk in Paris (a cliché that I do in fact appreciate) and promised lots of pictures upon our returning.

Bernieres-sur-Mer is a tiny village on the Northern coast of France in Normandy. Yes, these were the beaches where the Allies landed on June 6th - the memorials to every country involved in this heroic act dot the misty coastline for many kilometers. We were nearest to the remembrance of the Canadian soldiers. I strolled the coastline with two very good friends of mine, when I suddenly realized that they were both German and I was American. I kept this to myself, but silently thanked God for bringing peace and that in Him, we were reconciled. Indeed, all of our time as a group over the weekend could be best described as "family time" - three delicious meals shared everyday, going for long walks, praying for one another, playing together, holding each other's babies, telling stories. And all the time, the backdrop of the very-present sea, with the smell of salt and sand everywhere.

Karl's train took him to a different place entirely, the town of Lourdes. This used to be a quiet little market town at the foot of the mountains, until several superstar saints and also the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared, and transformed the place into a colorful place of pilgrimage. Despite the exciting visitors of yore, apparently the gospel choir that Karl was playing with was the main draw last weekend. In fact, they were such a big hit that Karl's boss was given a statue of Mary filled with holy water as a thank you gift. Very sweet, though I'm not sure what I would do with that. At any rate, the occasion was made all the more special as dear friends of ours maneuvered the French country roads all the way from Bayonne to Lourdes to enjoy the show. (Many thanks to Beatrice for the photos, since Karl forgot his camera!)

So, did these adventures satisfy our wanderlust? Well, not completely.

The fact remained that because of Armistice Day this year, I can faire le pont ("make the bridge" from one day off to the next), and thereby have five days off in a row. It was my firm conviction that this should not go unexploited. After much fitfully trolling of travel websites all week long, and realizing to our chagrin that derniere minute (last-minute) still means three days in advance in France, we finally stumbled upon a solution. A couple of tickets that will carry us South for a few days, and a couple more to carry us back North. And yes, this time we will both be in the same train!

A Time to Build

Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Moving to France was certainly a matter of counting the cost, as well as staying in France...and staying in France again. A thousand and one factors bounce around in your mind like a pinball machine, setting off all kinds of bells and whistles. This summer, the decision to board the plane and return to the land of our dreams (or land of our exile, depending on our mood) was anything but cut-and-dried. We talked, we prayed, we made an elaborate mind-map that covered the entire dining room table at my parent's house to brainstorm the pros and cons. Finally, it just came down to the fact that we had two tickets in our name on the 4th of September, 2008 to fly from Minneapolis St. Paul airport to Charles de Gaulle Paris.

Why such intense forethought, you ask? It's Paris, right? "Wish you were here", right?

Well, in some sense. But it's also a matter of weaving these beautiful everydays into a larger, more purposeful story. And although that's mainly the job of the Author and Editor of our faith, we evidently have a role to play. As the man in the story above, we sit down, make the best estimations that we can, lay foundations, and (if we are wise) finish a tower or two in our lifetime. Our question for the moment is simply: where to build? The awkward truth is that the longings for professional fulfillment - particularly for the man of the house - appear to be pulling us back to the geographical location we just left behind. Hmm. What to do?

We're calling it an extended business trip. More details to follow.

Movable Feast

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast."
-Ernest Hemingway

Last week we went feasting. Here is our trail of crumbs.

First, the premiere of an original theatrical production. A dear friend of ours is the writer and director of Sweet Ladies, his first opening in Paris. We wended our way through the 11eme arrondissement to the Theatre a l'Epouvantail, a tidy little black box tucked into street with the eyebrow-raising name of rue de la Folie Mericourt. Sweet Ladies, indeed. But this was anything but a "folie" (burlesque comedy in parlance of old). Rather, it was a sobering look into the human condition, dipping the pen of Shakespeare directly into the heart of man, and seeing what came out. Two women, a mother and daughter, grapple with their estranged relationship through the lines of the Great Bard. Simply amazing.

Next, it had always been my intention to visit the former abode of Victor Hugo at 6 Place des Vosges, which is a stone's throw from my workplace. With the ghosts of Esmerelda and Jean Valjean hanging on my shoulder and whispering in my ear, I trooped over during the Journees du Patrimoine (Heritage Days), which earned me free entry. It was an elegant space indeed. And a glorious surprise - I cam across a watercolor that depicted a bell tower in Gentilly, the suburb where we live. Apparently, he used to rent a room out here, which of course was a little village at the time.

As long as I was looking into powerful figures, I decided to hunker down and wait in line at the Palais Royale, which was also giving free tours. This was built for the influential Cardinal Richelieu, and now houses the various members of France's democracy - the Senate and the Judiciary and others. Curiously enough, they have preserved the little prayer-room of a former monarch in this most strict atheistic spaces. Of course, I overheard French people commenting on the tiny oratory - isn't that quaint. I gently suggested to one monsieur that it certainly wouldn't hurt if the Senate members did pray every once in while.

Sunday was our final go at taking advantage of Heritage Days, so we both headed out to Versailles. We eagerly grabbed pastries and coffee and a train, only to arrive to a vast sea of people. You'd think all of Paris has come to recapture the king and queen. Helas. After a disheartening forty minutes in the ticket queue, we finally decided that we'd save the chateau for a quieter day and go off to see La Domaine de Marie-Antoinette - you know, her home away from home away from home away from...

Well you get the idea. We got to wondering - how many beds did this woman have? Well, we all know that her extravagances were solely responsible for the governmental deficit that led to the downfall of monarchy, so what was I supposed to expect? Well, let's just say we underestimated a wee bit. There was Grand Trianon. And the Petit Trianon. And her hobby farm, where Marie-Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting could cleanse their rich-fat souls and consciences with some good old-fashioned farmwork. Apparently, the cows were also carefully cleaned, before they could be milked by Your Highness.

One last little vignette. After church, we jumped on with a group a friends headed off to the North of Paris near Montmartre where a friend's band was playing. This was chanson francaise at its best - flirtatious and funny and we washed it all down with pate, pain, fromage, and a good glass of Bourgeuil. I mean, really. What else do you need for dinner?

Yes, it is good to be back.

Good Times

Venturing out for a run in the chilly air this past week, I was reminded that - oh yes! - the sun does indeed slant both ways. Owing to jetlag, this obvious fact had been a rather faint memory as of late. Yes, I am indignant that a mere bodily weakness has stolen some dozen similar beauties from me since our return, but who can stand against the heavy eyelids of seven hours' time difference? I am weak.

Not everyone will be able to relate to the minor shame I suffer related to sleeping in - there are a blessed many who can sleep a very long time with no qualms whatsoever. I envy you. And yet, I am glad for my own disposition on the whole . Even when northern climes eventually do yield days that are short and dark, the first half has always seemed to me to be life magnified - something akin to putting on your glasses after a good wipe.

By contrast, the midafternoon finds me short-tempered - if not irritable beyond recognition. I think it has something to do with the hours spent staring at that bright false angel, that lighted box of counterfeit glory so omnipresent in our modern lives. We try to revive our beauty-starved souls with catnaps and coffees, but these prop our sodden spirits only by mere increments. What will return us to the first glory? His mercies are new every morning, but what about the afternoon doldrums?

And how about this for a cheery thought?

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

What then is this lifelong fling? What transforms a series of good days (or "good times", as Karl is fond of inserting into the conversation at any given moment) into a good life? There is the evening with the good wine, the morning with the stunning sunrise, and the glorious couple of moments when you catch a whiff of baguette walking past the boulangerie...do they add up to nothing more than random occurrences? Are those brave words emblazoned on the side of the Walker Art Center unduly optimistic?

Yes. As usual, I have painted myself into a metaphysical corner, trying to grapple with impossible questions of here and there, then and now. Help me, T.S. Eliot.

Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before or after But a lifetime burning in every moment.
-East Coker

A lifetime burning in every moment. Slightly more on the optimistic side, that one. Which can be helpful when you're wondering what lies on the road ahead. Especially when you buy too often into the lie that only people falling between the ages of 18 and 25 or so are beleaguered by decisions regarding God, work, love, school, and the like. Culture seems to dictate that we should have these bits and pieces put together by our late twenties. (With the occasional allowance for the unhappy 45-50-year old male who wants a red sportscar, of course.) The truth is, we all face these maddening seasons of rethinking and re-evaluating. (Er - you don't? Well, I do.) Indeed, I had been in something of a tizzy over grad school recently, but after much turmoil gratefully fell upon the following passage:

I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness.
When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.
Proverbs 4:11-12

He has taught us, so now it is time to walk. Maybe this kind of exhortation (with a little minor help from the poets) is the only thing that will keep us sane in a life that tends to the labyrinthine. The trail may twist, turn, ascend and descend, but if we have been teachable in the way of wisdom, we will not stumble.

I think tomorrow morning calls for another run. (And maybe tea around 4 pm or so...groan.) the intense moment

Melting Potstickers

The Midwest is assumed by most French people to be a culturally-starved, hopelessly-homogenized region. As in, you poor thing, you come from there? You know, if the States were the afterlife, the few elect would go to New York and San Francisco, while the multitude of sinners would languish in the vast stretches in between those venerated cities. Case in point: we chatted with a guy in a bar near Bastille the other night who had studied in Wisconsin as a teenager for three weeks on a study exchange. While his well-intentioned host parents planned his visit to the minute to take full advantage of their corner of the globe, the 17-year-old was high (okay, probably in more ways than one) on dreams fueled by Jack Kerouac. Somehow downtown Madison just didn't do the trick.

Still, we Americans tend to pride ourselves on our country's status as a "melting pot". And I must say, it's true. After six weeks in Minnesota, I am still relishing in retrospect a smörgåsbord of experiences that would shush any Parisian into respectful silence in a hurry.

For starters, I clapped and cheered as my little brother earned his next belt in Japanese martial arts. We attended our friend's milonga, an Argentinian tango party, meeting fascinating dancers from the world over. We watched in delight as our friend Ledung belted out the eighties to the last hangers-on in a Vietnamese wedding. Karl made his new fancy Swedish keyboard wail the American blues on several happy occasions. And fabulous French, German, Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish, and countless other culinary influences kept popping up in both fancy dinner parties and casual suppers.

And then there was the Minnesota State Fair. Heck, we didn't even make is to the "International Bazaar"- our experiences were already plenty diverse as it was. We were reminded of the importance of dairy consumption, principles of hot dish, proper handling of firearms, and the joys of polka-ing to Norwegian airs played by a traditional accordion band. You just never know what you might find in Minnesota - if you go looking for it, that is. And this, I believe, is the key difference between life in the Midwest and our life here in Paris. In the States, one quickly becomes bogged down by everyday suburban life where everyone kinda looks the same (thank you Target) and complains about same things (i.e. gas prices). You have to go out of your way to find something different.

Here in Paris, "something different" tends to come and find you.

We arrived back a week and a half ago to live with a family from the States - a Japanese/American couple with two great kids. They are hospitality incarnate, so we weren't the only houseguests involved. A mutual friend of ours from Malaysia had recently come back from studying for six months in Sweden and was ready to introduce us to as much Asian cooking as we could handle. Which turns out to be quite a bit. As a Malaysian, Thomas is also from a "melting pot": his home country is a mix of various influences, which comes out in language, religion, cooking, and outlook. All week has been a tasty and fascinating introduction to a continent that we have yet to explore. This all culminated when we all went to a Chinese family's house for the mooncake festival.

This holiday usually involves small children carrying lights around in the dark streets, singing, and eating mooncake. Despite a lack of small kids at the party, we still enjoyed the barbecue, conversation, traditional folklore stories, dessert brought direct from Taiwan, Karl's improvised hymn to mooncake ("my little mooncake...where are you?"), and the glow of the pretty red lanterns. And for this joyous meeting, we sang "thank you Jesus"...in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Malaysian.

I guess we'll stick to whatever melting pot we can find.

Prisoner of the Day No. 7

Ms. Ying Dai [a former prisoner], is a Falun Gong practitioner who survived Chinese labour camps and now lives in Norway after being granted refugee status by the UN. [She] confirmed the blood testing of Falun Gong practitioners [in order to harvest their organs]. She also told of the persecution she endured in China together with other practitioners.

"For five years, I was arrested, I was incarcerated. We were severely beaten. But we were no animals and we committed no crime."

"The degree of persecution is beyond what people in the West can imagine", she told the audience.

Mr. Erping Zhang, the director for the Association for Asian Research, a New York-based organization, presented an overview of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that includes meditation, and of its persecution by the Chinese communist regime.

The practice, first made public in China in 1992, was originally endorsed by the government for its ability to improve health and morale, but it fell out of favour after the officially atheist regime found it had attracted more adherents than there were members in the Chinese Communist Party.

Zhang emphasized that Falun Gong practitioners have been vilified by the Chinese media, which are under the control of the ruling communist party in China. The media have treated Falun Gong worse than criminals, Zhang said, and this has helped substantiate the persecution.

Source: Epoch Times

Prisoner of the Day No. 6

Beijing bookstore owner and House Church leader Mr. Shi Weihan, has been suffering a deterioration in health since his imprisonment four months ago.

China Aid Association (CAA) says that poor prison conditions and refusal of diabetes medication have contributed to Shi’s lack of health. Shi has lost more than 10 kg in body weight amidst the constant physical and psychological torture employed by prison officials.

CAA says that recently Shi was coerced to sign and recognize a confession convicting him of “engaging in the printing and distribution of a large number of illegal publications.”

The charges stem from Shi’s printing of Bibles and Christian literature which were sold at his Beijing Christian bookstore, but were deemed “illegal” by Beijing authorities because the books were not printed by the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Church.

Source: Radio Free China