While you may have been fooled by the picture above, I am not, in fact, spending my summer in Paris. (Though I did consider writing a cunningly deceptive blog that might attest to such an idea). I spent only a week there, and it was a memorable one, indeed. Quite unplanned, I found a ticket in March on Continental's website selling round-trip tickets at at $300-400 to France on select days in May. I eagerly purchased a seat with the tax refund on money I earned during the Bush Administration way back when, and hoped for the best. For a while there I was going alone, but I convinced my grandpa to come along with me, and he generously paid for food as well as an apartment, which was much more accommodating and weather-proof than the alternative living arrangements I had planned. After Dr. Donald Dixon/Dickson (Alex?) generously allowed me to move a final out of the way, I bid farewell to others cramming for finals in the remaining days of junior year, left College Station, and listened to French music and useful phrases on my iPod on the way to the airport.
I'll spare you all the details of my trip, but I'll share with you a few highlights and thoughts. My posts on this thing may consist of as many of my thoughts and reflections as it does what I've been doing, what time it is where I'm at, any funny stories (if at all) etc. I hope you enjoy it just as well.
We did the usual things one does when one travels to France. Toured the Louvre, ate crepes, visited the Eiffel Tower more than once, climbed the Arc and secured the photo above, looked for Quasimoto, envisioned Napoleon as Emporor when the French still liked him, made outrageous purchases on the Champs de Lesay, pictured Hemingway in the Latin Quarter writing about Jake Barnes and Lady Ashley as they attempted Parisian love, went to Omaha Beach and visited Pointe du Hoc, where Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 1932 James Earl Rudder led a company up the cliffs to help secure the US invasion, we drank coffee and wine, spent long hours at meals, explored Versailles (secretly listening in on a Fat Tire Bike Tour) and butchered some French. It couldn't have been more picturesque. Unless, of course, it was your honeymoon or something of that nature. Regardless, it was truly wonderful.
Due to nice grandparents, an ex-girlfriend whose parents liked me, and the Texas A&M Liberal Arts Dean, I have been fortunate enough to travel to Europe four times before this trip. In the past, it was always so glamorous and new, different everywhere I went and appealing in so many ways. An escape from the boring, lifeless suburbia to the fascinating and exquisite metropolis or beautiful and quaint countryside. Traveling is fun. It always has been for me. It's a bug and you can't get rid of it. And while Paris was even more than I expected, the trip somewhat refined my approach exploring the world. As I meandered the streets of the most beautiful...eh...maybe second most...it's tough...beautiful city in the world, I became aware of the fact that cultures and sights and places can indeed be magical and may hold a special place in your heart, but in the end, they are still cultures and sights and places. The luster fades. It lets you down. What I'm saying is that we need not have an idealized sense of the Other, because the Other really has nothing captivating enough about it that will change us. Our perception of the new is as we dream it to be, and remains but a dream. People are the same. Their inclinations, interests, values, expressions, behaviors and language may be quite different, but their wiring isn't.
We are all born children of wrath, and as I became more and more surrounded by the ever-increasing secular world around me, I slowly became more and more noticing of these tendencies in me, those of the self, the diseased heart, the flesh. With a strange awareness, I identified that corrupted part of the soul that peaks its head every day. Despite the overwhelming desire that it leave you alone, it remains. Despite a deep desire to wake up to find that the self-craving has abated, it has yet to do that completely. This coupled with the knowledge that these thousands of people that I pass by every day ascribe to a lonely, secular, no-meaning, no-God postmodern worldview had me in a strange position. It wore me out, reminding me of just how dark this place really is. I honestly had a difficult time understanding how some of you made it through last summer (not to mention this summer) over there. We must struggle well.
And so this terrible dichotomy exists. On the one hand it is beautiful. It is splendid. Not to be idolized or made into something that it isn't, but beautiful for what it is in culture, taste, interaction and vitality. Yet on the other hand, it is ultimately bleak and empty. And so we must look at the vacation, the travel, the escape, the adventure with a certain lens. These getaways are meant to be enjoyed. Shared with friends or family or once in a while even on a scarce venture alone. Enjoyed for our pleasure. But never idolized. Everything exists for a purpose, and that is for the glory of the One who found us and knew us and knows us.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the next time it's the second week in October and the semester has been rough and everything is mundane, the coffee is cold or tastes bad and there's too much to get done, not enough motivation, it's still 95 degrees outside because it's Texas and you don't know what the heck you're doing in May, don't look out the window and remember where you were during the summer or two summers ago or whenever you still wish to go, and sighing, say, "If only I were there..." Watch yourself. Because regardless, There won't fulfill you. Only Texas will.
Just kidding. Really. Anyway, turn those affections where they are due. We ache for the new, and we as believers have that. All things are. The new in this world is fun for the moment, but it is certainly a fleeting one at best. And so as you intern or work or study or play, in College Station, New York City, California, Europe, the so many elsewheres, treasure these moments, but I urge you to have an appropriate sense of where you are. Don't make it into something it isn't, whether that perception is good or bad. You're about six weeks into summer. You're there for a reason; learn what you may, pray without ceasing, and love everywhere. And remember that no place or event or experience deserves our utmost affections.
This is what Paris [+Ecclesiastes] has taught me.
Still trying to see if Cypress will teach me something, too.
-Matt
