The first time I read The Barn at the End of the World, back in May of 2001, I had this to say about it:
I am reading a book called The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd. It's all the rage in Quaker circles, but it's just annoying me. It's a memoir/personal essay kind of thing, and I find the woman annoying and some of her insights more than a bit superficial; it ticks me off that she says almost nothing about Quakerism but devotes the middle third of the book to reproducing dharma talks given by Thich Nat Hanh, a Buddhist Teacher, which I find tedious. But the thing that has got me steamed is her mis-use of other writers' work. She loves to quote little aphorisms of Thoreau's, and to take lines of Whitman out of context. I know that all of us who read poetry have a tendency to memorize beloved lines that hold meaning for us, but I've come to mistrust that process. What does a line of poetry mean, removed from its poem? I have a favorite section of "Song of Myself," 20 or 30 lines, but it's one section of a poem in 52 sections, and there are pieces of it that don't make perfect sense without the other 51, and I recognize that it is out of its context when I quote it alone. So it bugs me when she, reflecting on life in the sheep barn, pulls out one line from "Song of Myself" ("I think I could turn and live with animals") as if that line means anything on its own, and in the process turns it into a simple and sweet sentiment of the type Whitman is rarely guilty of uttering. "I want to turn and live with the animals," she writes, "as Walt Whitman recommended." I assure you, he did not. This is what he says:I think I could turn and live with animals,they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
This is not some sweet "go live with animals" idea--it's a rather biting critique of humanity (and one of my favorite bits of "Song of Myself." I especially love, "They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God." Heh heh heh. Good old Walt). It's a rather scathing indictment of the author of The Barn at the End of the World, in fact, as much of her book is devoted to whining about her condition, discussing her duty to God, expressing her dissatisfaction, lying awake weeping, describing her impassioned desire to own a little farm of her own, and prostrating herself repeatedly before her Buddhist teacher. Perhaps I should drop her a note and suggest that she actually try reading some poetry and see where it gets her.
Despite such frustrations, I have been journeying on in this book, looking for the nuggets that are good (the stuff about sheep farming is really quite worthwhile), thinking that maybe I'm just resisting for some reason but that if I can break through my resistance I'll find some useful spiritual insights. But I just had to slam it shut when I got to her talking about her neighborhood and saying that her neighbors would agree with Robert Frost's famous aphorism, "Good fences make good neighbors." This is a line from the poem "Mending Wall," and her quoting of it as if that's what Frost says, and as if "Good fences make good neighbors" is what the poem means, makes it clear that she has not really read the poem. Frost never says, "Good fences make good neighbors." In the poem, the neighbor says it (twice), and the whole poem is a critique of the idea--but it's not really a poem about what makes good neighbors; it's a poem about clinging thoughtlessly to old ideas. What Frost says (twice) in the poem is "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Wait, I'll give you the poem. Read it out loud! It's really good!
I would have immediately gotten rid of this book, I found its author, Mary Rose O'Reilley, so annoying. But I had bought the hardcover and gotten popcorn grease on the dust jacket, so I couldn't take it back to the bookstore, and I wasn't sure who to hand it on to. So it sat on my shelf for awhile, and then last fall my Spiritual Formation group decided to read it. I was reluctant, but ended up liking it pretty well the second time. Some spiritual memoirs are written because the author has some wisdom to impart; this one is more of a watch-me-struggle type of book, and it has its good moments, though it has its clunkers, too.
It still irks me that O'Reilley gives so little attention to her Quakerism. Perhaps it's because her Quakerism is an established thing, and during the year she writes about in this book, she is more actively exploring Buddhism, but then on the other hand, she is doing some pretty Quakerly things, too, like serving as interim pastor at a Quaker church, about which she writes almost nothing. Quakers are not well known in the wider society, but I think we have some insights and ideas that are worth sharing, and I'm sorry O'Reilly didn't see fit to share them with her readers.
I picked the book up a third time this summer because O'Reilley, like me, sings alto in the Sacred Harp tradition, and her writing about Sacred Harp singing is wonderful. When I first read this book, I had not sung Sacred Harp; in fact, reading about it is what made me take the opportunity when I had a chance to learn how to do it. And it is a blessing in my life, so I can thank O'Reilly for that. I can thank her also for being so honest about her failings, and for giving me a nuanced and gritty view of life in a sheep barn.
I am also glad to have found her two books on teaching, The Peaceable Classroom and Radical Presence, which have helped me think productively about how my Quaker witness serves me as a teacher. Both of them are so hard to find that had I not previously heard of O'Reilley, I would not have found them, and they are important books for me. So it is good that I did not give in to a first impulse and have this book pulped after a first reading.
Posted by Su Penn at August 4, 2003 04:55 AM | TrackBack