October 11

I had two rather spiritual experiences today. First of all, I went to a taizé worship over my lunch hour. Taizé is a style of worship that consists of "sung-prayers." These prayers are only a line or two long, and they are sung and repeated several times, a capella. I read about the, and it made me think of Midweek Chapel, a similar thing that Collegiate UMC, my church in Ames, does on Wednesdays over lunch in the Memorial Union chapel. I used to go to Midweek chapel regularly when I was in Ames. I was late getting to this worship though, because I was eating lunch and one of the guys I went hiking with sat down with me, so we were chatting. Also, the worship was happening on the UNIL campus so I had to walk over there. I got there about 20 minutes late. I was actually considering not going in, I just planned to find it so that I know where it happened for next week, but the singing was very beautiful, so I decided to go in. I was only there for about 10 minutes before it was over. It was really nice though, I meditated a bit. It was very calming, centering, and mystic.
Experience Number 2: I was meeting with the group of people that I meet with every Thursday night. It is a group of international students and it is loosely affiliated with a student Christian group. We were meeting outside St. Francois, a church/bus stop in downtown. I was about 15 minutes early, and it was a bit chilly out, so I decided to go in. This was not my first time inside, I've actually been in several times. I even attended worship there once. There's going to be a organ concert Friday night at St. Francois, so the organist was practicing (at leas this is what I assumed was taking place). It was really wonderful. The music was really amazing. Some was kind of somber but some was also kind of upbeat and light. There's an organ concert every, or every other Friday night. Tomorrow night's organist will be the "in house" organist for St. Francois. Since this is a very old, historic, landmark church, they have hired a very talented professional organist. It is definitely an experience I will always remember. I actually considered just staying there, and not meeting the others, but I changed my mind. I went outside to meet with the others, and tow of them had shown up. I told them about the music and they came in and we stayed a bit longer, until one more person joined us, then we went walking around Ouchy, down by the lake.

Ok, so this last story was not spiritual, but it was really funny. We left St. Francois and walked to Palais de Justice, which I believe is the courthouse. There was a lawn there and a small park with some trees and benches. There was also a very nice view of the lake, since we were still uphill from it. There was a few people there with there dogs. One couple had a dog that looked like a doberman, or about that size anyway. It was dark, so I couldn't tell for sure. The dog was running around the lawn and they were playing fetch with it. Instead of using a stick though, they were using a green laser pointer. Hilarious! They would just shine it around the lawn and the dog would chase it. I've done this with cats before, but they generally figure out that they are never going to catch the light, and they tire of it pretty quickly. This game, on the other hand, went on for at least 20 minutes, maybe longer. It was the laziest game of fetch, on the owner's part, that I have ever seen. The dog liked it though. I actually don't think he was really that interested in catching the light. He was just enjoying running around.