Sitting in the Yard Wearing Puffed Sleeves

When my daughter was young, the movie Anne of Green Gables seemed to take up semi-permanent residence in our VCR. We watched it so often that its dialog worked its way into our daily conversations. We loved the movie so much that we over-watched it, allowing it to become too familiar and allowing ourselves to grow a little weary of it.

I returned to Avonlea this past weekend, after a long absence, and remembered some of the reasons I love this movie so much. In one scene in particular, Matthew Cuthbert seemed to reach through my television screen and grab hold of my heart. Anne had been invited to a Christmas ball and Marilla, believing that balls are all “stuff and nonsense,” told her she was not to go. Matthew--although quiet and shy-- found both his voice and his courage, looked his strong-willed and determined sister squarely in the face and said,

There’s no reason she should be raised as cheerless as we was. You oughtta let her go.

Marilla, like many of the honest, hard-working, God-fearing adults I know, confused Christian piety and devotion with cheerlessness. While Marilla initially considered Anne “next door to a heathen,” she grew to love and appreciate the imaginative free-spirit who took up residence in her home and her heart, breathing life into both.

Maybe it’s my fondness for L.M. Montgomery’s characters, or maybe it’s because I, too, am tempted to confuse devotion with cheerlessness, (or maybe because I just like authors who use two initials at the beginnings of their names) I got really excited about L.L. Barkat’s, God in the Yard:  Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, when I read this:

I’m not sure when this whole business of spiritual practice became so serious. Maybe it traces back to Benedict’s Rule of Life, which ordered the lives of monks around prayer, study and work. Once, I read that Benedict himself was not the type you’d expect to see on the playground. (Barkat, 5-6).

God in the Yard is twelve-week course in discovery and playing towards God. In it, L.L. Barkat describes her experience in spending an hour a day, sitting in her yard, and being open to all the sights and sounds present there. She invites her readers to incorporate playfulness into their spiritual practices, to incorporate “forms of play that lead us out of ourselves and restore us to God and community.” (p. 7). I like that.

One of my favorite pictures of my pastor is a snapshot I have of him playing ball with my son and his friend during a week of Vacation Bible School. A serious and devout man, my pastor reminded me of these words from Zechariah 8:4, 5 (NIV):

This is what the LORD Almighty says:  “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.

I’m thinking Matthew Cuthbert and L.L. Barkat are right:  Maybe it’s time for those of us who love Jesus, and who are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth, to throw off cheerless Christianity. For those of us who profess we believe that everything that is broken in this world is in the process of being redeemed, restored, and made new, where is there room in our faith for cheerlessness? Maybe it’s time to practice. And maybe I’ll go sit out in my yard wearing puffed sleeves.

(To read more about God in the Yard, check out the group blogging project at BibleDude.net)