The 80 runners will be guarded on the 28km (18 mile) route by a cordon of 65 motorcycles, 200 police on rollerblades or running nearby, and 200 riot police.

I add a caveat. “Handle with Care” more accurately should read, “Succumb to the overwhelming fear to which the homogeneity-loving, history-bound, but can’t the world stay small? French are tied. Not all French, mind you, but many.

Since discerning this attitude and its pervasive effects, even on me, I have since said, “screw it.” I try to walk the fine line of respecting and learning yet at the same time challenging the social norms by, frankly, being myself (American, Christian, and all). As I have been told, because I’m American, I can take more risks here than many French Christians.

So, I have gone to buy baguettes in my jogging clothes, sometimes I do not give everyone the bisous when I enter or exit a gathering because I refuse to crawl over a crowd just so someone won’t think ill of me if I don’t, I also talk about many subjects like Jesus, the Bible, race, money, and church fairly openly, regularly receive raised eyebrows, and yet tend to on the whole make people smile and laugh in a place that is begging for hope, transformation, and joy. Every day I walk out my door and know it is not me alone who walks throughout my days, because so regularly do I have to make known my great need for sustenance in merely being here there’s no way it could just be me.