Ascension

This Thursday morning we all slept late because Lindsey had a day off from school. Finally we awoke, thanks to the sun streaming through the windows and the sounds of birds chirping cheerfully. On my way to the grocery store after breakfast, I passed dozens of elderly worshipers (and even a group of nuns) streaming into one of the Catholic churches for mass. The bells of the church pealed loudly, beckoning others to come. You see, today France recognizes the Ascension holiday.

As a Christian, I'm familiar with the story of the Ascension of Christ from Acts 1 in the Bible. After Jesus was resurrected from the dead, he remained on earth for 40 days, giving "many convincing proofs that he was alive" (Acts 1:3) and speaking about the kingdom of God. After the 40 days, the Bible says, "he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1:9).

Protestant Christians don't normally celebrate this very significant event in the life of Christ. I'm not sure why. After all, it marks the point at which Jesus ascends to his eternal place at the right hand of the Father. I find it quite interesting that France -- viewed by most as a secular nation (albeit with Catholic roots) -- recognizes it as one of its official state holidays.

My curiosity peaked, I googled "ascension holiday in France" and was directed to the France.fr website (tagline, "the official website of France"). Since I know that France takes the separation of Church and State very seriously, I was stunned to read details about this religious holiday on what seems to be an official government website (it's published by the Service d'information du Gouvernement in Paris). Let me quote word for word what it said:

Each year, Christians celebrate the festival of Ascension, which is a public holiday in France, on the Thursday of the 5th week after Easter, or forty days after Easter.
The "long weekend of Ascension" is one of the first long weekends of spring; a foretaste of holidays, of summer even, when the French countryside is celebrating the return of spring.
In the sequence of Easter events for Christians
Good Friday: Jesus is crucified.
Next Sunday, Easter Day: Jesus is resurrected.
Ascension Thursday, the 40th day after Easter: Jesus ascends to heaven.
In the Christian tradition, Ascension (from the Latin ascendere, "rise towards") represents the last time Jesus appears to his disciples, forty days after his Resurrection, and marks his departure from earthly life.
The long weekend of Ascension
The festival of Ascension, which is celebrated on Thursday by Christians with a solemn mass, during which the colour of the liturgical ornaments is white, the colour of light and joy, is often mentioned due to the long weekend that many people take.

Now, just for fun let's contrast this with what USA.gov had to say about America's federal holidays. All the major public holidays were listed and described: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King day, Washington's birthday, Memorial day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There was no mention at all of Good Friday, not even in the section entitled "other celebrations and observances," because although most federal employees, bankers, and schools all take a break on the Friday before Easter, it is not an officially recognized federal holiday. Finally, at the very end of the long list of holidays and other observances I discovered this paragraph:

Various ethnic and religious groups in America celebrate days with special meaning to them even though these are not national holidays. For example, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter, Jews observe their high holy days in September, Muslims celebrate Ramadan, and African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa. There are many other religious and ethnic celebrations in the United States.

So there you have it. America, which according to some is a "Christian" nation, carefully skirts the issue by lumping several major religions together in one paragraph. And France, the "dark, secular" nation, unashamedly glorifies Christianity in a government-sponsored website aimed at an international audience. What do you think? Do you find it ironic? Leave me a comment.

Changes

We recently returned from a two week visit to the USA to visit family and friends. It was a whirlwind of activity...lots of fun, but exhausting, too! People asked me what it was like to return to the States after being in France for 10 months. It's a great question to consider: how much really changes during an extended time away? And what changes take place within a person during that time?

I can say that we learned a lot about ourselves during this trip. For me, I found that I seemed to be able to adapt quite easily from one culture to the next. When we went back to America, I felt right at home. Yet when we arrived back on French soil, I felt like we'd never left. But I realize that this quick and natural transition from one place to another is not at all the normal experience. One of my daughters had a really rough time going "home." She'd built up how great it was going to be in her head, and the experience didn't quite match her expectations. She spent the first week worrying about returning to France, and wasn't able to fully engage in the experiences of being with friends and loved ones. This led to a series of deep and productive talks as a family, and we all learned to give each other grace and space: grace to process change in our own way, and space to do it in our own timing.

And speaking of timing, it often takes a lot of time for difficulties to surface. If you noticed in the paragraph above, I said it "seemed" I can adapt easily. Before we get to the rest of the story, a few brief observations. Very brief, because honestly in the last 10 months, nothing much has changed in America, except my perspective.

• Good ol' American Southern hospitality is sooooo nice. When we got off the plane, we were greeted by the customs & immigration staff with actual smiles, and we even heard "welcome to America" once or twice. Restaurant servers delivered us huge glasses of sweet tea and asked, "will there be anything else, hon?" It truly was my pleasure to hear "my pleasure" at the Chick-fil-A drive through.
• Americans are slaves to their cars. I couldn't believe how many hours we spent sitting in the car, commuting from one neighborhood to the next, from Walmart to shopping mall, from one side of the Charlotte sprawl to the other. This is nothing new, of course, but after months of being able to walk wherever I need to go, or taking efficient public transportation for long distances, I'm spoiled rotten.
• Guns, guns, guns. Again, nothing new: the gun culture in the south is everywhere. But I hadn't really noticed all the billboards for gun shows and bumper stickers defending the 2nd amendment until we came back. We even participated in it. Greg's dad took us to a range in Georgia, and my oldest daughter learned that shooting guns is....well, it's fun. I have to admit, for me, it's equal part terror and exhilaration. But I'll leave that for another blog someday.

OK, now back to the real lesson I learned about myself. A few days after we returned, I had a French lesson. And everything, EVERYTHING, had disappeared from the already minuscule French section of my brain. It was all I could do to hold back tears as I struggled to piece together a simple sentence. "What is wrong with me?" I wondered. The distress was short-lived, and thankfully most of the French came back quickly, but I realized that maybe I don't adapt quite as easily as I'd first thought. I stuff a lot inside and seem perfectly fine on the surface, I even feel perfectly fine, but culture shock has a strong hold on me. Going back and forth so quickly, and being frantically busy in both locations, is not ideal. It took several days of carving out intentional alone time to process my thoughts and come to grips with the fact that I don't live in America any more. France is my home now. I love it, I honestly do, but in many ways the change has been hard. 

So here's the real lesson: change is difficult. But change is inevitable. Embrace the changes in your circumstances, and embrace the changes within you.