Then after you've come home you'll dream of where you were. It's kind of a jet lag of
the consciousness." - Barbara Kingsolver, American writer
Le début de l’aventure!
I’m sitting in the Charlotte airport, just reunited with my sister who (blessedly!) will be my travel companion the next two weeks. She's also shared her photos for this blog. Thanks, #5.
This will be my third visit to Chartres, and I think back now to the first time I “encounter” the town and its cathedral. As a college student and language major, I was fulfilling a life-long dream of studying in France, spending a semester at the Sorbonne in Paris. It was an experience both thrilling and daunting, and I cherished every challenging moment. But I remember one week-end feeling the need to clear my head, escape the urban pulse that throbs through any major city, and find refuge in a smaller, calmer milieu. So I took the train and headed west, through rolling wheat fields as monumental Parisian splendor gave way to pastoral tranquility. And then I saw them: the mismatched spires of Chartres rising on the horizon like a beacon on a distant shore. My eye followed those spires as I hiked from the station to the ancient square spread before the great building. I was merely the latest in a millennia of pilgrims making their way to this spot, all of us feeling the heavenly – some would say “mystical” -- appeal that permeates the mammoth structure.
Fast forward a couple decades. I’m in France again, this time with my parents and younger sister. We’re doing the requisite Paris sights – the Louvre, Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, the Champs-Elysées, along with sampling the decadent “chocolat africain” at Angélina’s. Wonderful experiences all, but we’re weary of the crowds and bustle of the city. So I lead my family to Chartres where we explore the medieval square that still anchors the town, stroll reverently beneath the soaring vaults and “read” the stone and glass Bible that is Chartres. The perfect day is capped off with a steaming bowl of soupe à l’oignon in the ancient Café Serpente on the cathedral square. I’m older this visit, but somehow the cathedral is not. It stands as timeless as ever, a grande old dame, ageless as the God whose story it tells.
My first pilgrimage took place in the dreams and adventures of youth. My second, a blessed gift from my parents who (I believe) caught a glimpse of what made their eldest daughter such an unrepentant Francophile. Now the third pilgrimage another ten years hence. This time, I’ve come to dig deeper into her mystery, unlock a few secrets in her masonry and stained glass, again walk the labyrinth, and perhaps get a very elementary understanding of the faithful artisans who built her – this undisputed masterpiece of Gothic. I’m participating in a two day study session called Journées d’Etude Culturelle (Cultural Study Days) sponsored by the Centre International du Vitrail (International Stained Glass Center), located in the shadow of the cathedral. I’m a student again – this time, working on an MA in History and Culture with the French Gothic Age as the centerpiece of my study -- and I feel that same combination of excitement and apprehension I felt all those years ago when I approached my term at the Sorbonne.
Join me as I go visit this Gothic treasure and others of the French Moyen Age, as we delve deeper into the special essence and transcendent quality that continue to draw the faithful and the merely curious from across the globe and across time.
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