a mis-adventure
I would love to tell you all a rosy story, but alas the adventure of the last 12 hours of my life is nothing of the sort; it is black and cold. I want to tell it, but there are no heroes in it, not even I, and it suggests that there is not much hope for this country that I currently call home, and I don't believe that; I don't want to paint that picture. My life was never in any danger, but perhaps my soul was. Suffice it to say that I do not like borders and wish that all of you reading this always have friendly border guards and short lines to deal with. And plenty of friends to support you along the way. Thank you all.
PS. as to Kimberlina's comment, guns are common enough for hunting here. I also don't know how you would buy one, there or here, but I have heard it is not so difficult.
Geneva II
Because of the huge amount of diplomacy (UN), science (CERN), and capitalism, Geneva is comprised of 40% foreigners. Many of these are French, obviously, but not a majority of them. The family that I stayed with, said that they went to a neighborhood event and found it difficult to speak to someone in French; there were so many English speakers. They said that 50 years ago, when their grandmother bought the land, it was all agricultural; no water or electricity. Now it is all very modern homes. They said that 70 went up in the single year that their son was born. The border is very close and open. There is a guard station in the road, but you don’t have to stop at it. There is no fence at the border. They do sometimes make car checks. You aren’t allowed to bring meat, butter or alcohol over the border.
Notes from the session on God and Science by scientists at CERN:
Geneva is the home of the largest particle accelerator on Earth. It travels between France and Switzerland. The talks by the three scientists were each interesting. One was on CERN itself, one was on the science that CERN is working on, and one was on how those things can compliment religion but do not have to.
From the talk “On the Science of CERN”:
(there were figures, but I’ve left them out, because doing the math now, I see that they are not right; I was making notes in a dark crowded hall)
-Today we live a long time (10 to the 18th seconds, I think) after the big bang.
-Today we can literally SEE back 400,000 years to look at what particles made up the universe then, by looking at stars so far away that it has taken that amount of time for the light to reach us.
-At some point, the amount of particles becomes opaque, but we can simulate what space looked like with the particle accelerators. We can currently do that 10 to the -10 second after the big bang, but soon we will be able to see to 10 to the -12 second with a new accelerator about to come on line. This will greatly help our understanding, because apparently that very short time was very significant.
This session made me realize that no one can know or even understand the whole body of knowledge anymore. Even in one field. It is truly a collective conscience. I am reading James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. He speaks of people that created a religion they could understand out of the whole body of their knowledge. I don’t think that would be possible today. One of the scientists said “responsibility is not achieved by limiting access to knowledge, but by education and transmission.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
One of the scientists used the term “Fideism” as if we all knew it, but I don’t. I think it was the one who spoke about how God and CERN can be reconciled. Can anyone help me out?
These are notes from a talk on the history of Geneva: It was fascinating.
-Genevans claim that the Reformation was the start of both humanitarianism and capitalism (that does explain the Swiss banks).
-Calvin wasn’t the only reformer. File, Tebes, Nox and one other were also important reformers, and there is a great wall to them (and a museum) in Geneva. There is also the Palais Ena, but I didn’t find out what that was because I never saw it.
- Geneva petitioned to join Switzerland from France. They kicked out their corrupt bishop at the time, who was as much a political leader as a religious one, but they didn’t wish to form a new church.
- The reformers had these founding concepts:
+ Only Faith - we can talk to God through Jesus, so we don’t need priests.
+ Only Scripture - we must be able to read the scripture if that is where the teachings of God are and so we should be able to write; this was the start of schooling for the general population.
+ Only Grace - you can’t buy salvation, brother; so you better do some good works. This is what started humanitarian aid and community service and that is why we have the Red Cross with an inversed Swiss flag. (by the way, I decided that square flags look nicer and fly better than rectangular ones).
Labels: Taize
Taize 07/08
Last year, I had the great pleasure of attending the annual European Youth Meeting in Zagreb, Croatia. It made such a wonderful impression on me, that I made a goal to attend the next year. I also told lots of people about it. Well, I made it to the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland with my Ukrainian friends, and I made many new friends, but not one American did I bring, or did I even meet in the crowd of 30,000. Maybe someone is interested in Brussels next year?
To refresh your memory, the conference is the 5 days leading up to the New Year. It happens each year in a different European city because the youth (understood as under 32) are invited into the homes of the surrounding hosting communities. Prayers are done in the Taize style, which is a small inter-denominational Christian monastery in France. They have been doing this for about 20 years. There are small community prayers and discussions in the morning in the communities, and then group prayers and seminars in the afternoon and evening. And they feed everyone! In an hour and a half! (The food is nothing to write home about, but it is still noticeable how better food products are in Europe; the organization of meals is, obviously, worth writing home about). On New Year’s Eve, there is a prayer for peace, then a festival of nations (each doing a skit or song) and then a disco. The host families supply plenty of food, and the next day you have a home cooked meal with a family, before getting on your way home (most people come by bus and they leave early evening; I heard there were 800 busses this year).
These are my impressions this year:
The food may be better in Europe, but the B.O. is not. Something I always have to get used to anew.
Geneva was such an incredibly modern and efficient city; Zagreb wasn’t lacking, but yet the difference was clearly evident.
Someone once said something like ‘how many languages you speak, that’s how many times you are a man.” After a conference like this, I can’t help but agree, especially when you are so used to being able to talk to people (mostly with English) and then you get stuck because the international language that someone else knows is French, which to the best of my abilities this year, I made little progress in learning (ok, maybe it wasn’t the best of my ability). By the way, I love when French people say ‘voila’.
French is still very much a language of international science, religion and diplomacy. There are so many other languages spoken at the Taize meetings, but there are always plenty of individual volunteers to translate them. This is part of the magic of Taize.
I think I only heard a cell phone go off once, during any session. Of course the prayer room was so big that I am not sure you could have heard one on the other side, but in the small prayers and seminars, no one ever forgot to turn theirs off. Isn’t that amazing? What else could we accomplish if we always offered so much attention and respect?
The prayers usually take a few days for everyone to settle in to the routine. They are very simple, but beautiful. The simplicity is replicated in both decorations and songs which are almost chants, but master-able in whatever language it is sung. The prayers always remind me of both: the immensity of existence, and yet the insignificance of each of our little pieces. And the whole can’t be less than sum of its pieces, can it? There is something rather wonderful about sharing a silence that a vastness of people settle into.
Thoughts from my small group comprised of Spaniards, Ukrainians and 1 Frenchman:
-Based on a discussion of celebrating difference, we need to say to each other, “help me to understand the differences” if we want to respect diversity.
-How much will we risk to do what we believe is right?
-Do we feel alone when we pray? Do you pray to Jesus, or God, or the Holy Spirit? Or to Mary?
-When we are agents of change do we change small things around us, or do we change big things like MLK? Didn’t he start small?
http://www.taize.fr/en_article5524.html
This is the letter, that we read and discussed at these small meetings. Unfortunately the link doesn't include the greeting letters that came with it. They were from the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Secretary General of the UN, the Archbishop of Constantinople, and the Highest ranking Protestant in Switzerland. It is neat to see all these men's words on the same page.
Labels: Taize
