God in the Yard

Without knowledge of the self, there is no knowledge of God. Nearly all the wisdom we possess... consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

- John Calvin

When I was a child, I lived in the woods.

Not literally, of course. I wasn't a pint-sized Paul Bunyan, wielding my axe, toddling around with a stuffed blue ox. The woods were a place I sought solace from a difficult life. There, I watched the creek change from a silver-green ribbon, to amber lace, from ice-blue to spring's rush and tumble of white. I floated sticks and made pine needle beds. Some- times I raced my sister across the rocks, then knocked her into the reeds. In the woods I was free.

Today, the squeal of a garbage truck wakes me three times a week. Horns and sirens break through the quiet of dawn and night. My house clings to the edge of a hill less than a quarter of an acre in size, and a rusty chain-link fence hitches my yard to the yards of my neighbors. Three unidentified cats use my front steps to nap and my back yard to poop. My sister lives far away.

There is a part of me that feels pinched in this life-a life I freely chose when I put distance between me and my growing-up place. But it's no fun to live with the pain of pinching. That is why I first returned to the woods.

~

It might be an exaggeration to call the trees in my back yard woods. A single fir spreads her arms above a patch of English ivy. Two maples reach to the sun. Wood-winged bushes and thorns tussle in the shade. This is a very small space, an "edge" if you will.

Technically, an edge is where one habitat meets another-where grass gradually gives way to bushes, which gives way to trees, or vice versa. I saw this recently, on a trip south. A sign explained the vitality of these regions, "Edges are places that support a broad range of wildlife." The bald eagle is an example of a bird who lives in the edge; he nests in tall pine trees, but he fishes in wetlands and marshes.

Culturally, we're not trained to love edges, but might they hold some- thing unseen, unexpected? I think about Wendell Berry's trip to Peru, where he saw mountain farmers grow food in small, seemingly inhospitable places. He says, "... those fields hold their soil on those slopes, first of all, by being little. By being little they protect themselves against erosion, but their smallness also permits attention to be focused accu- rately and competently on the details."

Smallness permits attention. The fields stay intact because they are little. Could I find something worthwhile in my little back yard? Berry seemed to suggest it was possible.

Around the time I considered his words, a friend expressed surprise that I'd never read Radical Simplicity, a book by Jim Merkel, about living with limits. Well, I was feeling limited. Not just with my tiny yard space, but also in my professional development.

An extended writing project had left me feeling oddly empty. It stirred a longing for those big woods of long ago, made me covet childhood walks and lazy afternoons of tracing sticks in the mud. It also created a sense of professional discontent. I wanted more time to focus. No more of this writing-on-the-edge-of-a-napkin. I wanted to go to exotic places to jumpstart my creativity. I needed an Annie Dillard-style trip to the Galapagos. But, quite simply, I was going nowhere.

I ordered Radical Simplicity.

Saying, "I ordered," implies some kind of control. But I have doubts. Merkel's book arrived in my life with rather suspicious timing. %uE08Ais sug- gests there is a divine librarian who puts things on hold at the library, for people who need a particular book at a particular time.
That is just a theory.

As it turned out, Merkel's book would jumpstart a commitment I had no plans of making. I would be compelled to do what Berry said the Peruvian farmers do: focus accurately and competently on the details. The details of what? I had no idea.

The invitation was simple: find a secret spot somewhere in nature, go there for an hour every day, open your ears and eyes and fingertips and take it all in, journal if you want. Make sure the spot is within walking distance. Do it for a year.

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Garden Fire artwork by Gail Nadeau. Used by permission.

In the end, this is the most hopeful thing any of us can say about spiritual transformation: I cannot transform myself, or anyone else for that matter. What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place...
- Ruth Haley Barton

I've always liked cardinals. Vibrant splashes that adorn white pine and maple. They delight me with their brilliant presence. Mostly. I say this because I remember the day I thought my back yard cardinals had turned into Hitchcock's The Birds.

It happened at the edge of the little woods. I was minding my own busi- ness, picking up sticks, pulling weeds, when a birdy scream interrupted my rhythm. A male cardinal flew straight towards me, then wheeled back to a branch above and continued its tirade. My heart beat fast. My palms started sweating.

I watched the angry bird without moving. %uE08Aen I heard another scream, pitched differently, coming from the small trees further back. A female cardinal, mousy brown with bare blushes of red, had joined the attack. What had possessed this aggressive couple?

Then I heard it. In the lulls between their screams, I heard the softer sound of "shrip, shrip, shripping" coming from somewhere near my feet. Ivy and pine needles shifted, rustled. A tiny round brown puff emerged. Their baby.

Julian of Norwich, a passionate medieval mystic, would have understood the protective instincts of my back yard cardinals. She says of God, "... he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand... and it was as round as a ball.... I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing.... In this little thing I saw three proper- ties. %uE08Ae first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God preserves it...."

What Julian doesn't explain is the paradoxical nature of this creation, love and preservation. Similar to the thorny issue of psychological nature-versus-nurture, our spiritual selves seem to have two sides: God- given, loved and protected versus self/other-given, loved, and protected.

So on the one hand there is Psalm 139:13, "Oh, yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb..." suggesting God's control over our being. And on the other hand, we find stories like Josiah's, a good man who ultimately lost his life when "he did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but joined battle in the plain of Megiddo" (2 Chron. 35:22).

In other words, spiritual growth and health is complicated by the question of whose job it is to keep our lives from falling into nothing. If we believe the whole matter rests in God's hands, we can sleep like Rip Van Winkle and wake up whole on the other side; we can rest like a tiny hazelnut in the palm of life and trust that all will be well.

Conversely, if we believe the matter rests squarely in our hands, we might crush ourselves with the weight of discipline in an effort to put ourselves together-much like the young Karen Armstrong. She describes in The Spiral Staircase a rigid spiritual journey in the nunnery that plunged her into depression and physical illness (not that all such cloister journeys are like this, but hers was).

Or we could walk to the edge of an ordinary day and watch the birds.

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Lantern artwork by Gail Nadeau. Used by permission.

Woods: invitation - week1
Rules: the way -2 week 2
Look: contemplation - week 3
Weep: celebration - week 4
Sky: gratitude - week 5
Open: prayer - week 6
Gone: presence - week 7
Cycle: sabbath - week 8
Poetry: silence - week 9
Me: selfcare - week 10
With: submission - week 11
Home: hospitality - week 12
Epilogue

Wonder: discussion or reflection questions

The First (Small) Chapter of L.L. Barkat's New Book Rumors of Water

1 Rumors - How it Begins

I am trying to have a conversation about writing. About how I can't write anymore. Or at least how I can't seem to write anything sustained. My older daughter Sara is trying to listen in, as is her way these days.

"Can you find me some water?" I ask. I've been sitting at this picnic for hours and really could use a cup of something simple to drink. I could also use a few minutes alone with my friend Anne, to work out this question of writing and creativity and what seems to be standing in my way.

Before I can form another thought, Sara is back. "There are rumors of water," she says. "But I couldn't find any."

"Rumors of water," I answer. "Now that's a good book title."

"It could be about you and your daughters," says Anne. "How you're raising them to be so creative."

I turn this thought around in my mind. "I don't feel like I've finished living that enough," I say, knowing this is both true and not true at all.

I have been trying to write while raising my girls. I have been struggling. There are days I feel wildly creative; there are weeks when I feel ground down and completely spent. I am trying to show my girls that creativity is theirs for the taking. Sometimes it seems to be. Sometimes I feel the road is so long they will never get where they're trying to go.

There are so many things standing in my way this morning, I can hardly begin. Yet I've heard there are rumors of water. Maybe that is enough.

Floral Designs by my little girl Sonia, at age 11.

Endorsements...



A few brave writers pull back the curtain to show us their creative process. Annie Dillard did this. So did Hemingway. Now L.L. Barkat has given us a thoroughly modern analysis of writing. Practical, yes, but also a gentle uncovering of the art of being a writer.

Gordon Atkinson, author of Turtles All the Way Down

I love living and breathing in L.L. Barkat's writerly mind. The way she weaves the story of her girls alongside her writing journey is invitational. Her book was a beautiful pause in my day, and it made me ache for a more attentive life.

Mary DeMuth, author of Thin Places: A Memoir

The real beauty of this book is the truth it teaches slant: good and beautiful and honest writing comes from a life that pursues the same. This is not just a book about writing well, it's a book about living well.

Leslie Leyland Fields, author of Surviving the Island of Grace and The Spirit of Food, and columnist for Christianity Today

L.L. Barkat models a vibrant writing life, nourishing the reader with moments infused with meaning. Her words satisfy, like a fragrant cup of Christmas tea.

Ann Kroeker, author of Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families

When I wrote the proposal that sold Stone Crossings, I used this informative source...

How to Write a Book Proposal

Here's another link you might find helpful:

Anatomy of a Book Proposal