Dispatch from Barcelona, May 31, 2006

I’m sitting at a small kitchen table in our Barcelona apartment looking out at a rooftop “garden” five floors up. An apartment, you ask? Well, in our research we discovered that apartments are often the same rate as mid-priced hotels and you get a kitchen thrown in (and in our case a rooftop garden). It also makes you feel like a real Barcelonan when you walk down the street with a grocery bag. Well, we might feel like Barcelonans, but my tall blonde presence always seems to invite people to talk to me in either English or German. Jeanne, however, gets addressed in the language the country. She easily passes for French or Spanish as long as she doesn’t open her mouth.

We arrived from Geneva yesterday about noon. Let’s see if I can catch you all up in a paragraph or two. Last dispatch was from France. We were about to go to evening prayer at Taize. We did, and it was, again, a very moving experience. The thousands of young people (and a few old ones like us) gathered to sing and pray. At the end of every evening prayer, the monks or brothers all gather in the center of the vast church and bow in prayer in front of a large cross icon laid on the ground with candles on it. It’s hard to convey the power and beauty of this act. It’s meant as a sign of reconciliation and of a way of letting go of all the sufferings and sins of our lives as well as identifying with suffering people everywhere. After a long time of singing, the monks disperse along the edges of the church. They are there to pray or talk to anyone who wishes. This means they each know several languages in order to converse. After the monks leave the cross, visitors quickly take their place to pray. The praying and singing goes on for hours (we stayed only a half hour or so).

The next day (Saturday) we spent mostly in our lovely chateau reading. It was dreary and misty outside anyway. Around 3 in the afternoon, we saw the first rays of sun peak out and quickly got dressed and headed for a historical 13th century chateau in nearby Cormatin. It turned into a warm, sunny, glorious evening as we took a tour and then strolled the formal gardens in the full bloom of spring (which is, we’re told, a month or so late this year).

Sunday morning, we packed up and headed for Taize and the morning Eucharist. The worship was very similar to the Ascension service, with many of the same songs, which helped us become more familiar with them and sing “by heart.” We bought a Taize CD and listened to it much of the day, singing along as we breezed through the French countryside.

We had intended to go to Lyon that day and stay overnight, but on a whim decided to go to the Alps instead. (Why try to familiarize yourself with a big city for a day and a half when you can go hiking in the Alps? It was about a three-hour trip from near Taize to Mont Blanc, which is in France. We accidentally almost entered the Mont Blanc tunnel (miles long) which goes to Italy. But we made an illegal u-turn, and ended up in a little ski town called Les Houches (which we delightedly pronounced as “the hooches”). The next day turned out rainy, and Mont Blanc, which we had glimpsed the evening before, was now lost in the clouds. Rain was predicted for the day, so we hopped in the car and took off over a pass to Lake Geneva and Montreaux. As we went over the pass, the clouds lifted and we had some breathtaking views of the alpine valleys and snow-covered peaks. In Montreaux it started raining again, so we decided to head indoors on a tour of the famous medieval castle of Chillon (immortalized in Byron’s famous poem “The Prisoner of Chillon.” He scratched his name on one of the huge pillars in the dungeon where his “prisoner” was chained.)

We ended up in a hotel near the airport in Geneva by about 6 that night, thus making a complete circuit of Lake Geneva, including Mont Blanc. But then we discovered that I had left a good jacket (my only jacket) in “the Hooches” and decided to make a flying run up to Mont Blanc and back. We broke all French speed limits and ate at an Italian restaurant back in Geneva by 9 p.m.. Not bad! Bu the way, we think we may have set a record in those two days of crossing the Swiss/French border – at least five times. But then it’s harder to get into Canada than to cross any border in Europe—they would just boringly waved us through.

So, that brings us to Tuesday, I think, leaving for Barcelona at 10 a.m. We spent the afternoon getting familiar with the tiny apartment (Our landlord Philippe, looks just like Picasso and thankfully speaks great English), shopping in a super market, which like most European ones looks more like a gourmet food market, with full aisles of only varieties of vinegar, oils, or olives, with half an aisle for, say, cereal. Oh, and we tried unsuccessfully to get money out of countless bank machines in order to pay for our apartment. Philippe was incredibly generous in letting us wait a day. Our agreement had been that we only received the keys after we paid. Our Mishawaka bank was suddenly suspicious and we had to call and tell them where we were.

We spent the evening strolling the famous “Rambla,” the wonderfully colorful walk from the city center to the harbor, and ended up in a Catalan restaurant which, to my delight and Jeanne’s horror, turns out to specialize in cured meats and sausages.

For tonight , I just got tickets for a Czech orchestra concert in the concert hall, so today it’s Gaudi and Janacek—and the sun is just starting come out after an early morning shower. Time for morning prayers. Today as our Prayer book has it as the "Feast of the Visit of the BVM to Elizabeth,' which calls for at least the first half of the "Hail Mary."

Dispatch from Mont Blanc, May 28, 2006

Just a quick post to say that we’re now in a hotel at the foot of Mt.Blanc. Yes, we thought we were going to spend a day and a half in Lyon, but since we couldn’t expect to make much sense of the second largest city in France in a day in a half, we decided to go the Alps instead. Tomorrow we’ll hike for the day, and then head back to Geneva at night to be ready to fly out to Barcelona Tuesday.

This morning we attended church at Taize again. Having been there a few rimes now it’s become more familiar and we could enter in more readily. They even repeated many of the songs. I’m still amazed at the sight and sound of young people from all over the world singing and praying together. The 10 minutes silence at the center of each service is stunning.

Dispatch from Champagny-sous-Uxelles: Friday May 26

This is not a low-carb culture. Our B and B breakfast consists mainly of various breads and cakes, plain yogurt, washed down with good strong French coffee, and (by my insistence) tomato juice. The Madame of the house is quite pleased to speak no English whatsoever, as is expected among the French aristocracy (this chateau has been in her family for two centuries after all).

Hence we thought it might be a good idea to do some hiking after a morning in Taize yesterday. We bought some food at a local grocery on the way back to the chateau (fruit, cheese, bread, eggs, and some fine air-cured pork sausage, and had a little picnic. Then we set out for some villages not far away recommended to us by a restaurant owner. We figured the hike to be about six or seven miles along narrow country roads. The two towns were build into steep hillsides , with fields and vineyards in checkerboard patterns on the hills around. The towns were medieval in character, and, in act, some of the buildings dated from the 11th and 12th centuries, including some Romanesque churches. Nearly every church is open, so it was fun to look inside. One was so resonant we counted 12 echoes for every sound made. We plan to attend two baroque concerts in nearby churches Saturday afternoon and evening.

At the far end of the hike we settled into a little bar across from a 12th century stone church in the town of Bissy sur Fles.
The owner sat down with us for a chat in his pretty good English. It turns out he’s a German who settled here on a whim 15 years ago when the place was in disrepair and for sale. His claim to fame in this tiny town is that he sells about 100 different beers from all over the Europe—and English tea as well, which was our choice at the moment. We were prepared to blush before the supposed French disdain of everything American. Instead we got an earful of all the woes of being under the thumb of local farmers who run the town and the French government in general. According to him he pays more in taxes than his little bar earns (how he lives I don’t know.) His ex-wife up the street doesn’t work at all and makes more than he does. Plus, he’s a great admirer of America and George Bush. Now there is a place that creates “responsibilite.” Yea, we’re all over the world taking responsibility. Not a word about Iraq, but the idea of lowering taxes seemed “tres bon.” Yet, after all his complaints he proudly showed us the new Ford van he had just bought, so it didn’t quite all add up.

Well, we’ll just take the morning off for some reading, writing, and general catching up. Maybe a hike this afternoon, plus evening prayer at Taize.

We’re having a hard time finding an internet café, or anything like it. We’ll search tonight in Cluny to see if we can get this off. Otherwise it will have to wait for Lyon on Sunday.

Dispatch from Champagny-sous-Uxelles: Thursday May 25

Dispatch from Champagny-sous-Uxelles: Thursday May 25

(This post is actually coming on May 28, since this is my first chance to get to the internet--not very prevalent in rural France.)

Let’s see, it’s Wednesday, no Thursday already. As most travelers experience, at least those first few days, I’ve still got a case of severe dislocation. Not that’s it’s anything but pleasant. I’m disorientated, unplugged, removed from the normal cues that tell me when, where, and what. Which means the sabbatical has really begun.

Our prayer book tells us it’s also Ascension Day, one of my favorite Christian festivals. It’s the day we can breathe a sigh of relief and really believe it when we say that everything will be all right. As the Psalm sings, The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad. Of course, I’m not in Darfur, but in Burgundy on a lovely spring morning, so it must be a little easier to sing that Psalm with confidence. But I hope the Darfurians can sing it too, with perhaps even more conviction.

Let me go back a few days. We arrived in Geneva Tuesday morning (May 23) after a rather pleasant flight on Air France (though Jeanne has a rather different take on that). Geneva is so close to the French border that there’s a Swiss side and a ?French side to the airport, and we were on the Swiss side. Now the Swiss have this idea that some unknown country exists to their west, where people have opinions which they would rather not have anything to do with. So any map you might get at the car rental agency is only for Geneva and Switzerland. What about France? “Well,” the clerk said,” looking down his Swiss nose, “buy one there.”

Which we did, immediately over the border, well after we got lost twice already. The map, however, was of limited use, covering the whole country and not, therefore, pinpointing the exact corner where we were located. We soon discovered at least one reason for Swiss disdain. The roads, while ostensibly numbered, lack any real signage. Hence, there sill be signs pointing you to, say, Aix de Chapelle, but no road numbers that corresponded to anything on the map where the road numbers only show up every five inches or so, which always leaves one wondering. So, we began our journey through the French alps, which are quite lovely, on a great four lane highway. We expected to fly through our expected two-hour journey to our destination. Then, suddenly, to our complete surprise, we were on a two-lane switchback road behind a rather smelly open semi which we suspected was loaded with excess manure, or sewer sludge. And we could not find a road sign. Yet, everyone on a while, like a mirage, this sleek modern highway appeared overhead, sweeping over the deep valleys where we chugged along behind lines of trucks. So we went on, thinking there must be an entrance ramp, a sign, something. Mais non! Finally, or so Jeanne will tell you, we stopped at to ask directions to this Valhalla in the sky. “Bien. Deux kilometres.” And sure enough, there it was.

The other mistake we had made was to Google the directions from the Geneva airport to the tiny town which was our destination. Don’t every do that in rural France. Either the French have supplied perversely false information, or the Google people got their information from the movements of General Patton’s troops. In any case there was no relationship between the directions and actual highway reality. We took must have taken at least 25 wrong turns, and that’s a conservative estimate. We went through charming towns, busy cities at rush hour, and lovely rural highways, hardly seeing a numbered highway; only the sigh to the next town, which didn’t always appear on our map. Now, here’s the miracle. Never once did Jeanne and I come to blows, or even utter a harsh word. This is what I call the grace of God. It has nothing to do with sanctification, since we were two zoned out people.

We finally did arrive in Champagny-sous-Uxelles around six on a gorgeous late spring evening. After two more wrong turns and asking one old toothless woman, we finally arrived at the B and B of Madame De Bresse. We pulled through the high brick wall, parked under a gigantic chestnut (I haven’t see one of these since I was a child) in front of a 1830 French chateau, a big old rambling mansion with 14 foot ceilings, and a room which made us feel like we ought to be wearing velvet dressing gowns rather than polar tec (it’s still cold at night).

It’s what you would imagine of the French countryside-- set in a wide green valley surrounded by wooded hills in the Burgundy wine-growing region of eastern France, about fifty miles north of Lyon (Macon is the nearest big city). Taize is located about 15 minutes to the south, just north of Cluny (site of the great Cistercian monastery of the 12th century the French mostly dismantled for stones in the 1820s.

This Ascension morning we made sure to make it to Taize. We did make a short visit late yesterday to get the “lay of the land.” There were relative few people, which surprised us. Perhaps, we thought, it was the time of the year. Te surprise was that this Ascension morning, the place was jammed, parking lots full. We mad our way to the “church,” really a polyglot of relatively low flat buildings imaginatively added on over the years with sliding doors between. It’s rather dark inside with low hanging lights, a few stained glass windows along the top. The “front” is decorated with a series of long taught banners of various shapes and lots, lots of candles. The atmosphere is very quiet, meditative—typically Taize.

We made it for the 10 a.m. Eucharist for the Ascension. Every section was open. There must have been at least 2000—mostly young—people spread through the whole series of rooms, all open to the center of worship and the small altar. A leader appeared a few times through the service, but it was mostly led by the singing from the white-robed “monks” who sat (knelt, or lay prone) in the center in front of the altar. A sign with lighted numbers signaled the next chant, as we moved through the rather typical liturgy. It was the worship they had developed at Taize years ago, and continued, a worship of quiet, solemnity, and simplicity that still captures the imagination and the spirit of young and old from allover the world.

The songs and short liturgical responses were sung and said in Latin, German, Spanish, French, English, Swedish (I think), and Russian. Nothing was repeated or translated, but there were translations in the songbook. It made me feel a little like heavenly worship where, as it says in Revelation, God will gather before the throne people of every tribe and tongue and nation.

The only drawbacks for an old guy like me was that I was sitting cross-legged on a hard (concrete) floor for an hour and quarter, and it was hard, the first time at least, to keep up with the songs in so many languages. It’s a little like visiting a strange church for the first time.

One final note to the day. There is nothing, nothing in the US like the quality of a simple country French restaurant. Served with a local wine, even a pizza, as we had last night, turns out to be a gastronomical delight.