God, the Artist

Here is part #2 of the post from last week. I am always a little nervous about metaphors, which is part of why I didn't post it right away. But here we go...

This idea of man as God's creation also helped me to understand better the story of the flood, which I prepared for class on Monday. I have heard that sometimes an artist gets particularly attached to a work. It starts out as a project for someone else, but somewhere along the line they invest too much of themselves in it. They feel like a part of themselves is on the canvas. They pour time and energy into it because they feel a sense of duty to make it the best possible. It is their masterpiece. It is intimate and they loathe the idea of giving it away to hang on someone else's wall. For God, that work is man. He deliberately made man "in His image." He longs to keep man close to Him, and unlike a painting, man has been created to interact with the artist, not just please His eyes.

God didn't want to make robots any more than He wanted to make stone sculptures. He gave man the ability to ignore him. The creation does not gaze in unblinking wonder like a Renaissance painting. It can chose to gaze in wonder, and when it does the delight it gives God is infinitely more grand than that which a painted stare could ever produce. But the creation can also chose to turn away, to not look at God. It can look instead at itself. It can instead regard inferior creations, those works that God also loves but which are not comparable. It can worship its own creations. It can chose to drag itself through the mud, to make itself hideous. Worst, it can self-destruct.

That is what mankind was on its way to doing when God decided to send the flood. The wickedness was so great that only one part of the creation had any beauty left. That part was Noah and his family. God, rather than tearing the painting to shreds and starting over from scratch, decided to start over with that piece. When he brushed over that ugly, horrid painting it pained Him more than we can imagine. He had poured himself into that painting. Every single stroke was planned, painstakingly detailed, and meant to contribute to the final product.

God doesn't use a brush. He uses his fingers, capable of the most microscopic detail, and each stroke was made to interact very precisely with every other stroke. Even when all of the strokes had changed colors, moved locations, and twisted themselves at perverted angles, God still saw each of them in it's intricacy and uniqueness, and it pained Him to obliterate them. Still, it needed to be done. The painting was a torment to His eyes. Worse, it was meant to reflect Him, and what it was reflecting was being watched by all the beings in heaven, both those aligned with God and those opposed to Him. We can be sure that Satan mocked God continually for His ugly painting.

So God started it over. Since that day, the painting continues to twist and distort itself. God has always maintained a part of the painting that is beautiful, and that part gives Him intense pleasure. When Satan mocks, God points to that part and says, "See how beautiful that is?" Still, the painting was incapable of maintaining the beauty that God had intended. In the end, God would never be able to keep it.

God was so determined to save His masterpiece that He painted Himself into it. One of those strokes of His finger was Himself. He entered the confusion of the painting, the only stroke to never change color or direction. Satan was enraged. This made the masterpiece infinitely more valuable than he had realized. He was determined to destroy this bold new stroke. All he had to do was turn that one stroke and God would be forever disgraced. He tried, and failed. So he decided that the next best thing would be to remove the stroke from the painting. This he succeeded in doing, because God had planned it all along. The stroke was removed.

Then, to Satan's horror, It came back. It could not be removed! Furthermore, it had created an eternal and unchangeable connection between the masterpiece and the creator. From this stroke and the other strokes closest to it, a growing portion of the painting was becoming beautiful. And thus began the early church...

Mes devoirs

Today we had to write a short text in which we evoke a moment of pleasure in an artistic manner. I started this assignment at 11:40 at night, so I wasn't about to do anything profound. Instead, I wrote about the supper that took me so long that I started homework at 11:30 at night. Please note, I haven't even double checked this, so I am sure it is fraught with errors.

Sur le désert de mon tortilla, aride et stérile, mon couteau étale une grosse couche de feuillage qui sent d'avocat et de coriandre avec une pointe de tomate. Le ciel s'ouvrit et laisse tomber une déluge des météorites fumant. Elles rebondissent doucement et restent sur les broussailles, tout en émettant une arôme fortement épicé. Elles sont suivi tout suit par une neige du fromage et, enfin, une dense nuage de salade.
Soudain, il y a un grand tremblement de la terre et le sol s'enroule. Tout le paysage est emballé et emmené vers la ciel.
Quand le tortilla entre ma bouche il y a une fête, une festival des goûtes. Les épices font le fandango avec la guacamole et le fromage, et la salade joue du mariachi. Avec un salut, il font signe avec un sombrero bien fariné et ils sortent dans les coulisses. Oh, soupir de satisfaction! Le Mexique est venu chez moi.

In my tortilla desert, dry and dead, my knife spreads a thick layer of foliage that carries the sents of avocado and coriander with a hint of tomato. The sky opens and releases a deluge of steaming meteorites. They bounce gently and come to rest in the brush, emitting a sharp and spicy aroma. Then comes a snowstorm of cheese, and finally a thick cloud of lettuce.
Suddenly there is a great earthquake and the ground rolls up on itself. The landscape is enveloped and carried away into the heavens...
When the tortilla enters my mouth there is a party, a festival, a performance series of tastes. The spices do the fandango with the guacamole and the cheese, and the salad plays the mariachi. With a bow and a wave with a heavily-flowered sombrero, they exit backstage. Oh, sigh of satisfaction! Mexico has visited me.

It's true, folks. I made homemade flour tortillas, used some store-bought guacamole, grated up some gouda cheese, and used my precious packet of AMERICAN taco seasoning that somebody left on the freebie table last year, and I had a delicious meal. I finished it off with a pear cobbler that I made from pears that have fallen off our tree in the back yard. Yummies!!!

Hair Cutting #2

You may recall my hair-cutting adventure from last December. Well, I hadn't cut my hair since then. It was very long:

So I went after it a second time. The last time, as you may recall, I cut it extremely short. Since then I had found another clipper on the freebie table that had longer guard options. I started off with a 1 3/4 inch guard, but I quickly found out that the "new" clipper was dull as a butter knife. I visited my neighbors, who graciously loaned me their clipper, and I attacked my head again. Unfortunately, their clipper was also very dull. I ended up grabbing chunks of hair in my fist and then ramming the clipper into them. After a substantial amount of effort, two mirrors, and at least 4 different guard sizes, the final result is better than I expected.

God, the Genius

Last night I was laying in bed, talking to God. Yesterday I was praying for specific direction regarding certain decisions that must be made. Even as I did so, I new full well that I needed to be seeking God Himself rather than just answers. So last night I asked God to reveal to me just a little bit of His glory. I have recently seen "Au délà des rèves" (more than dreams) about people who have seen supernatural revelations and that is what I had in mind.

God didn't do that for me but He DID answer my prayer. As I was laying there my mind drifted towards heaven. As usual, as soon as I hit the part about our existence in heaven never ending, I snapped back to the present. I just can't go there. The more I am focused on God the less I am afraid of it, but still the idea of eternal existence is staggering. My first reaction was "I would rather just have the natural." Then I quickly told God, "No, I need to have a purpose to my life." As frightening as eternal existence is, it is preferable to eternal non-existence. This is especially true because all of eternity will be spent worshiping God.

I started thinking about worship in heaven. I could easily envision music, dance, art, and even language skills being actively used in the massive eternal communal worship of God. But what about people who have devoted their lives on earth to honing skills in engineering, math, or some other science? How will that fit into the worship? Will they have to scrap all their studies and learn how to play a harp?

Then I thought back on a sermon I gave last week about how the Universe displays God's glory. In preparation for that sermon, and subsequent visit to the air and space museum in Paris, I gained a much better understanding of how massive and complex the universe is. My friend E. recently asked me if the same magnificence can be found in the microscopic that we see on the most massive scale. I did a little research and assured her that it can be. On my pillow I remembered all of this, starting with the unfathomable vastness of the universe and ending up with the intricate workings and relationships of single cells and quarks. I thought about the complex mathematics that all of these follow, and I realized that God LOVES mathematics. He LOVES engineering. He LOVES the complex, the confusing, the mind blowing, and He loves when men spend their whole lives trying to figure out what He did and continues to do in sustaining the universe.

I have now added another aspect to my conception of God. He is the ultimate Mathemtician, the ultimate Engineer, the ultimate programmer, the ultimate Genius. He isn't just all-knowing and wise, He is complex and He loves complexity. He rejoices over His creations because they work. When He sees a human being, He rejoices over that creation because it is infinitely more complex and, in a sense, difficult to achieve, than the moon landing, the nuclear reactor, the microchip, and the large hadron collider put together. He didn't just make it, He made it well. No bugs, no false moves, not a single bad line in the code. God doesn't need to collide hadrons to see what they do. He made hadrons. He thought them up and then put them together to make atoms, then linked those atoms together in mind-blowing variations to form man.

L'Ardeche

The camp was situated in the beautiful Ardeche region of France. I frequently found myself wishing I had my camera with me. I did manage to get a few pictures, though.

Everywhere that there isn't forest, there are horse pastures. This is one of the horses I rode.


We saw many gorgeous sunsets from camp.



There is a cute little touristic train that runs right behind the camp. I never actually saw the train, but I walked along the tracks a few times.



One evening there was an impressive lightening storm.


I never got out to take pictures on a really "perfect" day, which frustrates me. Oh well.

Both of these are views from our VTT course.



One weekend our Brazilian friends took us to this amazing blue lake (named "lac bleu" to prove the fact) tucked away in the hills. The stunning water is surrounded by rocky walls and pine trees. The hills were shrouded in a light fog, giving it an even more ethereal feel.


This place is more than just beautiful. During the Nazi occupation of World War II it was used as a secret church. The leader, and probably a choir, stood on an outcropping on the one end of the lake (here it is me and my friend P on the platform)

And seats were cut into the rock wall on the other side of the lake. The church in this part of France didn't just hide itself from the Nazis, either. It was responsible for hiding thousands of Jewish children and has been officially recognized by the nation of Israel for this obedience to God in spite of the dangers. Despite the hardship they lived in, the people lived out the message that they carved into this rock at Lac Bleu- "Dieu est amour." (God is love).

Summer Camp

At long last, the report from camp!!! I had a great summer. Hard, but great.


Bienvenue à Teen Ranch! (welcome to Teen Ranch!) That building straight ahead to the left houses the staff dormitory, the kitchen, the dining room, and the laundry room. We usually ate outside in the covered area. Just to the right of that building is the office, the saloon, and the "toilette block," a collection of toilets especially prone to getting plugged. To the right of that is the chapel and "shower block," and on the far right you can see the new dormitory being built.


Here is the girl's dorm and one of the tipis for the boys. Aren't the tipis cool? In the background you can see the tent where most of the chapel services and evening gatherings are held.


Here are all of the tipis, the soccer field, the volleyball court, and the basketball court. I took this panoramic photo from the second floor balcony of the dormitory-in-progress.


This is the second half of the panoramic photo, looking towards the entry (the first picture). You can see the roofs of the staff building and office on the right.

Well, now you have a feel for the place. Let's meet some of the people.


I met a lot of great people, obviously more than on in this image. These are some of the people who stuck out in my head (and happened to be there when I had a camera!). If they show up in multiple pictures, you know I saw them a lot! The writing on our cooking hats in the one picture means "our favorite chef." Our chef is the one with the writing on his shirt, and we made him a cake to cheer him up when his wife had to go on a trip for several weeks.


This is Granite, the cat we adopted. He snuck into the laundry room one night and nearly gave me a heart attack the next morning when something came to life 3 inches from my elbow.

So what kind of stuff did I do? Well,


I cleaned showers, toilets, sinks, and floors. I have seen it all. Hair, puke, mud, backed-up sewers...


I miss doing dishes with my friends. Call me crazy, but we had some fun. We usually sang songs while we worked.


I led "all-terrain bicycle" expeditions for the kids. There are paths covering the French countryside like a giant spiderweb. They start out as roads and then get smaller and smaller, and pretty soon you can only keep going on horseback or bicycle.


We also had a BMX course. BMX bikes feel unnatural to me, but I liked riding the course with the kids on the VTTs (mountain bikes)


I spent two weeks in the kitchen working as an assistant chef. Nobody died of food poisoning.


I started a good percentage of the campfires (and other fires). I was also one of the few people who knew how to disarm the fire alarm. Coincidence? I think not.


For three weeks I was in charge of putting a tipi to bed each night. Since these guys were between the ages of 13 and 15, that didn't mean hot cocoa and a cookie (though they probably would not have objected). Each night we discussed the day and I tried to get them engaged in ameaningful conversation about God, the purpose of life, or the challenges of being a young man.


For one week I was also a counselor. It was challenging but very good. It helped my French and it stretched me a lot. I think God used it to help me to mature and to love people more.


I fixed toilets. When a valve wore out they sent me to this treasure trove to find a replacement.


Between the VTT and the BMX we destroyed bicycles at a frightening rate. Three of these were broken going into week 4 and by the grace of God I got them rolling again. One of them got destroyed on its second trip back in service and I had to fix it a second time. I also fixed a lot of flat tires. It was a great learning experience.


Nah, this is staged. But there were some bikes that were beyond my ability to repair, especially as the summer wore on and we used up all of our salvageable parts. Gear shifting systems were in especially short supply.


For my last two weeks we worked on a new dorm. First we sanded the walls and then we applied two different types of fire-retardent venire (They work- we checked!). We got to wear these cool face masks that made us look like ducks:


and I noticed that

America has left its mark on the French construction industry.

I did a lot of other things this summer for which I have no photos. I really wish I had pictures of the times I unplugged toilets with my hand. Or the day we hauled a bunch of logs out of the paintball arena. I felt like Paul Bunyan; some of them were 9 or 10 feet long! And then there was the path that I cut through the a jungle of super-weeds with the weed-wacker so the electric fence would work again. That was cool too.

But of course we didn't work all the time. In my spare time,


I went horseback riding for the first, second, and third times in my life. I even did a little bit of galloping.


L'Ardèche is beautiful. I loved to wander through the woods on my time off.


Every Friday we had a campfire. Usually it was with the campers but this particular fire was just the staff. We sang some French songs, sometimes we just chatted. We also burned marshmellows. French marshmellows don't roast.


One weekend we went to an "international" rodeo. Nearly all rodeo people are Americans. It was like a big version of the county fair, with lots of stands selling "American" stuff. These patches were being sold for high prices (I don't remember how much) and I was thrilled to see that Albert Lee made it into the completely random collection. Too bad I didn't have anything American with me; I could have sold it to the guy and made a profit. For supper I had steak (REAL steak) and french fries. It was FANTASTIC.


The staff celebrated July 14th (the French version of the 4th) by going to see the fireworks in town.


We ate a lot because it was SUPER GOOD! This was during one of the work weeks again, which is why there were no campers.

It was a great summer. I am glad it was a lot of work, or it would have been even harder to see it end.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was my parents' 30th Wedding Anniversary. I had plans to do something extra special but it didn't really work out. I ended up exhausted and I never even got around to mentioning it here on the blog. So, one day late, congratulations mom and dad! I love you and I am really, really proud of you.

Daydreaming in church again

I have always had a tendency to daydream in church, and when everything is in French the temptation is even greater. It is a bad habit, but today God used it. As we were singing, and I'm pretty sure I was even singing along, my mind drifted to money. Yesterday I was at a festival where whine, cheese, sausage, jelly, fois gras, and you-name-it were being sold, sometimes at high prices. Like 20 dollars for a big sausage. Yes, they were quality products, but that seemed excessive to me. As I reflected I realized that I had almost- not quite, but almost- started to forget the value of money. Whenever I see a $10 bill I want to instantly envision an hour and a half of flipping greasy hamburgers, or picking strawberries in the blazing sun. I don't ever want to lose that association because otherwise a piece of paper is too easy to part with.

As I was thinking about this, I suddenly realized what we were singing- "Je ne saurai jamais le prix pour tout ce que tu as subis." In the English version the lines go "I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon the cross..." The French version would be translated "I will never know the price of everything that You suffered." That jolted me considerably. If an hour and a half of sweat and discomfort is the "price" for $10, what is the price of salvation and eternal life? Jesus paid dearly for my life. In addition to completely unimaginable physical and emotional anguish, He suffered rejection by God so that I never have to. How will I spend the life that He bought me?

Done

I got up at 6:10, rode the train into Paris, made a couple of line switches, and then scurried to the hospital and got there exactly at 8 A.M. I gave the ladies my 20 euros, they gave me the vaccination card, and I speedwalked back to the train stop. The train ride went normally, I grabbed the bike that I had left at the station last night, and I was in class just before 9:30 for my first day of school. I was an hour late, but my professor forgave me : )

The first day of class went well. I think I have a lot more confidence now, even if the grammar is a little rusty. I was busy enough this summer working and talking in French that I never had much time to study.

Well, it happened like this...

I went in to Paris today to get my final vaccination shot. I had received an email telling me that the visit would cost me just under 100 euros. 20 for the doctor, 46 for the shot, and 30 for administration fees. That is a total of 96 Euros, so I put about 160 euros in my wallet and off I went. I bought 45 euros worth of tickets at the train station, hoping that will hold me over for a couple of months (tickets are cheaper when you buy in bulk) and figured that with the 112 Euros that remained I should be okay, even if they asked for more money than they had stated in the email. At least I sure hoped so, because as I waited for the train I realized that I had left my debit card at home.
Well, I got my shot, but it ended up being 2 shots rather than 1 (don't ask me why), which was 35 euros more than planned. I emptied my wallet and then sat in front of the counter, mumbling nonsense in French and English, praying that another twenty would magically appear in my back pants pocket. That never happened. Nor did they think much of my American insurance card. So they kept my precious vaccination record (which plays an important role in me entering other countries, including the US) and told me that they will give it to me tomorrow when I re-make the 2 hour round trip to pay them the other 20 euros. So my plan is to wake up at 6:30, catch the train before 7, be at the hospital when it opens at 8, and hopefully get back to the school just half an hour late for my first day of class.
And that, my friend, is one more reason why I avoid hospitals if at all possible.