Evendays

I’m off to the French Ascension (yes, Thursday is Ascension) Retreat in the Ardèche region. I’ve only got a teen class and a pre-teen class to prepare, along with KP and other duties. 

The teen class is on The Body of Christ, which leads me to John Michael Talbot’s melody of Teresa of Avila’s prayer:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

April 26: I woke up on Saturday morning at 6:45 AM. Our company had already left. Actually, this was the first time we’d had folks stay with us without us seeing them. The Marseilles church football team (soccer to USAers) arrived after midnight and left around 6:00 AM, I think. They were welcomed by Sons 1 and 2. Us old folks were in bed. I don’t know how many players came (perhaps 13?). They were as quiet as church mice.

– 

April 27:

Yep, she beat me.

Again.

Son 2 is back from Marseilles (the spiritual internship program). He leaves on Saturday. I have been unable to post as there were studies to prepare (still are) for a retreat and lessons to get ready for the weekend. Wife and I are both doing a race on Saturday. I will attempt the 20K of Lausanne, a huge event here in town, very hilly, quite tough. Wife will run 55 minutes earlier, tackling the 10K. She’s either run the 10 or 20K race every year we’ve been here, not counting “birthing” years.

Last night, Sons 1 and 2, Daughter and Wife and I all went to a restaurant in a nearby village and had a 5 or 6 course meal (I don’t know if you count the sorbet which “cleans your palette” as a course… Help me out here please) which was great fun. We were 3 hours around the table. It was a fun way for us to celebrate together 25 years of marriage.

When F. finished yesterday’s Bible study with me (he’s a teen and we meet once a week at a local cafeteria), he took out his study sheet and wrote in big letters on the bottom of the page: 16/20. I asked him what it meant, and he said that on a scale of 20, he graded the study at 16.

He told me not to worry. There was still hope I’d do better next week.

Mom lost a very dear friend on Sunday. Her sister, Aunt Mary, died suddenly, unexpectedly, in her home that afternoon. I do not know why it happened.

Mom and Mary would call each other several times a week, burning up the phone lines between Arkansas and California. They talked when Pappy was bad. They discussed Nana’s failing health. They comforted each other through struggles and mourning. And they would laugh.

Though Mom’s been out of Arkansas for 50 years, all it took was the magic of a phone ring for her accent to reappear. When the laughing started, and I’m talking about unbounded, pure joy, go-look-for-another-place-to-read-your-book type laughing, you would think to yourself: nothing can be that funny.

Every three years in the dark of a summer night we’d drive up Jess and Mary’s driveway where two rooms were always waiting for us. She’d greet us with a late night hug and a comment like: Did you see if the Best Western was open on your way in?; or, Was Uncle Terry’s place locked?

I regret I never got to be her host. I’m very sad for that. I owe her and Uncle for Spring breaks and Fall Thanksgivings, for unlimited supplies of chips and breakfast cereals, for long chats around the table. I will miss my Aunt. But mostly I miss her for my Uncles, for Cousins and their families. For Mom. For those to whom she was indispensable, for death has left a crater in their hearts.

We do not grieve as all do. Not because there is a silver lining to death, but rather because there is a glorious one. Auntie died unexpectedly, but ready. She died in the Lord. 

Yesterday afternoon I traveled with 100 other singers to a foothill valley some 30 miles from Lausanne, a place called “Romainmotier”. This medieval village has the foundations of one of Switzerland’s oldest churches, going back about 1500 years. The present church is romanesque. As a reinforcement tenor for the all high school choir, I made the trek in order to sing Handel’s “Israel in Egypt”, a moving recital of God’s deliverance of his people from Egyptian slavery. Quite hard to learn, but extremely creative, sometimes fun, and deeply meaningful. Here we are at the end of the concert, with the Lausanne Youth Conservatory Orchestra. 500 people were packed into the old church.

And here’s a picture of the outside of the church in the setting sunlight.

On Tuesday evening, Wife, Daughter and I were heading home from the Marseilles Chorale concert in Geneva when the 10:30 PM news came on the radio. The reporter announced the arrest earlier in the day of a senior from Daughter’s High School at Daughter’s High School. The young man was pocketing a loaded pistol, along with two extra, full magazines. In his backpack left in his Home Room were extra munitions. Immediately we asked Daughter why she had said nothing. She said that they had known something was up, but that when teachers came by to explain later, they said the student had wanted only to take his own life. They did not mention that he was fully equipped to kill himself many times over. So the thing had slipped her mind.

Daughter said yesterday was a media circus. Barriers were put up to separate students from press. Reporters would interview any student who had anything to say. Rumors flew.

Wife and I could do but one thing: Thank our Lord for the protection of all the students. Praise to him for a brave teacher who kept the student talking. And gratefulness to the Father for the police who got it all right, and fast.

Last night, the Chorale Harmonie from Marseilles sang in the nearby mountain village of Leysin. It’s a good group, especially the tenors, and not just because one of them is Son 2 (of course, that helps). The accappella chorus sang gospels and hymns, praise and spirituals, in French and in English. The audience at the local Catholic church was very responsive and the three short messages on resurrection were well received.

10 of the group are coming down from the mountains this morning. The other 7 were at our place. This afternoon they will give a concert at the local retirement home in Lausanne, just up the street. Later this evening, they will be in Geneva for a concert at the Church of Christ.

This gives us a chance to spend some time with Son 2, but even more importantly, to reach out to a not-yet-believing world with a message communicated through song. A powerful message. A powerful means.  

Many outsiders (and quite a few insiders) find the story exceedingly cruel: God asks… um, tells an old man to sacrifice his son on a far away mountain. And for what reason? God does it to test him.

One of the blessed characteristics of the Father is that he sees what man is incapable of seeing. We see exteriors. God sees the heart. Yet, if God truly sees what’s hidden, why does he test his people, asking them to be humbly obedient to his commands?

Despite the obvious downside to testing, New Testament writers seem to be chirpily bright when addressing the topic. They encourage believers to keep their eyes on the crown of life that will be offered through faithfulness in the struggle. They write about patience and perseverance that are evident fruits of trials. And they speak of the lofty byproduct of testing: That the one on trial would then know her own heart and discern her own faithfulness through the testing. For we are not only blind to the hearts of others, but often to our own.

So, we humbly pray with the Psalmist:

Test me, Lord. Try me. Examine my heart and mind.
For your steadfast love is before me eyes,
And I walk in your faithfulness (26.3).

I received an iPod Classic for my birthday that will hold about 60 trillion of my "favorite" songs.

Any suggestions before I start loading stuff onto it? 

What about podcasts?