Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I have begun phase two of my sabbatical journeys, the portion to be spent in France and Italy. I touched down in Paris and within 36 hours I drank in as much of the city as I possibly could in my first visit here. With my museum pass in hand and a fist full of Euros, in short course I visited (in order):

The Paris Pantheon
The Cluny Museum of Medieval Art
Notre Dame
The Delacroix Museum
St. Germain-des-Pres and St. Sulpice Churches
Luxembourg Gardens
The Musee D’Orsay
The Eiffel Tower
Café Le Flore
The Pompidou Center
The Louvre
The Orangerie Museum
The Champs Elysee
The Arc de Triomphe
Sacre Coeur

The Montmartre Neighborhood including the homes of Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and the studio where Picasso painted Mademoiselles D’Avignon that launched modern art.

As my whirlwind was ending I sneaked into the second act of a French production of L’aisons Dangereuse directed by John Malkovich and had my cab driver take me on a midnight drive around the city.

Not bad for my first day and a half.

I am staying just outside the front door of the Pantheon. This incredible structure was commissioned by King Louis XV as a new cathedral in honor of St. Genevieve to whom he attributed a miraculous recovery of health in 1744. It was designed to be one of Paris’ grandest churches, but then the French Revolution intervened. What was to have been a Christian church became a monument to rationalism. In its crypt are entombed philosophers rather than bishops. Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes, Dumas, Zola are all honored. It central symbol is not a high altar but a statue of Liberty with the slogan “Live Free or Die.”

Foucault’s Pendulum hangs from the dome in the building’s very center. This experiment in 1851 is a physical representation of the rotation of the earth and a symbolic representation of humankind’s mastery through human reason.

The modern city and its history over the past 200+ years feels like a testimony to human reason and experience. The constant café conversations, the unmatched appreciation for the arts, the fierce independent spirit of the French people makes this country the pinnacle of Western culture.

Yet the church is still here, though mostly as artifact. I am here to experience the church and Christian faith through my week at the Taize community which begins tomorrow. In the mean time, I have one more evening to walk the secular streets of the City of Light.