Good Tidings We Bring

I wanted this to be a photo-journalistic post of our tree decorating, our excursion into Paris and the long suffering look on the dog when we finally gave him a bath. But I lost all my photos when I precipitately pulled out the external hard drive cable during the download.

Friday night we decorated the tree with our group, each one saying what we were grateful for, as we hung a decoration. I made turkey legs in my own orange juice – brown sugar – balsamic – thyme marinade. I also made an apple tarte and gingerbread cookies, which was well received by the French.

The next day I taught my usual Saturday morning English classes while Sir took the kids to their music lessons. Young Knight is doing “instrument discovery” – 5 weeks percussion, 5 weeks trumpet and 5 weeks violin.

The teacher was quite impressed that he was able to figure out how to play “Au Clair de la Lune” after just two lessons (his grandparents will be delighted to know).

So when all that was done and we settled down to rest our weary bones, Sir confessed that he had not yet called Henri to tell him we were too busy to hand out sandwiches in Paris.

You see, there is this group in our church that organized itself into something cohesive through the dedication of a few families, and they go about doing good – blood drives, clothing donations, distributing sandwiches and blankets, collecting money to help church members who lost their job or who need to attend a funeral back home – that sort of thing. We had actually launched the idea ourselves, but the road to our house is paved with good intentions and it all came to naught.

Anyway, Henri had asked us to join in this Saturday in delivering sandwiches and we forgot to decline. So there we sat after our busy morning saying, “no we’re really too busy, we’ve had a hard week, we can’t leave the dog and en plus I don’t waaanna go out into the cold.”

urm . . .

Needless to say, the excuses sounded false to our own ears once they were voiced, and so we went.

Please don’t say we are good when all we really are is good-intentioned, but it is such a jolly thing to appeal to your better nature, no matter how firmly it may be buried in there.

We went to one of the five places people were meeting – Châtelet, Saint Lazare, Place d’Italie, and the other two outside of Paris. There were probably about twenty people there in our one location, kids included, all braving the cold. Annick had the foresight to provide chocolate for the “child heros” as she called them.

So we went – our family plus José – and we alone handed out about 13 bags of chicken sandwiches (some people don’t eat pork) plus juice, clementine, chocolate and for those who needed it, blankets, scarves and hats. Next time I think we need to bring dog food because everyone had a dog. I don’t think I would have thought of that before getting Hunter.

So that’s what we did. As we were nearing the end of our stash, we passed one woman with earphones on, sitting on a doorstep with an empty beer can next to her, and she was crying and wringing her hands and pulling at her long, stringy hair. We approached her with concern but she said in a quiet, plaintive voice, “just . . . leave me alone please.”

It wrings my heart, this glimpse into the underworld of pain that is out there – that is so vast, and that no sandwiches or blankets can cure.

After an hour in the cold, the children were at the end of their good nature. We promised hot chocolate at McDonalds (and okay, fries too), but as soon as we stepped inside Châtelet, Petit Prince was ready to sink to the dirty floor. Sir took him up in his arms where he instantly fell asleep.

There was no room to even move inside of McDonalds, so Sir (whose arms were getting tired) directed me to get something at a bakery stand nearby while he leaned against the wall with his sleeping son.

When I came back with three chocolate éclairs, he was squatting against the wall with his puffy-coated bundle. I joked that all that was missing was a cardboard sign that said, “A seat in McDonalds svp.”

The funny thing was, we got home no later than 3:00 and had the longest, most relaxing afternoon, with a clean dog gnawing a bone at our feet while we read books by the fire. Somehow I think if we had canceled as we had intended to, our afternoon would have been frustrated by petty worries.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

If you missed my wedding blooper pictures, there is also a giveaway involved – truffles or glazed chestnuts. I think you won’t want to miss that!

Comments

I love to hear from you, friends. You can comment using the box below or your Facebook profile. But FB doesn't notify me of new comments, so if the post is more than a week old and you want to make sure I see your comment, it's better to use the comment box. Merci!