Jean-Paul Sartre and the Nativity

We are in 1940, in Germany, in a camp of French prisoners. Among them, some priests asked Jean-Paul Sartre, who had been a prisoner with them for a few months, to write down a short meditation for Christmas’ Eve. Sartre, the atheist writer, accepted. And he offered to his companions those beautiful lines.

“You have the right to demand and see the Manger. Here it is. Here is the Virgin, here is Joseph, and here is the Child Jesus. The artist poured all his love in this drawing, maybe you will think he is naïve, but listen. You only need to close your eyes and listen to me, and I will share how I see them from inside me.

The Virgin is pale as she looks at the child. Worried wonderment is what should be painted on her face, a wonderment that only appeared once on a human face, because Christ is her child, the flesh of her flesh and the fruit of her womb. She carried him for nine months. She gave him her breast and her milk will become the blood of God. She holds him, and she says, “my baby”!

But sometimes she is taken aback, and she thinks “God is here” and she feels a religious fear growing for this mute God, for this child, because all mothers have been taken aback in such moments, by this fragment of their flesh that is their child, and they feel exiled as they face this new life that has been done with their lives and that is inhabited with foreign thoughts.

But none has been more cruelly and more quickly teared away than from this mother because He is God and He exceeds on all sides what she can imagine. And that’s a heavy trial for a mother to fear herself and her human condition in presence of her son. But I think there are other quick and smooth times where she feels that Christ is her son, her own baby, and he is God. She looks at him and she thinks “This God is my child! This divine flesh is my flesh, He was made from me, He has my eyes and his mouth is shaped like mine. He looks like me, He is God and He looks like me.”

And no woman ever had God for herself. A God very small that you can hold in your arms, a God you can cover with kisses, a warm God who smiles and breath, a God one can touch and who lives, and I would paint Marie in those moments if I was an artist, and I would try to convey the tender audacity and the shyness in her as she moves her finger to touch the soft small skin of this child God, as she feels his warm weight on her lap and as he smiles to her. So that’s for Jesus and for the Virgin Marie.

And Joseph. Joseph? I would not paint him. I would show a shadow in the back of the barn and bright eyes, because I don’t know what to say about Joseph. And Joseph himself is not sure what to say. He adores and is happy to adore. He feels in exile, a little. I think he grieves without admitting it. He grieves because he can see how much the woman he loves looks like God. How much she is already on God’s side. Because God came into the intimacy of this family. Joseph and Marie are separated forever by this fire of clarity, and all his life, I imagine, Joseph will be about learning to accept. Joseph himself does not know what to say about himself : he adores and is happy to adore.”

(From « Baronia or the Son of Thunder” a play written by Sartre about his time as a prisoner of war. This text is also included in « the Writings of Sartres” by M. Contat and M. Rybalka, NRF 1970)

Roots, wings and French words

I just learned quite a few things on the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral recently. The façade leans forward of about a foot, a tilting that took place on the 13rd century then stopped.

Viollet le Duc, the architect who restored the cathedral on the 19^th century added apostles carved in copper, set at the foot of the spire. 

And he represented himself as St Thomas, protector of architects. While the apostles look straight ahead, St Thomas alone turns back and looks at the spire.

The crown of thorns, the real one, can be found, we are told, among the relics of Notre Dame, protected by precious metal and fine stones.

I learned all that thanks to the French class that I facilitate on Thursday night. This class focuses on pronunciation. After all, if you have a good accent in French, you will be understood even if your French is not grammar perfect.

So I looked for ways to help my students to pronounce as well as possible. It is above all a question of rhythm. Putting the tonic accent at the right place in the word is essential. And I wanted us to also have a good time!

We sang. I looked for a new song every week where there would not be too much slang, where the singer would enunciate and with verbs at the present tense. I realized then how many French songs rich with conditional, imperative or subjunctive verbs were out there!  

We watched together « La Grande Vadrouille », an iconic comedy released in the 60s that is still watched and enjoyed in France. My own nephews know some fun quotes by heart, just like my brother and I did! So I wrote down the dialogue for the class to read it together. But a lot of the humor comes with back and forth between the characters and is not easily transferred in another language. When you have to say “you know, in French, this is so funny…” you know this is not working too well.

Eventually we found exactly what we needed : solid documentaries from the French TV, from the series “Des Racines et des Ailes” (roots and wings) can be found on Youtube. They last about 30 minutes and we go through them in 8 to 10 lessons.

We visited the Louvre and learned about its past as a castle, jail and safe deposit for the kings of the Middle Age before it became a palace for the royal family then the museum we know[1]

We went to St Malo, in Brittany, visited its mansions around the city and the islands facing the coast. We learned about its almost utter destruction during the last world war[2].

And we just finished “Notre Dame, au Cœur de l’histoire » (Notre Dame, at the heart of history) where we saw beautiful images of the cathedral as it looked centuries ago, painted with vivid colors and surrounded by narrow streets and many little homes[3].

Thanks to those Roots and Wings, my students work on their pronunciation skills… and we learn together more about my far-away home country.

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[1] « La fabuleuse histoire du musée du Louvre» https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Rw4gH3giA

[2]  « St Malo, le passé recomposé » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93wnyavtexQ&t=1668s  

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03YbQPKKt6U&t=134s

All Saints Day between Two Worlds

Last week was All Saints Day. I came across those lines by artist, author and poet Jan Richardson, who reflected on grief and on the closeness we keep with the people we lost.

“One of the things I quickly learned after Gary died was that death has a way of tearing open our hearts toward eternity. We are no longer residents of this world only; we no longer move only in this time. It is one of the strange and beautiful effects of intense loss. Even as I continue to make a new life in this world, I am keenly aware that my heart is held by one who lives beyond this world. And that means my heart lives both within and beyond the borders of what I can see and know in this world.

It is All Saints’ Day, and I am thinking about how this is a day to name this—how we live in these two worlds. Except that it’s not really two worlds. Somehow, now and eternity are bound together in a deep mystery. This is a day to remember that even in the pain of sharpest loss, somehow we all live in one world, and death does not release us from being in relationship with one another.

This is a blessing about that. On this All Saints’ Day, as we both grieve and celebrate our beloved dead, may we know how they endure with us, holding our hearts and encompassing us with a fierce and stubborn love that persists across time and distance”.

ENDURING BLESSING

What I really want to tell you
is to just lay this blessing
on your forehead,
on your heart;
let it rest
in the palm of your hand,
because there is hardly anything
this blessing could say,
any word it could offer
to fill the hollow.

Let this blessing
work its way
into you
with its lines
that hold nearly
unspeakable lament.

Let this blessing
settle into you
with its hope
more ancient
than knowing.

Hear how this blessing
has not come alone—
how it echoes with
the voices of those
who accompany you,
who attend you in every moment,
who continually whisper
this blessing to you.

Hear how they
do not cease
to walk with you,
even when the dark
is deepest.

Hear how they
encompass you always—
breathing this blessing to you,
bearing this blessing to you
still.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Images : the Longest Night and the Advent Door by Jan Richardson

Turning a page

Last Sunday of September, a few days after coming back from France.

I was listening to Aaron, UPPC senior Pastor, as he was preaching. I have been the Director of Spiritual formation at University Place Presbyterian Church for the past 4 years.

Showing a picture of the famous Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he pointed to the difference of posture between God, stretched arm and determined to reach his creature and dreamy Adam, almost languid, obviously less motivated to establish this essential contact.

I had never noticed Adam’s nonchalant attitude.

At that moment, to my own surprise, an idea – more like an evidence – burst into my mind. It was time to leave UPPC. You were wondering if you should be a pastor or a chaplain? You are neither here. It is time to move on.

At the end of worship, I was ready to resign. Then I thought: let’s not rush into anything.

Two weeks later, I had a meeting with Aaron and found out that, because of a loss of incomes (less giving from parishioners), several positions had been eliminated. Including mine.

I felt like I had been slapped. Head-on collision with my ego. What, they decided to get rid of me?

“This is not a question of performance, said Aaron. The HR team terminated all the part-time positions.” I was ¾ times and, like everybody else at UPPC, I did not count my hours.

“If you need to hate someone, hate me.” added Aaron, hand on his heart, more comfortable with the Renaissance fresco.

Am I that immature in your eyes, Michelangelo? I don’t need a scapegoat. And if I needed one, I would pick it myself.

But I wanted to stay clear of bitterness. A feeling of peace surrounded me when I mentioned that I learned a lot at UPPC, where I was also ordained 3 years ago.  

Peace and relief. Would have I ever left on my own? I don’t know. Is it easy to leave a church where it is so comfortable to work, surrounded by people you love ?

A page is turning. In our Pacific Northwest where fog is frequent, I am not sure what direction I should take.

Was Adam nonchalant after all?

Let’s put ourselves in his, well… shoes. Maybe Adam was disoriented. or anxious, worried  of not being up to the task? Being the first human cannot be easy… that or trying to find the right path in the middle of the rain forest…

But there is also joy, with a healthy dose of adrenaline, that comes with exploring the first pages of a new chapter that is only opening. 

Pierre de Mareuil, chaplain extraordinaire

Catching up with a friend after 20 years at the conclusion of a 9 hour Seattle/Paris flight is a lesson in humility. I am always pale and crumpled when I come out of such flights, and tired enough to feel I am floating inside my own body… And I have not got any younger, obviously, since the end of the last century, which is the time I was a student with Pierre at the Faculté protestant de théologie in Paris.

Pierre is a chaplain at the Charles de Gaulle airport and he looks surprisingly like the Pierre I knew. Same bright smile, same slender figure with long legs that now allow him to walk by lost souls and guide them to their boarding gate and/or the shore of spiritual solace. We arranged our meeting via Facebook messenger.

" You did not change at all!" he declared, establishing in one sentence that he was both a tactful gentleman and a heck of a liar.

We sat together for  breakfast in the vast cafeteria reserved for staff.

Pierre is fluent in English. Irvin explained his work with the Presbyterian church (USA) where he supports Native churches in the country. Pierre asked us if we knew about the Toba Indians.

Pierre spent a year in Argentina as a student and that’s where he learned about this Native tribe. They discovered the Gospel through a travelling missionary who shared his passion for Jesus with them.

The missionaries that came later expected to teach those Natives everything they should know. Instead, they were welcomed with very specific requests. “We are already organized in parishes but we need to learn more about the Bible.”

“The Tobas are our missionaries. We learn about the Gospel from them!” commented one of them, impressed by their faithfulness.

Pierre wrote his Master dissertation on the Tobas, and in English! Irvin and I are looking forward to reading it.

Pierre is not on his own in this airport that covers 25 miles. An imam, a rabbi, a priest and several pastors team up to look after the travelers and those who work there, sometimes walking miles and miles so they can be where they can be supportive.

Knowing they are present every day in the midst of stress, worry and possible dramas is comfort in itself. 

The North Wind and the Pendleton blanket.

Being the pastor officiating at your niece’s wedding provides unbelievable privileges! For instance, you get to present your gift during the ceremony!

Ok, it is not exactly the way it happened….

Irvin and I concluded the ceremony with a Native tradition: a Pendleton blanket that is being wrapped around the young couple, a warm symbol of the comfort they bring to each other from now on.

Credit Doug Crawford

Then Irvin and I blessed them with a prayer said first by Irvin, that I translated in French afterward.

  

Now for you the North wind does not blow; You are shelter to one another.

Now for you there is no hunger; each brings what the other needs.

Now for you there is no darkness; You have learned to see with the heart.

Now for you there is no loneliness; Two have become one.

Credit Marie-Laure Mourier 

The blanket is made of thick wool. Before we headed back to the US, Julie and Quentin told us they tried it and appreciated how warm it was. 

“It is true, the North Wind does not reach us anymore, commented Quentin, tongue in cheek. We have the blanket now!” 

I was in France.

I was in France.

Rain was supposed to dominate the day and flooding risks had been mentioned. However, a bold sunshine was breaking through, transforming faces and the light around us.

My niece was standing in front of me – she had just come in with her Dad. She smiled to me. The pews of the Protestant church surrounded the altar. So many familiar faces around us, many smiles, a few movements.

A moment of absolute clarity, simple, pure. The fresh smile of a very young and wise couple.

I was dressed in pastoral authority, black robe and red stole. Yet, I understood two things.

I would not be able to speak without crying – but could not stay silent either.

Also, I was living one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

I was in France.

My roots, my maternal language – and the shift of not being “at home” anywhere – and yet, also at home, more than ever.

In Paris, in Burgundy, in Champagne, with the joy of the reunion, I was also catching up with myself and somehow was “re-membering” myself.  

I was in France.

Good Friday: At the Beach with Peter

A Good Friday service took place yesterday near UPPC, at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Every year, the Pastor invites the neighborhood churches of all denominations to be part of the service. I got to be one of the three pastors who shared a 5-minute message. The theme was “A Witness in Dark Times”. We chose texts from the Gospel of John. Mine was Peter meeting Jesus on the beach after the resurrection. (John 21:15-19)

As I was gathering my thoughts about this message during my commute time, the song “Rock me Tender” came on… A love song. And the text I was working on was also about love.

Anyway, here it is.

At the Beach with Peter – a Good Friday 5-Minute Sermon

“Don’t you know? I have never been loved like this before”.

I heard this line from a song, an oldie “rock me gently” by Andy Kim, and those words[1] made me think of Jesus, Jesus dealing with Peter, dealing with us.

It is true for each of us. Don’t we know ? We have never been loved like this before.

We receive forgiveness and grace, and because we love the one that loves us so much, the one that loved us first, we become disciples and we become shepherds.

Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep, said Jesus to Peter. May your care, may your food comes from the place where the love you have for me dwells.

Peter was a sort of spoke-person for the disciples, the first to speak up for better or worse. The first to identify Jesus as the Messiah, which led to those famous words “You are Peter and on that rock, I will build my church.”[2] Yet the next moment, Peter shushed Jesus. “No, Jesus, stop talking about you dying soon, it will not happen”. Jesus had to tell him to move away from him and called him Satan[3].

It is so like us. We will boldly proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah, and in the same breath, we are so very ready to know better than Jesus.

In the worse night of his life, Peter promised he would die rather than let anything happen to Jesus[4]. He meant it! When Jesus was arrested, he took a sword and was ready to fight[5]. If Jesus had let him fight, Peter would probably have been the first to die. Those soldiers were numerous and had come with heavy weapons[6].

Peter had the courage to follow those who arrested Jesus. Only two, Peter and the unnamed disciple made their way to the high priest court. All the others had run away in the night. It was dark and cold. This is where Peter tried to stay warm by a fire, was asked questions and denied being a disciple and even knowing Jesus[7].

Did Peter go to fish that morning, after Jesus’ death, because he felt he was not worthy anymore of being a disciple? We don’t know. But we read about Peter overjoyed to see Jesus and jumping off the boat to meet him faster. 

Jesus built a fire, like the one in the high-priest courtyard where Peter had stood.

Just like Peter had denied Jesus three times, Jesus asked him “Do you love me?” three times. Each time Peter declared “You know that I love you” and Jesus then commanded him to take care of his sheep.

During this Holy Week, UPPC has opened a prayer where all can come in and spend some time in meditation and prayer. There is a notebook where anyone is welcome to write comments.

Someone wrote “God, my heart is heavy. I feel like Peter as the rooster crooked. Help me to become more committed and faithful to my Lord and Savior!”

The comment is anonymous and I wanted to tell the person who wrote it “The story does not end with the rooster, remember! Remember that you are loved, right now, like you have never been loved before – just as you are.

This is what we learn here. Peter is our witness.

From the cold and dark place where the denial happened, Jesus took Peter to the bright morning of a breakfast on the beach. He showed him – and us – that the care Jesus wants us to demonstrate comes from the place where our love and gratitude dwell. Not our sense of duty. Not our need to please. Not our belief we should earn God’s favor. No. Our love and gratitude - that’s it.

Being a shepherd is hard work. Jesus told us so in the Gospel of John[8]. The shepherd cares for the sheep, he is known by them, he is ready to give his life for them. He takes them to lie in green pastures[9]. He can do all this because he knows he was never loved like this before.

From this love that came first, we can love, minister and witness through the darkness.

For each hour in the dark and cold, there is a warm time in the morning light of our Lord. We are delivered and the horizon is open. We are free to love and be loved. Free to serve.

Amen

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[1] Song and Lyrics can be viewed on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIVX1_J_87s

[2] Matthew 16:18

[3] Matthew 16:23

[4] John 13:37

[5] John 18:10

[6] John 18:3

[7] John 18:18

[8] John 10

[9] Psalm 23

Picture by Jeroen Van Der Biezen http://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=52407&language=en

Macha Chmakoff rocks !

Lisa, my colleague at UPPC, and myself, in the midst of pictures of contemporary art, on our screens and on paper : that was us, in early February. Our goal : select art work meant to be the artistic support of each Lent week. The first one, starting on March 5^th, was about Jesus tempted in the desert.

Lisa showed me the picture of a painting that immediately impressed me : the pale figure of Jesus, isolated in the dunes, under a tormented sky. “The artist’s name is Macha Chmakoff, said Lisa, and I believe he is French. Would you email him?” Macha being short for Maria in Russian, I guessed that the artist was a woman. While writing the email asking the cost of using the picture of her painting, I kept repeating this name that sounded familiar. Could it be….?

Macha replied quickly and graciously. She allowed us to use the picture without asking for a fee. In my email thanking her, I asked her if she happened to have been a student of the Protestant seminary in Paris from 1996 to 1999. She said yes. That was her. She was a student too and already an artist. An exhibition of her work took place in the amphitheater of the seminary.

Today, March 5^th, Macha’s painting was on the screen of UPPC sanctuary. The spirit of the Protestant seminary in Paris is hovering over UPPC...

To look at more aspects of Macha’s art, click here. 

A Disingenuous Casserole

If you hear French people mentioning “faux-amis” (fake friends), they are probably not talking about disingenuous acquaintances but deep in linguistics. 

Faux-amis are words that look identical in both languages (French and English for us - it could be French and any other foreign language) but whose meanings differ.

Apparently, the linguistic word in English is “false cognates”.

For instance, if you talk to a French person about a casserole, this is more or less what you have in mind.

But unless your French friend has lived in the US, this is what they will picture.

Yes, in French, a casserole is a saucepan, something to cook in – never to be eaten.

As you can imagine, this "false cognate" has the potential to create many amusing misunderstandings in the kitchen.

I have enjoyed cooking casseroles and this breakfast one is one of my favorites. It is easy, forgiving and very flexible. You only need some cubed dry bread, that you mix with eggs (2 by person) you add some veggies you have on hand, sautéing or blanching them ahead if necessary, and shredded cheese. Bacon or sausage are tasty additions too.

It bakes for 30 minutes (or more if you are making a large casserole) at 350.

Bon appétit! 

Oh, and if you are hungry for a casserole in French-speaking country, ask for “un gratin” and you will be on the right path for a savory conversation! 

A Blessing for Leaders

Elizabeth concluded the retreat by reading this Blessing for Leaders by John O’Donohue. 

I translated it in French on my French blog – a fun challenge! 

This is actually a great read for leaders – and anyone having authority on anything and anyone, including one self.

May you have the grace and wisdom to act kindly,
learning to distinguish between what is personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the center of things.
May you act not from arrogance but out of service.
May you work on yourself, building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know you see and respect them.
May you learn to cultivate the art of presence in order to engage with those who meet you.

When someone fails or disappoints you, may the graciousness with which you engage

be their stairway to renewal and refinement.

May you treasure the gifts of the mind through reading and creative thinking
so that you continue as a servant of the frontier
where the new will draw its enrichment from the old, and you never become functionary.

May you know the wisdom of deep listening, the healing of wholesome words,
the encouragement of the appreciative gaze, the decorum of held dignity,
the springtime edge of the bleak question.

May you have a mind that loves frontiers
so that you can evoke the bright fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye.

May you have good friends to mirror your blind spots.
May leadership be for you a true adventure of growth.

Amen!

The painting is by Bill Jacklin, detail, Calle II, oil on canvas, 2008.