Traveling in France
Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 12:38 am
Three or four years ago a friend of mine of, an expatriated German now a proud US citizen, was traveling in France with his wife. They were staying in a small village and the people asked, “Oh are you here for the religious festival tomorrow?”
My friend, knowing that the French people are not very religious in the best of times thought this was strange, but they figured they might as well attend since they were there. As it turns out the Muslims were scheduled to have a day of prayer the following day in the same streets there the ‘religious festival’ was being held.
Knowing the French people pretty well my friend was puzzled by the wine tasting. The wine was bad cheap wine, basically grocery store box wine. The French villagers are swirling the wine around in their glasses, swishing it around in their mouth, then spitting it on the ground and dumping the remainder of the glass in the streets. No one was drinking the cheap wine, but they were moving from booth to booth and repeating the process. In between they were stopping to eat fat pork sausages. The sausages were so fatty my friend said the pork fat was running down the gutters of the village. In the middle of the festival the local Catholic priest came parading through the village with a small bucket of Holy Water and he was blessing the ground, the people, the wine and sausages, really splashing Holy Water all over the village.
The Muslims cancelled their day of prayer scheduled for the next day.
The French villagers had learned the three things the Muslims detest most, pork, alcohol and anything to do with Christianity!
My respect for the French went up about three levels!
We could learn from them!
My friend, knowing that the French people are not very religious in the best of times thought this was strange, but they figured they might as well attend since they were there. As it turns out the Muslims were scheduled to have a day of prayer the following day in the same streets there the ‘religious festival’ was being held.
Knowing the French people pretty well my friend was puzzled by the wine tasting. The wine was bad cheap wine, basically grocery store box wine. The French villagers are swirling the wine around in their glasses, swishing it around in their mouth, then spitting it on the ground and dumping the remainder of the glass in the streets. No one was drinking the cheap wine, but they were moving from booth to booth and repeating the process. In between they were stopping to eat fat pork sausages. The sausages were so fatty my friend said the pork fat was running down the gutters of the village. In the middle of the festival the local Catholic priest came parading through the village with a small bucket of Holy Water and he was blessing the ground, the people, the wine and sausages, really splashing Holy Water all over the village.
The Muslims cancelled their day of prayer scheduled for the next day.
The French villagers had learned the three things the Muslims detest most, pork, alcohol and anything to do with Christianity!
My respect for the French went up about three levels!
We could learn from them!
I love a story with a happy ending!! 