FORMATION

Essays on Formation

Harvey grew up as a missionary kid on a First Nations reserve in Canada. The childhood experiences in these essays — cruelty witnessed on the way to school, abuse in the schoolyard, discovering God's presence in a forbidden place — are not resolved stories. They are the raw material of a faith still being formed by what happened before it could be chosen.

  1. The Ceramic Floor

    On that ceramic floor, I couldn't see any of the blessings I'd been taking for granted. My words and reason reached their end. They were radically insufficient. All that remained was my bedrock conviction that our good God wastes absolutely nothing.

  2. When Beauty Breaks In

    Every strum of the guitar gave voice to the pain I'd felt as a child, to the nothingness I felt now. Sitting alone in my room, my heart was cracking open to the presence of someone I'd known since I was four.

  3. The Dog in the Lake

    I wanted to run, but it was too late. They spied our skin shining in the early morning light. "Wemistikoshe!" they taunted, "You're next!" There it was, the familiar taunt, somehow "white man" was a curse word. "Never come this way again!"

  4. The Playground

    I writhed face down in the muddy school yard, unable to get up, alone, ignored by my first-grade companions. Some time later, the bell rang to end recess, and good boy that I was, I got up, staggered bent over and collapsed on the bench outside our classroom.

  5. The Brute Fact

    I could make no meaning of what had been done to me. It was a brute fact, and it colored everything else.

  6. God in Dangerous Places

    God met me in the dangerous place. I stood up and left that place knowing God loved me.