Simplicity At Its Finest

This past week I spent 6 nights and 5 days at Taizé, which is a monastic community in France. I had the lowest of expectations for this place, however I was pleasantly surprised. I was prepared for a week of plain clothes, no makeup, hard work, and lots of Jesus time where I would grow in all these great ways. For me, I experienced all the above except for the latter not so much to my disappointment. For everyone else that was there, it was not so simple. Girls were wearing cute clothes and make up, and it was more like church camp than I was expecting it to be. So I could have brought cute things, but honestly it was nice to not really have to worry too much about that aspect of my life for a week. On a positive note it gave me an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to sleep, and when we were getting up at sevenish, I will take that extra snooze time. Fo sho.

So being at Taizé we had a daily routine and it looked something like this:

7:30 - Wake up
8:15 - Morning prayers
9ish - Breakfast (bread, dark chocolate, and hot chocolate; every morning)
10 - Bible Study/Small group time
12:20 - Mid Day Prayers
13:00 - Lunch (Always some kind of mush)
15:00-17:00 - Work at Cadole
17:15 - Tea Time
19:00 - Dinner (slightly more tasty and substantial than lunch)
20:30 -  Evening Prayers
21:15ish - 23:30ish - Hang out at Oyak

So it was always a pretty full day, however there was an hour here and there for some downtime, which was normally spent sleeping or talking to people from all over the world. During the summers, Taizé can have close to 6,000 people visiting. While we were there I believe there was under 1,000, but the weekend we were leaving around 400 new people were coming in. So it's a pretty well known place over here on the Europe side. I had never heard of it before until Brady, our chaplain, told us we were going for a class this semester. I literally had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what we would be doing or what a normal day would look like, so I was completely clueless walking into this community. Prayers were a new experience for me not because I do not know how to pray, but because their style of worship and praying is different than what I am normally participate in. It is a lot of chanting in another language that I do not speak nor do I understand. My first impression of the whole service was that I did not like it because I did not know what was going on, and I didn't understand anything that was happening around me. Nothing was ever explained to us about how the services would work or what to expect. There was no foreknowledge before experiencing the prayers services. By the end of the week though I had grown an appreciation for the prayer services, and I might also say that I actually enjoyed them even if I still really did not feel like they were life changing. There was something pretty neat about hearing everyone sing and harmonize together from every tongue, tribe, and nation. That was definitely an experience I will remember.

Every weekend they celebrate Easter, which was interesting to me. Friday night they bring the cross down to the center, Saturday night is the candle service, and then Sunday is the Eucharist service. People are allowed to stay longer after the brothers leave the center and pray by the cross after those services. There were people of all different backgrounds, countries, and beliefs, but it was a cool experience to be there worshipping one God altogether despite the differences. Here is a peek at what the inside of the church looked like:

My favorite part of the Taizé experience was the hard work aspect of it. Everyone that goes to Taizé is assigned a job during their stay because this community is completely kept alive by volunteer efforts. The brothers do not make any profit from people staying, and they only charge the amount necessary to stay because they want to break even, not over. The brothers make pottery to sell to help sustain the community, and at the Oyak all the snacks are dirt cheap because they only charge the price they paid to buy the food and drinks. Anyways, there are opportunities for people to go and stay extended periods of time at Taizé and become what is called a "permanent." This just means that you are there for 3 months or more at a time, and they become in charge of each area, for example, welcome area, cleaning, random jobs, food, etc. My job was to work in the Cadole, which is a workshop basically and we took down tent canvases, and we also moved boards underneath the tents and things like that. I had so much fun working, way more than I thought I was going to. The permanent that was in charge of my group was Pawel. He was from Poland, and he was just wonderful. He called himself our "responsible," which meant our boss or leader. We were able to spend a lot of time getting to know him as well as some of the other permanents that helped us in the Cadole. Another permanent, Julian, was from Germany, and he was around my age, and he was really fun to hang out with too.

This is our hardworking group :)

On Sunday, I had to switch jobs because it was a new week, and I was in the Tea Time group, which greeted all the new comers coming in. I LOVED that job because I got to see and meet and talk to all the new people coming in from France, Germany, Belgium, etc. I was able to work on my German and French a little bit, but let's be honest, it was rough. I can barely hold a beginning conversation. But that was one of the things I really enjoyed about this community is that there were no strangers. Everyone wanted to get to know everyone, no matter where you were from. And the best way to do that was to hang out at the Oyak after evening prayers, and that was a blast. People played music together, sang together, danced together. It was great. I met so many people, and had so much getting to know them and hearing their stories.

My proudest moment was actually at lunch. You may laugh at me, and I give you full right to, but I was thoroughly impressed with myself. I will let you experience it with me all over again through these pictures.

Those are peas in my mouth. Yes, you read that correctly. I, Hannah, ate peas for lunch. Not only did I eat all of my peas, but I finished my friend George's peas as well. And here is the kicker. I liked it. I enjoyed my lunch of peas. Now, there was some other things that were mixed in as well, but the point is that I ate disgusting vegetables, and I enjoyed it. My mother would be so proud, and in fact, I know that she is :) I took these pictures just for her, so that I would have proof to show her, and she would not be able to doubt me. And now I have shown the world that I am indeed growing up. I ate vegetables, I drink black coffee on a regular basis, and I could totally take the train or bus on my own without freaking out about it. I feel accomplished.

To end this trip to France, we took a few hours on Monday to go into Cluny, France, which was this adorable little French town. Nothing was opened, which was really depressing, but it was still fun to walk around and see all the beautiful and intricate architecture. We did eat lunch there, and I had the biggest pizza ever. All to myself. Bad idea. Also, the greatest because it was DELICIOUS.

Also, I had tiramisu. Again. For the record, Salzburg was WAY better than Cluny's, but let's get real any tiramisu is just super tasty. After lunch, we just walked around Cluny, and actually before lunch we went up in this tower and saw a 360 degree view of Cluny, so here is the rest of my day spent there in some lovely pictures because we all know that I probably take too many, so I have plenty to share with all of you that actually read my blog :)

View from Tower

Tower we went up in

Pretty side streets

Church we hung out at

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip WAY more than I thought I would. Some of the people were able to sit down with a brother from Taizé and talk with him, and one of the questions asked was this a place where the seed is planted or it is watered? I think all of us coming in thought this would be a place where we would be "watered" spiritually, but the brother actually said this community was a place designed for the seed to be planted in people. This is why there was no introduction coming in to Taizé about how the services work or the meaning behind things. Honestly, I didn't really like that because I feel like that can be dangerous. In Mark it shares the parable of the Sower and seeds, and this is what came to mind when the group was telling me about their talk with the brother. While Taizé is a good place, I wonder if it is not always the good, fertile soil that it could be if there was some more knowledge given to the people about the background of why's and how's of the community. I could be wrong, but what if there are those who fall through the cracks and miss out on truly experiencing Taizé if they are confused by their surroundings? I know there were times when it would have been nice to understand what was happening around me rather than just assuming that I understood. There are always good things and bad things when going to a place like this, and for me the good outweighed the bad. I would definitely suggest it to anyone wanting to come over to Europe because I do felt like while it may not have been life changing their are things from this experience that I want to implement into my everyday life. Especially more moments of silence where I can just sit with God and be in His presence with no agenda. I think that is definitely going to be a nice addition to my life that will be much needed because sometimes I just need to stop talking and listen. I am learning. Slowly, but surely :) Til Next Time.