Grace sufficient

After a stomach-dropping drive around hairpin turns, we finally arrived at Les Courmettes. Les Courmettes is an old farm high in the mountains overlooking the Cote d’Azur. In such a dramatic setting, our A Rocha France meetings in June were meaningful.  We talked about the five core commitments of A Rocha: “Christian, community, conservation, cooperation, and cross-cultural.”

“Community” struck a chord with me. I live and breathe community at A Rocha. Relationships between A Rocha France and the wider community are important conversation topics. Who’s turn it is to wash the dishes is often more pressing. I live with a constantly changing group of people in Les Tourades, and basic challenges of finding personal space, communicating (cross-culturally), and forgiveness are real.

At Courmettes, our budding community center, we talked about how gracious community is the practical living-out of Christianity. How better to understand the grace of God than forgiveness in a community, where we see one another at our worst? Community, it struck me, is a dim reflection of heaven on earth. Relationships with other people are the source of joy and richness that merely reflect God’s plan for us in the future. This promise of things to come doesn’t negate the challenges of living with other people, but makes them more important.

Muriel shared that the Earthwatch team, who were at Les Tourades for two weeks in May, were talking among themselves about how strangely remarkable A Rocha is. Everyone seemed genuine. People seemed to enjoy each other, work had a purpose.  They wondered out loud if it had anything to do with us being a Christian place. The five C’s are interconnected. May the reflection only increase!

The Rendez-vous aux Jardin at Les Tourades—a national open house for private gardens in France—was June 6 and 7.  Since February, we at A Rocha France has been brainstorming, advertising, facing dead-ends, and revising plans for this prominent event.  We weeded, turned compost, created watering schedules, and formed blisters in the garden.  Making a “wildlife garden” simultaneously tidy and natural is much more complex than I thought!  

As the date for the Rendez-vous approached, we constructed “five senses” stations in the garden.  I was happily in charge of the “gout” (taste) stand.  Verbena, mint, and lemon balm teas anyone?  How about some oregano herb butter?  Apparently, my choice of garden-based goodies, as well as my accent, made it clear I was a foreigner.  A passer-by asked me where I got my ideas for my station, I laughed and responded, “My Mom…?”   

On Sunday, June 7, we joined forces with some local churches and hosted a church service in the back yard. While turnout was surprisingly low (no thanks to Sunday being Mother’s Day in France!), families and friends of A Rocha folks attended the service.  Bird songs joined the flute and piano, and the message by a local evangelical leader was short and sweet. 

We breathed a sigh of relief when the final “five-senses” stand was dismantled.  The weekend, while not well-attended, was engaging and interesting for all.  And the garden is being quite ignored now, likely to its relief.

May was indeed glorious, but the month has disappeared like the poppies in the fields.  June has come with a sluggish heat, but there is little rest from the full schedule.  Within the past month, A Rocha France has (take a deep breath, now!)…

1. Celebrated the wedding of our administrator Priscille to our former handyman, Pascal

2. Hosted our first EarthWatch team – eight fantastic Americans here for eco-tourism/volunteerism; 3. Pulled together an educational presentation to fulfill the last-minute request of the nearby elementary school.  We waited for years to connect with this school! 

4. Baked cookies, weeded gardens, painted signs, and finally hosted visitors for the national Rendez-vous aux Jardins

5. Welcomed my dear friend Becca from the USA.  Visitors are always an encouragement!

6. Travelled to our other A Rocha France center, Les Courmettes (near Nice), for A Rocha meetings and a quite, um, ‘vigorous’ hike up the mountain.

Soon the heat will force us to slow down, but… the calendar doesn’t know temperature.  Travels for Peter and Miranda continue, and two more EarthWatch teams are coming.  In French, we’d call this summer “Très chargé!” In British, we’d say, “it’s been quite full on!”  And so it will continue to be!    

-          Saying, “op-la” each time you nearly drop something feels like the most appropriate response

-          You stare aghast at visitors innocently drinking white and rose wine at room temperature

-          You start calculating if it’d be at all possible to go grocery shopping in Pennsylvania on your bike, envisioning your personal herb garden (on a windowsill), and wondering if eating locally is possible in Harrisburg in December. 

-          You eat an ice cream cone while cycling through tourist mobs near the Roman Arena in Arles. You don’t consider yourself a tourist.

-          The man at the shop near the Arena waves each time you pass, the same Moroccan man haggles you at the market, and the young beggar across from the bakery smiles a greeting

-          You can’t think of the English sense of a very appropriate French idiom, and you mess up the syntax in English sentences with French word-order

-          You find yourself mixing languages.  “la dishwasher est proper.” “I am malade.”  And your theatrical skills have vastly improved.  You can now act out the fall of the Roman empire using the skeleton of your French vocabulary to fill in the gaps.