un californien à paris

The Righteous Rich

The Euro is crushing the Dollar.   The fact that I live in Europe but am paid in dollars means that my salary has been devalued by 35 percent over the last 5 years of the dollar's free fall on the world market.  Let me just add for my American readers feeling defensive about their wimpy currency that it's an artificial devaluation to stimulate the purchase of US products despite the problems this might cause to other economies.

I mention the Dollar's weakness not to whine and complain about how much less I have.  Even with less, like you, I am very, very rich.  I include you with me among the wealthy of this world because you have access to a computer...probably a personal computer or two or three.  This fact alone puts us among the world's wealthiest 5 percent.  Half of the world's 6 billion people live on less than 2 dollars per day, 800 million of those people will not eat anything today.  In Africa alone, 300 million people have no access to clean water.  Experts estimate that it would cost about 200 billion dollars per year to provide everyone on planet earth with food, water, and health care.  That is much less than what Americans spend on coffee every year.  I wonder how much we spend on those green and white paper cups.  I mention this not to make you feel guilty about your next visit to Starbucks, but only to put things into perspective:  WE ARE SOOOO RICH. But are we righteous rich?

When we read the Bible we have no other option but to assume our position as "the rich."  I know we are bombarded with sophisticated advertising telling us that what we have isn't enough..."to be really happy all you need is_____."  We can always look around and see people who have even more than we do.  Comparing yourself to someone who has newer, brighter and more stuff than you do is dangerous and doesn't mean that you are not rich, only that they are even richer.  Those who have even more than we do also come under the same warnings to the Rich we read in the Bible.

People who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows...

Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable.  Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.  Tell them to use their money to do good.  They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.  By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. 

1 Timothy 6:6-10; 17-19

This is not an advertisement pushing us to buy one more thing that really won't make us feel any better about ourselves.  This is truth aimed at us, the rich, so that we might "experience true life."   Let me humbly suggest that we put this text into practice today...together.   Let us use our wealth creatively to do good works.  Give something away today in the name of the God who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.  Let's trust him together. 

For further reading:   Missions And Money: Affluence As a Missionary Problem...revisited by Jonathan Bonk

family news: it's a boy!

Our livelihood and ministry are financed in part by Jesus-followers in the Western United-States.  We are deeply grateful.  Part of my responsibility to these friends is to keep them updated on the State of the Family, ie what's up with the French Finleys.  They want to know how we are doing as people so that they can pray intellegently for us.  We would invite you to pray for us too.

The big news is we are expecting a 3rd BOY.  Yes, it's another boy.  We call him Petit-Pois or Petit-Poid.  He will show his face at the end of February.  This happy event is an answer to prayer in many ways.  Some of you will remember that Karen nearly died at Samuel's birth and has struggled with hypertension ever since.   The miracle is that Karen's blood pressure has been normal since March allowing us to conceive this precious little life last Spring in California.   Please pray for good health for mother and child throughout this pregnancy.

Karen continues to work as a kindergarten teacher.  While we were in California last year she was disappointed to give up her tenured position at an elementary school in a neighboring Parisian suburb just 10 minutes from our house.  But God had a plan for that too.  This year the French national school system transferred Karen to the school in the town where we live, our boy's school, that is only about 200 meters from the OIKOS house.  Two of our neighbors' children are in her class.  Her official position in town has opened relational opportunities for us that we never would have had otherwise.  Of course, with the pregnancy, she will not finish out the school year.  She expects to start her 6 month pregnancy leave at the end of November.  However, this too is a tenured position.  It's hers as long as she wants it.  She expects to work half-time at L'Ecole du Village (the Village School) beginning Fall 08.  The fact that the school is so close has really simplified our family logistics.

Samuel will turn 7 years old on November 22nd.  His year at a Palo Alto, California prep school has put him ahead of the curve.  His maturity, scholastic excellence, and capacity to work autonomously has encouraged Samuel's teachers to place him in a 3rd grade class.  Needless to say, he is the only 6 year old in the class.  We are very proud of him.  On Wednesdays and Saturdays, he has begun to train with a track and field club in our town.  We bought him a mountain bike as an early gift for his 7th birthday so he can ride in the forest with his Papa...a gift for Papa too.  Samuel continues "to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people." (1 Sam 2:26)

Michael will turn 4 years old on December 10th.  This is his first year of French school.  He is certainly more comfortable than Karen with the idea that his mommy is one of the teachers in his school.  Both are learning about the different roles that we play in life.  Michael, our warrior angel, is VERY energetic about everything that he does and says.  We all laugh (and sometimes cry) with him.  If you've seen the animated film The Incredibles, Mikey is in cartoon dimensions very much like the character "Flash".  He certainly keeps us alert.

I will turn 40 years old on December 3rd.  On September 17th, I celebrated 10 years in France, a quarter of my life.  I have lived on this same street in the Paris suburbs longer than any other address anywhere.  I am grateful to God for his design for a life I never could have conceived on my own.  This California boy would never have guessed that God intended to establish me so durably in France, to bless me here, that he had a French wife in mind for me, that my 3 boys would all be born in the same Paris hospital, or that I myself would one day carry the privileges and the responsibilities of both an American and a European passport.  I have learned to relish this hyphenated existence:  bi-cultural, bi-lingual, bi-national.  It is wonderful to turn 40 with the deep satisfaction that God has me right where he wants me for his mission in his world.  The Lord has seen fit that this California boy flourish in France.  His grace never ceases to astound me.

"You can make many plans,
      but the Lord’s purpose will prevail."  Proverbs 19:21

France: Terre d'Accueil

I immigrated to France in Fall 1997.  Ten years later this week, to celebrate immigration (not just mine :-) as integral to French history and to the construction of French identity, the Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration opened its doors in Paris at the Porte Dorée.  I visited the exhibit yesterday.   

Nothing illustrates the painful awkwardness of immigration issues in France better than the building that houses this exhibit.    Le Palais de la Porte Dorée (The Palace of the Golden Door) was built in 1931 in homage of the French Empire and its colonial project.  The West facade still carries this inscription:      

A ses fils qui ont étendu l’Empire de son génie et fait ainsi aimer son nom au-delà des mers, la France reconnaissante.

Translation:  To her sons who spread the Empire's genius and brought love to its name beyond the seas, France is grateful.

The place reeks of ethnocentrism.  The fresques covering every wall depict scenes that instrumentalize the "primitive" and glorify French hegemony of "lesser" peoples under the guise of a mission to civilize.  This same palace was home to the infamous Zoos Humains, where human beings were exhibited like animals.  Visitors could see fish in the aquarium downstairs and the savages in the Human Zoo upstairs.

This architectural reminder of France's colonial past is a decidedly uncomfortable context for a museum of Immigration History.   The exhibits tone is "Why can't we all just get along?" summed up in the word multiplicité that floats without definition throughout a text heavy presentation of its artifacts.

The choice of migration objects include suitcases and images of heavily loaded vehicules that remind me of my own Subaru story.

The blatant ethnocentrism and racism symbolized by the Palace itself is treated rather timidly for an exposition with the expressed goal "to change mentalities about immigration in France."   It would seem to me that a much more forceful communication would be in order to achieve this goal, but then again the museum was packed with curious French citizens as diverse and colorful as the French national soccer team or an Evangelical Church in the Paris suburbs.  To bring together such an integrated group at la Porte Dorée of all places is perhaps the museum's greatest success and strongest statement against the racism of France's not so glorious colonial past.  I enjoyed watching all the beautiful people of this great city mingled together around such an important subject as immigration.

Of course true unity is never found in a political issue.  Unity, the kind that brings real peace, the kind that breaks down real social barriers is only to be found in Jesus.  He is our peace.  My heart ached with desire to stand on one of those suitecase and blurt out in a loud voice how everyone can become "citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God" (Eph 2.19).  No DNA test required for inclusion into this family because Jesus' blood was already shed for us.  We have been adopted as true sons and daughters of the only living God.  We belong.  This is the only family identity that really counts whatever our passports might say or our accents might reveal.   

Let me suggest three books in English for those interested in understanding France's colonial period as integral to current issues surrounding immigration:

A mission to Civilize by Alice L. Conklin
French Civilization and its Discontents edited by Tyler Stoval
Black France by Dominic Thomas

I may comment on these books in future posts.  For now, I'm out of time.  Until next Friday,  I'll leave you with one of the many enigmatic quotes pasted like graphiti tags on the walls of the CNHI.

"To return would be like emmigrating a second time."  I know this feeling everytime I return and then return again.

reading on purpose

One of my great privileges and pleasures is time set aside to read on purpose.  It's part of my job and I would say it's part of my raison d'être!   At the moment, I have two work related purposes for reading often and widely:  1) to prepare new curriculum for the OIKOS interns;  2)  to pursue (or to be pursued by) a PhD in Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of Intercultrual Studies.  So you can expect that I will begin to expose some of what I'm reading for my work on this blog.   The lines between reading for work, pleasure, personal enrichment or Christian service have never been very clear to me.  I have come to think about all reading as having one essential purpose:  to love the Lord my God with my whole heart and my whole mind.  Reading with this purpose is worship.

In the morning, after Karen and zboyz leave for school, I pour myself a second cup of coffee and walk down to my office chez OIKOS.  Before doing anything else, I read a few chapters of the Bible (I'm in Genesis at the moment) and talk with my God about whatever I have on my mind and heart.  These days, I've  also been reading Chris Wright's provocative book on a missional hermeneutic of the Bible: The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative

In French, we call these intimate, consecrated moments with God le culte personel.  I think of it as having coffee with the Only Living God, the One who purposed all that exists (including the coffee bean), the One who loves me and everything else that he created, the God who sees me and hears what I say and think.  I don't always invite Chris Wright into my intimacy with God, but at the moment this Irish scholar is influencing my thinking about the nature of the Bible.  His book has become important to me.  Let me suggest why I think it should also be an important book for you.

Wright asserts, "The Bible presents to us a portrait of God that is unquestionably purposeful. The God who walks the paths of history through the pages of the Bible pins a mission statement to every sign post on the way."   The mission then that Wright sets out for himself in his book is to "explore that divine mission and all that lies behind it and flows from it in relation to God himself, God's people and God's world, insofar as it is revealed to us in God's Word."  What a splended topic!  Not just one among others, the topic of this book should be the purpose and adventure of our lives: to know him and his mission in his world!  God did not make a mission for his people, the church, he made the church for a mission, His mission.  As such, our stories when we participate in God's mission continue the story of the Bible... "everything Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1), we continue. 

As I continue to tell bits and pieces of my story on this blog, I hope you will recognize that its warp and woof weave into the Story of God's mission revealed in the Bible.  I hope you will notice that my greatest desire is to find my own purpose in that Mission.  It is precisely in this sense that I understand myself to be a "missionary," one who committedly participates with God's people in God's Mission for the redemption of God's creation.

What about you?  Are you a missionary?