The neighbours, living and dead

The homes in this area are immaculately kept. It may be a small village, but it is by no means money-less or rundown. The yards are all expansive with massive trees, close-mown lawns in the cool shade (I think lawns are competitive here), several with greenhouses and vegetable gardens. One house in particular is a delight to walk past, because it has the ideal yard for children. A swing set, a trampoline, a playhouse with a chalkboard in it, Tonka trucks in the dirt beneath the trees, a horseshoe pitch---the kids who had to quarantine and home-school there are lucky. I pity the kids stuck in airless apartments in the city, where playgrounds and pools are off limits and you’re fined if you go to the park. In spite of Covid, the campground at the conservation area is packed with RVs, and while the playground is roped off with yellow tape, kids line the lake with fishing rods in hand. 

The neighbours, whom I will call B and T, came over to introduce themselves. They were the penultimate owners of the church, the ones who first bought it at auction when it closed in 2012. They informed us that we would have to get an environmental study ($15,000) before we could get the place rezoned residential. Oh, and apparently we’re on conservation land, too. Someone else tried to buy the place before us but gave up in despair when the place “didn’t pass” the Phase One environmental study. 

B and T kindly lent me a book a local historian compiled about the church, full of its history and photos and even recipes (including Doris Tanton’s famous butterscotch pie that everyone praised at the annual fall suppers). I took it home to read, and stumbled across a little, teeny sentence near the end that casually mentioned there used to be an underground oil tank but it leaked. Oh joy. So now we really won’t pass the environmental study. Hubby and I started discussing other possible uses for the church besides residential, and we contacted our lawyer to see what our options were. We’re in love with the place, but it’s starting to look like a money pit. The real estate agent should have disclosed a few things he didn’t.

The butterscotch pie recipe turned out good, though. 

And it turns out the golden-bricked house with the elderly woman used to be the church manse. 

Next weekend. I returned the book to T and thanked him for the loan. Chatted briefly. Asked him how to contact the historian, Mary, who wrote the book. And asked whether anyone in the neighbourhood mows lawns. He very nicely offered to mow the lawn for me, and also told me to call ahead in the winter when we were coming down and he’d plow out a spot in the snow for us to park. Isn’t that nice? I’d forgotten how kind small towns can be. 

While my husband went to Home Hardware, I walked down the road with Brio to locate the house of Mary. I intended to just introduce myself and ask her if she had any of the books available, as I wanted a copy for myself. But when I told her who I was, she called her husband and we ended up sitting on the lawn in the shade on plastic chairs, yacking for over an hour, while Brio lay contentedly by my feet. Paul and Mary (we just need a Peter) are very sweet, intelligent, and interesting people. They’re probably in their late 60s or early 70s and seem to be quite well-read and involved in life. They were able to confirm for me that the “underground” oil tank was actually “below ground,” in the basement, and was removed when it was replaced by the outdoor tank. So any spill was in the building, not the soil, so there’s hope of passing the environmental study. Yay! And Mary told me those close-set kitchen shelves that puzzled me so much were for holding the 100 pies that people brought for the big fall suppers. Oh! That makes perfect sense. There is something thrilling about owning pie shelves that will hold 100 pies. The lined/insulated box in the laundry room is not, as I thought, an ice box, but a warming box to hold the 600 pounds of turkey people cooked and brought to the dinner, as well. When I told Mary I’d recreated the butterscotch pie recipe, she was excited, and very happy to hear we intend to bring the food and music back to the church. I want to line those pie shelves with buttertarts.

Mary was visibly relieved to hear we intend to keep the building as much like a church as possible and not lose its flavour in renovating. She thinks the community would welcome a meditation and yoga centre. They were also happy when I said we’ll restore the windows. Paul told me the plastic over the windows was meant to be removed every spring, like storm windows, not left on all summer. Failing to remove it is what caused the deterioration of the windows. I guess when the church was sold in 2012, no one bothered removing the plastic every year anymore. I mentioned I attended the United Church’s Emmanuel College School of Theology at the U of T (doesn’t hurt to throw that tidbit in!). They feel like friends already. 

They told me interesting things about the local township and what families are still left in the area. They have lived here 50 years, and Paul’s father lived just a few blocks away and used to run the now-dilapidated general store. They suggested I contact the United Church Archives in Toronto for the stewards’ minutes, which were sent to the archives when the church closed (great idea!). And I managed to acquire a copy of the history book for my own. We exchanged contact info and I promised to bring my husband by next time to meet them. They said they like the bagpipes---his mother was a McLachlan---so maybe my husband could play for them. Great people to talk to. Next time I come, I will bring one of my books for Mary. 

Each of our stained glass windows is dedicated in memory of someone from the community, so I wrote all the names down and looked them up on Ancestry.ca to learn more about them. Many are buried in the local cemetery, so I walked down to explore that too. It makes a difference, somehow, knowing that the woman whose window is over the altar died young of ulcerative cholitis. And that the man in the far window had three wives (successively) but his neighbours only knew about two of them. Some of their descendants still live in the area. The window I'm currently restoring is dedicated to Margaret Morris, and I find myself referring to the window by name and calling it "her." Talking to Margaret a little as I work. There, there, this won't hurt a bit, honey. You'll feel so much better when this is all straightened out. I can't promise perfection, but I'll do my best for you, dear.

Starting to settle in

The balcony/loft (haven’t decided what to call it yet) will be my domain. My husband can use the sanctuary for anything he wants, whether it’s bagpipe practice, woodworking, a restaurant, or meditation hall, but the balcony is mine. He is always complaining in our current house that my stuff is always in his face, so if I can consolidate all my hobbies into the balcony, it will eliminate that problem. There is room there for my instruments, writing desk, sewing and needlepoint supplies, looms, and books. There’s even room for a day bed that I can sprawl on to read, which could serve as a space for overnight guests as well.  I have plans to hang my grandpa’s horse collar on a wall (which has never found a good home here in my current house), and my needlepoint tapestry, and all my warping boards and weaving paraphernalia.

The loft has a great five-foot-wide round window that I call the Eye of Horus. I will replace its cross-hatched single panes with one great clear window that I can see the sky from (I might even install a telescope. It’s marvellously dark here at night). I will ensure I can open it for fresh air, and the writing desk will be on wheels so I can move it to get right up into the space. I picture myself churning out great, inspired manuscripts beneath its light. 

My husband and son and I discussed how we should let our other sons know about our church. Maybe invite them to Thanksgiving dinner, just giving them the directions and not telling them we own the place until they actually arrive. Maybe casually mention that we’re going to the “cottage” for the weekend. Oh, didn’t you know we owned a cottage? Did we never take you there as a child? Tee hee. Maybe I’ll just wait to see if they actually read my blog. 

Now that I think of it, it’s kind of silly that I didn’t go to a grocery store for 17 weeks during the pandemic, but I bought a house. Er…a church. I’m already thinking of it as a home. It has a sort of kindly and gentle and loving air about it, welcoming, compassionate. It’s happy to have the cobwebs swept from its kitchen and its windows polished. I believe buildings retain the atmosphere of what occurred in them, and this place was known for its generosity and joy. I feel privileged to have landed here. 

We drove to Lake Huron and walked along the stone jetties in Bright’s Grove and wandered the wide, shady streets looking at (yes) houses for sale. My son thinks it would be great to overlook water, that shimmering expanse of pearl blue, but he said Bright’s Grove and Sarnia were too big and bustling for him. He preferred the slowness and emptiness of our hamlet. Which is funny coming from a kid who was raised in the fifth largest city in Canada, the kid who wouldn’t go camping because he didn’t like mosquitoes so I had to pitch the tent in the living room. I always thought he’d end up in a bustling place, like Tokyo or New York. He’s the penthouse and glass and steel kind of kid. Or so I thought. But this church seems to have shown me a softer, slower side to him. He’s studying forensics, though, and I don’t know how much demand there would be for that in Sarnia or London, the closest commutable cities. When I pointed that out, he shrugged and said something about maybe just running a food truck at the conservation area campground. 

Covid is winding down a little and things are reopening, but with school about to start up, it’s likely there will be another surge this fall and we will find ourselves in quarantine again. We could use the church as a fever shed. (We have two boarders living with us in our city house, and frankly, I don’t want to be on lockdown with them again. It's difficult for an introvert to be around people 24/7.) Eventually we plan to rent out or sell our city house and move here permanently, when we retire. Or maybe sooner. But first there is much to do, figuring out the ventilation system, replacing the windows, renovating the kitchen. Learning how to do stained glass. 

Sunday morning my husband and son headed home, each having commitments to meet, and I stayed on because I needed to meet the fridge repairman on Monday. I spent Sunday morning writing, and Sunday afternoon reading, napping, reading, walking, napping…whatever my body felt like doing. A terrific thunderstorm lashed the windows with rain, and occasionally I could sense thunder like a truck driving by. I slept on my son’s air mattress in the lower level, because I didn’t feel like trying to cool off the upstairs bedroom, and Brio my dog slept curled beside me. 

Monday dawned flame red and cool, and the temperature in the church remained a comfortable 23-25 all day, with relatively low humidity. For a while I opened the upper front doors and turned on the ceiling fans in the sanctuary to air things out, and then closed them again before it got hot outside. I spent the morning sitting on a camp chair in the breezy shade in front of the church, reading, the dog lying contentedly by my feet. 

The repairman came and went ($145 to salvage a fridge that would cost about $2000 new), and then I took Brio on a walk in the heat of the day. I wanted to explore a particular country road that cuts neatly through flat, beautiful fields of soybeans, lined with trees. A tractor was humming along cutting straw. I could have walked forever. But there was a very determined bee/wasp thing that followed us, darting at our heads, for a quarter mile, and eventually I turned and ran, defeated. I will buy a bug hat with draped netting, and then I can explore in earnest. That should give the locals a good chuckle. Silly city woman, scared of a bug. 

Yes, but it was a very earnest bug. 

There is a country market a block away, and behind it there is a vast stretch of orchard---apples, and fields of what I think are blueberries, raspberries, black and red currants, squash…it goes on for acres. At the very far edge of the fields is a row of tall, dark pines, like a picket fence, delineating the property. I am stunned at the wealth that land represents. I am astounded that I live within walking distance of such beauty. That I have a claim here now. That one day this will be the place where I live full time. I will never tire of walking along those fields. I wish my mother could see this area. She was raised on a farm but ended up married to a professor and living in the suburbs. All my childhood, I remember her driving through the countryside to look at the fields, playing Name that Grain with us kids, explaining the relative merits of different kinds of cows. Just in case any of us needed to know. She would revel in the beautiful fields here, the dark row of trees, the clear and pearly sky stretched so widely above them. As my son said, there is so much more sky to see here, where there are no tall buildings.

To see the full sunrise or sunset, however, I think I will have to go stand in the middle of the road, as there are tall trees surrounding the church that block the view. In the winter, when the deciduous trees lose their leaves, I may have a better view.

Some boring stuff about HVAC and septic systems

Well, we found the elusive septic system. Turns out it is situated under some pavers outside the back stairwell. I have learned quite a lot more about septic systems than I ever intended. Apparently there were only outhouses and no toilet or kitchen until 1965.

Hubby and I fluctuate on how to heat and cool and dehumidify this building. I want to be able to go off grid and find a natural solution to ventilation with cross breezes and fans. My husband is more practical and thinks we’ll want traditional air conditioning, because this area has high humidity. The church is only 3200 square feet in total, but with that high, vaulted ceiling upstairs, I think air conditioning will cost an arm and a leg. We could install solar panels to help offset our electricity costs, but we may not live long enough to see the returns. We could install in-floor heating. We could build fans into the new windows. We could just wear swimming suits all summer and hire a child to stand at the door waving palm fronds. 

The portable dehumidifier stands on the kitchen counter, draining into the sink. So far it has lowered the humidity level from 81 to 56%. It seems a shame to send all that water into the sump pump. I suggested rigging it up to a drip system to water hydroponic tomatoes. Why not? 

We had the oil furnace inspected and cleaned (all is well), and then we had a consultant come give us his opinion. He suggested switching to propane (cleaner, cheaper, spill-proof) or even using a heat pump, which could cool as well as heat. He went away to figure out costs, and we wait anxiously to see the results.

While we were poking around the utility room, we discovered some rotting wood…and water…and possibly black mold. Um. A quick call to a general contractor, who arrived with great confidence and some gold bling to pronounce it all fixable. He blames a leaking eavestrough. He will fix that when he has time…maybe the end of September. He jokes about the amount of water in his own basement. He's nice, but not confidence-inspiring, really, and he's younger than my son. Meanwhile, every time it rains (and it rains a lot here), the water slides quietly from the utility room, across the laundry room, and into the closet where the hot water heater lurks. Unwilling to wait for a month, my husband is meeting with someone else tomorrow who can also do the membrane-on-the-outside-of-the-foundation instead of just injecting the crack from the inside. He also does mold remediation, which one has to be licensed to do, so I think we'll end up going with him.

It occurs to me I once wrote a murder mystery called Stained Glass. It took place in a renovated church. I will have to dig that manuscript out and see if it’s worth reworking and sending to my publisher. I now have some real-life experience in that...the renos, that is, not the murder. Although if the dominoes keep lining up, my husband might think murder not entirely unfeasible...

Stained Glass Windows

My husband is obsessed with the stained glass windows in this church. He has gone through several potential options for restoring and protecting them, studying online sources, watching YouTube videos, and schmoozing with a glass store owner he found. The 11 windows will all have to be removed and straightened out and flattened. This would cost an absolute fortune (about $40,000) if done by a professional, so I am going to learn how to do it myself. My husband has plans to redo the wood surrounding them (beautifully rich with a deep patina) so that they will hinge. They will be covered on the outside with new double-paned windows (which may or may not slide open, still to be determined), but vented to the inside to release the built-up heat so the warping does not recur. And if they can be opened like shutters, we can get inside to clean and we’ll be able to see out the clear outer glass. Right now, you can’t see outside from the sanctuary, and I am a passionate sky-observer. They do provide a beautiful pink and purple glow, though, especially as dawn first illuminates them, giving the sanctuary a wonderful cosy feeling.

We have taken down one set of windows so far, gingerly at first, then with increasing force as the wood proved to be swollen tight and stuck fast. This involved dangerous teetering on railings over open stairwells, but we managed to get them out and bring two portions home (each window has five portions, times eleven, which makes 55 portions to do). I've spread them out on our dining table and invested in tools, from dainty dental picks to soldering irons and chisels. 

So far I have chiseled out the glazier's putty holding them in their wood frames, picked out the crumbling old cement from under the cames (lead strips), and heated the windows in the sun under a heavy dark coat. I put a board over them and added bricks to gradually weight them, making them flat. There are some old stress fractures that I sealed with super glue to make them stable, but no glass appears to be shattered or missing. Then I brushed the joints with a wet brass-bristled brush. The next step is to get up my nerve to solder the joints that have come apart and then re-cement the cames (which looks finicky), and then there will be a final cleaning before my husband returns them to their frames, which he has been stripping and sanding and staining in the garage. I figure each window will take us a month or two, and we are fast-approaching the season when the sun will disappear. At that point, my husband says he will construct a heat box with a heat lamp for softening the lead. Our old heat lamp we used for our chameleon may come in handy.

I fear I am not going to see my dining table again for a long time.

Meanwhile, we are canvassing window companies to find someone who will custom-making the plain glass windows to go behind the stained glass panels, along with the twelve basement windows, and also the five-foot-in-diameter round window in the loft. I now know more about glass and windows than I ever thought I'd know. I do think it's fun, though, and picking cement out of the cames with the dental pick is actually quite meditative.

As I'm working, I can see where the original maker made some mistakes. Bits of soldering dripped in the wrong spot that pushes the glass out of line. Squarish corners hidden by round cames. The person who made these windows in 1939 likely thought no one would ever find out their shortcuts and shortcomings. A lesson to us all.

The Third Visit

I have walked the dog a lot in the area, now, through the local conservation area (beautiful walks under tall trees, a mud-coloured lake now closed to kayaking due to Covid) and serene, rolling farm fields. There are horses and goats a block away, and once I heard a rooster nearby.

There are some outdoorsy sorts of children in the townhouse complex next door, who padded over barefoot and barechested to peer through our bushes with a flashlight, looking for toads. They seem completely nonchalant about about wandering into a neighbour's yard. I suspect they are used to using our lawn as a vacant lot to play in. I don't have the heart to tell them I plan to install a greenhouse there.

We have given it a lot of thought and have decided we'll likely keep the church as a community gathering space – maybe offering meditation or writing retreats, weaving workshops, piping camps, whatever. We’ll get permission to put an apartment for ourselves in the lower level, and I’ll use the loft for writing and work space. We can retire there and get out of the city someday.

The yoga people were back in the trees behind us again. It’s a lovely view to begin with, with the manicured grass in the cool shade and a glimpse of a greenhouse, but somehow seeing people doing yoga made it all the better. I felt they were friends, even though I am just a beginner in yoga. When the weather turns cold, I will invite them to come use our big empty church.

Because we’re still under Covid restrictions, I haven’t met any neighbours yet, but several have waved. One older woman in particular intrigues me. She lives in a lovely yellow-brick Victorian house with a gigantic vegetable garden. She was out putting something in her garbage can and waved vigorously at me as I walked by. Later I saw what I presume was her husband, a lean, sun-burned man with a mustache, hauling feed and a big crate of water to their goats in a pen down the road. [Turns out it's her son.]

Our 21-year-old son came with us this trip. He’s a sous-chef and we wanted his opinion on the design of the kitchen. He explored up and down the stairs, peered over the balcony railing, took lots of photos to show his boss what weird parents he had, and pronounced himself pleased with our purchase. He has plans to wrest it from us and turn it into a restaurant. He kept marvelling over the lack of traffic, the quiet, the simplicity of life here. He went walking with me to explore the area and said with quiet satisfaction, “I could so live here.” And he picked up a real estate ad booklet at the grocery store to start looking for a place of his own in the area. He hopes to buy his own place in three years when he finishes school, but he suggested it be, oh, maybe across the street from us. I am quietly astounded. He has declared since his teens that he wanted to end up in Japan. 

I got up early Saturday morning to walk at sunrise, as the mist was lifting in a haze over the fields. The golden glow was amazing, the air fresh and alive with bird song, with a cool breeze I wanted to bottle and bring home with me. I passed the woman’s yellow house again, delighted to see the goats rising from the mist. I came home playing with Goats in the Mist as a potential title for a book. 

The details

We've had a little more time now to figure some things out about this church of ours. Built in 1939, the United Church functioned and served the community until 2012, when it was closed due to a dwindling in the congregation. There was talk about tearing it down if it didn't sell. It's on a double lot within a small hamlet that boasts a ball park, a gas station, and a pallet-making company. There also appears to be some sort of fruit market, but it's always closed. It's five minutes from the Home Hardware, twenty minutes from the nearest WalMart and TSC (a fascinating hardware store you have to visit if you never have), and there's no pizza delivery or anything of that nature available. On one side is a house, on the other side is a complex of seven townhouses, across and down the street is a cute house built in the 1850s, and directly behind it is someone's park-like backyard full of trees and---apparently every Thursday night---people on yoga mats.

Intriguingly, the church is in an area once settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in the 1830s. Those early Saints left to join the body of the church shortly thereafter in Nauvoo, Illinois, to meet their fate when the Mormons were expelled from the U.S. and made their famous trek west to what is now Utah. They left behind a road forged through the Canadian wilderness that now bears the name Nauvoo Road. Now here I am, also a Mormon, originally from Utah, returning to the same area almost 190 years later. We’re baaaack! 

On the day of closing, my husband and I drove down a load of basics---toaster, air mattress, vacuum, pots and pans---and took our first really open-eyed walk through the building. The first impression was one of solidity and sturdiness. A few places in the bricks needed some repointing. There are eleven stained glass windows, each dedicated in the memory of someone, but a well-intentioned soul put plexiglass over them to conserve heat, and the resulting build-up of heat between the glass and the plexiglass has softened the lead and caused the windows to sag at the knees. They will need restoring. I have no idea what that entails.

There is also some wonkiness to the air flow, so that the big empty sanctuary upstairs is hot and dry, while the lower level is cool and damp. We will have to figure out the oil furnace, which is new to us. We will have to locate the septic system, which the previous owner couldn't locate, which tells us no one has cleaned it out in a long time. 

The next day we drove down again to spend the weekend. We discovered the following:

• an air mattress is not the most comfortable thing to sleep on. 
• the portable air conditioner we bought has to vent out a window, making it not so portable.
• the purportedly new fridge took a full day to scrub out, and the freezer drawer won't open.
• the purportedly new oven took a full day to scrub as well.
• orange oil brings an amazing polish to the glowing woodwork...and there's a lot of woodwork.

The kitchen is a typical church kitchen, with Formica from 1965 that looks like it's out of a diner. You know the type, white with coloured dots, with metal trim on the edge. The plywood cupboards have been lacquered lovingly over many years, making them smooth and fun to touch. The ceilings are high, and the cupboards go right to the top, full of spiders and dead flies. There is a long counter with hatches one can lower to serve food out into the rec room, and another hatch through which dirty dishes could be returned. The sink is pulled two feet out from the wall, and I can picture Mabel at the church supper, collecting dirty dishes from the hatch and carrying them around behind the sink to dump them in, out of the way of the ladies scurrying around serving the meal. 

I vacuumed out the cupboards, polished them with wood restorer, and tried to figure out how to fit my scant belongings into them logically. Some of the shelves are permanently fixed so close together that you can't get a can of soup on them. I have no idea what they used them for. A giant spice rack? There's a hand-turned pencil sharpener stuck to one of the cupboards, and two bulletin boards. Just what every well-appointed kitchen needs!

We looked up the history of the church on line. Apparently it was a busy place at one time, with over 100 children in its Sunday School, and the annual fall supper fed over 700 people over three hours. It was a place known for music, with guest musicians coming from as far away as Detroit. Which suits us fine, because we're all about food and music in our family. My husband especially enjoys inviting people to dinner (I'm more the introverted type, but I enjoy the dinners too, because he's a fantastic cook). Interestingly, the church also apparently sent missionaries to Nepal, and that connection is serendipitous too, because my husband is a keen practitioner of meditation with an interest in Buddhism. It is sad that such a hub of the community had to close as the congregation shrank.

Hubby took his bagpipes up to the sanctuary to test out the accoustics. (Secretly, I think that's why he wanted the place -- free practice space! It's tricky to find places to practise the pipes. It's a misunderstood and much-maligned instrument. But I digress.) The sound bounces off the twenty-foot ceiling and echoes back to the wood floor, causing an amazing ringing that I could hear from down the street (I took the dog for a walk, because he tends to howl when the pipes start up). If my husband climbs to the choir loft/balcony, the sound doesn't bounce from the ceiling in the same way, since he's closer to it. Instead, it cascades over the railing down to the floor below, with less echo.

The neighbours will know we're here, at any rate.

At night, we turned on the sanctuary lights and went out on the lawn to see the stained glass windows from the outside. A modest light came through them. And then we noticed fireflies, twinkling by the dozens in the hedge and lawn and trees like Christmas lights. Or fairies. We have landed in a magical place!

We lost our minds for a moment...

I've always had an addiction to looking at real estate. Even though I'm content with my current home here in Canada, I can't resist peeking at what other people are living in. Whenever I'm out for a drive, I pick up flyers and real estate magazines at gas stations. I prowl through MLS on line, watch every design and reno show on TV, and generally lust after land and houses. I've even been known to go through open house walk-throughs even though I had no intention of buying the home. I've always had a special place in my heart for unique and quirky places. You know the type of thing -- converted windmills and fallout shelters and convents, houses built over rivers and inside trees. I am drawn to property like I'm drawn to chocolate.

Maybe this compulsion is because I'm a writer and every house feels like the set of a movie, ready for a story to begin. Every time I see an enticing property, my head fills with potentials and what-ifs. I probably see what's in my imagination more clearly than what's actually in front of me. Or maybe I went to the Parade of Homes with my mom at a particularly impressionable age. Maybe my inner heart is telling me I should have been an architect. Maybe I'm just nosy.

My husband and I have sometimes chatted about getting a building lot and building a home to retire to one day, and I have spent countless reams of paper doodling potential floor plans. We like to go on weekend drives around the province, checking out little villages to retire to, because the one thing I've always been sure of is that I don't want to end my days in the crowded city.

One of my recent browsings on line revealed this little gem, located two hours from our current home:

It was twenty minutes from the beaches of Lake Huron and a five-minute walk to a lovely, small conservation area, surrounded by beautiful farmland. Even though it was the height of the pandemic and I hadn't gone to a grocery store in 17 weeks, I wanted to see this one in person. I showed it to my long-suffering husband, and to my surprise, he liked it. And agreed to drive down to view it.

We viewed it once, kicked the tires, mulled it over for all of ten minutes, and---without giving it time to frighten us---we bought it.

Yup. Sheer madness. No inspection, no checking out of the locale, no thoughts really about what we'd do with it. And no hesitation.

Now, people who know me know that I debate for five minutes over what brand of toilet paper to buy, and if you take me to a restaurant, be prepared to spend twenty minutes waffling over what to order from the menu. (Mmm...waffles.) In short, I have never been good at making decisions, and a big decision involving money usually involves clipboards and detailed lists of pros and cons. So you know this purchase of a church was an instinctive action, from the heart. It wanted me. It felt immediately as if it was welcoming us, wrapping comforting arms around us, solid and kind and sheltering. It said I'm a place that has known a lot of love, and I will love you. And so it felt quite natural to say I will love you back.