Sabbath

*Jane in Paris*

The grants, the holidays, and the settling in period is finally over and upon returning to Paris I have been longing to find spiritual activities here. I had attended the American Church once and it was just fine, but for some reason it doesn't excite me. I've attended mass at St. Laurent, the church closest to my apartment, a few times, and while I enjoy the experience it can only be so fulfilling because I'm not Catholic. I realized that what I wanted was to get involved with a French protestant church. After several hours of online research Saturday night I ended up attending L'eglise reformee du Marais, because this modern denomination, the Reformed Protestant Church, descended from the Huguenots - it doesn't get more French protestant than this. The service seemed to be a mix of Catholic, liturgical protestant, and evangelical elements - we said the Lord's prayer and some other group liturgical texts (reminded me of Mass), we took Communion all standing around the perimeter of the sanctuary and we were allowed to drink the wine (reminded me of Lutheran church), and we listened to a short teaching by the pastor on the Gospel reading for that day, the baptism of Jesus (reminded me of evangelical-style preaching. The pastor talked about how only a few people knew that Jesus was something special before the moment of his baptism, and how by doing this Jesus began his public ministry by indicating that he was choosing a spiritual rather than a simply biological life. There was a meal after the service, but I felt too nervous to stay, and I am also getting over a mild cold. The plan is to go back next week and stay for the meal, no matter how awkward I feel. If you are interested their website (all in French, I think) is temple.dumarais.fr

A very different kind of spiritual thing that I plan to do is to attend a Sahaja Yoga meditation on Thursday night, held for free by the Sahaja group here in Paris in the 18th district. Some of you know that I have been doing this in Columbus for the past several months. I've let my discipline slide since I came to Europe, but I want to start it again.

At about 1 pm on Sunday I was talking to Nick on Skype when I began to hear an amplified voice speaking from somewhere nearby. This isn't an unusual occurrence here because I live next to Place de la Republique, a common meeting place for protesters. I ran out the door to see what was happening, and it was the start of an anti-abortion protest. I had planned on taking a walk that afternoon because it was 50 degrees and somewhat sunny, and so I decided to make the march into my walk. The press estimates that 20,000-25,000 people were present. Here are some pictures:


We marched from Republique to the Opera, shown in the second picture. This isn't a great picture of the building but I like it because of the guy wearing the sweet robe on the right. I saw a lot of priests and bishops marching, and they all looked awesome. There were a lot of young people - it seemed like the youth groups of a lot of churches from the provinces (France excluding Paris) had come in for the march. There were also delegations from other countries like Poland and Italy. The US was represented by me, although no one else knew this, and a San Fransisco delegation. For all of the kids the event was a time to socialize within their group, but they also seemed quite passionate and would chant when the organizers asked us to. The organizers were on three trucks loaded with speakers, and they would shout out facts and make short speeches to the crowds we passed. They would also play the current pop hits to draw attention to us and to get keep the energy of the marchers up. In between the music selections the organizers would start chants; one of them was a fun song that went like this: "If I were president of the Republique, not a single child would ever meet a tragic end. I would do my best for the smallest of men. Children would be protected if I were president of the Republique." It was all in French and rhymed, and there was even an instrumental part that went with it.

Here is what I learned from my experience:
1) No one goes to protests alone (except for me) - they are very social events
2) The various groups that are in the march move at different speeds, and the outside of the crowd moves faster than the middle, so you have to be careful and keep up the pace or before you know it hundreds of people have passed you and the stroller brigade is ramming your heels (there were a lot of parents who marched with small children in tow)
3) Parisians enjoy their protests. I was a little worried about how onlookers might respond to us, because I have no idea about the abortion debate here. I also thought people might just ignore us because there are protests and demonstrations that leave from Republique at least once a month here. But, pleasantly, a lot of people came out to the streets and watched us, and everyone was respectful. People snapped pictures and gazed at us from their balconies. The only people who were angry with us were those who unfortunately needed to cross the street as we were passing.

So that was my Sunday! No work, no shopping at the crazy sales that are going on in Paris right now. Just good old French protestant church and a pro-life march.