Already Not Yet

I am a broken not-yet kingdom
Cisterns dried up in tiredness.
I tell all the old tales to myself,
Awaiting the return of a king
He who rides through deserts
To set me completely free, indeed.
I believe already, help my unbelief.
For all has waned to a standstill,
Caught in unmoving, restless time.
Perhaps a chance to firm feeble knees
And put feet straight on broad path
But there's no lifting power left in me.
Listless, I scribble many words
For the simple illusion of progress,
To keep the plot moving forward.
But inwardly I still groan, forlorn -
When will life have taste again?
Without vision I would perish here -
Lead me to the Rock higher than I.

When folly quits to stir

When folly quits to stir
Warm in the prickly heart
And inflames no more
Bare my soul and an arm
Swollen and tattoo-crossed
Self-made crown of thorns
Over the sin of my forefathers
Rage seeps from the bones up
Spreads its toxic fever bubble.

Try to suppress the humors deep
And the hidden tumor will burst,
Break the lips and shatter
On a unrelated but fated day.
To sublimate only serves to
Silt the reddish ire in the veins
Deeper ore still and unreachable.

Claw at the pain but cannot
Scratch away the inky deeps
It seeps into the life streams.
But there is another choice.
To see another's blood spilled
And split the ground with joy
Uprooting the old evil paths
That run me through and through.
Redeeming me from mark of Cain
When folly quits to stir.

life that rests within a seed
dies alone but lives indeed.

Conversation

Yeah, don't read into the question.
That's so weird, I was just thinking about that,
But I was thinking, what it's okay with me, flirt with life, I'm sure-
She was very quiet.
Three days of detox
I think that's a powerful experience – I wrote right back.
And so, I'm like
I don't know
Questions.
We can talk about it any other time but now.
That's what you said the last time.

You would have been in serious trouble
Why, seriously
See ya, hey, thank you
We're gonna hang out
It's been a while
Seriously.
It's been an hour.

Laughter.

show me your glory

there are tear-ridden days
when soundless lips
wrenched wide open
mouth again and again,
i want to understand.
would you show me
the fulness of your plan,
just let me read it all,
straight from your eyes,
as a man speaks to a friend?

but you know my frame
maybe this wracking pain
is but the backside of glory.
who can bear it up and live?
i beg to see his face
do i know what i ask?
but he hides me instead
in the cleft and shields me
from a certain death
and still holds me near.
lord, i won't complain anymore
when your love covers me.

the work of dreams

every day i awake a new adam

the dream and the hand of God

having labored an eternal hour long

upon my unswept wilderness.

i lay my body in a grave of sand

let my stormworn soul settle still.

then he comes, traces in the dust

ciphers of mercy i strain to understand.

why do they lie behind my memory

once morning beams light my eyes?

maybe a secret name to be given,

or a someday body to be risen,

will hold the imprint of very good.

Flowers to Fruit

For years, my academic efforts have brought me along a good many true and right paths. I was always surprised when the trail kept spreading out before me. There were a few contorted twists and switchbacks here and there, but always moving upward, forward. And always a delight for the eyes. Words spilling out of books, I stood under them and tried to catch what I could of the blooms sailing down. Beneath my feet, ideas as old as dirt from which new thoughts poked up from deep, unseen places, just showing their tips above ground in the early season. I tilled till I ached, I took it all in. Work and pleasure.

Last weekend, a sabbath from the toil. The impudent spontaneity of a Sunday on the verge of warm kept us out after an afternoon concert. We whisked through cold blue shadows between tall buildings until we reached golden beams and lingered there, languorous. No flowers. Concrete and rusty pine from December, placed at regular intervals along the Mall. "Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged." I pick up a line or two and let my mind wander to gardens. Our feet follow, through the brass-handled doors, up the escalator seven times, and we find ourselves engulfed by buzzing crowds, the heady scent of greenhouses, and bursts of impossible color. Thank you, Macy's. Even if it is "the spring time, but not in time's covenant." Not in Minnesota, at least.

I am not a botanist, or even a well-informed amateur gardener, but it seems as if the best sort of bloom ought to also be a harbinger of fruit. When blossoms come to the end of their ephemeral life, shouldn't they go through that painful-seeming process of turning inside-out, transforming themselves into bread for the eater and seed for the sower? Woe to the tree that does not bear fruit.

And so my thoughts run for these long seasons of preparation - paths of beauty that have been unto themselves, many blooms holding out for transformation into something one could eat. We long for at least a partial fulfillment of the creation mandate: "Be fruitful and multiply." To reverse the curse of the ground. While we groan with Adam and Eve, we have a better hope. "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; And confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes, confirm the work of our hands."

snow and ash

after the fire, the ash.

delicate petal-flakes

of once material things

whisked away in the wind

the snowfall leans long

this year in a shadow,

a dull white of weeks.

life is underground,

pinned down for now

like gabriel's great wing

held by the prince of persia.

where is my clarion message

from the almighty direct ?

covered hopes smothered

but this is mercy maybe

that renders them scentless

not senseless, i know that.

this is death's season

in death's covenant.

when we mourn

our falling, our failing,

his lifting, our raising,

above the snow and ash.

Between Topographies

There are whole worlds hidden and obvious, and I walk past them everyday. Mostly I forget to look, but sometimes I see. I am learning again to look and when I do, I am confronted with spheres of life that overlap, coincide, collide. I find myself in-between the infinite and infinitesimal.

I bend my eyes to the frozen topographical map that splays out under my feet, and imagine that I am looking down at a planet, each of those cracks is a fissure in the crust, each bend a river. Now I am an explorer, charting this moment, memorizing what I can for later, when I'm starved for beauty in a stretch of dull grey cubicles, stress, and fluorescent lights. Packing a meal for my journey through the worldly world.

I continue running, the crunch of mountains and valleys under my feet is satisfying. Looking up into the white-capped blue, I catch a snapshot of the endless of the sky. It keeps going, and going. Giddiness. Suddenly, I am back in the upstairs bedroom as a gangly girl, darkening my room late at night, and training my telescope on the moon till she filled my vision and my heart skipped a beat. Every time. I puzzled over that. Why does seeing a faraway, bright thing so close make the heart race so? I'm still not sure, but it's possible that it has something to do with glory. I never had a hard time imagining that the ancients worshiped the great lights. But they "worshiped the creation rather than the Creator." St. Paul, who grew indignant at the neverending pantheon of gods in Rome, says that this is "to exchange the truth of God for a lie." My head spins with implications, but my heart rests secure now.

I am too large in some topographies, stomping like a clumsy giant over ants and ravines in the sidewalk cracks and snow-tipped tufts of brown vegetation. On the other hand, I am too small, lost with my blood pounding in my ears for all the glory out there brought too close. "What is man that you are mindful of him? And yet you have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory..."

Something else rings in the memory, something I read long ago: "les deux infinis" (the two infinities). Pascal. How did that go again? Finger runs along my bookshelf, and eyes across digital pages too, remembering, until I see and yes. This is what is happening. This is where I am. And it's meant to feel awkward:

"Let man contemplate Nature in its entirety, high and majestic; let him expand his gaze from the lowly objects which surround him. Let him look on this blazing light, placed like an eternal lamp in order to light up the universe; let him see that this earth is but a point compared to the vast circle which this star describes and let him marvel at the fact that this vast orbit itself is merely a tiny point compared to the stars which roll through the firmament. The entire visible world is only an imperceptible speck in the ample bosom of nature. No idea can come close to imagining it. We might inflate our concepts to the most unimaginable expanses: we only produce atoms in relation to the reality of things. Nature is an infinite sphere in which the center is everywhere, the circumference is nowhere. Finally, it is the greatest sensible mark of God's omnipotence, that our imagination loses itself in that thought."

And then,

"Let him behold the tiniest things he knows of. Let a mite show him in the smallness of its body parts incomparably smaller, legs with joints, veins in the legs, blood in the veins, humours in the blood, drops in the humours, vapors in the drops, which, dividing to the smallest things, he wears out his imaginative power, and let the last object which he arrives at become now the subject of our discourse; he might think that this perhaps is the smallest thing in the universe. I wish now to make him see therein a new abyss. I want to paint for him not only the visible universe, but all the imaginable immensity of nature within the confines of an atom. Let him see an infinity of universes, in which each has its own firmament, planets, earth, in the same proportion as the visible world; within this earth, there are animals and finally, mites, in which he'll find again the same things as he found in the mite he started with; and finding again the same things without end, let him lose himself in these wonders.."

Let me lose myself in these wonders.

Eucharisteo

It has been a very long time since I've written anything here, which I could chalk up to any number of reasons. Very busy. Writing energies elsewhere. Lack of inspiration. But one reason became abundantly clear to me as I began reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts this week. The writer-poet's words trace her own aching, triumphing path through pain to thankfulness in all things. This is no self-help, slap on a "Thank-you-Jesus-now-I'm-fine" attitude. It is gut-honest and God-glorifying, a rare combination. (Job comes to mind.) I am finding my mind fully engaged, as a self-described "farmer's wife" teaches me more about true philosophy than some of my professors have. My heart is also alert, taking in her stories, the Word of God, drawing conclusions about my own, weeping sometimes. For Voskamp, the center of our lives is eucharisteo, or giving of thanks - the words that Jesus spoke over the bread of His body (Eucharist), the words that Paul gave the suffering early church, the words that are lost on our 21st century ears unless we trace back and listen hard. Voskamp's confession is an invitation to us all to slow down, consider the details in our lives, and by being thankful, we unwrap God's gifts to us, one-by-one, both easy and difficult. A woman, up to her elbows in laundry and bread dough in rural America, echoes saints and prophets and philosophers of old and reminds us how to practice thankfulness. It is a pure joy.

What became apparent to me was that my main way for unwrapping of the Lord's many gifts to me was this place called lifelongfling. All these years, beginning with our voyage to France, and up until the present time (however erratic!), I have been creating a backlog of thankfulness. At least, I hope so. There is the crafting of words, the selection of images that captured a moment just-so, and the bringing together into a cohesive whole, trying to make a joyful noise. One Thousand Gifts is reminding me that writing is a holy calling, a naming of things that God brings before us, like Adam and the animals in the garden. Sometimes in the confusion of the after-fall, I feel like I'm just seeing prints in the snow, but I'm still called to name them as from the hand of God.

Definitely time to write again.

A Poem for Epiphany, 2011

Stand Still

Everyone who came to that place stood still.
There was blood flowing down the dusty hill.

Brothers had fought, and both had lost.
One froze spearless and counted the cost;
While the feet which had flown like a gazelle
Lay lifeless beneath the body of Asahel.
The sickening cycle of Abel and Cain
Repeated merciless in the family vein
Though centuries of hard sinful bent
Rendered this Abel less innocent
No weapon in hand, but deaf to appeals,
Asahel nipped at his kinsmen's heels.
Right - "I begged him to retreat,
Left - "I warned him of defeat"-
Abner tried to justify his foolish blow
But his words dissipated, as all came to know.

The ignoble end of the spear ran him through;
The point to the sky, unstained and new.
Death dealt in a manner so perversely unjust,
It transfixed a crowd in silent disgust.
Till shaking off the stupor of the sight,
They took his corpse to be buried aright
To dark Bethlehem, to his father's grave;
They laid him away in a still, dry cave.
Nearby, shepherds kept their watch by night
Where one day the terrifying angel would light
The starry sky and announce a Virgin birth,
A baby who would bring peace on earth.
His feet grew beautiful and swift as a gazelle
In love, he pursued his kinsmen till it fell
To a kiss and a cross, and pain without cease
The spear in his side which brought us our peace.

There was blood flowing down the dusty hill.
And everyone who came to that place stood still.


"Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you tell your people to turn from the pursuit of their brothers?" (2 Samuel 2:26)

Fresh Snow, Fresh Year

I love a fresh year like I love a fresh snow. Just as I enter a new year, I indulge in the same set of rituals. Starting a new running log. Uncluttering my closets. Staining the pages of a bright-white journal with its first ink and coffee stains. And having a few days to muse over the coming year. Usually, the first entries in the new journal are burdened with interminable lists of goals. Lord willing, this time I set my sights on a simpler daily track.

Happy New Year everyone!


day by day

strength for today

coffee in my mouth

a run in my legs

sunshine in my eyes

great music in my headphones

good food for my family

his word in my heart

truths in my head

works in my faith

letters from my pen

a book in my hands

a home to create

peace in my mind

a husband to love

prayer on my lips

rest for my bones

hope for tomorrow

Glory Not Fading

There's been this long string of warm, dusty-yellow days in Minneapolis. The air is unmoving, almost as if it's afraid to slip and bring the inevitable cold too early. Stay. Hold that pose till I can snap a picture or two. Keep that musty perfume of tired leaves, everything cracking and dry and sweet.

I've caught myself sighing a good many times into this autumn air, but more satisfied than sad. A good sort of giving up. Most of life is busy, whirring, nonstop, till I run myself into the ground. So I pause in this autumnal stasis for some Sabbath. I bring a book of poems to the park, just so I can turn to T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton and my eyes skip all over the page (a telling symptom of my cultural inability to concentrate) to my favorite parts.


"Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air..."


"The inner freedom from the practical desire..."


"Surrounded by a sense of grace, a white light still and moving Erhebung without motion."


Be quiet for a moment. Think. I am in sync with the poet's words, and step into his rhythm to find the pattern for my own life. Sigh and be satisfied when it fits so well. When I come home from this lovely Sunday walk, things still lie in piles on my desk. Tasks demanding their pound of flesh, tearing a part of this dear present away from me, jerking it into the irretrievable past. But then I start daydreaming again. How could chores be transformed into a fulfillment of now, rather than thieving it away in miserly bits and pieces? I imagine it takes a lifetime to gain that generous, Midas touch.

Speaking of treasure, there is a tree behind our apartment building that has been all lit up lately with leaves golden and luminous. It fills my brain when I tarry there, till little else fits. Even if I don't have time to sit and finish my coffee, I still snap open the lock and push outside for moment, just to imprint this tree on my mind, subtitled: Glory!

Everything cries 'Glory!' " That's the Psalmist singing in the background. Everything. He knew how to take that moment of joy, grace, revelation, the satisfied sigh - and pull it through the rest of his livelong hours of dutiful work and play. Baptizing each burden with a strong sense of 'yes' and 'amen.' So that someday, the reading of poems, and the scrubbing of floors, and the walk in the woods and the grading of papers will all resound in one big 'Glory!' to him. I want that.

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Psalm

I love the Lord, for He heard my cry.

Not my silver tongue and wit, spinning precious threads to catch the Almighty in thrilling glimmer words.

He is not my prey, that I should fell his Spirit in this way.

Not my golden intentions of muscle-faith, wells dug in an august age and beams swung high to build my towering tomorrow.

Mine is the broken cistern, splintered lumber and sand after the storm.

I fainted in faithfulness. But He heard my cry.

My dust-mouth croaked, the strain on the worn cords barely passing the faded crowns of yesteryear trees, not quite power enough to reach the brassy sky.

But He hears the brittle grasshopper drag himself along the same weighted earth.

My squinting eyes glimpsed the faintest whisp of prayer cloud along the distant barren line, doubting the good for mirage.

But He sees and sends the rain into desert-dead unbelief.

I love the Lord, for He heard my cry.

Fulness of Life

In an exhortation to the women in my church last April, the delightful Andrée Seu warned against what she calls "next Tuesday syndrome." As in, I'll be happy "next Tuesday", after that one meeting. Or, after I have that difficult conversation with so-and-so. But the innate problem with "next Tuesday" is that there's always another one ahead. This puts us in a holding pattern, holding our breath, holding out until then. Forgetting about now.

Her words went so deep into me that I forgot that they were there. But recently, it sprung up in the form of new resolve and purpose. Like a seed long forgotten in the deep, dark warm earth, it finally came up to breathe. Sometime in the midst of the tizzy of travels and trials this summer, God watered and gave the increase. I started to wonder.

Why do I delay things that will obviously bring relief and joy? How procrastination has stolen away moments, become hours, become years. I am not yet old enough for much bitter regret, but the gentle rebuke was enough to swing me into action. For instance, why live content with nameless Minnesota nice with my downstairs neighbor when I could offer my hand and friendship? Or, why continually skulk away guiltily from that neglected friend when I could write in an instant with email? Why spend even a moment of these broad, sunny summer days in dull self-absorption or -need I spell it out - spacebook - when I could be working, loving, eating, running, writing, reading, even napping to the glory of God?

This was all rather odd at first, since I've always fancied myself to be someone who enjoys life to the hilt. But oh, how we fancy ourselves. And how often we are wrong. As I thought about it more, a bevy of things from recent memory began piling up uncomfortably. Things that were meant to perch, and have since built nests in the crowded branches. Maybe it is time to shake the branches a bit. Time to walk in fulness of life. And since I myself don't know what I mean by that, I will have to keep you posted.

[The second photo is graffiti from Montreal that says "Down with everyday life."]

Get Thee Up Into A High Mountain

Early this morning, before the rain finally bore down, I ran - no, swam through the soupy, pre-storm haze. Gazing out over the flat, green patch of water that we call Lake of the Isles, I took in the hot breath of clover and the dream-like landscape, tired and yellowed, the heavens like brass. A Minnesota August, if there ever was one. My mind drifted through the blur to a higher, clearer, brighter place, and longed for those deep draughts of air from a couple of weeks ago.

Ever since my arrival in hilly Montreal, one particular promontory had been staring me down. Mont Royal. Maybe the name sounds familiar? Well somewhere along the line, after an intervocalic do-si-do, the name probably morphed into Montréal, though this is apparently a mere hypothesis according to some. Whatever the case may be, I was bent on conquering the summit in my running shoes. When we finally got an afternoon off at the conference, I made a bee-line for the hotel, suited up in my workout duds, and off I went for adventure.

When I began, the sky was covered and I even had to shake a few droplets of rain off of my glasses during the first stretch of my jaunt, but this only added to the refreshment. I felt as free as a kid running off to the park after school gets out. (Actually, this is more or less what was happening.) I skipped through funky neighborhoods I hadn't seen yet, past the imposing McGill University, and up, up, up!

The dirt trails in Parc Mont-Royal honeycomb the steep hillsides, with one wide, serpentine gravel paths heading up most of the way. The grade wasn't too steep...till I got to the stairs, that is. These continued for about 8-10 flights. Yeah baby. When I arrived on the plateau above, I was not disappointed, however. That's why I love to toil my way to get higher up - it's always harder and always worth it. Downtown Montreal popped up in the foreground, while the St. Lawrence stretched out lazily through the panorama, strung with suspension bridges along the way.

I also tooled around near the top for a while, which had a whole other set of trails to offer. Adorning one peak was a significant symbol of Montreal, the steel-beamed LED-illuminated Mount Royal cross, perched 764 feet above sea level. (Yes, I know it's not a REAL mountain, but I'm a Minnesota girl - any elevation is a thrill.) It's sort of like a hybrid of the Eiffel Tower and a church steeple. Strapped to the bars was a canvas sign with the motto: "La Croix sans clotûre" - "The Open Cross", which invites inquiry. What could that mean? Certainly, if you're going to build a monument to the Christan faith on a windy hilltop, it's intelligent to let the air through. But what about the cross we preach and live out...is it just as breezy?

Montréal

I am in love.

Think of a place with the hills and downright cool of Seattle, but everyone speaks French. Even the Starbucks (see right) is obliged to make a sign that says "Café Starbucks Coffee." Sheesh, they aren't even that picky in France.

Yes, they are as crazy as I am about the French language. They speak it with - not with a twang exactly, more like a singsong....twing. I love it -when I can understand it, that is. There was that very eager gentleman with bead earrings and a walking staff was volunteering directions to the Vieux-Port, and I got about a third of what he said.

Think of a place that somehow thought it would be a good idea to make fresh french fries, add cheese curds and additional meats and toppings, all drenched in rich gravy. The infamous poutine. Imagine me thinking that was a good idea for an early supper after inadvertently skipping both breakfast and lunch. Yes, tummyache. But nothing a long walk and short nap in the park couldn't fix.

Think of a place where music and dance never stops. I stumbled upon Nuits d'Afrique /African Nights near the hotel where my conference had a wine reception for the participants. Sitting in the green grass and gazing in wonder at the lively spectacle onstage, I was promptly stung by a bee. When a woman sitting nearby noticed, she offered a compress and we started to chat. She was busy corralling her two darling children and cheering for her husband, the guitar player. This festival has been going on for ten days, all day long, she explains. Plus, this is one festival of many during the summer. People of all ages, shapes, and colors, moving to the beat in the late afternoon sun. By the end of our conversation, this woman was inviting me to her house for coffee later this week and offered me her card. So friendly.

Think of a place that keeps reminding you of Europe one minute and Brooklyn the next, winding cobblestone streets on one side of town and neat, orderly lines of well-kept rowhouses on the other. I am staying in an old, pleasantly grubby hostel in one of the rowhouses (with more very friendly people). Mont Royal looms behind my head and keeps enticing me to a trail run or two. I will have to fit that in, somewhere between all of the conference session...there's still so much to explore!

O, Canada.

The "Arrivée"

You may remember from my last post that we had bought rail passes for the immediate network of regional trains. The original motivation behind these was to roll out of town a ways and glimpse part of the Tour de France. It has been a longtime dream of Karl's to see this event in person, and somehow in past years we were always out of the country when it came time for the fierce and fearless road racers to make their way across the mountains, plains, and villages of la belle France. Here was our big chance!

Sandwiches and fruit nestled into our backpack for later, we boarded the train to Montargis, east of Paris. When we jumped down on the platform about an hour later from the air-conditioned train car, it was sweltering. The blinking green cross above the pharmacie registered 37.5 + C (99.5 F), reminding us to hydrate and stay out of the sun. We managed to down gallons of water but shade was harder to come by. What I wouldn't have given for a hat. Even at 3:30 in the afternoon, the merciless rays stood at high-noon attention. Undaunted, we kept pouring water down our throats (and backs and feet and heads) and secured a spot right along the barrier about 500 metres from the "arrivée". In French, they use the word "arrival", not "finish line". Remember that for later.

We expected some sort of excitement to be afoot. Karl had this idea that they throw cookies at the crowd, for example. O...K. But nothing could have prepared us for the chaos and merriment that ensued. Think hometown parade, but bumped up a few hundred thousand euros in budget. Haribo trucks full of smiling girls throwing bags of candy, a giant chicken car that wove and wobbled and threw out Mont-St.-Michel cookies (ah-HA!), and best of all, almost every sponsor had some kind of hat to throw to the crowd: gingham boat hats, fold-up safari hats, bike caps with the red-polka-dots (like the jersey), and umbrella hats. We scrambled after the showers of giveaways like little kids again, danced around to the booming music with umbrellas on our heads (yes, all we'd had to drink was water, honest!) Once the parade was over, we chatted with a nice French man who wanted to talk about New York, cyclotourism, grandkids, and bridge.

A lull. More swooning in the heat, this time with proper headgear. And then, it came. The pitch rose, hands beating on everything they could find as the peloton swarmed around the corner and into the straightaway to the end. One blur, one being. In advance, I had dutifully memorized the jersey numbers of the top three American riders, and Tyler and Lance were somewhere in the heart of that beast but there was no way I'd catch them solo. Just thirty seconds, a blast of wind and color. Karl's hat blew straight back off his head, it was so powerful. We caught a few snippets of riders on our camera phones, but mostly were stunned by the sheer velocity. Then it was done, and the crowd took over the barriers, tearing them down and we triumphantly walked the last 500 meters together, shoulder to shoulder with the Norwegians, French, Spanish, Dutch - you name it, they were all there. Someone had won the stage, but it didn't seem to matter much to anyone but the Norwegians. We elbowed our way through mass of bodies to try to see the awarding of the jerseys, but all we got were glimpses on huge screens and garbled messages from a loudspeaker. Fair enough, the real show was over.

We've continued to follow the race since, from a distance. I read an article today from the AP: "Shouldn't Lance Armstrong just quit?" The reporter expresses a little bit of admiration to the cycling veteran's commitment to finish a race he won't win, but I found the overall tone of the article to be bothersome. The general message was he should have quit while he was ahead...he is a has-been, 13 is one two many Tours. Now, there has been nothing exceptionally graceful about his fits and starts, bumps and bruises this time, but what about the sheer honor of arriving at each finish line, 12 of 20 crossed as of tonight? What about the love of the sport? Even if his strength is waning compared to his early years, what is shameful about facing the grueling mountain passes for one last time? Maybe this is the amateur in me talking, but isn't it incredible to finish this extraordinary race, period?

Inspired, the day after the Tour, we took bikes out to a town called Mantes-la-Jolie, hoping to ride all the way to Giverny. While it was a lovely trip, a couple hours of wrong turns and hot sun, punctuated by a nasty fall on my part left us much like Lance in stage 8, hands on hips and shaking our heads. No sag wagons for us, but we wouldn't make it to our destination in time and were woefully unprepared for the trip. After exploring Mantes-"the-Pretty" a bit, that day's "stage" was over. Man, I hate not finishing. But you couldn't beat the scenery.

In life we have seasons when we run glorious and strong and others that are sadder, strewn with hardship. In our human pride, we hope that the world's videocameras will turn away when we falter and trip and look stupid, but fortunately for me I have a God who doesn't look away embarrassed. More than that, He picks me up, dusts me off, and reminds me that it's the "arrivée" that counts. I just love the words of the Apostle Paul:

" I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).

La Vie en Rose

"37 euros."

"What?"

"37 euros a person, for a week."

"Really? That's so cheap. We could go...wait, where's the map?"

About a week ago, Karl made the discovery that a fairly modest amount could buy us an unlimited Zone 1-6 pass on our metro cards. A score of sleepy, charming countryside towns rest on the edges of the Paris suburbs just waiting to be explored, but usually cost a little over 20 euros round-trip, so we plan carefully. This way though, we could have free rein both in and outside of Paris for an entire week. Sweet.

When we hopped on the first sleek train headed east, a nervous feeling hit my stomach, like I was getting away with something that I shouldn't. You see, there are complex sets of rules that twist around all matters of French life, and this seems to have conditioned us over the years to believe that we're guilty until proven innocent. (A friend of mine studying law once explained to me that this is indeed the governing feeling in judicial matters here.) So, we waited for the next shoe to drop...but it never came! Now on to the enjoyment.

Provins. Rosy medieval city laid with gnarled cobblestones, flower petals strewn everywhere like confetti welcoming us through these ancient gates. We spent the sweltering early afternoon deep in the 10 kilometers of cool underground tunnels that honeycomb the upper town. No one really knows why they were originally built - there's a science fiction plot waiting to be written. Apparently, Umbero Eco features Provins in part of Foucault's Pendulum:

"Have you ever been to Provins? A magic place: you can feel it even today. Go there. A Magic place, still redolent of secrets. In the eleventh century it was the seat of the Compte de Champagne, a free zone, where the central government couldn’t come snooping. The Templars were at home there; even today a street is named after them. There were churches, palaces, a castle overlooking the whole plain. And a lot of money, merchants doing business, fairs, confusion, where it was easy to pass unnoticed. But most important, something that has been there since prehistoric times: tunnels. A network of tunnels – real catacombs – extends beneath the hill." (Foucault’s Pendulum, p 125.)

Our trusty guide pointed out suggestive clues along the way. The passages are most certainly linked to the mercantile history of Provins, since it was one of four influential Champagne towns overrun by traders hawking their wares in the 13th and 14th centuries. All this hustle and bustle was under the strict control of the Counts of Champagne who kept order in the region until the King of France took over in the 14th. Those counts ran a pretty tight ship. The formidable dungeon at the top of the hill probably had something to do with it.

Two kilometers of strong ramparts remain on one side of the town, built eight hundred years ago to keep the Parisian riffraff out. Since we had come peaceably, they let us in and gave us a perch atop the city walls. We watched the sun go down over the nearby wheat fields and chewed on thick slices of country bread spread with paté, duck rillettes, Brie from nearby Meaux, all washed down with a local beer. Yes, la vie en rose. And speaking of roses, there's another story. Count Thibaut IV, both a poet and a warrior, supposedly brought back a rosebush from the Crusades and planted it in Provins, and they have since spread like wildfire over the area. Rose soaps, rose candy, even crystallized rose petals you can drop in your champagne.

As the sun waned, we ran for one of the last trains out of the city and plopped ourselves down in our seats with 30 seconds to spare. A teenager nearby remarked: "Vous avez bien de la chance." ("You guys sure are lucky.") It's true, we are so blessed. And so grateful.