PROLOGUE: Since
I’m ending up posting this on January 15, I would like to send a posthumous
birthday shout-out to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Drum Major for Justice.”
I’m currently making a second attempt to read through the entire Bible in a
year (three chapters a day, starting with Genesis/Psalms/Matthew), so here’s an
excerpt from Psalm 15 that made me think of Dr. King this morning:
“Lord, who shall
abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh
uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. … He
that doeth these things shall never be moved.” – verses 1-2, 5b
Reminded me of a song from the Civil Rights Movement - “We Shall Not Be Moved” - but I couldn't remember exactly how it went without confusing it with "We Shall Overcome." Learned more about the history of this folk song, which has been adopted over time by various groups, at this site: We Shall Not Be Moved - Folk Song History. Then I listened to one of the recordings of this song (with the original lyrics of "I Shall Not..." instead of "We") referenced on this site. You've gotta check out the super-deep voice on one of on these singers: The Harmonizing Four - I Shall Not Be Moved!
Seriously, though, I am beyond grateful that Dr. King and many others involved in the Movement were never swayed from their non-violent efforts to bring about equality and freedom for little Black girls like me. 84 years after his birth, many people around the world still celebrate his life and legacy, even over here in France, where one of the ministers at the American Church in Paris started his sermon on Sunday by paying tribute to his "brother" in the Baptist ministry.
---
*Written on Monday,
January 14 and Tuesday, January 15, 2013*
When I blinked
I saw the link
I dreamed all
night
That I couldn’t
fight
(Composed on
Thursday, January 10, 2013 by a group of « Seconde »
[10th grade] students)
Just when you had
given up hope, I hit you with something unexpected – a “rap” in
English that one of my classes composed last week. More on that in a
moment.
Actually, most of
you probably gave up hope in me a while ago. And for that, I
apologize. I have been taking the equivalent of “a long winter’s
nap,” to reference the Christmas tale that we all know and love.
Speaking of beloved childhood memories, here’s a random shout-out
for Lauren and Adam (I hope they read
this, or at least their mom or someone else from Zion can pass this
along!): I’m listening to “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s
Child and flashing back to the after-school choreography sessions we
had with Mallory at my house when we carpooled
together. This song will always make me think of us three girls
sassily marching around poor Adam in a circle while lip singing
“You’re trifling / Good for nothing type of brother / Oh silly me
/ Why haven’t I found another?” No wonder Michael
opted to go to football practice or something instead of hanging
out with us… ;)
Anyway, as I said, I
realize that it’s been a while since I’ve written to you. I meant
to take a break in order to enjoy my family’s Christmas visit and
then to focus on grad school application submissions, but I certainly
did not intend to take a month off or whatever. [BTW, in case this
isn’t clear, the reason I waited until the end of the first
trimester of school to write the bulk of my essays for grad school
apps was so that I could actually have concrete teaching experience
to share; it wasn’t entirely due to procrastination. So give me a
little credit, because I had some vivid examples in my essays, lemme
tell ya ;)] Honestly, after my family – at least three wonderful
representatives of my family – left, I had trouble getting back
into gear. Homesickness? Perhaps. But it was also just a sense of
going from 60 miles – or kilometers – per hour during the first
week of vacation to 0 during the second. I had them running (or
riding the train, rather) all over the city during their time here to
complete various items on my agenda plus any special requests that
they had, and then after they left I literally had no outside
responsibilities until my personal teaching responsibilities
resumed on the 9th. (It turned out to be the 10th,
actually, because the teacher with whom I work on the 9th
was in England on a class trip with her students that week.) The good
part was that this gave me plenty of time to work on Northwestern’s
application, which was the most writing-intensive of them all with
four separate essay questions and a few other short answers here and
there. The bad part was that after I wrote about myself for a while
each day, I didn’t feel like doing much more of that, even if it
was to update you on my experiences.
I did, however, manage to write the following short text as the
opening to my first blog post of the new year, complete with a
resolution to update my blog on the 7th, 14th,
21st, and 28th of each month. Clearly that
didn’t work out since I didn’t have enough prepared to merit a
post on the 7th. I thought maybe I would change this
schedule to multiples of 8, 9, or 10, but after turning my attention
to other matters, such as preparing for the upcoming school week –
or 2/5 week in my case – and, more significantly, working on my
application to the Stanford Teacher Education Program [M.A. in
Education + secondary teacher certification in French], which I
submitted earlier today (1/14), I looked up and it was already the
14th. So maybe this definite schedule thing isn’t really
for me.... Here’s what I wrote a while ago though, just so it
doesn’t go to waste:
*Written on Saturday, January 5 and Sunday, January 6, 2013*
“Time keeps on
slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ / Into the future / (So I wanna)
Fly like an eagle / To the sea.” Since my family brought me my very
old CD collection from “my” car (which has been “repossessed”
– literally – by my father) Seal is crooning these words in my
ears right now as the Space Jam soundtrack begins. I am
reminded of the fact that I “only” have 18 weeks remaining here
in France – my return flight is planned for May 12, both so I can
be at home for a few hours of Mother’s
Day and so I can give my ATL family/friends a few days to get used to
my being home before my sister graduates from high school the
following Saturday so that I don’t steal her thunder on that
once-in-a-lifetime occasion – so I need to “…[make] the most of
every opportunity” that comes my way – both from a spiritual
perspective, as suggested in the passage from which this quotation
(Ephesians 5:16) is taken slightly out of context, and a general one.
Having my family here with me during the week of Christmas certainly
helped me snap back into the reality that I live in Paris
rather than just gliding through my normal routine in the
neighborhood that I’ve come to call “home.” More on that in a
moment.
I hope that each of
you has had a wonderful start to 2013. My first words of the New Year
were sung in French as I waited in a long line to walk through the
“Door of Faith” at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre
(one of the most famous churches in Paris) in a crowd of about 2000
people after having attended a service centered on the theme of world
peace: « Jubilez ! Criez de joie! Pour Dieu,
notre Dieu. » (“Rejoice! Shout for joy! For God, our God.”
P.S. I just struggled to find the right translation for the first
word. I didn’t think “jubilate” was a word in English, but I
couldn’t come up with “rejoice” for a good 10 seconds.)
Needless to say, it was a memorable experience. And after that, I
holed myself up in my room (with the exception of a writing session
in a nearby park on relatively warm day) for a few days while working
on several long and short essays (subject to the word/character
limits that my sister and I have grown to despise throughout our
concurrent college admissions processes) about various aspects of my
life experience up to this point as well as what I would like to do
in the future, all in an effort to gain admission to the Summer 2013
cohort of the Master of Science in Education program at Northwestern
University so that I can get the needed certification to teach French
in U.S. public schools and earn a master’s degree while I’m at
it.
I am pleased to
report that that application has been successfully submitted in
advance of the priority deadline for merit scholarships/graduate
assistantships, and I’ve even taken a break from self-reflective
writing, which is why this blog entry has been put off until now. But
besides the resolution that I posted on Facebook – “Be present in
the present because the present is a present (gift) from God” – I
would like to propose a more regular system of blog posts in order to
hold myself more accountable and to prevent any frustration on your
part. So my resolution is to do my best to post on the “7’s” of
each month: 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th from now until the end of my
experience, Lord willing. I won’t guarantee a certain length each
time, but at least you can expect to read something about my life or
my point of view on those dates for the next 18 weeks. So there.
Enough of this small talk. Time to get cracking.
I pray that the Lord
will bless each of you richly this year, and I don’t necessarily
mean that in a financial sense. I hope that you will discover
“newness” in a way that is meaningful for the stage of life in
which you currently find yourself. “Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
(II Corinthians 5:17)
Peace and love,
M. Ashley Lyles
(Just kidding. I had a Religious Studies teacher at the Talent
Identification Program at Duke University during the summer between
8th and 9th grades who called himself A. Michael Ullrey because he
thought the last letter of his first name – Aaron – sounded funny
blending with the beginning of his last name. I was like, Whoa, I
have the same phonetic problem! So I “almost” changed my name
like another rebellious member of our family at this age, eh J.R.?)
• Musée
Jacquemart-André: November 17 [musée = museum]
Promised to talk
about this the last time I wrote to you. An example of a « hôtelparticulier » =
from my understanding, a term for a very old mansion that was once a
single-family home but has often been converted into something else in the
modern era, like a museum or an actual hotel. Probably wouldn’t have heard of
this museum, which was only about a 15-minute bus ride from where I live, if
the French club (EAAEE) to which I belong hadn’t planned an outing there on
this particular Saturday. (BTW, I can already tell that the Équiped’Accueil et
d’Amitié pour les ÉtudiantsÉtrangers is definitely getting an MVP – “Most
Valuable Player” – award from me for enriching this trip. Trip? I guess you
can’t really call 8 months a “trip.” How about experience?)
So anyway, I
hinted in my last post that this museum represents “what you think of when you
think of Paris.” By that I meant the fancy-schmancy lifestyle of the
upper-uppercrust of society. Maybe this describes the images that are conjured
in your mind at any mention of this capital city of France, but maybe not.
Forgive me for making any such assumptions. The inference that I can now stand
by with some certainty after visiting this museum, though, is that kids must be
really expensive, because the couple (Jacquemart + André) that filled this
magnificent home with ridiculously expensive – priceless, often – artwork and
furniture did so “because” they did not have any children according to the
explanations given on the audioguide and in the literature. Mom
and Dad: I’m sorry that the three of us prevented you from
creating a shrine of glory that thousands of visitors could visit one hundred
years from now. Hopefully we’ve added a little something extra to your lives
that’s made all that money that you’ve spent / are spending /will spend
worthwhile :)
Oh, and sorry that I don’t have pictures of the interior; no photos
allowed. One of the highlight rooms, especially in the opinion of my “guide,”
was the winter garden area, which looked like a greenhouse with really high
ceilings, but in addition to tall plants, there was also a grand, winding
staircase. I put “guide” in quotation marks because I was actually the only
member of the club who signed up for this field trip, so the administrators
decided against asking a formal guide to lead, well, me around and just let it
be an inside job. Therefore, I was accompanied by an audioguide and a French
woman who helps run the EAAEE, but was no expert on the museum. Still, she had
a lot of general knowledge on French history that helped me appreciate what I
was seeing much more that I would have with just the audioguide. The other
folks missed out! And I thought I was going to miss out too, because this poor
woman dropped her cell phone on the subway tracks on her way to the museum and
they had to stop traffic for someone to climb down and retrieve it for her.
Thankfully, she had a random bystander give me a ring to let me know she was
running late. I’ve learned that French people are not known for their
timeliness, but if there were ever a reason to cut them some slack, this was it
;)
---
*Back to 1/14
and 1/15*
It started
with a look
It seemed
like I was reading a book
But it wasn’t
a happy ending
It was just
the beginning
So I will eat
chocolate cake
And go out
with Justin Timberlake
(Composed on
Thursday, January 10, 2013 by an advanced group of « Seconde » [10th
grade] students)
There’s another
student rap for you, but I think it could use a little work rhythm-wise. I had
this group of “10th graders” cracking up when they finished this
group writing exercise on Thursday (1/10), and then I started counting us off
to rap as a class, first nice and calm (one…two) then in my best rock band
leader impression (AN’ A ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!). I pointed at them and, of
course, got laughter instead of rapping as a response. I acted like I was
surprised/upset at first, asking, “What, what’s wrong? You were supposed to be
my band!” but then my classic smirk slowly spread across my face, and they knew
I was just kidding. But I’ve literally just skipped from a museum trip on
November 18 to a class session on January 10, which is slightly problematic.
I’m gonna try to account for some of that lost time with photos + captions
covering some key moments:
Some parts
looked “old”…
|
…others looked
“new.”
|
Other sections
of town paid tribute to particular regional architecture, such as the German
vibe of the Rue d’Alsace(Alsace Road).
|
Main town
square. I think Rue Carnot branches off from here, which is one of the main
drags. Oh, and what’s that you spot in the background on the left?
|
Our first
glimpse of the Cathedral of Beauvais.
|
Oh, and just in
case you don’t believe I was actually in this city, here’s a map to prove it!
|
The National
Gallery of Tapestries.(Definitely had trouble spelling “gallery” in English for
a minute there.) We visited this museum later on.
|
Closer-up shot
of the Cathedral. See the two different colors? That stone gets dirty after a
few centuries!
|
One of the main
doors…
|
Looking down the
center aisle of the church.
|
A side
altar/area of prayer within St. Stephen’s. Should give you a general idea of
many churches I’ve seen in France/Europe in general.
|
One of the
better shots of a stained-glass window that I have.Hard to get them because of
the light pouring through them, usually.
|
Apparently the
blue color of this stained-glass window inside of St. Stephen’s Church was
remarkable for its hue, which is not often seen in such windows.
|
The modern-day
city hall facility.
|
The
Departmental/Regional Museum adjacent to the cathedral. We visited it later in
the day.
|
Two, …
|
And three.
|
Apparently the
playwright Jean Racine went to middle school (« collège ») in
Beauvais, so they have a statue to him and a street named after him there.
|
Here’s a shot of
the outside of the restaurant, which was hoppin’ for a Sunday afternoon!
|
There are 3
cities represented on this tapestry: here’s Paris.
|
Here’s Beauvais.
See the Cathedral? (Sorry it’s dark, but the museum was a rather gloomy place
to begin with.)
|
There was a temporary
ceramics exhibit going on. I won’t lie: I was looking for the pretty colors,
like the purple one in the back. (Mallory, are you happy?)
|
But the
teeny-tiny pieces (referred to as « les minuscules »; by
AugusteDelaherche, I believe) were the most impressive of all.
|
Speaking of
time, I paused towards the end of that photo selection/captioning session because it was
midnight, and, although this may not be scientifically correct based on the
time difference, I wanted to recognize the halfway mark for my time here: I’ve
been here for 16 weeks and 5 days, and I’ve got that much longer to stay, Lord
willing, not counting the days I left/arrived or the day I leave. Why did I
figure this out, you may ask? I’m always dividing periods of time up into
bite-sized chunks, so this is not unusual. For example, back when I was a
student (sniff, tear) I used to think of 18-week semesters as a 400-meter race.
Granted, my “typical” race when I ran track in 7th, 8th,
and 10th grades was the 200m (in addition to the 4x100 and 4x400
relays and the triple jump), but we all had to do a little bit of everything.
There were 6 sections of 3 weeks each: Warm-up – getting set in your blocks,
waiting for that gun to fire with every fiber of your being; Leg 1 – first
curve, seeing where you fall in the group; Leg 2 – back straightaway, striding
it out instead of full-out sprinting as my coach would say; Leg 3 – the back
curve, where you felt like you had a bear on you back, to use my coach’s
language again; Leg 4 – the final straightway, a full-out sprint, giving it all
you’ve got; Crossing the finish line – in slow motion, I guess, if it’s supposed
to take 3 weeks :)
So, as you can
see, I’ve been looking at calendars and dividing them up into “meaningful”
sections for a while. I didn’t realize that tonight was the halfway point for
this experience until a few days ago, though, when I was thinking about the
fact that I’d written in my original attempt to blog last week about having 18
weeks left and wondered how many weeks in all I would spend here. Just as the
clock struck 12 a few minutes ago, Marvin Sapp’s “My Testimony” from Aunt
Tammy’s gospel mix CD came on, and I think the words are appropriate at
a time of looking backwards and forwards, Lord willing:
“So glad I made
it / I made it through / In spite of the storm and rain / Heartache and pain /
I’m still alive, declaring / I made it through / … / In spite of calamity /
He’s got a plan for me / And it’s working for my good.” [Here's a link to a live performance of this song if you need some audio/visual assistance: Marvin Sapp - My Testimony.]
At the same time, I read the next devotion in sequence from Sarah Young’s Jesus Lives: Seeing His Love in Your Life, which was on the topic of “Transformation.” Here’s an excerpt from the beginning and the end (I think I’ve told you before that she writes as if from the perspective of God):
At the same time, I read the next devotion in sequence from Sarah Young’s Jesus Lives: Seeing His Love in Your Life, which was on the topic of “Transformation.” Here’s an excerpt from the beginning and the end (I think I’ve told you before that she writes as if from the perspective of God):
“As the Holy
Spirit controls your mind and actions more fully, you become free in Me. You
are increasingly released to become the one I created you to be. Freedom
through surrender sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Yet when My Spirit
is controlling your thinking and behavior, you feel more alive, more real, more
content! I encourage you to pray, ‘Holy Spirit, think through me, live through
me, love through me.’ This is a prayer of surrender. … I am pleased when you
ask My Spirit to live and love through you. This is the collaborative way of
living I had in mind when I created mankind. The more you collaborate with Him,
the freer you become: free to live exuberantly, to love extravagantly, to know
Me in ever-increasing intimacy! (112-113)”
I’ve known for
quite some time that this time I’m spending in France has been transforming me
in many ways, and that, if I am blessed to continue living for
many years to come, I will most likely look back on this as a turning point
when I kind of got my life together. No, I’m not perfect, and no, my life
wasn’t a complete mess to begin with, from many an outsider’s
perspective (talking to you, card-carrying members of the Morgann Lyles Fan
Club), but trust me – I needed this. From a spiritual perspective, from a
personal growth perspective, and from a professional perspective. So, since
I’ve been at this for a few hours now and told some folks that I’d have a post
up on Monday (which is looking more like Tuesday b/c with all of these photos/captions,
a 2-hour posting session would really throw off my sleep schedule), I’m just
going to wrap it up here, even though I still haven’t moved beyond that ONE
weekend of November 17-18, other than to make brief mention of my family’s
visit (which has already been thoroughly documented by Mallory's album on Facebook if you're friends with one of us there) and to give you some samples of my work in the classroom last week. What
can I say? I had a TON of photos from Beauvais; I’m honestly only showing you
maybe 1/3 of them here, and it seemed like they needed explanations.
I’ll end with
the final “rap” composition from one of my classes last week. This one starts
out with some non-original lyrics (Rihanna fans may recognize them), but then
this group surprised me by exceeding the requirements of the assignment (4-6
lines as a class) in the final minutes of period. Having written a rap in
French when I was about their age (oh so long ago), I know how challenging it
can be to attempt such a task at all, let alone to treat such a sensitive topic
as they selected here. This one is also special to me because of the gesture of
one of the students at the back of the class who was misbehaving during the
earlier activity (filling in the blanks to the lyrics of an old-school,
slow-paced rap song – Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us” – that I played on my
laptop). This kid was apparently using his cell phone under the desk while I
had my back turned writing the correct words to go in the blanks. Most of the
students in the group of 14 were actively engaged, so I was cruising. But then
the door opened, and one of the faculty members who I’d met once before said
something in French along the lines of: “(To me) Excuse me…(To him)
Young man, give me that cell phone! You know the rules: no phones in class. You
will give me that phone right now!” I was like, How did you see that he was
using a phone? Were you creeping on my class that hard through the window? The
kid didn’t give up his phone, I guess because the guy wasn’t his actual
teacher. I just kind of said “Thanks…” and, and the guy left. I’m not supposed
to break my cover of being able to comprehend French, remember? But I did ask
the student to put his phone away before continuing with the lesson.
Anyway, after
class ended, it was this kid who came up to me and asked if we could do
more activities involving writing rap lyrics in English in the future because
he had really enjoyed it. He was also one of the three who actually volunteered
to “spit” the rhymes after we were finished writing them, so I told him he had
done a good job. And I actually did end up speaking French because he spoke
French first and when I responded in English he was lost. Plus we were both in
a hurry to get to our next classes. I told him I was going to try to organize
some sort of English-language hip-hop workshop, which will hopefully be my
additional project that will set me apart as a Fulbright scholar rather than a
standard English teaching assistant from the States. So that was a memorable
moment: I didn’t know if I wanted to yell at him for not paying attention for
the first 40 minutes or hug him for being sweet enough to ask to repeat the
activity after it was all over. Honestly, I think my biggest problem as a
teacher will be playing favorites – and they won’t be your typical “teacher’s
pets” either; they’ll basically be the “unfavorites” of all the other teachers.
So here it is.
One last partially-original rap from a group of rowdy kids who are very dear to
me:
Find light in
a beautiful sea
I choose to
be happy
My dad is
dead
And it stays
in my head
It’s hard to
find
A quiet place
in my mind
Let’s not
kill the karma
It’s not
worth the drama
(Composed on
Friday, January 11, 2013 by a group of « Première STMG » [11th
grade, vocational education] students)
Until next time,
Lord willing, I’ll keep moving forward through faith in Him. I pray that you
will do the same.
“Forget the
former thing; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs
up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the
wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:18-19, NIV