Winter 2024 - Issue 1
Home
HELLO, NEIGHBOURS!
Each issue of the Et Cetera has a theme to help prompt conversation. This issue’s theme is Home, given that many of us here at Regent are studying in a place far from home, or perhaps struggling to find a sense of one. Please let us know what you think, or better yet, let the writer know and start talking about any thoughts you had in response.
If you’re wondering what kind of content we accept: Most kinds of prose (fiction and non-fiction), poetry, or visual art is welcome. Prose pieces should be 1,000 words or less. These can include anecdotes, book reviews, movie reviews, thoughts spurred by your academic studies (no actual assignments, please), things you’d like to talk about with the community...et cetera! Visual art must be submitted in a digital format; printing will be in black and white, so do keep that in mind. Priority is given to students, staff, and faculty of Regent College.
All submissions must be sent to etcetera@regent-college.edu. Publication is not guaranteed. All submissions are subject to proofreading edits and may be returned for more substantial revision. Views expressed in the Et Cetera do not necessarily represent the views of Regent College, the RCSA Council, or the Et Cetera staff.
We can’t wait to read what you write!
Steven Gomez, senior editor
Tess Fuller, associate editor
Circles in the Snow
By Dryden Demchuk (Strathcona County, AB)
The sun sets over the humble town of Beaumont, Alberta. The fields that surround the town are covered in a snow which now glows orange under the evening sky. The days are short this time of year.
The snow makes things eerily quiet. But cutting through the silence tonight is the music coming from a modern church building on the edge of town, where a band is leading a group of teenagers in a contemporary worship service. My parents think that I am in that service. But, in the parking lot behind the church, there’s a gold Honda accord spinning donuts on the ice-covered pavement. I’m in the passenger seat.
The car belongs to my friend’s mom. She doesn’t know about the donuts.
While our friends are worshipping, we’re driving around town, getting McDonald’s, shouting jokes back and forth over Green Day’s American Idiot, and killing time until the church service is over. We’ll slip in the back just as our youth pastor is wrapping up his sermon and act like we’ve been there for the whole service. When the lights come on, we’ll start chatting around to figure out whose house we’ll be hanging out at tonight and see if any of the young women present are interested in driving around with us for a bit (dear reader, they were not).
We don’t skip the church service out of apathy or youthful disdain towards organized religion. We skip the service because our faith itself is simply a given—we had no interest in skipping the Christian community or the post-service parties, and we had no intention of skipping that most coveted rite of passage in any young Christian man’s life—the “future wife,” all of which were possibilities on any given Friday night. Having been raised surrounded by the church from birth, these were in the narratives in which we lived, moved, and had our being. We had no intention of changing that. But actually sitting in there and listening to our pastor talk for 20-30 minutes straight… that just didn’t seem like a necessary part of the story.
Hours later, once our friend’s Xbox has been powered off and the last Doritos have been scrounged from the bottom of the bag, we’ll drive ourselves home. We both live on acreages 25 minutes out of town, but this late at night we can do the drive in 15. We’ll scroll through songs on whoever’s iPod is plugged into the car stereo and share our most honest opinions on the events and people of the previous evening, filling the car’s interior with enough music and obnoxious laughter to make up for the miles of silent winter prairie on either side of the road.
❦
Ten years later, I will drive down these roads again with the same friend to visit the same church. Our intention this time is not to spin donuts in the parking lot, showing off for the girls, but to stand beside one of our best friends as he marries the love of his life.
These country roads are the backdrop of my life. A far cry from the congestion of Vancouver, the scenes which make up my most formative years have no buildings, mountains, oceans, or pedestrians in sight. Only gravel, asphalt, big skies, and the faint scent of decomposing leaves which fills the air every autumn and again in late winter, when the melted snow finally exposes the earthen rot which has slumbered underneath.
My parents graciously let me crash back in my childhood home while I’m “in town,” but the first night there turns out to be sleepless. Late into the night I drive away from the house that I grew up in and take myself on a tour of the land that formed me. Leaving my parent’s house, I let muscle memory take over. I soon pass the house that my dad grew up in. I drive the seven-minute route to my elementary school. I pass the field where my dad taught me to ride a dirt bike, and where my friends and I would experiment with pipe smoking for the first time many years later. I visit the corner store that my elementary classmates and I used to raid for candy. I drive the winding lane around a nearby lake which makes a perfect S-curve; a curve my friends and I would often use to test our nerves against the forces of speed and gravity.
The night before the wedding we kidnap the groom for a surprise bachelor party with all the old boys. We let ourselves be 17 again for just a few hours as we force our poor friend through all the ridiculous hazing rituals that our good Christian ethics will allow. As the night winds down, we emotionally reflect on everything that has changed in our lives since the last time we hung out like this.
In the days following the wedding, the boys return to our adult lives. Most of us are now married, some have kids, and I return to my life and work in Vancouver. I work in Youth Ministry now—poetic justice for the antics of my past.
A few weeks later, it’s a snowy Friday night in Vancouver. I’ve concluded my weekly sermon to my humble youth group, noticing that one of the usual boys isn’t present. Later, as I am exiting the church, I see the absentee sitting in the driver’s seat of a red 2002 Honda, having skipped our service, surrounded by laughing teenage boys and telltale circles left in the snow surrounding his car. The boys think I’m going to be annoyed. In truth, I couldn’t be happier for them. ❦
Change
By Tess Fuller (Vancouver, BC)
I have lived on the same street for 28 years now, but it isn’t exactly the same place. The neighbourhood has changed almost as much as I have. The sidewalks are cleaner, the avenues safer, even the haunted house has been exorcized. When I was little there was only one moderately tall building, which stood out from the surrounding landscape like an unmissable mountain, but now if I walk a few blocks I eventually reach a zone bursting with two dozen skyscrapers, all under ten years old. A while ago I was going down a street within walking distance of my house and I realized that I was totally lost. All of the old landmarks had been demolished and replaced.
I want to be really clear here: I actually like those skyscrapers. We need more housing and the only way we’ll get that is through densification. I want more people to move to Vancouver, so that we can build this community, and that means making more space. Also, there is a piece of me that is still 6 years old, and she can’t get over how exciting it is when they dig massive holes in the ground with backhoes.
Home may not look quite the same anymore, and I know that it will continue to change in ways I can’t predict. What is it, then, that stays the same? It can’t be anything physical, like a building or a forest (either could burn down). I’m not sure that it’s the people, either. They can leave, or die, or change in ways that make it too difficult to stay in contact. I think it has to be the continuing communion between us, the way that we can still share despite geography and time. Home is where that connection carries on, where you know that you will be welcomed, and others are welcome. ❦
The Lesson of a Messy Room
By Mo Hickman (Oxford, NS)
Until I was about 12 years old, I shared a bedroom with my sister. It was always messy. We left clothes all over the floor instead of in the drawers. Our shoes were haphazardly tossed into the general direction of the shoe rack. Our toys were spread out wherever we had gotten bored and dropped them for something else. Don’t even get me started on the tangled mess that was our jewelry boxes. There’s a reason I only ever wear one necklace now. It was a disaster zone. A pig sty. A fire hazard, as our dad repeatedly reminded us.
Saturday was the cleaning day, and we would have to face the mess we’d made that week. Every Saturday, we would be told we needed to clean our room first if we wanted to play outside or watch TV or hang out with our friends. Many Saturdays were spent at home in our room. It would take the whole day to clean, not because the mess was THAT bad, but because we were just not interested in cleaning. Cleaning was boring. The mess was too big. Of course, the fighting didn’t really help either. Our room was really too small to have sides and yet we knew when the other’s stuff had crossed the invisible line. The shoe or ball or shirt was promptly ‘yeeted’ back across enemy lines which only escalated the situation. By the late afternoon, my mother would be exasperated after cleaning the rest of the house herself and would enter our room and start giving orders to get the work done. It was not pleasant. It was embarrassing and shameful. But the room would be cleaned, and the day would be over. No, I do not remember those days at home fondly. I remember frustration and disappointment and generally hating as much as a child can having to clean my room.
This weekly rhythm taught me a lesson. Not how to keep my room clean, but that I need to hide my mess. No one could see my messy room. I was told that my friends would not like my mess and I needed to get rid of it before I could play with them. Some weeks, I did not get to see my friends, but that was the consequence of having a messy room.
The truth was, however, that my closest friends didn’t really mind the mess. My best friend never said that spaces were messy; instead, she’d say the space was ‘lived in.’ She understood that there were some things more important than chores. I am grateful for her mercy and grace for my messy room. I did need to clean, but that was never a barrier to her friendship.
Home is a messy place. It is where I keep most of the things I own. It’s where I put things down at the end of the day. It’s the space where I get ready and where I relax. It fills up, is used, and waits for me to give it the attention and care it needs. I’ve noticed that my external space and my internal space are often in sync. Chaos fuels chaos. Like my messy room, my messy mind can cause embarrassment and shame and I try to hide it. I think I have to deal with my mess before I can play with my friends, because they won’t like my mess; hide my messy self until I can clean it up and make it presentable for guests. Some weeks, I do not see my friends, because I think that is the consequence of having a messy room. I am gratefully learning this is not true. My friend was right. My space, internal and external, is lived in. I do need to clean it, but friends don’t mind the mess. They’re messy too. I am learning to not hide away but open the door even when people can see that things aren’t neat and tidy. Please don’t mind the mess. I have some more cleaning to do. ❦
Ulysses Syndrome
By Stephanie Loli Silva (São Paulo, Brazil / Where my shoes are)
I spent my formative years at number 274 in Carlos Cassani Street, Itu, São Paulo. Our home was spacious, providing each family member with their own nook. After school, my routine involved sprinting up the stairs to my room, only emerging for food and bathroom breaks. Though my room lacked decoration besides its pink walls, it served as the repository for all the books in our home, neatly arranged on a sizeable white shelf. As the night fell, embracing the house in silence, the companionship of those books stood sentinel and comforted me. They say home is where the heart is, but mine was never there.
Despite residing in the same house until the age of 17, I seldom felt truly at home there. The ceaseless arguments between my parents, my brother's battle with depression, and the daily critiques from my mother compelled me to avoid shared spaces whenever possible. The ground beneath my feet felt like it was strewn with grenades. There's no sense of home when you find yourself in the midst of a war.
Then, seizing the first opportunity, I left that cold house without looking back, just as my parents had done in the 1990s when they relocated to São Paulo. Or like my grandparents in the 1930s and 1940s, navigating their migration from the north to the northeast, then to the southern reaches of Brazil, and from southern Italy to Curitiba. And preceding them, my great-grandparents had done the exact same thing.
In the song "Movimiento," the Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler sings that human beings have constantly been in motion since we stood on two feet. Reflecting upon my family's history through the rearview mirror, it dawned on me that our concept of home has always been fluid, abstract, yet central to our identity. Our feet may remain grounded in the present, but our eyes are always perennially seeking out the horizon.
Much like the biblical figures of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Rachel, Ruth and Naomi, or even the Son of God and his apostles, each of us embarked on a journey towards a promise. A warmer climate, a land to call ours, or to flee from war, hunger, and death. But the Odyssey shows us that travelling home—or finding one—can sometimes be a dangerous and exhausting journey. The roads we travel are seldom gentle. Calluses form, and parched mouths become a familiar discomfort after the initial miles. It requires a whole lot of strength and a stubborn spirit to keep the ship sailing.
And to our dismay, the journey is not done once you finally cross the seas, leave the plane, or enter your new apartment. To come home requires a recalibration of perspective—a transformative shift. When the challenges encountered on the road surpass those left behind, and the fellow travellers met along the way carry the wisdom that surpasses that of old friends, we're compelled to view the world anew. The bitterness towards our past diminishes. Until one day, the search for scattered remains on the ground ceases. Then, and only then, we are truly home.
They say home is where you can rest. Where the dust of the day can fall to the ground. My home is currently at the intersection between Arbutus Street and 33rd. Home is my Brazilian flag hanging on my bedroom wall. Home is coming back to Emily, Caleb, Daniel, Zella and Peter every single night. Although our house is also filled with books, they are not my only company anymore. If home is where I weathered the harshest storms and suffered the deepest wounds, it is also where I’ve learned to find refuge, healing, and peace.
To find a home is to find a sacred place, and those are hard to encounter. However, I’ve decided to press on even if the quest for a true home demands time, lengthy flights, and copious sweat. It's ingrained in my blood. We are the Loli-Silvas; if there’s anything we are good at, it is to keep moving. Home is ahead. Home is right here. Se faz caminho ao andar. ❦