When we moved to England we bought an old red Vauxhall from an elderly gentleman. On our first drive in the countryside around Bristol we stumbled upon a small “pick your own” apple orchard with heritage English apples. A short, wiry man with cheeks like an apple doll greeted us. Sensing our enthusiasm for these unfamiliar apple varieties he handed us juicy apples, one after another—Pippins, Russets, Bramleys—to bite into and try before sending us off into the orchard with buckets.

Visiting our “apple man” and his orchard became part of our yearly fall tradition. Once, if not two or three times each fall, we made our pilgrimage to this small orchard in the Somerset countryside. The orchard was the first outing we took after Jo was born and 1.5 years later we brought Adam. Year after year our apple man watched our little family change and grow.

One year life got particularly busy. We’d just moved to a new neighbourhood. Jo and Adam were adjusting to a new school and Craig and I were both working. I felt autumn slipping away. We hadn’t visited our apple man.

One night in early November I woke up with an intense pain below my right rib which intensified to the point I could not breathe. I remember thinking “I can’t die! I haven’t made the children scrapbooks!” When I began to lose consciousness Craig ran to our doctor neighbour and before long the ambulance was taking me away. At the hospital the pain passed and the doctors, after checking my heart, assumed it was a gall stone. By early afternoon I was discharged. With all of my heart I wanted to go to the apple farm.

Our apple man was there as always with his red cheeks and big smile to hand us our bucket. We had the whole orchard to ourselves. There were only a few apples left on the trees. Most of the leaves were gone and the branches were like lattice work against the sky. I was so grateful to be alive with my family in this orchard. We laughed and took silly pictures while Adam ran around in his silver soccer shoes. Finally, worn out, we all lay down on the ground and looked up at the branches. “Look Mom!” Jo said joyfully. “Stained glass windows!” I laughed and cried with gratitude at the holiness of it all. “Yes, Johanna, I see them! Yes!!” There we were worshipping with the crows and the apple trees in the church of the wild.

Victoria Loorz, a voice within the wild church movement wrote, “The wild church movement is not really a charge to leave buildings to worship in nature. Rather, it is an offering to the church at large to co-create a new, more compassionate and interconnected story.”

What is your “wild church” story? When did you sense the holy hiddenness at the heart of all things?

Deep peace and blessing,
Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Southpoint Church

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