Taizé

For those of you waiting to hear about Taizé, sorry I haven’t updated sooner. For those who haven’t heard of Taizé, here is a brief introduction (complements of Wikipedia):

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The Taizé Community is an ecumenical Christian monastic order in Taizé, Burgundy, France. It is composed of a little over 100 brothers who come from Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. The brothers come from about 30 countries across the world. The monastic order has a strong devotion to peace and justice through prayer and meditation. It was founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schutz.

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The community has become one of the world’s most important sites of Christian pilgrimage. Over 100,000 young people from around the world pilgrim to Taizé each year for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work. Through the community’s ecumenical outlook, they are encouraged to live in the spirit of kindness, simplicity, and reconciliation.

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It has been comical trying to explain what Taizé is to people who haven’t heard of it before. For example, Frederique, the French woman that I tutor, couldn’t understand why I would go to some obscure village in France to live in a monastic community for a week when I could go anywhere in Europe. She kept telling me how funny it was.

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My reasons for going to Taizé were both random and not random, in some ways last minute and in others planned for awhile. At one point I decided I wanted to go on a retreat, and after researching places in Europe I remembered hearing about Taizé in Liturgical Chapel at APU. I had planned on going in May, but because Cassie couldn’t travel with me in February on account of being back in the states, I figured Taizé would be a good place to go by myself. So while it wouldn’t be at the end of my year here, giving me a chance to figure out where I want to go after Andorra, having a pause in the middle of the year would be nice too.

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Getting to Taizé wasn’t easy, though. I had a couple of options, many which went from bus to plane to bus to train to bus, complicated by coordinating connections and researching flights between six different airports. I decided on the easiest option: bus to train to bus. However, since there are only two buses between Andorra and Toulouse each day, this meant staying the night in Toulouse before and after my trip, and I am cheap. My solution: couch surfing! This was my first time using this website and it was wonderful. I stayed with Blanka from Slovakia, her husband from France, and their toddler Susanna. I didn’t spend much time with them because of late and early trains, but it was a good experience. Susanna had fun showing me her toys. On my second day there I had to let in the new baby sitter, and she kept asking me where things were, but as I don’t speak French it was kind of a hysterical situation. Not knowing the language can be stressful, though, and when I’m in Andorra or Spain I take it for granted that I can communicate easily. In France I always feel a little uncomfortable and slightly helpless because of my low level of French (though I can say simple things like “I don’t speak French,” and I even managed to ask somebody in the tourist station how to get to a certain street). So being told four times on the train, in French, that I was sitting in somebody’s seat was a little stressful (for some reason my ticket wasn’t assigned a number). It’s also an unfamiliar culture, taking me out of my comfort zone. But it’s good to step out every once in awhile.

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The schedule in Taizé is simple: Morning prayer, breakfast, Bible Introduction led by one of the brothers, free time, noon prayer, lunch, free time and discussion groups, dinner, evening prayer, bed. I enjoyed getting to bed at 22h30 without feeling like a loser! The prayer times are mostly singing and silence. The chants at Taizé are famous for their simplicity and beauty, and unfortunately I didn’t have a voice for most of the week, so I enjoyed listening to the singing. Everybody also has a job during the week and mine was distributing breakfast, which meant working in a sort of assembly line giving bowls, baguettes, chocolate bars, butter, and pouring hot chocolate. The food at Taizé is simple, but I enjoyed it.

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During the winter Taizé doesn’t have a lot of people, sometimes as little as ten ‘pilgrims’, but since we were there during a holiday there were about six or seven hundred (the brothers kept saying they weren’t prepared for so many). During the summer, though, they have up to seven thousand each week. Most of the people there were school groups and youth groups from France and Germany, so there was just one Bible Introduction for people over 19 years old. It was led by Brother Wolfgang from Austria who spoke German and French, so for the ten or so English speakers in the group we had a translator, Annina, a physics student from Germany. During the afternoons we met with this same English speaking group for our discussions. We had people from Canada, England, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Belgium, the US, and France. I think the fellowship I got from this group was one of the best parts about Taizé. It reminded me of my Bible Study at APU, and the depth of discussion seemed to wake up something in me I hadn’t realized had fallen asleep. I also spent a lot of my time walking around the village and the surrounding area (snowy in the beginning of the week and green at the end), but the rest of the time I spent with the British group I met in the barracks and in our small group. It was so amazing to meet English speaking people my age that I could really relate to! Another surprise: as I was handing out baguettes one morning I realized that amid the German and French I could understand what the girls in my line were saying… they were from near Barcelona and speaking Catalan!

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Though it was hard to break away from the fellowship, I spent the last two days in Taizé in silence. Some people do this for the whole week, but there is also an option for the end of the week, which many of the people I had met chose to do. Though I didn’t come to Taizé with specific things that I wanted to come away with, I felt that I still hadn’t had time to truly slow down and listen yet. It’s funny to think that I spent part of my vacation in silence, whereas my roommates’ idea of a good time during Carnival is to go to a smoky, crowded, and noisy discoteca. So this meant silence from after the evening prayer on Thursday until after the morning prayer on Sunday. We still attended the prayers with everyone else, but we had our own Bible Introduction with Sister Renetta (?) from Poland (she was hilarious, always laughing and even telling us how much she likes Bridget Jones’ Diary).

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We also had meals in our own area, which was one of the most humorous parts of the experience (the most awkward would probably be in encounters with people who weren’t in silence or walking with somebody in silence). Sometimes it was also awkward knowing when it was necessary to speak or not. One time we didn’t know what one of the dishes was at dinner, and people kept pointing and gesturing, so finally one girl broke the silence to announce “It’s yogurt guys.” During meals even the simplest things were funny, such as a random song coming on the CD player or somebody’s stomach growling. It was nice too, though, because we started anticipating other’s needs because we couldn’t ask for things aside from hand motions, and everybody pitched in with the cleaning up because it was much easier just to start washing dishes or clean something without being asked than to organize a system. During the silence I spent a lot of time walking, in the church, writing, and painting. Although the silence was sometimes awkward, other times it was very comfortable.

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Although I was attracted to the idea of spending time in silence because I’m such an introvert, I was also a little nervous about it and sad to leave the fellowship of our discussion group. At first it surprised me to feel a little cut off knowing I had chosen not to speak, but eventually I became more comfortable with it. You know how sometimes when you meet new people and you are still in the getting-to-know-you stage, silence is awkward and you are always trying to avoid it? Well, on Sunday afternoon three of us who had been in silence decided to go for a walk before our buses left, and one thing that struck me was that even though we kept up a conversation, often times we just walked silently or silently enjoyed the scenery without any awkwardness. It was refreshing.

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Like I said before, I’m not really sure what I was looking for in Taizé, though mostly I think I wanted rest. I also wanted to sit down and think about what I want to do when I finish this school year, which I expected to sort out during the silence. One thing that Sister Renetta told us, though, was not to plan out our time but to try to just sit and listen. So while I did spend a lot of time writing, I also spent a lot of time being silent, being present, and listening. I didn’t get any answers aside from “Wait; I will tell you when you need to know” and to start trusting in God’s provision. So while I am still on the fence about many things and didn’t have any sort of epiphany, revelations, or summer camp high experience, I think I have come back refreshed and with a new sense of peace. This is the first time I haven’t come back from vacation freaking out about being in Andorra (though leaving France on Monday at 10h00, arriving in Andorra at 13h30, and teaching at 16h00 didn’t give me much time to think about it… I also found out that my roommates were worried when I didn’t come back on Sunday because they knew I had class on Monday… how cute, my Catalan ‘brothers’ were worried about me :). It has also been the first time that I haven’t been anxious about anything. Before I was anxious about everything. So while the fellowship woke me up in a way, the silence also put to rest a part of me that was making life unbearable. At least for now, I am not anxious about the future, this summer, my lessons, getting enough sleep… I can never be sure whether it’s the lexapro or something else, but for the first time since being in Andorra, I can honestly say I am doing okay.