That Wonderful City of Love, City of Lights, City of...Shoes?!

The scent of body odor co-mingled with the train's refuse of smoke as I slithered the hot and sticky way into Paris. Such was my return to the city of not only love and lights but coffee, culture, and SHOES! Everywhere one turns during this month of "soldes" (sales), boothes, stacks, and racks of shoes tumble out of doors. Not to be off-set by the plethora of shoes, however, many languages spill out of just as many mouths, making it hard to feel a stranger in the city I love...for we are all at once visitors and at home here.

My first visit to Paris was instigated by an afternoon call from Linda Weber, GEM headquarters personnel extraordinaire, who has come to France and Europe to visit with and encourage others such as myself. We are Euroquesters--those who have made short-term commitments to serve in various European countries. We stopped for a cup of coffee before wandering through the streets of the Latin Quarter, replete with students, university bookstores, and tourists--as the Notre Dame stands close by. For decades, perhaps more, the Latin Quarter has been home to the great philosophical discussions of our time--including but not limited to Sartre, Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir--and while cafes still teem with the fiery conversations of the French, scents of Moroccan, Greek, and other Mediterranean fare lure both Parisians and visitors away to partake of their goods.

The afternoon's trek to the city was unlike those I have taken before for many reasons. One being, I felt no pressure to do and see anything...and that indeed is Paris's spell. As we talked and roamed, another Euroquester and I discussed the hard work of support-raising, the lifestyles we have left, and why we are here in France. We were not racing around catching this and that, but merely a part of the scene--passersby sharing snippets of the good life, the life we long so much to be for God despite ourselves. Another reason, I had not been in Paris since my stints in D.C. and Chicago, and as I mounted the stairs out of the Metro station and out onto Saint Michel Boulevard, my blood began to coarse faster, my eyes keen to all around me, studying storefronts, styles, faces, sounds...and I realized how much I love cities. I'm from Waco, Texas, a small metropolis boasting a university and all the accoutrements such provides alongside I-35 underpasses frequented by homeless men and women seeking their next meal. The varying socio-economic levels and vast divides between put even how my family lives there to shame, and it was in a backyard on 15h Street many years ago that I learned first about peoples, cities, and a world in need. Although small and not quite a city by count, Waco is where I learned to love so much of what gives me life now. And being back in Paris after having taken stock of my life lived from Waco to 'burbs to D.C. to Chi-town put a new twist on being there--Paris is wonderful but its intricacies can be found in so many other places as well, taking various shapes and sizes to fit the bill of what city you may name. I do not mean to slight Paris, and everyone who knows me knows how much I rave about this city, but although a mere 24 years old, I have new eyes to see it and love it...and see and love its people.

For you see, Paris is not only a city where all is beauty. It is one where much is empty. Its eyes, its churches, its arms, its souls--they long. One can see it and sense it. Organ music plays quietly in the background of the L'Eglise (Church) St. Severin, and four heads bow in silence, for rest, out of weariness, in remembrance...peut etre (maybe). I do not know, I did not ask. But the reverence echoes against the concrete wall where candles sparkle and light the shadows in stark contrast to the masses which congregate in Notre Dame, pushing and flashing cameras, sitting and listening, moving through what was once holy and now is a mass market for the wanting. They built the cathedral to celebrate the glory of a God worshipped within, that its details might sing of God upon entering and exiting...yet now we all trample its worn floors for a mere glance at a glory fleeting.

In France it is tradition to give the bise, the kiss upon each cheek, upon greeting; and most telling of all in Paris might be this--that outside the doors of Notre Dame stand three youths, college students maybe, with signs saying "free hugs" because this a place starved for the affection of others. As people approach they give, and many laugh, some throw heads back and say, why not?, others do not know what to do with it. Perhaps free hugs are saddest of all here, for what is the cost of a hug but the loving of one another?