... Where I actually talk about the cat this time, and discuss how no matter where I am sleep is important, and about how people have the same questions about God, faith, science, humanism, and pragmatism no matter where you go or what language you speak. Or, at least in French.
So I sit in the kitchen, using the girl (I still do not know her name... one second, I'm gonna scour the kitchen maybe I'll find something with her name on it... nope nothing)'s laptop, eating rice with onions, red peppers, some soy sauce, and this awesome (and I mean AWESOME) mixed herb spice all together. This is at the end of day 15. A lot has happened since I last posted. Which is sort've surprising but then again when you're in a foreign country, I guess not?
Anywho, we'll start with last night.
Wait wait wait, the cat.
Oh that's right, I was going to talk about the cat. First thing when I got here, they have two cats. I think one's name is Joplin. Now, I don't know what it is about me, but cats looove me. And that would be great except that I am definitely allergic to their dander.
At any rate, Joplin jumps up on me the first time I sit down in their flat two nights ago. The girl (I really need to learn her name) was shocked, and said that she apparently has adopted me (the cat). Later on, the cat just decided to jump up again and lie down on my leg, and juuuusttt relllaaxxx, literally had her leg dangling. The girl host saw this and said that the cat doesn't do that with anyone, not even her or her boyfriend, and its her boyfriend's cat.
So, these cats love me. As is evidenced by the fact that Joplin has slept next to me for the past two nights. I bought some allergy medication for 4 euro. Well worth the cost methinks. And I'm starting to like cats. Uh oh.
"People would be better if they realized that it was them, not God, who did a good thing in their lives."
This was the gist of a 4AM conversation that I had with
this cool French (duh? I suppose... Sean, you're in Lyon...) musician after we left the bar they had been jamming at. How'd I get there, though...
Let me set the night for you. Yesterday (as in, the 14th) I had gone out for a walk and seen the area of the 9th neighborhood of Lyon (they split up their city like Paris does). Great walk, grabbed a baguette, ate it while walking, did some (read: lots) of thinking and reflecting about my year, about relationships, about the future, about the present, etc.
I get back to the flat and Sam gets back within ten minutes. His friend Ugo shows up within ten minutes after that, and within ten minutes of that, they are both jamming out in the living room space area thing. (I would take and insert a picture but I can't charge Teddie's camera battery cause the adapter is loose... shrug.)
Both of them are going for their masters in Music. Ugo in Musicology, Sam I believe in performance. The kid is fantastic at percussion, specifically this one instrument whose name escapes me. It looks like a small djembe though.
After jamming, we have some of the rice mixture I explained up above. [Note: If I can find some of this herb mix, it would make an AMAZING meat rub for grilling. Anyone who cooks, I'm telling you... to die for.] And chill and chat. After, Ugo invites me to go out with him. Seeing as it's around 10, I have nothing going on, and I figure why not, I head out.
So I meet a lot of other people. There's this other kid who just defended a thesis in Anthropology, and his project was on prayer groups (go figure huh?). Apparently it was a Catholic prayer group that he attended regularly, doing an anthropological study on it. I never got to ask him in detail what his thesis was and how it went. My French is staccato and shaky, and his English was just as "bad".
Later, we went to this bar where there were musicians jamming out. Just a few of us in there, and some really good musicians. They were playing more upbeat, jazzy, or bluesy stuff. It made me realize that I want to keep jamming and learning basic chord structures etc. Aka I want to become a better musician.
Anywho, we left there around 3AM, headed towards some place where apparently we were going to continue playing (I was ready to sleep, but Ugo has a motor like whao). Just want to note, the night has been great up to this point, I had been singing randomly, beatboxing, talking about Bobby McFerrin, eating homemade chocolate cake, actually making jokes in French, etc. Oh, and I had only had 1.5 drinks over that much time. Solid.
As we went to this other "place" where the people were going to play (I should note: We at this point equals me, Ugo, this actress and musician Bea (beatrice, called bee-ah) who plays violin, and this tall musician whose name I cannot recall. All between 20 and 24) we stopped at this square for some reason. There were a few homeless guys milling about, a few high/drunk people, and us. I'm not sure why we stopped, but me and the tall musician kid started talking about everything and anything.
Cool thing about our conversation was that he tried speaking in English the whole time and I tried speaking in French. It was an unspoken agreement to do this. Awesome.
Anywho, we talked about music, talked about why I was in Lyon, how I got there, talked about what he did (which is working as a quality control person at different medical production firms... actually pretty interesting, but he'd rather be a musician), and then eventually what I did or wanted to do. This of course brought me to applying for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff.
Trying to explain what "campus ministry" is to someone who doesn't know is tough enough as it is in English. Trying to do it in French? Yikes! (Also, trying to explain the concept of Outdoor Education to the French is very difficult as well) Well, it worked out. Apparently the guy had been in some sort of youth group as a kid and loved that experience. He also was sympathetic to discussion about religion or hanging out/working with religious people. He was against the notion that some people have where as soon as they hear the word "religion" they freeze and say "no way, no thanks".
[Side note: Teddie and I had had a great conversation while in London about that very subject. I won't go into all the details, but it was one of the few conversations that he and I had that really helped make our relationship better. Gotta love those.]
Eventually I explained to him that I essentially wanted to help organize and run what amounted to a youth group on a college campus. I explained that for me, it was mostly (if not all) about open discussion about life experiences, and about being open to possible ways of living and viewing life. He was definitely sympathetic with that.
Then the conversation got really interesting. Another kid (Max) randomly showed up and sat down, and joined in a bit, but mostly listened. The first tall guy started explaining that he had troubles understanding how faith and science could mix. Furthermore, he explained that he felt like religious belief or attribution of things to God oftentimes could be more of a handicap than a help. He basically expressed the humanist position that
"Claiming something good happened is God robs you of the power that really comes from you, and claiming that something bad happening is God or Satan is not taking responsibility for your own actions and state of being".
The night, or I should say morning, ended soon after the conversation started getting interesting. I had chuckled when he said that and said "You're sounding like me" because that is absolutely a position I have held in my life before.
Anywho, I loved that conversation, loved meeting that kid, and loved the night. Only issue is that I went to bed at 6AM. So I woke up at 3PM the next day, the 15th. And what happened tonight (it is now 2AM on the 16th... so I guess what I'm saying is what happened on the night of the 15th) was just as awesome as my piano-prayer in Geneva on Sunday.
That, I'll fill in tomorrow. God delivered on a prayer, and I just let my feet take me there.
Oh, last thing... if you order a Guinness from a french Cafe and the owner scoffs under his breath, quickly change your order to wine or something, because that was the biggest waste of money. I've never had a sour Guinness before. There's a first for everything. Seems that God didn't want me drinking ;-) I should've gone for the cappucino. Dang.
In love, and in contemplative prayer,
~Sean
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