Dear CT Substack readers,
When I first came upon Carrie McKean’s writing in The Atlantic and The New York Times half a decade ago, I felt like I’d struck gold as an editor. Here was someone who was landing excellent articles in these big national outlets—but didn’t appear to write anywhere regularly. And even though those articles weren’t about faith, I could read between the lines: I just knew Carrie went to church.
I reached out and invited her to write for me, first at another outlet and now at CT. Her reflection and reporting on immigration, education, and more from her distinctive vantage in West Texas is always worthwhile, and today I’m thrilled to share her first post on our Off the Clock Blog.
Best,
Bonnie Kristian
Deputy Editor, Christianity Today
P.S. Join CT for full access to all our journalism.
This morning, my daughter Alea and I heaved a cooler full of drinks and snacks into my aunt and uncle’s small boat, and the four of us settled into seats. They live in Washington’s “thumb,” on Case Inlet, which is one of the many fingers of Puget Sound and about 30 minutes from Gig Harbor. It’s astonishingly beautiful country, especially when you’re accustomed to arid West Texas.
My Uncle Steve started the motor and we started putting around the inlet, headed for a simple afternoon on the calm waters under the cloudless sky.
We’d just made it halfway across the inlet—easily three-quarters of a mile, maybe more, from shore—when the boat died.
My Uncle fiddled with the engine and tried to get it restarted. It didn’t work.
We were dead in the water.
We were supposed to be cruising around the inlet, taking in the glorious sunshine and cool breeze and stunning views… keeping our eyes peeled for egret and eagles, seals and otters. We had salami and cheese and crackers for a picnic somewhere along the way. It was all planned out: we were to have a glorious afternoon of ease and sunshine.
This wasn’t the plan.
Aunt Janie pondered calling for a tow, but we weren’t in any real danger and my uncle opted to pull out an oar instead. I found another oar and joined him. (I didn’t mind rowing—as I mentioned in my last Substack, I’ve recently followed with great admiration the rowing journey of the woman who just rowed from California to Hawaii, so this was my chance to pretend I could experience what she experienced. She did it for over 40 days. It took me less than 20 minutes to realize this was slow work and we couldn’t stop … we’d instantly lose our progress.)
That realization made the sun suddenly feel hotter; the shore further away. My arms started burning. This will be harder than it looked. Aunt Janie gave me little stacks of crackers and salami when my stomach growled. Alea passed me her Spindrift. Uncle Steve swapped sides with me when I grew tired. We kept going.
About 20 minutes into our hour-long row, a gust of wind kicked up and spun us around. While sitting on the shore or on the motorized boat, I hadn’t paid attention to these little bursts of wind before. But now the breeze swallowed up some of the progress we made and sent us floating in the wrong direction. The gusts mattered a lot. I couldn’t control them, and in the unwieldy boat, we couldn’t row fast enough to deaden their impact. Up till then, I hadn’t minded rowing—it was quiet and still and peaceful out there, and the burning in my muscles felt good and purposeful. Besides, our slower pace made it easier to watch for egret and eagles, seals and otters. But as the shoreline drifted a little further away, the whole experience lost some of the shimmer.
My sense of endurance had been reality-checked. But nevermind. On we go. No choice now but to proceed. I looked back out over the water and put my oar back in, resigned to just keep going until we reached shore or my Uncle called uncle, gave up, and called for a tow.
And that’s when I heard it: A gentle but powerful exhale, like the sound of a hot air balloon when the pilot ignites the burner. My head snapped up and I saw a black dorsal fin sinking under the water.
“Alea! Aunt Janie! Look! Ya’ll Look!” I spluttered, frantically gesturing while gasping with astonishment. “An Orca! It’s an Orca!”
I’ve always wanted to see an Orca in the wild—not from a whale boat where I paid $39.99 (or maybe $69.99 these days due to inflation?) for a “Guaranteed Sighting,” but an actual wild encounter: unexpected, unplanned, grand precisely because it can’t be orchestrated by humans.
The Orca surfaced again: another powerful exhale filled the quiet air and another gasp of astonishment went up from our boat. And again. We were all quieter than I expected. Awe-filled. The whale was huge, and then he was gone. He dove deeper and disappeared, moving on as quietly as he had arrived.
I sat there, stunned and grateful, no longer caring that we were drifting off course. We’d make it back eventually, and I didn’t want to miss this. Instead of worrying about what was coming next, I was suddenly thankful for the disrupted plans of our day:
If we hadn’t broken down, we’d have been too far away.
If we hadn’t broken down, I’d not have been looking so closely.
If we hadn’t broken down, we’d have been moving too fast.
If we hadn’t broken down … if things had gone according to plan … I think I’d have missed the very thing I’ve been longing for.
We finally made it to shore, and then had to pull the boat along the shoreline another mile or so back to my Uncle and Aunt’s place. The work didn’t get any easier, but it was joyful; our day on the boat going not-at-all as planned and yet offering far more than we could have asked or imagined.
Pretty sure there’s a life lesson in that.
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