By Mike Ivaska One of the things I really appreciate about life on Vashon is how quickly we can immerse ourselves in nature here. Within ten minutes of walking or driving, depending on where you live, a trailhead awaits. You don’t even have to have anything resembling survival skills – which, for me, is particularly…
Island Voices, June 2026
The Ambiguous Gift of Place
By Mike Ivaska What does it mean to be “from” somewhere? Do the places we are from still exist? If so, in what sense? And if not, should it matter? Like any good, self-respecting longtime Islander, I have been known to wax philosophic about the way Vashon “used to be.” Even as I sat to…
February 2026, Island Voices
Giving Up Hopelessness for Lent
By Mike Ivaska The church I pastor has historically had, at best, a tenuous relationship with the church calendar. The generation before me was iconoclastic in every way. Many were former hippies and, in their own words, “recovering Catholics.” When I started at the church, we practiced Advent (the season leading to Christmas), Christmas Eve,…