P&S Feb 2022 GIFT

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Elrena Evans

Happy Second Anniversary, Paper&String!

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t’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since the first care package from the Black Barn went out into the world. Two years of celebrating faith, creativity, and beauty in its many forms; two years of inviting you to read, listen, taste, grow, and gather with us every month.

In celebration, we’ve packed this issue with favorites from our first two years, as well as new delights just for you. I’ve also asked our Paper&String founders to share the “origin story” of Paper&String, in their own words, as our feature essay this month. You can read about how an idea, a dream, a spark of thought all combined to become the care package you are holding in your hands.

But Paper&String is not simply a static entity—we continue to develop, to grow, to welcome writers and artists and creators who want to craft this dream with us. In our “AllCall” at the end of this issue, you’ll find the stories of three Paper&String team members who joined our little band of merriment after our founding, continuing the story of Paper&String.

An origin story, a continuation story… and the story of our future is yet to be written.

We’d like you to share in that future. We’ve never made an “ask,” in the two-year tenure of Paper&String, because we feel so strongly that Paper&String is a gift from us to you, just as we are committed to keeping our subscription price so low. But we are also committed to the ongoing sustainability of this care package, and to ensuring that the writers and artists and creators featured here are compensated for the tremendous gifts they bring.

So we have one simple ask, on this our twoyear anniversary: If you enjoy Paper&String, if you appreciate this celebration of faith, creativity, and beauty in its many forms… would you tell a friend, or two, or ten? Our hope for this third year of Paper&String is that it would be a growth year for us, a year where we can start to give our contributors something that is a little more reflective of the value of their time and talents. Would you help us?

As Anna writes, “This feels like pieces of the heart of God shared through the lenses of people committed to seeing the beauty in the ordinary, the joy in the mundane, the holy in the routine.” I hope Paper&String can be just that for you, and for all those we hope to welcome this year.

And if you’re joining us for the first time this month, welcome indeed! We’ve designed Paper&String to be a virtual “care package” for you, featuring articles, music, recipes, artwork, spiritual practices, and more. We

hope these selections inspire you to read, listen, taste, grow, and gather with all of us in the Black Barn Collective. Don’t feel you need to open everything in order—each category is designed to be its own individually wrapped gift, nestled inside this package we are creating for you.

To download this printable page with this beautiful illustration by our original illustrator, Amy Hinman, click here!

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

- Ephesians 3:20-21

of the Origins of Paper&String

By Paper&String Staff

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aper&String began for me in the company of old friends. Years before the first Paper&String issue came out in February of 2020, I met for a reunion with three of my oldest and dearest friends, women I had known during my years living in Chicago.

While we were together, we prayed for one another, and during that time of prayer my friend Jessica said she’d seen a strange picture of Jonathan, my husband, as she prayed. In her mind, he was tending an old-fashioned printing press in a barn. It was such a vivid image that even though I could make no sense of it (and our only barn at the time was a tumble-down shed), I held onto it in my memory, wondering if it might make sense one day.

Not long after, I sat in Amy Knorr’s living room with Elrena Evans and Allison Duncan—our writers’ group—talking about the writing life. Suddenly, in response to something I had shared, Elrena turned to me and

said, “You should start a press!” That idea was so far outside my experience I simply laughed, but I also connected it to the memory of my friend Jessica’s prayer.

How much time passed after Elrena’s enthusiastic idea? Unfortunately, I remember moments but not the space between them.

I think quite a lot of time passed, and while I remembered what Elrena said, and while I had slowly become intrigued by the idea of somehow cultivating space for more writers to share their work with the world, I had no idea how to make that happen. I could not even see one step ahead in that direction.

Gathered once again with Amy, Elrena, and Allison, I complained that I had no time for sending out the regular email newsletters I felt I should be sending. That day a conversation began—particularly between Elrena and myself—about sharing the burden so that it need not feel like a burden. Why not send a newsletter from a small group of friends rather

than myself only? And could we make it beautiful? I had no idea how to make an email newsletter beautiful, but others did. They hold their own threads in this narrative tapestry.

It is good to create art in community. It is good to tell stories alongside others. When we nurture our connections with one another, we are tending soil where all kinds of beauty can grow.

“W

e need to stop and take a picture!” I hit the Mustang’s brakes and my best friend Aly and I clambered out to stop and take in the end of Maplehurst’s driveway, to mark this arrival in person to the place we’d seen and heard about in many a podcast and Instagram post. Christie had been corresponding with Aly for

quite awhile, and Aly had introduced me to her book Roots and Sky, and the Out of the Ordinary podcast with Lisa-Jo, almost a year prior. We both had resonated with Lisa-Jo and Christie’s discussions of the heart of their ordinary days and experiences, and we’d both exchanged casual messages online with these two new friends. At some point they must have decided we weren’t Canadian serial killers, and we were invited by Christie to come help them set up for a live podcast event at the Black Barn, the first invitation for readers and listeners to come and enjoy time with them in person.

I flew from Alberta to Ontario, rented a convertible at the airport, then picked up Aly, and we commenced the seven-plus hour drive across the border to a small Pennsylvania town. We hauled chairs, made lunch, sweated

in the Pennsylvania humidity. At one point I sat at a table with Amy Hinman (whom long-term readers may remember as our first Paper&String artist!) lettering washroom signs (bathrooms for you U.S. readers), and enjoying getting to know these women who were sisters in Spirit.

Elrena and Allison later sat with us in the garden as the party started, and Elrena and I discovered we shared the same affinity for nerd culture and a ridiculous yet sparkling sense of humour. (I think Aly’s exact words to me after meeting Elrena while I was off somewhere else were, “Anna, I just met your personality twin, you’re going to love her.”) That evening, Aly and I relaxed in our hotel room and talked about the precious time we’d had… and we both said, “I don’t know why, but it feels like the start of something. It feels like God is putting something together.”

Lo and behold, a few months down the road, Elrena emailed me to pick my brain about laying out a newsletter that was still an embryonic idea, just a spark. Many conversations later, Paper&String was cultivated and sprouted. I have been incredibly humbled to be able to take the beauty submitted each month and create a cohesive package to delight our readers, as well as be given the opportunity to share my own writing and photography as well. This feels like pieces of the heart of God shared through the lenses of people committed to seeing the beauty in the ordinary, the joy in the mundane, the holy in the routine.

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he story of Paper&String, for me, begins at home with my son Joshua. It was the autumn of 2019, he was 13 years old, and his latest obsession was microtransactions. And, as with all of his interests in life, he was All In. (When he was maybe six or seven, and obsessed

with the video game Mega Man, one morning I told him “Joshua, I love you more than life itself, but I need just five minutes to not hear the words ‘Mega Man.’” And he went into the kitchen, dutifully set a timer for five minutes, waited, and then picked up right where he’d left off.)

The microtransaction phase was no different, aside from the lack of a kitchen timer. Suffice it to say microtransactions were very much on my mind, whether I wanted them to be or not, when my writers’ group—Christie, Amy, Allison, and I—had a conversation in Allison’s living room one day about communicating with our audience as writers.

Christie was talking about the frustration of not having time to craft regular email newsletters—and the effort involved in designing them, creating them, and sending them—when something in my brain went “Ting! Microtransactions.”

And I went home and started furiously jotting down ideas. What if we made something like a newsletter, only better? What if we made something celebrating faith, creativity, and beauty in its many forms? What if we made something for which we could charge a very small fee,

(microtransactions!) and that, with enough subscribers, could actually be sustainable? The story of Black Barn Press had already taken place… what if, I asked myself, this is where we start?

As the conversations grew and grew and grew over the next few weeks (we went from initial idea to launch in the space of about three and a half months), and as my kids asked me “Do you actually know what you’re doing, Mom? Or did you just jump in and imagine you’d figure it out along the way?” my son Joshua said, repeatedly, “I still don’t understand how I was the inspiration for all of this.”

“You said microtransactions,” I replied. “And Christie said newsletter. And my brain put the two together.”

After our care package made its way out into the world, my family celebrated with ice cream: celebrated faith, creativity, beauty in its many forms… and Joshua, the accidental inspiration for Paper&String.

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love the art of naming things.

Yet, often it’s been my husband who has been able to pull together the threads of a podcast or a book or a story idea to tie them into the name with just the right fit. For a year Christie and I had been telling stories, like love letters, about how the very best stories grow out of the soil of ordinary life. And it was my husband, Peter, who had named our podcast, Out of the Ordinary. And for a year we’d invited listeners to come and visit with us, virtually, at the Maplehurst farmhouse, as

we sat around the table in the third floor attic bedroom and told our tales of ordinary life.

Then, in our second year of podcasting and the first year of Jon and Christie’s literal and longawaited Black Barn, we opened the doors to 50 listeners to come and sit with us in real life. It was glorious! And we wished we could have had everyone with us in person. We wanted to find ways to recreate that in-real-life experience.

So when Christie shared the idea of a communal newsletter, it felt like a chance to send out a taste of the Black Barn experience to those who were homesick for this place they hadn’t been able to visit in person. What if we could send them a sampler of the real life experience? What if we could send a Black Barn care package with something for all their senses: something to read, to listen to, to taste, to grow, and to virtually gather together?

The Black Barn care package reminded me of an old South African tradition—to pack up your own food and snacks from home for long road trips. My grandma made this an art form: tiny chicken salad sandwiches cut into triangles with lettuce shredded and scattered all over the meal and the bottom of the tupperware like edible confetti.

Chicken drumsticks and tiny bowls of potato salad all tucked into her cooler bag. We have a name for this kind of meal, we call it “padkos” in Afrikaans. Literally translated, it means road-food. It evokes the memory of home and is a meal that travels with you. Food for the road.

The Black Barn care package reminded Christie’s husband, Jon, of Lembas, the Elven Waybread that the hobbits were gifted on their journey. We wanted to send out padkos from the Black Barn; Lembas to meet the hunger for a home people had never visited in person. And we wanted it to include a taste of all our favorite things that the Black Barn community represented. When Christie said, “I think I’ve got it… how about Paper&String?” we all knew that was the name. We’d been dreaming of that printing press, and imagining packaging up Black Barn publications with literal paper and string… and so it was that our dreams and our memories and some of our favorite words

merged into the meal we send out down long roads, a long way from home, every month.

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ike many beautiful things in my life over the last several years, the seed of Paper&String was planted in the midst of a lively and generative writer’s group conversation. Sitting in Christie’s parlor, warm fire glowing, our conversation turned to goals and dreams and invitations. Black Barn Press was mentioned. Newsletters were discussed. Dreams of stepping out of unhealthy jobs and into life-giving work were woven into the fabric of the conversation. I left that night with a strong sense that something more than a newsletter would be born, and it would be the first of the Black Barn Press publications.

A smattering of email conversations later, there was a newsletter in the works with a name, a real name…and it would be a care package housing more than just words on a page. It would carry the very heart of the contributors

along with offerings to delight the senses. In the midst of a cross-country move, at the time, I had to bow out of the immediate work, but my heart was full of joy at the thought of this fledgling idea.

An early draft of ideas for th

e nebulous Paper&String

Three months later found me in California walking the beach with Elrena, who came to visit just days before the pandemic began in earnest. We called Paper&String by its name and spoke of it with loving care as we turned over in conversation the rocky footing that comes with an idea freshly birthed into real and solid life. The waves crashed and receded, crashed and receded, and I was full of the sense that this would be the life of Paper&String. It, too, would ebb and flow, sometimes crashing over us with the beauty and fullness of its invitation, sometimes barely making a mark on the sand in its gentle offering. And for its creators and receivers alike, with each package carefully wrapped and sent, it would be full of adventure, mystery, depth, newness.

I have not been disappointed in this. As the waves of ideas and the sacred and difficult work of bringing them to life continue, I look forward to the future of Paper&String, iteration by beautiful iteration.

Do you love Paper&String?

Do you appreciate this celebration of faith, creativity, and beauty in its many forms?

The Black Barn is committed to the ongoing sustainability of this care package, and to ensuring that the writers and artists and creators featured here are compensated for the tremendous gifts they bring. And you can help! All you have to do is tell a friend… or two… or ten. Each new subscription brings us closer to the point where we can offer our contributors something more reflective of the value of their time and talents, as we create this care package each month.

Our hope for this third year of Paper&String is that it would be a growth year for us. Would you help?

SUBSCRIBE NOW | GIFT PAPER&STRING

I’ve spent years raving to friends about the books, shows, and films I love and why. They don’t have to be recent to catch my eye.

They only have to be a new way to see the old, old story of light vs. dark.

This never fails to move me.

While not every review will be for every person, my hope is that these move you too.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries Author: Jane Austen, adapted by Hank Green and Bernie Su Available: Free on YouTube. Click here.

Rating: G What You Need To Know: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning series based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. And it’s JUST what the doctor ordered. What if Lizzie Bennet was a 24-year-old grad student with a mountain of student loans, still living at home while preparing for a career and trying to convince her mom that being single is not the end of the world? And what if she kept a video diary along the way? You’d have 100 delicious

episodes of a YouTube vlog series, chronicled by Lizzie, with guest appearances by her sisters Jane and Lydia—not to mention fabulous re-interpretations of “Bing-Lee” and Darcy. Fall in love with this classic tale all over again!

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isten, if there’s anything that these days of social distancing, dire news headlines, and chronic worry need more of, it’s lighthearted entertainment. And this twist on an old favorite—with the added new flavors of the Internet, social media, and digital marketing— are just the burst of delicious you didn’t know your evenings needed. Served up in bite-sized segments of between two and eight minutes each, I warn you that you won’t be able to stop at just one.

Back before this series got famous, my friends and I discovered it in 2012 when I had three kids under 6 and only short bursts of time to watch TV, read, or do anything that didn’t involve nursing, wiping, burping or changing diapers while juggling a full-time

job. This series saved my sanity and filled my “commercial breaks” away from being a mom with more laughter and delight than I ever could have expected from the Internet. This is Lizzie Bennet as a Vlogger and Mr. Darcy as an uptight Tech Baron and it’s “This is Lizzie everything you never knew you Bennet as a Vlogger still needed and Mr. Darcy as an from Jane uptight Tech Baron Austen.

and it’s everything

I remember you never knew you bingeing my way through still needed from hours of these Jane Austen.” brilliantly reimagined takes on Austen’s original book when I was desperate for a break from my intense routine. Pulling direct quotes into the current cultural context, these

webisodes bring some of our favorite cast of characters to life in such a way that you could imagine them living next door or interning at your office. Darcy’s eyebrows could have a show all of their own, and Bing-Lee and Jane are so dear, so kind, and so bumbling you want to leave comments after each video begging them to see what is obvious to the rest of us, and just start dating already!

There’s nothing amateur about this series. The videos are created by Hank Green (brother to John Green of A Fault in Our Stars fame) and Bernie Su (who went on to win the same Emmy for interactive re-imagination two years later for his adaptation of Austen’s Emma, called Emma Approved). The story is told in vlog style as part of a thesis project for Lizzie’s Mass Communications class. But her revelations quickly spiral into drama, romance, dating, and the rich boys who have moved into the neighborhood—medical students, William Darcy and Bing-Lee.

All our favorites and their favorite moments show up—Charlotte, Mr. Collins, Mr. Wickham, Caroline, Georgiana, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

Each story is told by Lizzie from her room— this is her video diary after all—but the show incorporates other locations, and characters often join Lizzie to reflect on the big events happening off screen.

When Lizzie starts interning at Darcy’s startup, we know that it’s only a matter of time before his big, “I love you/I hate you” declaration. (It’s episode 60: “Are You Kidding Me!” if you are dying to jump ahead).

And it absolutely stands up to that moment in the PBS original and the Keira Knightley movie. It’s nothing short of pure Internet gold to hear Lizzie declare to the

camera, as Darcy realizes he’s being recorded on her vlog, “If you’ve got something to say to me, you can say it here and now.”

And Darcy dives in, clearly against his better judgment, with a modern spin on those muchbeloved words: “I”ve been fighting it for months now, but Lizzie Bennet I’m in love with you. I can’t believe it either,” (he says in response to her stunned face) “that my heart could completely overwhelm my judgment.” As a literary fan, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a universe in which Lizzie utters the words, “You act like you’d rather have a hernia repaired than be around me.”

This series is a pure treat from start to finish.

And what a finish it is! Hello, episodes 97, 98 and 99! Deep, satisfied sigh. I hope you love it all as much as I have. Any time a great work of literature is reinvented in a fresh way, it’s like one more fan’s love letter to the original author.

And this reads like a fresh declaration of adoration for Jane Austen like no other. Watch, love, repeat.

Will you try any of this month’s recipes?

Send pictures to paperandstring@blackbarncollective.com for a chance to be featured in our next issue!

And please tag us when you share on social media:

#paperandstringcarepackage • @maplehurstblackbarn

with ANNA GRIST

Witnessing Hard, Holy Moments

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ne April night on the end of a run on our street, I heard awful noises coming from the distant forest, an animal in distress. I picked up my pace, but before I could reach the corner, three wolves with blood dripping from

their muzzles chased a yearling moose out of the bush right in front of me. (Pictured below and left, earlier in the day). One wolf of the pack looked at me, then miraculously they left their prey and walked back into the bush. The moose started walking towards me, ears forward, as if I could help it. A neighbour in their car had stopped behind me so I was protected, but the moose came and stood by us, dripping blood from raw haunches and back, waiting for us to do something, sensing safety in our presence.

I finished my run home (the moose tried to follow me for a few seconds, and it took everything in me not to go back and just stand with her) and returned with my car and herded her off the road. She started eating and laid down, which I hoped was to recover and rest.

Unfortunately, she didn’t make it through the night. The wolves came back. This poor baby, she just kept looking at me calmly like she trusted me to help, and I couldn’t do anything except check on her the next morning. Which, sadly, became an unnecessary plan, as our bus driver told me her body was in the valley the next morning.

I felt like I’d failed her, this gentle, trusting giant. Even though I know I did all, in my state of shock, that I had the ability to do and thought would serve her best… my brain tells me I should have done this or that. I should have been carrying my bear spray; I could have died, too. I should have called the Fish & Wildlife emergency line, even though I thought they’d just come put her down instead of let her rest. I shouldn’t be so upset about something that’s “just the natural circle of life,” even though it happened violently in front of me.

We prepare our bodies to encounter the natural world here: we carry bear spray, pointy walking sticks, whistles, warm clothes, water. But when you have a natural tendency to open your heart in connection to the animals you encounter on an almost-daily basis, like the deer and moose we have in abundance, it’s hard to prepare your heart to witness their suffering or death, no matter how “natural” and even needed it is in our local ecosystem.

When you’ve seen the babies born in your yard, watched them grow up, lose their spots, gain antlers, or seen them from afar following their mothers across muskeg, it’s hard to see that beautiful life end, even as new life will arise in its

place. Being able to root for both predator and prey is not the same as, in a moment, being within physical reach of the harshness of that dance. Staring into the eyes of a predator and respecting their role doesn’t negate the pain in seeing their prey hurt and confused and taking on that feeling of helplessness. Of longing for the day when, in a new creation, these creatures will live in peace, somehow.

A mystery we won’t unravel in this lifetime or realm.

This whole experience touched that universal longing we all carry within us for redemption: for things to be made right, even if we can’t always articulate what that rightness would look like. Not only the redemption of our own broken, beautiful souls to their full glory as God

intended, in perfect relationship with Him and reaching out in perfect love to others, but also the redemption of communities, of people in relationship with each other, of the creation that we’ve let down. It points me to the hope of the kingdom of God that is to come, but is also being worked out in glimmers here, as we brokenly try to love and bring justice to this world. We each have a role to play in redemption, and it starts with our own hearts before God. And then He reaches out through us to the person next to us, the community we live in, and beyond.

God has always used nature to speak to me, and he used this very ordinary moose, caught in the natural circle of life, to remind me that He sees even the sparrow fall. That I shed no more tears than He does at the pain and confusion of gentle creation living in its groaning to be redeemed. That this moose’s life, that I’d captured on my camera that very same morning and that graces our benediction images early in April in the Black Barn Online, would remind me that one day, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”

Holding Lightly

by Anna Grist

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uthor Seth Haines once commented that if you’re going to social media for your primary source of community and connection, you’re doing it wrong. Social media is only healthy when it’s a secondary source of community and connection.

Seeing the community that Lisa-Jo and Christie have created around the Black Barn with the amazing help of a few friends shows that there IS a way to do healthy community between internet friends, and make connections that circle us back to mirroring the same rhythms in our real lives. When we hold lightly our digital lives and don’t look to them as a primary source to meet our needs, they become beautiful places of connection for the right reasons.

Last year, listening to the Out of the Ordinary podcast with my friend Alyson, our acorn idea of a road trip blossomed into actually going to the Black Barn “From the connection in person and meeting Lisaof empathy and Jo, Christie, and shared joys through some other new the conversations friends at the very first Black of the podcast, God Barn event. We fashioned marvellous didn’t want to go and utterly creative as fans to meet our “heroes” work that could only though, and have happened if all we both knew of us involved were that it would be unhealthy if that willing to be open to was our mindset.

His leading.”

God took our intentional discipline and turned it into an opportunity to be of service.

Idol worship is thwarted when you realize your “idols” have foibles common to woman, and Christie and Lisa-Jo proved more than relatable and human. That weekend I sat down with Amy Hinman at Christie’s kitchen table, surrounded by bud vases full of blooms from her garden, and asked what I could do to help. “We need signs to the toilets,” Lisa-Jo said. “Want to make some?” As I hand-lettered signs pointing to the bathrooms, I also began an acquaintance with Amy, never realizing she and I would soon make up the “AA Art Team” and collaborate on Paper&String. God had a bigger picture in mind.

From the connection of empathy and shared joys through the conversations of the podcast, God fashioned marvellous and utterly creative work that could only have happened if all of us involved were willing to be open to His leading.

In one of my favourite Out of the Ordinary episodes, “What If Hope Scares You Silly?” (#9 from November 2018), Christie and Lisa-Jo talk about big hopes that were deferred...and seemed to be answered with a “no” from God. But then, dramatically, (as He loves doing) and in God’s perfect timing, those hopes were realized. And the foggy confusion of unmet desires was cleared, and the way was made a little lighter and brighter. We don’t always get a “Wait, wait, wait, YES” — sometimes it’s a hard and fast “no” — but either way, God gives grace to accept and live with the outcome. Knowing I’m not alone in these struggles, and hearing

these stories of deep longing is such a beautiful part of spiritual community and sisterhood.

It’s wonderful to know there are friends on the other side of the continent having the same conversations and thoughts as me.

Christie and Lisa-Jo continue to weave the theme of hope deferred through many of their podcast conversations, and it’s beautiful to now stand on the other side of some of those conversations and get a glimpse both of how God has answered their prayers, and be reminded of the same kind of work that’s happened in my own life.

Click here to listen to the latest podcast!

In Our Earbuds: How To Save A Planet

by Jon Carlson

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f you pay attention to the news about climate change, it’s easy to feel hopeless. Humanity seems to be on an immutable collision course with extinction. Is it even possible to cultivate genuine, realistic hope? Enter How to Save a Planet, a podcast from Gimlet Media.

Marine biologist and policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson teams up with veteran audio journalist Alex Blumberg

to tell honest, hopeful stories about real solutions to climate change. And they take hope seriously: from the peppy intro music to the bouncy, conversational tone to the occasional (and semi-ironic) use of air horns, they’re working to inspire hope, because all is not lost.

One episode to start: The Tribe that’s Moving Earth (and Water) to Solve the Climate Crisis (Feb. 4, 2021), which tells the story of Yurok Tribe’s efforts in California to reclaim their ancestral land while rediscovering sustainable practices.

Our Own Spotify Profile!

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nnouncing... the Paper&String profile on Spotify! Now, all of your favorite playlists from Paper&String are here in one place.

Click here to visit our profile on Spotify

To download this printable page, click here!

“What a sweet joy to think that God is just...that He takes into account our weaknesses, that He is perfectly aware of our frail nature.”

- St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Oma’s Backyard from Tonya Salomons

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or 10 years my Oma (Dutch for grandmother) and I shared a backyard. We shared a backyard because our family lived in her old house after she and my Opa built their new house in the old horse pasture out back. I could step out my kitchen door and she could step out hers and we could wave at each other and call out “Hoe gaat het met u?” (How is it with you?) every single day. On Monday mornings we held laundry races; which one of us could get the laundry to the clothesline first. If the forecast was favourable I’d sneak a load or two out before dark on Sunday night.

Of course, she would notice; she noticed everything, and she’d call me and jokingly exclaim “Op Zondag, Tonya!” (On Sunday!!) and then pronounce that it would rain because of my wiley ways.

In the summer she and my Opa lived on the back porch and my kids and their cousins, who all lived close by, could be heard screeching and laughing as they ran through the connecting yards. She relished being so close to the children.

Invariably the kids would gather and exclaim that they never get fed at home, and beg for a snack. She always obliged, walking into the kitchen and snagging an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, and with a sharp knife, start peeling. The children would stare wide-eyed as she managed to peel the apple, with paper-thin precision, without breaking the long spiral.

While the summer delighted the winter brought comfort. After dropping the kids off at school, I would attend to a few chores and at 10 o’clock I’d call and ask if the coffee was ready.

The coffee was always ready. I’d make my way across the backyard and we’d sit around her kitchen table with our tiny cups of coffee and talk about pretty much anything.

Oma’s kitchen was the heart of her home.

If I close my eyes I can still bring to mind its particular smells: coffee, fried onions, cooking potatoes and the Indonesian spices she loved to cook with.

She’s the one who taught me how to make the best soup, and when Brian found himself without a job she always, ALWAYS made sure I had money to buy groceries.

On February, 27, 2003 I was standing in my kitchen, the one that used to be her kitchen, when I made the coffee call. I was startled when my uncle answered the phone and he said “Tonya, you better come,” and there was something in his voice that made my insides contract and heave with foreboding. When I walked through the door of Oma’s kitchen I found my Opa with tears running down his face, and in a smattering of Dutch and English he told me that Oma was no longer here. The grief of it was overwhelming and I lost my ability to stand.

On Wednesday night my Oma fell asleep beside Opa, and on Thursday morning she woke up with Jesus.

It’s been 19 years since she died and there are days when the loss of her still takes my breath away. Often, I feel her loss most keenly in the kitchen. I wouldn’t say she was a gourmet cook,

but the meals I had around her table were pure comfort. Her pea soup was the best thing in the world! She would make a huge pot of it on Saturday and we would eat it on Sunday because pea soup is always better the day after it’s made. In honour of her, and the anniversary of her passing, I share this recipe for pea soup, inspired by her, with you.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

Comfort and Joy: Crockpot Baked Potato Soup

By Aly Trotter

T

his soup became a favourite of mine during one of the coldest of Februarys. Maybe it wasn’t the coldest. Maybe it just felt that way to me because I had spent the last month in Zimbabwe’s beautiful warmth.

There were a lot of things that year that needed to be comforted inside me after I left my home there, to come back home here, so when my sister sat down on the couch next to me and showed me a new easy recipe she had found? It sounded like all things comfort and joy. I am here to tell you it was. And it continues to be.

This soup is my favourite thing to make when I know I will be working a long day and do not have the time I wish I did to make something. It is my favourite thing to make and take to others,

and it is my most favourite thing to make on a day when I simply need something warm, homemade, and comforting If you are ever looking for Aly Trotter, you will most likely find her near a lake, campfire, or walking the red dirt roads of Zimbabwe. She loves to read, write, and paint, and most of all, she loves making the people in her everyday life, whether that is here or on the other side of the world, feel seen and cared about.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

Homemade Pizza

By Jon Purifoy

P

erhaps like many of you, my family and I have moved far from relatives. School, work and a search for a place to set down our roots, have meant over the years we were never in one place very long. There are certain things you simply cannot take with you when you leave... the view from your bedroom window, the friendly neighbor who looked after your kids in an emergency, the church community that became family when you had none. But, there are things that get packed right along with the clothes and furniture: memories, vision, and recipes.

I have found that the ritual of cooking can connect me to places in the past and people I love and miss. Why do I think of cooking as a

ritual? Well, when we cook, we follow a series of actions in a very specific order. I find the most enjoyment in cooking when I know the recipe well enough to not reference any directions. I imagine that you have some family recipes that fit this description...recipes passed down from cook to cook, kitchen to kitchen by words and participation. When you follow that ritual, you enter into those places of your past: standing alongside your mom as she hums, or watching a friend dice a bell pepper for the first time and nick a finger. Places you may have thought you might not ever see again, but realize they are still very much a part of you.

For nearly 15 years, our family has made pizza on Friday night. We turn up the music, dance and laugh, and roll out some dough. Below is my ritual for making dough, sauce and two kinds of pizza.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

Buckwheat Pancakes from Allison Duncan

H

ere’s a buckwheat pancakes recipe I found online and adapted slightly. It’s become a favorite in my family, even among the pickier eaters who I thought would balk at the unusually dark gray color of the buckwheat flour. I’ve combined the dry ingredients as a mix to give as gifts, along with a jar of cherry butter or jam.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

with CHRISTIE PURIFOY

T

ime is a key ingredient in the making of a garden. It is as necessary as sunlight and water, soil and seed. Only with time can there be growth, and successful gardeners must always try to take time into account. How long will it take for newly-planted shrubs to knit themselves together and shade out the weeds? If it’s only a matter of weeks, then a commitment to hand-weeding during the interim is fine. If it’s a matter of years, then I might choose some filler plants and tuck them in between the shrubs. They can keep the

weeds from coming up until the shrubs have fully grown together.

When we ignore the ingredient of time we end up with street trees that must be ruthlessly hacked back from power lines. We end up with bushes that block all light through our front window. We end up wishing our garden had never grown.

I do not think I took time into account when I first became a mother. I vividly remember the friend who gave me tiny spoons and bowls as a gift for my first baby shower.

I opened the package with surprise. It would be ages before my baby would be eating solid food! Of course, that friend understood the relentlessness of time. Five minutes later, it seems, my firstborn daughter has moved from

breastmilk to mashed banana to the Starbucks smoothies she buys for herself with the help of her very own car.

By the time my youngest was born, I had learned to consider time. I treasured the little moments with my last baby as all the motivational posters and books suggest you should. I was able to do this because she was a very easy, happy baby and she took frequent naps. Naptime is a moment outside of time for mothers of young ones. But babies are growing fast even while they are sleeping, and all my cherishing of moments could not stop the relentless march of time, could not stop those chubby, infant legs from growing long and lean and able to stretch so that long arms could reach the Oreo cookies I have hidden on the top pantry shelf.

I did not consider the ingredient of time when I first became a mother. I had not anticipated it, had not planned for it. They said the days would be long but the years would be short, but

I did not often lift my head to look beyond the length of those long days. Now I find that even the days are short, as my children speed past the chair where I sit studying garden catalogs, driven by their own secret agendas and plans.

They need me less, and I suddenly realize it is like that shift from spring to summer in the garden when the growth of the weeds finally slows, and at last I can get up off my knees, step back, and admire the general effect of the summer flowers.

I did not consider time when I became a mother, and I am astonished by how these children have grown. If they have their own children one day, I might tell them to cherish the moments. I might tell them the days are long but the years are short. Or I might keep quiet, for how can our small plans ever account for growth such as this?

Walking Slowly

By Amy Knorr

Y

ou may never have walked a labyrinth, but you have probably gone on a long walk or a hike. It is easy to fixate on the end goal of finishing the hike or getting to the center of the labyrinth. But in both cases, there is an invitation to let go of the goal of reaching the end and savor the journey that gets you there.

What if the journey became as important as the end result? What if your process was every bit as real as whatever you produced? Somewhere in that intersection lies a deep breath and a pause that widens eyes, opens hearts, and results in a life that embraces both peace and passion.

Click here or on image above to watch Amy’s video

Click to download the accompanying PDF which includes:

• Practice Preparation & Materials • An Invitation to Practice

Tell me a story about Paper&String...

I

first heard about Paper&String while listening to Lisa-Jo and Christie’s podcast, Out of the Ordinary, and I immediately knew that I wanted to subscribe. What could be better than a carefully curated experience for every one of the senses. On the first of every month, no sooner are my eyes open in the morning then my phone is in my hand to see if the new issue has arrived in my inbox. I’ll scroll through it quickly while in bed, building up the

anticipation for my morning coffee or some other quiet time throughout the day to sit and savour the goodness of it.

Two years later I am so honoured to be one of the regular contributors in the “Taste” section.

While I’m not much of a recipe creator, I am a recipe curator, and spending time in my kitchen is one of my most favourite things.

When asked if I would be willing to provide a story and a recipe every month it felt natural and comfortable. I love how food intersects with faith and life. Some of my strongest

memories are ones that happened in kitchens with lots of people gathering and breaking bread together. Paper&String is a community, and I like to think of all of us gathering once a month to feast on the beauty that we find in its pages. Here’s to many more issues of Paper&String and the invitation to awaken our senses.

I

became involved in writing for Paper&String through Amy Knorr, the Black Barn’s community chaplain. I had the joy of meeting

Amy as a fellow student in the summer of 2019, when we were both enrolled in a twoyear seminary program to receive training in a practice called spiritual direction. Early in 2020, Amy shared with me about the Black Barn.

I still remember her contagious enthusiasm as she told me about the Barn’s mission and the many pathways that were already being forged to bring folks together around creativity, beauty, and faith. I recall a warm feeling rising in me as we connected over Zoom and she shared her screen to give me a sense of this unique community. As she navigated around

the Mighty Networks platform, I got excited for what I saw and inspired for what could be.

Then, she opened up the most recent edition of Paper&String and I was struck by the sheer beauty of it. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it before and I relished reading my first issue. So, when she asked a few months later if I would consider joining the Paper&String writing team by offering spiritual practices, I was absolutely thrilled. Since October 2020, it has been a joy to contribute to this great publication under

Elrena’s wonderful editorial leadership. I always say that a good team makes all the difference in any kind of endeavor, and I’m happy to say that it is a true honor to be part of this great team.

W

hen I was a very young new mother, my former college art professor congratulated me on the birth of my baby and said, “Draw your kids. Draw your life.” At the time I was struggling to juggle new motherhood and my new identity as a caregiver with my art practice and identity as a

painter. His comment surprised me. I had been looking at Art as something separate from the mundane stuff of daily life, but he was telling me to use my art to reflect the quotidian.

I’ve been ruminating on his unexpected exhortation for many years now, and have found the closer I get to uniting my creative life with the rest of my life, the more vibrant and truthful both become.

A few years ago I committed to a year of daily drawing. The discipline brought back to my mind my professor’s words, as I sketched my

children doing homework, my husband folding laundry, my cat curled up on the sofa, a sink full of dirty dishes.

Not long after my year-long daily drawing discipline, I got an email from Elrena asking if I knew anyone in my artistic circles who would be interested in illustrating for Paper&String.

I was familiar with Paper&String, having admired both Elrena and Christie’s work for some time. I read through the issue Elrena sent and was drawn in by the honest, humble,

welcoming words. I saw in them the same poised awareness and presence my professor had encouraged me to cultivate, that receptive attentiveness to the ordinary that allows one to see the extraordinary shimmering just beneath. I told Elrena I would be honored to be involved, and have since been so grateful to extend my drawing practice to its digital pages, illustrating not just my own life, but the deep, insightful thoughts and reflections of the wonderful Paper&String team.

The Team!

Christie & Jonathan Purifoy

live at the old farmhouse in Pennsylvania called Maplehurst and built the Black Barn. Christie earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago before trading the classroom for a picket-fenced garden and an old writing desk. Now she writes books and raises kids and chickens and tends the trees that gave Maplehurst its name.

Lisa-Jo Baker is a

third culture kid, former attorney, reader, writer, and storyteller. Every Wednesday on the Out of the Ordinary Podcast she and Christie explore the surprising ways that cultivating ordinary life leads to extraordinary stories. She is endlessly fascinated by people and how loud her children are.

Elrena Evans first had the dream of

sending you a care package from the Black Barn. She’s a writer, editor, and dancer, a mother of five, an ally and an advocate. A new Paper&String care package every month is her gift from us to you.

Allison Sheeler Duncan studied English

and theology at Eastern University and is now a writer and editor at a university in southeastern Pennsylvania. She enjoys growing flowers and heirloom tomatoes, watching superhero movies, and trying new recipes.

Anna Grist is the western Canadian in our

midst, working on Paper&String from the Rockies near Calgary. She creates all the design and layout and contributes a few illustrations and snippets of writing as well as laughter and well-timed GIFs. She’s a wife and mother to two human children, as well as twins Quill & Ink (pictured).

Amy Knorr is an educator, speaker and

writer who loves to create contemplative spaces in real life and online. She is in a Nonprofit and Spiritual Formation graduate program with a spiritual direction certification.

Amy has shared a nomadic married life with her husband, Dan, for 21 years. She is mom to two girls growing tall and a son she will hold again someday. She enjoys a good laugh, a quiet moment, a furry doggy face, a challenging trail and a cup of hot tea.

Anna Kocher is an artist living and working

in the greater Philadelphia area. She’s an art teacher, a painter, and mother of three. When she’s not teaching, painting, or parenting she can be found reading, tea in hand and Ella Fitzgerald on the record player. She lives in a creaky old house with her husband, her kids, her dog, Mystic, and Edmund the cat.

Tonya Salomons

lives with her husband in Canada’s largest city.

During the day, she works as a registered social worker, but at night and on the weekends the kitchen is where she finds the space to recharge and finds her joy, feeding not only the body but the soul. She admits to reading cookbooks like they are novels while sipping copious cups of coffee and eating chocolate chip cookies.

A Prayer

by Elrena Evans

Creator God, You began this world with a dream.

You are the maker of dreams, and the dreamer of everything good that is made.

Thank you for the many blessings of this life, for all that creates us and sustains us.

Thank you for friendship and food, for work and rest, for soil that yields life and beauty.

Thank you for giving us this world to call our home.

Thank you for the blessing of creativity.

Thank you for the gifts of art and writing and music and dance.

Thank you that when you made us in your image, you gave us the ability to create, and that in that creating we honor you.

We thank you for the Black Barn, for giving us this place to gather, to celebrate, to dream.

We pray that you would use the Black Barn and all who gather here to build up makers and keepers of community, co-dreamers with you.

Bless and keep this place, Lord.

Bless us in the many places we find ourselves, and keep us until the day we see you face to face.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Click here to download a printable version of the prayer

paper&string founders

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