Sanctuary by Patrick Barrett (published 2021)

It seems impossible to return to a place within childhood wherein one feels safe, welcomed, and understood, especially so for Patrick Barrett, who found himself so far away from these sentiments of home. Yet, perhaps because he yearned for them so much, he refound them again despite excessive personal anxieties, deep alcoholism, physical abuse, and the horror of war (later having PTSD), combined with other, more obscure traumas stemming from the political and historical sorrow of humanity at present (although these are not specifically delved into, but alluded to), much of which can be found in this memoir of a boy from Ireland. Sanctuary is a story how Barrett found a way to lift himself, and others (namely, the donkeys), up out of the demise of abuse through the beauty - not the perversity - of religion (particularly Catholicism), the desire to care for others not of our ilk (the animals - the donkeys, for Barrett), and through the need to protect the sanctity of what we understand as family.

Barrett describes his childhood as a sad one, yet still punctured with happy memories spent with himself and his siblings roaming and playing with one another and within the landscape of Ireland, strewn with ancient, magical reminders, like old castles and mythical rocks (some that helped build his family's home)... and also the ominous auguries of Irish weather. Interspersed with these immersions in nature are more difficult memories to grasp, like that of the priests who taunted and abused him, and his severe anxiety about the meaning of the Biblical stories; so much so that he admits growing up fearing God to a terrible degree. While Barrett's narrative is extremely laconic, much can be imbued from the simple way he tells his story; his words imply much more than what they might seem at the surface.

"While I had the answers, I also had a powerful fear around God. I didn't carry his love with me, instead, I carried a heaviness from the temptation story along with the feeling of being tested, found wanting, and perpetually unable to keep God happy. It was a heavy burden, but I wanted to be good for him and for my mam and dad, who worked so hard to take care of all of us and to help the donkeys... but the fear of God and the love of family and Aran weren't enough to keep me from danger. When I was seven years old, about a month before my first communion, my grandmother offered me a glass of sherry, and my life was never the same." (p. 30)

Though that first glass of sherry turned Barrett's life for worse, much worse, there was something that held him together, or, at the very least, tethered him back to a semblance of reality, and that was the donkey sanctuary. Much of the beginning of Barrett's memoir, despite the stories that tell of how he felt pulled down into a place of incompleteness and fear, are full of his experiences and observations of how loving relationships with donkeys can be: his family's Donkey Sanctuary takes a humble center stage to the narrative as he shares how his Dad and Mam saved lost, abused, and abandoned donkeys from the streets of Ireland to care for and rehabilitate them, and if possible, send them back into the world as productive members of society. Barrett became close to many of them and felt a natural kinship with them, perhaps because of his own personal experiences, and probably because of something deeper and embedded in the Irish land itself.

"I also liked to lie down in the grass next to where Aran was grazing and watch his face from the ground level so I could see what he saw. I spent hours every day looking at the curly silver whiskers on his soft muzzle, a top lip that could twitch all around and nuzzle my hand, or twist and snatch a piece of apple from my fingers. Every time, I felt that feeling again - like he could see all the way into me, and he liked what he saw... Aran cared about me and kept an eye on me. I noticed how sensitive he was to his environment and how he signaled his feelings through the movement of his ears, which swiveled back and forth or went flat back against his head. I learned to watch his nose, feet, and tail, which all reflected his mood. I knew he watched me too, and when the weather allowed, I was out in the fields with him for most of the day." (p. 15)

Barrett shares how much of his life played out like a vicious cycle of waking up and realizing what he needed to do to become less violent to himself and more loving to those he cared about and then falling again and again, finding himself drowning in misery and depression, continually going back to alcohol and the pub as a way to numb himself from facing harder truths, putting his and others' lives at risk. But Barrett, in the depths of this, finds solace and respite in a strange way, through prayer and talking to God. And oddly, even miraculously, his prayers were answered.

"'Are you there, God? I need help. I need you to prove yourself to me!'

My heart and soul and everything inside me that still had some life and energy screamed out silently under those stars.

'If you're here, help me! I don't know how much longer I can last.'

I didn't know if anyone heard me, but I felt a little better just asking. The stars looked a little brighter, too, when I finally opened my eyes.

Below the hill, sitting on a stone wall, a woman was praying." (p. 142)

Consistently throughout the book, Barrett remembers biblical stories he learned as a child and those he read in his later years. These stories pull him through dire circumstances in his life as he learns to read the signs that are brought to him through his experiences that range from terrible car accidents to fighting a war. He knows, somehow, not to ignore these signs and to read and follow them, guiding him back to his heart and his family. These signs, symbols, encounters are numerous and are found time and time again within Sanctuary, and the message from Barrett elucidates the importance of taking heed of them as they arise, and not to turn away, awesome and terrifying as they may be, if only through remembrance.

"My brand-new eyes had to learn how to refocus, to step out of the fog I had been trapped in and see clearly again. I had to refocus on good things, for myself and for my family. The feeling reminded me of the apostle Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, where he saw a bright light and was blinded for three days because he saw the lord in person. His sight was restored in Damascus, but the change was much, much bigger than that. Paul was a new man, changed by his face-to-face encounter with God." (p. 164)