This is a view of Mended Oar Outpost today–not exactly the way it looked during the 10 years when we rented it, since the land around it has been cleared and there’s been considerable renovation, both inside and out. But it does show the gorgeous location, complete with lily pads. And it’s still painted red.
(If you want to see what it looks like today, go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There are more photos here as well. It can be rented through Lakefalls: A Private Estate for Weddings & Retreats.)
At first the place was called Broken Oar Outpost (see last entry). What happened to change the name? When we came to Broken Oar, I was reading Alan Watts and studying Eastern religions. All very interesting, but not what I was looking for spiritually. What I was looking for came, several years later, when I had a series of experiences–all at Broken Oar–that led me, and eventually Buzz, to faith in Christ. Which is when the name officially changed. The old Broken Oar Outpost sign, created from pieces of birch, was taken down and reworked.
Years later I was asked to write a piece about how this all happened, and my conversion story was published, along with those of 13 other women, in a book titled “The Catholic Mystique.”
But back to life at Mended Oar. We’d come up from our home in New Jersey whenever we could on holidays, weekends, and summers. We’d even come in the winter, skiing into our retreat.
And then one day in the fall, Buzz and I took a hike up a nearby ridge and after a rather precipitous climb, found ourselves on a huge rock, where we sat for awhile, relishing the beauty all around us.
“Look at that flat plateau right over there,” Buzz said, pointing behind us to a thickly wooded section near the rock. “What a perfect place to build a house if you cleared the land. And I’ll bet the view from here would be spectacular.”
At the time, we hadn’t a penny in savings and barely enough in our checking account to cover expenses. None of his musing, for us, seemed possible. But at that moment, even though we didn’t know it, our whole life had began to change.