Announcing the Florence Blog

As many of you know, I decided last spring to write a book about my Grandmother Florence. I have included a few random pieces in this blog over the last few months. However, as I begin writing longer chapters that hold little interest to folks outside my family, I have hesitated to post them here.

I have created a separate blog specifically for the Florence pieces. This includes some pieces posted previously here, as well as longer pieces previously unpublished.

Here's the blog: Florence Decker Corry. Enjoy!

Kodak Moments of 2011

Family vacation to Vermont and Maine in June

I tend to rebel a bit against the social expectations that have a strangle hold on Christmas. However, I confess that I do enjoy the cards with photos of friends and their families, some formally posed and some simply caught in the act of enjoying life. I begin to envision our family's year through the camera lens. Mostly, I envision the photos I wish I had taken. I rarely carry a camera, but perhaps I can give you a glimpse of what I see in my mind's eye.

In my favorite Christmas photo so far, Alec sits at the breakfast bar reading a Christmas story out loud, surrounded by a chaos of flour and dirty dishes and green sprinkles. Brad pulls a tray of sugar cookies out of the oven, ready to add them to the pile of stars waiting for frosting. Jared and Kristina cut out more cookies, and I shoo the dog away from temptation. Candles twinkle in the windows.

Adventures with Legos

Another photo shows Devin in Texas, teaching a family about the Savior. Even the father has joined the group in the living room this time. A look of delighted surprise shows on the faces of Devin and his companion as Jose tells them he wants to be baptized at Christmas with the rest of his family.

Thor--um, Alec--arm wrestling

School photos show Alec in his bow tie and cummerbund, tapping his foot while he jams through a solo on the grand piano during a jazz band concert, or putting his fellow football players through their paces in the weight room. (These same players gave him the nickname "Thor" recently, a great boost to the 16-year old ego.)

In another photo, Jared crouches in his football stance, eyes glittering with focus as he waits for the play. Coach Brad paces along the sideline in his do rag, willing his team to succeed. Jared brings that same intensity to everything he does, from football and basketball to piano, not to mention refusing to tap out in a wrestling match with Alec. I will never understand male bonding, I'm afraid.

Little Miss Kristina

The camera catches Kristina mid-run, arms flung wide as she prepares to leap into a Mom hug at the end of the school day, scarf flapping in the prairie wind. Her eyes sparkle with stories of new words and playground antics, and her backpack bulges with the latest drawings and projects from her day at kindergarten.

Coach Brad

There are pages of photos of Brad in my mind: balancing his laptop on his knees while he redesigns the IT department, covered in paint while he works through the night to finish Devin's basement bedroom for those glorious two months when we had the whole family under one roof, or earning the husband of the year award by bejeweling the Christmas tree with lights.

And me? Well, there are the photos of me exercising in my goofy shoes (gotta love Vibrams!), hunched over the keyboard while I write my book, and teaching a group of sleepy seminary students in the early morning. A treasured photo captures a moment on the road back from Delta, Utah, laughing over family stories with my sister and my parents as we enjoy our first road trip together in decades.

Juliana and Brad

This has been a year to savor. I hope Christmas finds each of you with great memories of your own Kodak moments.

Much love and Merry Christmas!
Juliana, Brad, Devin (on a LDS mission in Texas), Alec, Jared, and Kristina

Perfection, Proportion, and Other Myths

I have always aspired to an exalted vision of the "strong, silent type." You know the character: soft-spoken yet profound, mild but still commanding reverence, polished. If I were true to that vision, I would discipline my children gently, yet firmly and with complete consistency. Better yet, I would set such a sterling example and inspire such devotion that they would rarely feel the need to whine or misbehave.

I would have no occasion to cringe at the memory of long ago dating mishaps, never having fallen into the cliche of a rebound relationship or a regretted kiss. Memory would find no emails sent or words spoken in the heat of frustration with inadequate information. I would care less about politics and more about anonymously doing good. And at my funeral, in some distant future, my children would brag about how their mother never raised her voice or engaged in creative profanity, how she never left a project unfinished. In short, they would paint a picture of the perfect lady, and everyone would pause to wipe a tear and sigh at the memory.

Sadly, I will never reach the lofty heights of that perfect woman perched rather uncomfortably--but with such grace--on her pedestal. I will continue to blurt out rough-cut sentiments, only to immediately wish the words back safely in my head. I will periodically set off on grand quests, turning around in short order once reality sets in. I will care too much or not enough. I will respond too quickly and too passionately to the opinions of total strangers.

Back in my college days, a friend said something to the effect that anything worth it was bound to get a little messy along the way. In the midst of our often muddled love lives and the fallout of all the cumbersome life decisions that faced us as young adults, we clung to that philosophy. With all the messiness in our lives, it was comforting to envision grandeur on the horizon.

Recently, while reading E.M. Forster's Howard's End, I discovered the Schlegel family. Admittedly, this novel fell rather lower on my favorites list than I expected. Still, the inner life of the characters left me with much to ponder. Margaret Schlegel, speaks of "proportion," a notion that captures some of the sense of balance and grace that I envision in that ideal woman on the pedestal. While acknowledging the worthy goal of living a perfectly balanced life, Margaret cautions, "Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. ... though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility."

I try to stay on the fringe of the political scene, having come to the realization that my active participation in the process only leads me to frustration and belligerence. However, I follow the elections enough to notice a tendency toward sterility. We criticize one candidate for her clothes, another for his morals, another for speaking off script. Candidates for high office, it seems, need to burst onto the scene with proportion well in hand or suffer defeat.

Years ago, a young lawyer ran for president. He was tall, gaunt, plagued with debilitating depression, occasionally suicidal. In today's media scene, Abraham Lincoln's political liabilities would likely push him out of the running in short order. Yet, according to Joshua Wolf Shenk, in the article Lincoln's Great Depression, "With Lincoln we have a man whose depression spurred him, painfully, to examine the core of his soul; whose hard work to stay alive helped him develop crucial skills and capacities, even as his depression lingered hauntingly; and whose inimitable character took great strength from the piercing insights of depression, the creative responses to it, and a spirit of humble determination forged over decades of deep suffering and earnest longing."

Like many of us, Lincoln lived an untidy life. The national chaos in which he lived formed a backdrop for the inner debris of a lack of formal education and a profound melancholy. Lincoln's constant struggle to achieve balance formed his character in critical ways, giving him the skills he needed to lead the nation at a pivotal moment. Proportion without struggle would have left him handicapped.

I hold on to that goal of balance, or proportion, and I periodically achieve it for a time. It gives shape to my wanderings and invites beauty and peace. In turn, the wanderings, with all of their occasional messiness, lend dynamic tension to the plateaus of balance. Lacking the wanderings, we would have tidiness without substance, order without elegance.

Making Friends

Florence

I have been making new friends these past few months. Charming people, really. Genuine, complex, lots of fun, inspirational. There's Florence, of course. I would love to grow up to be like her, if that's still possible at my age. I think most of all, I admire her ability to connect with people. Everyone gravitated to Florence, it seems. Her siblings returned to her home again and again to sit at her kitchen table and talk for hours. Her troubled nephew flagged her down on the highway once because he knew she would listen with compassion. The mentally handicapped man who sold spudnuts felt like he lost his best friend when she died. She held lawn parties and pajama parties. She inspired the youth that she taught. And she left a little of herself in each of her children.

Fae

Florence grew up in a trio of sisters along with  Fae and Blanche, wonderful women in their own right. I knew Fae as an older woman but have enjoyed making the acquaintance of her younger self. She grew to womanhood in the 1920s, the granddaughter of pioneers. Her determination to write her own story inspires me, and I find myself indebted to her again and again for the volumes of history she left behind. She brought her parents and grandparents to life for me. We share an affinity for the national parks, it seems, and a tendency toward rebellion tempered by an overactive conscience.

Blanche

Of the three sisters, I find Blanche's story the most poignant. As a young girl, she held her baby brother while he died and then grew up watching her mother fade away with tuberculosis. She pinned her life somewhere between the fragility of her mother and the stubborn strength of a father who both exasperated and enthralled her. Somewhere in that netherworld between the two, she lost herself. A fine writer with a soul that reached toward lofty heights, she often stumbled but still found beauty along the way.

Nancy

The sisters shared a pioneer grandmother known for her spunk and formidable nature. Nancy Bean married and divorced twice before leaving one daughter behind and crossing the plains with her second daughter. She met my great-great grandfather upon his return from the gold fields of California, and the two joined the original settlers of Parowan, Utah. Nancy helped the women of the town birth their babies and clothed the men with her homespun suits, all while raising a dozen children. I'm not sure her pioneer spirit filtered down through the gene pool to me, but I love having this powerful woman in my ancestral line nonetheless.

I can't pretend that I know exactly how this next life will shake out. I trust that the common vision of insipid angels singing endlessly with golden harps holds little semblance to reality. At least, I hope we have fashion choices in the eternities that reach beyond the formless white robe and unwieldy halo. I prefer to envision myself trading stories with Nancy while she teaches me how to weave or hiking with the trio of sisters through the mountains. Perhaps along the way we will encounter their father, Mahonri, with his beloved horses or Grandfather Zachariah target shooting with the pistol he called his "second wife." Until then,  I will content myself with the joy of discovering my new friends through the memories of others and the shadows their lives left on my path.

Answer to the Hard Question, Take Two

Image from the Hubble telescope

(I think I will subtitle this one "My Place in the Universe," for no particular reason except that it gives me an excuse to post a cool picture.)

I began writing this blog just over one year ago, partly to exercise my writing muscles and partly to answer what was, for me, a challenging question. After a youth and young adulthood spent building a resume of accomplishments and adventures, I found myself in middle age with increasingly blurred vision. Not only did I require glasses to read anything smaller than about 18 point type, but I had lost sight of myself. When faced with a seemingly innocuous request to describe myself, I froze.

Last week, I asked my early morning seminary students to respond to the question: Who am I? I decided that I should answer the question myself, and for the first time in several years, I found the task surprisingly easy. In no particular order:

I am a writer, or at least I aspire to be a writer. For years, I brought in a pretty good salary writing manuals and proposals, and yet I did not consider myself a writer. Now, my pen brings in absolutely no income at all. All the same, my brain needs to write almost as much as my body needs to eat. I love it when my writing touches someone else, but I would write even without an audience.

I am a teacher. This year, that involves teaching music and scriptures, but frankly, I enjoy teaching just about anything. Sometimes I think I'm pretty talented at teaching. On my better days, I realize my flaws and focus on learning and listening and letting something greater than I do the teaching. That works much better. I do draw the line at opening a preschool or teaching computer skills to octogenarians.  We all have our limits, unreasonable as they may be.

I am a wife and a mother, and I say that with much more meaning now than I did in my twenties when I first took the titles. Life and death, epiphanies in the pit or on the mountaintop, and the plodding pace of daily life have all led me step by step to a much greater understanding of what it means to be married and live in a family.

I am a believer. I have had occasion these past few months to revisit and refresh my beliefs. After an unexpected period of doubt, I pondered back over my own personal experiences with God and with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I cannot explain the experiences of others or events that occurred years ago. On the other hand, neither can I deny the unmistakable answers to prayers, the inspired counsel of leaders, and the direct influence of God in my life and the life of my family. I know God lives and that He communicates not only with me but with His prophet on the earth. Call it simple if you will. I cannot deny what experience has taught me to be true.

How refreshing to discover myself again! I have missed me.

Romance, Corry Style

Elwood

Like many love stories, the story of Florence and Elwood begins with a date, Elwood’s first. To be more precise, the story begins with basketball, hometown rivalry, and the wager of a box of candy. It was a Saturday night in January 1930. Cedar City’s high school basketball team opened its season with a game against rival Parowan High School. Coach Linford’s boys needed to prove themselves, and a win against a strong team like Parowan would set them on solid footing in their quest for the division championship. They had the home court advantage, and Elwood joined his friends to cheer on his team.

Elwood was a senior in high school and, despite a self-professed admiration for girls from about the third grade on, he had always felt too bashful to ask a girl on a date. As luck would have it, he found himself standing next to a pretty Parowan girl during the game. They bantered about whose team would win, and Elwood jokingly said, “Well, I’ll bet you a box of candy that Cedar wins.” Cedar did win. Elwood forgot all about the bet.

A few days later, a box of candy arrived in the mail for Elwood with no return address. He puzzled over the origin of the candy for a few days before the light dawned. All of a sudden, he remembered the bet. He called the pretty Parowan girl and asked her to go to a show and help him eat the box of candy. And that is the story of Elwood’s first date with …Lillian Adams.

Wait! Lillian, you say? I thought this was a love story about Elwood and Florence. Ah, yes. Well, you see, Lillian and Florence were good friends, had been ever since they met in Miss Parry’s 1st grade class. Lillian graduated a year early from high school and went to Cedar to start college while Florence finished her senior year at Parowan High. In Cedar, Lillian ran into Elwood at the aforementioned basketball game. They dated for a while until Elwood decided that perhaps he should avoid going too steady with any one girl before his mission.

In May of 1930, Elwood and Florence graduated from their respective high schools, and Florence joined her friend Lillian at the Branch Agricultural College (BAC) in Cedar City. Elwood knew her briefly before he left on his mission to England that October. In fact, he remembers seeing her one day as she walked toward campus and thinking, “I would like to ask that girl for a date sometime.” Then missionary work filled his mind, and he forgot about Florence until he returned home from England.

Florence in 1932

The Christmas holidays of 1932 found Florence in the middle of her sophomore year at BAC. She lived with her sister Fae and kept busy with drama, student government, her sorority, and her work at Cedar Mercantile.

Far from Florence’s thoughts, Elwood sailed home from England at the close of his mission, arriving home on Christmas Day 1932. Lillian, still rather enamored with Elwood, dragged Florence to church to hear Elwood’s homecoming talk. Elwood makes no note of seeing her at his homecoming, but then the returned missionary’s social calendar filled up pretty quickly in those first few weeks home.

In mid-January 1933, Elwood and Florence both found themselves at a party at the home of Bertha Seaman. Elwood arrived alone and saw Florence enter the room. She must have looked particularly striking that evening, because he remembers thinking “here comes the bride” as he watched her. Not realizing that Florence had come to the party as the date of Waldo Adams, Elwood intended to ask her if he could take her home. Either bashfulness or wisdom prevailed. In any event, Elwood left the party alone.

A week or so later, the Cedar Second Ward planned an M.I.A. party. As he hurried out the door to go somewhere with his friend C. J. Parry, Elwood followed an impulse. “Wait,” he called to C.J. “I have to go back in the house for something.” Back inside, he called Florence at her job at Cedar Mercantile and made a date to take her to the party. Thus began a lengthy courtship.

Planning a life together in the midst of the Great Depression often meant delaying marriage for more practical matters. Elwood completed his schooling at BAC and worked the family farm while Florence continued working at Cedar Mercantile. He played tennis, competed on the debate team, and served a term as Student Body President. She kept up with her sorority, continued doing readings, and became involved with the newly formed Business and Professional Women’s Club.

While they waited to build sufficient finances for their marriage, Elwood and Florence watched close friends get married. One of those friends was Lillian Adams. In a speech she gave just months before her death, Florence shared her admiration for Lillian for not letting the love triangle interrupt their friendship.

As two years passed, day-to-day life and increasing responsibilities crowded in. Florence and Elwood each supposed the other had begun to lose interest in the relationship. In the summer of 1934, Elwood accepted a call to serve as Leland Perry’s counselor in the Second Ward bishopric. His bishopric duties sometimes overshadowed romance. Florence recalled sitting in the living room at the Corry home one evening, listening to cries of “horsler” from the kitchen. Elwood had a bishopric meeting and needed someone to take Florence home. In time-honored Corry tradition, the last one to yell “horsler” pulled the short straw and played chauffeur.

But Elwood got a wake-up call one day from his friend Demoin, who announced that Florence was dating someone else. As the story goes, she even kissed the competition, a Swedish fellow named Roy Lundgren. Perhaps that was just the motivation Elwood needed.

Elwood’s personal history mentions nothing about their courtship after the first date until an incident that occurred shortly before the wedding. It was June 1935, and Elwood was putting up hay on the farm with Rex Maxwell. Rex had no idea about the quickly approaching wedding until Elwood casually mentioned that he would be gone for a few days as he “had a little detail to take care of.”

“What detail?” asked Rex.

“Oh, I’m getting married.”

A bit put off by Elwood’s casual approach, Rex raised his voice. “Man, you call that a little detail?” Elwood said Rex went on to lecture him about the importance of the step he was about to take. Apparently, he took the lecture to heart. In any case, the two married on June 21, 1935 in the St. George LDS Temple.

For Florence and Elwood, the real love story played out over the next 19 years of marriage. Together they weathered the financial devastation of the Great Depression, Elwood’s service in World War II, and the deaths of their remaining parents. Together they raised a family of six children and built an insurance and real estate business. They supported one another in demanding church callings and community activities. And finally, after two decades of laughter and disappointment, hard work and good memories, they supported one another through Florence’s final illness. While perhaps a little short on traditional romance, their romance, Corry style, has inspired generations of their posterity.

(Many thanks to family members for contributing their memories, to the Utah Digital Newspaper project for its online archive of old newspapers, and to Grandpa Corry for recording personal history. Feel free to correct me on details!)

Frederick Moments

Sunday afternoons at our house are sacred. After lazy naps for the older folks and an hour or two of reading and dolls for the younger folks, we gather in the living room for family time. For us, family time usually involves cards of some sort and a giant bowl of popcorn that empties all too quickly.

This weekend, while someone with a better hand than mine sorted through cards and determined strategy, I looked around at my family. My daughter, too young to effectively manage the strategy of bidding, chatted away happily with Grandma on the phone, recounting her first days of kindergarten. Coach Dad and the 11-year old discussed the previous day's surprise win over a rival football team and replayed my son's two fumble recoveries. Our lone teenager laughed at someone's silly joke, and we all joined in, unable to resist his contagious cheeriness. Hundreds of miles away in Texas, our missionary son enjoyed his first Sunday in the field. Mission experiences are the "coolest thing ever" he wrote in his weekly email. It was a Frederick moment, everyone happy and trouble far away.

I still have a copy of my favorite book from childhood. Leo Leonni tells the story of a chatty family of field mice preparing for winter. Four of the mice busily gather corn and nuts, while Frederick sits off by himself. When they chide him for not working, the quiet mouse says, "I do work. I gather sun rays...and colors...and words, for the winter days are long and many."

When the first snow begins to fall, the mice retreat cheerily to their home in the old stone wall. They eat corn and tell stories. But then the food begins to run out, and the cold drags on. "What about your supplies, Frederick?" they ask. Frederick speaks of the sun, and the mice begin to feel warmer. He speaks of colors, and they see them "as clearly as if they had been painted in their minds." Summer has found them.

Like any mother, I lie awake some nights, frozen at the thought of the horrible things that could happen to my children: kidnappings a la Elizabeth Smart, random accidents, a young child lost in the crowd, or the painful consequences of bad choices. Night terrors respond sluggishly to logic. But in the sanity of daylight I remind myself of Frederick and the power his supplies hold for my children.

Every golden hour of family laughter, each hug, the quiet moments when inspiration washes over the seeking mind, the tears of gratitude, story time with Dad and gloriously untidy choruses of "Sweet Violets"...all add up in the storage room of the heart. In times of emotional famine or the bitter winter of adversity, when I cannot reach out to hold my children in my arms, I have to trust that they can bring forth those colors and bask in the warmth of remembered joy and the surety of love.

Soap Operas and Bonbons

With my first conscious thought this morning I pondered a long-forgotten question: What shall I do today? I have had little occasion to ask myself that question in the 23 years since I entered corporate life and then began building my family. I rolled the thought around my mind, tasting the deliciousness of the possibilities. Never mind that the actual play by play of my day reads like a rather mundane "to do" list. The very fact that I decide what makes the list and when I start and stop each task caused me to jump out of bed with a smile.

My youngest started kindergarten this week, darting off to the bus with a nervous grin and eyes sparkling with excitement. She gently but firmly informed us that she did not want us to accompany her to her class on the first day of school. So we took pictures before waving her off, and I returned to the quiet of an empty house.

I love my children, truly I do. And I love my husband. I also love my time alone.

I feel a bit of a kinship with my father this week. I believe he began planning for his retirement from the time he walked off the stage with his doctoral degree in hand. He enjoyed his careers, as far as I could tell, the teaching and speaking, anyway, if not the administrivia. But he had plans for that time when he determined the answer to his own "what shall I do today" question. Now here he is, living in a wonderful log house in a village in the mountains, teaching himself Greek and Hebrew, hiking and biking, volunteering, and (I hope) writing.

I have no aspirations to teach myself Greek and Hebrew. I do, however, have a book patiently waiting for me to write it and a blog suffering atrophy from my shameful neglect. I have Old Testament lessons to prepare for early morning seminary and muscles begging for regular exercise. I may even treat myself to a little non-required reading now and again. We all have our guilty pleasures, after all.

In the short term, when yet another person cheerfully asks what I plan to do with my newfound freedom, I will simply smile and say, "Soap operas and bonbons, of course."

A Moment Captured

I have a favorite picture of my grandmother, Florence. In the picture, a little girl with serious dark eyes and loose brown curls perches on a wrought iron chair. She looks slightly unsure, but not frightened, with perhaps the hint of a smile. Those same eyes, searching yet steady, show in photos of Florence as a teenager and a woman. Here, they gaze out over the chubby cheeks of a five-year old.

She clasps her hands lightly on the skirt of her white embroidery dress, a matching ribbon tied in a bow around her left wrist. She loved that dress, although looking back as an adult she thought the heavy black play shoes and dark stockings made for a hideous picture. Virgil loved the Sunday curls in her hair. Even moreso, he adored his half sister. Everyone loved Florence, from Virgil--home from college and about to get married--on down to the toddler, Woodrow.

Perhaps Florence, with her winning combination of determination and sweetness, reminded the family of all that was still good in a world gone wrong. With World War I in full swing, and brothers Virgil and Alvin waiting to be called up, even the sheltered Southern Utah town of Parowan needed the innocence of a cherub in white embroidery and black stockings.

And so Virgil whisked Florence to the town photographer to capture the beauty of Sunday curls and dainty dresses. Never mind the clunky shoes. Parowan finally boasted a town photographer, and children grew up all too soon in those days.

Florence herself met the world in short order. Three years passed in the warmth of summer rides on the hay wagon, evenings spent listening to Mamma (Harriet) reading poetry, and family singalongs at the organ. Then came what Florence later referred to, rather euphemistically, as "the Delta adventure." Father (Mahonri) sold their beautiful home and uprooted the family to Delta to seek their fortune. The business venture failed, and before the year was out, they returned to Parowan, penniless.

Delta claimed not only the family's pride but also the life of baby brother Homer. His death dealt a blow to Harriet's already frail health. Diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis while still in Delta, she willed her way through another eight years, finally dying in the middle of Florence's sophomore year of high school. The oldest child at home by this time, Florence shouldered much of the burden of those last years with her mother and essentially raised her younger brothers after Harriet's death.

The loss of her mother and the heaviness of the years after Delta left its mark on Florence and all of the children. But the warmth of those dark eyes prevailed. Inheriting her father's tenacity and her mother's grace, infused with her own remarkable compassion and capacity for joy, Florence never quite lost sight of the little girl in white with the steady gaze.

Happy Scars

I am building a new crop of scars as I write--a half moon on my inside left calf, with a series of oozing constellations mirrored on both legs. Poison ivy designed the scene, aided and abetted by my eventual inability to resist the overwhelming urge to apply long fingernails to the blisters. I have rarely felt anything as glorious as those brief seconds of relief from the infernal itching! Besides, since I encountered the ivy to begin with in the midst of an absolutely perfect family vacation, I can hardly complain. I scar easily, it seems, and the scars leave a map of my life on my skin, prompting memories, odd snapshots of random moments frozen in time.

Not far from the emerging constellations rests the scar of a small hole in my shin. I was five, running down the street with my friend Jenny in Vermilion, South Dakota. Jenny was my first best friend, and we played together whenever our mothers met for church functions. That day, while our mothers chatted or baked bread or planned some now long-forgotten event, we took Jenny's little sister for a dash in her stroller. The stroller hit a bump, stopped dead, and up in the air I flew, only to land quite precisely on a small, pointy rock. Jenny moved a year or two later, but I think of her now and again and wonder what sidewalks she has jogged since that 1970s summer afternoon.

My ring finger sports a battle scar from a round lost to a small pot of startlingly hot tea water. College summers found me working in some of America's most beautiful vacation spots. I cooked Rocky Mountain oysters for drunken lodge guests near Yellowstone, brewed endless pots of coffee to welcome wealthy fisherfolk to the brilliance of early June mornings in the Alaskan bush, and served tea to the more sedate guests at a Vermont country inn on the lakeshore. Truth be told, I was a rather terrible waitress. Still, I loved the scenery and the people I met. On misty mornings, Brenda and I brewed our own steaming cups of herb tea and settled into Adirondack chairs on the wide porch to contemplate the waves lapping the beach and the splendid freedom of the early blush of adult life.

Other scars tell perfectly mundane stories of trays of chocolate chip cookies placed a little too close to the top rack of the oven or the new (to us) television Brad and I carried up a flight of stairs. Only a few scars, like the white cross on my forehead, bring the memory of pain. The rest remind me of a rich life filled with the laughter of family game nights, breathtaking discoveries of beauty, and the warmth of friendships. I thank God for the sweet memories, made all the sweeter by lessons of the white cross.

Backward Glancing

The upcoming weekend finds me traveling back to Vermont for the first time since we moved to the Midwest two years ago. My somewhat nomadic lifestyle left me in Vermont far longer than any other place I have called "home" over the years. I left readily; Lot's wife and I have little in common. And yet, the thought of New England air sends me looking back fondly.

I picture rolling green hills and lakes clean enough for swimming. I feel the magnetic pull of the stretch of meadow at Fays Corner in Richmond and the early morning mist over Lake Champlain. My feet itch for a walk along Burlington's Church Street, past the usual crowd of 21st century New England hippies. We will have just missed the Jazz Festival on the waterfront, but perhaps we can stop by the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop for a double scoop of Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Cherry Garcia (frozen yogurt if I feel like being healthy, ice cream if I feel like walking on the wild side).

I find myself picturing favorite spots with layers of memories. For instance, I remember shopping on Church Street 25 years ago. I was a young college student, playing my way through the summer as the maitre d' at a country inn on North Hero Island. With a day off and my roommate's car, I drove in to Burlington to soak up the summer crowds along the cobblestone street of the marketplace.

Seven years later, I returned to Church Street. I bypassed What Ale's You and the Skirack this time in favor of street vendors and the Discovery Channel Store. Along with my two-year-old son, we embraced life with gusto. Devin turned heads with his blond curls, his movie star sunglasses, and a heart-stopping smile. We paused to climb every boulder between the Unitarian Church at the head of Church Street to Sweetwater's Restaurant near the bottom.

Over the next eighteen years, we returned to the cobblestones on frigid New Year's Eves for the annual First Night Dancing Dragons Parade, on humid summer afternoons for Italian sausage from Bookie's street cart, and occasionally for sumptuous desserts at Leunig's Bistro.

I miss the feel of Vermont, from the taste of the air on the first full-blown summer day in June to the unapologetically tree-hugging politics. I miss the bluntness of native Vermonters (although one has to search harder and harder to find them these days) and the eccentricities of my fellow church members there. I miss the music, from Mozart on the shores of Lake Champlain to the hot summer day we spent at the Vermont Reggae Festival in a rolling meadow up north. I dream of a day beginning on the Sunset Ridge trail on Mount Mansfield and ending in the charm of a tiny theatre in Waitsfield.

July will find me once again contentedly roaring past endless cornfields on the motorcycle and anticipating the glory of Friday night football underneath the lights. For this slice of early summer, however, my heart returns to an earlier home.

Of Lofty Quests and Stubbed Toes

I have been musing lately about truth. More specifically, I have been musing about the search for truth and the powerful effect that search can have on an individual. I love "light bulb moments," those epiphanies that alter my perspective in significant ways. Those moments have, at times, carried me through dark hours or shaped the course of my thoughts for years. As much as I love epiphanies, however, I recognize that the process leading up to that "aha" lends perhaps more power to my life than the moment itself.

Joseph Smith once said "by proving contraries, truth is made manifest." He spoke in the context of addressing spiritual concerns, although I think the concept applies outside the realm of religion, as well. We occasionally come upon pieces of doctrine (or, perhaps, scientific or sociological evidence) that seem to conflict, either with each other or with our own understanding. As we work through the sometimes long and arduous process of resolving those conflicts, we reach insights about the world around us and, more importantly, about ourselves. Eventually, if we stay with the process to completion, we break out into wonderful vistas of truth. The view is spectacular, but there is no shortcut. Without the climb that preceded it, the mountaintop experience would lack power.

When not grappling with issues of eternal import, I often exercise. (Actually, come to think of it, philosophy and exercise complement each other nicely, but that's a topic for another time.) I set goals for myself to decrease my minutes per mile or increase the weight I push. Anyone dedicated to exercise recognizes the necessity of goals. However, the health benefit does not come when we reach our goal. That 6-minute mile or 400-pound bench press (my husband's goal, not mine) is relatively immaterial, except insofar as it motivates us forward. But the process leading up to that milestone yields incredible health benefits.

I stop short of putting eternal or scientific truth in the same category as an exercise goal. Truth in and of itself ennobles us as individuals and as a society. However, the process of arriving at the truth can prove equally life-changing. A genuine desire for truth, combined with a commitment to stick with the process to its completion, no matter what obstacles arise, builds us brick upon brick.

Eighteen years ago, I found myself unexpectedly in love. I was a young widow, blessed not only with a second chance but also with the assurance (rare, I think) that marrying Brad was the right choice for me. Still, as a lifelong follower of a religion that holds eternal marriage as a central belief, I now faced a dilemma both doctrinal and extremely personal. I had married once in the faith already, a marriage decreed eternal. I now prepared to marry for a second time. I had several options, each with its own degree of pain and each carrying the necessity of faith.

I weighed the options, studied them out. I fasted, prayed, knelt at the gates of heaven and pleaded for understanding. I talked with Brad, with my ecclesiastical leaders. Over a period of months, I gained the understanding I needed. I made my choice and felt peace.

God could have given me the answer at the beginning. Ironically, in fact, He did just that, but having not yet wrestled with the question I was not at that point ready to accept the answer. During the ensuing months of studying and pondering I learned much about eternity, about the blessings God rains down upon His children, and about my own relationship with my Heavenly Father. Brad and I grew closer together, strengthened through the struggle.

I will always love the "aha" moments, the view from the mountaintop. But I treasure the lessons of the climb, lessons paid for with sweat and aching muscles and toes stubbed from stumbling along in the dark.

Christmas Eve 1954

I have decided to write a biography of my grandmother, Florence. What follows will likely become the Epilogue of the book (or perhaps the Prologue). I did not write this piece, but for me it embodies so much of what I am learning about my grandmother.

The author of today's guest post is my mother, Kristine, a rather amazing woman in her own right.

Christmas Eve 1953

"We're inviting a new couple in the neighborhood over for Christmas Eve, and we told them to have something for the program." These words in a letter from my brother a few years ago reminded me just what  Christmas Eve had come to mean to our family, and it brought back memories, too, of the influence behind those evenings.

Mother decided long ago that Christmas Day should be enjoyable and relaxing for her as well as the rest of us. So the traditional Christmas dinner with all its time-consuming work went out, to be replaced by what we simply called "Christmas Eve." Preparations actually began the day after Thanksgiving when the fruitcakes were baked and set in the basement to age. The week before Christmas, Dad made root beer and we kids capped the bottles. Candy was made somewhere along the way, and on the afternoon of Christmas Eve the ham went in the oven. After the traditional service at the church, we came back to the house along with relatives and one or two other families whom the folks always invited. After the meal came the impromptu program. I managed a piano solo. There would be poems, songs, maybe a story or two, and my slightly wacky aunt and uncle would always come up with something that would leave our sides aching from laughter. We ended with Christmas carols, and I was sure each year as I went to bed that it had been absolutely the best Christmas Eve ever.

Florence and Kristine

I suppose the one that I'll always particularly remember is the Christmas Eve of 1954, simply because we did spend it just as we had spent all the others. In May of that year Mother went into surgery for what proved to be a malignant brain tumor. The doctors took out what they could, but they couldn't get it all. For a few months after the operation she was much the same as she had always been. By the time school started, though, her arm and leg were becoming paralyzed--a consequence of the growing tumor--and she was spending most of her time in bed. Mother knew, of course, what was happening, though she never said much about it.

She called me to her room one afternoon in early November. She had just ordered Dad an electric shaver for Christmas. The store would call sometime in December, she said, and I was to go down and pick it up. She had asked Dad to get a record player for two of the younger kids, but since, as she said, he had a tendency to be a little forgetful, I was to remind him about it.

Two days before Thanksgiving she went into a coma, and four days later she died.

A day or so after the funeral, one of my brothers asked Dad if we would have Christmas Eve like always. Dad said we would. I personally thought he was out of his mind but went along with the plans anyway. Someone had made the fruitcakes, probably one of my aunts. Dad helped us with the root beer, and the ham was bought. The afternoon of Christmas Eve I got a call asking if we still wanted the electric shaver. I had completely forgotten about it. Dad had done a little better and remembered the record player.

Christmas Eve was more subdued that year, but it was lovely. There was a void, of course, but also an extra closeness that I don't think we've had any other time. We had only relatives that year, but people were dropping by all evening just to leave "a little something" for the kids. The living room was overflowing, and we were all a little overwhelmed. We'd finished singing carols and everyone had gone home, when I noticed a huge package in back of the tree and asked Dad who "that monstrosity" was for. He just laughed, but next morning a note was taped to the package saying, "Kris, this monstrosity is for you." Mother, remembering that I would be leaving for college the next fall, had told Dad to get me some luggage. She had seen that we were all taken care of. I don't remember what everyone got, but my sister and I still have pillowcases with tatted edges that she had asked a lady in town to do.

We've all left home now, and it's rare that we get together at Christmas time. But "Christmas Eve" still happens in our individual homes. There are variations: my brother and his family go out Christmas caroling--a tradition from his wife's family--and I've given up on fruitcakes which none of my family likes and now bake Christmas cookies which I don't like. We all, though, make it a point to invite someone over, just as Mother always did.

The Christmas of 1954 will always stand out in my mind, and the memory of what Mother did for us that year gives special meaning to the scripture: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these...ye have done it unto me."

The Gardener

For me, the most powerful image of Easter is an intimate garden scene. The crosses that towered on Golgotha under threatening skies two days before stand empty now, though the memory of blood and agony casts a shadow over flowers opening in the early morning sun. Mary stands outside the empty tomb, weeping, puzzled at the words of the angels, who proclaim, "He is risen." Her hands, carrying spices to anoint the body of her master, fall useless to her side. She does not understand, can only wonder while she lets the tears flow.

Turning, she sees a man standing before her. Perhaps tears cloud her vision. In her distraction, she sees only a gardener. "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

"Mary."

Just one word turns anguish to joy, despair to hope. For Mary, for the world, light has pierced the darkness. No angel choirs herald the event. No cheering crowds shout hosannas. One woman kneels at the Savior's feet in awe and joy and whispers, "Rabboni."

I have not touched the scars on those feet, and I can scarcely imagine the tenderness of the exchange on that resurrection morning. And yet, I have sometimes felt the Savior call my name, His voice gently wiping away the tears and doubt. I have had no visions on the road to Damascus, just a multitude of answered prayers, of unexpected rainbows and slightly dusty angels bringing "I love you" notes from the master gardener.

No More Waiting

After three days of casually glancing out my front window at the mailbox every few minutes, I opened the mailbox this afternoon to find a beautiful white envelope addressed to Elder Devin. There followed a chaotic quarter of an hour devoted to setting up a conference call among Devin in Utah, those of us at home, Dad at work and little brother at his playdate.

The verdict? San Antonio, Texas mission, reporting July 27th. Devin will be the third generation of Texas missionaries in the family. Now the fun begins!

Waiting for the Call

My son called yesterday to say that his mission call is in the mail. In a few short days, a white envelope will arrive to tell us where Devin will spend the next two years of his life. I will, of course, resist the powerful temptation to steam open the envelope, only to fake surprise later when we open the call together as a family. The transformative process leading up to this mission call has been powerful, and this is Devin's door to open.

In a way, I envy my son the certainty of a calling. It has been some time since I could claim any certainty about my "mission in life." When hiking, I relish the opportunity to wander aimlessly for a while, admiring the flowers and the view along the way. In life, however, aimless wandering soon leaves me restless, searching for the magnetic pull of a purpose. Amory Blaine, whose coming of age Fitzgerald chronicles in This Side of Paradise, reaches the far side of a period of disillusionment to discover a general sense of his purpose. The narrator explains:

"He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and would always want--not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable."

I learned long ago that no one is indispensable. However, that desire to be necessary resonates with me. For me, the need goes a bit further. I want to be necessary to people, but also to God. I crave the feeling that the universe somehow needs me. I like the idea of the interconnectedness of life. For instance, it's pretty nifty that for one in every five breaths I take I owe a debt of gratitude to Prochlorococcus, an oceanic microbe that no one even knew existed until 1986. More powerful is the philosophy that all human experience is intertwined: the present linked to the past and the future, individual lives all dependent on the weaving that binds disparate threads into complex patterns.

Still, demanding soul that I am, I want more. I want to know specifically how I can lift my corner of the universe. Long ago, I pledged to consecrate all that I am and have to God. It's a lofty pledge, noble...and sometimes rather vague. I find myself looking for a blueprint. Even a scrap of paper with a quick note will do, like the ones I tack on the fridge for my own children. "Dear daughter, I need you to spiff up that tiny spot in the corner over there. Use that cleaning bucket of talents I gave you--the blue one this time--and make it sparkle."

For whatever reason, God seems generally loath to hand out the task and the tools at the same time. Either he gives us a task and leaves us to figure out a plan of attack, or he helps us find our set of tools and talents and then leaves us to figure out a use for them.

Today I pondered this notion of consecration. I have found that when I give in to impatience and try to design my own calling, I invariably spin my wheels. I gain greater traction when I throw my effort into finding and developing my talents, sharpening the tools. If I listen hard and exercise what little patience I possess, eventually something nudges me down the right path. Perhaps the trick to consecration, then, sometimes rests in consecrating the desire to serve. Perhaps if I do that and stop obsessively checking my cosmic mailbox every day for a call, I will in time find myself serving in meaningful ways.

Falling in Love

I have fallen in love once again, this time compliments of my, um, electronic book reader. I refrain from naming the brand, since I haven't fallen in love with any particular features of the device but rather with the library I now carry in my purse. My psyche craves prose, and I have periodically neglected to feed the addiction, a sin of omission that always manages to set me just a bit off kilter and leave me yearning.

In the months since Christmas I have wandered the tunnels underneath Washington D.C. with Dan Brown in The Lost Symbol (a disappointment, I must confess) and followed the Count of Monte Cristo along his path of revenge and redemption (much more satisfying). I found Elizabeth Von Arnin's The Enchanted April simply delicious and Ruth Riechl's autobiography (Tender at the Bone) surprisingly intriguing. David Baldacci kept me turning pages, as he always does, and I sauntered through an unusual juxtaposition of Mark Twain's social commentary and Elizabeth Gilbert's introspective Eat, Pray, Love.

Then, in a nod to the literary studies of my college days, I opened F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The other authors gave me much to entertain and even to ponder, but I feast on Fitzgerald as if savoring my first truly satisfying meal after days of snacking on crackers and cheese. I read with a journal at my side and find myself forming essays in my head comparing the sentimental to the romantic or analyzing the development of Amory's character through the mirror of his relationships.

I promise to spare you the bulk of the literary analysis. Suffice it to say that, for me, literature fills an essential block in the food pyramid. "I have to have a soul," says Fitzgerald's Amory. "I can't be rational--and I won't be molecular." While I have my rational moments, now and again, I also have to have a soul. And that soul needs a steady diet of literature, nature, the full spectrum of emotions, a healthy dose of the spiritual, and moments of peace to write and reflect and pull it all together.

Corrective Lenses

While studying the other day, I chanced across the following scripture in the Book of Mormon: "But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, ... and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known." (Mosiah 8:17, bold added for clarification)

I have always assumed that "them" in the scripture refers to "seer," and that is probably correct. Grammatically, however, "them" more logically refers to "things which are past" and "things which are to come." Now that set me to musing. Given the seer's role in correctly interpreting the past and future, I don't think my musings are entirely inappropriate. That said, with all due apologies to seers living and dead, I'm not going to chat much about them today. Instead, I have been thinking in more basic and personal terms about the importance of viewing the present through the corrective lenses of the past and the future.

A talk in the LDS General Conference this past weekend reminded me of the story of Aron Ralston. The movie 127 Hours, released last fall, brought Ralston's story to prominence again, seven years after the hiker saved himself by amputating his own arm while solo hiking in a remote canyon in Utah. I knew the general story but had not heard Ralston's account of a vision that he credits with giving him the motivation to proceed with his nearly impossible task. Dying of starvation and thirst, his arm pinned under an 800 pound boulder for five days, Ralston carved his epitaph into the rock, filmed his last words to his family and waited to die. Delirious with the ordeal by this point, he describes the scene:

"I was at peace with the idea of me dying. But then I saw this vision of this little boy and it shifted me, it gave me hope to get out because this is my future son, I could see me interacting with him without my hand at some point many years down the road and I realised if I’m going to have that son then I have to get out of here, I WILL get out of here, it got me through that last night..." (quoted from an interview in 2010)

Aron Ralston's vision of things which are to come changed his view of his present circumstances, pushed him beyond his own natural capabilities. We may never have to saw away at our own arms to save our lives, but we do have opportunities in life to endure daunting trials, or even to relinquish an arm of sin, if you will. Our vision of the future, be it an eternity with loved ones or a more immediate promise of desired blessings, can give us the perspective shift we need to press forward.

Likewise, a thoughtful examination of the past (in contrast with an obsessive dwelling on remembered offenses or triumphs) can also unearth hidden pearls of wisdom applicable to present trials or conundrums. Some time ago, I received what felt like an inspiration or a premonition. It was an odd premonition, and my first inclination led me to discount it. But the feeling persisted, forcing my closer examination. I remembered other instances of inspiration and began to recognize a pattern in how the Lord communicates with me. Those patterns of the past teach me how to respond when the Lord presents me with puzzle pieces, and they guide my hand as I work to find the picture in the pieces.

True to lessons learned in high school English and popular culture, I subscribe to the philosophy of carpe diem.We do need to focus on today and live our present as wisely and as richly as possible. At the same time, our past and our future make that possible, strengthening our hand as we strive to seize the moment for all its glory.

Nuclear Families

On May 19, 1953 the United States detonated a 32-kiloton atomic bomb (later nicknamed "Dirty Harry") at its nuclear testing facility in Nevada. With a blast three times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, Harry sent fallout drifting over a wide area, including Southern Utah. This was just one of over 100 bombs detonated above ground at the Nevada facility between 1951 and 1962 and one of five atomic bombs that had a fallout pattern covering Cedar City, Utah.

Isaac Nelson, a resident of Cedar City, describes taking his wife out to see the first explosion. It was dark, he says, just before daylight, "and we were chattering like chipmunks, so excited! Pretty soon, why, the whole sky just flared up in an orange-red flash, and it was so brilliant that you could easily see the trees ten miles across the valley, and if you had a newspaper you could have easily read it, it was so bright. . . ." Later, he says, town residents stood outside to watch the fallout clouds drifting up through Cedar. Isaac's wife died of brain cancer that developed shortly after one of those evenings spent watching the fallout cloud float by.



Grandma, with Aunt Judy and Mother

 In a way, I grew up in the shadow of a nuclear cloud. A native of Cedar City, my mother was five years old when the nuclear testing began, and she tells stories similar to Mr. Nelson's. Thanks to cancer, she later donated both a breast and her thyroid to the American quest for adequate weaponry. My grandmother died of brain cancer just three years after the explosions began, leaving behind her a husband and six children. Though I have no proof that Harry or any of his atomic friends caused her cancer, medical reports of the period show brain tumors among the classes of cancer occurring in excess in the early period after nuclear testing.

My mother developed breast cancer about the time of my earliest memories, and she often spoke of her own mother's death from cancer. As children tend to color the world based on their own limited set of experiences and family stories, I then logically assumed that everyone contracts cancer at some point and saw that eventuality as a simple, if sad, fact of life. I accepted death with similar logic, aided by a religious perspective that emphasizes eternity. I never quite grew out of those assumptions.

Consequently, when my husband's brain tumor returned from vacation with a vengeance, I recognized a pre-established pattern and quietly began planning for the inevitable. I know to some that view rings fatalistic, even regrettably morbid, and I suppose that if I saw death as an end--to self, to relationships, to progress--I would have to agree. As it happens, I see death more as a transition. With that in mind, our little family, each of us in our own time and fashion, began to plan for life on the other side of the approaching metamorphosis. Our son, just a toddler when his father died, absorbed and reflected his insulated world, blithely oblivious to the shock of innocent bystanders when he announced matter-of-factly that his daddy had died and was now in heaven.

I think of these patterns as the crisis unfolds in Japan. My Asian contemporaries grew up in a more striking nuclear shadow than I did. In August 1945, the United States dropped "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two generations later, the nuclear pattern renews unexpectedly in the wake of an earthquake, once again fundamentally altering families with the fallout of power run amok.

Sources include:

* Nuclear Testing and the Downwinders (from Utah History on the Go)
* Fallout Effects: Impacts of Radiation from Aboveground Nuclear Tests on Southern Utah (from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality)
* Cancer Incidence in an Area of Radioactive Fallout Downwind From the Nevada Test Site (from the Journal of American Medicine)
* Compensating Life Downwind of Nevada (from National Geographic)
* A Utah Resident Remembers Atomic Testing in 1950s Nevada (from the American Social History Project)
* Radioactive Fallout to St. George, Utah (from Washington Nuclear Museum and Educational Center)

Milestones at the Middle

Devin

Last month, I passed a milestone. It has now been five years and one month since I was last pregnant, a record amount of non-pregnancy time since I first began the motherhood adventure 21 years ago. I will never breastfeed again, never change my own baby's diaper, watch my own toddler take a shaky first step, or send my child to a first playdate. In a few months, my youngest child begins kindergarten. The young mother phase of my life will officially end. Never one to linger in one stage of life when another beckons, I watch its passing with little reluctance. Still, somehow I envisioned a rather more gradual transition from mommyhood to this pause in the shadow of approaching menopause.



Alec

Life travels on, marked milestone by milestone, and I find the changing landscape around me intriguing. I shuffle reading glasses on and off the bridge of my nose, not yet willing to commit to the bifocals I should wear. A once enviable metabolism disappeared long ago, and despite my unwavering commitment to regular exercise, an unflattering muffin top persists in spilling over the belt of my not quite in fashion jeans. My resume, brimming with promise a decade ago, now sports a gigantic hole that would qualify me more for cleaning the office that once boasted my name on the door. I find myself more often in a mentoring role now, and the children I used to babysit have children in shoulder pads or scout uniforms. My own sister recently posted a picture of her fourth grandchild.



Jared



And yet...I have to agree with the old John Denver song that says "it turns me on to think of growing old." I do shudder at the thought of becoming decrepit, but I certainly have noticed an amount of sweetness in this ripening process brought on by a few years of experience. I suppose the fact that my parents have aged so well helps a great deal.

I realized a while back, to my pleasant surprise, that I no longer feel the need to win every race in life. My companions on the road look less like competition and more like inspiration. Their successes lift me up rather than reminding me of my failings, perhaps because life has made me acquainted with myself. While I still challenge myself, still push my comfort zone and reach for my personal best, I have come to understand my own rhythms and how to let those rhythms propel me forward.



Kristina

As I leave toddler dreams behind, I find myself growing with my children. I love mothering older children, watching their personalities emerge and sharing their excitement as the world expands in front of them. I also love contemplating with my husband the not-so-distant-as-it-used-to-be possibility of an expanding world of our own. While this middle phase of life finds me vaguely adrift, searching for a path and just the right answer to the eternal question of "what shall I be when I grow up," I like the view from here, with my fingers trailing in the water and the stars all around. Life holds promise, and I have time.

Power in Weakness

My husband, bless his heart, knows me entirely too well. Despite all his protestations to the contrary, I remain convinced that he occasionally exploits that understanding for his own wicked amusement. Take basketball, for instance. I like to watch basketball occasionally, love the grace and strength, the dazzle of a well-played game. And yes, for all of you fellow Celtics fans, Rajon Rondo is a beautiful man.

I do not, however, play basketball. If I have any grace and strength, those qualities flee when I take a basketball in my hands. Team sports and I never quite connected in a meaningful way. After nearly two decades of marriage, my husband should know this. And yet...a few weeks ago, I opened my email to find the unwelcome announcement from my son's basketball coach that he had scheduled a mother/son basketball game. Did I neglect to mention that my husband coaches my son's team?

For two weeks, I dreaded that game. I pouted, whined and tried to weasel out, but the night of the big game found me glowering in the car on the way to the gym. Far outside my comfort zone, smack in my weak spot, this game held little promise of the great fun my husband gleefully anticipated.

To my credit, I left my pouting courtside and threw myself into the game. I even made a couple of baskets, although I avoided dribbling at all costs. We had a grand time, and I was laughing too hard to slap the smug grin off my husband's face. Drat that man!

In the days leading up the game, I contemplated my aversion to my own weaknesses. I love feeling strong, physically and emotionally. I love to succeed, to work my way to the top of the mountain and breathe in the view. And yet, that annoying voice inside me, the voice that sounds rather like my husband, reminded me of the power of weakness.

Paul, the little apostle of immense courage who stood boldly before kings, proclaimed, "When I am weak, then am I strong." He recognized that the strength of the Lord was made perfect in the weakness of his servants. This same God wrapped His greatest treasure, His most potent force, in the body of a tiny baby and sent that baby to the home of a lowly carpenter. This same God, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."

I have not yet reached the point where I readily, like Paul, glory in my weaknesses. But I confess to a fascination with the concept of weakness as power. Ether, the Book of Mormon prophet, quotes the Lord in what is, to me, one of the most hopeful verses in all of scripture: "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

The strength that I admire, the strength of Paul and Peter and all the truly great men and women, comes only when we acknowledge our weaknesses in humility and exercise the faith necessary to allow the Lord to transform them. God is, after all, the master alchemist. Who am I to let a little fear of failure stand in the way of the treasure God could make of my life? Let's play ball!