And by "Handle with Care", She Means to Say...

I recommend to you A Guide to the French. Handle with Care. courtesy of the NYT. It's a quick and accurate read and will be helpful in understanding what I write here.

I add a caveat. "Handle with Care" more accurately should read, "Succumb to the overwhelming fear to which the homogeneity-loving, history-bound, but can't the world stay small? French are tied. Not all French, mind you, but many.

Since discerning this attitude and its pervasive effects, even on me, I have since said, "screw it." I try to walk the fine line of respecting and learning yet at the same time challenging the social norms by, frankly, being myself (American, Christian, and all). As I have been told, because I'm American, I can take more risks here than many French Christians.

So, I have gone to buy baguettes in my jogging clothes, sometimes I do not give everyone the bisous when I enter or exit a gathering because I refuse to crawl over a crowd just so someone won't think ill of me if I don't, I also talk about many subjects like Jesus, the Bible, race, money, and church fairly openly, regularly receive raised eyebrows, and yet tend to on the whole make people smile and laugh in a place that is begging for hope, transformation, and joy. Every day I walk out my door and know it is not me alone who walks throughout my days, because so regularly do I have to make known my great need for sustenance in merely being here there's no way it could just be me.

What I really want to do sometimes is lob the dog poo at the dog's owner and yell, "Clean up the crap." I have also been tempted to smack upside their heads teenage boys and girls who bump and rumble in the buses as if no one else was present. And when I am told a pessimistic "no" when offering a mere idea or possibility, I want to yell back, "YES!!! You don't know if you don't try." I would also like to destroy the little servant black men figurine standing outside of a store or the African dancing cartoonish-like figures on kitchenware. What is this?! 1956?! Please, please, do not talk to me about America's racism; that's bad enough. But France, tops the charts! I also would like to make very clear that if the whole nation is going to take Easter Monday off, can it please be for a reason other than self-serving pleasure?! And if we're going to teach the children that it's okay to believe Jesus died on a cross, can we not also let them in on the happy secret that it's not where he stayed? As they say here, and often, "ca m'enerve" (that gets on my nerves).

Love France, love the French, love their quirks, but this article sent me over an edge I was already barreling towards. You are I'm sure wanting an update on ministry here, Easter with the Prevotes, and perhaps even photos. All in due time. Tonight, this...