Almost a year ago, I started a new job working with Gap Year students as a teacher, mentor, and spiritual life facilitator. I’d learned about the program from friends who’d invited me to share some reflections about faith and storytelling. I knew from the first moment that something special was happening amongst these people exploring place, home and land and so much more. Saying “yes” to the opportunity was easy, but one can’t just sign a contract and become a leader, spiritual or otherwise.
Starting a new job mid-semester isn’t great, for the staff or students. The students were suspicious—I was replacing a giant, the kind of woman who listens well and whom young people trust instinctively. I struggled with constant comparison and agonized over the stack of reference texts I’d inherited that I knew I’d never be able to read with the depth that would make me a better instructor. For almost seven months I improvised. And in the end, it turned out okay. Contrary to most of my cherished beliefs, nobody died because my lessons weren’t quite perfect. Despite treading water, I fell in love with the job—the work, my colleagues, my students—and I was excited to jump in this fall on surer footing. This year, they’d see what a strong, capable leader I could be.
For our first Sunday evening Evensong, I felt calm and serene as we shared our hopes and dreams for the year. It was a perfect late summer evening. A breeze swept through the living room of the big old brick home that would soon welcome twenty young people to live and learn together for the next season of life. The candle flickered on the table. I opened my mouth to pray when instead I began to shriek as a bat circled above us.
Two seconds later, I inexplicably found myself in the lap of my young, beautiful colleague, who laughed in her good-natured way. Another resident calmly got a sheet and walked the creature out the door as though nothing were more natural. I am the oldest person on staff. I am also, apparently, of no use at all in a bat crisis.
Somehow, we finished evenings prayers (with one eye open) and I thought, “that was a blip. This year is going to be great.” I would redeem myself as a strong, capable leader.
Team Building
Let me begin by telling you that in my workplace my colleagues operate under the religious belief that the year ahead would be enhanced if we went camping together. Those who know me well know that I am not naturally inclined to embrace camping. Nevertheless, I was determined to be a TEAM PLAYER and start the year on the right foot. When someone asked about dinner, I knew I could help. I could bring KFC! By their silence and sideways glances, I deduced my convenient solution was not going to fly. These are people who use cast iron pans and wear gore tex. I enjoy the outdoors. I like spending time in the garden, swimming in lakes and going on hikes. I do not feel the need to sleep on the ground or cook food under a tarp in the rain.
Obviously, it rained, (because no matter what anybody says, it pretty much always rains on camping trips) but we laughed, and prayed for the year ahead, and shared our hopes and dreams for our new organization and what it could become. I felt almost serene. It was going to be a great year. Though they clearly saw I was no Coleman stove champion, they didn’t kick me out of the inner circle.
Upon our return to the city, I was like that proverbial woman “clothed with strength and dignity, smelling like bug spray and campfire who laughs without fear of the future.” This year was going to be great. There was still time to prove I had other bankable qualities.
Learning on the Farm
Labour day comes, the students arrive and we all exhale. They are a wonderful group. After a busy first week, we head north to learn from famous eco-theologians on their organic, solar-powered farm. I feel privileged to take notes on a picnic table in the sunshine and learn alongside my students. I am a little starstruck soaking in the wisdom of this couple whose work I’ve studied and whose lives I’ve admired from a distance.
The students have claimed cabins and tents near the tomato garden, but there’s a special adobe cabin on a meadow where I’ll stay with my colleague. The cottage makes me think of the kind of place where I could write my next novel. There’s no power, so at night I’ll have only my flashlight and some beeswax candles. It’s perfect. How did I get such a cool job? This isn’t camping. I feel like Thoreau, or Mary Oliver. I feel like a heroine.
I spend the evening around the campfire, listening to young people talk philosophy and theology and getting to know the friends who they’ll go back country canoeing with in a few days. They are nervous, bold, flirtatious, and fun. The moon shines brightly overhead and I bid goodnight to everyone and head to my little abode, humming contentedly under my breath.
Once inside the cob cottage, I light a few candles so that I can see the toilet. I’m tired and looking forward to crawling into bed. As I sit down to pee, I notice a big white moth fluttering in front of my eyes. That’s nice, I think, my eyes growing heavy with fatigue.
A second later, a bat swoops towards my face and the moth is gone.
I freeze.
The bat is doing laps around the ceiling of the cabin, and illogical though it may seem, I imagine I’m its next target. With my bladder half full, and my jeans around my ankles, I make an awkward run for the meadow. I can’t think straight.
I need to get the bat out of the cabin. I need to pee. I need to blow out the candles and not burn down the cottage where my future novel might be written if I can ever summon the courage to go back inside.
I cannot go back inside. I start to laugh somewhat hysterically at my predicament. I call out into the night, as though someone else might be able to rescue me from getting a bat in my hair or rabies or any other phobias I may have. Eventually, I conclude that I should at least pull up my pants.
I head back to the main house and am rescued by the eco-theologians. They are amused by my lack of hardiness, I can tell, but they perform a flashlight exorcism of the bat cottage and help me move my things into a bright room under the stars in their home. Instead of openly mocking me, they offer me a balm I’m certain will send them both straight to heaven: they bring me three kittens.
My racing heart slows.
I remember my childhood, coming home from school to sit on the back porch snuggling barn kittens and eating sour apples straight from the tree. I remember my little brother naming the runt “hissa”. I remember a time before I was the responsible adult, needing to prove my worth as a leader. I thank the eco-theologians for their kindness—for tucking me in so tenderly by way of a feline visit—and I fall asleep.
And they’re off
Before I said goodbye to the students as they left for their trip into the wilderness, we read Wendell Berry’s famous essay “Getting Along with Nature.”
I invited them to consider what might be restored [in them] in the wilderness. I have no idea how this year will unfold. Can I be a spiritual leader under such wild, unpredictable conditions? What comes next after bats and camping and bats? Can I be strong and capable or is God more of a practical joker than I ever imagined?
We go to wilderness places to be restored, to be instructed in
the natural economies of fertility and healing, to admire what we
cannot make. Sometimes, as we find to our surprise, we go to be
chastened or corrected.
Wendell Berry, 1982 “Getting Along With Nature.”