Seeing Lessons: Meet Another Mentor |

L.L. Barkat blogs at Seedlings in Stone.

I’d visit from time to time over the years, admiring her literary style that remained inspiring and accessible.

But then something quite unexpected happened. We got to meet in person at the Festival of Faith and Writing.

To prove it, here we are (er, well, here is part of us):

That’s me on the left.

While there, I bought her book Stone Crossings, in which she digs deeply into painful, hidden places while sharing deep truths from Scripture—she is a storyteller-teacher.

And I’m grateful to let her sort of “mentor” me via her blog, where she generously models and inspires how to see. You can click over and start exploring; she can be your mentor, too.

For inspiration, take her recent post “Casting for Beauty.” In it, she invites me (and you, and anyone who clicks over and sees) to join her on a beach walk, where she found lovely angles to capture shells and stones.

But she sees more. She sees poetry in the shapes, markings and colors. She makes playful connections and reminds me to look more closely.

She uses poetry to help me see, too, and respond. Here’s a recent example of how she was inspired to respond to the art of others, and in doing so—by including the process as well as the poem—she inspires others to create, to piece words together from the pain or joy of self or others.

“Art engendered art,” she wrote.

Indeed.

And seeing engenders seeing.

Thank you for seeing, L.L. Barkat. Thank you for looking so closely and reminding us to see more, to respond, to create.

Pt. 1 “Seeing Lessons”

Pt. 2 “Seeing Lessons: Meet a Mentor”

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