CherDC's Xanga

Difficulty transposing

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:29:00 GMT

Some things always wait until after the children are in bed. Dishes are one of those things. It doesn't take much brain power to do them, so writing and studying generally happens at other times of the day, and the dishes get saved up until after the kids' bedtime. When I'm alone, and there are a lot to do, I turn on my computer and listen on line to a sermon from my home church in Fairbanks. I am not sure they still think of me as one of "their" missionaries, but I still think of them as "home." Even though I never sat under the teaching of the current lead pastor, I enjoy listening to his sermons, and hearing about some of the people I know and miss.

Tonight he was talking about making disciples who make disciples. You know, building relationships with people, inviting them into loving community, something he called the "authenticity factor." So I sat back and wondered how I should be more involved in discipling right now. To an American Christian, this question is quite normal. However, when I try to transpose the ideas to my current context, I feel like giving up before I begin.

I only have a few questions...
How do I invite people into a loving community where there is none? How can I, or we, create this? What am I supposed to be doing in discipleship? Maybe it just means that we need to start young... with the kids and the youth. Where can I find the older mentor I need? If I take the example of the Bible study, where we are deliberately trying, in a small way, to build community, there are about six or eight women, all of whom are older than I am. I can't imagine discipling someone who is 20 years my senior.

Sometimes in our worship team at St Nicolas, I point out that it would be really cool to change keys at a certain place in a song, or I insist that a song is too high to be sung in the key it's written in. I always do this with a smile and nod toward Vincent our multi-talented keyboardist. "You can transpose it," I say, and sure enough, as soon as he's figured out the chords, which takes all of two minutes, we are off and running again in the new key. What a gift, to be able to transpose so beautifully. When I try to do it, it takes at least an hour of writing out the new music and practicing to get it right. If I could just find the chords... If only Music Theory hadn't been so much like a foreign language to me in college...

Maybe it's a mental block, or maybe I'm just offering feeble excuses. However you look at it, though, transposing is difficult.

Life in a small town

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:09:01 GMT

"After I became a Christian. . . I came to see quality of life as measured not by the number of fun things you do, but by how much you love -- period. I came to believe that even if you lived your whole life in the same small town, if you took every opportunity to open yourself to love -- even to people you didn't like, even when it felt uncomfortable -- that your life would be not only better but even more exciting than someone who spent her life jet-setting around to exotic destinations all over the world in pursuit of experiences."

I read this this morning in Conversion Diary, a catholic blog I follow, and the words in bold print are what caught my eye. This is the kind of faith I want to strive for. I earnestly want to know and experience God's peace in my life here in this little town.

One way to start the day

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:17:30 GMT

Here is a prayer, translated from French, that we were given by dear friends of ours at St Nicolas Church in Strasbourg. They are both over 70 and were each married and widowed before marrying each other. They now have a large blended family for whom they pray together each morning. Monsieur has crafted this prayer over many years of living with Jesus, and his wife testified recently to me how she is only now beginning to learn some of what it means to really allow God to work in one's life in this way. Now James and I are saying this prayer together some mornings. We appreciate it so much, that I thought it was worth sharing.

Prière pour un coeur et un esprit bien disposés

Prayer for a well-disposed heart and spirit

Father,

Now is the privileged moment for meeting together and for consecration.

The time when we have the joy of being able to tell you that we love you with all of our strength, all of our soul and all of our heart, You who created us, who loved us first and who saved us by the precious blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

We want to express to you our infinite gratitude for your beneficent presence in our life and in the life of all of our large family.

And we want to spend this day in your presence at each instant, our eyes fixed on you, servants listening to you, peacemakers and joyful witnesses to your infinite love for all people without exception.

We want now to abandon ourselves completely to you without holding back anything in such a way that you may have all the space in our life today.

And we pray that you would fill us, _____ and me, with your Holy Spirit, so that it will be you, by your Spirit in us, who governs this day in the smallest detail and who inspires all of our thoughts, emotions, words, actions and our plans and choices today.

And we pray that you would grant us your gaze of infinite, unconditional and respectful love upon our neighbor of today.

And do not allow evil thoughts which are not from you to slyly infiltrate our mind and heart, but denounce them so that we can immediately cast them out, for they have no place in the the temple of your Holy Spirit that we want to be today.

We thank you for hearing this prayer, we believe that it is according to your Father heart, and we thank you in advance for answering it fully throughout this day, by giving to ____ and to me a well-disposed heart and spirit.

Amen.

A long silence

Sat, 16 May 2009 19:06:13 GMT

I'm back after a long silence.
In more ways than one.

Just the other day I turned on the stereo and actually selected a CD to listen to. A fairly normal thing to do while one is doing household tasks, one might say. But in fact, I realized that this was the first time I actually listened to music (by myself, I mean) in a very long time. I'm not sure why. But I wondered if it's the silence of this place that's finally penetrating my soul.

The single most striking characteristic of this place, ever since we moved here, has been the silence. Sometimes, when we're at the dinner table and everyone's chattering away (or often singing, as the kids love to perform their favorite hits at meal time) James will make everyone stop : "Shhhh, listen!" And we all stop and listen to the quiet. The only sound's the flowing of the stream outside. "Do you hear it?" he says. "It's so quiet!" Between the kids and the noise of traffic and neighbors and the school next door and all the rest, I guess maybe it was just too noisy for me in Strasbourg to feel like I needed to add more noise. Except when I went running. I almost always used my Ipod to cover the outside sounds of the city. I haven't used it once since we got here. I want to hear the singing of the birds, or the noises of any other animals I might see.

Now we live in such a quiet place, where the friends and activities are much fewer and farther between. At first, I think I lived it like a piece of vacation. But you can't stay on vacation forever. I have noticed the wistful thoughts about Strasbourg coming more often lately and me being me, I have a hard time admitting my own unhappiness. But the fact is, it is hard to feel like an accessory to someone else's ministry. It is hard to live in a small town where everyone knows who I am and where that very identity ("pastor's wife") is often a barrier to relationship. It is hard to live day after day with my only face-to-face contact being with a mentally ill neighbor (with whom conversation often feels like double monologue) and a smattering of kind ladies over 70. It's hard to watch my son (Sara seems to be doing okay.) struggling with loneliness, so much so that he runs quickly to play with older boys who tend to laugh and ridicule him. He has developed a nervous twitch/blink. Is this related ?

So I put on music. I listen to sermons on line. I yell at the kids. I talk animatedly to almost anyone who calls, or whom I meet in the street. Mostly just to fill the growing silence.

Monastically, I am sure this silence would be considered a boon. The perfect place to pray and study! But there is one who would like me to fill it with anything but that. So the battle goes on, one day at a time.

Quick thoughts

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:24:24 GMT

Wanted to write these down somewhere so that I could remember...

Eric :
Yesterday as we were walking back home from the bus stop, I was berating him for AGAIN forgetting his hat at school... or on the bus (in which case it had been stolen)... or... And he did his famous screaming-whine and said to me "Mais Maman, c'est pas ma faute ! C'est mon cerveau !" Translation : But Mom, it's not my fault! It's my brain!

Sara:
Last night when I was singing with her before bed, she asked for the song about the sun and the rain. I sat there thinking and told her I didn't know which song she meant. Then I thought maybe it was the Johnny Appleseed song, "the sun and the rain and the appleseed..." But that wasn't it. She kept saying "about the sun and the rain... YOU know, Mama!" She was getting angry. But then I remembered the song I had sung on our hike Sunday afternoon, and the one she had asked for the night before (she's into traditions) as "the one about Jesus and the sun." So I sang, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys run..." And I explained that that word was a different kind of rain...

I do love being a mom.
And Xangazon doesn't have the book I'm currently reading, a fascinating biography of Johann Georg Stuber, Jean-Frederic Oberlin's predecssor as pastor in this place...

Which is real?

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:21:30 GMT

Once, soon after we moved here, James said to me that being in Strasbourg was like being in a bubble. When you're inside it, if feels safe and comfortable and normal. When you live there, you are convinced that it is what is known as a "happening place." Important political and cultural events are staged there. You can catch all the latest films in their original languages.
When we lived in Strasbourg, we would come out to places like the one where we now live for a day or two. We would take long hikes, go sledding, and then get back in the car and drive back to the city. "What a beautiful place. What a winter wonderland, " we would say. Then, we felt as though our day in the mountains had been spent in a sort of bubble.

But now when we spend a day in the city, as we did yesterday, we have the distinct impression that it is the city that is the bubble. There are so many images and signs, so much explicit advertising, so many people all in one place. I am afraid to look people in the eye, afraid to say bonjour, disoriented and uneasy. In the tram, I stare at my feet, and wonder why it feels so different now that I don't live there, how I could have failed to notice how surreal it all is.
We must have over a foot of snow up here, but there there wasn't even a hint of it in Strasbourg, although we did catch sight of a flake or two floating in the air in the middle of the afternoon. The people who are outside are almost all in a hurry, looking upset about the coldness of the air. Maybe it's the concentration of people, vehicles, buildings and events that make people in Strasbourg feel like they live in an important place. Seems to me that the normal things, like walking outside or chatting with your neighbor, get lost in the shuffle.

This morning, as I was typing an email, I caught sight of my neighbors the S.s walking slowly by with their snow shovels on their shoulders. They were just coming back from shoveling in front of some other neighbors' houses further up the road. Marie-Eve stopped in front of my window and waved for I-don't-know-how-long before I realized she was there and looked up from the computer. She said hello and we chatted. She talked about how they had had their morning's excercise shoveling snow... And she said that I had been so concentrated on the computer that it looked strange to her. "When I see you like that," she said, "with such a look of concentration on your face, I don't know, it's weird..." And she gave a little shudder.

And so I wonder, whose bubble is real?

My neighbors

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:03:57 GMT

In my last post I talked about coffee with my neighbors. I thought I would complete the tour by telling about my other "neighbors." Behind our house there is a little house perched high the hill. I can see it as I type. It says "Prés Hachette" on the wall. When we moved in here, it was the home of a couple, both over 90, and Monsieur G. was already hospitalized. James visited him once before he presided the funeral in October. His first one here, burying the dean of the village. Now his wife was the dean. At the New Year, we saw an ambulance come to her home and wondered if everything was okay. Physically, she was quite limited, but we had so enjoyed our visits there with the children, who made her drawings and always received candy or chocolate. In fact, Madame G. had had a mini-stroke, fallen and remained on the floor all night, as far as her niece could tell. The nurse found her there the next morning. Now the doctor says that she is no longer able to live on her own. She has moved to a nursing home in Plaine. We hope to visit her this week. The dark brown shutters are closed every day.

Next door, to my right as I type, is the home of E. B. She is another of the oldest Walderbachois, having volunteered much time at the museum and as an elder in the parish. We met her in the fall when she was here for the harvest service. Since we saw that she was alone, we invited her to lunch, and had a lovely time getting acquainted with our neighbor. She told us that she wasn't sure "what fly had bitten her" (a French expression) but she now had an apartment at a retirement center in Strasbourg, and wouldn't be home in Waldersbach much. We saw her once more at the Christmas party for the village retirees, where she seemed withdrawn and unhappy. She is also a widow and her husband worked long years in Africa, so the house is full of African art and artifacts. But there is no one at home.

Finally, on the other side, on the banks of the stream that runs near our house, is a beautiful green and white chalet belonging to the E. family. They are German and only come seasonally. We have not seen them since we arrived. We understand that Monsieur is an accomplished organist, but that one or both of them have health concerns (cancer?) and so cannot come to their Waldersbach home much. Once the alarm on the house went off in the evening. I wonder which neighbor had the key to go and turn it off. Perhaps it was a cat or a fox...

We are few here, and even fewer young people. And most days I don't feel very young...
So I enjoy the beauty of the place and pray for the day when it will live again.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:31:41 GMT

I'm not under any illusions. It's going to take a long time to know people and to be known in a place like this. I realized that when we prayed with one friend, and she pretended like nothing had happened.... even though I knew she had been weeping during the prayer. So I don't expect to feel tomorrow as if I'm in my place and I've got a network and all is right with the world.
But something happened yesterday that certainly helped my outlook. I was trudging back up the hill after having put the children on the bus for their Monday afternoon at school, when, as I walked by Monique's house, her window swung open. Monique is one of the faithfuls, one of the pillars. She plays the organ in Waldersbach, Belmont and Bellefosse, and she is an elder. But she went away right after Christmas and has been gone all month. Each time we walked by her empty house, I would think about her, and sometimes I would say to the kids, "I miss Monique. I wonder when she's coming back."
She has a beautifully kept home with varnished wood shutters and lace curtains. And her kitchen windows look out on the street, so that she sees each person who walks by. We sometimes chat right there at her window. She offers me a taste of the cookies she just baked, or I hand her the list of hymns for Sunday...
So this time, when the window swung open, it was like a ray of sunshine. "Eh c'est toi!" I said. Monique is one of a handful with whom I can say "tu" instead of "vous." And I told her how often I had thought of her, and how we had missed her, and we gave each other a kiss. And she invited me in for coffee. Her next door neighbor, Marie-Eve, was also there, so she invited her too.
This is nothing spectacular or exciting. Just coffee in an elderly widow's kitchen. But that coffee changed my entire day. Why? Because of connection. I suddenly felt connected in my neighborhood. I know my neighbors and we can have impromptu coffee. In fact, Marie-Eve invited me to her place afterward because there was something she wanted to tell me in private about another mutual neighbor (and that's another story for another time...), so I spent pretty much the whole afternoon chatting with neighbors, knowing their kitchens, getting invited to a Tupperware party (these are a big deal up here), trying to pet an unbelievably timid St Bernard...
Connections. I found myself smiling at everyone I met in the street today. I live in Waldersbach. And maybe I will fit here after all.

Advent sourkraut

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:42:49 GMT

Today was our first church get-together here in the Ban de la Roche. For some reason, the tradition is to ring in the Advent season with a giant sauerkraut meal--I honest don't know how to spell that word in English. Something doesn't seem quite right about that to me, but the meal was plentiful and delicious. I wonder a lot of things after this unique experience...

When will this group of people feel safe to us? There are so many secret codes to learn and understand here, so many "inside jokes," unseen wounds, tight family relationships. When people get married they marry someone from another village in the Ban de la Roche, not somewhere else. Well, they might go so far as to marry someone from Schirmeck... So it feels sort of ingrown and protected, sometimes fiercely protected by the folks who feel threatened by too many new arrivals from elsewhere.

What is expected of me as a pastor's wife here? I was glad to see the team who organized the meal working like a well-oiled machine. I think I brought one stack of plates to the kitchen and that's about it. I felt like I would be more of a handicap if I tried to help, not knowing the ropes, so to speak. But maybe some of the women found that offensive, that I didn't help at all. Or maybe they found it freeing.

What do people here most need? and what can we do about it? This is a constant nagging question that I have trouble answering. There are many families in deep relational difficulties that we only know a small part of. Our hearts ache for the children caught in unreal situations. The one who's mom is psychologically and/or physically ill most or all of the time, while her dad is away on business and her brother is gone all week at boarding school. Or the boy who isn't sure who his real dad is, and what he's supposed to say when you ask him that question. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming.

I continue to say with great joy in my heart that I love living here, that it's a gift from God, as He promised us it would be. I'm grateful for that. And for all the other unexpected blessings, like Jesus himself coming as a baby in a barn, and Advent sourkraut.

An unexpected good-bye

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:45:14 GMT

In the middle of all the chaos of moving, I reassured myself at times by thinking, "Well, at least Aleph is staying with us." And in the weeks before we left Strasbourg, several friends admired him, commenting on how slim and beautiful he was. Those who helped us move were happy with us for him, that he would finally be in a place where he could go outside and play. It was difficult to keep him in those two weeks the vet recommended, so that he could get his bearings in the new house. Then he went out. Once, on the front balcony, he caught a bird. I won't soon forget the way he looked outside the window asking to come in, up on his hind legs with that little bird in his mouth. He was surprised, I think, like I was, and happy. He left it on the floor, and when he saw it was dead--after batting it a couple of times with his paw--he left it there. For me?
Aleph was there purring each morning when I got up. He was there begging to drink when we took a shower (now we know why), and looking out the door when we arrived home from somewhere. "Hi, buddy pal," we'd say. I'm not sure when or why I started calling him that. That's the way nicknames are. There was "buddy pal," which sometimes morphed into "buddy shmuds," or just "shmuds." Or "Alepher-weffer." I also had little songs I would sing to him : " You're my favorite kitty, la dee da dee da dee da..."
Over the weekend he stopped eating and drinking, started having trouble getting around. We had no idea what was wrong. Maybe it was the fight with Suzy, the nieghbor's cat. Maybe he had gotten hurt worse than we thought. James took him to the vet thinking we'd get it fixed, whatever it was.
But there was no fixing it. "Il faut qu'on soit realiste," the vet said. And she offered, if he became too uncomfortable, meowing a lot, to put him to sleep for us. We could have him rehydrated in an animal hospital, but it would be costly, and do him no lasting good. His kidneys were shot.
So James brought him home again, on Monday, and we told the kids he was going to die. We petted him a lot, and the kids came and loved him every time they got up, went to bed, or left to go somewhere. We didn't know how long he'd hang on.
Last night, while we were up working on our computers, he started to mew pitifully. He sounded like he was very uncomfortable. We reassured him with our voices, with a pat, saying things like "Hang in there buddy pal," or "It's going to be okay. Just rest now." Then we looked again, and he seemed different. He had stopped breathing. He was gone.
I feel silly for making such a big deal out of this. After all, I say to myself, it's not a person. It's just a cat. But Aleph was a great cat, and a warm presence in our home. He was patient with the children, even when they were cruel to him. Now I feel all alone here without him.
Eric prayed several times for God to heal him. I prayed it too. I told God, "Either raise him up or take him." Because I didn't like to see him so sick.
I honestly don't know what God does with prayers like that. I don't know of a single instance where He miraculously healed an animal. I suspect that there's a lot I don't understand.
But I do know that death will one day be gone forever, and that God in His goodness can be trusted when one of His creatures dies this way.
It's raining. We want to bury Aleph this afternoon on some church property up the hill in the forest, where it won't bother anyone.