Bienvenue.

You can’t turn off being a teacher, you know? It doesn’t matter if it’s your first year or your retirement year: if you really love it, it’s just there all the time, coursing through your body like electricity. Anything is fodder for the classroom, from merchandise you come across perchance in hole-in-the-wall shops to the stories you live each day. Memories and souvenirs become illustrations, props, or aids. You’re always thinking, I could use this when I teach…Anyway, this is admittedly my personal experience, but I suspect my World War II instructor is affected by the same condition.

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The night before classes began, E and L and I, the grad students, looked over our schedule and saw that we were to show up at “IEP” at 1:30 for our World War II course. What’s the IEP and where is it? we wondered, bemused. The first two professors we asked also had no idea, or only a vague one. Finally, we were able to find someone who explained somewhat more concretely, but the idea was still amorphous in our brains. All we knew is that “IEP” was the abbreviation for the name of an entire school. So, the next day we struck out in plenty of time to master the situation.

Unfortunately, we got sufficiently confused early on and had to take out a map. The directions we’d been given weren’t especially helpful anyway, and certainly not after several hours had passed. When we finally found our destination, we entered, only to find that the buildings were comprised of only offices. Slowly turning in circles in the middle of the courtyard, we tried desperately to find a building that looked full of classrooms. Nothing. Finally, L stopped a straggler and asked where all the classrooms were. The woman pointed us in another direction, and we took up the search again. Upon walking in, we became convinced that we’d found the right building, but still had no idea which room was ours. We looked at room numbers, peeked in windows, and cocked our ears toward doors, all in hopes of receiving some helpful information. Finally, E located what she thought was our room and called us over. Sure enough, as we tentatively walked in, a professorial-looking man in his fifties greeted us. We spoke briefly of our difficulties finding the room, and he seemed genuinely disappointed that no one had communicated with us any better than that.

When the others came in, he gave us a more official greeting. He introduced himself as Professor D and wished us the “warmest and kindest of bienvenues (welcomes)” to his native country. Then, the speech that followed was one I simply had to write down because I felt so calmed and welcomed, almost to the point of grateful tears. It was like I was in the presence of a divinely beatific Santa Claus who understood my student persona perfectly.

“There are two things you must know before we begin. First of all, I know that it is so very difficult to speak a language not your own. After years of practice, it is still difficult for me to speak English, and I am fifty years old! And for you, I can’t imagine the bravery you have to speak French in this room with me, a native speaker. It is hard, and I know. When I go to America and visit my American friends, they always laugh when I pronounce certain words. It is very difficult to pronounce th and r your language. And they laugh and say, ‘Oh, we love your accent; it’s so cute!’ That makes me feel foolish, makes me feel embarrassed. That makes me feel not very smart because I cannot pronounce the words the way they do. Let me say this to you: I will never make fun of you, never. I know this is hard, and I want you to try, and I promise that if you try, you will not be made fun of by me ever. You understand?

“The second thing you must know is that to learn a language, you must speak it. So speak French to me to learn it. And if I say something you do not understand, you have the right to stop me. Do you understand what I’m saying? You have the right to stop me. This is your class. Sometimes when I start teaching, I get so excited, so enthusiastic, and I speak very fast. My foreign students sometimes look at me with open mouths because they do not understand me any longer. Yes, stop me when this happens. I can talk about World War II forever and not stop for breath.”

Here was a man I’d never met who made me feel more confident in a classroom than I had the rest of my time in Virginia. And I was halfway across the world. Immediately, I felt at ease. He understood: this second-language thing was difficult and tiring, but he would be patient with me. Of course, I never expected a professor to ridicule my pronunciation; nonetheless, it so put me at ease to actually hear someone say it. Here was a place where my floundering French was welcome and desired.

I’ve only had Professor D’s class for two days (a collective seven hours), but those two days have been packed with radio clips, examples and illustrations from his life, and lots of quickly passing lecturing. My notebook has about as many notes on his teaching style as it does the information itself; I feel like I’m constantly writing things down. I consider it a blessing to be under the direction of Professor D, even if it’s only for four weeks. Here’s to the development of many more teachers worldwide just like him.

The Bread Man.

Last Sunday E and I woke up early (well, early for jet lagged Americans) to go to the open-air market just minutes by foot from our apartment. We wanted to absorb everything, taking stock of all the available goods, before committing to any one particular vendor’s wares. We noticed right away an especially delicious-looking display of small breakfast bread loaves in various flavors and promised each other we’d return. We kept our word: after purchasing conservative quantities of tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cherries, and strawberries, we made our way back to the Bread Man. E asked for a pain aux fraises et au chocolat blanc (bread with strawberries and white chocolate), and I chose a pain aux pépites chocolats (bread with chocolate chips).

Upon hearing our French, the Bread Man brightened and asked, “Which nationality?” We replied that we were Americans, and he was delighted. “Americans, yes?” he clarified jovially. “So Lyon is cold for you!”

Wasn’t that the truth! The day E and I arrived in Lyon it was in the low fifties with rain, and the next morning was no warmer—less so, in fact. “Here some years we ski on our national holiday!” he enthused. “Can you ski on your national holiday?” he winked at us. We all laughed. “Impossible!” I said, while E too assured him there were no such opportunities in our native land. Skiing in July! If you’re not in very select locations or you don’t own a snow machine, you are likely unable to celebrate the Fourth of July with snowballs.

Quickly, as happens with many of his line of work, he turned to the quality of his craft. “You have bread like mine in American stores, no?” I replied that while we had bread—even bread meant specifically for breakfast and dessert—we definitely had nothing of the caliber he offered us, at least not in stores. He nodded knowingly. “Yes,” he agreed, “your bread is industrial. Me, I make all my own bread. All of this”—he waved a hand across the whole spread—“all made by my hands. In America, you make things much more quickly than I do, but then you lose the love of your food. I make everything with much care, yes, much care.”

And how true is that. I am not the sort of person who thinks everything in France is better and more interesting and more chic than everything in America or vice versa. Both countries should be appreciated and celebrated for their differences, particularly their strengths. Nonetheless, I think the Bread Man is right on target: we are so separated from our food in America that many of us either hate it, anesthetize ourselves with it, or struggle between the two. It’s a consumable like everything else, something to be mashed into our mouths while working, watching television, or driving hurriedly from one appointment to the next. We don’t love our food because we expect it to fill voids for us or because we are so disillusioned that it hasn’t. We tie it to what it does to us, for better or worse, rather than from its source.

The French are paradoxical as it relates to food. On the one hand, everything they eat is loaded in fat—butter, cream, grease, take your pick, and it’s probably there. Bread and butter are served in large quantities at each meal. Lunch and dinner are both accompanied by wine, and sometimes by a few wines. The French spend—quite literally—hours of their lives à table (at the table), lingering long after the last morsels and drops are gone. Our group had dinner at the high-class Brasserie du Nord on Sunday night. Our reservations were at 7:00 p.m., we were seated immediately, and yet we didn’t leave until after around 10:30. It took that long to eat our three-course meal. Each course was eaten slowly with much laughter and conversation interspersed between bites and courses. Both wine selection and food preparation are sciences at which native French people are expected to be proficient; serving at a restaurant, even a merely decent one, requires the highest levels of such knowledge. Servers, in fact, often have culinary degrees. Yet with such importance placed on food, the French remain one of the healthiest, slimmest, and most robust nationalities on the planet. How is this possible?

For one, the quantities are much smaller. I haven’t left a table hungry yet, but much less is served to me than I would expect at even a Steak ‘n’ Shake in the U.S. Also, the streets are teeming with walkers and bike-riders. Rush hour is nothing to be worried about because if a person lives within four miles or so of his/her office, she/he walks. Everyone is aware of how much they are eating because they eat so very slowly and deliberately. Meals are accompanied by things other than food to look forward to, such as the entertaining and fulfilling company of others.

Of course, not all of these elements of the French meal could be adopted in the U.S. We lead faster-paced lives, we frequently live a longer distance from our jobs, and we enjoy the peace and quiet of our fierce individualism (myself included). But what if we did slow down, eat a little less of the delicious foods we love, and invite friends over often to share a meal with us? What if we did prepare our food on a regular basis—and take pride in it as a craft that sustains life—rather than buying “industrial bread”? I wonder how our health and our entire society would change, with or without the gym.

Arrival.

It’s three minutes until noon on Sunday, 20 June. I am writing from a small, cute apartment on the Quai Claude Bernard in Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France. My windows are open, but since I am on the top floor, all I’m looking at are leaves from the tree in front of our building. If it weren’t for the car noises, church bells, and occasional sirens below, you’d never know I was in a major European city. Looking down from my window through the leaves, I can see a busy street and a wide river. Just beyond that, a hill is covered in old buildings—apartments, churches, and houses. It’s cloudy and cold out today: a high of 52^oF. I’ve been here for almost 24 hours, during which time I’ve set up my room, showered twice, eaten, Skyped with my parents and Jeff, slept for nine hours, explored the area around our apartment somewhat with my roommate, grocery shopped, and taken a trip to the Sunday morning open-air market. Even with all that activity, I’m finally calming down a bit after a tiring journey over the Atlantic.

I left the States at 6:40 p.m. on Friday evening after a very difficult goodbye with Jeff. Everything went smoothly until arriving at London Heathrow: no connecting information for Lyon was given over the intercom on the plane, and no gate number was on my ticket. Luckily, and completely coincidentally, the man occupying the seat next to mine was the husband of the trip’s supervisor. Working together, we were able to locate the gate of our flight to Lyon, and we got there just on time, despite the long lines at security. While waiting for my suitcase in Lyon, I heard familiarly accented English and went over to ask the girls using it whether they were with the U.Va. trip. They were, and one of them agreed to split a cab with me, even though we were going to slightly different destinations. What would’ve been a 44€ expenditure became just 22€, which is, of course, still ridiculous but easier to swallow.

When I arrived at Marie’s, the property manager’s, apartment to pick up the keys, I had to wait for her for some time. When she finally arrived and gave me the keys, I walked up the five flights of stairs only to find that the doors weren’t labeled or numbered, so I didn’t know which was mine. I searched and peeked and, in general, looked like a confused American. Fortunately, there were some people across the way that I was able to ask, and they genially pointed me to the correct apartment. However, when I got there, I couldn’t open the door. There are two keys required, one that looks perfectly normal and one that looks like it opens a castle. You can guess which key caused problems. I traipsed back down the stairs and asked Marie for help. She brusquely explained the door and demonstrated, so I was finally able to get it open.

To make a long story short, when I got in the apartment, I cried and unpacked and cried and read the Bible cried and showered and cried and prayed. A month is such a long time to be away from home and, most especially, one’s spouse. I tried for an hour and a half to hook up the Internet so I could at least email Jeff and my parents, but—surprise, surprise—I wasn’t able to log on. I hit rock bottom. I was alone in a strange city without a way to contact anyone I knew, and my worn-out mind and body just couldn’t take anymore. But before long, my roommate arrived, and things improved quickly. E got the Internet running in no time, and I explained the castle-key to her. We realized about the same time that we hadn’t eaten all day, so we decided that we’d run out to the grocery store for supplies. Not that there was much of a choice: nothing is open on Sunday except the weekly open-air market, and stores close early on Saturday.

The grocery trip turned out to be a fiasco. Marie had pointed us in the direction of a Casino, the primary Lyonnais supermarket chain. E and I absolutely could not find it and, after walking for an hour and asking three different people for directions, had effectively gotten lost. Finally, we found a tiny grocery store that was still open, and we stocked up on some necessities: eggs, vegetables, cheese, fruit, bread, water, laundry detergent. Regrettably, the laundry detergent and pack of water bottles were enormously heavy. Since we were lost, we ended up having to carry them a very long way. Both of us suffered hand damage. I simply cannot explain the pain we experienced due to the being-lost and the six-pack of 2-liter waters. Even today my fingers and hands are sore, the skin’s rubbed raw, my feet are aching, and my biceps and back muscles are killing me. To add insult to serious injury, on the way back from Casino, we passed no less than five (closer) supermarkets. To further open the wound and pour salt in, we discovered after returning to our apartment that the “laundry detergent” is actually fabric softener. Come on. Nonetheless, we’re marking it as a success because we’re not hungry and we did eventually wind back up at 1 Quai Claude Bernard.

This morning, E and I had a much better experience. We went to the open-air market to look around and find ourselves some lunch. We did not get lost this time, thankfully, and we found cheap and delicious food. We feasted on a rotisserie half-chicken with roasted potatoes at lunch and ate some more bread and cheese. (We really have no option on the bread and cheese, you understand, because we’re in France.) The only problem arose when trying to reenter our apartment: castle-key reared its ugly head again. We spent upwards of ten minutes just trying to open our crazy door. It was the height of frustration, let me tell you. We’re going to have door practice before orientation tonight.

That’s pretty much everything that’s happened so far, and I need to stop writing because I have reading to do for class tomorrow. In short, things are going okay, and I am so glad E is with me. I can’t imagine how much I’d be wishing I could go home right now if I wasn’t going through it all with someone else. I actually do still just want to go home, but I’m starting to feel better about being here for a month. And Skype really, really helps. It’s a big comfort to be able to see and talk to Jeff and my parents (for free!) and to hear the voices that calm me.

I can’t post pictures because my computer doesn’t recognize my camera. But I will write more later—whenever the next adventure ensues.

John the Baptist.

(NOTE: You’ll have to forgive the picture. I searched on Google Images for John the Baptist out of curiosity, and I thought this one was funny.)

I have never liked the phrase found God, as in “My nephew finally ‘found God.’” It makes God sound so commonplace, so easily lost and regained. Using this terminology, it sounds no more important to “find” God than it would be to “find” your long-lost stopwatch. Actually, I think we should be making every effort to "find" God as many times as possible during the day. Matthew 3 especially illumines this point with the introduction of John the Baptist.

Apparently, John’s entire diet was overgrown flies and raw honey. I suspect your mental image of him is similar to mine: unruly beard and hair, yellowed teeth, suntan a woman would kill for. If you only visualize him in the context of a preacher that lives in the desert and screams at people about repenting, that works. But imagine him in your daily routine. Hearing God’s message from the voice of a scruffy, insect-eating maniac in your office, neighborhood, or church would be difficult. It would take some serious searching to “find God” in John’s message because it would be a challenge to get past his appearance.

I’m not going to take this down the path of God-asks-that-we-love-even-the-stinky-people – although I could use a dose of that sometimes. Instead, God’s use of wild-eyed John reminds me to look for God even in the most unexpected of places. For example, I have always loved British Romantic poetry, which was written by men known for their pantheism. While I am no pantheist, I believe they might have been onto something that most modern-day Christians overlook: God doesn’t equal nature, but His glory resides in it. It’s why we get so enraged about things like the Gulf oil spill. It tarnishes our natural revelation of God, his very masterpieces. His magnificence glows in the sunset, flows in the waterfall, glistens in the stars; the British Romantics are masters of bringing this wonder to the surface. I can “find God” even in non-religious venues.

In January of this year I wrote about a similar experience: “finding God” in Friends. There’s an episode in the eighth season in which Rachel, pregnant with Ross’s baby, has moved in with Ross even though they are no longer involved and haven’t been in years. One afternoon in the third trimester of Rachel’s pregnancy, Ross goes on a date with a woman he met while he and Rachel were shopping for baby paraphernalia. When he returns, it’s obvious that Rachel is upset with him, but he can’t figure out why. “What do you want from me?” he asks, confused. Sighing, she replies, “I don’t want you to date. I don’t want to date you, but I don’t want anyone else to either. I want you to be at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week…I know that’s ridiculous, but it’s how I feel.” After a moment’s pause, he shrugs and says, “Okay.” Looking up at him, mystified, she says, “‘Okay’? But I’m being so unreasonable!” It’s the picture of grace, right there. God is “lovesick” over us, as Philip Yancey says, and is willing to erase our sins with his grace over and over and over again…even though we’re being so unreasonable in asking for it. Even though we’re repenting and failing, repenting and failing, he welcomes us to his throne every time.

Finding God is not a once-in-a-lifetime event, rather it is a never-ending exercise for the Christian. How can I find God in what I do so I can emanate his message to those I encounter everyday? How can I find Love so that I can create a culture of kindness throughout my life?

Proof.

The story of Jesus sounds silly, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem logical that a Middle Eastern carpenter—quite literally born in a barn—could be king of the universe. Honestly, I don’t blame people who say, “You really believe that?” By the world’s standards, my faith doesn’t make sense. I also don’t blame people who want proof. Our party line as Christians seems to be, “Christian beliefs are based on faith, not proof.” And we like to quote Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (NLT). That works for us (presumably), but many want something more concrete. No scientific experiment exists that I can perform to definitively prove my beliefs, but there is something I consider my own personal proof: wisdom. This is a miracle, this is proof to me: when I consider all of the major decisions I’ve made in my life, I have yet to make a bad one. That has absolutely not one iota to do with me; I’m no wiser than anyone else. In fact, I’m comparatively less wise than many people on the planet. But every time I’ve had to make a life-altering decision, my heart has sought wisdom from God, and as a result, I haven’t regretted a single step I’ve taken.

The first such step I consider to be transferring high schools. That may not sound like an especially big deal to you, but it certainly was to me. The county high school was brimming with people I’d known since I was five years old; the city high school boasted a whole three people I knew: my next-door neighbor and two church friends. When you’re a profoundly introverted person like I am, the thought of going to school with 2,000 people you don’t know isn’t exhilarating; it’s terrifying. However, the city high school was more academically rigorous and fostered a much stronger drama program, so I made the switch in January of my sophomore year. God was with me in my new school: it was there I met the woman who’s been my best friend for over a decade, plus other wonderful people with whom I keep in contact. It was a difficult decision but undoubtedly a wise one, which is obvious when I look back. That’s something I can say for so many other decisions I’ve made that seemed irrational at the time: getting a teaching certificate instead of going to grad school when I finished college, etc. There’s been a reason every time, and God hasn’t let me make a bad decision yet. I don’t regret a thing.

There’s one decision for which I’m still waiting to see the wisdom. I double-majored in French and English in my undergrad: two supremely unmarketable degrees. Choosing those fields is counterintuitive on all accounts, but nothing else felt like the right fit. I just trusted God that he had put those talents and desires in my heart for some reason. Currently, I’m trying to earn a master’s in French, which doesn’t really solve the marketability problem…especially since French majors nationwide are being outsourced to France. The job market for French professors is decreasing, and, even though I knew that, I still felt that familiar pull that this was the right place for me. On top of all that, I perform much more agilely with English-language literature than I do with French. And yet somehow, despite all of that, I really feel as though this is where I belong. It’s that tiny little beam, like the faint green light Nick Carraway saw across the water’s surface, that I hang onto.

Yet, non-academic reasons for why I’m here are already revealing themselves. The University of Virginia provides state-of-the-art medical care, and for the first time, I’ve gotten answers about things going on in my body—answers I wasn’t even charged for. Also, living away from my hometown has been a bittersweet blessing: though it’s been unspeakably difficult to be hours from my family and friends, I’ve learned that I can thrive somewhere other than that one environment. Jeff and I have found a welcoming church home, a place we truly look forward to visiting on Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. Our church talks a lot about being genuine, compassionate, and full of grace—all qualities we have found in abundance in our small group. Even if I never saw any other returns on investment than the ones I listed above, the move to Virginia would’ve been worth it. Nonetheless, I still expect God to gloriously use my academic pursuits here in the future, even though I am blind to the possibilities right now. The convergence of what I know and what I hope for is my faith and my proof all at the same time.

I’m starting to feel that after the master’s it will be time to move on, and I just have to hope that God will be with me for the next step, too. He’s never let me down, never left me alone, never left my questions unanswered when it was time to reveal the reasons. I have no idea why I’m here, no idea why I majored in literature and language, no idea what the next step will be. For a planner like I am, that is exceptionally uncomfortable. But the never-failing love and grace of Christ is the safety net I cling to. That’s proof enough to me that my faith, my Jesus, is real. I’m not worried. It’s like one of my favorite moments in Charlotte’s Web. Wilbur, having been informed by the sheep of the fate of pigs on a farm, says to Charlotte, “Should I be worried?” She responds calmly, “Of course not. What good would that do?”