Eat and Wake Up

Christmas budgets are most likely a bit higher in France than other places in the world. Not because shopping at FNAC, which is France’s answer to Best Buy, is any more expensive to purchase that iPad or bluetooth speaker. It’s because while other people are putting out only cookies and milk for Santa on the night of Christmas Eve, the French are spreading the table with some of the most expensive stuff you can find in the grocery store.

When the clock strikes twelve and a lot of the world is hunkering down under the covers to get a few hours of shuteye before the kiddos rouse themselves at the crack of dawn, in France, the party’s  just getting started. The Christmas Eve meal is the culinary highlight of the year for most French families. This is when they celebrate Le Reveillon, meaning "awakening" or "wake up", because it starts sometime close to midnight and normally goes on until the wee hours of the morning.

The whole family is expected to come together (historically after the Christmas mass - back in the day) to slowly and methodically plow through course after course coming out of the kitchen. And they really know how to flash their gastronomical savoir-faire, those French. A sampling of what eventually makes it’s way onto your plate before the night is done would be:  

Appetizer: caviar and oysters;

First course: foie gras (think really expensive and unbelievably fatty Underwood liverwurst spread)  and lobster;

Second course: escargot and scallops (also known as Coquille Saint-Jacques - just because it sounds more cool);

Main course: roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and some other type of wild bird; (like goose, pheasant, quail or guinea fowl);

Cheese course:  a variety of expensive and beautifully aged bleu, hard, soft and goat cheeses served with bread and nuts; and

Dessert: Buche de Noel - the traditional Christmas dessert which is basically a rich chocolate cake wrapped up into the shape of a Yule Log.

If you ask me, finding a roll of Tums in your stocking late Christmas morning might be a necessity after a meal that rich. But it’s also true that good food and great memories go hand in hand in the land of Oh la la. And I think they may have got something right here.

A meal that long and that diverse is bound to have all sorts of great conversations, laughter and memories attached to it. It can maybe even bring a greater and truer satisfaction than any floor strewn all too quickly with ribbon, torn boxes and hastily shredded wrapping paper. In other words, big budget or not, it’s probably worth every penny (or sous, as the case may be).

When Giving Thanks is Costly

This year I had the assignment of going to our friendly supermarket to order a turkey. This was in preparation to host all the field staff working with our mission in France for a big Thanksgiving meal. There is no frozen turkey section in the grocery stores here, so.turkeys must be ordered in advance for them to come whole - and they don’t come frozen. Usually they come wrapped loosely in plastic and placed in a cardboard box. This is probably just as good, because I remember once years ago when we were rookie turkey chefs and we we didn’t begin thawing the frozen turkey early enough. It eventually would come out of the oven nice and done, but not before our hands were raw, and would be for days afterward, due to our vigorous massaging of the turkey under water in order  to get it to soft enough to cook.

My main goal this time in ordering the bird was to make sure it would yield enough meat to feed all our guests.  Satisfied that I chosen well, I left the store last week with my pink copy of the order slip. Unfortunately, I never thought to check the price per kilogram, just glad that we would have a bird in time. So yesterday when I returned to pick up the turkey, the butcher put it on the scale and rang it up. I did a double take and about doubled over when I saw the price - 75 euros!  That’s right folks. The privilege of asking for white, dark or drumstick this year is going to cost us about the price of a hotel room.

I remember another Thanksgiving where having a turkey on Thanksgiving was probably even more costly to someone. When we were living in Bangladesh, turkeys were not something available in stores. This particular year,  a pastor was coming to visit and decided to bless us by bringing a turkey in his suitcase. He packed the bag with dry ice, put the turkey inside and hoped it would stay cold all the way through the 22 hour flight from the U.S. His hopes of sneaking the meat product through customs seemed to be dashed as he watched his suitcase come down the baggage claim belt and noticed a layer of frost had formed on the outside of his suitcase because of the dry ice. He imagined a scowling customs agent tipped off by his frosty suitcase, fining him for having commited a "fowl". He tried not to look suspicious as he exited the airport and fortunately, the turkey did not get confiscated and made it safely to the Thanksgiving table that year.

It’s amazing what lengths we will go to have the trappings we associate with giving thanks. But the reality is that I don’t need a turkey to be thankful. And there are many other things we might enjoy or think we need to adequately thank God.  Polished worship bands, expensive presentation software, complex lighting systems, and even smoke machines in many churches help set the atmosphere for thanking God in worship. But the most costly thing in giving thanks is not the stuff we do it with. It’s always when we pay the price necessary for getting our hearts into an attitude of humble and sincere gratitude. That’s still the price God sees as a worthwhile investment.

Call Waiting

On July 14th, France’s National Day, better known as Bastille Day, we were trying to enjoy an impromptu picnic at Grenoble’s Parc Mistral. A handful of us had gathered on the dry cement of a local  monument, playing cards as we waited for the fireworks to start. It had been raining off and on all day, and a recent break in the weather had given us hope that the annual municipal  “feu d’artifice” display would go through as planned. But as we waited, a last minute deluge just before dusk sent everyone scurrying for cover.  We reluctantly headed home, disappointed that after hours of waiting, we would not see any fireworks this year after all.

Little did we know, that 380 kilometers away in Nice, there would be those that evening whose enjoyment of fireworks would end in something far more horrible than disappointment. A different kind of dark cloud loomed over this gathering of families and children, that would also see people fleeing for cover but cast a sickening and horrible dark pall over the festivities of an entire nation. Ironically, if the fireworks in that city had been cancelled as it was in ours, a tragedy might possibly have been avoided.  But instead, as the smoke of the last fireworks dissipated in the clear coastal skies over the Promenade des Anglais, hatred in the form of a man and a large rented truck prematurely ended the lives of 84 innocent people and seriously wounded scores more.

The carnage was nearly incomprehensible. As many bodies lay motionless, strewn here and there in the wake of the attack, one off-duty paramedic instinctively tried to get to those who urgently needed medical care. But he was held back by police who had created a perimeter around the scene, fearing that the vehicle which had just torn through the crowd could be full of explosives and go off at any time. He shared how he began hearing a faint chorus of unanswered cell-phones, the blue light from their screens eerily illuminating the darkness from the pockets and purses of the deceased.

One can only imagine the feelings of desperation and dread of family and friends, quickly having been alerted by the media of what had just taken place, on the other end of those unsuccessful phone calls. As I thought of these loved ones, I also couldn’t help but make the comparison to God’s attempts in these trying days to reach out to France. Like a loving Father, he too is desperate to connect with those who are exposed to the attacks of an enemy. But too often, those He loves and wishes to speak to are unable to hear His call because the events of life have rendered them unresponsive and spiritually dead.

What is it that holds me back from rushing to the aid of those who lay numb and immovable in their personal pain and agony?  During danger and crisis, many people run away as they go into self-preservation mode. But for those called and trained to rescue and heal, there is no place for fear, indifference or inaction in the face of tragedy. We are surrounded every day by victims of a real and relentless devil who is raging in his attempts to indiscriminately kill and destroy. And it should break our hearts, as it does God’s, that His calls offering help and concern go mostly unanswered.