As Careme Begins

While I'm busy typing away on a paper that has distracted me from all else, the following was received from L'Arche in Compiegne as we enter tomorrow into the season of Lent, Careme in French. I am reminded of how this desert season began last year, with a final night of jubilation and dancing as the morrow brought a waking attentiveness to Christ's suffering and our call to enter in with him. May these words guide you as they guide me and others. Pray for the country of France as they enter into this season, for the devout Catholics and emerging charismatic movement to be a light for Christ in the desert of roteness and dead tradition.

« Seigneur avec Toi, nous irons au désert… Les paroles de ce chant, propre au temps de carême, nous invitent à vivre une nouvelle étape dans notre année liturgique. Nous sommes invités à aller au désert, à aller dans ce lieu aride, sans végétation et sans habitation. Un lieu qui, à première vue, est sans intérêt. Rien ne semble s’y passer, rien ne semble arrêter notre attention. Pourtant, je suis bien invité à regarder, non pas autour de moi, mais en moi. Car c’est dans le calme et le silence que je peux entendre Dieu me parler cœur à cœur, que je peux recevoir la lumière de Dieu pour faire la vérité en moi. »
Extrait du Vivre Ensemble, Abbé Denis Raffray.

"Lord, with you we will go into the desert...The words of this song appropriately invite us into Lent, into a new stage in our liturgical year. We are invited to go into the desert, to go into this dry place, without green growth and without life. It is a place that upon first glance holds no interest. Nothing seems to pass by this place, nothing seems to take our attention. And yet, I am clearly invited to watch and look, not at that which is around me, but at myself alone. It is in this peace and in this silence that I can hear God speak to my heart from his, that I can receive the light of God to live truth from my being."

Jennifer's translation

Afternoon Chat

After a long hiatus from skype, that magical system that lets me keep up with one million gazillion relationships that at any one point in time span one side of the globe and back around, I signed back on this afternoon for a chat with Natacha.

Oh my goodness! If I could leave for Compiegne tomorrow I would. It was wonderful to get a voice to voice, camera to camera update from her, exchange our news, plan for time in France in a little over two weeks, and pray together. I love praying with Natacha because always the response is "J'aimerais bien," meaning I would like to very much. It continues even over distance and time to be a privilege to walk with her and others through brief emails, skype chats, facebook messages. God continues to raise her up in enthusiasm and joy to be a thoughtful Christian who is contagious.

Someone told me today during a class break that they forget I'm Texan because I don't have much of an accent or seem to want to go back to the "motherland." I laughed and said, "Well, France is the motherland."

How does God wire us with other places so deeply imbedded in us we cannot shake it as much as we try?

To Natacha, skype, God's hand of goodness, and the land of France!

Lunch with Vincent

I will plan to blog about my visit back to France right before, maybe during, and definitely after if you're wanting to follow the story that began almost two years ago now (entire process of going accounted for in that).

But, for the moment, I am practically giddy because I just received an email from Vincent my neighbor about lunch in Compiegne. "Tell me the date and hour precisely that week. I have plenty of news to tell, and I'm sure you do as well." There are small glimpses when it feels as if I never left, and this was one of them. Note that my last interaction with Vincent involved my leaving him a copy of John, so already I am interceding and preparing for a follow-up conversation. Will you join me in those prayers?

March 5-15 will be full between visits with missionaries, students, long-term ministry discussions, L'Arche, church, students in Paris, time with Valerie, Prevotes, a dinner party...and the list goes on. Ten days feels so short with a people and place that I call mine, but I am asking God to expand the minutes, grant me full comprehension of all that occurs, and continue to place before me ways that even in a short span he has prepared for me to minister.