A Book About Spiritual Practices-For “The Rest of Us”

In January of 2013, I ordered a book, God in the Yard by L.L. Barkat (TSPoetry Press)  I had connected with the author online in the Christian writing community as a new online writer. Many comments later where I spoke to her about her work, I emailed asking for a copy and she graciously sent me a signed volume of God in the Yard (and a pressed fern leaf from her yard.)

I’ll admit I was wary of what was inside; “Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us” is the subtitle. The words ‘A 12 week course in discovery and playing towards God’ grace the bottom of the cover. I was completely new to the idea of ‘Spiritual Practices’; somehow it conjured up ideas of hard work. (My previous many years in the world of Evangelical church faith practices probably had something to do with it. I did not know what to expect.

I put off reading GITY as long as possible, considering that three months is kind of a long time to commit to a twelve week course of anything. I had a full time job as a classroom assistant.  I didn’t have any extra time to go sit in the yard and listen for God. But a still, small voice said ‘just begin’, so I did.

I reconsidered: while I can’t take an hour every day to stop and sit and be still, I can stitch together fifteen minutes here and 30 minutes there. I could seek to build a place for a Sabbath rest and wait for God. So I’m stitching together my Sabbaths. I committed to just simply sit outside and Do Nothing.

In my mind, ‘spiritual practice’ is Bible reading, Scripture memorization, prayer, journaling. Something purposeful, planned, contained…you know, disciplined. But Barkat’s introduction to spiritual practices turned out much differently than I expected.
Instead of feeling pressured to produce something, I found joy in the discipline of letting go and receiving. Learning to stop, look and listen.  I learned to rest more in the realization of God’s creation, reveling in the wonder right in front of me.

God’s timing is always perfect, which Barkat illustrates with the picture of God as a ‘divine librarian’ orchestrating the volumes we find on our shelves to speak to us just when we need it.

Each of the twelve chapters have ending prompts, questions that surprise me when I commit my answers to paper.  She encourages the reader to take a ‘Sabbath on the page’ as often as possible throughout the week and just free write.  The ‘free’ part of that originally left me unsettled—”wow, where could that lead, without any direction? Doesn’t sound very disciplined to me,” I thought. Here is a discovery I made via the ‘And you?’ question in the first chapter:  “I shouldn’t bother with 12 weeks of this because….”

There are a couple of keys right there about how God might want to change up my thinking. Forcing myself to sit and look and listen has focused my observation of things I’ve never noticed. Phrases, pictures, words I didn’t know I had in me are welling to the surface. As I stare out at the greening world before me, parked in my chair on the deck, I’ve noticed all kinds of things:

• The palette of greens (there are over ten in the trees and shrubs within view).
• Why do trees’ branches grow up?  
• Where do the birds hide in the rain?
• No wonder God wants us to get outside and play–look at this world He’s made!

Barkat shares this quote, via another writer, ‘Your well (of your soul) contains the true end of the poem, and you simply won’t know it until your creativity draws it up….’ (Vinita Hampton Wright).

I have been pleasantly surprised when I take the leap (well, sit) and look and listen, that observations flow more easily. I’m capturing words I know come from somewhere else, and the release of them seems to happen when I pick up my pencil and commit thoughts to paper.

I have been building a temple, a place for contemplation, and I long for my appointments with God each day. Stitching together my Sabbaths to sit, rest, receive is becoming a practice I look forward to, a discipline that is refreshing and completing me.