The Pont of the Story

    

      I just love May. Good weather, college graduations, tons of vacation, Mother's Day, hay fever. Hey, it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe something on this list escapes you, though - like the vacation part. However in France, the month of May is always equated with a particularly generous vacation schedule. The happy month kicks off with a workers holiday on the first. This is followed by Victory Day (8th), Ascension Day (9th), and rounded out by the Monday after Pentecost Sunday. And yes, two weeks off school for the kiddos thrown in there for good measure. That's a serious block of family time, which might explain the abnormally high number of divorces in the spring. That was a joke. But the French do take their vacations quite seriously.
   
     I was told by a French friend that his grandfather, just three generations ago, was not given any vacation time. Evidently, they had to fight for what they have. Someone should have told them they could stop fighting, because now the French holiday system is near legendary. Your average worker in this country receives six weeks of personal vacation a year. That doesn't include a dozen other public holidays, like Jesus' Ascension day, Epiphany Day, and of course this year what I call the Grand Assumption day, not to be confused with the real Assumption Day on August 15th . This is what I call the double holiday of May 8th and 9th when it falls on a Tuesday-Wednesday or Wednesday-Thursday (like this year) and most workers just decide to take the normal working Monday or Friday in between as a holiday, conveniently creating five straight days off work. It's not given to them officially, but they decide to take it anyway. It's called le pont  here in France, which means "the bridge", where everyone assumes they can just receive a  free pass and take that one extra day off. Hey, it's a natural bridge and you just learn to take it.  And it's conceded, though they've already received their fair share of sleep-in days.

      What do we do when someone takes advantage of our generosity? Do we let it go and give them a pass? Or do we count favors and tally benefits, all in the spirit of keeping everything fair? Sometimes people take more than they should. Often they are ignorant of the grace they receive and just want more. It's hard to just let it go. But that's what grace does. It gives a pass. And that's ultimately the purpose we serve on this earth - to freely give away to others the grace handed to us when we were just takers and consumers of kindness. The next time someone takes from you, do what Jesus said in His great sermon on how to be a disciple -let them have their extra demand. You just might build a bridge between the selfish and the Selfless One. And that would make any day a real extended holy-day.