Goosechase: a video
A note from Jamie Howison: In the winter of 2017, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend at the Orthodox Hermitage of the Annunciation in rural Nova Scotia, as part of an extended retreat in which I was engaged, under the direction of Fr. Gary Thorne. This was not an easy patch of life for me, as I was working through the failure of a marriage and questioning much of what I’d assumed was held in my future. Fr. Thorne’s insistence that I spend that weekend with the community was good and right, and I’m glad to have come to know those men. Since that time, Fr. Cassian has had to leave for medical reasons, and in this rather lovely documentary film the community has been joined by Fr. Jean-Baptiste. It was lovely to watch the film, and to see how this wee little community continues to find its way.
What follows is an excerpt from the small book I wrote reflecting on the six weeks I spent under Fr. Thorne’s direction, A Kind of Solitude: how pacing the cage with an icon and the Book of Common Prayer restored my soul.
We arrived at the Hermitage of the Annunciation in the mid-afternoon, and after paying a brief visit to the little chapel—which they called the Temple—I was introduced to the three monks who make their lives there: the abbot, Schema-Igumen Luc, and Fathers Cassian and Nathaniel. Fr. Luc was extraordinarily gentle and welcoming, and after showing me to my little bedroom he toured me through the rest of the house. In their generously stocked library Fr. Luc outlined where books on various topics were shelved; the writings of the church fathers, biblical commentaries, works on the spiritual life from the Eastern tradition, and so forth. As we came to the last shelf he said, “And here is the most important book ever written. Do you suppose you know what it might be?” Before I could reply that I assumed it was the Bible, he reached up and pulled down a hardcover edition of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Ah, I am going to like this man. Published in 1943, it was a book Fr. Luc would have read as a child growing up in France, yet that didn’t fully account for his affection for the story. He explained that anytime he came across a copy for sale he would buy it, so that there was always a copy to give to any child who visited the Hermitage. The depths of its appeal had somewhat evaded me when I first read it during my undergraduate years, so I vowed to read it again over the weekend.
The Hermitage is located in farm country in rural Nova Scotia and is set on an acreage that includes wooded areas, vegetable gardens, and pasture. A small pond is nestled into one section of the woods, beside which a small outbuilding has been constructed for private prayer and retreat. Two monks—Fathers Luc and Cassian—moved to the property in 2003 after founding their small community in Halifax in 1995, retrofitting the existing house and barn to better suit their needs, adding the small Temple as the heart of their religious life. The house itself is a fairly large wood frame building of quite recent construction, and is furnished simply yet comfortably.
With my tour of the house completed, I was left on my own for the few hours before supper. The afternoon was cold but clear and sunny, so I took advantage of that block of time to walk in the surrounding woods before settling in with The Little Prince for a bit before the 5pm supper. Summoned to the table, Fr. Luc asked if I would enjoy a beer with our meal. Well, if it is on offer, surely that’s in keeping with the discipline Fr. Thorne had set out for me. Yes, yes, that would be nice, and so Fr. Nathaniel was dispatched to the basement to fetch three bottles of beer to accompany our meal. Fr. Cassian was not feeling well that day, so declined the beer and joined us only briefly for the simple but nourishing meal. “Will you help Fr. Nathaniel with the dishes?” Fr. Luc asked, though of course it was really less a question and more a cue as to the protocols of the house. Yes, of course, and in short order the two of us were side by side at the counter, chatting easily about his roots in Western Canada and how he’d landed in the Russian Orthodox Church just a few years ago. As we finished up I put on the kettle to make a cup of tea, and as I did I thought I detected the hint of a curious look on his face. Fr. Nathaniel went off toward the library, and a few minutes later as I waited for my tea to steep I heard Fr. Luc’s voice. “Has he gone to his room?” “No, he is making tea.” “Oh”. Uh oh.
I hurriedly splashed some milk into my cup, briefly wondering if I might be best to just pour it down the drain just in case I was breaking a rule regarding some sort of overnight fast. No, I will just take it to the sitting room by my bedroom, and read there for a while. Might as well enjoy this transgression, if in fact it was a transgression. As I flicked off the kitchen light, I realized that aside from a few nightlights the house was in total darkness, in spite of it being not quite 6pm. Okay then, straight to my little bedroom it is. It was only then that I looked more carefully at the schedule they’d left there on the bedside table.
6:00pm – readings (in cell or scriptorium) & prayer
7:30pm / 8:00pm – beginning of night rest
And why so early? I glanced to the top of the schedule.
3:15am – end of night rest
4:00am – Jesus Prayer in Temple
5:00am – Matins in Temple
Needless to say, if your night rest ends at 3:15am, it makes a good deal of sense to be closing down the house at 6:00pm, but it came as rather a surprise to me! Fr. Luc had mentioned that for different reasons we would not by praying a full Matins in the morning, but rather would offer a simpler form of prayer in the Temple at 6am, preceded by a time of meditation with the Jesus Prayer. I was welcome to join them anytime after 5am, he’d explained, so I knew I needed to be in bed quite early. But to my room at 6:00pm? It was going to be a long evening. Thankfully, I not only had St. Silouan the Athonite and the borrowed copy of The Little Prince, but just that morning I had downloaded an electronic copy of Grevel Lindop’s biography of Charles Williams to my laptop, and at the last minute had decided to pack it along. I say thankfully, because there really wasn’t a proper light in the bedroom by which to read, so a lightly glowing screen—something I tend not to like for reading—was just the thing.
The morning came early, but of course it was more than manageable given how early I had been in bed. I was certainly still a little bleary-eyed when I stumbled into the Temple at 5:45am to join Fathers Luc and Nathaniel in meditating on the Jesus Prayer, but with a bit of breakfast and a couple of cups of good, strong coffee, I was soon ready to settle in and do some journaling. As I look back on my entry from that morning, I’m aware of how my longing to be home had begun to shift from being simply restless to being in a place of preparation for a new beginning. At the core of that longing was a deepening awareness that I would soon need to put the house on the market and find a new place that I could call home…
From Jamie Howison, A Kind of Solitude: how pacing the cage with an icon and the Book of Common Prayer restored my soul, Resource Publications, 2021.