It’s 11:19pm right now in Paris and outside of our apartment crowds of people are yelling, singing, and whistling. Cars are honking their horns as they drive by. The atmosphere is…electric. France (Aller Les Bleus!!!) have just beaten Spain 3-1. In the closing minutes of the game Zinedine Zidane scored an amazing goal to seal the game for certain. Not only is Zidane one of the greatest footballers of all time, he is France’s Michael Jordan and Roger Clemens put into one. The crowd was going nuts as a victory was nearly certain, but after this…it was off the chain. I have never seen anything like this as the cities that I grew up in in the US never had a team celebrate a huge victory. It’s really fun…I’m going to certainly go to the city center for the next match when they face Brazil…another great team. If they win then it will be…uh…uh…even more off the chain!
Monthly Archive for June, 2006
My friend Matt McClane forwarded this link to me and as I share a passion for the urban setting and for the topic of Christianity I thought it would be interesting to let you all check out this article. It’s from a recent article on Christianity Today. Here you go…
Feel free to post any thoughts and as I am not the author feel free to post your true thoughts…in the spirit of Eph 4:29 would be my preference!
This past week we went on the first family vacation I have been on in years, but only this time it wasn’t camping (even though the five of us were all in the same room!). We went to Rome. My parents and brother are over visiting and we all were able to get away to Rome.
We stayed in this little hotel called ‘Hotel Hollywood’ (there wasn’t really anything ‘Hollywood’ about it and in fact our tv was broken so we were quite far from anything Hollywood…). Our room was on the top floor of a seven story building and we could sit out on a patio at night and in the morning. It was really cool.
Rome is a great city. It is extraordinarily different than Paris. Paris is clean and sheik, seems to be concerned with how it looks…Rome could not be any more different. The only buildings that weren’t tagged were the historical buildings, The Vatican buildings, and some churches. I was really impressed with how the Romans found new and creative ways to not put their trash into the trash cans…like stuffing it in the holes in walls. Even when a trash can was to be found it was overflowing into the street…
Despite how it first appeared, Rome is a beautiful city…The buildings don’t have the same architecture that buildings in Paris do, but the color was amazing! Imagine that…a building that’s not grey! Jen and I both really liked it a lot. A girl at our dinner party tonight asked me what my favorite thing about Rome was and I listed off about 8 things! There are some museums that you can visit, but Rome is a museum that you live in.
Here are some observations that stick out to me about the city:
1. There are only a few places that are clean in the city…and by far the cleanest was Vatican city. It’s interesting to me that the city that represents God to much of the world lives clean and well off while the city around it is in near decay. Unfortunately an all too true spiritual metaphor for the city of Rome as well.
2. People there are so friendly! I do live in Paris, so I think that a bear trap may appear friendly to me at times, but these people are genuinely helpful, love to talk, love to laugh, and seem to really enjoy life. They don’t seem to be bothered by tourists at all..unlike other cities I live in:)
3. Italian food in Italy (especially Pizza) is not like Italian food in Italy. It is not near as rich and not near as garlicy (at least in Rome). I loved it! I ate more pasta in the five days there than I have in the last month, but I loved it. Spicy sauces, seafood sauces, penne, spaghetti, fettucini, lasagna, mozzarella…ahh…I’m actually getting hungry thinking about it!
Most of all I am thankful for the time with my family. It’s rare to get to be with them, much less sharing such a great experience all together. Climbing the steps of St. Peter’s. Walking through the Roman Forum. Discovering new creations of gelato ice cream. Sitting on the Spanish Steps. It was really great. An experience I’ll remember for a long time.
My parents continued on to Florence, Venice, Chinqua Terra, and Nice. They’ll be back here in a couple of weeks. Nathan, Jen, and I came back to Paris. One more quick story…I pulled the ‘pregnancy card’ for the first time at the airport and not only did it provide the right reason to not let a huge group go in front of us (I, Jen, and ‘the baby’ needed to go to the bathroom), but it got us to the front of the line right away! Nice. This will be used again.
Another June 6th has come and gone, and for this ex-birthday boy, it means another year until my ‘special’ day. This year was an interesting year as my b-day came on 6/6/06…yes 666. I am a lucky winner of the superstitious birthday date this year. I think that this even beats having a b-day on a Friday the 13th. (both of these numbers bear equally over exaggerated significance in my book!)
This last year has a been an incredible year. A year spent living cross-culturally. A year spent doing a new way of church. A year of a lot of self-assesment. A year of God defining and refining what my life is about. I think that I have learned more about myself this year than any other time. My journey within myself has gone through a lot.
It’s looking like my 28th year on this planet will be no different than the last: full of change and growth. Some time in November we will be ushering into life our first baby. Everybody says that it will change our lives like we can’t be prepared for. I’m sure it will…I am excited for all of these things…each year is a new adventure that is the same, but yet different from the last year.
I hope that this thing helps me keep track of what going on in the world of Blog…
Passion is an interesting thing in our culture and in our generation. People want to follow people who are passionate. Since moving over to Paris I have been thinking about this a lot…so now I’ll unpack a little bit of my thoughts…
Passion is like a steel marble that is put in the middle of a table. If the table is rocked a little bit then the marble starts moving…and once it starts moving it doesn’t stop until it rolls of the table.
Passion is like a fire. The more wood a person invests in it the bigger the flames get, but then more wood is needed to continue to keep the fire burning that way.
What happens if the marble rolls in the wrong direction? What happens if the wood runs out?
In my old life I was viewed as passionate. I think that would have been correct. I wanted to be passionate. Passion gave me an outlet. Passion was my excuse to say things that might offend people and not really have to feel responsible for my actions. I look back and I realize that my passion was really just a safe outlet for anger that was below the surface. My times of teaching or espousing my opinions on others were like making a really small hold in a balloon of anger…it didn’t pop the balloon, but let some of the tension out.
I don’t believe that my passion was always like that…I could feel the difference though…If I was going to say something that I wanted to say and would make me feel some sort of release (having myself on my mind first) then I think that it was bad. My passion was truly healthy when at my core I cared first and foremost for the people I was talking to. This shows me two things about passion…1. If a person is not self aware about their own selfishness and pride they would never know this. 2. If passion is not bound by wisdom it is not just a fire…it’s a dangerous and internally (maybe externally) destructive thing. Passion without wisdom is one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever played with.
I also thing that we confuse two things in this arena: passion and emotion. Does passion need to be filled with tears or a raised voice? Emotion is a clever disguise for passion…i’ve worn it. I think that it is sad how our generation flocks to anything emotional…It almost seems that if anybody says anything with any amount of conviction people think it’s true and right. But maybe the marble was rolling in the wrong direction?
I have come to believe that passion looks less like emotion and more like persistence. Passion doesn’t give up when hard times come, but emotion may run dry. Passion won’t quit when things don’t go ones way. Passion isn’t fueled by external circumstances, but is driven by what is within…I’m working on becoming this type of passionate person. It’s not as instantly rewarding, but I think it wins in the end.
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