Stained Glass

From Christopher Dryden’s Journal – St. Saviour’s

2010-09-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Praise be to God and the Holy Spirit. Glory to Christ the Redeemer, who fills my heart with joy.

The little church of St. Savour’s sits at the end of Barkerville’s main thoroughfare, framed by the rough-hewn hotels and storefronts of this pioneer village. One could not imagine a more rustic cathedral, or hope for a more remote parish in which to deliver the Word of God.

How Rev. Reynard managed to get this edifice built is beyond me. Bishop Hills informed me that the effort almost broke the man, and that Reynard and his family endured unspeakable hardships raising this temple in the wilderness. And yet the whole church could easily fit under the vaulted nave of Westminster Abbey, where it might serve as an example to those accustomed to comfortable pews of the true nature of Christ’s mission.

I feel I am at the capillary end of the Anglican Communion here. The pulse of evangelical zeal has pushed me from the heart of worship, across oceans, over an exceedingly rough and narrow road to this outpost of civilization. And here I shall stay until God’s work is done – or at least my minute portion of it.

And what a work it shall be!

Our usual sensibilities are confounded by this place. Angels may alight upon the town’s boardwalks refreshed, the sweet ether of heaven still filling their lungs; the weary human traveler stumbles out of the Bernard’s Express, his bones jarred and stomach churning after a most stupendous journey of some 350 miles. More than once, as we careered around sharp turns atop ghastly precipices, I prayed to you Lord to preserve me and my fellow passengers, that your servant might arrive at his destination in one-piece to begin Your ministry. I am told Mr. Bernard began his enterprise by conveying letters from Yale to Barkerville on foot – a mode that may have been considerably slower, but was most assuredly safer than riding in one of his coaches!

One mustn’t complain, though. And I am not complaining. God, You know that in my heart I give thanks for the blessings and the honours You have bestowed upon me. Your will is my desire, Lord, and wherever You send me I shall rejoice with Your Word on my lips.

The greeting party that met me at Bernard’s offices included Albert and Margaret Hewitt, prominent members of the community. He is a bank manager, she a tireless volunteer on various church committees. Also in attendance was Mayor P.J. Dearden and newspaper editor Alexander Allen. They wanted to convey me instantly to the Hewitt’s residence, where I was to spend the night. But begging their indulgence, I turned my steps instead toward Your church, Lord, toward the humble tabernacle raised by the hands of men in Your honour. My hosts seemed somewhat disconcerted by this alteration to their plans, Mrs. Hewitt even flashing an annoyed glance that bespoke the threat of lightening. I later learned that several more dignitaries lay in wait for me in her parlor, and that she was discomfited by my impromptu digression. But I would not be dissuaded by words or looks because I felt Your summons God.

My entourage tagged along as I strode up the main thoroughfare toward St. Saviour’s. I must confess, Lord, I wondered myself why You wanted me to turn this knot of upstanding citizens from their itinerary. What must they have thought of this contrary new priest, who had dropped into their midst? Nevertheless I placed my trust in You and put on a show of confidence because I felt You steering me in the direction we were taking. Your strong hands grasped my shoulders and urged me gently on. At the same time the Holy Spirit infused my heart with exceeding joy. Even though I could not say why, I insisted on this pilgrimage, knowing it was right that it be undertaken.

We made quite a sight, walking in procession down the dusty road. I kept up a brisk pace so that my companions – still doubtful at this turn of events – fell in behind. The late afternoon sun warmed my neck. From off to my right the clang of a smithy’s hammer assaulted my ears. People on the boardwalks stopped to stare. Laughter spilled out onto the street from the darkened doorway of a hotel saloon. I fastened my eyes on the wooden steeple of your church, which stood out bravely against the distant mountains, and a sky blue and translucent as the inside of a robin’s egg. On we marched, oblivious to the noises of men and the distractions of nature.

The doors of Your cedar cathedral were closed. Not surprisingly, since no ordained priest had been sent out to the parish after the departure of Rev. Reynard. I suspected the portal would be locked as well, but stretched out my hand anyway and gave the doors a good rattle just to make my point. Then I turned on my bewildered flock with beseeching eyes and exclaimed: “Locked!”

Now, Lord, I must confess I executed this gesture with an intended theatrical flair. I fully expected at least the hint of a smirk on one or two of the faces in my audience. So imagine my astonishment when I discovered them all downcast, with what appeared to be genuine expressions of remorse on their bowed faces. Not one of them dared meet my gaze – not even Margaret Hewitt. Of course You don’t have to imagine this scene, Lord. You knew perfectly well how they would respond before I uttered my imprecation. Indeed it was You who added the hint of thunder to my voice and the glint of lightening in my eye.

Nor do you have to imagine the jolt of pride that shot through me when I observed the effect of my rebuke upon them. You know I brimmed with righteous indignation, which I would later repent. It was Your Word, not mine, that stunned them, and I sinned against You God, by imagining myself as the author of their confusion. Forgive me.

“Does anyone present have the key to these doors?” I demanded.

Mr. Hewitt fumbled about in his pocket and produced a jangling ring of keys – among them, I suppose, one to the vault of Mammon, and another to Your house of prayer. He jiggled it into the lock, twisted the bolt open, then edged aside, leaving to me the honour of stepping over the threshold.

By now I had quelled my inflated sense of dignity, which threatened to burst my skin it had expanded to such a degree. Keep me from anger, Lord, and overweening pride that parades as righteousness. Remind me always of Christ’s patient strength and willing sacrifice, for I do not have the right to tip over tables in Your temple. I cannot look any man in the eye and say “You, Sir, are a sinner and I condemn you”, because I am a sinner too, and the lowliest sinner of all, beings as I have been blessed with the means and the time to reflect upon Your Truth.

We entered Your sanctuary Lord, perforce in single file, for the gateway was narrow. What sublime calm I discovered there! The air seemed to me like a suspended breath, charged with the power of divine meditation. Right away I felt at home, and at peace, and in communion with all that lay under and above the roof of your tabernacle. The floorboards creaked as I made my way up the aisle to the foot of your alter. Behind me I heard the shuffle of my new flock, settling uncertainly into the pews. But these sounds did not disturb in the least Your profound tranquility My God. They passed through You like light without any reflective object to bar its way. And I knew in that moment for the first time – knew it in my heart – that what St. Augustine says about all of you being fully existent in every quantum of Your universe is indescribably true, Lord.

I prostrated myself on the floorboards of that magnificent church and gave thanks for the life you have given me and the task you have set me.

From Anna's Diary - How do I love thee?

2010-05-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how this is possible, but I find myself drawn to this man, this priest, Christopher Dryden. How can anything whole and healthy survive between us? I have led such a life that, even to tell it would shock him to the core. As for him, he leads a life I would find dreadfully boring. It’s all routines and ritual and sacrifice.

But still, I must admit to an unavoidable attraction. It has something to do with his pure convictions, and the way he looks at me, not as a woman so much as a work of art. I’m tired of being looked at as a woman, as an available woman, as a woman that miners can resort to when their passions must be relieved. I do want to leave this life of bondage to men’s crude lusts. But if that were my sole attraction to Christopher I would squash it underfoot.

The odd thing is, despite all his talk of creeds and salvation and eternal damnation, he has already forgiven me my sins without my having bowed to any of it. I can tell by the way he looks at me that Christopher cannot bear to condemn me to perdition. I am a torment to him, and a balm, and love being his perpetual contradiction in the flesh. In a peculiar way his perplexity delights me because it makes him fallible as well as pure. I do not want to destroy his faith, but am not content to leave it unchallenged. For in my heart I know he desires me as something more than an ideal, and I think he will be a lover such as I have never known.

Margaret Hewitt

2010-05-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Margaret, a staunch Anglican, has arrived in Barkerville with her husband Albert, a banker. She is a leader in the community, deeply committed to the British way of doing things and to Victorian values. As part of the 'upper crust' of Barkerville, she rallies the forces of conservatism and is deeply offended by the rougher aspects of pioneer life. She sees it as her duty to uphold the values of hard work, clean living and Christian charity.

She reacts viscerally to the notion of the town's most prominent and flamboyant prostitute installing a stained glass window in St. Saviour's. To her, the apse window admits God's light into the church, and to have it filtered through a lens provided by 'whores and their depraved clients' seems a mortal sin. Her blaze of indignation is doubly fierce because she had initiated the failed drive to raise funds for the window in the first place, and to see a 'harlot' succeed so easily where she had failed galled her beyond endurance.

At first there is a great deal of sympathy for Margaret amongst the moral minority that control much of the church's affairs. But as Reverend Dryden is swayed, and the miners, and Madame Blavinsky's colleaugues, opinion begins to shift away from Margaret, who becomes increasingly strident as she becomes marginalized.

Finally, isolated with a small, vocal group of opponents, she is driven to her desperate terrorist act. Using her husband's shotgun, she blows out the Stained Glass window during the ceremony celebrating its installation. The Shard that has been carefully preserved in Maggie Welland's living room, atop the upright piano, is the physical testament to that incendiary act; Reverend Christopher Dryden's unfinished memoir, the written testament.

Babushka Tins

2010-03-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

The form of Stained Glass is becoming clearer. I have wrestled with it for some time now, not wanting to confine the story to a chronological or conventional structure. What has emerged is a sort of Babushka Doll story. Kyle's mother hands him an antique cookie tin containing the unfinished memoir of his Great-Grandfather; by the end of Stained Glass, he will have his own cookie tin, containing his own unfinished memoir and the unfinished memoir of his Great Grandfather.

The notion of incompleteness is central to this book.

Of growing importance will be the friendship between Kyle and the latter day Anglican priest. Their ongoing debate about subjects spiritual and theological will intermingle with the emerging story of Kyle's Great Grandfather. Although they are striving to reach some sort of reasonable conclusion to their debate, which fluctuates between serious and humorous, tragic and comic, there will be no satisfying ending. The only lasting conclusion will be the bond of friendship and mutual respect... of Love. This will be deepened by the compassion the priest shows in dealing with Kyle's wayward son, Andrew. And by the advice he offers with regard to Kyle's bitter marital dispute. Because Kyle is not a parishioner, the usual distance a priest would maintain is breached and they end up talking 'man-to-man', and going places neither could go otherwise.

The Focal Point

2010-01-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

This is turning out to be one of those stories where the author actually enters the novel in disguise. I can't help drawing parallels between Kyle Welland and me. In fact, I would go so far as to say he is in some senses an avatar of Craig Spence.

Right away, though, I am confronted with a problem. My life to date has been interesting, joyful, challenging and many other things, but it hasn't really been the stuff of novels. I could write dozens of short stories based on my experiences, but can't say I've lived through an extended conflict that would hold a reader's attention through, say 300 pages.

Kyle Welland, as the central character in Stained Glass, must do that.

When I stand back from this conundrum a solution presents itself almost immediately. Kyle is standing in for me as the focal point of spiritual confusion in the novel. His life has rendered him perhaps more cynical than me, but the spiritual and emotional turmoil that will be stirred up by his research into the life of Christopher Dryden will parallel in many ways my own ambivalence concerning things religious. I don't see him ending up in the same place as me, but his investigations will turn into a quest, which will be overlaid by the gritty realities of his life.

His deteriorating marriage;
Disappointment with his son;
Cynicism about his career as journalist;
Utter despair over the seeming emptiness and meaninglessness of life;
The failure of materialism to fill the infinite void;
His outrage at what he perceives as flimsy philosophical and theological responses to the kind of spiritual malaise he's suffering.

All of a sudden, because he's promised his mother to flesh out the story of Christopher Dryden, the sediment of his soul gets stirred up, triggering a gut wrenching chemistry of rage, sorrow and disappointment.

Another character is emerging now - the cast of this novel is growing beyond my control! I want to introduce a latter day Anglican priest, who will become a foil for Kyle's resentment and fury. I haven't been able to imagine this character yet, except to say he or she is deeply committed to the Anglican faith, which will place him in the sights of Kyle's bitter and biting humor. He is also a direct spiritual descendant of Christopher Dryden, which tends to turn Kyle's barbs and sarcasm back on himself.

Kyle has pestered this character into reluctantly becoming a researcher's guide into the Anglican faith. In fact, I am tempted to have Kyle trick this character by pretending to be a proselyte. I don't see Kyle and this character ever bridging the gulf between them; but I do see tortured friendship and grudging respect taking root in the hard soil of their spiritual no-man's land.

This priest will do what the servants of God are meant to do: comfort Kyle during an hour of deepest, darkest need.

That this new character and Kyle will never overcome their theological and philosophical differences has become strikingly clear to me upon an initial perusal of The Book of Common Prayer. Although a humbled Kyle can get to a place where he respects those who believe in the type of God predicated by Christianity, he cannot embrace that God himself, but must look for some other spiritual path. I don't see him having an answer by the end of Stained Glass, but do see him energized by a question that he feels must have an answer. That will be Kyle's revelation.

British Columbia Chronicle 1847 - 1871: Gold & Colonists

2010-01-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

G.P.V. Akrigg and Helen Akrigg have helped me develop a sense of pioneer life in Gold Rush BC with their book British Columbia Chronicle 1847 - 1871: Gold & Colonists. What I appreciate most about this book is it's day-to-day journal style. It's written as if the Akriggs were right there on the scene, as events were unfolding, which in turn gives me a sense of actually being there.

Characters like James Douglas step out of the page and the reader is exposed first hand to the staunch Victorian values of society's elite and the rough cut values of the gold seekers and traders. It chronicles an era that - form a European standpoint - has much to be proud of, and much to be ashamed of. The attitudes are direct and unvarnished and sometimes make you cringe at the hubris and lack of sensitivity of our forebears.

The sections on building the Cariboo Trail and pioneer Victoria are especially revealing of the life and motivations of the times. As are the dealings with Aboriginal peoples. A strange mix of greed, piety, boldness, idealism, punctiliousness and arrogance motivates the Europeans as they carry out an undeclared invasion of a land already occupied.

Just who's saving who here?

2010-01-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

My reading of Red Lights on the Prairie has shifted the centre of gravity for Stained Glass somewhat. Anna Armstrong has become much more prominent.

Madame Blavinsky's offer to finance the installation of the stained glass window in St. Saviour's is really an act of vengeful pride. Having been slighted by the high society types for the 'social evil' she has brought down on the community, Madame Blavinsky wants to leave a permanent testament to her own power and impunity. What better vengeance than to have the congregation look through her stained glass window every Sunday when they gather in their church.

Christopher Dryden does not see the situation for what it is. He accepts her gift as a token of repentance, which he has a moral obligation to accept. Anna, who is Madame Blavinsky's agent and confidant, knows very well what her mistress is up to and, despite her occupation as a prostitute, abhors Madame's tactics and motives. Increasingly unhappy with her role in the affair, she wants to warn the naive Reverend about the danger to him and his ministry, and hints broadly at the nature of Madam's gift. But Anna is afraid to betray outright the woman who controls her livelihood, and who can visit a terrible punishment on her girls.

Anna lets Reverend Dryden 'save her' from her sinful occupation because she loves him. For his part Reverend Dryden, whose naivety is somewhat feigned, enjoys being saved because he believes it's in Anna's best interests to think she's committing a saintly act on his behalf... and because he loves her! Their feelings for each other are sublimated through the lens of Victorian morality and righteousness, but cannot forever be contained by that inhibiting set of values, which are not meant to be applied to all people, at all times.

Sketch: The Shard

2010-01-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

It sat in its cradle of wood, transubstantiating the crisp white light of a fall afternoon. Grandmother had placed it on her kitchen windowsill, which faced southeast, looking out toward Newcastle Island and Nanaimo Harbour. I had never noticed it before, but it had been there all along, refracting the brilliance that poured in on sunny days; dimmed somewhat, when scudding clouds roiled in off the Strait of Georgia; inanimate after nightfall, when the only available light was the crass effulgence from her kitchen fixtures.

One day Mother would inherit this heirloom. But that was a long way off. And it would be an even longer time before I took any serious interest in the shard. As a child I didn't really recognize the image of Mary Magdalen etched into the fragment. I was more interested in the unformulated patterns of light that played tricks with my eyes, and ended up splayed on the scuffed linoleum of my Grandmother's kitchen floor. Pretty, was the only word I had to describe the sensations that light caused. But even then, it meant so much more to me.

"That belonged to your Great-Grandmother Anna Dryden," Grandmother informed me. She knew just how meaningless her concatenation of genealogy would be to a four-year-old, so she didn't press the matter. Now, when I think of it, I realize that Grandma was Anna Welland's daughter-in-law, and that her husband Cameron was Anna's only son, and that the tendrils of relationship extend back that far. Farther than I ever could have imagined, before Mother told me more about that remarkable piece of glass.

I had hoped to own it someday - but Brenda has laid claim to it too.

Funny to think a shard of glass would become such valued treasure that it would be contested article in Mum's estate. But neither Brenda nor I are good losers, and even though Mum's not dead yet, we're already scrapping over it. I think it's rightfully mine because I did the research that added a historical dimension to what was, after all, merely a shiny object. Brenda believes it's hers by some feminist variant of logic that adds up to a quasi-legal birthright. She's not at all interested in sharing. Which is just as well, because I don't want to share it either, even though I made the suggestion. "You'll just have to come over and visit more often so you can have a look at it when it's sitting in my kitchen window," was her last word on the subject.

Actually, the kitchen window reference is anachronistic. The Shard of Mary hasn't sat in Grandmother's kitchen window for almost 20 years. When Dad inherited it Mother placed it on top of the piano in their living room. Neither of them seemed bothered by the fact that it would never be activated by direct sunlight as long as it sat there. They seemed content to leave its luster dulled by the drab, brown wall behind. Didn't bother me much, either, until later. Truth is, I experienced an evanescent epiphany when I first saw the stained glass fragment on Grandmother's windowsill, then I forgot about it. It became a glittery part of her world beyond reach or significance.

Further Notes:

There will be analogies drawn between the coloured glass and hallucinations brought on by Kyle's use of drugs in his hippie youth;
The fragment was picked up by Anna Armstrong after the window in St. Saviour's had been shattered by the opponents of Rev. Christopher Dryden.
She kept it as a memento her entire life, having the edges of the shard capped in copper and a little stand built for it.
Mary Magdalen's profile along with a glimpse of halo is captured in the fragment.
Anna and Christopher were left alone in the church after Madame Blavinsky and her girls fled the window's dedication service - they and a few miners had been the only ones in attendance.
Christopher continued with the service even after the newly installed stained glass window had been shattered. After the service he sat with Anna alone in St. Saviour's to pray.
She had not accepted his proposal for marriage at that point. She knows after that service that she will, and that they will have to leave Barkerville.
The shard symbolized all that for Anna, and Kyle is the one who will rediscover the story in the glass.

Sketch: Scattering of Ashes

2010-01-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

My father's ashes sat in a cardboard box up on a shelf in his bedroom for almost a year. What do you do? Mum couldn't make up her mind where to scatter them, and it's not the kind of thing you make suggestions about, is it? So they sat up there with the old scarves, and hats, and sweaters that nobody wears anymore. Stuff that had been set aside, and forgotten.

Every once in a while Brenda would call. "What are we going to do with Dad?" she'd say. She wanted Mum to bury the ashes. Mum and Dad had actually purchased plots years ago, but for some reason Mum put off the idea of actually interring Dad. "I don't want him stuck in the ground," was all she'd say about it. "But Mom, he won't just be stuck in the ground! There'll be a service," Brenda argued. Mum would want a place where she could go and visit her husband of sixty years, Brenda told the rest of us.

When my mother-in-law Esther died, Frank snuck into Beacon Hill Park and scattered her ashes in a little grove, where he'd also purchased a plaque on a bench right beside a pleasantly burbling brook. "Esther would have liked that," he said. And to hell with the civic bylaws. Actually, he accomplished the deed in shifts, bringing pockets full of Esther to her final resting place and scattering her. It reminded me of The Great Escape, where the POWs would carry dirt from their tunnel out into the yard and spread it around right under the noses of the German guards. Frank didn't send the contraband materials rattling down his pant leg, though. He transported Esther in zip-lock bags, which he emptied ceremoniously, then carefully folded and reused.

Like Frank, Dad had served in World War II. Dad as a bomber pilot. At one point I'd wanted to write a book based loosely on Dad's life. This would have been a couple of years before his heart attack. I asked him to go with me to the Canadian Air & Space Museum in Toronto to look at a Lancaster bomber they have in their collection. But he always begged off. I thought it was his reticence about the war that held him back. Mum told me later that it wasn't reticence at all: by the time I got around to asking him, a mild dementia had set in and Dad was afraid he wouldn't be able to remember anything about the plane, or how he flew it. He didn't want to go and gawk at something that had been part of his own story and not remember a damn thing about it.

When Mum told me that, it was like she'd fastened a lead ball to my heart. I felt like an asshole.

Anyway, something had to be done with Dad's ashes...

To be continued...

Victorian Vicar Meets Baby Boomer's Gen Y Offspring

2010-01-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Kyle Welland becomes the focal point between the staunch Victorian outlook of his Great-grandfather Christopher Dryden and the moral relativism of his Gen Y son Andrew. Caught in this no-man's-land, he struggles with his own vacillating sense of purpose and identity, coming to see himself as a point on the graph of Western Civilization's decline.

His son is addicted to pot and video games. He's flunking high school, unemployed, and seemingly prepared to live at home indefinitely. Surly, slovenly, undisciplined, he seems determined to do everything he can not to live up to any of Kyle and Doreen Wellands' expectations.

The Wellands' relationship, which was strained to begin with, is pushed to the breaking point by their different approaches to their disastrous, wayward son. She wants Kyle to take a 'tough love' approach; he wants her to stop her 'incessant nagging', which he feels is damaging their relationship with Andrew. They fight constantly with each other and with their son.

Life is hell.

Given the task of revising his Great-grandfather's memoir, which must be completed before his aging mother passes away or loses her mental faculties, Kyle decides - somewhat resentfully - to take a holiday trip to Barkerville to do some research and experience the setting where Reverend Dryden proved his missionary metal and met his future bride.

At Doreen's very strong behest - she insists she's going to suffer a breakdown unless she gets some time to herself - he forces Andrew to join him on this genealogical quest, which Doreen characterizes as a 'father son thing' while Kyle feels it is certain to be an ordeal.

Throughout the novel Kyle will be trying to trace the lines of social history from Christopher Dryden to Andrew Welland - unconsciously at first, but more and more pointedly. As he begins to flesh out Christopher's religious idealism, his romanticism, his courage, and almost irrational optimism, Kyle finds himself regretting some of the values he and his son never had; even as he sees quite clearly that Christopher's Victorian mode would be utterly unfeasible in the 21st Century.

Kyle discovers that the real quest is for him to love his son, and see the spirit of Christopher Dryden living on four generations removed.

Christopher Dryden's Great Grandson

2010-01-12T06:18:00.000-08:00

The structure of Stained Glass is beginning to take shape. I had been considering a straight historical novel, written in the First Person from Reverend Christopher Dryden's Point of View. Two problems presented themselves:

Modern readers, who are impatient and quick to judge, might not see the relevance of the novel to their own fast paced lives;
I would have been confined to the present tense and Christopher's Victorian perspective, which would be narrowed not only by his world view, but also by his experience and the technology of the times.

My solution - a device that has a long literary tradition - will be to have Christopher's correspondence inherited by his great-grandson Kyle Welland, a reporter in his mid 50s, who works in Vancouver. Kyle's aging mother, Christopher's granddaughter, summons him to the family home in Penticton, BC. She hands him a metal tin, which contains a packet of papers and photographs, along with what looks like a manuscript.

He has just inherited the never published autobiography and correspondence of Reverend Christopher Dryden. On top of the stack is a note from Christopher, explaining the materials and letting his descendants know he decided against publishing the work because he considered it a vanity to do so, and because he wanted to protect the reputations of 'many who have attained happiness and status in the world, and would be injured by my scribbling'.

Kyle's role, and the express wishes of his mother, will be to understand this history and make it relevant to his own life and times. She wants him to write a book based upon the 'fantastic life story' of his great-grandfather. Really she wants him to get a grip on his own life, which is teetering on the brink of collapse, even as he enters his retirement years.

I'm thinking Stained Glass will be written in the First Person from Kyle Welland's Point of View. But liberal excerpts from Christopher Dryden's never-published manuscript will give the novel a second Point of View, that of a 19th Century Anglican missionary to the Cariboo. Other Points of View will also be developed by taking quotes from the stack of correspondence in the tin Maggie Welland bequeaths to Kyle.

His personal connection to this forgotten ancestor will deepen as Kyle researches, contextualizes and writes about the life and times of Reverend Christopher Dryden. Kyle will begin to develop a vision of the long-forgotten, shattered stained glass window that had been installed in St. Saviour's for so brief a time during his great-grandfather's period as vicar.

Faith, Love and Survival

2010-01-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

Young Anglican priest Christopher Dryden accepts a mission to the rough and tumble Gold Rush town of Barkerville in BC's Cariboo country, where he discovers faith, love and the meaning of survival on the wild frontier.

That's the 'working theme' of Stained Glass, and the tensions between those three motivating forces will determines the directions of the story.

At the outset Christopher feels his staunch upbringing and training as an Anglican priest have given him a pretty good grasp of what Faith, Love and Survival mean. He knows his is a somewhat abstract formulation of the fundamentals, and is keen to test his religious and social theories in the real world, but he has no doubt they will stand up even in the harshest of environments.

Confronted with the surreal hardships and temptations of a Gold Rush town on the fringe of 'civilization', however, he struggles to uphold his Victorian values and hang on to his sanity.

Anna Armstrong

2010-01-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

A young prostitute, Anna has been chosen by Madame Blavinsky to seduce Rev. Dryden. Young and pretty, she is an odd combination of innocence and toughness. She is ill-suited to the assignment she has been given. More so because she will take an instant liking to Christopher, which will place her in an acute dilemma. Anna knows how things work and how dangerous it can be to thwart the instructions of Madame, to whom she owes allegiance.

Essentially, Anna is an unstable character because she is constantly switching between two persona. On the one hand she is child-like, wanting to step backward in time so she can start her life over and avoid the unfortunate circumstances she finds herself in; on the other, she has to be hard nosed if she wants to avoid being completely downtrodden as a 'working girl' in Madame's employ. Fear triggers the latter persona; craftiness and love the former. She knows herself well, and knows the young innocent can sometimes make headway when the hardened street girl cannot. Anna consciously uses that aspect of her divided personality.

But the young innocent is real, too. Anna really does want to become that girl whose future is unformed and who can make whatever she wants of her life. She will only show that side of herself to someone she loves deeply and trusts completely.

Things I don't know about Anna:

How did she end up a prostitute?
Where did she come from and how did she get into the service of Madame Blavinsky?

Christopher Dryden

2010-01-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

I am modeling the protagonist, Christopher Dryden, loosely on an Anglican Priest named Christopher Knipe, whose picture along with some biographical details appears in Joan Weir's informative little book Canada's Gold Rush Church. He is described as "an upper class English cleric who had volunteered to come to the Canadian far-west for a five year term at no salary whatever."

A photograph of Rev. Knipe suggests an intelligent man, of stern - perhaps inflexible - character. Like Rev. Knipe, Dryden has just traded his comfortable, well-ordered life in England for the harsh and chaotic environment of a booming Gold Rush town and has been traumatized by the experience.

He is not the type an audience will sympathize with or warm up to right away, though. His principles and austere beliefs make him seem unapproachable. The miners are put off by his intellectualism and primness. Rumors circulate about his 'idiosyncracies'. But over time he does win over some of the town dwellers and, hopefully, most of the readers.

For Reverand Dryden is a good man at heart, who has to unlearn his aloof, aristocratic ways in order to get closer to the rough and tumble citizens of his parish. He will prove to be a man who loves in a deep, humbling way.

Things I don't know about Christopher Dryden:

Where did he grow up?
Where did he receive his training as an Anglican priest?
What is the 'lifestyle' of an Anglican priest?
How did he arrive at Barkerville (both his decision to accept the mission and his journey from England to the frontier of British Columbia)?

Stained Glass as Symbol

2010-01-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

Stained glass is a powerful symbol on many levels:

It is the boundary between man's temples and the outside world, transforming ordinary light into brilliant, iconic imagery;
Although it is richly moving, and religious in intent, stained glass is the work of a master craftsman, commissioned by fallible humans, who may have political as well as spiritual motives;
Stained glass is fragile, and can be easily shattered by anyone willing to throw the first stone.

These symbolic attributes will resonate through the story. In fact, Stained Glass is in part about the rich symbolism of church art.

Things I don't know about Stained Glass:

How is it made (the processes of tinting, cutting, assembling)?
Where would a stained glass window of high quality be manufactured?
How would it be packaged and shipped?
Who is the artist (he will become a main character in the novel)?