This Lent, I have decided to spend some time with Albert Holtz's Pilgrim Road: a Benedictine Journey Through Lent. It's a short devotional book that Holtz wrote while on sabbatical, traveling through South America and Europe. There's an entry for every day of Lent (excepting the Sundays). I assigned it for my course last fall. The students wrote on about half of the entries, which I assigned all out of sequence in order to line up with either course themes or our geographical locations. I am very familiar with that half of the content (having read those entries repeatedly and then read 30 student reflections on each of them), but I haven't used it myself in quite the same way. After only four days I am already deep in reminisces of both the physical and spiritual journeys of Europe Semester, while trying to hear my own voice about those as well as my current processing. So I thought I'd process a bit aloud, both on the content and with regard to the memories associated with the locations I've been able to visit.
Each of the first four days (Ash Wednesday-this Saturday) were among those assigned (and therefore familiar), and three of those were places we actually visited. So this week I've been able to revisit Canterbury, the Channel Tunnel, and 95 rue de Sèvres in Paris. Rue de Sèvres was Saturday's devotion and focused on faith taking action. That particular street address in Paris is the worldwide "motherhouse" of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, which has emphasized caring for the poor and actively serving in a variety of ways (as opposed to remaining within the cloister to pray in comparative isolation). Early on, when we did this segment in Greece, we read that inside of the building is a map of Paris with a bunch of red dots all over it, and that "each dot marks a place in Paris that was somehow touched by Saint Vincent during his life: an orphanage founded, starving people fed, a hospital staffed with sisters, a retreat preached, a school begun. There are dozens of these dots, each one telling a story of charity, of boundless energy, of commitment to spreading God’s love on earth." (Holtz, Loc. 436-439 Kindle Edition). Students considered what a map of their hometown would look like, where they may have left "red dots."
I've gotten to see the map, and that address is also one of the few in Paris that I know by heart (I had to take taxis there after the ankle debacle). We did not know back in Athens, but it turned out to be where our classroom in Paris was located. And it's where I was able to teach, and watch pilgrimage-return videos, and hear earnest debate on whether Fantine, Eponine and Javert died well or died poorly. Oh my goodness, I loved teaching that class so much. Even when it was terrifying.
And so while I'm here in Santa Barbara reading and trying to think about how to "Start with love," as St. Vincent would say, I am also seeing the building pictured above and hearing how there was very loud construction on the street. And how just a bit farther down the street was my "office," Le Weekend Cafe, which I walked past three times that first morning before getting up the courage to walk inside.
I don't speak any French. I did, in fact, initially address the barman in Spanish, hoping that maybe we could go that route instead. We ended up with English. From then on, Tuesday and Thursday mornings I sat in the front window, arranging power point slides, drinking coffee and eating flaky croissant (and occasionally using the Wifi from Le Bon Marche across the street...). I rocked to disco music and felt the vibrations from the Metro under my feet.
Le Weekend was one of many places where I was an outsider and yet was welcomed. I never expected this in Paris. This cafe played a large part in dismantling my stereotype of the haughty Parisian. When I walked in on crutches for the first time after a couple of visits, I was met with sympathetic cluckings and questions, and laughter at my nonverbal jokes. I now sit at home and can picture the windows being washed, the construction crews jamming the place for a coffee during their 15 minute break (ok--half hour), and the well-heeled traffic going by. I can also see the penitent and the poor heading into the chapel at St. Vincent's after leaving Le Weekend on my way back to the classroom after my au lait and croissant.
On Fridays this semester, I still meet with some young women who were in that classroom in Paris with me. We've been working through the book of Ruth together and recently spent quite some time on the idea of insider and outsider status (and the ever-shifting lines that define that). It's not just in the ancient near East or in Paris that people need to be made welcome, nor are strangers the only outsiders, although those are good places to begin. "Start with love," St. Vincent would say, and scatter so many red dots around a map of Paris. And I have mental maps of my own covered with many, many dots, of places and hours where I have been shown love and allowed to rest. For how exhausted I was for much of the time in Europe, from this distance what I see more clearly were the many small bits of rest and welcome.
And as I have received, may I learn to give: Welcome. Rest. Holy challenge. Love.
I've gotten to see the map, and that address is also one of the few in Paris that I know by heart (I had to take taxis there after the ankle debacle). We did not know back in Athens, but it turned out to be where our classroom in Paris was located. And it's where I was able to teach, and watch pilgrimage-return videos, and hear earnest debate on whether Fantine, Eponine and Javert died well or died poorly. Oh my goodness, I loved teaching that class so much. Even when it was terrifying.
And so while I'm here in Santa Barbara reading and trying to think about how to "Start with love," as St. Vincent would say, I am also seeing the building pictured above and hearing how there was very loud construction on the street. And how just a bit farther down the street was my "office," Le Weekend Cafe, which I walked past three times that first morning before getting up the courage to walk inside.
I don't speak any French. I did, in fact, initially address the barman in Spanish, hoping that maybe we could go that route instead. We ended up with English. From then on, Tuesday and Thursday mornings I sat in the front window, arranging power point slides, drinking coffee and eating flaky croissant (and occasionally using the Wifi from Le Bon Marche across the street...). I rocked to disco music and felt the vibrations from the Metro under my feet.
Le Weekend was one of many places where I was an outsider and yet was welcomed. I never expected this in Paris. This cafe played a large part in dismantling my stereotype of the haughty Parisian. When I walked in on crutches for the first time after a couple of visits, I was met with sympathetic cluckings and questions, and laughter at my nonverbal jokes. I now sit at home and can picture the windows being washed, the construction crews jamming the place for a coffee during their 15 minute break (ok--half hour), and the well-heeled traffic going by. I can also see the penitent and the poor heading into the chapel at St. Vincent's after leaving Le Weekend on my way back to the classroom after my au lait and croissant.
On Fridays this semester, I still meet with some young women who were in that classroom in Paris with me. We've been working through the book of Ruth together and recently spent quite some time on the idea of insider and outsider status (and the ever-shifting lines that define that). It's not just in the ancient near East or in Paris that people need to be made welcome, nor are strangers the only outsiders, although those are good places to begin. "Start with love," St. Vincent would say, and scatter so many red dots around a map of Paris. And I have mental maps of my own covered with many, many dots, of places and hours where I have been shown love and allowed to rest. For how exhausted I was for much of the time in Europe, from this distance what I see more clearly were the many small bits of rest and welcome.
And as I have received, may I learn to give: Welcome. Rest. Holy challenge. Love.
Thank you, dear Holly. We love you. D & S
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