by Donna Poole
Have you been to the Father’s Backyard? Some scoff and say it’s an imaginary place, but I’ve been there myself and assure you it’s more real than anywhere else I’ve ever been.
It’s a more beautiful backyard than you can imagine in your best dreams; the sun always smiles, and the grass makes a year-around carpet for bare feet. People say there’s a house just over the hill called “The Father’s House,” but none of us have ever seen the house or the Father, just the Father’s mailbox, and his backyard, perfect for adults who haven’t forgotten how to play.
Artists gather daily in the Father’s Backyard to play at their work. Phyllis perfects her photography. Patrick paints with oils and watercolors. Weston weaves lovely patterns from lamb’s wool. Grace grows lovely flowers and vegetables in her garden. Archie designs architectural marvels. Bella practices ballet as Orville leads an orchestra. Sarah sculpts statues that decorate the garden while Wilson writes beautiful stories. Caleb makes masterpieces with his carpentry skills. Catherine creates meals that feed body and soul.
Newest to the group and greatly loved is young Paul whose poetry captures dreams and turns them into words. He often reads them aloud, and creativity being contagious, the work of the others becomes even more beautiful.
In groups and in solitude artists use the gifts the Father has given them to enrich the lives of the rest. Every evening, as the magic hour of twilight falls, each artist stops creating and admires the work of the others. There is no envy. The one who sings like an angel doesn’t wish to be the ornithologist cataloging the beautiful birds. The writer in the wheelchair never envies the ballerina.
The artists end each day relaxing around a campfire, contented with their own work and proud of each other. They talk softly, draw warmth from the crackling flames and from friendship, and watch the first stars appear. Then they stop by the Father’s mailbox, go home to sleep, and return refreshed to the Father’s Backyard to play at their work again the next day.
I remember the day things changed.
Paul’s poems had always been a bit melancholy, but no one minded. Sorrow and tears added beauty to all our work and reminded us we were only in the Father’s Backyard, not yet at his house. But Paul’s poems began to take on an eerie darkness. It seemed he’d forgotten what Helen Keller often said when she’d played in the Father’s Backyard in her day, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
Paul’s poems had sometimes reminded me of the beautiful face of a baby who smiles through tears on his cheeks, or of a rainbow after a storm when the sun breaks through the clouds. Now there was no smile, no sun, just tears and storm clouds.
There was no overcoming left in Paul’s poetry. When he read it aloud, the other artists’ hands and minds grew heavy.
Then Paul stopped writing. Day after day he sat with his chin in his hands and refused to talk or be comforted. Not even the warmth of the evening campfire helped.
I wasn’t the only one who caught my breath in horror when Paul came to say goodbye. His face looked like an ancient oak; he shuffled slowly, and he bent from the waist and could no longer stand upright. His entire back looked like it was covered with lumps.
“I can’t come to the Father’s Backyard anymore,” Paul said. “It’s too painful. I have nothing left to give, and your beautiful work makes me bitter.”
And then Paul pitched face forward. He was still breathing, but barely.
Our own Doctor Dan rushed to help. “I’ve seen this only once before here in the Father’s Backyard, but I think I recognize this poison.”
“Poison?” I stared at him. “Someone is poisoning Paul?”
“Not someone, something,” Doctor Dan said as he removed Paul’s shirt.
Paul’s back was covered with layers of sticky notes.
“Quickly, please help me,” Doctor Dan said to those of us standing closest to Paul as he began pulling off the sticky notes.
“What are these?” I asked as I yanked them off by the handfuls.
“Something too heavy for any artist to carry. Something the rest of us leave in the Father’s mailbox every night before we go home.”
I glanced at the notes in my hands. I recognized the words on one of them; they were my own. “Paul, your poetry captures dreams and turns them into words.”
I read a few more, all of them praise, most in prose far more eloquent than my own.
“A man is tested by his praise,” Doctor Dan muttered grimly as he kept working. “Who was responsible for this man’s orientation?”
We looked at each other. No one had told Paul about the mailbox? The poor man had been hoarding praise, keeping all those compliments for himself?
Doctor Dan pulled the last of the notes from Paul’s back. Paul stirred and began to cry. The sun shone through his tears and made a rainbow.
We drifted off to our work-play as Doctor Dan quietly told Paul about the Father’s mailbox and how each night before we went home we whispered Psalm 115:1 and put into the mailbox all the praise given to us that day.
Paul was weak, content to sit in the sun, feel the grass carpet under his bare feet, and eat the nourishing soup Catherine created for him.
That night we began a new tradition around the campfire. As the flames died down to embers, we stood, hands clasped over our hearts, and chanted together, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.”
I was young then, and now I am old. I haven’t seen another case of praise poison and almost destroy an artist, but just in case someone else misses orientation, we still recite our fireside chant. Paul, our beautiful old poet laureate, reminds us to stop by the Father’s mailbox before we leave each night.
And that is how our souls stay young and light enough to laugh and create. Our bodies slow and sag, but we are still joyful children, playing in the Father’s Backyard. Come join us!
