Filed under: About OTNR, Posts by John | Tags: Bookstore, Community, Dave, Grass Valley, Kristialyn, Silverton
Things have been quiet around here. The last post is five weeks old. I think we’ve posted just six times in the last two months. Some of the posts are only marginally about our trip, and most don’t mention the trip at all. The dearth of updates doesn’t reflect a lack of activity, a calm before the storm of our scheduled departure in early March. We’ve actually posted less because of just how very much activity there has been behind the scenes. Everything has happened, the ground beneath our feet shifting from one day to the next. Daily updates would have been exhausting and cruel. Only our families and Dave and Kristialyn should have to go through that. Now the ground has stopped shaking and everything is changed. It’s time to fill you in.
In short, we are postponing the trip. Our adventure was possible because my work as a grant writer can be done from anywhere as long as I have a telephone and internet access. But the grants business has slowed to a trickle. My unspoken belief that my line of work was recession-proof — thanks to the stimulus money, what one of my colleagues calls ObamaBucks — was foolish. We haven’t had steady grant work since October. My family is now in a position where we need to hunker down, finish paying off debt, and start saving money again to replenish the cash reserves we’ve burned through these last few months.
We don’t regret in the least our decision to pack up and leave the city we love. We’ve made our way up and down the West Coast, as we always intended. We spent wonderful time with my family in Keizer, with Kate’s family in Grass Valley-Nevada City, and with friends in Chico, California, which is where we are now. We even made it back to Portland a couple times. Since October, we have been the recipients of an enormous measure of hospitality and grace. I know that Kate is looking forward to utilizing her own gift of hospitality when we settle down. And it is time to settle down.
Time on the road taught Kate and me several valuable lessons. One important lesson is that today is provided for, and that that can be enough. A second, related lesson is to hold loosely to future plans. The rest of the blog post was written and should be read with those two lessons in mind.
Kate and I foresaw the need to make this decision, and so we talked and prayed for a few weeks about where we want to settle down. It ultimately came down to two choices: Grass Valley-Nevada City, or somewhere near these two little towns in Oregon, Mt. Angel and Silverton, which are just a few miles apart and not far from Salem and Portland. Both areas have a lot in common: they are communities which seem to be intimate with their landscapes, supportive of rural living but still within easy driving distance of urban amenities like airports and museums and the arts, proximity to family, proximity to outdoor adventure like hiking and camping, open space, plenty of inspiration for my writing. In addition, these communities seem like they could support a small bookstore, which has become a recurring feature of our daydreams.
In the end, we decided on the Mt. Angel-Silverton area. What ultimately tipped us toward Oregon is our community there. These last few months, we’ve taken the American dream of mobility and life without geographical constraints to an extreme, and we don’t want to keep living there. Though our lives have been untethered from any actual place, we were always orienting ourselves, like magnetic north, toward our friends and family. We have some special people in Oregon. Like Dave and K-yo, Mark Lore (of thedaysoflore.com) and Alexis, Dustin and Cara and Moses, Libby, Yubi, the Westbrooks, Sarah and Trevor, Brit and Andy, the (Stable) Gabels, the Brunos, and Jon (Daddy) Riker.
Kate will be going back to work, something she is actually excited about. I’ve started sending e-mails asking about apartments and houses in Mt. Angel and Silverton. Our plan right now is to drive back to Oregon on January 17. For good, it seems. We don’t have a place to stay yet, but we know we’ll manage somehow. There are even strong signs that the grant business is ratcheting up for the spring — too late to save our trip, but very welcome.
On the Narrow Road isn’t dead. We’ll continue to use this blog to document our family’s attempt to live in a way that does not conform to the broad road of consumerism and American excess. It’s time to learn how to live within boundaries, submit ourselves to a community and a place and to God. It’s time I learned how to live a life governed not by the overwhelming appetites of the present, but by the accumulated wisdom of the past, with an eye on the future, planting sequoias, judging each decision by how it will effect the world Molly will inherit from me, if there is a world left for her to inherit.
I hope to continue writing the OTNR book. Instead of writing the book in the form of a long travel narrative, I am going to go back to my original idea: 12 essays about 12 churches. Each article can stand alone, and I will try to publish them in magazines as individual essays. Then I’d like to add a 13th chapter which would be the account of a month-long road trip (very different than the 36 weeks Kate and I originally planned) to re-visit the churches, talk to people along the way, and draw some broad conclusions about evangelicalism in America. If it makes sense for us financially, I’d like to start the project by visiting my childhood church in Lincoln, Nebraska this March or April.
And so our adventure will be a journey not measured in miles but in the distance from the head to the heart, and between Kate and me, and between us and you, our community. Thank you for coming this far, gentle reader. Won’t you continue on with us?
Filed under: After OTNR, Books, Posts by John | Tags: Books, Dave, Hearts & Minds Bookstores, Jayber Crow, Joplin Missouri, Kristialyn, Mark Twain, Wendell Berry
Penn Valley, CA :: Kate just told me that I stress her out more than any person she knows. I wanted to point out a few obvious exceptions – Hitler, Pol Pot, swine flu – but I didn’t go there. So I stress her out more than any person she knows; it’s not hard to see why: this afternoon I came to her with another idea.
Amidst the never-ending stream of my bright ideas, there is one dream Kate and I keep coming back to. We’ve talked for a couple years now about buying a little acreage with Dave and Kristialyn, producing as much of our own food as possible, putting down roots, and living life within a specific geographical, cultural, and community context. But we get discouraged because it feels like we’ve been priced out of the market. Property is expensive. We don’t feel like we should work office jobs we hate in order to enjoy our homestead for a couple hours a night before bed, with occasional weekend visits. (I don’t mean jobs that are hard. I mean jobs that are inharmonious with our values and priorities.) Nor do we want to wait for retirement. Why work for forty years at jobs we “hate” in the vague hope that once we retire we can finally live a life that is consistent with our principles, as well as our deep desires? This amounts to a hatred of the present tense, with no guarantee that we’ll make it to retirement anyway, and it requires us to compartmentalize our lives in a way that can’t but damage our spirits.
Going back even further to when we were just married, Kate and I had a different vision for our lives. We talked about opening up a little bookstore in some little town. I’d be in charge of the bookselling, Kate would make pastries and coffee. Between customers I would write my own books. Our little shop would sell both new and used volumes, and I would be able to promote books and authors I like. I’m not sure what happened to this particular dream. We held on to it for a while, but it got buried by the demands of daily living.
Driving around Grass Valley today, I was again discouraged by how out of reach our little piece of land seems. Then I remembered that other dream, the bookstore.
It just so happens that I’m getting ready to re-read Wendell Berry’s novel, “Jayber Crow,” for an essay I have to write. And driving around I remembered that, unlike most of the characters in Berry’s fiction, which centers around the community of Port William, Kentucky, Jayber Crow was not a farmer. Jayber’s skill was barbering. When Jayber made his way to Port William, the town happened to need a barber, and so Jayber took over the chair.
Jayber Crow performed several services essential for community life. Besides cutting hair, Jayber’s barber shop became a meeting place. Whether they needed a cut or not, men were always stopping by to share the latest news, catch up, or just watch life happen on the street outside the shop window.
No kidding, I believe access to a good local bookstore is essential to the health of a community. Bookshops are businesses, and local bookshops are local businesses. They are storehouses of knowledge and wisdom and renewal. (The word “store” comes from the Latin word meaning “to renew,” though I write this post on Black Friday, when few retailers seem especially concerned about renewal.) They can be gathering places, houses of hospitality. I also believe bookselling can be a vocation, in the sense of using one’s gifts – time, abilities, and resources – for the common good. (As one example, it seems like the folks at Hearts & Minds Bookstore in Pennsylvania approach bookselling as a vocation.)
So today I approached Kate with an idea – really a melding of two ideas: moving to a little town somewhere that needs and can support a bookstore, a town in proximity to trees, water, and room to walk; introducing ourselves to the community; renting until we can afford to buy, and then buying from a neighbor. Besides its vocational aspects, there is another, more selfish reason I like this idea. There is no work I enjoy more (or feel more called to) than my own writing, but I can’t support the family that way right now. If I had to pick an alternate way to make a living, running a bookstore would be it. So much so that when my writing career does take off, I believe I will want to hang on to the bookstore. These seem like all-important consideration.
I’m not sure how this fits in with On the Narrow Road. I don’t see how it conflicts, since it must take longer than a year to set something like this up. For starters, I don’t know how to find a town that fits the above criteria. I suppose we have to stumble upon it. Like when I drove through Joplin, Missouri earlier this fall. Joplin, Missouri – a Mississippi River town (though at 50,000 people, a little big for my taste), plenty of trees, the birthplace of Mark Twain, and, as far as I can tell, not a single stand-alone bookstore in the whole damn town.
I’m nearly 32 years old and I’m still trying to find, in the raspy words of Michael W. Smith, “my place in this world.”
What are your thoughts? Does anybody out there know a little town in need of a young family and a bookstore?
Filed under: Books, Home, Posts by John | Tags: Books, Dave, Libby, Portland
Portland, OR :: It’s hard to believe that in just eight days the slug-line for these posts won’t say “Portland, OR.” While we will spend the month of October in Salem, just 45 minutes south of Portland and no further from the Pacific Ocean; and while the bulk of the OTNR project won’t begin until November when we travel down to California (I want the project to end in Oregon, rather than start there) – I am already homesick. I pretend that when we get back next fall we will just jump right back into life, but it can’t be that way. We’ll be strangers in our own city, at least for a while.
The more practical matter at hand is packing. I’m so busy with grants and my writing projects that Kate gave me just one responsibility – to pack my books – and a firm deadline: the end of August. Into the third week of September and my books are only half-packed. The issue is that I have been hand-entering the ISBN of every one of my estimated 1,000 books into a program called Bookpedia on my computer. “Very monk-like,” Dave says. And it’s true. I told the story in an earlier post about the monk who sold his copy of the Gospels and gave the money to the poor. Books may be my final test of salvation. I think they are an anchor for me, but they may also be dead weight. I have 200 books set aside to bring with me on this trip. Libby jokes that we will need to buy a second trailer just to carry them all.
Filed under: Posts by John, Writing | Tags: 9/11, Burnside Writers Collective, Dave, Relevant
Portland, OR :: Relevant Magazine asked me and a few other Burnside Writers Collective writers to briefly reflect back on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The article appeared today on Relevant’s website. It includes a short essay from Dave Johnson, but it doesn’t include a link to Dave’s blog, which is here.
Filed under: Home, Posts by John | Tags: Dave, Ilwaco, Molly, Oregon, Washington
Portland, OR :: I spent a few days last week camping with my friends Dave and Andrew in southwest Washington, just across the Columbia River from Astoria, Oregon, and 100 yards from the Pacific Ocean. We made regular trips into the little harbor town of Ilwaco, where we discovered the region’s best clam chowder at Harbor Lights Motel, Restaurant, and Lounge, and the world’s best waitress, Sweet Ann, who moonlights as a stand-up comic.
I hung out on the beach with Dave for a couple hours on Thursday afternoon. Sitting in camping chairs, trying to read but frequently distracted by the magnificence of our surroundings, I decided I wanted to get wet – but not too wet. I rolled up the legs of my jeans and waded out into the water. I hopped over the first few waves, which were higher than I thought, but then I got pummeled. Soon I was completely soaked. I looked back to Dave, warm and dry on the sand. Those days camping were some of the last I’ll be able to spend with Dave before leaving Portland in October. I will be glad to carry that memory with me of my best friend doing exactly what he is supposed to do – reading a book, writing longhand on a legal pad, and laughing at me.
I returned to shore, stopping just beyond the reach of the waves, and I turned southeast. It was a symbolic, if predictable, moment. With nearly the whole country spread out before me, I was reminded of how very far from home my family will be traveling in the next year.
I also realized that since moving to the West Coast in 2001, and especially since we moved from California to Oregon in 2005, I am constantly taking my bearings relative to the Pacific Ocean. I may not be able to calculate precise distance, but I am always aware when I am getting closer, farther away from, or running parallel to it. Most often this is a subconscious awareness, but it is always there: my desk faces south; the ocean is to my right.
This internal GPS is useless for physical navigation, but my realization seemed significant. What does the Pacific Ocean represent for me – hope? home? the end of the line? I can’t say for sure, though it’s worthy of further reflection. What I know with certainty is that for five months, from October through February, the narrow roads my family will travel will run mostly north to south. But in late winter we begin to explore unknown longitudes. Americans instinctively range west. To turn east is to head into the past. Maybe that is where our country – and my family - are meant to go.
I’m reminded of the notation medieval cartographers used to fill in blank spots on their maps: “Here Be Dragons.” The United States is moving out of adolescence and into adulthood. Kate and I are parents now, thinking a lot about legacy and the world Molly will inherit. And so we look back. Our history is the next frontier. Who knows what we’ll find out there.
Number of Riders: 2*
Total Miles: 21.12
Average Speed: 12.5 mph
Max Speed: 33.0 mph
Total Trip Time: Approx. 3 hours 35 minutes
Total Riding Time: Approx. 1 hour 45 minutes
Time Spent Talking about Writing and Publishing with Long Lost Friend: 1 hour 20 minutes
Cinnamon Rolls from Fleur de Lis Bakery Consumed While Sitting in a Park with Long Lost Friend: 2
Mayor Sightings at Little Ride Bike Café: 1
Time the Two Riders Spent Lounging in John’s Front Yard Postponing the Butt-Kicking Ride to Dave’s House on Mt. Tabor: 30 minutes
Hills Conquered: 3
Hills Left Unconquered: 3
Calories Burned: 1250 (est.)
Fatigue Level: High
Books Bought at Garage Sale: 3**
Days Since Last Shower: 3
Body Odor Level: Extreme
Hours Until Next Ride: 15
* John Pattison and Dave Johnson
** Honey and Salt, by Carl Sandburg; The Cadence of Grass, by Thomas McGuane; The Wilderness World of John Muir, ed. by Edwin Way Teale
Filed under: Books, Commonplace Book, Cycling, Family, Writing | Tags: Dave, Moosefest, Northern Exposure, Poor Old Dirt Farmer
A lot has happened since last we met. Kate and I are not moving to Chico. We decided a few weeks ago to let the lease on our apartment lapse at the end of September. We are going to spend much of the next year traveling around the country. The purpose of this grand adventure is to travel along the highways and byways of America, visiting churches, meeting people, learning about their faith, and trying to better understand our own spiritual heritage. We are chronicling our journey on a new blog: http://onthenarrowroad.com. I will be writing a series of articles about our trip for one or more publications (specifics coming soon), and I hope the journey culminates in a book. This is a project we’ve been contemplating for three years, but with Molly starting preschool soon, and our deepening desire to buy a little acreage somewhere and put down roots, we feel like it’s now or never.
I think the Contours of a Country blog will take on at least three main themes. First, I will use it as a commonplace book. Second, I want to write more about what I’m reading, including a series I want to do with Poor Old Dirt Farmer called “Thirteen Books that Changed John and Dave,” inspired by Jay Parini’s book. Third, I want to write more about biking. This is right in line with the title of this blog – something I haven’t explained before – which comes from a quote from Ernest Hemingway: “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best…”
I hope you’ll follow us at On the Narrow Road. Even better, maybe we can meet you somewhere along our journey.
For the first entry in my commonplace book, I point you toward the latest post on Poor Old Dirt Farmer. Like PODF, I have been watching the show “Northern Exposure” on DVD. “Northern Exposure” was one of the few television shows my mom watched when I was growing up. My younger brother Dustin also liked the show, and he ended up marrying a girl who looks kind of like Maggie, the show’s female lead character. The setting for the show is the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska. (The show was filmed in the town of Roslyn, Washington, which holds an annual Northern Exposure Festival called Moosefest. Kate and I will try to work that into next year’s itinerary.)
Also like PODF, I feel like I have found a kindred spirit in the character of Chris, an artist and morning DJ on the local radio station. Chris is an ex-con who has found a home on the Alaskan frontier. He taught himself physics, theoretical mathematics, psychotherapy, and literature. His guiding lights include Carl Jung, Walt Whitman, Soren Kierkegaard, James Joyce, and Thomas Merton.
Anyway, PODF wrote a great post this morning that includes a clip from my favorite scene in the show – Chris at his best. I’ll go further and say it is one of the best scenes from any episode of any show. Read the post. Then Netflick the DVDs. “Northern Exposure” is a smart, funny program that you deserve to rediscover.
Filed under: About OTNR, Posts by John | Tags: Basho, Dave, Given:Poems, On the Narrow Road to the Interior, Origins of the Project, Relevant, Wendell Berry, Writing
Portland, OR :: This project was originally conceived three years ago under the title “The Way We Worship.” My plan was to write twelve essays on twelve churches. The essays would collectively document the diverse ways in which American Christians gather for prayer, praise, teaching, and fellowship. I wanted to explore everything from megachurches to house churches; churches that are dying to churches that are thriving; congregations that meet in white clapboard buildings on a country road, and churches that meet in brewpubs and coffee houses in the middle of the city; postmodern churches on the “cutting-edge” and churches that are profoundly, proudly modern.
While the simplicity of this idea still appeals to me, I’ve come to feel constrained by the original title and structure. There is an obligation to look for archetypal churches, which lacks spontaneity – and besides, I want to meet people, not archetypes. In addition, the title “The Way We Worship” implies an almost exclusive focus on Saturday night or Sunday morning services, which isn’t enough. Far from it (cf. the well-written but ill-conceived recent article by Jason Boyett on the Relevant website, “6 Denominations in 6 Weeks”, about which I will have more to say in a future post). Finally, the rigid framework – twelve essays on twelve churches – doesn’t leave much room to write about my family’s physical, spiritual, and relational journey.
Last week I was reading a collection of Wendell Berry’s poetry, and I came across a Sabbath poem that beautifully summarizes my present goals for this project – and for myself apart from this project. The “rarest wildflowers” are the people Kate and I will meet on our trip.
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
It was Dave who suggested the title “On the Narrow Road,” a play on Jack Kerouac’s 1957 classic novel “On the Road.” A quick internet search revealed something interesting: the only other use of the title I could find was a 1989 book by Lesley Downer called “On the Narrow Road: A Journey into Lost Japan.” Downer’s book retraces the steps of the 17th century Japanese haiku poet, Basho, who wrote about his own pilgrimage in a travelogue sometimes translated as “The Narrow Road to the Interior.” The word “interior” in Basho’s title refers not just to mountainous interior of northern Japan but to the poet’s own inner journey. I picked up a copy of Basho’s travel narratives at Powell’s and, reading late into the night, I realized I had found a kindred spirit. Basho did just what I wanted to do: he headed north, visited temples (churches), and talked with people along the way.
Basho, a Zen Buddhist, wrote with a level of detachment I admire. He doesn’t defend or criticize or even celebrate. His poetry and prose are not didactic. His writing just is. My sociologist friend Matt will probably say that detachment is all but impossible when dealing with a subject – my spiritual heritage, American evangelicalism – so intimate and charged with meaning. But I feel like the pursuit of detachment, if not it’s attainment, is critical to this project’s success.
There is plenty to celebrate in American evangelicalism; God knows there is plenty to criticize. But I am not a good enough writer to do those things well. I’ll stick with the basics: this is who I am, this is where I come from, this is where we are going.
