I've written numerous times already about the little moments when God has spoken or shown up over my sabbatical. Well, yesterday was another example of the many ways that God shows up in the small coincidences of life. I want to tell you about it not only because it's a neat moment for me, but because it ties so neatly into so many of the threads that have run through my sabbatical.
The moment itself was simple: I was perusing the tightly packed shelves of a little used bookstore in the Latin Quarter, called the Abbey Bookshop, and I came across a book by renowned Catholic devotional writer Henri Nouwen that I'd never heard of before, titled Sabbatical Journey. I, like so many over the years, have found great comfort and profound spiritual insight through Nouwen's writing, and to discover that he'd written in some way about sabbaticals, and then discover that book while on a sabbatical of my own, was really special. It turns out that the book is in fact a published edition of his journal from the final year of his life, when he was on sabbatical from the L'Arche Daybreak community where he spent the final years of his life.
On its own, this is already one of those neat God moments that crop up so often when we start to look for them: something so small that it could be shrugged off as a happy coincidence if it didn't happen so often. But I was only in the Abbey Bookshop yesterday on the suggestion of an American missionary in France who I had gotten lunch with earlier in the day. Travis, the missionary I met with, and his family have been in France for about three years now, learning the culture and working to make connections with locals. They live right in the heart of the city, and we chatted for a while about the difficulties of doing ministry in a transient location where people don't usually stay long-term.
Travis and his family are considering joining a different ministry team in Niger, and feel that their time in France may have been preparing them for that move, as Niger is largely French- speaking. I got to share my own experience of wrestling with where God wanted me, and the ways I've heard God's voice on my sabbatical, and hopefully provide some encouragement during their season of wrestling with where to go next. After lunch, we walked around the city for a while, and Travis showed me his incredible morning run route, which takes him through the Tuilleries Garden, past the Louvre, and around numerous other major Parisian landmarks. It was while we were walking this route that he told me about the Abbey Bookshop and said it was his favorite in the city.
Possibly the best part of my entire trip has been the connections and reconnections with people doing ministry in so many amazing ways across Europe. I've already listed so many of them out in previous articles, and it was great to add Travis and his family to the list. And this was now a second order connection, as I only got connected with Travis in the first place through Josh, my friend in Auzon, who connected us while I was back in the south of France last week. And of course, I was only in Auzon at all because Josh and his wife Jenna knew my friend Ty, who connected us before I went to Europe.
So here, in the simple discovery of a used book, was really a summation of so many threads on my sabbatical journey: the importance and power of Christian community; the dazzling diversity of ministry that honors God around the world; God showing up in big and small ways, even as small as providing the perfect book at the perfect moment, to remind me of God's goodness and mystery.
God’s goodness and mystery indeed!