Shed

 

The drive to church, an hour through farmland, is the start of our liturgy. We drive eastwards, towards the sea and the morning light. 

On the way we pass scores of rural sheds, in varying states of rust and/or robustness. I joke to my husband that I am working on a photographic series called Shed, and I'll need to stop and photograph all these tin shacks one day. They sit alone in the quiet landscape. Shed, I tell him, is not just a noun but a verb. We came out here to shed the excesses of the city.

And a shed is that exactly. A building whittled down to its bare minimum. Walls, a floor, a roof. Perfunctory; they keep the wet and the wind out without fuss or fancy.

It's an ascetic structure, like a monastic cell in our desert church. And that is what we drive towards.

***

I am always impressed by conversion stories. There are prominent Orthodox thinkers and writers who are converts - Jonathan Pageau, Paul Kingsnorth, Frederica Mathewes-Green. British poet and novelist Paul Kingsnorth went from environmental Buddhist to Wiccan and is now home in Orthodoxy. Canadian iconographer and popular podcaster Jonathan Pageau searched for true Christianity from a Protestant base and Frederica Mathewes-Green, prolific writer, had a fall-on-your-knees moment in Ireland that saw her find Christ on her honeymoon.

Every cradle Orthodox person comes to a point where they need to look into their own heart. Maybe we're going through the motions, maybe we lie down to sleep half-drunk and say we'll pray tomorrow. Perhaps we think we are OK without a judgmental God and His judgmental people. 

***

My story started in the midst of the gender revolution. I was the editor of an art magazine and I felt day by day, that my beliefs were at odds with the agenda that the media was tasked to promote. You had to keep up. It was a revolution! Gender was fluid, this was news. Big news. Biology doesn't matter, it's all the same under the sun, and marriage is for all!

It was a surprise to me how foundational my beliefs were. Me, urbane. 

While I loved all my friends regardless of sexuality, did that mean that I should change my view on what I held marriage to be? A sacrament. A sacred union, blessed by God? I could do both, surely. Love my friends and keep my beliefs!

A gulf was opening between who I was, and who everyone had become. They were taking a pick axe to the foundation of Western civilisation - to Christianity, and it was done in the name of tolerance. The irony was that it was a one-sided argument and debate wasn't tolerated. You simply agreed or you were a backwards bigot. 

So I started censoring myself. Keeping my thoughts private like the crucifix under my clothes.

I was no longer running with the pack.

So I stopped and I looked up.

I was walking to work and I saw the mountains; the Dandenong ranges, to the east of the city, were like blue watercolours in the morning. My feet pounded blue stone. In the quiet streets of Fitzroy the jacarandas shivered. I cried because I was thinking of the new Russian martyrs and the Russian Revolution. 

I wished I was Bunjil, the eagle totem of Melbourne, and I could fly to the mountains.

***

I left Melbourne when I was over seven months pregnant. It was Theophany. I packed my tiny, crappy car with my kids and my belly. We drove to church first to kiss my parents goodbye. My dad came out of the altar to hug me. It was my first ever big drive. I had been off my probationary licence for two months. 

At our first toilet stop an hour out of the city, in the scrubby bush beside the highway, we saw kangaroos.

Our big stop was in Wangaratta. Being Theophany we decided to take a swim in the Ovens River. We got out of the hot car and shed our clothes at a secluded spot. 

"Girls, we are going to baptise you as country kids. Get in the water."

The water was the colour of weak tea and lukewarm. We are washed of the city. An eagle flew above us and circled, and we couldn't believe our eyes. 

How fiercely I loved my children in that moment.