It’s not that often that I get really frustrated, but this week dealing with the public service just about sent me into orbit. I needed to register a car – should have been a simple enough procedure. My expectations have been honed after 10 years of playing “the France game”. I know the rules, and not a few little techniques to help you get ahead a few squares. I know that there are a number of absolutes that cannot be avoided: such as the fact that the number of supporting documents your application is missing is inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend studying the list. There is ALWAYS at least one missing. The other absolute is that deciding when to turn up to hand in your application is rather like Russian roulette – you seem to have about one chance in five that the service will be closed without any forewarning on the day you take time off work, pay for a carpark (miles away) and show up. There is an even higher likelihood that the day before the mysterious closure it will be totally impossible to connect with a person on the telephone who is able to tell you the opening hours for the week when you sensibly phone ahead to make sure you don’t get caught out. I know how it works – and I know that there is absolutely no point getting frustrated, it’s just the way it is.

But my stoicism seemed to have left me when I most needed it this week. I had prepared everything carefully, went into town by car because I had another appointment afterward (always a bad idea), found an expensive carpark, and walked to the Prefecture. The usual building was still closed for renovations (which seem to have been going on so long I foolishly thought they must have finished by now…). So I retraced my steps and wandered around looking for the temporary shelter of our local outpost of the Republic. I went in, obediently took a ticket, looked up at the screen and discovered that my number was not the radar – not even on the far distant horizon. So I hunkered down thinking I would get a bit of work done on my smart phone. Smart phones are very useful insofar as their owners are smart enough to have charged them up before leaving home, which sadly was not the case that day.

So I sat, surveying the crowded room and the curious dance of people craning their necks, eyes fixed on the numbers flashing on the screen, until all of a sudden someone bolts up and hurries through a dark passageway into the unknown. Gradually the numbers began resembling my own, until my own bingo moment came a full one and a half hours later. I sat down at my booth, handed over my dossier which had been checked and rechecked for the required papers. Exactly 37 seconds later my little pile was handed back to me, incomplete. I had forgotten to enclose a photocopy of my wife’s ID card. My head nearly hit the desk … Il y a TOUJOURS quelque chose qui manque! Without the slightest sympathy I was informed that it was impossible for me to leave the application and just drop off the wretched photocopy later on. I would have to come back and go through the whole rigmarole again.

As I stomped back to my car my mind was full of the lamentations of the righteously indignant. I was internally shaking my fist at the universe – it just seemed so inhumane, that we are imprisoned in the web of a faceless, robotic, all-imposing administration and can’t get out. It was as if my whole life was being reduced to a pile of paper destined for the shredder. It was just so wrong, yada yada yada.

I was still steaming as I was driving through our neighbourhood later in the afternoon, when I saw a sight that put everything in perspective. As I turned the corner a woman raised her head and looked straight at me. As I drove past in my nice new car (the reason for the afore-mentioned visit to the Prefecture) I just had the time to notice that she was a Rom, with a huge blue plastic jerry-can at her feet, struggling to fill it at a fire hydrant. She would then have to lug her precious water several hundred metres back to the camp where she lives in a caravan, probably with 4 or 5 children, in the former carpark of an abandoned warehouse. This place is reputed as an eyesore, rubbish and graffitti everywhere – a piece of land that has been tied up in some legal dispute for at least 10 years, and left to go to ruin.

I know that living this way is part of their culture and identity, and that pity is an emotion that can be patronising. These people live off the grid, and it is sometimes tempting to think how nice it would be to avoid the endless paperwork required to live legally in this country.

But I couldn’t help comparing my life with the life of this woman, thinking of her daily existence (subsistence?) and I heard a still small voice speak to my heart: Have you any right to be angry?

On the one hand, France has an absolutely fantastic road and rail network. The high speed trains get you to your destination quicker than flying if you count the time messing around in airports; the autoroute system covers the whole country and although the tolls are expensive the roads are fantastic – everything is designed for speed.

But I normally dread the boredom of the drive to and from Paris – 4 and a half hours of monotony, and in addition to the high cost of petrol you feel like you’re shelling out megabucks for the tolls.

Today, however, was a completely different experience. I picked up some friends from the airport in Paris, and as we weren’t in a hurry, we decided to take the slower national roads instead of the autoroute. It added two hours to the trip, but it was so worth it. Ten years I have lived here but often miss the beauty of this country because I’m in too much of a hurry. For my friends it is their very first visit to France, and their exuberant appreciation of the sights was infectious. I so enjoyed drinking in the beauty of the rolling countryside, snow-dusted fields, long straight stretches of tree-lined roads, picturesque villages, massive country mansions in various stages of repair or disrepair, and the contrast in architecture as you pass from one region to another. Admittedly the gorgeous weather helped, but a rainy day would not have done much to spoil the effect.

Is it really worth saving two hours but missing the sights we saw today? – scenes that make you delight in the abundant variety of God’s creation on one hand, and that remind you of that conviction that there is hope for humanity after all.

estimations I have seen for a march that took place in Paris last weekend – the first two are according to the organisers, the 3rd according to the police. Why such a huge variation? Either the organisers have grossly exaggerated, or the police have some specific reason for underestimating. Such a discrepancy couldn’t just be a mistake.
The media certainly didn’t think it was significant. In any case, the two major newspapers that I peruse daily didn’t even mention it. If the march had been protesting over redundancies in the public sector, changes in retirement conditions, or the famous pouvoir d’achat (buying power), it would have been all over the news. Instead it was over what the marchers consider to be a human tragedy that surpasses the one that was to explode into the world’s media two days later – that of Haiti.

The march concerned what a friend of mine who blogged the event calls “the calamity of abortion”. Marchers came from all over France, accompanied by delegations from several other European countries, to participate in an event called En marche pour la vie (marching for life). The object was not only to honour the 7 million lives that have been snuffed out in France since 1975, but also the millions of women who have been physically, psychologically and spiritually damaged through the process, and the many marriages and relationships that have been dislocated as a result.

This was not the first such march but the sixth, and numbers have been steadily growing. This year there were interesting developments. Firstly there is a growing number of medical personnel demanding that a conscience clause be in included in the relevant legislation allowing doctors to refuse to perform abortions. And secondly was the presence of a number of marchers representing left-wing political organisations – revealing that opposition to the IVG (intérruption volontaire de grossesse – the very euphemistic technical term for abortion – “voluntary interruption of pregnancy”), is not simply the domain of the political right, nor is just it an obscure notion of the religious fringe.

If you read French you can head over to my friend’s article. Otherwise here’s a brief snippet from his conclusion:

There is no question of us remaining silent. The witness of women who have been through it prohibits us. The silent cries of embryos killed in their mothers’ wombs prohibits us. Our conscience reproaches us…We all know about it! Before becoming who we are, we also were embryos! Why should today’s embryos have less right to life than those of yesterday? Let us help women in distress! Let’s invest without counting the cost to support them! But let us refuse the diabolical short-term easy solution… which in the long-term creates nothing but difficulties.

Credit to Onlyphotos.org for the photo.

It was partly due to the challenge of living as a person of faith in a culture where everybody assumes that faith is to be completely restricted to the private sphere of life. This creates somewhat of a dilemma if your life’s goal is to follow Jesus who said not to hide your light under a bowl, but to put it on a stand so everyone in the house can see it – how can you reconcile keeping faith private with letting the world know what makes you tick?

For my work I spend a lot of time on the Internet, and it has become increasingly obvious to me that the only way to completely protect your privacy on the Internet is not to use it at all. Anything you put up there is available for the whole world to see. This was brought home to me when I was kicked out of a local community centre where I was running an activity. The director had been alerted to the fact that a dangerous cult leader had infiltrated their centre and was trying to brainwash their members. Some well-intentioned officer of the French religious police (the anti-sect brigade) had followed a rabbit trail from a press article about me, to my blog (via Google), to the mission organisation I am part of, and discovered that I was a threat to the well-being of all the patrons of the community centre. The humour of the fact that it was the yoga instructor that showed me the door was definitely not lost on me. Yoga, sophrology, tarot reading, doing spooky things with magnets were all kosher, but faith in Jesus of Nazareth was definitely not – not that I had even mentioned anything about my faith by that point.

This experience was partly what lead to my bloggy identity crisis – I wasn’t sure how much I should be putting out there for general consumption, and it was easier just to give up writing altogether. The kind of behaviour I witnessed at this community centre might seem extreme – and I hasten to add that many of my non-believing friends also found it very peculiar. However, it is a completely logical application of the assumption that faith should be private – which incidentally was never the intention of the separation of church and state. La laïcité – that untranslatable concept which is a foundational value of the French Republic – should be about protecting French citizens who adhere to a minority faith from being disadvantaged, protecting us from having religious beliefs imposed upon us, and allowing free exchange and debate on the subject of religion. Instead it has become an innoculation against any faith other than the majority faith of the culture, which is difficult to name, but can be expressed in a series of -isms (individualism, materialism, existentialism, evolutionism, republicanism à la française, laïcisme etc.)

But why should that stop me from blogging about things that are important to me? If somebody reads something on my blog that s/he finds offensive, the little red circle (for Mac users) or the little red ‘x’ (for the unconverted) is only one click away. I now see blogging as one way of being a whole person – not talking psycho-babble here – I mean that there is a huge temptation to modify your words and actions to suit the circles you are moving in. I have a tendency to be much more open about my experiences in God with those who share the same faith as me, than with those who don’t. This is normal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean its good. I use religious jargon when speaking with other Christians, which I would not use when talking with work colleagues, for example. This is part of “hiding my light under a bowl” because the language we use can exclude people. Being whole is about being the same person whoever you are with, which is why blogging is such a good discipline, because it makes you think about how you communicate. Everything I put up here I have to be willing for people from all the different spheres of my life to read (well, theoretically at least – the odds of people finding my blog amongst the 36 squillion blogs out there are almost as great as the odds that the universe evolved from nothing).

All that to say to anyone who stumbles onto my blog that I’m back (Hi Mum), with a spruced-up blog theme, and occasional postings where I will think out loud about living in France, faith, family and mission, not necessarily in that order, with lots of unfinished thoughts, digressions, and useful links to people I admire.

As many of you know the spiritual situation in France is still more problematic and difficult as may be in other countries. Right now there is a little team of friends coming together who have the dream, aspiration and vision that God wants to change something, that in France a new kind of community based church will emerge, that will influence the French culture and will have something to give to Europe and what God is doing there…

This immediately caught my eye as I’ve been following the activities of this group for a while through various blogs (Marc’s Messages, Andi’s Perspective etc…), and it’s the first time they’ve had a gathering in France. Ordinarily it was going to be impossible for me to make it because of other commitments. And the SUDDENLY, everything opened up, I found cheap plane tickets just yesterday, and here I am! Not sure what to expect, but really looking forward to connecting with people from different parts of France and Europe who are seeking to “connect, pray together, build bridges” and work towards new (old) ways of being church and community in Europe.

Mr Sarkozy is quite open about his adherence to Catholicism, and unlike the authors of the failed European constitution, he considers Christianity a determining factor in French national identity. Following the ceremony at the Basilica, the president extolled the virtue of a “positive secularism” that ensures freedom of thought on the one hand, but which upholds the Christian roots of the French nation. The nature of these “Christian roots” is the subject of another discussion (how “Christian” were they really?), but it is worth noting that this is a departure from the relative silence of French presidents with regard to matters of faith. The dyed-in-the-wool secular republicans will be very offended by Sarkozy’s statements; some Christians optimists will see this as heralding a return of Christianity to the public sphere. I don’t see it as anything to get excited about, although it is somewhat refreshing to see a public figure who isn’t so highly strung about the church and state thing. For further details see an article at Worldwide Religious News. Or for some of the shocked reactions of the Left, see this article in the Figaro (in French – have you tried Google Language Tools?)

This is a case of déja vu for me because exactly the same thing happened in 1999 prior to that historic defeat of the All Blacks by the French that was so totally unexpected. This was the historic defeat that would supposedly “never be repeated”.

I think I’m starting to understand something which may be indicative of a difference between French and New Zealand mentality (prepare yourself for a sweeping generalisation on that notoriously inexact science of cultural psychology…) : the French seem to do best, and are at their most passionate, when there is no real hope other than being defeated honourably. Being told that they will probably fail, which is, by the way, a standard pedagogical technique used by large numbers of French schoolteachers, seems to have the opposite effect of goading them on to success.

On the other hand, New Zealanders seem to do really badly when they have not fully grasped the strength of their opposition. I’ve noticed many commentators have already suggested that the run of matches leading up to the quarter-final where the All Blacks just walked all over the other team was psychologically very poor preparation for facing the French. Nobody in France expected the All Blacks to lose – along with 4 million New Zealanders!

I’m wondering if this is applicable to areas other than sport…

One thing for sure, there will be an interminable post mortem about this in New Zealand; the nation will be in sackcloth and ashes for weeks (it’s already started here at the country’s largest newspaper). Meanwhile, dans la patrie des Bleus, the celebration goes on…

Bravo les bleus! C’était un super match! All Blacks – great job. You didn’t lose by much. Take a break, go fishing – it’s only a little oval ball, after all!

It transpired that an overly zealous member of what is sometimes affectionately referred to as the “anti-cult cult” had contacted the centre to warn them about me. I was informed that the community centre was awaiting a file of incriminating details confirming that I had infiltrated the community centre in order to brainwash the other members and drag them into my “cult”. This file duly arrived, and I went to a meeting to hear the verdict.

Yes, it was as they feared: I am a dangerous and deceitful man, and I was to be struck off the membership of the community centre without further ado.
“We are a non-confessional organisation sir”, I was reminded by the Catholic director and her yoga-instructor assistant, who rather put her foot in it when she said that as a coordinator of an activity it was impossible not to let one’s beliefs show through, and this would be in violation of the secular principles of the community centre… Whoops. So, in other words, it’s okay for Hinduism to “show through”, but not Christianity ??

I was fascinated to know what juicy bits of information there might be in my file, but they made the rather surprising decision to ferret the file out of my sight the moment I asked for it. So, no specific accusation was made, no serious investigation into whether or not any complaints had been made, just an arbitrary “on your bike”, for no apparent reason other than that I am perceived to be an e***gelical Christian (there’s that terrible “E”-word again!)

You think this is a joke, right?

It really happened.

We just got back to France yesterday after over 4 months away (I might do a post about our eventful voyage home once the jet lag subsides and the memory of the anguish of missing not one but three of our connections becomes a little less raw)!

People often ask us “what are the differences between New Zealand and France”, and I never know what to say. So now that I still have a bit of that “just-flew-in” objectivity left before it fades into the familiar, I’ll record some of those things that have left us in no doubt that we really are back in France.

• The mind-numbing circularity of Charles de Gaulle airport, which seems to have been designed as if it was intended as some vast Skinnerian behavioural experiment to test how long it takes for a human being to lose their sense of direction.

• The compassion of the people whose work it is to assist poor travellers who have been disoriented by such things as lost bags, missed connections, the design of airports, or (as in our case) all of the above. A bit of politeness, treating the person behind the desk as an individual human being and not just a cog in some wheel, and an honest sharing of one’s predicament goes a long way in France.

On the other hand, if you want to produce the Gallic shrug and a stubborn refusal to lift a finger to help, just be demanding of your rights and critical of that monstrous organisation that got you into your present sufferings (usually the employer of the person in front of you).

There are exceptions, however. One irate tourist, from a country just to the north of France that shall remain nameless, berated the cashier at a newsagents for not being willing to change her 20 euro note into “moneda“. This is the Spanish word for “change”, which was the only word in a language other than her own that she used – and that in a French railway station – go figure! She lamented in her own language (understood to me but happily over the head of the cashier), over how much she hates French airports and how inexplicable it is that the ticket machines didn’t accept her foreign debit card etc. etc. Judging by her accent the person in question comes from a culture where it is fairly common to accuse the French of being “arrogant”. It really made me stop and think how often we (myself included) accuse others of the same faults that trip us up.

In the end the lady got what she wanted, thanks to the long-suffering cashier who had probably heard it all before.

• Heather particularly noticed proof that chivalry is not dead in France, as we saw young guys competing with each other to look after elderly ladies struggling with heavy baggage.

• The children exclaimed over a very simple but very French breakfast in the hotel where we were obliged to spend an unexpected night due to delays and missing baggage. You’d think they’d just been served a meal in a 5-star restaurant the way they went into raptures over their orange juice, baguette with butter and jam or nutella, and hot chocolate (into which the aforementioned baguette, now slathered in jam or nutella, is dunked).

High speed trains, row houses with black slate roofs and terracotta chimneys, road works and roundabouts everywhere, hypermarkets, elderly ladies on park benches, hollyhocks, a bottle of Bordeaux left behind by our house-sitters – nothing very deep, but a bunch of small things that are a powerful reminder that we really are back.

François is a young friend from Nantes, an engineering student who, instead of fulfilling his foreign work placement requirement somewhere sensible like England, he came all the way to NZ where he ended up working in a pulp and paper mill in the exotic (ahem!) little town of Tokoroa. If you read French you can find out here about his NZ adventure.

It was an ideal weekend as we had a dinner to get together with old friends, and gave a presentation in church on Sunday morning, part of which was an interview with François about his life in Nantes and what it’s like being a full-on Christian in such a secular educational environment. François is very active in Agape Campus – a student Christian movement in Nantes. It was great hearing his impressions of our homeland – seeing it through French eyes.

Mr Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant, is not a product of the public service academy that has put its stamp on most of France’s leading figures. He sounds like a man of change rather than of tradition, and France sorely needs that. The 12-year presidency of Jacques Chirac has left the economy flat and overdue for drastic repairs. Mr Chirac was a classic conservative, content to accept the long-established line that market liberalism is somehow Anglo-Saxon and foreign to the social and moral foundations of the French republic. Mr Sarkozy is not nearly so sniffy.

New Zealand Herald

(speaking of M. Sarkozy’s break with the past) His emphasis on dignity, opportunity, respect and nationhood appeal to an older moral ethic, and a conception of France which, at least in theory, recognises the common good. The change he is promising rejects the pieties, policies and attitudes of rigid socialism…which have perplexed and paralysed France since they began their rise in the 1960s.

Maxim Institute

There have also been comments about Sarkozy being a “union-basher”, and predictions that he will come down hard on immigrants so as to be seen to be taking action. Nevertheless, much is made of his Hungarian background, and his selection of an immigrant cabinet minister.

It was France’s largest voter turnout in two decades. What does this say about how the French view their future? We are watching with interest.

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