Like my nephew Jagger, I like hanging out in churches.  Yesterday I sat in Sint-Salvatorkerk.

On the walls were paintings most likely done in the 19th century.  They depict the journey of Jesus, carrying his cross to the crucifixion.  I’ve seen the same scenes in many churches … but nothing as breathtaking.

Here are photos of people’s reactions to the suffering of another human being.  It’s far bigger than the spiritual teacher Jesus.  And the whole of humanity is on display:

A week or two ago, my friend Lyrinda said that she saw similarities between The Little Prince and me.  She recommended that I read the book.

I had done so twice, in my earlier life.  But I remember hardly anything, other than smiling in response to the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

About three years, I gave away virtually all my books.  I wanted to be lighter.  Yesterday I added 300 grams or so.

Look at this … me reading again!

Ahh – the chapters of my life.  Sometimes loving something  >  Leaving it  >  And returning.

Open up any page, Bruce, and see what’s there

Okay.  Page 61.

“The little prince crossed the desert and met with only one flower.  It was a flower with three petals, a flower of no account at all.”

It wasn’t an important flower.  It was simply a flower.  And the only one in this moment.  Something ordinary that deserved to be cherished.  Something with no adjectives.

***

That was fun.  Let’s try it again.  Page 39.

“The second planet was inhabited by a conceited man.  ‘Ah!  Ah!  I am about to receive a visit from an admirer!’ he exclaimed from afar, when he first saw the little prince coming.”

I have met many people who reek of Look at me!  See how great I am.  And under their breath … greater than you.  How tiresome to be in their presence.  So instead of big egos I seek big souls.

***

Once more with feeling.  Page 75.

A merchant: “Computations have been made by experts.  With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week.”

Faster, stronger, more efficient, squeezing every last second out of …  Out of what?  Certainly not life.  I’m done with the compression of moments.  I seek their expansion – into realms previously unknown and unexplored.  Bring them on.

***

Thank you, Antoine.  My adventures with you begin again

Today I don’t want to play the cello.  Same as yesterday.  And the discussion begins …

You should want to

But “shoulds” are useless

Okay … but go find the passion again

How?

I don’t know.  You’re the cellist

Am I?

***

Enough.  I’m getting bored with this conversation.

I visited my friend Harm at Arpeggio Music yesterday.  He’s a cello teacher.  More than a year ago he rented me a cello and pointed across the street to the Poel music school.

Help, Harm

He told me that he didn’t touch his cello in July.  He needed a break from students, lessons and playing concerts.

He told me to do what it takes to return fresh to my cello lessons in September.  Essentially move towards the cello when the body and soul say it’s time.  That might be on August 4 … or perhaps September 1.

No “have to’s”.  No guilt.

He suggested I go to a cello concert somewhere, maybe Brussels.  Right now I don’t feel up to that, but inspiring cello music videos are just a few clicks away on YouTube.

(I stopped writing for a few minutes)

A cello smile has shown up.  Welcome, dear smile.  My downbows and upbows will return, along with soaring melodies and the sweet vibrations of vibrato.

I will be a cellist again

I went.  Simply that.  I could have stayed away.

It was 1:50 pm in the cafeteria of Amal.  I sat with Muhammed, who was in my conversation group on Tuesday.  I wanted a relaxed few minutes before the session started but more than that I wanted to join him.  It would be good for us to struggle together in expressing Dutch thoughts.  It wasn’t much of a struggle for him, and that was okay.

So … I chose the tension of searching for vocabulary and grammar and yearning to understand Muhammed’s words.

And then we were ten, led by our facilitator Mirjam.  I asked my arms to stay long.  (See yesterday’s post)  And mostly they did.  Amid my mistakes of speaking and listening was a peace.  It decided to stay with me for most of the two hours.

Most of us were Ukrainian.  Mirjam kept bringing us back from our mother tongue to Dutch.  Sometimes when my neighbours spoke, I asked myself whether it was in Ukrainian or in a Dutch that was way beyond what I knew.

I was feeling light.  Amazing.  I tried making jokes in Dutch, something I love doing in English.  “Hmm … guess I’m making progress if I’m being silly in my new language.”

An older woman began to stare at me.  She smiled and said something I didn’t understand.  Our answers showed that we were both 75, and her birthday is January 3.  Mine is the 9th.  An older woman indeed.

Since it appeared that she was proposing marriage, I got up, went over, and gave her a hug.  Apparently the whole group is invited to the wedding.

Laughing filled the room.

***

I conclude that learning a new language doesn’t have to be dark and foreboding.  It can include lots of chuckling.

I’ll be back next Tuesday.

I sat yesterday morning in a tiny courtyard before the entrance of Monasterium PoortAckere.  It was quiet away from the street.

I like quiet.

I felt the outstretched hands of the woman, welcoming all who come by.  There was a grace beneath the trees, a stopping.  I lingered on the bench, allowing my life to wash over me.  It’s a good life.  I’m glad I showed up for it.

Occasionally an employee walked by.  One pushed a cart of linen.  Another hauled away a big bag of garbage.  They all wore black shirts.  On the back was written “Your Smile Is Our Passion”.  What a lovely phrase.

I wondered how many of the workers really felt that way.  I said “Goedemorgen” to each one.  Some gave me a real smile back.  Others barely responded.  From those I was simply a hotel guest, not a vibrant human being.  Oh well.

The shirts got me thinking.  I love doing or saying something silly that has others smile.  Laughing is cool too.  For years I’ve told myself that I’m on Earth for two reasons: to love people and make them laugh.  That’s enough.

***

As promised, at 2:00 pm today I will once more be in a Nederlands conversatie with other newbies to Belgium.

About a week ago, I wrote about having “long arms” … feeling loose and soft.  Including everyone.  I wonder.  Is it possible to have such length when I’m in the midst of “not knowing”, of Dutch being a wisp of smoke?

I’ll go for “Yes”

Amal is an organization for newcomers to Belgium.  They kindly paid for my two Dutch courses.  From now on, the money comes from my pocket.

I had been avoiding Amal’s Dutch Conversation sessions.  Finally I went to one towards the end of June.

And now it’s a month later.  My courage has been waning.  During my recent life, I’ve seen the wisdom of “going towards” what is difficult and important.  But I’ve been retreating from oral Dutch.  I have textbooks to study, material to listen to … but I need to speak!

So I returned yesterday.  Seven of us sat at a table in the blessed shade of a courtyard.  Sabine, a native Dutch speaker, was our facilitator.  Next to me were folks from Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine and Ghana, plus a fellow from I’m not sure where.

Essentially it was two hours of not knowing, of a knitted forehead, of long exhales.  I composed a few simple sentences but most of what people were saying blew by me.  Our table was composed of Level Two people, like me, but it felt like Level Five.

I tilted on the edge of despair.  At the break, my friend Hana told me that she’d felt the same at her first few conversation sessions … lost.  Then one day it just “clicked” and “I understood everything”.

Will that day ever come?

I had put myself in a situation where I felt naked for two hours, wobbly, out to lunch.  Okay, that took courage.  Now what?

The next conversation is tomorrow afternoon.  Do I walk through Amal’s front door or recede into the peace of a church?  “The choice is yours, young man.”

***

At 2:00 pm on Thursday, August 1

You’ll find me at an Amal table

With other “sort of” newbies

My mouth will quiver

But my head will stay high

Huis van Alijn is a modern museum just down the street from me.  If I want to see a Sony Walkman or a rotary dial phone, it’s the place to be.

I sat in front of the building yesterday, feeling the comfort of the shade tree above.  Time was slow.

As my eyes came into focus, there stood four paintings on the walls of Huis van Alijn.

Voilà …

It’s wondrous when Gent speaks to me:

Maak van elk moment een monument

Make every moment a monument

Was je huid met verse melk

Wash your skin with fresh milk

De slaap repareert alles

Sleep fixes everything

Hetsdoenerij is als roest

Pretentiousness is like rust

***

My job is to listen

I was sitting in a theatre last night watching a movie I didn’t understand.

Oh well … I’ll just watch the amazing graphics and the sweetness on some of the faces

At some point amid the two hours, another thought:

Your job is to love people

Say again?

You heard me

***

Now it’s the next morning and I find myself whispering …

My job is to love people

The word “job” feels too small.  How about “vocation”?

“A strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career; a calling”

Yes.  I am being called.

***

Now the real shocker to this porous human mind.  A new image of my future presents itself: an eccentric old man walking the streets of Gent and sitting in its cafés – talking to some, silently loving them all.

As compared to my usual vision of romance to be – strolling with my beloved, holding hands.

What?    No Elise?    Maybe    Maybe not

I woke up this morning with long arms.

After showering and having breakfast, I went to Izy Coffee for a cappuccino.  Lies was the barista.  She’s my friend.

I told her about my still long arms:

They’re dangling down.  It feels like my fingertips are brushing the floor.  It’s so loose, like my arms could fall off.

And things are blended at the edges – no border lines.  Your face is merging with the air.

Lies looked at me funny.  She knows that my heart is good.  But I imagined her saying What is this man talking about?

I’m pleased that I told Lies what was happening.  I trusted her not to reject me.  Later I asked if she thought I was crazy.  She said “Yes” … with a smile.

As I received my coffee, Lies said the Dutch equivalent of “Enjoy it.”  Apparently it was two words: “Geniet ervan.”  I didn’t know either.  So I sat down and grappled with Google Translate, focused on adding to my Dutch knowledge.

And just like that, my arms were short again.  Things had lines around them.

Easy come … easy go.  And I hoped easy come back again.

I’m still in Izy, writing this.  Writing takes a more gentle focus than Dutch.  And my fingers once more descend.

After I wrote yesterday about sitting before the statue of a saint, my friend Lyrinda replied:

Your saint looks like Saint Therese Lisieux to me.  Here is a bit on her name from The Little Flower Organization: “When she entered the Carmelite Monastery to give her life to God, Marie Francoise Therese Martin took the religious name “Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.”  Therese had a great devotion to the Infant Jesus, and her spirituality was a childlike simplicity and trust in God’s love.  In Lisieux, the Carmelite Monastery had a great devotion to the suffering Holy Face of Jesus.

…

Because Therese was constantly looking to see the hidden Holy Face of Jesus in everyone and everything, Therese took that second part of her religious name.

Thank you, Lyrinda.  May we all see the hidden Holy Face of Love in everyone and everything, whether the Spirit is shown through Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, you, me …

Therese was born in 1873 and died in 1897 from tuberculosis.  Twenty-four years on the planet.

I went back to the Carmelite Church this morning to see if Lyrinda was right.  She was.

And I found Therese’s words:

Love can supply for length of years. Jesus, because He is eternal, regards not the time but only love.

The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul.  One ray from His heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity.

I cast myself into Your arms, and like a little dewdrop, I sink deeper and deeper into Your chalice, O divine Flower of the field, and there I find all I have lost and much more besides.

Living of love is sailing without ceasing, while sowing peace and joy in all hearts.  I am like a beloved helmsman: love compels me, because I see You in all souls.  Love is the only star on which I aim, the light that spreads.  I sail without detours.  My motto is written on my sail: Life of Love.

***

Another fine name added

To my list of future coffee friends