DREAMING IN PROVENCE
The dream of buying a farmhouse in northern Provence takes us on a light-hearted rollercoaster of neighbor conflict, dentist visits, deportation by border police, wine harvests, tennis exploits, a Renoir-style wedding, colliding particles, and Kafka-esque visa controls. Only glimpsed at the time, it was like my collisions with a unfamiliar culture were gently tutoring me on a different kind of foreign land, that described by Jesus as 'kingdom'. Slowly, I found myself dreaming about heaven on earth:
talking less, listening, and loitering more
appreciating 'different' etiquette
rolling with the rhythms of rural life
dealing with 'false friends' and enjoying new ones
seeing the virtue of not always winning
discovering what really matters, and what really doesn't...
.... I might have learned these lessons anywhere. It could have been in Finchley or Philadelphia, but it turned out to be among the lavender fields of France.