This is the first of four reflections on L.L. Barkat’s fantastic book Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places that will run here daily until Sunday, January 10. Comment on each of the four posts between now and 6:00 p.m. Sunday and your name will be included in a random drawing to win a copy. Free books: Not a bad way to kick off 2010!

CROSSING SOME STONES: A REFLECTION

by Glynn Young 

First stone crossed: It was in the hospital that I first met L.L. Barkat’s Stone Crossings. I had
crashed on my bike three days before, and it took that long to figure out that
something was very wrong. As my wife rushed me out the door to the emergency
room, I grabbed Stone Crossings, figuring I would need something to do while we
waited. I was wrong; we didn’t wait. They did x-rays immediately and then
pronounced, like a medical benediction, three broken ribs, a fractured fourth
rib, and a partially collapsed lung. With an oxygen tube up my nose and an IV
drip for pain meds in my hand, I finally got to a room about 11:30. An hour
later, I started reading, and didn’t stop until I was finished, sometime near 4
a.m.

Second stone crossed: The writer in me loved the book’s
structure, each chapter like a stone, or two stones, really – a stone of
remembrance and a stone to cross. Some of the remembrance-stones were painful,
and some of the stones to cross were scary. Each stone had a simple name, like
love, forgiveness, fear, gratitude and justice. The writing, ah, the writing:
extraordinary.

Third stone crossed: It’s easy to see Stone Crossings as a
kind of meditative memoir. And it is that. But about a third of the way into
the book, I realized that something profound was happening, something very
powerful for a reader. The stories were becoming my stories; the stones were
becoming my stones to cross.

Fourth stone crossed: As each stone became more and more my
own, the pain behind the author’s remembrances became my own, and I started
turning my own stones over. There it all was – the pain, the hurt, the
ugliness. And much of it was my own, of my own doing. None of the book’s
promotional statements prepared me for this.

Fifth stone crossed: So many things go back to my father. He
died more than 20 years ago, and quickly, from a massive stroke, which for him
was a blessing. He would have hated any kind of disability, and in the worst way.
But he left behind some heavy stones – he hadn’t spoken to my older brother in
more than two years; he had just gotten mad at me for some reason still unknown
earlier that week he died; so many unresolved issues with my mother; and a
business that was a mess, an accounting nightmare. And I was the executor of
his will. Grief, sorrow, anger – it was all bottled up while I helped my mother
through all the legal morass. Two years later, I broke down and cried in my
wife’s arms. More than 20 years later, as I picked up this stone in the
hospital, I forgave him. And me.

Sixth stone crossed: And then with the pain of each stone
came the gratitude. Someone had already turned my stones over, found the
ugliness and cleaned it up. All of it. Instead of hiding ugliness and weighing
me down with guilt and regrets, the stones had become steps forward, ways to
cross the stream.

Seventh stone crossing: I read Stone Crossings in late July.
Now I go back and reread the stones. And the gratitude grows.

GLYNN YOUNG

Professional writer exploring faith and culture, life and work; happily married to Janet, the love of my life; father of two grown sons. Award-winning speechwriter and communication consultant.