Paris, Chapter 4: Tossed, But Not Sunk

II.

*Read Part Three first...

I reached my destination after a long walk.

Bataclan is on the Rue de Voltaire — Voltaire, who said, “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend what you have to say unto the death.” The antithesis of everything about Isis, everything about terrorism.

The Latin graffiti may have cleared my mind, but the sight of such a recent terrorist attack cleared my heart.

Tossed, but not sunk.

Bataclan is an imposing, strange building, a work of Chinese architecture every bit an outlier on this Parisian street. Perfect for a rock venue that began decades ago and continued to provide rockers and fans a unique venue. 

Up until last November, 9:40pm, when three heavily armed men exited a black Volkswagen and entered the back of the venue. The full account of that night appears here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34827497

Signs of the terror attack abound. Bataclan still feels more like a crime scene than a memorial. Tape on the windows covers most - but not all - the bullet holes. Only a few metal rail dividers, a distance of ten feet, stands between me and those bullet holes. And on the pavement, shiny with fragments of broken glass, someone has scrawled an epitaph with colored chalk. It’s faded. I can’t quite make out what it says.

The metal railing isn’t completely bare. Flowers and tributes line the railing, but across the street are many more. Like the bullet holes and the glass, the memorials are fresh: flowers a few days old; candles still lit from mourners who dropped by this morning, some who are there as I observe. It makes me reluctant, like I’m too close to the scene of the crime. I’m just a tourist. No, no I’m not. I’m an American. I’m here to grieve alongside the French just like many of the grieved with us during our dark hours.

Nevertheless, I cross the street to the larger memorial. There I see poems in plastic sleeves. A cross painted like the French flag. And what catches my eye - a cartoon of a woman weeping. Her head takes on the shape of France itself; her teardrop is a French flag. Fluctuat mec mergitur. A country bent but not broken, tossed but not sunk.
 


There was really nothing I could have laid at the site. Nothing seemed appropriate at the time. Nothing seems appropriate now, except for these words:

France stood by us in our toughest times. And we must stand by her. Our red, white, and blue flags are cut from the same cloth. Us: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Them: liberty, equality, brotherhood. The clouds of terrorism darkened this club just like they darkened our skies. God forbid but it will happen again. And we’ll have to stand by each other in love and respect. We have a duty to do so. To visit memorials, to offer signs of peace, either in word or deed, not simply in thought.

In all of this, apart from standing at the Bataclan, weeping, and typing up the notes that became this post, I have questions but not answers. I have observations, descriptions, but not judgments. I don’t know the wisest approaches to immigration, the right way to handle religious extremism. What I do know is this: Bataclan is the reminder of my responsibilities as a Christian. I’m supposed to love my neighbor as myself. I’m supposed to take care of widows and orphans.

Later that night James and I run into the director of security at the Generator Hostel. He’s at a bar across the street from the hostel. Muscular guy with a blonde crewcut, Daniel Craig jaw line, the owner of a Harley-Davidson in scooter-driving Paris. We talk all kinds of sports and all sorts of travel. I consider his position at Generator: a thousand people, mostly in their twenties, sleep safely under his watch nightly. He does not take this duty lightly. After talking about sports and travel for a while, I bring up my visit to Bataclan and terrorism in general. He nods, takes a sip of a beer, and responds, “One time I ran my Harley ran out of gas outside of town. Lots of people pass by. Finally one man stopped. He had a gas tank full of gas in his hand. That man was a Muslim, but first he was a man. So I don’t think it’s a problem of religion. It’s a problem with people, with men.”

I understand his point. Terrorism is a problem with the human heart, not religion.

I agree with him to some extent. It looks like a Muslim problem to some, but that’s short-sighted, not the full picture. We are facing a specific brand of Muslim terrorism right now, but it’s not the only brand of terrorism the world has ever seen. For love or fear of God, in the name of dozens of religions, men have done terrible things throughout history. They do them now in many names, not just Islam. That’s the point, isn’t it? Man is a terrorist. Man perpetrates terror. It doesn’t take a certain god to bring forth the evil in his heart. Of course, we’d rather not think our kind of people could do such things, our sort of humans aren’t capable of atrocities like this. And why not? Because we’ve improved. We’ve evolved. We’re not who we used to be.

But I can stick my fingers in the bullet holes in windows of the Bataclan, just like Thomas could stick his hand into Jesus’ side. I can travel to Oklahoma City and visit a memorial to a bombing that sent shockwaves all the way to Waco in 1998. Waco, where I arrived the year after the Branch Davidian massacre.

I think about Jesus’ invitation to Thomas. Put your hand in my side. I was tossed but not sunk, just like you are now. He offered his side as proof of his own resurrection, but it was also an invitation to Thomas to join in his suffering. And so these bullet holes are invitation enough for me. I want to join in the suffering of Paris. #Jesuisparis was more than a hashtag to me. It is. It will be. Christ’s love compels me to visit memorials like this, and the one in Houston a few months ago. In doing so, I’m saved from my own hate, cruelty, and selfishness. I’m saved into faith, hope, and love. If that means anything, it meant this: that our mourning will be turned to comfort; that our darkness will become light; that our tears will one day turn to laughter.

My friends, love those around you, those close and far away, in profound ways.

As my walk down the canal ended, I turned toward the Marais District, where Victor Hugo, my favorite novelist, lived. He walked these streets daily, for hours, planning and plotting out his works — Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Les Miserables, countless poems. He recorded the history he saw here. He retold it in spellbinding ways. He loved the city and its inhabitants in a way only he could.

I think back on the dinosaur and the scooter covered in muck in the canal. What will become of them in the labyrinth of my mind? And what will happen to Bataclan? Will someone repair the bullet holes? Will they remain as a memory of the terrorist attack? Those bullet holes will remain in my mind if nowhere else.

I am not Victor Hugo. I am Adam Holt. And you are you. Now what do we do, we two - me and you - who have walked the canal together and reflected on the blackness and beauty in the human heart? We who have thought of the light of life extinguished and are now reminded that light and love endure?

The canals will fill up in the spring. Parisian will bring their children to play beside the waters. I’ll be back in Houston soon, thinking of it all, trying to love those around me better than I did the day before. And where will this post find you if you revisit it in three month’s time? We shall see.

Thanks for sticking around to the end of the ramble. I hope it was worth it. I cast these words upon the water and watch them trail off beyond sight.