a French Bishop and struggle in Switzerland

"Paradoxically, we see the radiance of [Jesus's] glory,
yet also the bloodiness of his sufferings...
Thus he is uniquely presented to us as the center of both glory and scorn,
of strength and weakness.
It is beauty before His Father, beauty equal as God,
yet also beauty in his humanity. It is likewise expressed in his miracles,
and yet also in his sufferings. It is expressive of his ascension into the heavens,
and yet also of his descent into hell..."

So wrote Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704), Bishop of Paris, in a letter giving spiritual direction to a young woman that had asked him for guidance in 1662. My wonderful husband read this letter to me last Sunday morning, as we sat on the old couch right outside our chalet, preparing ourselves to gather with God's people in worship. It was a good thing, too.

Sometimes it can feel like my difficulties are being ignored by God. Can't he see how hard this circumstance is? Where are the rewards for all of my past obedience? Why hasn't God intervened to make things easier, when I know he could?

These have been the majority of my thoughts since landing in Switzerland. And then, a French Bishop from over 300 years ago draws a picture of Jesus as bloody and something changes in me. I begin to imagine God as very present in all struggle- and in my struggle. Instead of seeing God as ignoring my difficulties, or refusing to help (as it can sometime seem)- I start to realize he is already present there. I see again that our Father in heaven, our brother, Jesus- are revealed as Ones in the center of the crap of this world. Not distant from it. 

When the airline ruins the possibility of your beloved pet accompanying you on your uber-stressful international move, when your stove doesn't work and you are required to feed 30 people in a few hours, when an idea you're excited about gets shot down painfully, when all your appliance instructions are in German and you don't yet have the internet for the hope of translating, when you remember (with an ache) that your Mom is 4,000 miles away and 6 hours behind you, when your bathtub won't spew out enough water for a few desperate moments of peace soaking in a bath, when the grocery clerk yells at you in French and you realize they're closing now and your basket only has about 1/3 of what you need, when your heart is whispering: "Where is He now?" ...it is then that you want to cry out loud- 

"My God, why have you forsaken me?"

...

But thankfully, then the 300 year old French Bishop shouts across the ages, showing you (me) again that it was Jesus Himself that asked that question. He entered that black hole of abandonment, so that, as Von Balthasar would say-- "in the future all falling would be a falling into him..."

Thank you, Jesus.

Le Chesalet

Switzerland is now our home. 

More particularly, the community of L'Abri is now our home. A lovely chalet, named Le Chesalet (all the homes have names) awaited us. It used to be a barn a couple hundred years ago, and has more character than I could ever design into a house: the central stone fireplace, the little window seats in all 4 windows of the living room, the hidden closet under the stairs, the huge bathtub, and ohhh! the balcony! I admit to processing a little guilt in this new set-up. My childhood conviction that your life must be miserable in order to really be serving the Lord still creeps in from time to time.

Le Chesalet, along with 6 other equally delightful chalets, is situated in the community known as L'Abri (the Shelter) on the side of an Alpine mountain overlooking the Rhone valley. I don't know the names of the peaks I oggle everyday, but I hope to learn them all. We've started a new life here as workers at L'Abri, but we have returned to an old life, too. My husband and I met here, in one of those 6 before-mentioned chalets, over 10 years ago. 

I had come as a student to this place as a nineteen-year old, feeling some confusion and cynicism color my world at that time, and desperate not to let that be my defining viewpoint. I had read about L'Abri online, from the desk in my dorm room at Virginia Tech. I remember reading the description of this Shelter in Switzerland that took in anyone who wanted to step away from their regular life and look at their questions with honesty. L'Abri did not promise me perfect answers to every struggle or perfect relationships due to their commitment to communal living, but it seemed to offer a safe place for me to air the nagging edges of my mind:  

"How can we Christians claim that God is good when the world looks like it does?"

That question was the reason that I came. I tried to make it seem like my questions were actually about the evils of Capitalism or my own journey into Calvinism, but neither of those big  "C's" quite reached into the dark depths of my one question:

"Is God truly good?"

That's why I came to this place in February of 2003. Here it is October of 2013 and I am back. This time with husband, 2 sons, 4 suitcases, and 1 guitar.

A Year of Packing

All of the stuff that I own is now somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. On a ship. The CMA CGM line- perhaps you've seen their containers as you sit and wait at your local railroad crossing. Or maybe that's a coastal region privilege. Anyways, my couch, my books, all of our bicycles, my precious scrapbooks, all of my children's toys, our computer, all of it- on a ship now, hopefully avoiding icebergs and such. It's a strange sensation. One that I am certainly not the first to feel. A self-imposed asceticism.

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, we have been in the process of moving for a long while. I packed up much of our home in order to stage it, when we put it up for sale in April of 2012. We had then given our "yes" to join the work of L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. My uber-colorful home:

had to become a blank canvas for potential buyers. And thus, part of my soul died.

OK, not exactly, but the day my fireplace turned from turquoise to off-white was a painful day indeed. My cluttered (and wonderful!) craft room became a guest bedroom. All boxed up and un-Anna-ed. Toys were minimized, personal pictures taken down and what had been our home for 5 years became much less of a home. 

During the months of a "For Sale" sign in our front yard, we applied for authorization to live and work in Switzerland. In month 6 of waiting (10 months after we listed our house), we sold it -miraculously! More on that another time. We moved our family of 5 into my parent's generous living space while we waited.

And waited. 

The number of documents we had to fill out, our confusion, as well as our patience all grew in the long months. Christmas of 2012 came and no word. Spring of 2013 came and went. Another school year ended. The conversations in which people asked "Aren't you supposed to be moving to Switzerland?" piled high. Our initial, excited momentum died away. Sometimes it felt like only my Pinterest board for "Chalet Ideas" kept the dream alive. 

But also prayer. Mostly prayer. Not "prayer" as a discipline, but prayer as a real conversation with a Person. My husband and I prayed together. We prayed with our boys, my parents prayed for us, my siblings prayed, our church prayed with and for us. Without a continued confidence that God is for us -that we believed he had called us to the work of L'Abri, we could never have waited through the nearly 400 days of waiting. That is 54 weeks, my friends. After the lady at the Swiss Consulate told us that this process usually took 8-10 weeks, we waited for 54. 

And now finally I'm looking forward to UN-packing! In approximately one month, we will get to UNPACK, nestle down and be at home in Switzerland. My Pinterest board will, Lord willing, become a living, working, healing, hospitable place. Our place.

Sewing Machine Voltage

       "You will not find my peace by engaging in excessive planning: attempting to control what will happen to you in the future. That is a commonly practiced form of unbelief. When your mind spins with multiple plans, Peace may sometimes seem to be within your grasp; yet it always eludes you. Just when you think you have prepared for all possibilities, something unexpected pops up and throws things into confusion.
       I did not design the human mind to figure out the future. That is beyond your capability. I crafted your mind for continual communication with Me. Bring Me all your needs, your hopes and fears. Commit everything to My care. Turn from the path of planning to the path of peace."

                                       ~from Sarah Young's Jesus Calling for September 17


It is no coincidence that I read that this morning. Turn from the path of planning to the path of peace. I've been thinking on the idea of peace lately. I've been reaching out for its tail as it seems to pass me by. And I've been praying about peace. My life seems pretty out of control at this juncture. A few reasons being:

We sold our home 7 months ago and have been living with my parents ever since (homeless)
We sold both of our vehicles in the past month (stranded)
All of our earthly belongings are in a storage container in another city (fragmented)
I'm supposed to be homeschooling our boys, but all of our textbooks and supplies are packed up (bored)
Our bank statement can't be right (poor)

Peace is kinda lacking, as you can see. The amount of planning I need to do right now is seriously overstimulating. We are moving overseas soon. There is so much to do. There are so many to do lists accumulating on real paper and in my mind. I have never had to calculate the amount of books we have (29 boxes, if you were wondering); I have never wondered the voltage of my sewing machine or the precise centimeters of our dog's crate. There are diversions everywhere, little details that have to be thought through.  But can I, at this early morning hour, turn away from all of that and turn toward the Prince of that which I seek?  Here's hoping.

Frustrations Galore!

Friends,
Do you remember that seen in The Princess Bride when Inigo Montoya is trying to persuade Miracle Max to help him by bringing Wesley back from the (mostly) dead? He starts by lying to Max with a disingenuous sob story about the Man in Black's family and why they need him so badly. When that doesn't work, he leans forward and with a fire in his eyes tells Max the real reason- he wants to humiliate the Prince. "Humiliations galore!" he promises. Max and he are united on their hatred of said prince, so the Miracle man agrees. Hi-diddle-lick-dell-danish!

That was a very long intro to merely explain my feeling this morning:
"Frustrations Galore!" (said in a Spanish accent)

I keep waiting for peace to settle into my life. Resolution, solid ground, a sense of feeling at home in my body, in my place, in my work. Where is this promised peace?

Even with this album of mine monasticFolkspeak, there is no peace. I had a very hard time deciding how to sell this music. Let's go even farther back: I had a very hard time deciding to even record these songs at all. My husband, forever pushing me toward good ideas, made this happen. I was very content to share these little creations with our church family and have it stop right there. But the hub's vision contained a much wider circle. He drew an arc so wide, I'm afraid the world could fit into it. That's how much he believes in this music. It is staggering, really.

I, on the other hand, think that maybe there is a niche group out there with enough interest in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to care about these songs at all. My confidence is perhaps lacking.

The whole process of writing, recording, gathering musicians to collaborate, recording some more, editing, recording again, mastering - all of it was excruciating to me. No peace in it. Then I had to decide the genre, where and how to sell these songs, how much to invest upfront (after already having invested a lot in the process), how accessible the album should be, etc. Even at this point, after the whole process is pretty much finished (unless of course, I decide to make hard copies of the album), I can feel my blood sugar rise when I start to enter the mess of it again.

But I have to enter the mess of it again as I've realized that some of you have tried to buy the album and had some troubles. Bandcamp is a great platform for independent artists that can't hire the legal aid you'd need to sell your music on iTunes. BUT there seem to be some glitches, too. I've emailed the technical support there and am waiting on a reply. Maybe I should just go old school and sell CD's, ditching the digital album game.

Either way, I will write again when I have further clarity (peace?) about how or where you can buy the album. Thanks for your support!

Longing for the Liturgical Life

My name is Dave Friedrich, husband to Anna, and I have a hankering for the monastic life.  

A monk knows what’s coming.  He doesn’t have to guess or figure out what his day will entail. Times to gather and be alone, times to worship and work have already been arranged.  Prayers for morning, noon and night have been provided.  He merely enters the flow- the flow that directs him to God.  

While I don’t live in a monastery, and I haven’t taken a vow of celibacy, I have found life in such monastic rhythms.  When we come together at our little Anglican church, there is a recognizable movement to our worship:   a Gathering, the Word of God Proclaimed, Responses to the Word, Preparations for Communion, Celebrating Communion, and finally a Sending Back into the World.

For many, including myself, this movement is like the East Australian Current that helped Marlin get to his son in Finding Nemo.  When we jump into this intensive liturgy, “it is like suddenly discovering that a vibrant, powerful stream of worship and praise to God has been going on for centuries upon centuries.  We are at first swept off our feet, perhaps a bit confused and uncertain.  But soon we catch the rhythm; we begin to understand what is happening … we discover we are not alone, and this liturgical current of worship, prayer, and praise will indeed take us where we want to go--union with the God we seek to love” (Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer by Vicki K. Black).

The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is the place to find this intensive Anglican liturgy, a real gift to the Church.  The album monasticFolkspeak participates in that gift, offering musical sense to some of those Anglican prayers.  It also extends that liturgy into the ordinary time of the week.  A Collect for Grace (morning prayer) has been a helpful way to orient myself to God and His purposes as I sing it on my way to work.  O Gracious Light (evening prayer) has been a family favourite to bring calm closure to the day.

Anglican churches, of course, are not the only churches that have liturgies.  Catholic, Charismatic and Non-denominational churches all have a recognizable order and flow in their movement towards God.  There are also other communities that have liturgies (although they might not call them by that name).  When we joined the community of L’Abri over a decade ago, (see www.labri.org) we quickly learned the rhythm:  half a day of work, half a day of study; Monday is given to prayer, Wednesdays and Fridays host lectures, one meal a day for intense discussion; Thursdays are your time; Sunday is Chapel and High Tea.  

Some find this kind of structure suffocating.  Yet many discover the “brief solace” of Wordsworth's famous Prefatory Sonnet:  “Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room / And Hermits are contented with their Cells / and Students with their pensive Citadels.”  They fret not because they know the apparent “prison, into which we doom ourselves, no prison is.”  These structures and parameters are not a prison.  They actually free us from “the weight of too much liberty.”  

Is an American allowed to say that?  

The liturgies I have come to love offer me that much needed solace, and pull me into this Godward current.

Three books that sparked some of the ideas in this post are  Liturgy as a Way of Life:  Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship by Bruce Ellis Benson, Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer by Vicki K. Black and How to Write A Sentence and How To Read One by Stanley Fish.

The Whole Album is now Available

Just a quick note to let you know that the whole album is now available on my bandcamp site!

monasticfolkspeak.bandcamp.com

Right now, it is only available for digital download. Interested in a 'real' CD? Let me know.

One little hint: if you click on any song title, extra info comes up- my own description of the song as well as the lyrics from The Book of Common Prayer. Enjoy!