Living in His Heart

I have meandered through the city for nearly a week, but I haven’t figured out why I’ve come really, what I am doing here. This pervasive, quiet ache awakens me to what I hadn't fully known: I am lost.

True, I know the street I am staying on, the way down the cobblestone streets of the Left bank to the flat at 30 Rue Mazarine. And yes, a friend invited me, needing a friend, an ear, a heart. So I took wing, came.





Certainly, the history has stirred and the art’s deeply, profoundly, moved, but this farm girl’s walked tentatively, uncomfortably, through the haut couture of the Avenue des Champs Elysees, grown homesick for fields in the churning milieu of faces, voices, bodies of St. Michel square, kicked ball with laughing children in Jardin des Tuilleries and longed to hear the simple happiness of my own loved, far-away children.

Joining my friend on long walks along the Seine, down cobbled streets of cafes, delis, perfumers, of the Maurais, I can’t help but wonder: If I am called to go into all the world, why am I not rocking babies in an Ukrainian orphanage? Serving food in a Greek refugee camp? Building a school in Peru? What am I doing in Paris?

I’m a sparrow misplaced.

The week has nearly drawn to a close, less than 24 hours left in this city, when I see the plaque there high about the massive blue wooden doors leading into our courtyard. It’s commonplace, though passing by it is easy to miss. A plaque down the street, over the café Le Voltaire, notes the floor, the day, on which the philosopher died. The day before I had stood outside the house where Renoir had lived, now painted a shy shade of pink, in the steep, winding Montmartre neighborhood, overlooking the rooftops of the city.

But the name etched here in stone on the wall next to where I’ve slept these handful of nights makes me catch my breath. Not an artist, or a philosopher, but of a patient man who probed for meaning, wrestled a mystery, for nearly twenty years. One who fingered lines and pictures scratched in stone, the language of an empire, a civilization: the Egyptian hieroglyphics. And found the key, decoded the cipher. Understood.





My head laying in the dark loft, hand reaching up to finger centuries old beams, I pray. Can I too figure the riddle of being here, in a few short hours unravel the language of life that led me here?

My last day in Paris we do what we’ve done everyday: touch her past, taste her breads and cheeses, listen to her sounds on every street corner, violins, guitars, cellos, watch her international faces and vibrant colors.



I find an island of quiet in a monastic bookstore off Rue de Rivoli, a spray of blushing heritage roses creeping up sun-washed stone. A young nun in a long blue robe gracefully serves browsers in hushed, lilting French, her fawn eyes inviting, welcoming.



I too drift through stacks of Bibles, French titles, and back by old wooden stairs climbing up stone wall, standing in a pool of afternoon sun, I pick up a CD of hymns entitled “Eucharisteo.” I lay my hand over the word. I remember, this word to live and die by, this life key. Key.

I run a finger over “eucharisteo” like it's Braille, touching meaning. Isn’t this too a bit of deciphering why I am here, what every day means? God gives grace, we give gratitude, together we experience joy.

I take up the word, turning it over again and again in my mind, feeling its truth, as I walk across the cobble courtyard from bookstore to church. Inside, the vaulting space is still. The air feels old, the floor, holy. In the shadows of an arch’s lofty heights, I sit on a low stool and talk to God. I tell Him what little I do know. Tell Him I don’t know exactly what I am doing here in Paris, what my purpose is, what the meaning is for my time here. I tell Him that long waves across the ocean, home is loud, I am sinful, and there too I wrestle to figure what He’s writing on my days.

I tell Him I am a sparrow misplaced. Here, there. Everywhere?

A hand touches my shoulder and I look up. My friend’s found out which church we’ve wandered into, hands me St. Gervais’ welcome brochure. And the words that I happen to glance upon shimmer, flash:

“Since human beings are created as the most beautiful image and likeness of God, the monks and nuns want to pray and to meet God in the city, among its inhabitants…. In the heart of the city they are called to love, prayer, work, hospitality and silence, called to be chaste, poor, obedient, humble and joyful, all while living in the heart of the world.”

And the riddle cracks open. I walk out of the maze. The words, the world, falls open, understood. I understand.

Living eucharistically, gratefully receiving now, wherever, however, in the world that may be, one meets God. In the heart of teeming Paris. In the heart of my noisy home. In the heart of my own soul chaos.

I am here, wherever I am, because He is here.

I don’t have to get away from the people to find God; I don’t have to seek out a retreat to commune with Him. He is not confined to the prescribed, the predictable. He is everywhere. He is in the midst of the masses, the grime, the cacophony. Open-handedly receiving the gift of the present, we receive His presence, His work for us in the moment.

I read the hieroglyphics of here: While living in the heart of the world, I may live in His heart.

I turn to face my friend, look into her seeking eyes, warm face. I am here, available, present to His presence.

I’ve flown home to the heart of God.

Father, in the heart of today, let me live in Your heart. Wherever I am.

Scripture drink:
"Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it..." Gen.28:16

Photos: taken in the heart of Paris