A hushed silence falls over my classroom. My thumb sinks into the pages’ seam. I tuck the comprehension strategies bookmark in front of the back cover of E.B. White's Charlottes's Web and read.
“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?” “Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.” “What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle–it’s just a web.” “Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian. I delight in introducing my students to characters like Fern, an eight-year-old girl who listens to animals; Wilbur the pig who doesn’t want to die; and Charlotte the barn spider who spins words into her web. Will she save Wilbur from becoming the Christmas ham? Through Dr. Dorian and Mrs. Arable’s dialogue, I lead a discussion about the beauty in ordinary things and ask, “Does growing up mean one must lose their imagination?”
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Little fingers grip the countertop and watch as wrinkled hands push the sticky dough. The older pauses to add an ingredient. The younger stands on tippy-toes and delights in the sifted flour that falls like snow over the bread starter. Once the texture is right, they’ll cover it and wait for the dough to expand.
Jesus says the kingdom of God is “like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” The promise that God’s in-breaking kingdom will one day permeate everything fills us with hope. The limits of our human bodies and the ground we walk on, in contrast, can leave us feeling stuck. When we’re caught in a pandemic, a medical diagnosis, anxious thoughts, or harmful habits, we ask, "Where is God?" If we look at the book of Jonah, we find a reluctant prophet who needs to be saved from himself. Swallowed whole and inside a sea creature, Jonah repents and praises God: “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.” In the dark, Jonah knows his rescue is both complete and in process. God’s intervention looks like a storm, the inside of a giant fish, vomit on the beach, a leafy plant, a worm, and a scorching east wind. It challenges Jonah. But over time through an intimate back and forth conversation, God's relentless love for a stubborn runaway, yes, but also for all people even our enemies confronts both Jonah and the reader. Today the Earth tries to bar us in too, wrap us in seaweed and pull us to the bottom of the sea. Jesus reaches in. His kingdom is in these places too. He became human with us, incarnate. He clothed himself in flesh. On the cross he starts and finishes a rescue that’s bigger than we can imagine. And in his great mercy we, like Jonah, are invited to participate. To learn along the way and to catch glimpses of the bubbling yeast of truth, goodness and beauty breaking through here. Collected believes art is one vehicle we use to see deeper and to lean in. May it meet you here, in these pages, in the middle of the Story, in the flesh of the fish, as you wait for the bread to rise. Click here to browse the whole issue. Photo credit: Dorian Mongel on Unsplash Written by Chavon Barry There’s a cobweb on the light above me. I should grab the broom and brush it off. Later. Refocus. The boxes behind my chair need to be built and packed. We’re moving to a new house, a new rental just down the road.
There’s so much to do. I swallow the lump in my throat and stay right here because the blank page scares me too. I worry there’ll always be something more important than putting words on paper. Because really most things are more important. “Oh the places you will go,” Dr. Seuss promises. If only I could start… *** When I was fifteen, I travelled by cargo ship to Long Beach, California. The captain invited my dad, a paper mill shipyard supervisor, and his wife and four kids to take the one-way trip on the Thorseggen. “I’m going to Disneyland by barge!” I told my teachers and friends. Machinery and the crew lifted our ‘97 Dodge Caravan onto the deck and the ship’s first mate showed us the captain’s quarters, our new living space. On the days to follow we turned green with seasickness but still dressed up for three-course meals and ran the narrow corridors, steel staircases, and glistening-white sundecks. It wasn’t quite the Disney cruise my best friend went on the year before but it was mine and I loved it. Yesterday, I started to sort through the storage space beside the hot water tank and found my old travel journal covered in dirt. I brushed it off and read. Collected Magazine's newest issue on the theme of seeds is live. I edit the magazine but on occasion contribute too.
Here's a sneak peek of my personal essay: On nature walks, Henry Thoreau observed his local forests. He took notes and wrote essays that were compiled posthumously into a collection entitled Faith in a Seed. He observed, like Henry Michaux that pitch pine trees that grow in clusters produce less cones than those that grow alone in unfavourable rocky areas. Apparently, the lone trees hold onto cones for many seasons. Rather than releasing seed every year, they wait. Maybe the wind will lead them to softer ground. Sometimes I feel like that pitch pine tree holding onto cones with seeds of faith from varying stages of my life, from experiences both good and bad that I don’t know what to do with. Sometimes I feel like the soil, hard and angry. So I wait and wait for a gardener, squirrel, bird or strong wind and wonder--once these cones open will there be any seed left to take root? To read in full click here. Image credit: Arno Smit I stare out the backseat van window spotted with raindrops that enlarge and then race in forked patterns over the glass. Ready, set, go. I tease two twin dots. They accept my challenge and fall. I can’t tell which one wins. One curves left and the other slowly disappears before reaching the sill. The contest ends when tires crunch over the familiar gravel driveway.
We’ve arrived at Grandma’s house. My ten-year-old eyes light up because when I’m here, I believe the storybooks are real. She lives in a rustic log cabin. In the summer her property overflows with apple trees: crabapple, MacIntosh, Golden Delicious. In the winter the stone fireplace crackles and sparks. The house sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Inside there’s a real hidden staircase that leads to the attic. It’s the perfect height for giddy grandchildren. I go up the stairs and find Grandma’s big blue trunk filled with her old skirts and blouses. I rifle through them, looking for the floor-length brown wool skirt. I slip it on and become royalty. My fingers trace the gable roofline and cloth-covered walls as I walk toward the secret room at the end of the hall. I step into it and soak up the cedar-pane window view. Grandma’s city-tour-stop flowers bloom below and the wide ocean expands ahead. For today, this cabin is my castle. *** Breaking Habits By Chavon Barry When nightmares pursued me I opened my mouth to yell and scream But sound never arrived only a puff of air I guess it makes sense. Every day I wore silence like a closed coat with a broken zipper Like a scarf with a knot even a knitting needle couldn’t untangle. I’d have to cut it off. But how? How do you step outside the clothes you wear? How do you change when what’s familiar is strangling you but feels safer than being naked. When I was eight, I found a gutted white Volkswagen Beetle deep in the forest. It must have driven off the logging road above, shot down the ravine and hit the old-growth Cedar tree at the bottom. Like Nancy Drew, I studied the scarred bark sure there was a mystery to solve and bones to find. I rummaged through the car's glove compartment, back seat, and trunk searching for clues. I dug holes in the surrounding soil and followed imagined leads to waterfalls, hidden culverts and crooked, gnarled driftwood skeletons. Scribbles and sketches filled the pages of my notebook but without hard evidence the narrative fell flat. I'm featured in Collected Magazine's newest issue. Read an excerpt here.
Clark’s tongue slides like a slug. The tip hits the lemon slice’s bitter flesh and retreats. He winces and kicks his nine-year-old feet. A wild shout and a trio of laughter erupt at my kitchen table. Leo and Felix, age six and two, admire the bravery their brother carries tall in his imaginary backpack. “Your turn,” Clark says and passes them each a lemon slice. They imitate the quick sour tongue-touch and overreaction. But as the citrus sting subsides, all three lap at their sunshine wedge like puppy dogs. It’s a race of tang with no clear finish line, only the paradoxical sweetness of play. Lemonade. The boys learn the three-step recipe and soon sand dunes of bleach-white sugar cascade daily into tap-water-and-lemon-juice-concentrate-filled jugs. That’s probably why I buy the big tin of instant powder; to save my lemon juice for salad dressing, but also because of the way the plastic lid lifts open to a fine sweet mist that prickles your nose and, if inhaled, induces uncontrolled coughing. Have you ever tried to send your children back in time? To give them a glimpse of your childhood, of crystals spinning in a clear glass and the taste of them gulped down half-dissolved? Click here to read the full story. consider, Janet Anderson, oil and acrylic on canvas A pine wooden box sits on my sister Sarah’s window sill. If I flipped it on its face, my rose-casted gold earrings and a stack of silver bangles might squeeze inside. Treasures I inherited after my grandmother died. But this box isn’t for holding. It stands upright with a painted pink-petaled flower print glossing the front.
Sarah prefers it in portrait view. The flower at the top. I rotate it to landscape and notice the green buds shooting upward. Their almond-shaped heads fill the background, a mix of hard, soft, and fuchsia-cracked. Each one a promise of a flower to come.
And then I heard on Spotify Gullahorn's song and the lines, "I'm tired of cursing at the darkness/I'm gonna light a candle." My memory-lane spiral stopped and I listened, pressed repeat and listened again.
I lit a candle. And it's become a daily habit. A symbol for the impossible prayers I struggle to say out loud. A way to remind myself that God is "the light that shines into the darkness." The light that can't be overcome (John 1:5). I didn't write this poem with current events in mind but I do think it speaks to all who are uncertain and scared. Who feel hope is difficult to muster and who need a light greater than their own. |
Chavon BarryChavon is a new writer from Victoria, British Columbia. She wrestles with simple answers and is learning to listen, to be still with God. Archives
April 2022
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