Nuit Blanche in Paris

Every year, over 500,000 people gather in Paris for an all night party. Its called Nuit Blanche, an outdoor festival of sorts with all kinds of art installations, street acts, performances, etc....and it just so happened that I was in town when it took place this year. The atmosphere is electric with men, women and children lining the streets (eating, drinking, dancing). The many highlights include a hula dance performance (in france), gregorian chant at st. pauls, crazy jugglers, an airplane exhibit and an art installation called Station to Station.

I visited Station to Station around 2am in the morning, and probably stayed until 4am. It was located in a Catholic Church, close to the hostel where I was staying. It was an installation of four or five plasma TVs showing a variety of colors and blocks moving across the screen with various sounds echoing in the background. Funny that you could spend two hours watching colored blocks move across the screen, but it was memorizing.

I was sitting in a chair toward the back, close to an area where candles were being lit and prayers were being said for one of the saints. The church was beautiful and the candlelight gave the installation an interesting, illuminating dimension. I began to think of the irony (or planning) of this art piece in a Catholic Church. Station to Station, with the Catholic emphasis on the 14 stations of the cross, the final hours of Jesus, the passion. What a fitting piece for a fitting place.

I also began to realize the irony of my presence at this Station...a fitting title for a traveler like myself, moving from bus station to train station to airport to taxi to station. I began to ask myself, at what station was I? What station along the way to the cross most closely resembled where I was? I know that I have been crucified with Christ, but was I "falling", "meeting people", "being stripped". How was I dying, so that I might live?

These are questions that come up when you travel...they are questions that come up when you dont, but something about traveling, about being a pilgrim, about being in a church in a foreign land that reminds you of God's grandeur and plan in life...how He travelled from Station to Station for us. What a gift that God traveled so that we might be at home in Him.