Some Thoughts from the Snyders for the New Year

Some Thoughts from the Snyders for the New Year

17 January 2025

Happy New Year from Paris. We continue to flourish here in Chatou (a semi-exclusive suburb of Paris with almost as many pet dogs as people) doing a hodgepodge of missionary activities, the highlight being some actual humanitarian work. As I write, in fact (“en fait” in French), Delys is busy at work online with Sister Debbie Lamb (a good colleague and friend from the area office in Frankfort) completing the requisite proposal forms for a project in connection with a women’s conference scheduled for March in Brussels. Sister Lamb will present the proposal for approval Monday afternoon, so they must ensure they’ve covered every “jot and tittle” of the proposal form. (Google the phrase, folks, if you don’t know it. Your effort will be well rewarded as you’re overwhelmed by the sublime genius of my word choice.)

[Historically, this is the point where Delys, in her proofreading of my writing, usually raises up her head to give me a patient, semi-loving look of near disbelief (U.S. patent pending) before launching in with her umpteenth lecture on the necessity of my letting go (“laisser tomber” in French) of my clever asides and breaking off, once and for all, my life-long love affair with the compound-complex sentence. But I digress. . . .]

The beauty of all the humanitarian work that we’ve done—and we dearly wish that there could have been more, way more—is that these projects have been generated by the local members, specifically by the Relief Society sisters and their leaders. Perhaps the most essential component of successful humanitarian projects is the enthusiastic participation of the members, so the proposal form includes a section asking us to describe how we’re planning to involve the members. These sisters make that section easy to complete. Our challenge is more how to get the area office on board with these projects and to support the members by providing the monies needed to complete these humanitarian projects. Delys, especially, has made some dear friends in working on these projects, and we’re both humbled by them and their discipleship.

[This is the point where Delys returns to stand behind me tapping her foot like a Swiss clogger on speed to remind me that, “No one cares about your deathless prose, Phil, because people mostly just want to see some nice pictures with a few short captions. That’s all. You can’t keep pretending that everyone’s an English major hanging blissfully onto your every word. . . .” This is where she always pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing. “But, being an English major myself, I promise to continue to hanging on your every word, especially if those words do not make up an infernal, unending series of compound-complex sentences.”]

Deal.

We were walking through the local IKEA—yes, the whole world, not to mention the France-Paris Mission, seems to be furnished by IKEA—one day in late November when I was struck by this terrific drawing of a horse. Delys bought it for me as an early birthday present to display in our little apartment study. I’ve been pondering it ever since trying to figure out why it’s so compelling to me. I first noticed that it’s not a traditional pose for a horse with its head bowed, its eyes lowered, and its ears in a very neutral, even submissive, position. Then I noticed that the horse’s face is turned into the wind with its forelock and mane blown back. Usually, untied and untacked horses turn their tails to the wind with heads lowered to protect them. Around the first anniversary of my son Travis’s death on 3 December, I was looking through some photos of him during the last weeks of his life and noticed his head posed much like this horse’s. That led me to consider the portrait of Christ (taken from “The Rich Young Ruler” by Heinrich Hoffman) hanging in our apartment entryway. Pretty much the same posture and look. Certainly there some parallels and connections to contemplate.

STOP

IT’S HERE THE EMPIRE OF THE DEAD

At long last we finally got to descend (131 steps down and 112 back up) into the underground to visit the famous Catacombs of Paris in which the bones of the dead excavated from various graveyards throughout the area were sorted and stacked and labelled according to graveyard. I expected a macabre experience but, instead, had one of reverence and appreciation for those who had carefully placed the bones and skulls one-by-one into patterns. Some say that death is the great equalizer of humankind, and if that is true, the Catacombs contain a vast host of equalized human remains.