A week in France

A week in France

It’s been an odd week … from a couple of days doing whirlwind tours of the high points of Paris, to the calm and repetitive beauty of the life in the French countryside at the Communauté Taizé. Here are a few pics to give you a taste (there will be many more to come- I’ve been taking an average of 600 pictures a day so it will take me a little while to edit them when I get back!)…

Today is our last day here, and we spent the morning taking the whole group by bus to the local town of Cluny for our pre-flight Covid tests (all negative thank God! And let me tell you- a cup of cafe-au-lait never tasted better than the one I had this morning with a side of relief).

We have a few hours of free time this afternoon, before our last service this evening (the bus is coming to take us back to Paris and the airport early tomorrow morning), and so I’m sitting here catching up on a few episodes of the Archers and reflecting. I’m sure I will post more as I process the trip when we get home (that’s one of the things I like best about sitting down to edit the pictures from a trip like this- I can remember and re-experience it with a little distance for clarity), but for now …

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but the week has been full of surprises: from getting to know a mixed gang of kids from Westchester ant NYC (I’ve grown surprisingly fond of them), to being totally freaked out by my first experience of a Taizé service but feeling totally at home by the end of the week (as long as I have my little prayer seat to save my knees!). I will miss the simplicity of the daily life, but cannot wait to get back to a good cup of coffee every morning, I miss Jackie and Crisp and the dogs and the cat desperately (and I owe my lovely wife and offspring big-time for holding the fort while I’ve been away!), but I’m slightly daunted by the amount of work I will be going back to 😉

Overall, I’m very glad I came, but it’s time to go home 🙂


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