Read

September/October 2001 Living Now
An Interview With Mary Rose O'reilley,
Author Of Barn at the End of the World: Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

by Connie Hill

C: Your book is fascinating, especially since I have roots in Missouri farming. My grandfather kept sheep. Your book starts out "in the barn" and talks about the down and dirty stuff of working with sheep. From that seems to come a sense of spirituality.

M: Spirituality is a very natural thing to human beings. It's in every occupation, but it's easier to find in manual work.

C: You are an author, work with sheep, work with Buddhist meditation and music. On the surface they don't seem to fit together, but they do.

M: The root to a lot of this is that I'm a Quaker. I used to write books and people would say that's a weird book. I'd say "It's a Quaker book." Being a Quaker you are taught to follow the gut feeling that draws you, the still small voice. As a Quaker you don't do anything until you feel led and then you just do it.

C: I must have been a Quaker in a past life. That gut feeling has been important to me more than once.

M: John Wellman, the Quaker philosopher said "The difference in being clear and unclear about your path is as obvious as the difference between daylight and darkness." You can sit there without having a clue what to do and all of a sudden it comes. No matter how strange, it's ok. I was doing music in England and was sent to live with a woman sheep farmer. When I settled in there was a peaceful feeling. Later, I remember calling up the university agricultural program to ask some nutrition questions and they said come over. Of course they needed help. Next thing I was working with them for two years.

I'm a person who has always written, journaling. I write as a spiritual practice. It keeps me firmly in the world. You write, somebody reads it and publishes it and then they want you to write more. That is how it has always come.

C: I love the Quaker story in your book about the flooded library. The books on the bottom shelves were soaked and someone said "Oh, that's alright, it's only the fiction."

M: That is a real Quaker story!

C: When did you begin as an author?

M: I didn't publish anything until about 40 when I wrote the Peaceable Classroom, which came out in parts, in essays. It took me a long time to get published because of the way I write. But when the essays appeared people responded very positively. So, I got my first book published. And once you get one book published, they want you to write another one. You spend your whole time trying to get published and then you have to fight people off.

C: How has working in the barn changed you?

M: Working the past few weeks at my grandparents place - country people - I have been remembering the intellectuals in my past and I have never really fit into the so-called intellectual world very well. When I first went to graduate school and the intellectuals would say the things they say, I would think "What are they talking about?" It wasn't that I didn't understand, I just thought, "Do people spend their lives doing this? Strange." I realized it really is the practical that I need and, I guess, to trust the people that intellectuals don't trust.

C: In the book you wanted to buy a farm. Have you done that yet?

M: No--I have my sights on a farm, but a problem around here is urban sprawl. It's a terrible problem for young farmers: they can't get a foot in the door. The land costs have really accelerated. As I've grown older I've gotten quite arthritic. So I need to be changing my plans. Part of that is a good thing. I need to ask for help and asking for help is hard. For some reason now, I'm surrounded 5 or 6 students who would pick up and go. We've formed a kind of community. There are also young farmers in sustainable agriculture who can't afford to buy the property but want a place to farm. There are lots of people I could involve in a way that there is mutuality, so I have to re-configure myself as an older farmer.

C: We haven't even talked about any of the time you spent at Plum Village with Thich Nhat Hanh.

M: Which I went through just kicking and screaming! Yet it gave such a resiliency to my life. What I love about Buddhism is that now I am reconfiguring my teaching around those lessons. About every five years I need a change. Teaching is hard. It's like doing the dishes: you get one group done and in comes a whole new flood. It has been really neat for me to begin teaching in that ruthless way of contemplation. Last year I got a grant in contemplative studies from a big foundation; it was life changing for me and my students to see how deeply we could go with learning in that very listening, contemplative way. The fact that I fought it, I think is good.

C: I learn the most from things I struggle with.

M: The resistance that a person of my very theological background feels, is really important to the dialogue with Buddhism. Especially at the level of ordinary common dinner table conversation. I know the Dalai Lama can dialogue with the Pope. People like me can talk to my counterpart in the Buddhist community. The resistance is important to articulate the slight differences and distinction in how people do spiritual companioning and spiritual practices that are their nature in the broad Christian/Buddhist works. I told a student who was struggling with two polarities "You may have been put on earth to articulate this in your academic life." As I heard myself talking to him I had to say to myself I may be a person that has to do this dinner table Buddhist/Christian dialogue. I understand both sides pretty well. I understand desire and longing extremely well. And I'm beginning to understand the desire to not desire and all the pitfalls on that path. And the part where you are working with animals--as the third wheel, not a good arrangement I feel--because we are animals.

C: I was just thinking of another story in your book about you walking across the barnyard with bucket of food and the rams are trying to get into the corn and molasses.

M: Exactly, and we have to know that we are the rams getting our noses in the corn and molasses as well as the farmer carrying the feed.

C: Mary Rose, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today.

Mary Rose O'Reilley will be at New Renaissance Bookshop Friday, October 19 to talk about and sign copies of her new book. For more information or to register online go to www.newrenbooks.com and click Events or call 503-224-4929.

Connie Hill works at New Renaissance Bookshop and is a local astrologer. Contact her at 503-291-8229 ext 2 or gmnite@yahoo.com.