This summer I grew a beautiful new-to-me herb, Anise Hyssop.  It’s a plant I never would have experienced if I hadn’t taken a meandering trip to PEI and had a beautiful–even spiritual–experience at The Inn at Bay Fortune. 

Last August, my beloved and I had almost two weeks together while our four children were at camp, so we hopped in our van and headed for the East Coast. We had only one thing planned and only one experience in our budget: an overnight at chef Michael Smith’s inn.

Now don’t get me wrong: we did all kinds of wonderful things on the island. We walked along sandy beaches, visited distilleries and took afternoon naps. We saw pretty lighthouses, found lovely campsites and ate at amazing places like Point Prim Chowder House. But visiting the inn was different.

We arrived in the late afternoon but it was dinnertime when the fun really started. Oyster Hour, as they call it, invited us to wander all over the property and delight in the extensive perennial beds, the herb gardens (in wooden boxes just like mine!), and even to enter the kitchen, where Michael Smith himself gave me a quick lesson on how to shuck an oyster.

Inside, we found long communal tables in several different rooms. With all the food arriving family style, we talked, shared and laughed while each course was served. We had a wide ranging conversation with a couple from New York City in between bites of flower-filled salad and perfectly roasted beef from just a few farms over.

The meal lasted for hours and it was not an early bedtime, but I was glad to be awake at 6am the next morning. I quietly made my way out past the herb garden, past the three happy pigs, past the tall compost heap and sunflower patch, all the way to the back fields where the inn’s vegetables are grown. Golden sunshine had just come begun to appear when I came across farmers Jeff, Carey and their daughter Olivia. They shared friendly greetings. I enthused about the farm.

Breakfast–a serene meal with the best sticky buns I have ever eaten–plus another brief stroll to admire flowerbeds and chat with the gardener–and we were on our way again. But not without the feeling that we had been given a special gift.

For generations, people have understood that the church is a place to encounter what is holy, but it is certainly not the only place to seek out the divine. As for The Inn at Bay Fortune, they stripped away barriers, letting us into the fields and the kitchen so that we were witnesses to creation. Long tables gathered us into community where even the chefs and servers were available for conversation. Fair wages for the staff and support for local fishers and farmers spoke of justice and love. Food and beauty nourished us. All of these connected us to what is holy and good.

Sure, Michael Smith runs a business. What I love, however, is that he is also opening a door for people who may never enter a traditional sanctuary. Here is a sacred space where people can be awed by goodness and graced with a multitude of gifts. Surely many are inspired to treat the earth with greater care and regard their neighbours as essential.

So I came home and grew some Anise Hyssop. The mass of beautiful purple flowers call me to gratitude every time I looked out the kitchen window this summer. God can be found in many places–churches, gardens, forests, families. And even, it seems, at an inn on Prince Edward Island.