Merry Christmas from The American Church in Paris

Our Music Director, Fred Gramann, created a slide show as a thank you and Christmas greeting to people who have supported The American Church in Paris in various ways. It is a beautiful presentation that is around 6 minutes long. It shows quite a bit about the church and our ministry here, so I decided to share it with you via our blog. Just click the arrow. There are pictures of Nancy and me in the choir, and I am, of course, in the picture of the church staff. Fred Gramann wrote the music that is played in the background.

Please note: You can enlarge the video picture by going to "view" on your brower. Then zoom in to about 200%. It looks great that way, and you can see the detail better than in the smaller version. (I can't seem to figure out how to make it stay larger on the blog.) When you are through viewing the video, return to "view" and reset the zoom level to 100%.

SNOW!!!! Impossible

Snow!!! in Paris. That’s impossible!! Well no, it isn’t. Improbable, but not impossible. Much to our surprise we woke up yesterday with snow on our slanted window. With a further check it was snowing quite hard outside and before long everything was covered with two/three inches of snow. The Eiffel Tower (which is about ½ mile away, as the crow flies) kept disappearing from view, curtained with snow flakes.

When I went out to walk I discovered that the snow was even deeper close to the river and away from the heat of the buildings. Cars and delivery trucks were slowing creeping along, but the motorcyclists were not faring too well.

Because of their light weight and little smooth wheels they were slipping and sliding in the traffic. I saw one slip over, but the driver quickly up righted it and parked it along side the road….to be picked up later!!

The groups of homeless men, who live in wooden crates off of a lower road to the river near us, were sitting at their table drinking something hot and enjoying their Christmas tree.

Other people were walking along quite gingerly leaving tracks in the snow.

Most people had a smile on their face and were trying to enjoy this rare occasion.

Even the neighborhood dogs were enjoying sniffing the white stuff.

The tourists loved the snow as they cruised along ON TOP of the boat singing their Christmas tunes.

I know this wasn’t much of a storm compared to what most of you have experienced in the last week or so, but it was a neat thing for us to be on the tag end of a gigantic European weather front…..which was very cold and nasty according to the weather reports. It’s beginning to look like Christmas!!!!!

(Remember that you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.)

Christmas Trees

Small Christmas tree lots are springing up all over the place here in Paris. They seem to be attached mostly to a local flower shop or to the Christmas Markets, so there is probably one close enough for most locals to carry a tree home. Most of the trees are natural green, but others have been flocked in white, red, orange, yellow, lime green and even black.

In the smaller lots most trees are still covered with a white plastic netting that holds the branches firmly to the trunk. So, what you are buying may be an interesting discovery when you unwrap the tree in your home!! In the larger lots, where the netting has been removed from the trees, they have a contraption where the employees can push the tree through a tube and renet the tree for you after you’ve made your choice.

While our apartment is not large enough for a tree I was interested in how much the trees were selling for. In the lot where I stopped the four foot plain green trees were 25-28 euros (about $40.), the five footers were 50 euro (about $75.) six footers were 75 euro ($110.) Taller trees and specialty trees were more, of course.

I’m not sure if this includes the wooden base, or not. With this base, you can’t water the tree, nor will it securely hold a larger tree upright….but it looks nice! Our big trees at the church are wired to the ceiling to secure them.

This Christmas tree lot is on the edge of the Christmas Market that is in the open square in front of St Suplice Church. There are about 30 booths selling mostly food and clothing items in this market.
As I talked to one of the English speaking booth owners this morning, I remarked that the rent must be high for the booths. She said the cost is 300 euros ($441) a day. She is working for a company that is trying to establish a market for some Christmas bread, so I don’t think she was too concerned about meeting a quota. But, there must be others who are working for themselves in order to make some extra income in the Christmas season. If you catch them when they aren’t too busy, they are eager to show you their wares and even share a few samples. Of course, they know that after you’ve taken a sample, you are much more apt to buy their items.

SMOKE??!!

Let me set the scene….

Ears: In our apartment off and on all day we had heard this banging, scraping and thudding. It sounded like major construction work, but where? We tried to blame the church music director who lives just under us downstairs, but he wouldn’t claim it. So, it had to be in the building that abuts our back wall. We do not share a common wall, but it would be hard to slip a thin sheet of paper between the walls. Sounds evidently carry very well through these stone buildings.

Eyes: I was in the kitchen, getting a drink of water when I looked out the window for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower…..which I often do. The Eiffel was coming in and out of view as we had a dense fog/cloud floating around above the city buildings. Just outside my window I noticed more grayness floating around and went into the living area to point out to Don and his brother that the fog was really doing funny things today. I opened the window to show them more clearly and……

Nose: SMOKE

Now when you’re on the fifth floor of a building, that can be a bit unnerving. I grabbed my keys, then my sister-in-law and I headed down stairs to check it out. (Don and Ray were much too involved with the computer at that time to get excited.) Since no one in the reception area seemed alarmed, Laurie and I headed outside to see what we could see. Indeed, there was smoke coming out of the upstairs windows of the building nextdoor…..and three rather sheepish looking workers with their hard hats still on standing on the curb. One worker had a welding mask on his hat, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out what had probably happened.

I went back into the church and called Don to bring my camera and come on down as there were three fire trucks and multiple firemen to watch. The firemen quickly unloaded ladders and hoses…..which they pulled or took upstairs. The smoke was gone quickly and the crowd that had gathered gradually dispersed. We were just glad that this wasn't a major disaster!!!

As we went back inside, I noticed one of the hard hatted workers on his cell phone. I thought to myself that I was glad it wasn’t me that had to make the call to his boss or the building owner!!!

P.S. They were back to work in all their loudness the next morning, much to our dismay.

(We lost our “smoky” pictures when we were transferring them from the camera to the computer. Our apartment is located at the top of the “Church House”where the 3 peaked, windowed areas are…and the smoke was coming out of the top windows of the shorter building. Don has some video of the eager firemen that you might find amusing.)

Theo Edmonds - Artist at ACP

Theo Edmonds, a professional artist, did a dramatic art presentation as a part of our Thursday evening series at The American Church. This presentation was in our sanctuary. It was titled “Prodigal Manifesto.” The whole sanctuary was transformed into an environment suitable for the action.




Click on arrow to begin the video




. The artist, with the help of a dancer, portrayed the moods and experience of anguish, desperation, violence, and, finally, a fall into a near death state of being. The dancer came to him and held him, like Mary held Jesus when he was taken down from the cross – as depicted by many artists. He rose from this collapse on the floor to explode with enthusiasm, hope, reconciliation, and resurrection.





The video clip shows this energetic renewal of life conclusion to the artist’s presentation. The art piece is a final expression of hopefulness, reconciliation, and new life.

St. Laurent Church - Paris

St Laurent, a church with a very long history, is in north east Paris near the East train station. It's location is interesting as it faces the same paved north/south road that the Romans constructed way back in mid 1st century BC. There is record of a basilica and monastery on the site by 511 AD, but it was sacked by the Normands in 885.

This round arch is all that can be seen of the church erected in 1180. This church was used as a parish church until about 1429 when it was deemed too small and most of it demolished for a new, bigger church built in the flamboyant gothic style. (For Gothic think pointed arches, larger windows, and flying buttresses.)(For flamboyant think of more carvings and "decorations.)

Buttresses and then flying buttresses became necessary as the churches became larger in size....especially when they wanted larger windows in these churches. Buttresses are large support walls that are on the outside of the regular church walls to help support the heavy roof and keep the walls from buckling and consequently crashing down. This used a lot of extra stone and was expensive to build. So, someone thought of flying buttresses. To give you an idea of this...think of a person standing outside of a building with their arm/hand out at a angle holding up the wall...then think of stone doing this.

As you can imagine on a church built back in 1429 the flying buttresses were beginning to deteriorate. Their life had been extended with a concrete bath years ago, but that was only a stopgap. So, the church raised the money for a new roof, releading and cleaning the old stained glass windows and rebuilding the flying buttresses. Alex, a young man active at ACP, who is working on the project asked for permission to take a church group up there on Sunday afternoon, and we jumped (or climbed!!) at the chance, even though we had to wear a hard hat!

We climbed up about 6 landings of scaffolding to a rather large working area.

He showed us how the new buttress is shaped around a wooden frame.

After the stone is fitted together and mortared a cap of even harder stone is put on the top to help protect the butress against the weather.

Builders have a chance to add a personal touch to the buildings that cannot be seen from below. In this case when the building was originally build, there were carvings put around a lot of the building just under the roof line. Some of the carvings are just nice....leaves, vines, grapes. Others are funny....like snails on the leaves, mermaids, men looking out from between the bed sheets. There are a few questionable carvings....a man with his pants down, an animal with a human head, a man killing an animal with his knife....but, most were just amusing.

The carvings at the end of the flying buttress were so deterioted that only a few shapes could be discerned. The masons decided to put something modern in these slots. The young stone mason who took us on the tour is one of the carvers for this project. After tossing around a lot of ideas, including Darth Vader (which was vetoed!!) they will instead carve a modern roofer, window repairman, stoneworker and architect at the computer.

Alex first develops his "cartoon", then draws it on the stone, and then carves it on site.

I asked someone why they would spend the money for these carvings, that won't be seen, when the project is so expensive. He replied "if this is what has traditionally been done, then the French like to continue the traditions, no matter the cost!!" So be it!!!

P.S. For a good read on the building of churches during this time, check out Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth."

Eiffel Tower at 120 years - Light Show

Between October 22 and December 31,2009 The Eiffel Tower is showing off with a beautiful light show. It is really impressive as you stand nearby, but a video is also enjoyable to watch. The light show is being supported by the Eiffel Tower and by Citreon, the car maker which is celebration its 90th anniversary.

The light show gets more dramatic as it goes on, so, though it last for several minutes, it gets ever more exicing. At least I (Don) think so.

Enjoy. Just click on the arrow start button.

Tiffany Treasures

We had known that the American Church owned two large Tiffany glass windows that are considered French National Treasures. They are of two angels, Hope and Contemplation, and were commissioned by the church way back in 1898. They were originally in the first church and were moved over to the new church in 1930.

People often drop by to study them both from inside the sanctuary and from the outside. But one morning as Don was preparing the sanctuary for a wedding he was surprised to see visitors in the sanctuary quite so early. The guests were visiting with some of the church staff and were looking at the Tiffany windows.

It turns out that one of the guests was a Tiffany expert from the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and she didn’t know these windows existed. The expert was here in Paris to help set up a special showing of Tiffany glass at the Luxembourg Museum. Later we found out that they are the only Tiffany glass windows in a church in all of Europe….as far as they know!!!

Later we were able to go to a special pre showing of the Tiffany glass at the museum. We learned more than a few things about Tiffany windows. One, they are often layered with different glasses to create a special effect, such as under water or debth/3-D. Second, Lewis Tiffany developed a way of folding or creasing molten glass to give a neat effect, such as folds in a dress. Our angels have beautiful folds in their skirts. Third, he was early on able to create variations of color…even different colors within one piece of glass…which is beautiful in skies, flowers and water, especially. Fourth, he was so full of new ideas that his company could hardly keep up with all his new designs and concepts and ways to use glass.

Louis Tiffany, born in 1848, had the financial backing that most artists only dream of. His father was the founder of Tiffany and company that became the famous jewelry and silver firm. But Louis decided not to follow his father’s footsteps and began his career as a painter….which he continued throughout his lifetime. In the 1870’s he turned to interior design and was successful with that. After playing around with broken jelly glasses and wine bottles, Tiffany started a new company for stained glass that left the impurities in the glass….creating the first new type of stained glass in several hundred years. Later on he used the broken, cast off pieces of colored glass to create his beautiful lamps. The rest is history.

The value of his work is unbelievable. One of the professionals at the showing told Don that one of the lamps displayed had sold for $3,000,000 (that’s right, 3 million) several years ago and would probably be valued at about $7,500,000 now. As I looked around the room, I couldn’t begin to guesstimate the value of the collection, but was thankful that it had been put together for the people’s enjoyment.

Remember that you can click the picture to make it larger, click “back” to return……

Eiffel Tower....the birthday

I wrote recently that you never know what to expect from the Eiffel Tower ….and it has surprised us again. The Tower is experiencing its 120’s birthday with a brilliant light show!! It started on 22 October and will last till 31 December and is co-sponsored by Citroen, the French car company.

They are relying on 400 LED spotlights and it lights up the side of the tower that faces the River Seine. The light show changes colors from brilliant to subdued, with movement up and down and side to side….in fact, in all kinds of directions. The shadows/colors on the ground are spectacular as well.

The show lasts 12 minutes, one minute for each ten years of the Tower’s age. The Tower company assures us that it is getting high performance with low energy, something that they have worked on since 2005. At that time they reduced their energy consumption by 30% which amounts to big euro savings for the city of Paris.

It is exciting to see and I’m including a sampling of pictures for you to enjoy. (Remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge it, and hit the back button to go back to normal size). Don has a video that he intends to put on the blog as well.

Brittany.....the Castles

Brittany has a strong Celtic history, as the Celts being the first identifiable inhabitants of the area. They probably intermingled with the earlier peoples who built the great stone monuments (somewhat similar to Stonehenge in England). Later on the Romans moved in by 56 AD, and still later more Celts arrived from Britain.

There were many battles back and forth in the middle ages between the English and French with a few Norse ones also thrown in. Fortresses, castles, fortified areas were located in many places in Brittany as it was often the battle ground between the two countries. Fort La Latte was a 14th century fortified fort near Cap Frehal (on the shore).

In St Malo one can see many of the remains of the fortified areas, including the ramparts which may be walked around. There are a couple of forts on small islands near St Malo. If the invaders got by them, then there is a larger fortress on the mainland. At least one of the smaller forts can be walked to in low tide.

At Fougeres, its medieval fortress was build during the 1300’s by the Duchy of Brittany against the French aggression. Situated atop a granite ledge it is awesome even today. This fortress includes thirteen of the few “belfries” in Brittany. In the old definition of belfry, it is a defensive place of shelter…watch tower…. located in a high place. They did not include a bell.

There were defensive walls that included the higher part of town, but the citizens from the lower town had to retreat into the fortress during times of trouble. Around part of this was a moat that could be flooded by tidal waters in times of need. Part of the moat remains for us to see even today.

In Vitre, the first wooden castle was built about 1000AD. It was soon bequeathed to the Benedictine Monks, but after burning down it was rebuilt as a defensive site at the end of the 11th century. This castle also includes belfries which are visible today. Parliaments took refuge inside its walls during the plague.

. In the late 16th century the castle sheltered Protestants and was for a while a Huguenot stronghold. Later a prison, it is now a musee surrounded by the old half timbered houses of old Vitre.
We saw enumerable ruins of old ramparts and forts as we traveled around. It seems as though everybody was afraid of somebody in those olden days. And before the days of “weapons of mass destruction” what better way to protect yourself than to put up a wall. Ironic isn’t it?