un californien à paris

A weekend in Saumur

We're back after meandering like the Loire river through a long weekend in the Saumur region. Here are the PHOTOS.

L'amour est aveugle, mais le mariage rend la vue

This is mon soleil, my sunshine that breaks through the low gray Paris ceiling. I love her with my eyes wide open.

Tomorrow, we will have been married 5 years. We are celebrating our anniversary in the Chateaux de la Loire, near Tour. Strangely, I'll be preaching at our friends' wedding. (I'll post some pictures when we get back). The preparation and time to reflect on marriage in general and my marriage in particular has been good for me. Last Wednesday, the film Mariages opened in theatres across France. The scenario makes good use of various sayings and proverbs about marriage (mostly cynical and bleak, as one might expect).

One proverb in particular caused me to think, L'amour est aveugle, mais le mariage rend la vue. Translation: Love is blind, but marriage gives sight. I don't think anyone would get married if love was not initially blind. If there wasn't that euphoric impression to have found the man or the woman of our dreams, the perfect fit, I don't think any of us would every make it to that proverbial alter.

However, for me, the greatest pleasure in marriage is to know Karen as she is and to be known by her as I am. To love a real person is far richer than to love a fictive character invented in my mind. And there is nothing better than to be seen with clear, bright eyes and to be loved. Yes, marriage gives sight, but to love with one's eyes wide open requires grace, daily forgiveness for one's partner and for one's self. I believe love that lasts is always the fruit of forgiveness. And forgiveness is never blind.

A time for everything? Part I: the Family

I finally got around to writing an official-soon-to-be-approved-by-CBI-finley-family-UPDATE-letter. These letters are mostly for friends who don't read this or any blog, but you, oh faithful blog reader, can download it for free right here and right now, days before my mission agency approves it and puts it on their web site for download and weeks before people receive it in the mail.

Fêtons Pâques 2004

Fêtons Pâques 2004

mysteries of spring

i planted the bulb
god made it grow
liz spiger took the photo

I tell you the truth, unless a bulb is put into the ground and dies, it remains only a bulb. But if it dies, it produces tulips, year after year, in the Spring time.

John 12.24

the likeness of his death

Alone in a Parisian crowd like a limp disciple peering from the shadows, I watch him. We watch him together from comfortable armchairs; some eat popcorn and drink cola nervously from grotesque, red paper cups. From a shattered aesthetic distance, we watch him give his body, broken … for us all. I remember. I weep with and for invisible strangers swallowed in theatre darkness. I weep for freedom, for wholeness… holiness. I weep for his unspeakable gift.

It is finished. Thick silence overcomes halting, nervous applause. No one moves to the exits as the credits role.

The film, as such, is a chef d'œuvre, a rare painting of the cross in all its scandal and glory. It is a priceless occasion to contemplate the wounds that make us whole.

He is making me whole. And I will see him, the one who was dead and is alive, as he is in his Fullness !

Question: What does it mean for me, today in my neighborhood, to be like him in his death ?

don't expect mel's film to answer the question for you... i don't think that was his aim.

Christ is risen! happy easter to you all. i'll be takin' a blog break 'til sometime next week.

rocks and other dumb things cry out

it occurs to me on this Palm Sunday that the "Jesus is my homeboy"t-shirts and all the other plastic-glow-in-the-dark-merde attatched to his name fall into the same category as Jesus' popularity as he road a donkey into Jerusalem.

jesus' tears and his words are haunting.

...their faith is expressed in songs, lived out in daily life, is still constantly tested by persecution, and remains close to the traditional culture... Even now the beauty of their songs echoes in my ears. We will return.

l e s s

emergingchurch.info

emergingchurch.info has borrowed The Métissage of the Church post. they cut 'n' pasted it H E R E with all the original type-os and american spelling. it's cool when there are people who occasionally like what i say and even how i say it.... doesn't happen that often.

Great issue! the other articles are thought provoking, transformational (i think the "extreme church" bungee jumping baptism thing is probably an April fools joke: it's a lot easier to use Photo Shop to slip a baguette into a parachutist’s hand than it would actually be to break bread as one's body plummets to the earth at 200kms per hrs, not even to mention opening a bottle of wine at such speed.. pretty funny stuff!) go check it out here.

Moya Ratnayake of freshworship.org asked a fundamental question about the métissage article:

Hi Jonathan,

I love the new word - well it is to me. Only metis is in my dictionary. Is Metissage french? - or a new word in the english dictionary I didn't know of , or one you made up?

Great article. I agree! (although there are some of us girls out there too in the discussion - but only some)

 Moya
(youthworker & member of Grace team)

I answered:

yes, moya, métissage is a french word, a good one with a positive connotation ...at least in the Paris region. the very unfortunate english translation would be "cross-breeding", pas très joli and doesn't communicate the idea i wanted to get across. métissage is a word used to refer to a blending of races, the racial transformation of whole populations. One thinks naturally of Brazil or North Africa.

I believe we will begin to see the métissage of all the major urban centers of the West. In Paris it has even become common to refer to "le métissage culturel," meaning obviously the blending of cultures. For example, my children are French-American and so they are "des métis culturels." In certain circles, its a badge of honor to not be "just" French, whatever that means.

thanks for being curious enough to ask and humble enough to admit not knowing. out of all the feedback on the métissage post, you are the only one with the courage to have asked . we both know that you're not the only one of the over 1600 people (according to typepad stats) who read it but who didn't know. i suspect that's one of the reasons why we need many, many more women in the conversation. cheers!