Mental Pictures

If you watch the Office you have probably seen Jim and Pam look at eachother during a sweet moment and make a motion symbolizing taking a picture. They do this for moments they want to savor but can’t exactly be captured on film. There’s a lot of those kinds of moments here at L’Abri for me and I thought I’d spend a post describing a few.

The Lounge

Imagine a good sized room. In this room there are about five couches, a dinning room table, multiple coffee tables and inn tables, as well as a variety of chairs. Everything is well worn and a few things match each other, but nothing matches everything. 
One wall is filled with windows. The others with bookshelves and maps and paintings. There’s a piano and several guitars. The floor and ceiling are both made of wood and the walls have a dark wallpaper. 

This place is the lounge. It feels the ebb and flow of the community. Sometimes it’s teeming with people. There’s someone composing a song on the piano. There’s several people scattered throughout the room reading. There’s a group in the middle playing a card game. There’s a few students to the side deep in coversation. 

Oh the conversations these walls have held. Conversations about God and faith and life. Conversations about peoples’ backgrounds and their stuggles to find their place in the world. Light conversations too, small talk about how did you sleep, what is the best kind of chocolate and what’s the best route to Villars. 

Oh and laughter, the lounge has seen it’s fair share of laughter and some tears as well. 
Some days the lounge hosts meals. Meals that are revamped and comprised of the leftovers from the week. Some days the lounge hosts lectures or prayer meetings. Some days the lounge is a place to sit and listen to a book being read allowed or watch a movie and eat popcorn. 

The thing about this phone free space, this place that welcomes people from all around, is that people connect. They look at eachother, they talk, and they listen. People learn from eachother and they bond.

Targets

No, I didn’t pluralize the store that so many people know and love. In fact in my mind, targets is even better than Target. 

Targets is a location on top of a hill/mountain that works well for watching the sunset. It’s an actual shooting range one day out of the year, hence the name. However, it’s probably more often used to hangout. There’s one bench and a fire pit (which technically isn’t supposed to be used without a permit). 

The view is incredible and althought I have many pictures they don’t do justice to the feeling of being out under the stars, probably passing around wine or chocolate with your L’Abri friends, and either talking or just existing in amicable silence. It’s beautiful. 

Story Time

One evening we had high tea in Chalet Chezelet. This Chalet has a fire place and that night a fire was going and we were served chicken, and veggies, and homemade bread. It was delicious and oh so homey. 

After dinner and dessert, P.O. pulled out a story book. He’s Danish and these stories were read to him during his childhood. He reads in a steady soft voice in the dimly but artfully lite room. We adults, from various countries, in various stages of life, all sit around the living room and listen. 

There’s something serene and quieting about being read to. There’s something timeless and wonderful about dimming the lights, hearing the crackling of the fire, and sharing an experience. There’s something to simple living. 

Instragram Worthy Quotes of the Day

One of our speakers Ellis Potter defined meaning to mean relationship. Nothing has meaning without relating it to something else. This idea to me was like a breath of fresh air in the midst of a culture that constantly says dig deep and find meaning in yourself. Interestingly a similar concept was quoted from Mother Teresa in another book I was reading “If we have no peace it’s because we have forgotten we belong to eachother.” 

Another interesting thought that rings true but is pretty counter cultural, I found in the book The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. He wrote “As I read scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be the first.” 

My final quote of the day comes from the human tendancy to catastraphize. “We can’t prevent storms from coming, but we can decide not to invent our own.” Emily P. Freeman – The Next Right Thing

Well that’s all for now folks… love you, bye