The other kid is quite a collector. His primary obsession is bottle caps, but it pretty much includes anything small, shiny, not shiny, unusual, or ordinary, almost always dirty and laying in cracks of sidewalks, including corks, soda tabs, seashells, rocks, capucine seeds, hazelnuts, acorns, berries, flowers, etc.
Today he came home extremely proud of his prize marron, a type of chestnut. "Papa, guess what I found at school today" was the first thing out of his mouth to greet me, quickly revealing what he was hiding behind his back without giving me time to respond.
"Was your teacher proud of you for finding it?" I asked.
"No, she didn't see it, I hid it in my pocket, because if she would have seen it, she would take it," he said dramatically.
"Ah, you're sneaky."
"Yeah, but she's sneaky, because she's really good at finding our marrons and stealing them."
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Hope in Disorientation
We saw Sufjan Stevens last week. Though it was not quite the performance I expected or hoped for, it was a uniquely strong communal experience, and more impressive than the songs, compositions, or light-show themselves was the way the collective breath of 2,700 people was held, the wind knocked out of us, our stomach in knots. This was more than attending a funeral, this was sitting in silence for the week following, like the friends of grieving Job. No one spoke a word, for they saw that his suffering was very great. It was unexpectedly intense, living loss together.
This performance by Sandra McCracken strikes me the same way, an expression of loss and disorientation, and it's not difficult to enter into it and live it with her, evident that she's singng from experience. The only difference is a resolute hope, a tenacity that yearns toward the light that surely exists at the end of the tunnel, and that important difference is certainly a tad healthier than the few passing references offered us on Carrie and Lowell.
To be honest, feeling lost has been a recurring and overwhelming theme over the course of the past 4+ years. Many have looked at me as if they don't understand and don't care to understand, but one man listened carefully, lived it with me a bit, and asked me to read Psalm 43:3 to see if it spoke to the feeling.
Send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling!
It was basically the first time I paid attention to the verse. It's become an anthem since, and in the past few months so has this song, as it captures fully the essence of weary waiting and orients me again in the one and only direction I know is worth heading.
This performance by Sandra McCracken strikes me the same way, an expression of loss and disorientation, and it's not difficult to enter into it and live it with her, evident that she's singng from experience. The only difference is a resolute hope, a tenacity that yearns toward the light that surely exists at the end of the tunnel, and that important difference is certainly a tad healthier than the few passing references offered us on Carrie and Lowell.
To be honest, feeling lost has been a recurring and overwhelming theme over the course of the past 4+ years. Many have looked at me as if they don't understand and don't care to understand, but one man listened carefully, lived it with me a bit, and asked me to read Psalm 43:3 to see if it spoke to the feeling.
Send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling!
It was basically the first time I paid attention to the verse. It's become an anthem since, and in the past few months so has this song, as it captures fully the essence of weary waiting and orients me again in the one and only direction I know is worth heading.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Little maman
There are plenty of things fascinating and adorable about the girl tirelessly taking care of her three baby dolls. Like the way she immediately agreed the third should be named Gladys, and consequently explained to her repeatedly, "Yername, Gladys."
But most fascinating and most adorable is the way she whispers to herself small words of reassuring self coaching like every French parent does as she tends to their every need : allez, hop, tac, and voilà.
But most fascinating and most adorable is the way she whispers to herself small words of reassuring self coaching like every French parent does as she tends to their every need : allez, hop, tac, and voilà.
Friday, September 04, 2015
On Consolation
It was early Monday morning when I definitively learned I would help a friend bury his dad the next day. They didn't know exactly what they wanted, but they wanted an homme d'église saying something, anything as they lowered him down. Ils avaient raison. Because saying goodbye to a dad with no one speaking truth by our sides is desperately hopeless indeed.
It was another one of those out of body twilight zone moments, as if I'm watching a film of an unlikely story. How did this kid from Pennsylvania end up in a bourgeois home outside of Paris to help lay to rest a man he doesn't know? Ce cheminement avec Dieu est drôlement étonnant, I wrote to a friend. Don't ask questions, count it as the extreme honor that it is.
At midnight the evening prior, I was led to write about the privilege it was to share these moments with this family I did not know. That I was not there to make their grief disappear, but I was there to share it with them, live it with them. And that reminded me of our God who promises the same. I read words declaring who our God is, that he is close to the broken-hearted, that he is merciful, compassionate, full of goodness, an ever-present help. Then I read words of our Jesus, sent to do the same. A man who had a habit of suffering, as it's put in French, a man who sympathizes with our weakness, a man who understands and is ready to share it all by our sides. A man who promises rest for our weary and heavy-laiden souls. A man who wept before the grave of his good friend, because he loved him, because he was overwhelmed with sadness, because he was revolted by death.
We don't have a God distant and indifferent, but a God who understands and shares and enters into pain with us. This is shocking. This is unlike anything we know in this earthly experience. This should surpass our understanding. What king is like this?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort...
He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He is the source of mercy and comfort. And what do we human beings need more in this life than mercy and comfort? We who recoil at hardened dictators, demanding bosses, exigent teachers, we look to this King ready to sit at our side as we sob uncontrollably and know he must be good, he must be true, he must be what we've been seeking all this time.
...who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
And if he consoles us -- and he does -- he does it not just for our own well-being, but so that we can extend this consolation to others when our turn arises. He wants us and expects us and nudges us to pass it on. And here we see the overflowing fountain of generosity that comes from the heart of God: spilling over and onward and outward, using awkward and weak vessels to get the job done.
But don't miss what's implied. If we're passing on consolation that came from God, that means we very likely received God's consolation from someone. The first person you called who dropped everything and came to sit with you, it was not just a friend, it was God himself. The friends that pulled themselves together to order flowers and make you meals, that was more than friends, that was God himself. The person who didn't try to cheer you up, but sat and cried in silence with you, that was the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. And it also implies that if we are not opening ourselves up in vulnerability to allow others to comfort us, if we are hiding our grief or doing it alone, we are resisting the consolation that God offers.
And now I realize what exactly was going on in my presence at the graveside. It resembles only moreso an unlikely story, and all the more an honor.
Bref, consolation comes.
Don’t back down, concentrate on seeing
The breakers in the bar, the neighbor’s greeting
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination
It was another one of those out of body twilight zone moments, as if I'm watching a film of an unlikely story. How did this kid from Pennsylvania end up in a bourgeois home outside of Paris to help lay to rest a man he doesn't know? Ce cheminement avec Dieu est drôlement étonnant, I wrote to a friend. Don't ask questions, count it as the extreme honor that it is.
At midnight the evening prior, I was led to write about the privilege it was to share these moments with this family I did not know. That I was not there to make their grief disappear, but I was there to share it with them, live it with them. And that reminded me of our God who promises the same. I read words declaring who our God is, that he is close to the broken-hearted, that he is merciful, compassionate, full of goodness, an ever-present help. Then I read words of our Jesus, sent to do the same. A man who had a habit of suffering, as it's put in French, a man who sympathizes with our weakness, a man who understands and is ready to share it all by our sides. A man who promises rest for our weary and heavy-laiden souls. A man who wept before the grave of his good friend, because he loved him, because he was overwhelmed with sadness, because he was revolted by death.
We don't have a God distant and indifferent, but a God who understands and shares and enters into pain with us. This is shocking. This is unlike anything we know in this earthly experience. This should surpass our understanding. What king is like this?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort...
He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He is the source of mercy and comfort. And what do we human beings need more in this life than mercy and comfort? We who recoil at hardened dictators, demanding bosses, exigent teachers, we look to this King ready to sit at our side as we sob uncontrollably and know he must be good, he must be true, he must be what we've been seeking all this time.
...who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
And if he consoles us -- and he does -- he does it not just for our own well-being, but so that we can extend this consolation to others when our turn arises. He wants us and expects us and nudges us to pass it on. And here we see the overflowing fountain of generosity that comes from the heart of God: spilling over and onward and outward, using awkward and weak vessels to get the job done.
But don't miss what's implied. If we're passing on consolation that came from God, that means we very likely received God's consolation from someone. The first person you called who dropped everything and came to sit with you, it was not just a friend, it was God himself. The friends that pulled themselves together to order flowers and make you meals, that was more than friends, that was God himself. The person who didn't try to cheer you up, but sat and cried in silence with you, that was the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. And it also implies that if we are not opening ourselves up in vulnerability to allow others to comfort us, if we are hiding our grief or doing it alone, we are resisting the consolation that God offers.
And now I realize what exactly was going on in my presence at the graveside. It resembles only moreso an unlikely story, and all the more an honor.
Bref, consolation comes.
Don’t back down, concentrate on seeing
The breakers in the bar, the neighbor’s greeting
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination
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