where i'm coming from, part 3: on the face of the waters

'and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters.' (genesis 1:2)

my sojourn in the house of my ancestors was coming to an end.  mother was sick enough to be attended by real nurses, and i was packing up for a little trip back to santa fe to re-vision the next part of my life as a missionary abbot/bishop when on the very day of my departure, a letter came from a  friend from my previous new mexico days.  come, it said, to seattle.  there are mountains and the ocean both here.  there's a job if you want it.  and so i went through santa fe and then headed the little huyndai that had replaced the van--better for carrying little old lady to the doctor's office--northwest. i had not  been in that part of the country since 1969,

when i had been a history student at simon fraser university in vancouver, b.c.  i arrived in bremerton, a ferry-ride from seattle, just in time for a big earthquake.  when one feels the ground move under one's feet, one should pay attention.  a new heaven and a new earth may be shortly on their way.  but i took the job, and ordered a real skin-on-frame kayak from germany.  the boat arrived the very day i qualified for insurance and endentured servitude for life at the job, and for my friend to collect the head-hunter's fee for me.  it gave the terms of enslavement back to gentle employers as soon as my friend had deposited his check, and headed north, to anacortes, to put s. brendan the kayak together, christen him with guiness, and set forth on the face of the water.  it was to be more than a six hour cruise. 

for three summers, brendan carried me on the face of the waters.  we traveled down to the south end of the hood canal, to olympia, to neah bay, to vancouver island.  and the spirit was still moving on the face of the waters, creating a new me.  during the winter months, when there's hardly enough light to travel by kayak, i lived in a little hut i made from found objects on land belonging to western washington university.  at the end of three years, i came ashore, more or less, and rented a tiny space in a historic building in downtown bellingham, which i called beatus:  an urban poustinia.  i had become more or less an accidental hermit.

and, i also became sort of an accidental college minister.  the people who came to the poustinia were almost all of them students from western washington university.  what i had thought i would do in a grandious way in fayetteville, i came to do in a much more humble way in bellingham.  i didn't even tell people that i was a priest, certainly not a bishop.  offering the world to the holy one, guarding the faith, are much more than wearing honorary clothes, and there hadn't been much room for copes and mitres in brendan.

also in bellingham, i fell in with young and wonderful people who were trying to live in community.  they had rented a funky old house, and i moved into a tent in the yard.  again, life was good.  but despite the great desire everyone has to live in community these days, most of us have never seen it, so we come and we go.  (did i mention that i wrote my final paper for systematic theology based on the sacred text of paul simon's graceland?  so,
as everyone else came and went, making families and going to graduate school, i went to the ozarks for a little retreat.  once again, a boat was involved, a czech inflatable.  i thought i would wander down the buffalo river and, as luci shaw translated the words of john on patmos, to the wind words.