In praise of nothing ...

Well tomorrow the holiday begins in earnest. Pictured here are just some of the books we thought we ought to bring with us ... shame to leave them at home when they might like to visit the Languedoc too I suppose! Some of these have been read by one but not by both of us. Really though they took up an obscene amount of space in the car and will mean that we won't be able to fit enough wine in the boot on the way back!
So tomorrow I may have to decide - do I begin with Pain, Evil or the Alexandrian Quartet? hmm ...
Meanwhile this evening I have both begun and finished my first book of the holiday. Now in some ways this is cheating becaue the book is by Christian Bobin and called Eloge du rien. I don't think Bobin has written a single book of much more than100 pages and many of his books are around about the length of a longish written sermon. They are beautifully produced and printed, so feel like reading books. It's right for them to be produced like this because the density and poetry of his prose means it would be hard to cope with too many words on a page. You need to have pages to turn to have time to think. Not quite sure how this would work if you were reading him on a kindle. I think miniatures of literature might not work so well in that format.
Reading Bobin this evening I gave thanks with a wry smile for the fact that I would not have to find an entirely inadequate translation for this glorious half sentence:
"seul l'amour donne un sens à ma vie, en la rendant à elle-même insensée."
The thoughts in his "excurse" are triggered by a letter asking him to write about what gives meaning to his life. He passes through his dislike of such exam-like questions, remembers how the only way he got through school was by learning everything by heart and so ruining his memory and somehow in the middle he chances upon love.
Towards the end he says that love could never fit within the narrowness of meaning (ne saurait se tenir dans l'étroitesse du sens) and then he continues:

"L'amour est liberté. La liberté ne va pas avec le bonheur. Elle va avec la joie. La joie est comme une échelle de lumière dans notre coeur. Elle mène à bien plus haut qu'elle: là où plus rien n'est à saisir, sinon l'insaissisable. Bien sûr, je ne réponds plus vraiment: je chante. Mais v-t-on demander à l'oiseau la raison de son chant?"

Inter-religious running water at the garden of aromas in Nyons

"L'homme ne se nourrit pas des choses mais du sens des choses. Ainsi l'eau continue l'esprit et l'alimente"
"Human beings are not fed by things but by the meaning of things. In the same way water continues the work of the spirit and feeds it."
This is my not entirely successful translation of the inscription on the small fountain we came across in in the "jardin des arômes" in Nyons. "Ainsi" it seemed to me needed more than just a "thus" here but I'm still not sure how to get into English the idea of exprit being both spirit and mind. The French "continue" is also somehow more active - perhaps "impels the spirit forwards and feeds the mind" would have been a possible "transcreation". Sometimes the shortest phrases are the hardest.

I love gardens and it was an early morning treat to wander around this one on the banks of the river Eygues and look at the different aromatic and medicinal plants. I really liked the old lavender distiller that they've placed in the middle of the garden as well - you can see a photo of it by scrolling down here.
I took the photos because of the religious symbols of the side of the fountain which rather surprised me in a municipally funded garden in secular France. All gardens should have water in them somewhere, the secret gardens of our inner spirit need water too, which is what holiday and wandering around gardens, vineyards and markets is all about. Well that's my excuse anyway!

Lunch in Lédignan - sometimes it's a good idea to have a bad navigator

Ok so now it is time for the non-driver I am to confess to my multiple uselessness. Due to a lack of attention to detail I managed to choose the wrong road coming out of Alès yesterday ... as is often the case when I'm wrong, I didn't even notice and just kept saying "oh yes, next village will be ..."
Hmm ... fortunately Dr B is a geographer and finally said "do we really need to go to Sommières?" hmmm no...

Anyway, at the beginning of this slight detour - in the grand scheme of things it wasn't too serious - we stopped for lunch in Lédignan. We'd been trying to find a place to have a decent cup of coffee since leaving Nyons and failed miserably - though we did come across a fascinating little Protestant temple in one of the villages.

Dr B didn't want to take the motorway too much so we discovered lots of lovely little places that we may or may not visit again, and we travelled through wonderful countryside in great weather. To get to St Chinian from we skirted the edge of the Cévennes and seem to have travelled from the more Protestant Gard to the more Catholic Hérault. We also came past a strange Papal enclave (where our Visan wine from the previous night came from) which has become a peninsula of the Gard within the Drome.

Anyway lunch in Lédignan was wonderful - very delicious, 15 euros for three courses and really great service and food. We ate outside in the garden but the indoor restaurant was full with lots of folk who felt the autumn air was too cool. It's called La Gardonnenque, uses local food and suppliers and seems to offer a great take out service to many folk in the town as well. Pictured here is my starter, a pressé of goat's cheese and fresh tomatoes with a delicious spicy sweet tomato coulis.

So I suppose this is a warning, there may be an occasional serious post on this blog in the next few weeks but mainly it will be about food, wine and the occasional book I may manage to read ... it's called HOLIDAY!

So there are still linguistic mysteries in this world

Friday was the European day of languages. It was also the day that I saw this sign as we stopped for coffee in the middle of the glorious and wild Isère. It was pointing to the public toilets ...I had no idea at all what it meant but sensed that it did not mean what it seems to mean - literally "Room without bags - or room out of (your) bags".
Anyway thanks to wiktionaire this particular hole in my linguistic ignorance seems to be filled. "hors sac" is for post that didn't go in the postal bags but had to travel separately. Sort of by allusion (tho' I don't really get this if I'm honest) Hors sacs canalso be the place where walkers and shepherds can find shelter and unpack their bags in safety from the elements. Evidently the public toilets served this purpose in the wild mountainous area we drank coffee, they did seem to be a more permanent structure than next door snack bar, which was nevertheless doing a roaring trade in "frites".
Anyway perhaps I have got it all wrong and hors sacs mean something comepletely different. Do let me know.

A wonderful supper in the Resto des Arts in Nyons

So So after blogging about the food crisis I went into Nyons and we ate
at the wonderful Resto des Arts, at 13 rue des déportés. Highly
recommended and you can see pictures here of my three courses. I think
my favourite was the St Marcellin wrapped in a feuille de brique with
a cunning topping of honey and almonds inside and servied with an
exquisite salad. I sound ripe foe pseuds corner don't I? Oh dear, I
fear that as it is holiday time there may well be much more of this
sort of blogging very soon ... ... hmmm and the abricot sorbet which accompanied my peach soup desert was divine ...

A bellfry, a restaurant and wine ...

We drove down to Grenoble on the motorway and then headed for a new way for us across the mountains. It was fascinating - if at times very wet - seeing the changing vegetation and then fianlly coming down into the Nyons valley and seeing our first olive trees. We really are in the midi now. I love tht about travelling southwards in France, suddenly you just know you're in a different place, the mediterranean makes its mark.
Another marker of being in Provence are the lovely bellfries in the towns and viallages - pictured here is the one from Nyons where we are staying for the night.
Then I could resist more pictures from the splendid Resto des Arts including the lovely local Visan wine which we took to perhaps rather too much! (Do check out these great photos of the confererie here - great fun!)

The Churches Week of Action on Food - what will you be doing?

Our friend Colin Williams recently moved to the beautiful historic town of Ludlow. We have yet to visit him there but one of the things he particularly mentions is Ludlow's annual food festival and the question of how to link the life of the church in to that.
It's an interesting challenge - churches are places where lots of eating take place, lots of common meals - the Bible is a book with lots of stories of meals, stories too of food scarcity and also of the promise of plenty. By focusing on food justice do Christians sometimes come across as killjoys, holier than thou? Perhaps. How can we find creative ways to hold the call for justice and the real joy and pleasure of food together. With the eucharist as our founding meal we should surely find it easier than we seem to.
Human beings need food and water to even begin to be able to live. Surely, we do not live by bread alone. Certainly however folk cannot live without bread or maize or rice or some real food.
Today news comes in that the UN is warning of a major new food crisis - the situation is likely to become even more acute for many of the world's poorest.
Today I also received the information posted below from my colleagues at the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance on the churches week of action on food where they seek to highlight women and food security.

And yet even as I post this I know guilt and have once more to recognise my own very complex relationship with food - as a fat female Christian from the over-privileged north. Today I am on holiday, travelling. By midnight tonight I shall have eaten two meals in restaurants - I'm in France, these are good meals, delicious food. Sometimes holding justice and joy together is more than hard work, it makes me feel like a sinner and a hypocrite. A sinner and hypocrite who is of course nevertheless invited to the wedding feast of forgiveness and responsibility.
It would not be better if my personal sense of guilt and shame also made me silent.

So do check out some of the resources below - the sermon writing competition sounds fun. Maybe I should give that a try.

Highlight women and food security during Churches Week of Action on Food

The Churches Week of Action on Food will take place 10-17 October 2010. The focus this year is on the vital importance of smallscale food producers, particularly women, in ensuring food security particularly for the almost 1 billion people experiencing chronic hunger.

An action guide and liturgy are available in English, French and Spanish. Join with thousands of others during the week to raise awareness about the root causes of hunger in this world and what we can do to help improve food security around the world.

The resources mentioned below are available at: http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/food/2010-churches-week-of-action-on-food/resources-for-churches-week-of-action/

What can I do?

1. Hold a worship service focused on food and gender on the Sunday at the beginning or end of the Week of Action. Use or adapt the liturgy available in English, French and Spanish.
2. Use the resource guide in English, French and Spanish to plan actions for the week, use as a study guide, and share with others to raise awareness of the issues of smallscale food producers, women and food security.
3. Print and distribute the prayer card to members of your church to use at home as the prayer before meals during the week.
4. Encourage a national letter writing campaign calling national governments to safeguard communal land against land grabbing using the EAA Model Letter. Adopt, adapt, collect signatures and send to the same people/institutions on the same day.
5. Enter the EAA Food for Life competition by writing and submitting sermons on food and gender for promotion in 2011. Details of the competition will be available online during the Week of Action or you can write to sermons@e-alliance.ch.
6. Use the information in the resource guide to write a letter to your local paper for World Food Day, 16 October, letting more people know about the issues of food and gender.
7. Share the research and analysis in the 2010 Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, with community organizations, study groups and media. The Executive Summary is available now, and the full report will be available from 7 October.
8. Tell us what you are doing! Inspire others and share your ideas by sending information on your events and actions to foodweek@e-alliance.ch.

Enjoying reading Margot Kässmann's blog from the USA

Until Christmas the former head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Margot Kässmann, is at Emory University in the United States, and she's blogging - allerdings auf Deutsch. Evangelisch.de is hosting her blog which is an interesting mix of reflections on religious encounters and cross cultural experiences. The most recent post is about Yom Kippur which took place in a Friday evening synagogue which is actually one of the local church buildings.
There's also a post about lunch with former president Jimmy Carter as well as passing thoughts about the Koran burning threat, US radio shows and much more besides.
Certainly worth reading and checking in with once a week.

Beginning my holiday reading ...

So as we tidy up (well sort of a bit) we come across not only books from recent book buying frenzies in Liverpool, London and elsewhere but also magazines that have been been received but not properly opened. For instance several issues of the New Statesman - which come addressed to me and only rarely gets opened by me and often seems to get "lost" in one of Dr B's bags or under a really not at all interesting computer magazine. (Yes, there are limits to my omnivore approach to reading - puter magazines are no longer it, though I did have a brief monthly fling years ago with PC World.)
In the prehistoric piling we also found September's Reform which I am enjoying reading in the late afternoon sunshine, in particular editor Kay Paris' interview with novelist Mailynne Robinson. I was moved by the penultimate question and response:

Q:There is great sadness in your novels. Religion doesn't bring happiness, but it does bring great dimension to the lives of its religious characters.
A:There is great sadness in life, for example at the inevitable end of great happiness, or in the frustration of profound love. Religion makes experience meaningful and sacred - or it expresses the fact that these things are true of experience properly understood. It does indeed add another dimension to experience.

I've been reading reviews and other interviews with Robinson following her recent Absence of Mind here and here and this quote struck a chord from Tim Teeman's interview:

What is her God, I ask ... Robinson looks briefly stumped. “I can write about it, but that’s a big question. The term ‘God’ has a big reality for me but that’s not to say it has definition.” Is “it” a rock? “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I am not vulnerable to everything in the same way as other people.” She had no image of God when growing up. “That never meant anything to me. I was too Protestant,” she laughs. “There are things that exceed language. God is one of those things, pre-eminently and utterly.”

Over on Faith and Theology Ben Myers does not seem so keen on Robinson's most recent novel Home. I hope to find time to read it myself soon. for now all this internet browsing is just whetting my appetite for the feast of reading and sleeping of the two weeks ahead. Here's a little more from Kay Paris' article, the whole of which should I hope be online in a few weeks time once September turns to October.

Marilynne Robinson was raised as a Presbyterian; she worships now as a Congregationalist and remains a staunch apologist for the ideas of John Calvin – particularly in relation to, on the one hand, his contribution to societal principles and culture, and on the other his understanding of the personal sense one can cultivate of the presence of God. “Perception is at the centre of Calvin’s theology… the great energy that rips galaxies apart also animates our slightest thoughts,” she said during a recent interview for Christianity Today – and it is for us to struggle endlessly between centering on this vision of God in the living of our lives, or giving in to self-centredness.

Waiting for Godot ...

So you wait for months for emails about culture and then they come along in groups just like buses!
Our friend Alan Leather is starring in Waiting for Godot which will open while we're away. Do hope that we'll be back in time for one of the later performances though. Here are the details for those of you in the Geneva area

A Theatre Someone Production

Waiting for Godot
The classic comedy by Samuel Beckett.
Vladimir and Estragon pass the time waiting for Monsieur Godot. Will he arrive to-day?

Directed by Sue Humphreys
With Alan Leather, Gary Bird, Andrew Brookes, Joe Pirri, Gabriel Bird

October 1st and 2nd Theatre les 50, 31 bis Impasse aux Rues, St Jean de Gonville
October 9th Commons Room, Webster University, 15 Route de Collex, Bellevue
October 15th La Grande Salle, Emmanuel Church, 3 Rue Monthoux, Geneva
October 16th Salle Ausonne, L'Esplanade, Divonne les Bains

All performances start at 20.00hrs
Tickets 19 euros [France] 25 CHF [Switzerland] Free seating

For reservations or information:
e-mail theatresomeone@hotmail.com

or call +33 450201232
Web site www.theatresomeone.com

Soup, soupistes and the art of mixing

Thanks to Sophie Verbeek, my wonderfully talented erstwhile calligraphy teacher I get the occasional cultural email and this one really took my fancy because it's such a great play on words.
Sophie will be one of the artists exhibiting at the Robertsau in Rumilly. The Robertsau styles itself as a "mixer of contemporary art" offering exhibition space and space for artists to "mix" with one another and with the public.
Rumilly is in the next door département of upper Savoy, not far from Annecy.
Meanwhile the "soupistes" are a grouping of artists in our part of the world, the Pays de Gex. They say that soupism - the philosophy they espouse - is without form just like a bowl of potage but that one thing is fur sure, it's meant for sharing!
So the mixeur and the soupistes get together for what looks as if it will be a very eclectic but fun exhibition in Rumilly. The whole philosophy the Robertsau looks great - a free space for artists and public to mix and talk and encounter in. A curated space.

Now of course to make soup you need a mixer - if you're making that kind of soup. But you also need friends to share it with, which is what we did with the delicious pumpkin and red pepper soup we ate last night.
Anyway I hope we make it to Rumilly before the end of November. First though we pack to head to the Languedoc.

du 26 septembre au 28 novembre 2010

Jane Le Besque - Christophe Jacquemet
Fanny Gagliardini - Rachel Nisbet - Mike Layland
Yvette David - Sophie Verbeek - Jean Deprez - Catherine Jacquet
installation, photographie, volume, peinture, bijoux, point croisés,livre d'artistes...
Une association invite une autre association...
La Robertsau, le mixeur d'art contemporain de Rumilly, nouvelle mise en marche de la machine
pour "les soupistes", un club d'artistes en tous genre du pays de Gex.
Soupism: la philosophie derrière le soupiste est aussi informe que le potage
mais quelle que soit sa saveur, elle est faite pour être partagée.

In sync or out of sync - more from Rilke

"Be out of sync with your times for just one day, and you will see how much eternity you contain within you." Rilke

More from Rilke ... this set me thinking about the biblical injunction "to not be conformed to this world", yet somehow Rilke's injunction is more grace filled and much less didactic. Because it is graceful it opens up more possibilities for creativity within me. Wonderful how one short line of prose poetry can open up vistas of meaning.
Then though I went back and re-read Romans 12.2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect." and I realised it too is more open and graceful than the way I have internalised it.

Eternity and its values can transform us. Being out of sync and non-conformist can help open us to that, I like that.

Wishes and the future - from Rilke

"Wishes are the memories coming from our future." Rilke

This little quote from Rilke really pleased me as I read it last night. It made me think once more of Jürgen Ebach's wonderful book title Errinerte Zukunft und erhoffte Vergangenheit - A remembered future and a hoped for past.

And our theme in the feminist theology group this year is between the past and the future living in the present.

Daydreaming and sinfulness ... understanding through the labyrinth and Simone Weil

It has been good for me to lead the retreat over the weekend to travel out and back and have time to think of different things. Travelling helped me get some distance from my recent pointless pain as well. The labyrinth, both the idea and the practice of it, helped alot with this.

I suppose one way I might now understand what I have been feeling and how I have been reacting to events beyond my control would be to say that rather than losing the plot I have got lost in my own story.
While preparing for the weekend in Lübbecke I re-read parts of For Lovers of God Everywhere which has so many wonderful fragments of wisdom and came across the passage below from Simone Weil, which I mentioned last week. It made me realise that I have perhaps indulged in a daydreaming of grief over the past two months.
Last week I found myself quoting Weil to someone who may yet become a friend while apologizing for seeming to have lost hope. These weeks have been a strange experience for me and I found myself deeply challenged while reading Writing in an Age of Silence by Sara Paretsky and realising that I was finding it very hard to find hope. My facebook entry read:

Feels a little pathetic that a passage on hope in a piece of detective ficton moves me to tears ... "Me, I don't believe in God, let alone the coming of the Messiah. But I did learn from my Zeyde that you must live in hope, the hope that your work can make a difference in the world."

The only way back towards hope will be in the iterative labyrinth of pain and joy.

For a woman who loves daydreaming as much as I do it will be hard to give up getting lost in my own story of inner pain, but I suppose if I don't I really will lose the plot ... as the Bible says perfect love casts out fear. Love is not about daydreaming.

I believe that the root of evil, in everybody perhaps,

but certainly in those whom affliction has touched, is daydreaming.

It is the sole consolation, the unique resource of the afflicted;

the one solace that helps them bear the fearful burden of time;

and a very innocent one, besides being indispensable.

So how could it be possible to renounce it?

It has only one disadvantaage, which is that it is unreal.

To renounce it for the love of truth is really to abandon all one's possessions in a mad excess of love and to follow Him who is the personification of Truth.

And it is really to bear the cross;

because time is the cross.

In all its forms, without exception,

daydreaming is falsehood.

It excludes love. Love is real.

Simone Weil

We are on holiday and here is proof!

It's only when I get the chance for a lie-in that I realise how tired I am. Today i woke as always just before six but then after a cup of tea in bed fell asleep again. bliss!

We have had a very simply lunch in our very own holiday home in the Ferney sunshine. It was delicious, no wine just "chateau la pompe" and now the chance for a snooze ... well we could be tidying up a bit but I think we might put that off until we come back from the Languedoc where we shall head off to at the end of this week. For now we're just preparing to travel, thinking about all the books we want to take with us and what we might want to do while we're away - probably more days sleeping, thinking, dawdling in bed and pottering on with life. Wonderful.

Ah yes and I've started reading Philip Roth's The Humbling - even only part way in it has given me much to think about. Wonderful pithy writing and a challenge for me to be reading a novella by such a man's man.

Standing up against poverty

While I've been away remembering the Bible, colleagues at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva were joining the world wide stand up against poverty.

A new inter-religious partnership for health will be kick-started at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Review Summit in New York, 20-22 September. A small delegation of six faith-based leaders representing a wide spectrum of religious practice and public health experience will convey their collective concern for the well-being of society and their support for the UN-sponsored Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

You can see photos here and find the liturgy here.

Remembering the Emmaus Road

I had never done the Emmaus road story as remembered Bible until yesterday and I found it very moving and enlightening.
I wanted three sessions with the group that fitted together but where the "fit" would only really become clear as each of us was on our homeward journey.
The whole point of beginning with a first session on the labyrinth and daring to speak deeply of joys and pain that motivate and hold us back on life's sometimes tortuous journey, was that we should begin to experience more consciously the iterative nature of understanding and discernment, that things are not cut and dried or easy very often but processes which are in various stages of becoming.
So we started with this:
If a man

wishes to be sure

of the road he travels on,

he must close his eyes

and walk in the dark.

If a woman

wishes to be sure

of the road she travels on,

she must close her eyes

and walk in the dark.

(St John of the Cross)

I also spoke a bit about how hard it is to pick up the threads and also shared some of the story of our friend Suzanne. We sang the wonderful Iona chant I learnt at the Kirchentag "Come Holy Spirit" and ended that session by simply reading aloud the kennings that I had prepared, as we reflected on our paths and the way our stories are part of God's story, how Jesus' story becomes part of our story. The kennings simply evoked that, without (I hope) imposing particular stories or interpretations on people.
Compline fitted in beautifully after that first session, and it was good to have a night to sleep on things - and time in the bar to chat about things!
For the second and third sessions I wanted to take up the themes of pain and joy on the journey more clearly. So I chose Christ's arrest, betrayal and passion and wanted a resurrection story to go with that.
Janet had spoken to me about how she had once taken a small barbecue to church to try to prompt rememberings on the cooked fish resurrection story (this was the origin of my kenning "fish barbecuer"). However, I decided I wanted to go with the Emmaus road and see how that worked.
I started that final session by reading Danny Abse's poem about paint and blood. The pain is still part of the joy as we move towards resurrection. Then we began simply remembering biblical stories about bread, gradually moving through to the Emmaus story ... it became clear to me just how much the story itself is about how events are remembered and interpreted. The two were going "home", they thought they knew where they were going - but actually their destination changed because of their encounter with the risen one in the breaking of the bread. Emmaus is a story of iteration, of missed understanding and new insight.

I particularly liked the fact that some people shared experiences around the story from their church and pastoral work. Clearly somehow links were being made between our story and the story of the kingdom. All our stories are one.

Selig and masterchef

This advert in Bielefeld station made me smile in all sorts of ways. I thought of the BBC masterchef series and how the judges there don't wear chef's whites, here in Germany however, they would seem to need to wear the clothes of the trade - looks more professional.
Then of course there's the way it's set up to look like the last supper and the use of the word "selig". Seligpreisungen is the German for the Beatitudes. Also the word used for the beatification of saints. Not sure whether the cooking will beatify the judges though!