an outing

Today I was here:

The Swiss parliament building in Bern, viewed from a nearby park. It was so beautiful and sunny today!

 and also here:

Dreifaltigkeitskirche, Bern - isn't this stunning?

...but mostly in a meeting room near the church with 30 or so people I mostly don't know, attending the general meeting of the GCL/CVX, or in English CLC, "Christian Life Community." (Isn't it annoying when your acronym doesn't work across languages? see: SBB CFF FFS). The CLC is a mostly-Catholic organization of small groups who meet regularly to practice Ignatian spirituality. I have to admit I'm still fuzzy on what exactly that means (ask me in a year or so?), but I've been attending meetings of a group in Zürich and I was curious to see what the members in the rest of Switzerland looked like. (Answer: largely, around 60 and female.)

The meeting was...a meeting. In two languages. With far better singing than at most meetings, and a Mass afterwards. It struck me that even though the prayers we say at church are theoretically the same in every language, the language definitely gives them a particular character. God seems so beautiful and transcendent in French!

I met a lovely and fascinating American woman who has lived in the French part of Switzerland for 20 years. She teaches English, does missionary work with her husband, and makes beautiful furniture with stained-glass inlays. Someday I'd love to do a writing project on the life stories of the well-integrated American-Swiss...maybe ask me about that in a year or so too...