Evendays

The French Open (Roland Garros) started on Sunday and will continue for 15 days. The question here for the avid and not so avid tennis fan in central Europe is simple: Are you Nadal or Federer?

For those of you out of the tennis loop, Raphael Nadal is the mega-bicepped Spanish clay-court specialist who has won this Grand Slam tournament the last two years. He had won 81 straight matches on “terre battue” (clay) before the number-one-in-the-world, Roger Federer, took him down two weeks ago… The first time the Swiss (did I mention Federer is Swiss?) had ever beaten the Spaniard on clay.

Tension runs high here as Son 2 and Daughter root for Roger who’s won every other Major but Roland Garros. He has a huge following not only because he’s good, but he’s just so… NICE! But during matches, I can hardly stay in the room when the points are important. It’s as tense as an episode of Gilligan’s Island.

Since both Roddick and Blake are already out, why not noisily applaud or encourage Roger? My kids would appreciate it. And if you cheer in English, that’s okay. The champ’s trilingual.

Here is a translated, antiphonal prayer from a Reformed Protestant tradition, Crêt-Bernard, that we’ll be using to guide our thoughts on Pentecost Sunday. (Yup, this Sunday!):
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Holy Spirit, Creator, who in the beginning hovered over the waters, by your breath every being received life.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Counselor, who inspired the prophets as they spoke and acted; you clothed them in your strength so they would witness to your Word.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Power, you covered the Virgin Mary with your shadow and you prepared her to become the mother of the Son of God.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Consecrator, you descended upon Jesus the day of his baptism to consecrate him as faithful witness to the Father.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Light, you led Christ into the desert; by your strength he cast out demons and you equipped him for the preaching the Kingdom of God.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Eternal One, through you the Christ, our Chief Priest, offered himself as a victim without blemish to deliver us from the works of death so we could serve the living God.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Defender, you came upon the apostles to teach them all things, to remind them of the words of Christ and to lead them into all truth.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, you Console, and through you we are born to life as children of God; you make us living temples of your presence and you intercede within us.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Holy Spirit, Life Giver, you animate and sanctify the entire body of the Church; you live in each one of its members and will one day give life to our mortal bodies.

     Holy Spirit, come!

Even though there are only a million French-speakers in Switzerland, we’ve got our own national television station. One of the monthly shows brings musicians and singers from all over the world to Geneva to record before a live studio audience of several hundred music lovers.

Alain Morisod hosts the show. Last Saturday night he had Micheline Calmy-Rey as his guest and she sang “Les trois cloches” (The three bells).

Now you’re thinking: No big deal. Except that Micheline Calmy-Rey is the current president of Switzerland. The Genevoise by adoption has the top spot for a year and is the second femme president we’ve ever had.

 

The lady has guts and brains. Not known for her singing ability, and with a bit of a Cruella Deville look (the political cartoonists often depict her with a fried egg on her head, or even a bird-dropping… thus imitating her hair color), this did wonders for her popularity and the Swiss very much enjoyed seeing her on the show.

While watching the youtube.com clip, the question popped into my head: What would recent presidents / prime ministers sing if they had the chance to perform? What do you think?

Well, there was Clinton on the sax…

I have enjoyed reading your comments from the last few posts and am thankful for this way of keeping in touch with you. It makes me feel “connected”.
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As usual, we attended the annual retreat in Ardeche, France during the Ascension weekend. This year, all of the speakers were “amateurs”, that is, they were not paid ministers, and boy did they do a good job. Three of the speakers were 20 or younger, (one of them was Son 1), and they all spoke true words without hypocrisy that went right to the heart.

It was late to bed and “early” to rise for the three day stay… Lots of fellowship, sport, study, praise and prayer. Way too much time spent at the table. All in all, a time of renewal.

I know you probably missed it. Yet it’s one of the few Protestant holidays with Christian roots. Not Jewish. Not pagan. Just Christian.

When Jesus had led the disciples out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God (Luke 24.50-53).

It happened “yesterday”, some 2000 years ago. And the world has never been the same since Christ received his throne on Ascension Day.

I’ve spent at least 2 work days getting a flyer ready for our short Geneva campaign in June. Dr. Robert McCready will be in Switzerland with a small group of Harding University students, all of whom study French. They’re here to help small churches in Switzerland, France and Belgium.

About 18,000 of the flyers will end up in people’s mailboxes in the neighborhood where the church meets. There’s an evangelism committee which prepares logistics and such, and we usually get a good turnout from the folks from church. Most visitors are friends we have invited, but we always meet 10 or so new people from the neighborhood. Others sign up for Bible courses or just ask for a free Bible.

It takes a lot of work, but last year we met a family from the neighborhood and they were converted. They have a Bible study at their place now and some friends come with their questions, looking for answers, reading the Bible together.

Our conference is entitled: “Me, I want to… believe… hope… love.” I’ll also be preparing a web site for the conferences, along with two pages of “studies” that readers can consult.

Sons 1 and 2 and I sang last Friday night with the regional high school chorus. The concert took place in the St. François Church in the middle of Lausanne. A fun building from the 13th century, it stands lopsided (which you only notice from the inside) having shifted over the years because of the surrounding traffic. Acoustics are still good (if the group is good).

 

We sang a requiem composed in 1946 by the Frenchman Maurice Duruflé. A lot of work for the little time it lasts, there are still some beautiful sections. (Gregorian sounding Introit and Kyrie. The Sanctus sung by the women in four parts is heavenly.)

It was the boys’ last concert with the group. Son 1 is swamped with classes at the university and Son 2 will be off to the spiritual internship next year, so neither will continue singing “reinforcement” with the tenors.

I’ve not yet decided what to do. The group of high school teachers who sing backup are tightly knit. A hard nut to crack and hard for outsiders to find their niche. And with the boys gone, most of the motivation for singing with that group has disappeared too.

Trying to deal with “words”, using only 200 of them (or less) can leave “holes in a post”.

I took Deb’s comments to heart. I’m not sure a Spirit-filled, truthful message can be hurtful, for that implies ultimate intent. Spirit-filled messages may hurt, but their goal is to make aware and correct, to bring healing. Proverbs 12.18: Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Of course, as Randy reminded us, you can say the right thing but in the wrong way. I don’t have enough fingers or toes, or even hairs on my head to count the times I’ve stated the truth, but did it because I was irritated. That really makes people want to listen to me and be healed!

And I’ll bury this subject with a quick reference to Greg’s comment. Public speakers pay in spades for their “messages”. I’ve paid dearly on a human level for many a spoken word that was misunderstood. I have but myself to blame, or so my Freshman Communications Assistant to the Professor told us: “If people don’t understand you, it’s your fault.”

As James said: Let not many of you be teachers…

Now that’s hard to misunderstand.

There’s a consulting firm near Geneva that has several well-known international companies as clients. The firm must write up reports in English and send them to these companies. Often they are just personality profiles or simple interview summaries. A couple times a week, I receive reports and do a quick read-over, correcting a handful of mistakes, turning a phrase, making a few francs.

I discussed one of the reports by phone with a good-guy consultant. If you ever need someone to gently correct you, this is the man to do it. Intelligent. Huge heart. Sympathetic. Excellent language skills… Just sometimes he has difficulty getting his thoughts down on paper.

Back to the phone call… After 20 minutes working on some phrasing, I asked him: Does it really matter if we use the right word? And he answered back, without hesitation:

What we say makes a difference.

Some of my friends are struggling with that. Some are bloggers. Some are teachers. Others are parents, preachers (or preachers’ wives). But just remember… I’ve got a consultant friend who believes that…

What we say makes a difference.

… and a Spirit-filled message that says: Let all your words be uplifting, filled with truth.

 

We host a meal about twice a month, where people can come to the house, eat Wife’s good cooking and practice their English afterwards when I lead a discussion on a Bible text. Normally, it’s just our family with one or two people from church and a couple of visitors. The discussion lasts an hour, but participants habitually stay for a tea and “biscuits”. Although we’ve been doing this for 15 years, it hasn’t been a very successful program. It hasn’t grown and, to tell the truth, there’s about an evening a year when no one comes.

Confession: I tend to judge our home meetings, Bible studies (catechism), even Sunday worship times and LKT meetings as rather insignificant. Yet I know the people who come are significant. L. comes from the next town over. She’s totaled her cars three times in the last 4 years. She traveled by bus-train-bus last night and brought me a book published in 1845… A. has come since the beginning. She was one of my first students in the language school where I used to teach… H. attends, always bringing something to eat… M., a Muslim, came for years, but her job and grandchildren make it hard now…

Last night we were thirteen. S., J., and a neighbor who came for the first time were present. We spent an hour on 1 Corinthians 13… Reminding me, of course, love sees no individual, or event, as insignificant.