Category — Faith

It was 8 o’clock. We’d just put our one-year-old daughter down to bed when the house surged into a liquid lull, blackness filling our cavernous living room like a bodum of steeped coffee grounds poured out cold. We went in search of the lone flashlight. The one plugged in the wall near our sliding front door, temporarily ours, though no doors in this house are at the front of anything. The outward glow, like a hum, drew our hands to the handheld device saved for just the occasion. Our first power outage. No anomaly on the island. A storm was coming, they’d said. I’d laughed it off standing on the deck, enveloped in the autumn murmurs, quivering pines, scent of salty tide greeting the sun’s disappearing fingers. It had been three weeks since we arrived and I knew the evening’s calm. This night was no different, I thought.

The laser stream, white through air, led us up the landing to the jars of water my husband had just finished filling. Cute, I thought. He’s preparing. Then I thanked him out loud. We gathered the tea lights, scattering them on shelves, windowsills. There was no use trying to read, attempting to pass the time in a room of pitched midnight…

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This is part of an essay I am working on at the encouragement of a few close friends. (Thank you.) Here on the island we are learning to live without. Our power goes out with some regularity and we are without water at present. The pipes froze and burst in the well pump house so we are living off a small ration we brought in from the mainland, boiling what we need. For the first time out of necessity I washed clothing by hand. Madeleine had been very stomach sick and badly soiled her coat and blanket. These items couldn’t wait. So, I boiled a pot of water and steeped them, scrubbed them, wrung them, hung them. We saved the excess water. We’re saving everything.

I can’t exactly describe how it has felt to fumble around with candles, feed a baby in the dark, wash every dish in the house with a few inches of water, other than very GOOD. It has felt good, in these small ways, to live without. To figure it out together. To be in need. To rely on neighbours. To receive concerned calls from parents. All of it has felt good.

Is this why people in the vast majority of the world have such a vibrant faith and why, here in the non-need of North America, we wane? Need nourishes faith.

Today is Buy Nothing Day. Perhaps we must abstain, to intentionally go without, to establish this need.

“The prayer preceding all prayers is “May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.”

- C.S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Chapter 15

Veritas. Truth.

In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive.

Last week I interviewed Ty Clark, a man who only two short years ago launched an ambitious project connecting art, fashion, and film in the name of Truth. I’ve been inspired. Watch the 2011 trailer above. I hope you are too.

One thing I will surely miss, when we depart for Toronto next spring, is our vast living space. We’ve been able to host the Marchioro family (2 parents, 3 kids, a Swiss student,) my island mom’s group (6 moms, 6 babies and room for more) and five friends (plus Michael, Madeleine, Brittany and her boyfriend) last weekend for brunch and a creative afternoon.

A day of peace, was the invitation. I met the ladies at the dock and delivered them, along the twisting cracked-pavement road, then up the dirt driveway to our house nestled deep in the woods. We lunched on warm cinnamon buns, eggs, sausages, bacon, fresh fruit, OJ and Ethical Bean coffee. Then we gathered around the coffee table each lighting a single tealight.

We turned our eyes to the flame as I shared Jesus’ words:

I am the Way, the Truth, the Light.

The weekend before the power in our house went out for more than 13 hours. At 9 o’clock I tiptoed into our bedroom with a lone candle in hand. The tea light cast no path, it simply enveloped my palm, my wrinkled knuckles, in its warm glow.

There was no path. As far as I could tell there was no room. Only the floor. Only the candle. Only me.

I was taken with the thought: God, Jesus, never called himself a path. Never directed us to a path. He called us to himself. He called us to the Light. THERE IS NO PATH. There never was. There is only Him.

Out of this focus on Light, on our Creator and Guide, we took to the bins of paper, the typewriter, the paints, and scissors and canvases. It was a rainless sky day, so I took to the porch and, with the lap of Pacific as my playlist, put the finishing touches on two paintings I’ve had in process for the last month.

Thank you, Steph, Marisa, Sara, Julia and Wendy (a day early!) for coming. I wish all days looked this beautiful.

How we live matters. What we eat. How we dress. The company we keep. The things we say.

For the past three years I’ve written for Comment Magazine, almost exclusively on the topic of fashion. It’s forced me to think about clothes theologically. My most recent article, appearing in their next print issue, is about just that: a faithful approach to fashion. I struggled with this piece. So much so that I had to rewrite it. My first major rewrite ever. And I am thankful editor Gideon Strauss sent me back to the drawing board. I had to dig into the Bible, asking: What does it say about clothes? What does it say about humanity? I searched for the bigger picture — the story God is telling through humanity and the story he is telling individually through our lives.

I interviewed Teresa Smed, a Vancouver-based jewelry designer (and single mom) whose vintage line, Dotted Loop, has been featured in fashion magazines worldwide.

“I definitely think what we wear matters to God,” says Smed. “I like to think about where everything comes from. Everything has a price. If your shoes are made by a child in a sweatshop in China — that has a cost. If I can clothe me and my kids with recycled clothing — it matters. I love fashion. I love accessories. People would call me ‘fashion forward.’ It’s about self-expression, and that’s okay. But where your treasure is your heart will be also.”

I also spoke with Dr. John Stackhouse, professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, and designer Paul Hardy, who is currently concentrating his efforts in Africa with the Reversal of Fortune initiative.

“It can go either way. In fashion, as in any other creative field, imagination can be used as an expression of edification or can prey on the insecurities of others.” - Paul Hardy

Thinking deeply about clothing has challenged me to concentrate on other areas of my life as well. Right now I am thinking a lot about food. My new friend Victoria is a vegan. When she takes care of Madeleine she eats the same. Michael and I have been wanting to limit the amount of meat we eat for some time, in an effort to eat only free range, and as local as possible. Bowen Island is affording us this opportunity. I am learning new vegan recipes from Victoria, allowing us to invest in better local meat, raised right down the road. Watching (the fictional, but enormously affecting) Fast Food Nation this fall has also had me rethinking meat.

I am a Christian. That means I follow Jesus. He’s not physically in front of me but His words are written down to help me follow. I’m trying to dig in to the truth. I want it to show in the way I live.

Sitting down to write, here at the dinner table, the Pacific laid out before me, sipping tea while baby sleeps and indulging in a slice of carrot cake from Whole Foods reminds me of the way I felt during my first days working on the second floor at the CBC. Awe. Am I really here? Somebody pinch me.

Our dream really has come true.

The days so far have been filled with mother meet-ups and visiting with the Cowper family. We’ve sipped tea outside Daniel’s handmade house and entertained around our dining table.

Matthew comes by for a swing on a porch every day or two. We borrow their hammock.

I wandered into the Bowen Island Family Place last Tuesday and was enveloped in this intimate island community. This is one of my greatest joys as a mother: the instant community that forms around children. Two days at Family Place, a dozen introductions later, and a lovely mom named Victoria invited me to her mom’s group. I got thoroughly lost on my way there. Luckily Madeleine napped as I crisscrossed the island, finally making my way to Caroline and her daughter Katie’s beautiful home. Caroline, a former campaign finance lawyer from Washington, DC, bare-faced and effortlessly beautiful, welcomed me at the door. Her husband John, who owns an amazing travel company, came in to say Hi.

Bit by bit I am piecing together people’s stories. I’m hungry to know why people live here, where they’ve come from, how they make it work, what other roles these devoted mothers fill. One, a recent transplant from New York, left a career as a social worker and is writing copy so she can stay home with her little one. Another a forestry worker, another a teacher. Some from Toronto, Vancouver, many new to Bowen, just like me.

I plan to get back into the writing saddle while we’re here and have connected with three potential part-time nannies for Madeleine. One a student hopeful for a career in childhood education, one a composer/musician recently moved from Brooklyn, and one a mom with a daughter two months older than Madeleine. We’re taking the week to decide. I can’t wait to have two solid days to sit with my books, pen and MacBook and create.

It feels right in every single way that we’re here. Everything is flowing. A friend of mine, a deeply spiritual person, gave me this advice many years ago: Follow the way of peace. Now, not every part of of our life at present is peaceful (we’re unpacking boxes while the three of us nurse colds and we’re cranky, oh, and I killed the largest spider I have ever seen this morning) but at every turn peace is meeting us.

It’s like I can hear God saying “Yes.”

I’ve lived in a city all my life. The year I turned 27 the love turned off. I yearned for somewhere small. Somewhere to let my hair down. A place to meander under hundred year oaks and trip down the lane. That place came in the form of Bowen Island, in a tiny bay where the Anastasiou family has owned land since the 1930s.

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On our way into town I popped into the Ruddy Potato, the resident organic grocery, to pick up a British Butcher Steak and Guinness pie. I told the cashier we’d just moved to the island — right that moment — and her face erupted into a smile. “Welcome!” she said, her tattooed frame loosening into friendly ease. In an instant I’d transformed from shopper to neighbour and it showed. I asked if the pie, a family favourite, was always available. She thought so but offered the store number so I could call ahead just in case. With that, I was out the door with dinner in hand. The house was waiting.

We broke in. Not really, the side door was left unlocked. This is the island after all. Thirty boxes later we sat down around the kitchen table and filled our empty bodies full. The first night was not without its hiccups. We forgot two small pieces of Madeleine’s crib making it unsecure. A little brainstorming and we came up with a solution: we flipped the crib upside-down. She slept soundly all night.

With the baby tucked in we cracked a small bottle of champagne, a gift from our friends’ Ashleah and Jen’s wedding. Sitting on our bedroom porch staring at the blackened Pacific, our mouths nursed half-full glasses, the lap of ocean and crickets our symphony.

We have arrived.

Three years. We be three. A chord of three strands is not easily broken… With all this in mind, here’s what Michael and I created at Raw Canvas.

“Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

- Ecclesiastes 4

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We are moving in six days. I am a big ball of mixed emotions. This space will be mostly silent as I pack up our life’s belongings. Encouragement welcome. xoxo

“As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles.” - Walt Whitman

:::

oh Walt, yes, let me see with your eyes.

three years since our hands folded into one. it isn’t easy, i won’t lie. but every day is worth it, unfolding our broken, broken pieces and saying yes to them, over and over. i am yours.

today michael and i celebrate our third anniversary. we are spending tonight at raw canvas, sipping, sampling and painting. i can’t wait to see what we create. together.

::::

only hope

[a poem for the one i love]

I want only to struggle in your arms
you in mine
pummel chest with marble fingers
erase
scars fortnight left
fortnight forth come
I want to writhe in your arms
only
because
I mistook apology
for

I want to take nail stabs in my palms
smear the bathroom vanity
across the cool of toilet bowl
into waiting tub, where her rubber ducky reigns

I want to dance on 5×12 patio
above whistling suburban thoroughfare
the view is fine
reduce the space between chest freezer, rusted-out barbecue, now gone
solidarity declared beneath the dead hanging basket

we’ll need it on the islands