La langue...et Taizé...

Language...and Taizé~ After another long train ride and a 2 hour stint in a bus that replaced my 30 minute train that was supposed to take me to a bus station where I would take another bus to go to Taizé (an ecumenical Christian community known for its beauty, attraction for young people from all over the world, and efficient division of labor-everyone who stays there pitches in for two hours a day to cook, clean etc. and to generally keep things running), I finally arrived.  
     At the bus station, however, I had already begun to experience the amazing power of this community to bring people together.  The Christian "pilgrims" headed that way were pretty easy to find, with our casual clothes, backpacks, tents or sleeping bags, and expectant countenances.  This is how Tricia found me: "Est-ce que je peux acheter mon billet dans le bus?" (can I buy my ticket on the bus?) she asked me, with her American accent.  Hating that I was doing what I never want people to do to me, I responded "parles-tu anglais?" (do you speak English?) However she wasn't upset at all and, relieved, began to speak to me in in our native language.  And voilà I had found a friend who would teach me about life and love and God and France and prayer and the United States, listening constantly to my story during our short stay at Taizé.  And if all goes as it seems it will, in her, I have also found another pen-pal.

the church in the early morning at Taizé

    However, the connections did not stop there.  Our roommates-- from Germany and South Korea, spoke more English than French, so we had a lot of very interesting English conversations, but at the Bible study (where we had a relatively heated debate about the passage where Mary discovers that Jesus has risen from the dead) that I attended was entirely in French.  I made friends with a group of Belgian teenagers, was asked by some French teenagers who Jesus is to me (in French, of course... I must admit that my pride got the best of me when one of the teenagers said "putain"-rather profane for a Christian community, but entertaining nonetheless- "tu parles bien français!"- you speak French well- and then he got confused-"mais est-ce que tu parles anglais?"- but do you speak English?- one of the girls in the group said something like, "yeah, silly, she's american!"), and, upon attending a workshop on where Jesus is in the world today, realized that I was the most equipped of the group to translate from French to English.  Thus, yes, I had my first experience as a translator at Taizé.

Tricia!!!  at the train/bus station where we met

    I'm not sure if I believe that God reveals something to every single person who goes to Taizé, but I did very much get the sense that He reveals what is needed to those who need it.  There, in song, prayer, and silence, I did find a certain peace that I expected, but in conversation, I discovered that (in the words of Tricia) I really have begun to jump into this other soul that is French-speaking Shannon.   I cannot be more thankful for this discovery, and thus rejuvenated both spiritually and linguistically, I returned to Rennes, ready to carry peace and confidence with me into the last 6 weeks (QUOI?!!!) of my study abroad experience here.