Madawaska River

So the Vista Center at the time was running out of Kingston and they worked with populations of folks that were dealing with acquired brain injuries.

And so we would take populations of people and bring them out into this gorgeous 600-acre property on the Madawaska River, and we would be utilizing nature.

And at the time, we called it soft skills programming or personal development programming.

But It was really emotional intelligence.

I fell in, banged my knee.

kept going but it was um you know the Madawaska Jacob was on um a bunch of those when we were just figuring stuff out and how everything was so scary and so exciting and uh my heart was pumping and and so that river really lingers in those memories um And I mean, nothing super amazing, you know, like as far as the story goes, happened.

We ran some whitewater and got to the end and went home.

But it was incredible.

I was inspired by hockey dads.

They always seem to have hockey sons.

So I was like, well, we'll just... immerse them in it and so like from infancy we did not the whitewater but lots of canoe trip pictures with holding little guys and little bundles on you and then for whitewater we didn't run the rapids with them but we did the Madawaska when my youngest was two years old with Jacob's family actually And that was great.

And so they, even the whitewater stuff, they've had a love for it from the

This tension between what I thought was right and what I saw and experienced led me to a one-week visit to Madonna House, a place I had heard about through friends at the mission.

It was late summer, and I was immediately struck by the beauty that surrounded me, the glimmering blue of the Madawaska River, the chorus of birds chirping in the nearby woods— the August sunlight washing over the gardens and trees, and inside the dark wood-paneled walls filled with icons of Eastern saints.

But the beauty that took me most by surprise was in the men who worked here, the priest who, after hearing of my struggles, took me under his wing and suggested I make a pustinia, and the staff worker who took me there While praising the silence of the pustinia, this staff worker patiently showed me how to make a fire in a wood stove and how to use a kerosene lamp.

Then there was the staff member at the farm who, when confronted by working guests confused about doing their assigned tasks, said, Let's just pray to St. Joseph.